Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam Drake doesn’t think Elena Fisher likes him very much.

It’s a reasonable assumption to make, after everything he put her and her husband through last year. Nathan getting out of it all alive was a blessing from above, and he couldn’t count the amount of times he’d thanked God (and Jesus, and Mother Mary, and every other holy figure Sister Catherine had nailed into him) for letting Sam keep his little brother, despite all of his numerous sins.

It still haunts him that he lied to Nathan for so long. First it was by omission; two years of hiding from his only remaining family was still a lie in his book, despite what he would try to tell himself to justify the silence. But it was the stupid Alcázar story that really weighed heavily on him.

The decision had been made in an instant, out of panic rather than any pre-emptive thoughts of deception. Nathan had said the word ‘married’, and Sam’s heart had fallen to his stomach. He already had suspicions that convincing Nathan to come away with him wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped; the address of his workplace alone gave away that his little brother’s life wasn’t as full of daring-do as Sam suspected it might still be. But it was the idea of a wife that really ruined the plan. He could walk away from a nice house, a nice job, a nice car, but a wife.

Sam never factored in that Nathan might have a wife.

And then he met Elena, in a dingy room in a Madagascar motel, and she had barely spared him a glance. For which he was very thankful, actually, because he’d seen such a furious fire in her eyes when they briefly met his that he worried he was about to be punched in the jaw.

It would have been an extremely valid punch in the jaw. His sins were really piling up.

Elena Fisher saved his life on the island, which had been an unexpected turn of events. In hindsight, he shouldn’t have even considered the possibility that a woman like Elena could hate him enough to wish him dead, but his brain had decided to take a few hours off and his body was pretty much functioning on auto-pilot. They had been separated from Nathan a few seconds earlier, and he turned to find her gun aimed squarely at his chest.

“Duck,” she had intoned, like he was stupid, and he was lucky his body registered the command, because the second he hit the deck, a shot rang out and a body thudded to the ground. Sam had rolled over to find a shotgun-toting thug sprawled a few feet behind him, with a fresh bullet hole right between the eyes.

“Thanks.”

Elena had nodded, and given him just a hint of a smile, which was enough to kick-start Sam’s brain again. She didn’t hate him, then. Or maybe she did, but just decided to prioritise keeping herself alive over expressing her fury.

Smart girl.

Later, after he’d almost gotten his little brother killed again through doing something idiotic – he could almost hear Sister Catherine turning in her grave – Elena still didn’t seem to be holding too much of a grudge. She even hauled him out of the water as soon as she had Nathan on dry land, and only then does he remember registering just how much pain he was in. His abdomen was screaming at him with such an intensity that the broken nose and the bullet wound from earlier seemed like afterthoughts. Internal bleeding would be a very bad thing.

Sam knew then and there what he would do with his handful of coins. They deserved them far more than he did. The treasure had brought him nothing but bullshit, and perhaps it was the (very late) reality check of seeing Rafe crushed under it, but Sam didn’t want to have anything to do with the damn stuff anymore.

He remembers the phone call he got when she found them. The first thing he said was that she should watch the roaming charge on calls to Morocco – he thinks it was Morocco, but he and Victor travelled a lot in the first few weeks. It could just as easily have been Algeria. The first thing she said was something slightly tearful, which alarmed him to no end. Elena refused the gift at first, and he had to talk her into accepting it. Using it to do something nice for Nathan.

And he had to talk her into it quickly, because her phone bill was going to be enormous this month.

---

So they are on decent terms, he reassures himself as he trudges slightly reluctantly into their driveway. He’s here as a favour to all three of them; Victor, Nathan and Elena. Nathan’s birthday has been and gone, but his gift from Victor is yet to be fully taken. His joint gift from Victor and Elena, as Sam only found out this afternoon because he was talking Victor’s ear off about how Elena wouldn’t even want him in her house.

She does. It’s fine.

It’s fine.

Nathan answers the door with a grin and the brothers share a long hug. Sam sees Elena appear over Nathan’s shoulder, and he gives her a nod, still wary of exactly how she’s going to react to his presence. To his surprise, though it really shouldn’t be, a broad smile spreads across her face and she steps forward to nudge her husband out of the way.

“Stop mauling him, Nate, and let them in.”

The hug she gives him is far shorter, and far looser, but it’s a hug nonetheless. And it’s a hug that serves the much-needed purpose of reassuring Sam that he is welcome.

“Congratulations,” he mutters into her hair, and he practically feels the excitement emanating from her. For some reason, from the moment Sam heard the word ‘pregnant’, he’d been visualising her with a mid-section the size of a small truck.

Idiot. She’s three months in.

“Thanks,” Elena says as she steps back to give he and Victor some space to actually enter the house. “Your niece or nephew has elbows now. And forward-facing eyes.”

“Good to know. Imagine it without either. What a monster.”

If she’s bothered by him referring to her unborn child as a) ‘it’, or b) a monster, she doesn’t show it.

---
Nathan and Victor are leaving before he knows it.

“Don’t let her drink any coffee,” Nathan says, almost frantically, as he picks up his bags for the third time. “And if she’s sick, get her some water.”

“Nate, he’s not my babysitter,” Elena half-laughs as she tries to usher her husband out of the house. It’s becoming very obvious to Sam that some psychic-marriage-connection is causing the pregnancy hormones to bother Nathan far more than they are bothering Elena. “It’s okay. Go. Have fun.”

“I’ll have him back to you in two weeks,” Victor assures with a wink.

“Mm, and you know what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Victor has the good grace to look vaguely afraid of her. “I can only imagine.”

Nathan still has a pained expression on his face as he closes the door, and Sam watches him mouth I love you to his wife. It’s adorable, and he’s definitely going to use how fucking sappy his brother has become for ill gain at some point. Or blackmail.

Elena being pregnant is really the only reason he’s here, and Sam is completely aware of that, though no one has explicitly said it. He tries not to think about how much he’d like to be leaving with Nathan and Victor, and instead looks at his host for the next two weeks with a small smile.

“So.”

“Yeah.”

It’s awkward for a couple of seconds, but Sam can’t fault Elena on her people skills as she breezes into easy conversation.

“I’m sorry you’re not going with them,” she declares as she breezes into the kitchen and starts pouring herself a glass of water. “This was the only way to make sure Nate actually left.”

“I get it.” He waves off the apology with a gentle hand. “You’re growin’ a human; a difficult human, from what I’ve heard. Wouldn’t want you on your own for two weeks.”

“Difficult is right. Without being too graphic, I’ve become really well acquainted with the bathroom this month. The sickness should be on its way out, though,” she adds quickly, sensing the wince that Sam tried not to physicalize. He was uncomfortable enough about this; he didn’t need to add the image of him holding Elena’s hair back as she vomited. “Thanks for doing this, Sam.”

“It’s the least I can do after last year. Don’t worry about it.”

---

Early the next morning, he is woken by the sound of retching from upstairs. And he doesn’t even have to think about it before he is pouring a glass of water and traipsing in the direction of the bathroom.

Elena looks like shit. He can say that. He’s family.

“Sorry,” she says weakly, curling protectively around the toilet bowl. Sam shrugs lightly to dismiss the needless apology as he lowers himself to sit on the cold tiles next to her.

“Misery loves company, right? You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Sam might have believed her if she hadn’t promptly thrown up again approximately six seconds later.

He holds her hair back, and it’s not as awful as he pictured.

Chapter Text

The amount of time he spends alone in his brother's house very quickly becomes a heavy weight.

Obviously, at three months, Elena is hardly pregnant enough to be completely incapacitated. Except during their little ritual in the bathroom each morning, but the less said about that the better, as far as Sam is concerned. It may be a 'bonding experience' and a 'very sweet thing of you to do, Sam' (Elena's words, verbatim), but that doesn't mean he has to like it.

Whatever Nathan decides to bring him back as a gift had better be damn shiny.

Elena has a company to run, and more to deal with than usual with her business associate/husband jaunting off to a distant land, which is why she vanishes at promptly eight-thirty each morning, and reappears between four and four-fifteen, depending on whether or not she stopped for groceries on the way. Details like that are important, considering Sam's alone-time mostly consists of rummaging through the Drake-Fisher family home and familiarising himself with every little aspect of the life he has missed out on. He can't imagine Elena being too happy coming home and finding him elbow-deep in her college photo albums.

Nathan keeps the important stuff in the attic, Sam learns very quickly. He tells himself that looking through it all will be cathartic, and knowing every detail of his little brother's adventures will make him a part of them, when he knows very well that it's more like wearing a hair-shirt and beating himself with a sjambok. El Dorado. Shambhala. Iram of the Pillars. He should have been there.

He should have been there, and it's all goddamn Rafe Adler's fault that he wasn't. Or Vargas' fault for finding the fucking cross. Or whatever guard pelted him in the gut with a shotgun, right in front of his baby brother; it's that guy's fault.

Nah.

Sam turns a hotel pamphlet over in his hand as he lets out a gentle snort of laughter. It's no one's fucking fault. Not really. The thirteen years he spent in a cell are on no one. The two he spent locked up in a very different way, sure, he'll take the blame for those two. The false years, he's taken to calling them when he casts his mind back. Two long, long years of wasting away in Rafe Adler's glittering home, looking for leads that weren't there. There were staff to cater for his every whim, though it was difficult to enjoy because, after a few months, the one thing he wanted to do was leave.

A cage is still a cage, even if it sparkles.

Nothing was forcing him to stay there, aside from the crippling debt he owed Rafe for dragging him out of Panama and his own sinful determination to find Avery's treasure. He could have left, and that's what bothers him the most. Packed his bags, blown the cushy life a kiss, and danced a merry fucking jig back into Nathan's life. Rafe might have tried to brain him for it, but that wouldn't be anything new.

Sam is distracted momentarily from his flagellation by the handwritten note on the back of the paper in his hand; a woman named Chloe inviting Nathan to go hunting for treasure with her. He doesn't know how old this note is, but he's sorely tempted to look into it himself. The name is familiar - though from one of Nathan's story or through some other source, he doesn't know.

Victor mentioned her once, Sam eventually decides as he slides the pamphlet back into the journal it came from. Brunette and Australian, mouth like a sailor and body straight out of a teenage boy's wet dream, if he recalls correctly.

He resists the urge to pocket the note.

---

It's not her college photos that he's elbow-deep in when Elena's key slides into the lock, but her wedding album. By positioning himself on the couch like he's been there all day, it's far less obvious that he's been poking through their belongings for the past eight hours. Plus it makes him look like he cares.

He does care. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he wishes he'd been there.

"These are beautiful," he says when her head pops into view, holding the album up off his lap so she can see. It's four-fifteen, so she has a bag of groceries under her arm that Sam resists the urge to leap up and carry for her. Elena is perfectly capable of holding a bag, and would no doubt be quick to remind him of that.

"Thank you." Elena's face lights up with a smile, and he's once again reminded of just how much she loves his dork of a brother. She nudges his leg on the way past, with a twitch of her eyebrow that he's conditioned to take as 'feet off the coffee table'.

Like she doesn't do it the entire time she's playing that dumb fox-in-jeans game.

"Good day?" he asks, replacing his feet on the floor anyway because honestly, he's still a little afraid of her.

"Not bad. Pretty lazy, actually. Nobody wants to let me do anything myself anymore. It's kind of a relief when I'm actually allowed to do some work at my own desk." Sam half-listens to her, but his attention is captured by the various foodstuffs she's pulling out of the bag.

A hot, well-cooked meal is a luxury he still isn't fully-acclimatised to, even after three years. Food is distracting. It's the focal point of his existence the minute he's aware of its presence. Elena has undoubtedly noticed, given the way he practically inhales every meal that crosses his path, but she hasn't said anything, which he is grateful for. Once upon a time, he was picky about what he ate; now it makes him laugh to even think about refusing a bite of anything.

"It's pizza night," she continues, evidently knowing his attention can be re-gained by turning the conversation to his stomach. "We always have pizza night on Mondays."

"I love pizza."

"Thought you might." Her smile turns wry and knowing. Elena Fisher is mocking him. And so is his stomach, judging by the traitorously loud growl that escapes his abdomen. "There's no way you can be that hungry already, Sam. I saw your breakfast before I left this morning. That's what the Fisher family would refer to as a heart attack on a plate. And there's no telling what you had for lunch."

"I deliberately hid the evidence. You'll never know."

It was three bags of chips and a beer. He's gonna be fat in no time.

---

"Do you wanna watch a movie?"

Sam's washing up the last pizza plate when he turns to see her peering eagerly over the back of the sofa at him. This is definitely a new development; the previous few nights, she vanished into her office when they were done eating.

"What happened to your important article about tribal customs in Lesotho?"

"Tribal warfare in Laos, but close enough. I finished it."

Nathan and Elena's movie shelf is sparse, but he still doesn't recognise over half of the titles. "Anything post-2000, I haven't seen. Surprise me."

"Okay!" It doesn't take her long to locate a pair of options. DVDs, Sam notes. The last time he sat down and relaxed to watch a movie, it was a battered VCR copy of Pulp Fiction. Elena considers both cases with interest, before she looks back over to him. "These two have the same basic plot. A father loses his only kid and risks life and limb to go save them. One involves Liam Neeson, a lot of gun violence, and the Albanian sex trade."

"Nice. What about the other one?"

"Cartoon fish."

He grins. "Cartoon fish first, Albanian sex trade later."

"I'm filing that under 'sentences I never expected to hear'."

"Noted."

---

He enjoys both.

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take the two of them long to change from people sharing a space to actually spending time together as friends. Sam is still reluctant to label her so definitively, but it’s becoming more and more of a prevalent idea in his mind. They aren’t just friends, though. They’re family.

There’s something remarkable about suddenly having a brand new family member that you had no idea about, Sam considers as he sips a beer in front of the T.V. Elena keeps glancing at his feet, defiantly resting on the coffee table. It’s clear that she desperately wants to tell him to move them, but can’t, predominantly because her own are perched neatly next to them. The smile on his face is deliberate; it’s only right that he lets her know just how entertaining he finds fucking with her.

“Something on your mind, dear?” he asks, without taking his eyes off the screen. Whatever they’re watching is absolute bullshit, but it manages to be entertaining enough to hold his interest. Just a lot of people yelling, as far as he can tell.

(That’s another thing about prison; you spend most of your time staring at walls, floors… maybe an occasional ceiling, if it’s a special occasion. Now that Sam’s out, he’ll take any stimulation he can get.)

“No.” Her voice is tight, and she’s no longer making a secret of the fact that she’s pissed off about the whole feet situation. Technically – and he’d press the matter if it was anyone else – she’s a hypocrite. A foot hypocrite. She and Nathan must have some kind of unspoken rule, and Sam knows it’s killing her not to be able to enforce it now.

He gives it another twenty seconds before he takes pity on her and shifts his feet back to the floor.

“Thank you.”

“You looked like you were about to burst a blood vessel,” he laughs gently, shaking his head. “Can’t have that happening on my watch.”

“Sorry. Old habits, you know. I have a thing.” She waves her hand absently, but the meaning is fairly clear.

“Ah. A thing.”

“A thing about feet on the table that aren’t mine. And I know it’s dumb as hell, before you say anything.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“You were thinking something.”

Sam grins. “Yeah, I was.”

She punches his shoulder softly, and he indulges her for a few seconds by pretending it hurt.

A lot of his time over the last few days has been spent thinking back to the conversation he had with Nathan in Libertalia; those tranquil few minutes that they spent at the inn. He remembers what he said about domesticity, and how much he reviled the concept mere months ago. Perhaps he’s already a changed man, because right now, the idea doesn’t seem so bad. Sam peers at Elena out of the corner of his eye; six days, and she’s already turned him into a white-picket-fence type.

It’s not Elena he sees in his visions of a cosy life, though she seems to be the one who’s convinced him it’s a good plan. As far as he is concerned, Elena is an almost-completely sexless being. Totally invisible. Not even detectable on his radar.

(Not entirely true.)

By his own standards, any woman Nathan has ever been with is off-limits to Sam. It’s been a rule he’s been absolutely secure on ever since Nathan was old enough to know what a woman was, and he’s proud to say he’s never broken it. Even thinking about Elena in a vaguely sexual manner feels like a breach of trust, so he does his utmost to avoid the concept entirely.

Unfortunately, as with everything else, deliberately trying not to think about something only makes it come back with a vengeance. What he needs is a distraction; he turns to his painful awareness that she had no idea he even existed before they met, and while he doesn’t begrudge Nathan keeping it a secret, it also begs the question of what else he concealed from her.

“Don’t think too hard, Sam, you might hurt yourself.”

Elena’s eyes are twinkling with mischief when he turns to look at her.

“Sorry.”

When he doesn’t expand on the apology, her smile drops a little and she reaches over to nudge his arm.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I’m just… thinking.”

“Yeah, I figured that much out. Penny for them.”

He sighs. Sam has no idea what she knows and what she doesn’t, and he can’t figure out why that suddenly bothers him so much.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“I was tryin’ to figure out how much he’s told you about… the past.”

Elena is quiet for a few seconds, and then she shrugs tautly. Her face suggests it might be a sore subject between her and Nathan.

“Less than I’d like.” He appreciates the honesty. “There’s a lot he never talks about.”

Sam nods. Where the hell is he supposed to go from here? He can’t just start talking about whatever he wants; it’s not his prerogative to tell her every secret that Nathan has decided she’s better off not knowing.

“Can I ask you something?”

He can’t pretend he’s not grateful. If she asks him something directly, he doesn’t have to feel as bad about telling her.

“Shoot.”

“What happened to your mom?”

Holy shit.

Sam lets his head drop against the back of the sofa. It’s not what he expected her to want to talk about.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” she says quickly, noting his reaction.

“No, no, it’s okay.” It’s okay. It’s fine. Oh God.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a long pause, and it’s the first time since he arrived nearly a week ago that he’s felt genuinely awkward in her presence.

It reminds him of being back in one of Officer Dougal’s cells, trying to decide whether the old man has had enough to drink to let him go without a fuss. The ‘fuss’ in question was a tricky one, now that he thinks back on it. Sam had witnessed the drunk old cop mid-coitus with his neighbour, pants round the ankles and all, which meant he had some lovely blackmail material for every occasion that Dougal shoved him into a cell. And Dougal clearly cared far more about the state of his marriage than about the law, because it worked every damn time. From the ages of twelve to seventeen, he thanked the Lord for Dougal’s bad habit of leaving the curtains open.

---

“Sam, what are they doing?”

“Wrestling.”

“Naked?”

“It’s a special kind of wrestling, Nathan. Now get away from the goddamn window.”

---

Incidentally, Dougal’s wife was also sleeping with the neighbour’s husband. The more you know, huh?

“Sam? You’re drifting again.”

“Sorry. I was just reminiscing.”

“Good memories?”

The image of Dougal’s pasty, hairy ass flickers uninvited through his mind.

“Not even remotely.”

“We don’t have to talk about your mom. It’s just something that’s been playing on my mind for a while. I heard she, well-”

Elena trails off at just the right time, but Sam nods.

“Yeah. She did.” He takes a deep breath. “You gotta understand, she was real sick. Mom was always kooky, but it got so much worse after Nathan was born. And let me tell you, it sucks, seeing your mom like that.”

As far as he’s fuckin’ aware, she might know exactly what he’s talking about. If she does, there’s no sign of it on her face, so Sam assumes he’s not preaching to the choir.

“Sometimes she’d get up in the middle of the night and start cookin’ eggs or something, like she was getting ready to give us breakfast. And I’d always go downstairs and eat ‘em, because she was my mom. But our dad was a real bag of assholes, Nathan’s probably told you that much.”

Elena nods. Sam isn’t surprised.

“Yeah, he got so mad every time she did something he thought was weird. Mom used to leave things all around the house. It was never a big deal; hairbrush in the refrigerator, remote in the bath, that kind of shit, but he would always flip. He blamed us for it all. I heard him yelling at her one night that she used to be normal before she had us. I guess that’s why he was so quick to get rid of us… after.”

“After she died?”

“Yeah. She downed four bottles of pills after Dad stormed out one night.”

“Jesus. Who found her?”

She already knows the answer; it’s written all over her face. Why the hell would she even bother asking?

“Who do you fuckin’ think?”

His voice doesn’t sound right when it reaches his ears. It’s all weak and cracked, and he has to look away from Elena because the weight of the pity in her eyes is making him feel slightly ill. He doesn’t need pity. He’s never needed pity. What can you fucking do with pity?

“God. I’m sorry, Sam, I shouldn’t be prying into this.”

“Nah, you shouldn’t,” he finds himself saying viciously before he’s really given permission for the words to leave his mouth, “but you’re a journalist. It’s what you do. sister.”

It silences her, but, unsurprisingly, doesn’t make him feel any better. He should really apologise for that, but his fingers are inching towards the cigarettes in his pocket and if there was ever a good time to indulge himself in sweet, sweet nicotine, this was it.

---

When he finally comes back inside, Elena isn’t on the couch. He’d been wound up taut when he stomped into the back yard, and it had taken three cigarettes to soothe him, so he isn’t surprised to find that she gave up waiting for him to come back in and apologise.

He really should apologise.

He doesn’t want to, but he should.

It takes him another few minutes to finally make up his mind and trudge upstairs.

“ ‘Lena?” he asks, knocking on the bedroom door gently. “Hey?”

“One second.”

True to her word, she opens the door in a matter of moments. She’s changed into her pyjamas, and he’s momentarily distracted by how the clingy vest hugs her barely-there baby bump.

Pissing off a pregnant lady. Real smart.

She doesn’t stick around in the doorway, busying herself with folding a few discarded socks.

“Sorry for, err… that.”

“Really?” She blinks at him, apparently confused, and then grins widely. “Sam, it’s nothing. Like you said, I’m a journalist. You think I’m all thin-skinned and sensitive? Please.”

“So… you’re not mad?”

“No! God, no.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds, “You’re carrying around a whole lot of mommy issues, though.”

“In the interest of complete honesty, I should tell you I got plenty of daddy issues, too.”

Elena laughs, and just like that, it’s all forgotten. If this is what fighting is like when you’re being domestic with someone, Sam decides he’s in.

“Hey, we can tell Nathan that it took a whole six days for me to do something dumb. That’s some kind of achievement, right?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been doing dumb things all week.”

“Yeah, but this is the first time I’ve noticed.”

She snorts with more laughter. “Idiot.”

“Journalist.”

“Don’t push it, Sam.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Text

Almost eight hours alone every day gives Sam plenty of time to think. He doesn’t like it, truth be told; he’s already spent thirteen years thinking alone, so he vows to fill his remaining time with as much as he can. His options in the attic are fairly thin, since he’s already leafed through the photo collections and artefact shelves more than once. Even spent a few surprisingly fun minutes playing around with Nathan’s toy gun, though it bored him quickly.

If he were a more technologically clever guy, he’d try and read their computer files, but there’s no way he’s smart enough to get through password protection.

Unless Nathan’s is just Elena’s name. It’s not impossible.

The funny thing is, he spent fifteen years out of touch with the entire world, and he’s still more tech-savvy that his brother. It’s not difficult, since the goof still carries a flip phone; even Sam was wise enough to get his hands on something with a decent web browser, a touch screen and a giant-ass memory the minute he got out of Panama. Nathan was never big on gadgets, even when he was a kid. Preferred dinosaurs to robots, dragons to aliens, pirate ships to rocket ships. Fantasy over sci-fi. Sam’s interests were always far broader, even though their preferences were fairly similar.

He’s been steadily making his way through Nathan and Elena’s DVD collection since their first viewing. It’s not an extensive hoard, but it’s enough to keep his mind on something other than painful introspection, though he still finds his concentration drifting occasionally when a movie isn’t quite catching his attention like he wants.

Thinking too hard is a real bad fucking idea.

---

“Wow,” Elena comments as she pads into the kitchen, grocery bag in hand.

“What?” He pretends he has no idea what she’s talking about.

“Did you clean in here?”

Sam shrugs it off. “Picked a boring movie. I had to do something to pass the time. And, honestly? It’s kinda cathartic.”

“Mm. Consider yourself welcome in this house any time.”

True to form, his attention is on the food. And just as true to form, Elena’s completely aware of it.

“You like Chinese food?” she continues as she slides a jar of chocolate spread onto the countertop, no doubt replacing the one his fingers have been corrupting all week – and he’s not sorry, because that stuff is magical.

“Who doesn’t like Chinese food?”

“I was thinking of getting take-out. Can’t tell if I’m craving it because of this,” – a gesture to her middle – “or just because I’m lazy and I don’t wanna cook.”

“I’ll cook, if you want,” he offers, feeling like a real dick for not offering earlier in the week, but she waves him off.

“Oh, I think Junior’s already made her mind up. We’re ordering in.”

“Her?”

The smile spreads across both of their faces, almost at the same time. Elena looks vaguely embarrassed, but Sam’s already picturing having a niece in less than a year.

“Just slipped out. Sorry. It.”

“No, no, no. You said ‘her’. You think you’re having a girl?”

Elena sighs good-naturedly as she takes a seat next to him. “I know it sounds stupid, but I just have a feeling. Mother’s intuition? Does that start this early?”

“You’re definitely talkin’ to a motherhood expert here,” he laughs, sarcasm practically dripping out of his mouth. “I’m a great mom.”

She joins in with his laugher warmly. “I know, I know. But yeah, I really do just have this… idea that it’s gonna be a girl.”

It’s a pleasant thing to think about, Sam finds. Somehow this new revelation has made his impending uncle-hood much more of a reality. He can picture the kid so clearly now; most likely just a tiny Elena, maybe with Nathan’s eyes. Or his sense of adventure.

Maybe not the latter. As much as he’d love to continue the family business, so to speak, he just can’t imagine putting a little girl he has that much responsibility over in the kind of situation he’s found himself in. Ironic, considering how willing he’d been to drag Nathan into his shenanigans back when his brother was still an impressionable kid. Sam likes to think he might have learned something from his mistakes.

They can play pirates, he decides as a compromise. Pirates, and maybe treasure hunts in the garden. Gentle, harmless, hazard-free treasure hunts. God forbid his niece ever winds up at the wrong end of a gun. Sam is happy to add that little girl to the list of people he would take a bullet for, despite the fact that she technically doesn’t exist yet.

It’s complicated.

“I think you might be right,” he agrees, on the basis of absolutely nothing other than the fact that he quite likes the idea. “Uncle’s intuition.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It’s so a thing.”

“Nope. Uh-uh. Doesn’t exist. Sorry, buddy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you an uncle? Do you have a lot of uncle experience?”

“Sam, you don’t have any uncle experience.”

“I have twelve weeks of uncle experience.”

Elena gives him a look that he has become extremely well-acquainted with recently. “Doesn’t count. Uncle-hood doesn’t start at the moment of conception.”

“Totally does. Please don’t talk about conception.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to think about you and my baby brother conceiving goddamn anything.”

She laughs again. He’s real fucking happy that he can make her laugh now. It feels like a small victory every time he hears it. “I have aunt experience,” she fills in, once she’s stopped being amused by his discomfort.

“You do?”

“Mm hmm.” Elena stands again, and he sees her linger briefly by the coffee machine with a longing look. “My brother has two kids. Six and four.”

Actually, he knew most of that already, but there’s no way he’s going to let Elena know that. He’s been looking through her photos long enough to realise her extended family is far larger than he and Nathan’s. He’s seen her with her siblings; a brother and a sister, though their respective ages were indiscernible. And he’s seen her with a couple of really young kids, close enough in appearance to be family. The pieces kinda put themselves together.

“What’s your brother do?” Sam is genuinely curious about that, since it’s not something he could find out from the albums.

(Her sister’s a doctor. That was worthy of photos.)

“Human resources for some advertising company. Honestly, it sounds like hell to me, but Ben’s a real people person and he seems to like it.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse.” There’s a couple of glasses of water in Elena’s hand when she sits back on the couch, and he takes one from her with a grateful nod. “Thanks.”

“No problem. And I guess neither of us are cut out for a life like that.”

Sam holds his glass out towards her. “To not working in human resources.”

“Cheers,” Elena says with a gentle smile, clinking her glass against his.

---

Family is a tricky subject for Sam; he’s become painfully aware of that since his undeserved outburst at Elena. Virtually all of his life, ‘family’ has only meant two things. Nathan, and their mom. Thanksgiving dinners, reunions, celebrations… none of those things were ever supposed to belong to the Drake brothers.

He thought he’d be angry. He thought he’d hate Nathan’s wife when he first heard about her. Thought she’d hold his brother back and stand between the two of them, and there was no way he’d let that happen.

But he likes Elena. She’s hilarious, clever, a total badass… and probably more fun at parties than she lets on. After all, she went to college.

Not that Sam went to college, but he knows people that did.

Knows of people that did.

Sam has heard of college.

In any case, Elena Fisher is the best thing that could have possibly happened to Nathan, and Sam’s no longer ashamed to think that.

Chapter Text

“Are you seeing anyone?”

The question comes completely out of the blue, and Elena’s eyes are bright with interest when he turns to look at her with a raised brow. They’re watching some show counting down the ‘greatest’ – a debatable honorific at best – songs since 2000. Apparently, it’s important cultural knowledge.

“Like I’ve got the time,” Sam replies with a short sigh. “Only person I’m seeing on a regular basis is Victor. And I’m an open-minded guy, sure, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.”

Her laughter is a far more enjoyable sound than the one coming from the TV. “I see. You’re drawing the line on Sully? I don’t know whether he’d be relieved or offended.”

“Believe me, he’d be relieved.”

Elena takes a final forkful of pasta before discarding her empty bowl on the coffee table, next to his. The coffee table, he’d like to add, that he’s purposefully avoided putting his feet on for the last three days. She stands, obviously intending to do the dishes, but Sam beats her to it.

“Let me.”

For a moment, she looks like she wants to argue, but it doesn’t take more than a couple of seconds for her to relent and sink back down into the cushy sofa.

“You should try internet dating,” she says absently, and he snorts out a disbelieving laugh as he rinses a fork under the hot water.

“Really?” he asks, as incredulously as he can manage. “Maybe if I was twenty years younger, I’d think about it. Granted, I don’t know a lot about it, but at my age, it just seems real damn sad.”

“You’re not dead,” she counters, leaning over the back of the sofa to look at him. “Everybody does it these days, trust me.”

“Everybody?”

“Yes, everybody.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the, uh, help, but what’s with your sudden interest in getting me shacked up?”

Elena shrugs loosely and gives him a smile. “Honestly?”

“Please.”

“Vicarious living?”

He snorts with laughter as he retakes his seat. “Married too young? Never got the chance to be free and single in a Match-dot-com world?”

(He’s proud of being able to namedrop something like that. Consuming enough TV commercials gives you a surprisingly widespread knowledge of topics.)

“Something like that.” Elena curls her legs under her. “Samuel Christopher Drake, I would consider it a great honour – and a privilege – if you would allow me to try and find you a date.”

“Need I remind you, you’re an adult? With a kid on the way? Because right now, I think you might be forgetting you’re not in high school.”

He hands over his phone anyway.

“Do your worst. I need a beer for this.”

---

“Put that I’m forty.”

“You can’t lie, Sam.”

“Then what’s the point?”

---

She’s curled up at the other end of the sofa with a devilish grin plastered on her face, and Sam has the distinct idea that he may have made a terrible error in judgement.

“You’re taking a long time over this,” he points out.

“I’m trying to make you sound impressive. It’s a difficult task.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to lie on these things.”

Elena glances at him, as though she’s genuinely thinking hard about this fuckery. “Likes travelling… that’s a good start.”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on. I don’t know a lot about this, but it’s gotta be better than that. Write something witty.”

“That’s definitely going to give the wrong impression. They might think you’re funny.”

“Write a pirate pun.”

“Absolutely never.”

---

They go through various attempts to write a profile, with Sam letting beer give way to cheap wine, and then Nathan’s good whiskey, and Elena giggling hard enough to confirm that she’s definitely in the spirit of drunk, even if she can’t touch the stuff.

-

Likes travelling, rock climbing and discovering new things. Loves pirate jokes. Which side of his ship should a pirate always avoid? The outside.

-

Likes travelling, rock climbing, and jokes about pirates. My sister in law told me not to say that, but what the fuck does she know?

-

Adventurer. It’s a real job, I swear.

-

I’ve been in prison for the last fifteen years and I’m desperately in need of the touch of another human being. Want to see my other tattoo?

-

Please?

-

My standards are very low. I just want a woman who won’t sell my kidneys on eBay.

-

I’ll probably lie to you about the important things, but the sex will be fantastic.

-

It’s the most fun he’s had in a while, even if Elena does keep pointing out his spelling mistakes.

“I’m drunk,” he complains when she gripes a third time. “Just be glad you can even read it.”

“Give it to me,” she insists, and he surrenders his phone into her hands. Elena immediately starts tapping, tongue between her teeth in an expression of what he assumes is extreme concentration, before grinning widely and holding up the result of her work. “Got it.”

“Let me see.”

-

Do you like wine-tasting? River cruises? Golf?

Me neither.

-

“Nice.”

“It’s good, right? Funny, says something about you, and alienates the kind of people that actually like wine-tasting, river cruises and golf. I’d say it’s perfect.”

---

It takes Sam approximately seven seconds after waking up to remember why he doesn’t mix drinks. Squinting against the unforgiving daylight peering through the curtains, he hauls himself to his feet and stretches until his back gives a relieving pop.

“Morning! I’m makin’ bacon.” Elena slurs the last two words so that they rhyme, obviously greatly amused by herself. The amusement only seems to increase when Sam almost jumps out of his skin, having been completely oblivious to her presence.

“Congratulations,” he grumbles in response, rolling his shoulders.

“I’m celebrating. Three mornings without throwing up.”

“Nice.” He leans heavily against the kitchen counter and rubs a hand over his protesting eyes. “Does your record still stand if I throw up?” he adds as his stomach gives an uncomfortable roll.

“Well, that’s what you get for drinking beer, wine and whiskey in one night.”

“I know, I know. I’m an idiot.”

“That’s not exactly news,” Elena grins as she serves up breakfast. “You want coffee?”

“Please.”

The conversation lulls a little while she brews the coffee. Sam, suddenly without distraction, notes the fact that he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and shudders at how ‘college-y’ it seems.

(He also notes that he seems to have developed a weird fixation on college. Regretting a misspent youth? Mourning what could have been? Obvious beginnings of a mid-life crisis, which is later going to devolve into him getting a ‘trendy’ haircut, buying a convertible and getting something pierced? Only time will tell.)

“You fell asleep while I was searching for potential partners,” Elena fills in as she hands him a plate and a mug of coffee. “So I had to just guess what you might be looking for.”

“I trust your judgement,” he assures her, all the while acutely aware that he hasn’t looked at his phone this morning. Elena, to her credit, beams as she scoops an entire bacon rasher onto her fork.

“Don’t keep me in suspense, come on. Check your matches.”

He has to dial down the brightness of his screen, but he isn’t disappointed when he opens the app they spent so much time on the previous evening. At this rate, he might have to start taking Elena’s matchmaking attempts seriously, because she genuinely seems to have a fairly good idea of what she’s doing.

“Monica, 37. She’s kinda hot. Severe, though. Are those nails or talons?”

Elena peers upside-down at his screen and giggles. “I know. I’m still trying to figure out your type.”

“Well, it’s not Monica, 37, that’s for sure. How does she get anything done with those on her hands?”

“Beats me. Keep looking.”

“Rita, 42. That’s a nice car.” He swipes through a couple more of her photos. “And a nice house. This chick can afford a lot.”

“Yeah, including top-quality silicone implants and an excellent surgeon.”

“Really?” Yes, he’s noticed Rita, 42’s ample chest, considering it's hard to miss, but now he takes an actual look. “You think they’re fake?”

“Sam.” When he looks up, Elena is giving him the most incredulous expression he’s ever seen on another human being. “You think they’re real?”

---

Truth be told, he doesn’t message any of them. Something about it still makes him think he’s just the wrong fucking demographic for the whole thing. It’s all swiping and liking and emojis, and call him old-fashioned, but he’s kind of repulsed by the concept. Plus, the reality of seeing ‘Sam, 43’ glaring at him from the screen comes as a highly unwelcome reminder of just how fucking old he’s getting.

Sure, it was a whole lot of fun drunk and with a friend, but sober and alone, it’s just depressing.

If Elena is disappointed by his lack of interest, she tries not to show it too much. In fact, he’s fairly sure that the novelty wore off just as quickly for her as it did for him.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet,” she announces that evening as she closes her laptop. “What’s on your mind, buddy?”

“Nothing much. You know, mortality, fragility of life, the realities of getting old.”

“Jeez, Sam. You wanna maybe lighten up a little?”

“I’m okay, Elena.”

“Bullshit. You’re being so heavy right now, the baby’s gonna get worry lines.”

He doesn’t respond, and apparently that’s enough for Elena to decide she has to step into the situation.

“You want pizza rolls and beer?”

And that’s a wonderful question for more than one reason. Of course he wants pizza rolls and beer, that’s a given, but the distraction is also extremely welcome. “Oh my God,” Sam groans over-dramatically, leaning sideways to swat at her hand as she passes. “If it doesn’t work out with Nathan, marry me. I mean it.”

“I don’t know,” Elena deadpans. “Might be a little awkward around the holidays.”

---

Nathan calls at half past ten.

“Why are you answering the phone?” is the first thing he says to Sam.

“And hello to you too, little brother. She’s fine, don’t freak out. She’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh.” A short pause, and then, “Oh, hey Sam.”

“Hey. Everything good?”

It’s obvious that there’s only really one person Nathan wants to talk to, and it’s not him. Some small, selfish part of Sam wants to be offended, but the rest of him is entirely understanding. Nevertheless, with the knowledge that Elena isn’t immediately available for conversation, Nathan starts to reel off his adventures of the past few days. Sam knows most of it already, since Victor had talked him through where he was planning on taking the birthday boy, but it’s relieving to hear that everything’s going right.

“How’s it feel to not have people shooting at you?” Sam asks through a final mouthful of pizza roll.

“Refreshing, to say the least. Are you eating something?”

“Your pizza rolls. But don’t worry, I’m keeping them company with your beer.”

“You’re the worst houseguest ever.”

“Hey, don’t blame me, your better half is encouraging it.” Said better half emerges into the kitchen with a curious glance, followed by a grin when Sam nods and points to the phone. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Wanna talk to her?”

“Obviously.”

Sam hands over the phone, watching Elena melt into goo as she clasps it to her ear. He needs to spend more time with the two of them together, he decides, because just watching a phone call between them is sweet enough to give him a cavity. Pretending not to pay attention to the conversation, he flicks the TV on and starts mindlessly flicking through channels.

It amazes him how there can be so much to watch, and yet so little at the same time.

“Yes, we’re getting along fine,” Elena intones, seeking amused eye contact with Sam when he looks across. Sam laughs, pretending that the exact same concern hadn’t been on his own mind when he walked through the door.

“No we’re not!” he calls across the room, hopefully loud enough for Nathan to hear. “She locks me in the basement at night and beats me when I ask for food!”

He hears the distinctive sound of laughter on the other end of the line, but can’t make out anything his brother is actually saying. Elena doesn’t pass on a message, so he figures it’s time for him to bow out.

They talk for a little over ten minutes – it’s not a long time, but phone cards can cost a fortune and every minute is precious. From the efficient way they wrap things up, it’s obvious that they’ve had some practice in this form of communication.

“I’ll see you on Thursday.” Elena’s voice is surprisingly soft, as though it catches just before it reaches her lips. Her face is drawn and pale, even sad when she presses the button to end the call, and for the first time, Sam realises that the distance is taking its toll on her.

It’s a side of Elena Fisher that he’s never seen. He’s seen her angry; a ball of white hot, tightly-wound energy that could mow down virtually anything in its path. He’s seen her happy, which is warm and familial and suits her to the core. He’s even seen her vulnerable and sick, but she was still rebelliously bright and alive during those moments, refusing to let vulnerability give way to weakness.

This is the first time he’s seen that brightness dull.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and she startles slightly, momentarily having forgotten he was there. “What, this Drake isn’t good enough for you?” Humour usually works on Elena.

“You’re in my top two.” The smile doesn’t make it to her eyes. “I’m gonna go to bed,” she adds quickly, gesturing vaguely towards the stairs. Sam lets her get halfway out of his sight before he can come up with some modicum of comfort.

“It’s just four more days.”

She peers back around the door jamb, still giving him that half-smile that somehow serves to make her look even more defeated. “Goodnight, Sam.”

“Night, ‘Lena.”

Sam doesn't sleep well.

He suspects Elena doesn't either.

Chapter Text

You can learn a lot about a person in two weeks.

Elena Fisher loves the smell of candles just after they’ve been blown out. Her berry preference is blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, in that order. She’s never smoked pot, but she did snort a line of coke once during her young, semi-wild years.

---

“Worst night of my life. My face hurt for, like, a week afterwards.”

“I don’t blame you. Coke isn’t really my thing, either. Makes me jumpy. You should try pot, though.”

“Maybe when I’m not pregnant, Sam.”

“Right.”

---
One thing he’s really noticed, though, is that Elena loves to be clean.

She’s not a germophobe or anything; he’s seen her covered in jungle mud, blood, and all sorts of hard-core substances, and she hasn’t once looked phased by it. Sam has deduced that it’s something more than that. It’s more about the process than the result. There’s something almost ritualistic about the way she washes her hands. He’d ask but, honestly, people’s little habits come from all kinds of fucked-up places, and he’s not sure he wants to probe into something he can’t handle.

It’s probably harmless. But he doesn’t want to risk it.

(Elena spends a long time in the bath, too, but that seems less odd to Sam. Thirteen years without a bath meant that the very first time he’d taken one afterwards, he thought he might have actually died and gone to meet Mother Mary herself.)

And, of course, he’s noticed the very obvious. The very, very, remarkably blatant thing that hit him like a ton of bricks when it caught his eye, so insanely obvious that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. Sam likes to think that he’s an observant person, so it took him a while to accept that he’d been living with this woman for almost two weeks before he noticed the scar on her shoulder.

---

“Do you want the ginger snaps or the chocolate chip?”

“What am I, a savage? Chocolate chip.”

Sam hears Elena sigh from behind him and coughs to stifle his amusement. He’s been working hard to make her laugh over the past few days, since the night Nathan called. As far as he can tell, he’s keeping her mind off her husband’s absence, but every now and then he’ll see her flicker back into whichever weird place she dug herself into.

Actually, if he’s being honest with himself, he thinks it’s partially his fault. Sam knows from Victor’s stories that Nathan and Elena have spent long periods of time apart, with absolutely no ill feeling. But this is the first time her husband has been away since…

Well, since the Grand High Fuck-Up himself came barrelling back into Nathan’s life.

Elena’s probably worried sick that he’s pulling the same stunt he did last time, only that would be impossible because Victor would never allow the same kind of nonsense that Sam does. Still, Sam knows he’s the one to blame, so he’s doing his best to fix it.

“Fine, I’ll be a savage and take the ginger.”

“That better not be coffee I smell, Elena. I’ve been given some pretty clear instructions about that.”

“It’s not coffee.”

“Are you sure?”

The silence is all the answer he needs, but she confirms his thoughts when she sits down next to him, complete with a sheepish expression on her face and a coffee mug in her hand. “I will give you as many cookies as you want if you keep your mouth shut about this.”

Sam pretends to be thinking about it, then reaches out and makes a show of taking the plastic-wrapped cookies from her other hand. “I’m easily bought. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

“Best brother-in-law ever.”

“I aim to please.”

And it’s right then that he sees it. A harsh bump of pink against her pale skin, just barely poking out past her soft cotton sleeve. There’s another, slightly further down her arm. Similar texture, very different pattern. And then another, in the crook of her elbow, jagged and alien and shaped vaguely like Italy.

When he glances back up to her face, Elena’s just staring at him. There’s something in her eyes that he can’t quite figure out, but it’s obvious that she knows exactly what he’s looking at. He doesn’t miss the way she subtly shifts, folding her arms so that he can’t see them anymore. The scars are a sore subject, then.

“I’m not asking,” he insists, knowing full well that he’s starting an uncomfortable conversation.

“I know,” Elena says, more brightly than he anticipated. Perhaps not such a taboo topic, then. Because he’s too curious for his own good and whatever story is lurking beneath the angry pink marks is something that he desperately needs to know.

The silence drags on, neither of them really paying attention to whatever is on the TV. Sam curses the fact that he’s itching to talk about them, curses his idiot brain for needing to know everything, and not taking no for an answer.

“Shrapnel,” she intones eventually over the rim of her coffee mug. “From a grenade.” A wry, unexpected smile creeps across her face as she adds, “You should see the other guy.”

“Ouch.” What else is there he can say?

“The ‘other guy’ being the one who was actually holding the grenade.”

“Why was he holding a grenade? Who holds grenades?”

“Harry Flynn.”

There’s a name he hasn’t heard in a long time. Flynn used to run with them back in the day, helped them out once or twice when two pairs of hands just wouldn’t get a job done efficiently enough. He’d seemed like a nice enough kid, actually.

“Well, it just wouldn’t be fair to hold out on the story now,” he pries, hoping to Jesus, Mary and Joseph that it’s not too far.

Elena relinquishes it remarkably easily. He knows a few of the details about Shambhala, but to hear it from someone who was actually there is something else entirely. And by the time she’s telling him about reaching for Flynn, trying to help him, and then the flash of light followed by the nothingness, he’s absolutely enthralled.

“-And Nate was crying. He’ll tell you it was the rain, but he was crying. One-hundred percent crying.”

“I don’t doubt it. Shit, I’d probably be crying too.”

“He blames himself, but he shouldn’t.” Something softens in her expression. “They bothered me for a while. Not the arm ones, they’re not too bad. But my whole right side looked like hell for months. I’m still not gonna be winning any bikini contests, but… I’m alive.”

“You’re alive,” he confirms. “And I’ve got some trophies of war, if you’re after a comparison.”

“It’d be rude not to share,” she says, with complete sincerity.

Sam hitches up his shirt, just enough to put the three bullet wounds on display. Aside from the obvious anger at what they led to, he’s never really minded them that much. They’re an interesting story at worst, a symbol of being a badass (or something) at best. And they certainly seem to work in his favour if he’s trying to chat up a girl in a bar; he’ll drop them casually into conversation, pretend to be reluctant to show her, and then bathe in the glory of her telling him how brave and dangerous he is.

“Impressive,” Elena says with a nod.

“Right? ‘Course, they wouldn’t be nearly as bad if I’d been in, you know, a hospital.”

“Instead of a prison in Panama?”

“Exactly.”

---

If anything, that short exchange made Sam Drake realise one more thing about Elena Fisher.

Sure, she likes the smell of candles, has an irrational hatred of raspberries and has never smoked pot. She loves taking long baths, she has some shrapnel scars that used to bother her, and she tried to help a man who threw it back in her face, quite literally, with a grenade.

But above all else, he’s learned that she trusts him with all that information.

His initial reaction is to decide that she has incredibly poor decision-making skills. Then again, she was willing to marry Nathan, which shows an incredibly high capacity for forgiveness (although it could just as easily be a second example of poor decision-making). Even the way her voice catches when she talks about Harry Flynn suggests she’s apparently not holding a grudge against him for the grenade incident, just regretting the fact that she couldn’t talk him out of it.

Elena is a good person.

Sam is a self-confessed asshole.

Although he’s never tried to blow her up, so that puts him a couple of rungs higher than Flynn.

Chapter Text

The last few days of Sam’s visit fly by in a breeze of sugary snacks and movies of questionable quality. And as much as he would never admit it, he’s actually going to miss the simple domesticity he’s been living in. He’s been thinking about it a lot; all of his life, Sam has been running. Running from his father, from the nuns, from the cops, even from his fellow inmates in Panama. He’s lived his entire life without sticking in the same place for longer than he had to, which is part of what made his thirteen-year sentence so damn hard. But this easy life, with a home and a wife and hot meals and bubble baths… God, he could get used to this.

“You know,” he says to her on their last night, while she curls her legs up next to him on the sofa and he sips a beer, “I thought this was gonna be awful.”

Elena huffs out a laugh. “Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She’s quiet for a second, and then stretches and hauls herself into a seated position, meeting his eyes. “Last year, I was so angry with you, I didn’t want to have anything to do with you. Really. After what you put us through – put him through – I was happy just to let you go back to where you came from. But I can’t put all the blame on you, can I?” Sam shifts in his seat, uncomfortable, but Elena doesn’t give him enough time to weigh in on his guilt. “Besides, you’re family, and I thought it was time we both started acting like it.”

“I was real piece of shit.” It’s all he can think of to say, but it doesn’t cover even a little of the anguish that tears into him when he looks back on his own actions.

“You were. But that’s not who you are.” He looks at her then, surprised and pleased and all too confused at how easily Elena can read him. “You made some really stupid decisions, I’m not excusing that. It’s not all on you, though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s mostly on you. But I’m mad at myself about how I handled the whole thing too. I should never have left you guys in King’s Bay. From what you and Sully told me, it made him reckless, and when Nate’s reckless, he’s an idiot.”

“You had every right to be pissed, are you kidd-”

“Let me finish, Sam, please?” He backs down, though he wants to throw her unwarranted self-blame out of the room as fast as he can. “I made a vow when I married your brother. For better or worse; I’m sure you’re familiar with the whole thing. But I should’ve stayed, and dealt with it afterwards. You could have used someone else, as back-up or whatever, I don’t know.”

“No. Jesus, don’t be- Are you serious?” Her guilt over nothing throws him for a loop. Sam knows it’s his fault; the whole mess was his fault. All him. No one else. Not Nathan. Not Victor. And certainly not Elena, of all people. “It is on me, ‘Lena. I lied to him. And not just to him, to Victor. And to you. You can’t blame yourself for being angry at the stupid shit I pulled, alright? I’m the asshole, and you and Nathan are both far better family than I deserve.”

Elena is quiet for a moment, running a thoughtful hand over her slightly-swollen belly as she thinks. Then, against all odds, a burst of laughter escapes her and she shakes her head as Sam looks over, back to being confused as all hell.

“Just think,” she giggles, “if Nate had any idea how to use Google, we’d have barely had a problem. One search for Hector Alcázar, and he wouldn’t have even left the city.” When she looks at him, there’s nothing but amusement in her eyes. “I mean, I’d still want to know why you were lying about a dead drug dealer, but all in all, you’d have been invited to stay a lot sooner.”

Sam grins, despite the unease in his chest. “If there’s one thing I can rely on, it’s that Nate the goddamn Great can’t use a computer to save his life.”

“‘Goddamn?’ You’re starting to sound like Sully.”

“I hope not. Put me out of my misery, please.”

When she goes to bed, a few minutes later, the ghost of a smile still lingers on her face. In the dim light of the TV, Sam swears there’s something else behind it, but it’s too dark to really tell.

“Hey,” he calls after she’s vanished from view. “I told Victor I was pretty sure you were gonna kill me in my sleep. So thanks for not doing that.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Elena’s voice drifts down the stairs as she ascends. “I’ve got one night left.”

---

The only thing more tooth-rotting than watching Nathan and Elena say goodbye to each other turns out to be watching Nathan and Elena say hello to each other.

“Oh my God, save it for alone-time,” Sam grumbles good-naturedly as he approaches the couple, wrapped so tightly around each other that he can’t quite figure out where she ends and he begins.

“Shut up, Sam,” Nathan retorts, voice muffled by his wife’s shoulder. Sam laughs and nods to Victor.

“She didn’t murder you, then?” Victor asks from the doorway, winking at Elena.

“I decided he was your problem now,” she says with a grin. “If anyone has to put him out of his misery, it’s you.”

---

The small talk only lasts a few minutes. Victor is clearly eager to catch him alone; most likely he’s got some distinctly shady business that he wants to talk about once they’re out of earshot of the innocent side of the family. Maybe smuggling, maybe thievery. Definitely nothing good.

Nathan and Elena clearly want to be alone, too, though that’s for something entirely different.

“I’ll see you sometime,” Sam says to Elena as he gives her a hug goodbye. He’s pretty sure it’s the first hug he’s gotten from her that’s more than an obligation, so it leaves a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I’ll see you at Christmas,” she corrects with a stern expression. “You’re both coming.”

“That doesn’t sound negotiable,” Victor declares wryly.

“It’s not. I’m gonna need some extra hands, considering I’m gonna look like I’ve swallowed a planet by then.”

---

Christmas doesn’t happen.

Victor’s distinctly shady business evolved quickly from a simple in-and-out job to a whole load of trouble. They’re holed-up fourteen miles out of Bulawayo when a message comes through for the both of them.

Merry Christmas. Wish you were here. x

It’s from Elena, and Sam instantly feels awful when he reads it. Victor checks his own phone at the same time, then meets Sam’s eyes with a similar embarrassed expression as he imagines is on his own face.

“Aw, hell,” Victor says eventually, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

“Yeah.” Sam rolls his shoulders; he’s getting too old to be sitting in one place for this long, so he can’t imagine how Victor must be feeling. With false bravado, he adds, “Would have been too domestic, right?”

“Sure.” Victor’s tone is equally hollow.

Sam thinks about the Christmas he wishes he was having. Turkey with all the trimmings, stupid music and stupid movies in the background, surrounded by family… He’d rather have domesticity than this; hiding out in an abandoned building with Victor until their angry pursuers decide they’ve had enough. Even drug-smuggling militias should have a day off for Christmas.

“We’re not doing this to them again.” It’s Sam who eventually breaks the silence, but Victor’s heavy sigh implies he was thinking of doing the same.

“No.”

---

When the baby comes, they’re all on high alert.

True to their many, many promises and apologies, Sam and Victor divert immediately to the nearest airport the second they get Nathan’s panicked phone call. Elena, when she takes the phone, is characteristically calm, alternating between giving them directions to the hospital and berating her husband for worrying so much.

Sam thinks he’s doing an excellent job of not panicking, despite the fact that Nathan’s anxiety is so palpable it’s almost contagious.

The flight is a long six hours. Sam’s phone is on at the first opportunity, and he is greeted with six frantic updates, three detailed transcripts of conversations with doctors, and a picture of Elena doing a Sudoku. Clearly not the most dramatic birth story ever told, then, he informs Victor with a smirk, calm now that he has some information. He calls Nathan when they’re out of the airport, and he answers on the second ring.

“Hey, I was about to call you.” Nathan’s voice is far softer than it was, the initial panic having faded.

“Yeah, we’re on our way now,” Sam answers without prompt. “Victor says hi. How is everything?”

“Good. Boring, actually. Movies make this seem a lot more exciting than it actually is.”

“Hey, boring is good. Boring means nothing’s wrong.”

“Exactly. I’ll take boring. How long ‘til you guys get here?”

“An hour? Hour and a half tops. Keep us posted.”

“I will.”

“Hey,” Sam hesitates for a second. “You ready for this?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone, and for a moment Sam worries that he’s not going to like the answer, before Nathan sighs out a laugh.

“Yeah.”

---

Sam Drake doesn’t cry.

He doesn’t cry when Nathan places his baby niece in his arms.

He doesn’t cry when he looks down at her, blinking and squirming and completely helpless. (Though when her tiny fingers wrap around one of his, he almost loses it)

But when Elena quietly tells him that they’re thinking of calling her Cassandra, that’s when he cries.

He’ll deny it if anyone ever brings it up later. But he cries.

And he’s going to look after that little girl with everything he has.