Title: Paterfamilias
Author: chaletian
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None; vague reference to 1x06
Summary: Paterfamilias - Lat. n. the male head of family or tribe.



Nathan Ford is an extremely intelligent man. This is why he knows that he’s a little bit fucked in the head.

He knows, for example, that he’s on the way to becoming an alcoholic, if he hasn’t got there already. Which, to be honest, he may well have done. He knows he’s got a head full of issues about his son’s death that he’s not planning on dealing with any time soon. He knows that his ex-wife, and his priest, and a whole host of other people in his previous life, are all extremely worried about him. He knows they’ve probably got a point.

He knows that quitting his job and ending up as a ringleader to a group of thieves is not a healthy career move, and probably indicates some kind of nervous breakdown. And, except for when he’s halfway down a bottle of Scotch and at his most self-flagellatory, he knows that they do good. Which is the one redeeming feature of the whole mess.

Well, that, and the amount of fun he’s having. Whilst not dealing with all the other stuff in his head. It’s… escape.

Nathan Ford knows that this bizarre turn of events is a form of escapism. It’s not quite real, and that’s why he’s settled into it as quickly as he has.

It’s why they all have.

Nathan Ford is an extremely intelligent man, and was extremely good at his job. This is why he knows his whole team is a little bit fucked in the head.

Sophie Devereaux. Her father was a sprig of a minorly aristocratic French family; her mother was English. They roamed from place to place, sometimes with money, more often without. Sophie drifted through expensive boarding schools and local village schools, and picked up a hell of a lot of tricks on the way. Never really had a place to call home.

Alec Hardison. Parents gone; brought up in a strict foster home. Not abusive, not uncaring, not even unloving. But Hardison was different to the others. Smarter. Sharper. Heck of a lot geekier. And a little isolated. Never really fitted in.

Eliot Spencer. Lived a perfectly normal life until high school, when his parents were killed. Lost his way a little. Came and went, slid into the underworld until the reputable jobs became disreputable ones, and Eliot ended up a man who could identify a gun from a muffled sound; an assailant from his style of fighting. Never really managed to settle down.

Parker. Now she had been an enigma. Nate hadn’t known anything about her background. She just appeared on his radar one day after a series of break-ins at high-end galleries down the East Coast. She was a little crazy. A lot daring. And after this latest case, Nate suspected she never really found a family.

Nathan Ford knows they’re all a little bit fucked in the head, and he knows that this is some kind of weird escapism, and he knows… he’s pretty sure… that it’s not something to be relied upon.

But Nathan Ford knows that, God help them, they’ve become a family. It’s a family. And he’s at the head of it.