Work Text:
James Sterling has no heart - cannot be swayed with sad stories or tears, remains firm against the elderly and women and babies. James Sterling keeps a level head, and has a ruthless streak as wide as Asia. James Sterling can smell fraud from thirty-five miles away, and will find you no matter where you hide.
James Sterling, who has a bank vault for a heart, sits beside Nathan Ford's bed in hospital, and thinks, I cannot lose this man.
Because while James Sterling has no pity, puts the job before everything else, is made of steel and not emotions, Nathan Ford has somehow become his friend.
His only friend.
Who is dying.
Maggie isn't here, and James can't fault her for it - she's with Sam, trying not to upset him, trying to make him understand that Daddy isn't coming home.
James remembers everything. Remembers Nate collapsing in his office. Remembers the diagnosis, how the words didn't even make sense for the first ten minutes. Remembers the first mention of treatment, the feel of hope rising in his chest, the numbers of the results so far, the light in the doctor's eyes when she said this may be his only chance.
Remembers the shock when IYS said no, turned their back on Nate and Maggie and Sam and James, against their own people. Remembers going cold when Ian, Ian Blackpool, the man Nate Ford spent twenty years working for, the man Maggie and Nate and James have all worked and bled for, turned James away. Told him no. "Against company policy," he'd said, and, “Experimental treatments are not covered under IYS,” and, “You understand, of course, James,” and James had said nothing.
He sits beside his best friend's bed, because there is nothing else he can do, except wait. Possibly hope, which is new for him, but ultimately ineffective.
If this were a movie, Nate would somehow recover - money would be secretly transferred, or a doctor would have mercy, or there would just be a flat out miracle, and everything would be sunshine and rainbows again, and James could get on with his life. Could get back to ruining smug fuckers' days and drinking on rooftops, could tuck his heart away again and never let himself use it ever again.
But this is the real world, and Nathan Ford dies at two am on a Tuesday, while James Sterling watches, and can do nothing.
James Sterling is made from steel and determination, and a very firm belief in doing the right thing. Most people do not realize that "the right thing" only means "the legal thing" because the law has, thus far, aligned with James's sense of justice.
The law cannot help him, not now. The law will let this go unpunished. No legal system in the world can help James, not now, not with this.
The right thing does not involve letting this go unpunished, and James makes a choice.
In all fairness, it's a remarkably easy choice.
It's a happy coincidence when Peter Dubinich comes to him with a sob story, a considerable sum of money, and an excuse to begin what he was already planning.
Later, when he's standing in a loft, surrounded by Hardison and Eliot's bickering, and Parker's chirping questions, and Sophie's doubtful looks, and all of their good intentions, he thinks that this is what Nate would have wanted. This is what Nate should have had, what Nate would have chosen if James had died and Nate had lived.
James hasn't done a lot of good things in his life. He's not the kind of man that Nate was – honest and solid, reliable and well-intentioned to the core. James is a bastard, utterly self-serving and honorable only when it suits him.
But Nate is dead, and James is not. The world might deserve Nathan Ford, but it has James Sterling.
The world is just going to have to make do.