Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman.
A/N: This was inspired by Frank Sinatra's commentary during a concert on One for My Baby.

True to Your Code

Boston was always lonely after midnight. Its streets were quiet and empty, aside from laughter floating out from a bar here and music from a lounge down there. Boston didn't make anyone think of lovers, but you could find a few occupied streetcorners after midnight. During the day, everybody knew you. But after midnight? You could disappear into the dark and let not a soul recognize you.

He didn't really want a drink. Craved one, maybe. But he didn't want one. The only thing he wanted anymore was just recently out of his reach, which was how Nate Ford found himself wandering the quiet, empty streets of his hometown, looking for someone who didn't know him. She was probably laughing somewhere, tangled in someone else's sheets with someone else's kisses on her lips.

Neon blinked sleepily above a bar, a martini with the olive burned out. Typical. The olive was Sophie's favorite part. He pushed the door open a crack and peeked in, not walking inside until he realized the place was empty except for the bartender. The man glanced up expectantly from slowly wiping down the wooden bar, a ragged cloth in his hand that Nate assumed had once been white.

"Just water," Nate requested with a reluctant sigh, taking a stool at the end of the bar.

"Bad for my business," the man grumbled, slinging a highball glass toward him before returning to running the rag back and forth.

Nate sipped at the clear liquid, inwardly making a face. A nice glass of Scotch on the rocks. That's what it was he was craving. Sophie. That's what he wanted. He sighed as the thought slipped in unheeded. He set his glass down, hands wrapped loosely around it. "She moved on. After eleven years, I mean, of course she moved on. She wasn't going to wait forever. 'Specially not a woman like her."

The bartender didn't say anything, just continued to move his rag back and forth over the same spot, probably the same way he did every night.

"Sophie. I don't care if it's not her real name. It suits her. Sophie Devereaux. Hmm." Nate took a quiet sip from the flavorless water before continuing. "I love her, you know. I've never told her but I do. I love her so damn much it hurts. She's… she's like a martini, you know? She lingers with you. But now she's gone and I can barely even taste her anymore. Maybe she was always just in my head; people can do that, you know. Imagine someone in their life, just go crazy. Maybe I'm crazy. Hell, maybe I'm just stupid, passing her by for so long."

"How long ago did she leave you?" the bartender asked, hands braced on the edge of the wood.

Nate glanced at his watch, glass halfway to his lips. "About four hours."

"Well, in that case, you need something stronger than water." Nate started to protest but the man pulled an old-fashioned jar of milk from beneath the counter and poured them both glasses full. "Cheers."

They sat there silently for a long while, no music, no words, just two men commiserating over a woman. Finally, Nate stood and tossed a few bills onto the bar as a courtesy. "True to your code, you hear?" he half-joked, pocketing his wallet again.

"Never broken it before." The nameless bartender tipped his glass toward Nate in acknowledgement. "She won't hear any confessions of love from me."

"But she ought to hear them from me, right?" Nate nodded, scratching the back of his head in frustration as he looked away. "Yeah, she ought to hear them from me." He pushed the door open, walking outside into the crisp night air. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he waited until the heavy door slammed behind him before wandering off down the street again and joining the ranks of lonely, faceless people with secrets they didn't want any of those daytime friends to know about.