A/N: I needed to write this. I'm not sure how long it'll be.

Warnings: This will deal with Alzheimer's, and a family dealing with a family member with a degenerative disease. If you don't like, don't read. And please don't flame. This is not a happy fic.

Also note: There is a minor crossover with Inception, not so large to warrant being in a crossover section, but enough that people might notice it.

No matter what you say, Leverage was not the first team you've worked with outside your military career. No, your first team had been when you were 10 years old and your dad started to teach you the 'family' trade.

You have always known that your family isn't normal – you're was fairly certain most sixth graders don't spend their summers jetting to exotic locations to help their 'family' pull off elaborate heists. That, and only one of your 'family' actually has any blood relation to you…

You're a happy enough family, five core members including yourself, plus two regular hangers on.

Your dad (Daniel Spencer) was the crew lead, and ex-military man who'd received a discharge on grounds of mental instability after the death of his first wife. He had a brilliant tactical mind and you learnt most of what you know about tactics and fighting off your old man. Your father taught you how to look after yourself, after your physical well-being.

Your step-mom (Sylvia Spencer-Reynolds) was the team's con-woman, beautiful, confident and lovely. She was 13 years younger than her husband, but that didn't mean they loved each other any less – they clearly adored one another, and their 'son'. You have no problem calling Sylvia 'Ma' off the job. She taught you how to conceal who you are from everyone outside the family – how to look after your heart. More importantly, she's the one who started teaching you how to cook.

Next was your dad's right-hand-man, your 'Uncle' Skylar (or Sky as they all called him). He was another ex-military man, less well built than Daniel, more wiry, and more inclined to use a gun than his boss. He taught you how to shoot, and how to use escape and evade techniques on much larger opponents.

Uncle Sky's daughter Meredith provided tech support and hacking expertise. The then sixteen-year-old is like a sister to you, she taught you a lot about computers (despite what Hardison thinks, you're not computer illiterate, you just doesn't see any point in taking over someone else's job unless it's necessary and you've always see the upside of being underestimated). She was bookish and was nearly always wearing a set of wire-framed glasses – an affectation you would eventually develop when you realized you're long-sighted.

The two hangers on were a bit of a peculiarity, as inclined to work in dreams as in reality.

First was the man called in when they needed extra-muscle, Morse. Just Morse – although he'd explained that it was a reference to the English detective drama of the same name. Morse himself was British, and wasn't just extra muscle. He had a keen wit, and taught you how to play chess to a decent standard. He wasn't what anyone would imagine – especially as he looked nothing like 'Morse', instead being a tall, wide, shaved-head brawler.

The other was Morse's partner Ilea. She was back-up for Sylvia, and sometimes ran as the front-woman if Sylvia was indisposed. She was tall, elegant, busty, blonde, and could kick most men's asses. She was as comfortable in elegant ball-gowns at a high-class dinner as she was in camouflage staking out a mark's home. She'd taught you Russian, and some Hebrew. Her English was always thickly accented, a third language rather than a first or second. But damn that woman could sing…

They all helped raise you as best they could, acting like a real family. Dan and Sylvia providing the parental figures, Meredith the one you could pull pranks with (and what pranks you could pull when you've got a computing genius on your side!), Sky was the uncle who spoiled you silly (with Dan returning the favour with Meredith). Sylvia was Meredith's mother figure as well – her own mother having walked out on Sky and her when Meredith was only seven (you're thankful you can't really remember you mother, while you miss her, you don't switch between missing her and hating her like Meredith often does) – but Sylvia was a calming, female influence for both of you, mothering you both incessantly off the job, even if you can look after yourselves. Morse and Ilea were like your cousins, the two people who kept turning up at odd intervals for visits, but who were somehow aloof from the entire family thing – that said, they tended to join Meredith and you with your pranks.

You loved them, you'd been happy – no-one would guess it from your demeanour these days, but too many horrors had passed between now and then for you to be the same person you were before. Some of your favourite memories were of the days when they'd completed a con and gone somewhere exotic just for the hell of it, with Meredith dancing around the living room of whatever house they were staying in to Disney music, Sylvia in the kitchen cooking, Dan and Sky talking about the 'old days' on the veranda, you sat reading in the living room, laughing at Meredith until she dragged you up to dance with her.

Still, at eighteen, you went off and joined the military, leaving behind Aimee, who didn't know what your 'family' really did for a living. You split up with Aimee, just after you'd ended up in black ops and eventually ended up back with your family after your discharge (but you don't go and see Aimee, that still hurts too much). Meredith takes one look at you, chuckles and sweeps you into a hug, Sylvia wraps her arms around both of you. Sky hits you upside the head for not keeping in touch more while Daniel simply shakes your hand and says 'Welcome home son' – he isn't a demonstrative man, he never had been, except on the job.

Morse and Ilea smirk when they appear, hearing you were back (although how they'd heard you'd never know, no-one had called them that you were aware of), each keeping a careful eye on the twins they'd adopted on a job – fifteen year olds Arthur and Penelope Mulligan. Both had already shown signs of being more inclined towards the dream side of work, taking to their protectors' lessons easily. Pen likes you, bugging you mercilessly about teaching her to fight. Arthur doesn't like you, but when you start training Pen, you notice that Arthur is there with his twin every step of the way, his movements far more controlled than Pen's, and far more controlled than any fifteen-year-old had any right to be, especially when they were still growing.

Eventually, you split from your family and make a name for yourself as a solo hitter – in that no-one knows your name per se, but they know the jobs you've done, and whispers were starting to slide around the hitter community about a young hitter who was superior to most of the vets. You get news from everyone – the news of Morse's death hit you hard, especially seeing as it hadn't been on a job. It had been in a car-crash that had crippled Ilea. Ilea retired, and for a while had no contact with any of you (Pen kept you all updated on Ilea, letting you know she was still alive and alright). Meredith had gone through MIT to gain her doctorate (becoming Doctor Meredith Peters). Daniel and Sylvia had retired, Daniel citing age, Sylvia citing wanting to spend time with her husband while she still could. Sky had died on the job not long after that – or rather, from wounds sustained on a job he completed. Meredith had found another crew, keeping up her work as a tech genius, and constantly adding to her substantial pile of degrees with a series of correspondence courses. Arthur and Pen seemed to disappear – their names never surfacing except as myths.

And while you remember them, you never once considered them turning up at in Nate's condo above McRory's. Not just at the bar, or outside the door, but in Nate's condo. Yet there she is when you and the Leverage team return after a successful wrap-up. Sat in one of the seats, commandeering Hardison's networks to watch hockey while working on something on a separate screen, having patched her own laptop in. Nate yelled out, Parker blinked, Sophie screamed, Hardison made a horrified comment about someone else using his system, you just sighed.

"Hello Mer," you state as you flop down next to her.

"Hello Spencer," she states and you wince – surname was never a good thing.

"Problem?"

"Hell yes."

"What?"

"Your team are staring at me like they're about to call the cops, this is a truly impressive set up Mister Hardison…"

"Wha-?" Hardison starts. "Hold up lady, you know who I am?"

"'Course I do," Meredith looks up finally, smiling sweetly. "I know who all of you are. Alec Hardison, hacker extraordinaire, Parker, master thief, Sophie Devereaux a grifter to rival Sylvia Reynolds, and Nathan Ford, ex-IYS, now crew lead."

"What about Eliot?" Sophie asks. Meredith's smile turns into a smirk.

"Annoying younger brother who never stays in contact, despite repeated orders to do so."

"Hey!" you protest, knowing it's probably futile. "Phones weren't exactly available in Pakistan!"

"And what about the months after that, and the months before that? Can't you even answer your phone?"

"Changed my number."

"Yeah, and I still know it, and you still don't pick up when we call."

The Leverage team can only watch as this woman tears you a new one.

"We need to talk. It's important. Do you have a minute?"

"For you I have two. There's a bar downstairs."

"I know."

You head downstairs, leaving the bemused Leverage team behind. At the bar, you order a coffee, and Meredith buys herself a glass of scotch. You settle into a booth and Meredith leans against the table, her elbows on it and her hands around her face, staring down into her scotch through her glasses.

"Ever think there was a reason we started calling you so much more often these past few weeks?"

You shrug. "Figured you were getting more eager to 'reconnect'."

"Not even remotely, as much as we love you, it's easier to stick to the sporadic contact we get from you."

"So why are you here?"

"Uncle Dan's ill."

"Why's Sylvia not here?"

"Because someone had to look after him. Hell Ilea's back with us."

"What is it? Can it be cured?"

"Not a chance."

"Mer…"

"It's Alzheimer's Eliot! Alzheimer's! He doesn't recognize Sylvia most days! I haven't actually seen him since…since he started going really downhill…"

You hesitate at that, not sure what to do and now seeing that Meredith's eyes hold utter sadness, but she isn't crying – that confuses you. "How long?"

"Been a few months since the diagnosis… Only a few weeks since…" She cuts off, shaking her head. "You're needed at home. Ilea's in a wheelchair, Aunt Sylvia's distraught and Uncle Dan's virtually no use at all! I can only do so much 'Liot!"

"Why are you not crying about this Mer?" you demand – after Sky's death she'd moved in with Sylvia and Dan when she was at home, surely this was affecting her! "Hell, I want to cry about this!"

Meredith snorts, closing her eyes and taking a deep gulp of her scotch. "Do you know how long we've been trying to get you to admit that you want to cry? And it takes this to do it… I'm all cried out. If I cry about this anymore, I've not got any tears left."

You don't respond to that, just reach out and grab your surrogate sister's hand as she downs the end of her scotch.

"You coming then?"

"Yes."

They head back up to the condo, you grabbing your go-bag, Meredith her laptop case, and then you left – you simply saying goodbye to your team, not offering an explanation - this is personal, they don't need to know, not yet.

Meredith books Eliot and Meredith Spencer on two flights going to opposite sides of the US, Eliot and Meredith Peters on a flight to Canada, Eliot Spencer on a flight to Bosnia, and Meredith Peters on a flight to Russia. Half an hour before any of those are due to take-off, Sky Reynolds and Spencer Morse board a flight to Paducah, Kentucky. (Old habits die hard, and paranoia's a familiar friend). She also arranges to have a family saloon waiting for you in Paducah that you'll make the drive to Kensington in, and from there you'll switch cars to Meredith's pick-up to drive out to the ranch Sylvia and Daniel live on. The ranch you grew up on.

It takes twelve hours, with neither of you sleeping on the plane, and then taking turns in the car – Meredith stretching out in the back-seat of the saloon with you watching her fondly remembering days when this had happened back when you were younger.

You arrive in the middle of the night, so Meredith leads the way to the bunk-house she'd had remodelled into a 'guest house' (more like her house, she wasn't inclined to leave the ranch), and the two of you collapse into the same bed, Meredith curling against your slightly larger frame.

Let me know what you think. GPaDS