Disclaimer: Of course none of it's mine. Silly person.

AN: Alternate ending for 'The Maltese Falcon Job'

AN2: I'm sorry. Please don't hate me. I had to, it wouldn't leave me alone. *sniff*

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"Nobody move!"

FBI agents streamed forward, surrounding the team on the deck of the 'Maltese Falcon'.

"So," Sterling sauntered down the stairs towards the team. "Where is Tony Kadjic?"

"He's locked in the bridge, and the guns are stored in boxes in the hold."

"I'm glad to see you kept your end of the deal, Nate."

Nate nodded and moved to stand in front of Sterling. "Yes, Sterling, we have a deal."

Elliot had learned the hard way a long time ago to plan for every possible situation, whether likely or not. Hell, he'd even, during a long stretch of boredom that time in Kyrgyzstan, sketched out his tactics & strategies in the case of an alien invasion.

So the hitter had seen this coming. He'd hoped it wouldn't, but lately Nate's drinking had stunk more and more of self-loathing. It wasn't just blaming himself (and IYS) for his son's death like it was when they all first got together. It was a subtle thing. Little glances at the team, the hidden contempt in his eyes at times, brief flashes of disgust on his face as he gazed around the office they'd set up in his apartment. The smashed mirror in the bathroom one day. Well, that one wasn't so subtle.

It was the little things that Elliot didn't think the others really picked up on. Well, except for Sophie. Her line of work as a grifter relied on her ability to read other people as much as his did. But where failure for Sophie mostly meant an unsuccessful con, Elliot's very life was often dependant on his skills at reading people. It was a simple matter of survival. Hell, early on in his career he'd even taken a course in profiling.

Nate had always been so vehement in his denials of being a thief.

Nathan Ford and Jim Sterling shook hands. "Welcome back to the side of the angels, Nate."

This was so much worse than pulling a con on your own team.

This was Betrayal.

This was the reason Elliot always worked alone in the first place. Two thirds of the time he'd had a partner in the retrieval business he'd been stabbed in the back.

Elliot looked around at the others, his face carefully blank. He saw confusion, then hurt, then realisation, and then, taking far too long in Elliot's opinion, betrayal. Hardison looked like he was about to cry. Parker was visibly about to break, more than she had been broken before. Sophie, well, Sophie was quicker on the uptake than the others. Confusion, then her face shut down once the betrayal hit. She'd only just come back to help save them from the Albanian arms dealer and Ford pulled this on them. He could see the anger and hate starting to form in the back of her eyes.

He turned back to Ford, staring intensely with cold, hard eyes until Ford dropped his gaze, shame momentarily displayed on his face before he turned his back on them all.

Offering a paltry, insulting "I'm sorry," Ford walked off with Sterling, the newly minted Interpol Agent smirking at the team as they left, before the FBI and the police swarmed the rest of them with handcuffs and guns, too many for even Elliot to fight off.

But that was ok. He was Elliot Spenser. This was just a minor temporary inconvenience. They wouldn't be able to hold him for long.

And then…

Nathan Ford was going down.

No one betrays Elliot Spenser. No one betrays those he cares about and gets away with it. No one.

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AN: Anyone like to beta this story? Please? I have cake... *puppy dog eyes of doom*