"It's what I do"
His words still rang in Sophie's ears as she saw Eliot go down, saw him take one blow after the other. Her eyes wandered over to Nate. How much longer did he plan to draw this out? How much more could the hitter take?
Even after the speech Eliot had given her, she had uttered her doubts about this plan to Nate. How could he play with Eliot's well being and even his life like that. What if Tank went too far? What if Eliot could not pull the fight around after being on the ground for so long? What if he was seriously injured?
Nate had just looked at her.
"It's his world, Sophie. This is where he is most at home. Imagine, we were running a con on a theater and I would doubt you could play the Julia. How would you feel about that?"
She had not come up with a reply.
It might be his world, it might be what he did best, yet it was still real pain he was feeling, real bones that were breaking under Tank's vicious attack. And all the while he had to keep his act together. That's what got her most, that even under this violent attack, where his adrenaline level must be skyhigh and all his reflexes and survival instincts must be screaming to jump into action and take the other guy out for good, he managed to keep the mask up. He managed to play the helpless and drugged victim for so long.
Sophie had trouble to stay in role herself. She wanted to scream at Nate to finally end this, but of course, with Jed Rucker sitting right next to her, watching her every move, she couldn't. She saw Tank's fist connecting with Eliot's jaw once agin, the hitter spitting blood and was glad her role allowed her to look every bit as shocked as she was.
Finally, Nate did his bottle sniffing bit, accusing Rucker of drugging Eliot's water, allowing Sophie deliver the line that contained Eliot's cue:
"You took the safety off."
She screamed it, almost a bit too loud to be believable, because she wanted to be sure that Eliot heard it. And he did.
The hardest thing was to keep the relief off her face, when the hitter came back. Every inch of her wanted to cheer him on. Instead, she kept to her role of being shocked and scared when Eliot's opponent went down hard.
The rest was con routine, having Tank declared dead, Jed Rucker fleeing the scene in a hurry, not knowing what Parker had deposited in his trunk, Hardison making the call to the Iowa State Police, tipping them off. Sophie hardly noticed any of it. When they left the gym, Sophie felt Eliot's hand lightly on her back. She turned round. She could tell by his body posture that he was in a lot of pain and fighting hard to keep it together.
"Are you okay?", he asked, so softly that the others wouldn't hear.
"Am I okay? Of course. I was never in any danger. It's you I am worried about", she answered. She noticed she was shaking. And she could tell from Eliot's expression that he had noticed as well. He just kept looking at her questioningly.
"It's just ... all that violence ..." she started to explain. "I mean, I guess, you get used to it ..."
The hitter shook his head.
"That's part of my job, too. To make sure that you never have to get used to it. To keep all of this away from you as far as possible. All of you. That's what I do. I am sorry it did not work like that this time."
Sophie felt a wave of affection rush over her, so strong it brought tears to her eyes. She would have embraced Eliot had she not been afraid to hurt him more because of his many injuries.
"Let's get you home", she said.