A/N: This is a mix of my idea and a story challenge from Fanfic Connoisseur. It's set right after that dinner at the end of The office Job and goes into the deeper meaning of their fighting over the sandwich. The title, idea, and last sentence for this story are from Christian Kane's We Were in Love which is a beautiful song, if you're a Kaniac you should definitely know which one I'm talking about and if not go check it out.

We Were in Love

"You gonna tell me why?" Eliot asked as he sat next to Hardison in the now empty bar. They had just gotten back from dinner and apparently Hardison had decided to sneak away for a drink.

"Are you still goin' on about that damn sandwich?" He turned on his stool with annoyance, it should have been obvious that him coming to an empty place meant he wanted to be alone.

"I ain't mad anymore I just wanna know why you ate it." He could deny it all he wanted but Eliot knew he had.

"How many times do I got to tell you I didn't touch the dang thing!" Why should he admit to taking what wasn't his when Eliot was shamelessly trying to do the same.

"Yes you did! Dude, you got your damn sticky frogs..."

"Gummy frogs, get it right." Now mentioning them he needed to buy some more.

"Whatever! You got them and ya got your orange juice and I don't touch 'em.
I respect that they belong to you and I leave 'em alone!" And they said he was hard headed. All he wanted was an explanation and all Hardison was giving him was attitude. "Hell.., if you would have asked I would've made you your own!"

"No.. you wouldn't of cause you can't do that.
You can't just replace it, it doesn't work that way!" He wasn't stupid, Eliot knew just as well as he did that this had nothing to do with the sandwich. All that was going on here was Eliot's teasing, trying to taunt his way under Hardison's skin but that comment had been the last straw.

"You follow a recipe Hardison. You can make as many as you want." He already knew that Hardison was a bit of a light weight but had that one beer really gone to his head. It sure seemed like it.

"No you can't!
You can try for another ...God knows there's millions more out there but they ain't never gonna be the same as the first!
That one's mine and I'm tired of you tryin' to take it!" He didn't care if Eliot knew he ate the sandwich, for what he had been pulling on him he deserved a lot more.

"What are you talking about?" Hardison had just gone out right angry on him and in all honesty he was confused. Why couldn't he have made another sandwich?

"As if you don't know.
I see the way you look at her!
How you were just talking to her at dinner.
I don't like it and I sure don't appreciate it!" He had sat through an hour of Parker and Eliot sitting next to each other sharing jokes that no one else seemed to understand and it quickly turned his mood sour.

"This is about Parker?" His voice still held a bit of confusion but it was quickly clearing with the look he was receiving. "You think I ... You're jealous of me and Parker?" He couldn't help but laugh at it.

"I'm not jealous of you and Parker because there is no you and Parker!" His words were angry as he stood from his stool. " Not because you ain't tryin' though!"

"What is that supposed to mean!" He pushed away the finger being pointed in his face as he too stood.

"You're supposedly my best friend yet you're trying to get wit my girl!
I trust you to have my back and right now you're stabbing me in it!" He had been seeing it for a while now but he trusted Parker so he'd kept quiet but tonight Eliot had had the nerve to stick his hand on her leg and that was it, he wasn't going to be silent anymore.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" The question obviously hadn't done justice the first time so he asked it again.

"You want Parker and you're trying your damnedest to take her from me but I'm tellin' you it ain't gonna happen! She's mine and you can't have her!" Eliot was the kind of guy that went and got just about any girl he wanted without effort but Parker wasn't going to be one of them. He cared about her and he would fight for her.

"First off she ain't yours, she's a person and you sure as hell don't own her and secondly, I don't want her!
If I did I would have made that move long ago!" Last time he checked he hadn't done anything wrong but Hardison was sure up and on him like he had and it left him backing up.

"So at dinner it's alright for you to be all kinds of flirtin' with her but now that I call you out on it suddenly you don't want her!
You're stupid if you think I believe that!" Any other time he would be careful on what limits to cross but this time he didn't care as he stepped further into Eliot's personal space.

"I'm stupid?
You must be the one with the mental problems... accusing me of shit that isn't even real!" He and Parker knew where those kind of lines lay clearly and he was sure positive he hadn't crossed 'em. "I bet you didn't accuse Parker of this."

"This has nothing to do with Parker!
You're trying..." Screaming like this was going to get him no where so he took the time to try and clear his head with some of that rationality he usually had. "listen... she's mine Eliot. You said it yourself, you don't want her. She doesn't mean anything to you... but me I think I love that girl and I can't have my best friend trying to make her another notch on his bed post. I swear I'll kick your ass first."

As a friend he choose to ignore that threat, instead trying for reason. "Hardison I don't know where you got the idea from but I'm not lookin' to go after Parker!
Ya'll have got what ya got and I ain't steppin' in the middle of it.
If it'll make you feel better I'll put more distance between us but I'm telling you I'm not trying for anything with her.
That's... it's not an option for me." The reasons why saddened him but now was definitely not the time to fall into those memories. "Whether she's with you or not you wont see me headed in that direction."

"You swear?" Mostly he trusted Eliot but with something like this he wanted to make sure he wasn't being foolishly sweet talked.

"I think you need to go home and sleep it off." Eliot shook his head as he moved to leave. First Hardison eats his sandwich then he starts blatantly accusing him, he was done dealin' with all of this.

"I ain't drunk and you ain't leavin'! We're still talking!" He should have known Eliot's words weren't genuine, he wouldn't even swear to them.

He nearly lost his balance when Hardison pulled him roughly by the shoulder and he was quick to grab his wrist, holding it in a firm grasp."Yes we are. If you got insecurity issues that's your problem... Parkers even but it ain't mine. I did nothing wrong and I'm not gonna stand here and have you accusing me ...cause if I do I can guarantee you ain't gonna like how this night ends."

"What's going on?" Hardison was quick to pull his hand away as Parker entered the bar.

"Nothing" He stepped further back as Eliot moved away.

"I was just leaving" Eliot excused as he walked past her and out the door.

She barely glanced at Hardison before she was out the door and following him. "Eliot what was all of that about?"

"You should get back there before you give him any more ideas." Eliot grumbled as he continued his stride down the street.

"Ideas about what?" Her pace was quick but still she was having trouble keeping up with his.

"Us... apparently he thinks I'm trying to steal you from him." If that could possibly be considered true in any way it would have to be the other way around.

"WHAT!"

Again he was roughly pulled by the shoulder but this time he willingly turned around. "Just what I said. He thinks we've got something goin' on or at least that I'm trying to get something going."

"And what did you tell him?" That secret could make or break everything she built with Hardison.

"Not what you're thinking." Parker sounded worried and it peeved him that for the second time that night someone that was supposed to trust him didn't.

"Eliot I didn't mean it li-"

"Don't say you didn't mean it like that cause that's exactly how you meant it." They weren't far enough from the bar in his opinion so he grabbed her by the arm and continued his walk to anywhere but there. "Ya'll are meant for each other that way."

"That's mean." Maybe those few words had been overly accusing but his were rude.

"And you leaving me in Laos wasn't?" If she was going to accuse him of bringing it up than he might as well.

"That was a long time ago, we were different then." She had her fair share of regrets from that trip but he wasn't so innocent either.

"You're right, it was a life time ago but I don't recall you bein' all that different." They turned the corner and he stopped a little up the way to lean on a building.

"We both were and you know I'm sorry about that but we didn't get a second chance." They had been self centered and outright selfish back then and nothing valuable or worth while could have been built on those characteristics.

"You got yours. The fool's waiting for you in the bar if you can talk some sense into him." He didn't want to have this conversation, they agreed when the team first started up that the hatchet on this was long gone and buried.

"What brought all this up?" Hardison wasn't a confrontational person so to hear about the accusations he had made, she knew something must have lit the fire.

"It was my fault.
I got comfortable tonight and I guess a bit handsy.
I already told him I'd keep my distance though so don't even worry about it." Months of them being all kinds of up close and personal and he sometimes forgot that it was no longer allowed.

"When he calms down I'll talk to him for you." They were best friends, something neither of them had many of and she wouldn't allow herself to be the one to ruin that. "I'm sure things will be fine."

"I know they will be..." His sigh was as somber as his words. "as long as we make sure to keep our distance."

"Eli-" She cut herself off as she too leaned against the wall with a near matching huff of breath.

"What?" He felt like the spot for him on the team was getting smaller and smaller every day but even with those feelings she sounded like the one who was really troubled.

"I don't know."

He'd always been able to read her and now was no different as she turned to face him. "Yes you do."

"We've got good lives.
They're stable and we're doing good... better than we ever were or would have been."

"But?" Those were always clear to hear.

"But..." She knew Hardison had been observing them yet she couldn't bring herself to care. She liked him sure, a lot too but Eliot was her best friend, they shared something that she and Hardison never would. "with all of it and the day to day... sometimes it just gets hard not to remember that..."

Her eyes were piercing with emotion that had quickly taken the words from her mouth. The same emotion he had felt all that time ago and it was every bit as hard to deal with it now as it had been then. "So you don't want to remember?"

"Eliot I'm with Hardison now." This was where her awkward came in. The others didn't know that Eliot was what brought out most of her "crazy", sometimes it was just plain hard to be around him.

"I know that and I'm not trying to change that but that's not what I asked you." It was clear that she was Hardison's, he saw it up close and personal every day but that didn't change what they used to be.

"I'll always remember that..." It had taken a great deal to come to terms with things and to be able to work side by side peacefully. They made sure that nothing they did would que the others to a shared past and she felt like saying it aloud now would do just that.

Maybe she could no longer say it, maybe she no longer felt it but he would always remember. "we were in love."