Eliot spent that night on Nate's couch. Parker spent it curled up in the chair next to where he slept reading the sheets the hospital had sent home with him and organizing his prescriptions of pain medications, anti inflammatory, muscle relaxers, and the antibiotic ointment the nurse had mentioned. She wanted to make sure that he was getting the best possible care in her hands. For the meantime that meant being close if he needed her and commandeering every pillow in the apartment for his comfort. It was almost dawn and the rest of the team was asleep in other rooms, while the thief was folded into a seemingly impossible position scrutinizing every mark on Eliot's skin and timing each and every breath he took.

She was glad when the sun finally rose, because it gave her something productive to do. She unfurled her limbs and stretched up on her toes, hands above her head and then leaned far back to pop her lower back before she padded silent and barefoot into the kitchen. Eliot would be hungry when he woke, or at least that was what she had decided. He'd want something good to eat, and she planned to provide it. And so she began looking for a cookbook, and once she found one she searched for a recipe that sounded delicious to her. Apple cinnamon pancakes. Then she was trying to dig thru the cabinets in Nate's kitchen for what she needed, seeing as how Eliot cooked here more often than anyone else she stood a good chance of actually finding what she was after. But along the way she decided to add an ingredient or two, everything tasted better with chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips were also delightful and they went together so well. But maybe not with apples...so she skipped the apple idea and went with chocolate peanut butter pancakes. She'd save the apple juice she'd found to drink. Better than orange, orange juice burned too much when you had a cut in your mouth. And she suspected that Eliot had a few of those and she didn't want to make them worse. She began mixing ingredients; flour, eggs, milk, water she had perched herself on the counter and watched Eliot do this a hundred times. He never needed a cookbook, but the idea was the same. She didn't want to wake him with the hand mixer either, so she went with a big wooden fork. About half an hour after she began she was peeking out around the doorway to see if he was awake. Eliot never slept this late. She crept out toward the couch, her face and shirt, even her hair now spattered with pancake batter. Or what she hoped would become pancake batter. He looked too quiet; too still. She moved forward on her tiptoes up closer to the sleeping Hitter, leaned in over the back of the couch and watched as he continued to sleep, then a lock of her batter splattered hair fell forward and landed on his unbruised cheek.

Eliot woke with a start, and snapped upright, making a grab for her, not remembering his hindered hands; Parker jumped back only a breath out of his reach.

"Woah there big guy. Your supposed to be taking it easy Eliot Spencer not jumping up for an attack."

He leaned back with a groan, trying to grab at his aching ribs, but his hand too bandaged up to be any real use. Trying to ease one pain just made the other worse and Parker frowned as he snarled with frustration. It wasn't even eight am and he was already groaning and moaning and angry.

"Then don't creep up on me and stay out of my face. What's wrong with you Parker? You can't sneak up on a guy like me in my sleep."

"Your paranoia is not my fault."

"My paranoia has saved my life a hundred times. It just doesn't differentiate...what the hell is that smell?"

She smiled huge and dashed for the kitchen, hoping she wasn't burning his breakfast.

"It's pancakes silly goose. I thought you'd be hungry."

Eliot shifted, and elbowed pillows and blankets aside. It was hard to move, he made a mentally tally of his injuries and sneered realizing that his troubles were just beginning. Still the sprained knee didn't hurt too much, he thought he could walk on it if he could just get to his feet. But his hands...God damn it...totally fucking useless. Left him trying to lever himself up with one forearm on the arm of the couch and the other on the back of it, the stretch was torture on his ribs, and he had one hell of a time trying to get his feet under him. But he had to see what the hell Parker was incinerating in the kitchen.

Parker was trying to flip a pancake, but she'd set the heat way too high and hadn't oiled the pan, or used the right pan or something and it was sticking something terrible. She finally managed to scrap the pancake off the pan with the spatula and turn it over, one side was black as a cinder. She turned the heat down to nothing and shrugged. Not too bad, you can always scrape off the burned part. She moved to grab another pan so she could start another pancake when she heard Eliot let out a loud grunt and a chair skittering across the wood floor out in the conference area.

"What the hell are you doing?

She rushed out just in time to see him land his backside on the edge of the table as his injured knee all but gave out on him. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was seeing black spots before his eyes, teeth were gritted and head was hanging. Her hadn't got at all far and he wasn't happy about that.

Parker went to his side and crouched a bit so she was looking up at him, trying to see his eyes and read his expression. Was he hurt? Or just hurting?

"You say I'm crazy at least I don't try to run around on a busted leg! Do you think we carted home the wheelchair for our next job?"

"I'm fine...I mean...I can handle myself Parker. I don't need your help, or a damn wheelchair that's for sure. Now what the hell are you burning in my kitchen."

"Don't worry about your damn kitchen! Worry about yourself. You know what, scratch that too. Let me worry about you and the damn kitchen...all your allowed to do is sleep and eat and maybe watch television. Cabbage?"

"Cabbage? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know cabbage...Italian for understand? It's tough guy language right? I thought it would get your attention make you realize you need to take me seriously bucko."

She poked his shoulder with two fingers, but did it very lightly. Normally she would have been poking and prodding gleefully, but not yet. Not this time. She didn't want him to be hurt, it scared her way too much. And she sure didn't want to make it worse when it was plenty bad enough already.

"Capiche? Is that what you meant?"

"That's what I said." Her voice softened and she found herself messing with his hair again. When the hell had she started with that? She didn't dwell on it now, she just thought about how it was supposed to be soothing and he had seemed to respond to it the night before. "They knocked you in the head kinda hard, huh? Poor thing..."

"Yeah, yeah that's absolutely it..."

He laughed a bit and thought better of it as he bent forward to spare his fractured ribs.

"As soon as we get something in your tummy you are having some more meds and going right back to your couch there mister. For right now...stay put a sec."

She snagged the wheelchair from the living room and rushed it over, moving in to slide under his arm again and help him shift and sit the way she had the night before. Only this time he was trying too hard to help and it made it harder.

"Why do you have to fight everything? I'm trying to help you."

"I don't want your damn help Parker."

"Well, get used to it Spencer. Cause your six ways fucked up right now. And it was me or the hospital. Comprende?"

She lifted his leg into the rest, so it was propped up straight in front of him, sadly the most comfortable position available to him. Didn't make him feel any less pathetic as his mind painted a woeful picture of himself.

Defeated for the moment Eliot answered.

"Yeah Parker, lettuce okay...spinach...crystal...I got it."

She nodded although why he was talking about produce was beyond her.

"You want a salad for breakfast?"

"No thanks. Let's see what you got going in the kitchen."

He reached down to push at the wheels of the chair and realized, he couldn't. Talk about an insult. Couldn't walk, not even with crutches, stuck sitting on his ass and couldn't even make the chair move. He shook his head and sighed. This was just getting better and better. Parker didn't say a word, just moved behind the chair and pushed toward the kitchen, careful to make clearance around the furniture and walls with his propped up limb.

"I'm making you pancakes...we didn't have apples but I found chocolate chips and peanut butter so...like Reese's, right?"

Eliot's eyes...well, eye in this case got wide when he saw the mess she'd already made of the kitchen. Now it could have been a combination of the head injury, his imperfect one sided vision or all the drugs but he could have sworn there was pancake batter on the wall above the stove.

"Uhm...why didn't you wake me up? I would have made you some."

Parker had the spatula in her hand again and brandished it in a fashion that made it seem more lethal than any blade or gun he'd ever come up against.

"My pancakes are turning out just fine thank you. And besides I uhm, I don't think you can. I mean, cooking might be on your technical difficulty list for awhile."

She winced in sympathy as he glanced down at his splinted hands and lifted them from his lap, turning them over in disbelief. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed the bandages and such, the ramifications just hadn't sunk in. But they were now. No walking. No moving the chair. Cooking would be just about impossible. Eating might be almost as hard. And what about bathing? Hell, he could kill a man with his thumb and finger, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to button his jeans, or put on his shoes.

"It's not going to be so bad. You have about a week with your hands all bandaged up, but then you go back to the doctor..."

He interrupted her but as she could have expected he heard what he wanted to hear and this time is was one week, and then he'd be alright...he'd be very disappointed when she got to finish what she was saying.

"One week? I have to deal with this for a week? Christ...Damn; well it could be worse right? Could be a month..."

It was Parker's turn to interrupt.

"Try like three. After a week you go back for xrays. Then they'll take the splints and bandages off, which will be better cause then you won't have to be so careful. For now you have to worry about banging your hands off anything harder than a marshmallow. But next week they'll be able to see if the bones are aligned, or if you'll need surgery...and from there they'll apply the uhm...the casts..."

She tried to say the last word quiet and turned away to melt butter into the pan on the second burner and then drop in another glob of very thick pancake batter and tried to spread it around with the spatula. Eliot was too busy digesting all she had just said and was no longer as concerned with what she was trying to make for breakfast.

"Three months? Possible surgery...casts...they're going to put both my hands in plaster?"

"No they don't do that anymore. They use fiberglass...but it's the same idea."

"I'm sorry they're gonna use fiberglass that's so much better."

"Look, I know this is going to suck. But I promise, I'll be there to help. Nate and Sophie were already looking for a rental where you can stay until you can get around better. I told them to make it a two bedroom, so I can be close. I told you already I owe you big time. We don't know how bad this is going to be. If you haven't already noticed your pretty damned amazing Mr. Spencer, so you have a lot more going for you than most people would in your condition. And the doctor that's taking care of you is the best. You are going to be in very good hands."

"That's great but I prefer to rely on my own."

"Well, your gonna have to work with mine for now and we can start with pancakes."

Her first finished product was plopped down on a plate on the counter next to his shoulder.

"What is that?"

"I already told you. It's a chocolate chip and peanut butter pancake."

"It's a Frisbee."

"You haven't even tasted it."

"Darn, hands don't seem to be working."

She moved around the counter and took a knife and fork out of the drawer and cut a bite out of the pancake. Well, scraped off the burned top layer and then cut a bite and popped it into her mouth.

"It's..."

She smiled and chewed emphatically, the gooey half burnt, half doughy mass stuck in her mouth, adhered to the roof and wouldn't go down her throat.

"It's...uhm, it's disgusting."

She dashed for the fridge and popped open the milk carton and washed down the mouthful.

"Parker, really, right out of the carton?"

"Sorry, but that was. God it was so gross. I don't know what I did wrong. I followed the recipe to the letter."

"Tell you what. Call the deli on the corner, I'll take an omelet with spinach and feta. Get everyone some coffee and danish or something. Tomorrow I'll teach you pancakes. Okay?"

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"You gonna lay down on the couch, and not do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"You don't try to cook again and I won't try to do anything I guess."

"I'm trusting you Sparky."

"I know."

She took him back to the couch then and he'd never admit it but he was grateful to be returning. It took way more out of him then he could believe but that brief trip to the kitchen and back made his head spin. Parker helped him move from the chair to the sofa, fluffed and shifted pillows and tucked him back in.

"Snug as a bug. Need anything before I go?"

"Naw, darling. But thanks. I'll be alright."

"I'll be back before you know it."

"I'll be waiting...right here."

He rolled his eyes and leaned back with a dejected sigh. His hands were resting in his lap his leg was propped up on cushions, his face looked horribly bruised and swollen in the morning light. She felt bad, really bad for him. Poor Eliot, a guy as active as him shouldn't have to deal with being laid out flat the way he was. It was going to make him nuts, hell it was going to make her nuts and she didn't think she could fit another pound of crazy into her already over filled bag. She leaned in and kissed his forehead. She didn't think of it, it just happened, it ranked up there with the stroking his hair. And while the hitter thought it odd, he didn't seem to mind it. So yes he looked up at her with a quizzical expression, but he didn't say anything.

"Breakfast. Roger."

She saluted him with two fingers and winked before turning away to gather her boots and jacket.

"Roger? My names Eliot...maybe you ought to get looked at Parker, who the hell is Roger?"

But he was smiling, it was a lame, stupid joke but after cabbage it just seemed to make sense. Maybe it was the head injury.

"Don't laugh too hard there, it'll hurt."

"I know."

He was still grinning a bit, but he didn't laugh out loud.