A/N: Thank you to all of the people supporting this story. Here's chapter 4. I've wanted to write it and get it posted since Experimental Friendships was finished, but I just couldn't torture Eliot over Christmas-fictional story or not.

I don't own Leverage or any of the characters on the show. I write for fun and not for profit. Please read and review. I don't write slash. Thank you.

Chapter 4

6 days ago…

Eliot had once told Sophie that the thing he had to control was inside him, and as he sat quietly watching the guards below, waiting for his opportunity to slip in among them, he was glad she hadn't ever pressed for the full truth of that statement. He knew that the worst monsters of all, those beyond our ability to imagine or contain, are the ones that live inside of us. Eliot had felt the monster in his own soul that day in the warehouse, when he was fighting for the safety of Nate and the Italian, and in a way, for his own safety, too. That monster had compelled him to do unspeakable things in the past, things for which there could be no salvation. He had been telling Sophie the truth that day in the ring, as he prepared to fight Tank. He had had to learn to control the monster, or else he risked being consumed by it. And he knew that he would much rather be its master than its servant.

He felt the stirrings of the great beast inside him once again, as he prepared to rescue one of his oldest and dearest friends, the friendship made the more dear by the things they had shared. The intel they had gathered told them that she was being held in a low, metal building which looked to be military in nature. Actually, it looked to be a relic left over from American military presence there. They had watched the building for three days, and had a good idea of the comings and goings of the guards. There were two standing guards all the time, who rotated in six hour shifts, and they were joined by one or two others at regular intervals during the day. Eliot decided it would be best to take them out when it was only the two. Of course, that meant getting her and getting out, before the other guards came to join the first two.

So, he settled in to his vantage point on a giant loft, of sorts, and sat watching the scene unfold. There was definitely someone being held, but no way to tell who it was from this distance. He climbed down and snuck quietly from tree to tree in the jungle, until he was right at the edge of the clearing in which the building sat.

He waited until one of the guards was on the other side of the building, and sneaking up behind the other, he choked him out. When he was unconscious, Eliot dragged him by his feet into the cover of the tree-line, tied him up, and hid him well. Then, he snuck slowly down into the meadow. He didn't like sneaking into an open area like this, though he had done it before. It wasn't a very defensible position. He wouldn't leave her there, though.

Moments later, he left the cover of the tree line, and ducking his head, he sprinted for the center of the clearing to the building where his friend was being held. A moment later, he wrenched open the door of the building as quietly as possible, and threw himself inside, his hyper alert senses making his body tingle with anticipation. Only then did he realize that it was as dark as pitch. He stood still for a moment, and closed his eyes, trying to make the adjustment to seeing in the dark easier, but soon realizing it was hopeless with a darkness so profound that there were no shadows.

A moment later, his worst fears were confirmed, as three things happened at the same time. The heavy iron door he had wrenched open moments before slammed closed with a heart stopping clanking sound, the room was flooded in bright light, which blinded him temporarily, and he felt sturdy iron rings attached to chains close around his wrists and ankles. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he discovered that the room was empty. He knew someone had been tied up there earlier, and he had heard labored breathing when he first entered the room, which meant they had to have moved her. Eliot didn't have much time to think about where they might have taken her, because an untold number of people surrounded him, obscuring his vision of the rest of the room, and he was frog marched out of the room.

He made a mental map of where they were taking him, counting his footsteps, and noting those obstacles he could see. He was blindfolded and gagged, but he felt the temperature dropping and determined that they had either moved outdoors or into a subterranean level of the building. After a number of twists and turns, they stopped. Eliot felt himself being stripped of his clothes, and then lifted onto a table. He tried to fight back, and found himself completely immobilized, arms and legs fastened to iron bars near the head and foot of the table. He forced himself to stay calm and assess the situation objectively, as his military training had taught him to do, but he couldn't suppress the gasp that escaped when he felt the shocking cold metal of the stethoscope, and realized he was being examined. Cruel laughter told him that the gasp had not gone unnoticed, and then he gagged as a tube was forced none too gently up his nose and down his throat, into his stomach. He stiffened as he felt the urinary catheter being inserted, and tried to breathe through the pain. He forced himself to stay relaxed, as he knew the damage that could be done if he didn't. He grew lightheaded and lost track of his surroundings as needles pierced the skin of his arms and legs.

Eliot came back to himself to find that he was secured to a cold, metal bench. He suppressed a shiver, determined not to let them know that anything they were doing was having an effect on him, though he wasn't sure he could keep that particular secret for long. He was radiating heat and his head felt strange. He couldn't quite focus. Suddenly, he felt a blast of freezing water hit him as someone sprayed him down.

(0o0)

Over the comms, Hardison heard the metal door slam and his heart sank. Something had gone horribly wrong.

"Um, y'all, I think we have a problem."

"We're aware, Hardison. Stand by," Sophie said.

A moment later, Nate's voice sounded over the comms, telling them all to meet him outside. They needed to re-group. There would need to be some changes to the plan.