Within the month what passed for normal at Leverage started to return. Nate, Sophie and even Hardison found jobs for the team, and ways to manage them without having an active hitter on the team. There had been a few small skirmishes getting out of spots, but Eliot had long ago given them enough of basic training to get them through. Through it all, Eliot was becoming fairly adept at the research end of things, and Hardison had set up a voice recognition program for him so that a minimal amount of typing was needed. His hands were healing, and while he could move his fingers, there was no real feeling there. He'd burned a couple on a frying pan last week, not registering the heat until it was too late, but it wasn't bad enough that the team had noticed. And he was back to coaching them whenever there was time in the small workout gym they had built down the hall from the office. Sophie really didn't care for the sessions, but it was one of the few times Eliot seemed to relax, and they could see a little of the Hitter's personality coming through. It was the only time Parker called him Sparky anymore. What wasn't normal was the quiet; the bantering, the bickering had been missing. He hadn't talked to them about what happened, not that they were really expecting him to. But he hadn't really talked too much with them at all since his outburst that first day. He had begged off on dinner most every night, claiming fatigue and lack of appetite. They knew that part to be true; he wasn't sleeping or eating well. Cooking, yes. Eating, no. So when Eliot announced that he was ready to get out of the office and go back home again, they were torn between the desire to respect his choices and their ongoing concern for his welfare. "Stay until Friday" Nate suggested. "We'll help you get resettled on the weekend."

"Sure. See you in the morning".

Parker sprang up in front of him. "Can you talk me through that flip again tomorrow? I can't nail the landing after I toss someone over my shoulder."

"That's because YOU aren't supposed to be landing. Your feet stay on the floor, the other guy goes flying."

"But it's more fun if I fly too! Watch!"

Parker leapt from her spot to the table, then over to the counter. What she hadn't prepared herself for was the still damp surface from cleaning up, and she slid from the counter to the floor with a curse and a sharp cry as she hit her elbow. None of them were prepared for Eliot's response.

He charged to her shouting her name. "Parker no – NO, are you OK, what did he do, what happened. Talk to me" He was trying to pick her up and couldn't. Hyperventilating, he began to gasp for breath and fell back. Nate and Hardison grabbed him and Sophie firmly to his face in her hands.

"Eliot relax, She's Fine Eliot. Breathe, Slow down, Just breathe." Without taking her eyes of him she spoke to Parker. "Can you get up? Come here, I can't get through to him. He needs to see you."

Parker stepped in front of Sophie. "Hey Sparky – I'm OK. Just a little bump. No big deal. I'm fine. Really. See, just look at me."

Eliot's eyes slowly came back into focus, and they could feel his muscles start to relax as they lowered him to the floor. He leaned against the counter. "I thought – I was sure –". He was still short of breath.

"I thought he was hurting you again. I had to stop him. It was so damn real." He stopped, unable to put anything else together.

"Torello. You thought Torello had her." Eliot looked away, unable to meet Nate's eye. "He told you he had her. " Nate could see the Eliot sinking further into himself, and knew there was more. "Wait - you thought he had US – all of us. Oh God, you thought he was doing to us what he had done… Why?"

Eliot swallowed hard a couple of times, trying to get enough saliva back in his mouth so he could speak, but he still couldn't get himself back under control. Nate handed him a glass of water, but most of is sloshed out because of the shaking. He quickly took the glass back, afraid Eliot's inability to control himself would result in his crushing it and Hardison handed him a water bottle instead. Eliot managed to swallow some, and was getting his breath back. Without looking directly at any of them, but keeping Parker in his line of sight, he started talking.

"I saw things in his office – things I thought he got from you. I was far enough gone at that point I didn't know he was messing with me. The only thing I could think was he had you – all of you. I figured you had tried to find me and…and he had you. And when I couldn't provide him with enough – entertainment – for the day, he went after you. I could hear your voices, your screams. I could hear everything and couldn't…I knew I'd failed all of you. I'm so sorry." They could barely hear him his voice had dropped so low. "I let you all.."

"You didn't let anyone down." Sophie ached for the pain the young man was in, tears quietly streaming down her cheeks. "Eliot, please don't do this to yourself. None of this is your fault. He never touched any of us. He never will."

"Quinn shouldn't 'ave killed him. That was our right" Hardison's voice was harder than any of them had ever heard. "He deserved everything he did put back on him. I wanted to hurt him. Still do. I need to hurt –"

"NO" Eliot pulled himself to his feet and grabbed onto Hardison's arms. "Don't even think about finishing that thought. Don't ever go there. You are so much better than that – better than him. Better than me. You don't go down that road, because you will not survive the trip." He reached a hand behind Hardison's neck and pulled him close. "You're better than that."

He turned to the others. "You can't ever think you could do that to someone. Don't imagine it, don't plot it, don't think it. You aren't like him – like me".

"Like you? Seriously Eliot, you cannot be putting yourself in with him?" Sophie shook her head. He started to answer her with things he didn't want to say when he saw Parker, staring at him. He could feel her eyes drilling into him. He was scaring her. Scaring Parker. You had to be pretty far of the charts to scare Parker. He had to calm down. "No Parker." He looked her in the eyes. "The worst…my worst moment. It wasn't like this. Please don't be afraid of me. I can't handle your being afraid of me. Sophie's right. I'm not Torello. At my worst – I wasn't him."

"Do you really think you need to tell us that? Oh Sparky! We KNOW that. Do you?" She hugged him until he thought his ribs would crack, and he didn't care.

Nate knew Eliot had to finish this story, for his own good. If they didn't keep him talking, he would shut down again, and getting the young man to open up a second time was not guaranteed. "If you thought he had us, why did you escape?

"I wasn't leaving you. I wouldn't have done that. You know I wouldn't have done that don't you?" The panic was still underlying in the young man's voice.

"Slow down Eliot – Breath."

"One of his guys screwed up. I heard him say something about the recorded voices. Digital loops or something. It all sounded very – Hardison. It took a while to process it, but it finally sunk in. They were faking me out. Gaslighting me. Sucks to be on the other end of that. But I knew I had to find you guys to be sure. I had to be sure. So I did the only thing I could think of. I died."

" 'Cuse me?" Hardison gasped.

"I knew they'd dump my body, along with anything linked to me. And that they probably hadn't looked for a spare earbud in the lining of the jacket. Not the brightest bunch. Lots of brawn – no brains. So I let myself die."

"Again – Excuse me?"

"Let him talk Hardison." Nate had noticed the narrative seemed to be calming Eliot down, as if purging him of some of the poison.

"There are ways of meditating, calming yourself to a point where anyone checking would not find the pulse, especially on somebody as busted up as I was."

"And slowing down your heart – as busted up as you were?" Sophie asked.

"Calculated risk."

"Yeah – I don't think I want to see those calculations."

Nate was pretty sure he knew the answer to his next question, but had to ask it anyway, for Eliot's sake. "So if you could do that, why didn't you do it earlier?"

"Like I said –calculated risk." Eliot knew what Nate wanted him to admit.

"Saving your own life wasn't sufficient motivation. You had to stay when you thought we were there, and then make sure we were safe. So you were will to let yourself basically die to protect us."

Eliot was pretty sure his standard "It's what I do" wouldn't go over well as a response here.

"Worked didn't it? They dumped me – you found me. All good."

Nate rubbed at his temples to try to ward of the tension headache that was quickly developing. "Seriously Eliot – 'all good'? What part of this was good? What part of this makes any sense to a rational human being? Why do you keep thinking that your death would be an acceptable loss?"

"Nate – it worked. And as a small bonus, I got to piss Torello off. He was very disappointed his fun was cut short. I really thought for a minute he was going to put a bullet in my head for sheer spite." He looked up at Sophie's gasp on that line. "Sorry – should have kept that to myself."

"No Eliot – you shouldn't be keeping any of this to yourself. When are you going to learn to talk to us? Why would you keep all of this trapped inside?"

He tried to frame his answer in a way she might understand, without freaking her out. "Do you remember what I told you at the gym in Nebraska? It's all about control. In here" – he tapped his chest as he had that day 4 years earlier, and then tapped his head "but I now get it's here too. And if I can't control what I am, I'm no good to anyone."

"What you are? So you still think you're just our Hitter- our muscle?" She shook her head, disappointed.

"I told you darlin'. It's who I am." He couldn't stop himself this time. "It's what I do." He cut them off before they could respond. "-but I'm working on it. That's the best I can offer right now."

Nate watched him for a moment, trying to decide if he meant that last part. "We'll take it – for now. Go get some sleep."

They watched him walk down the hall to his room. Sophie spoke quietly – "How do we get through to him?"

Eliot walked slowly toward his room. He brushed off their help, and they let him, knowing he needed to prove to himself, if not to them, that he could make it on his own. He was still shaking from the revelations and memories. He knew they could see it too, but as long as he could keep some control, they seemed willing to overlook it. He hurt from the physicality of the night, but it felt good. It felt, which was a step in the right direction was. Grabbing onto Parker, and then Hardison, his fingers hurt - ached actually. They were numb again now, but for a few moments he had started to feel hope. Maybe tomorrow could include a bit of time with the punching bag, if he could just be alone in there for a change.