Notes: This chapter really really wanted to be a training montage. I still think it's feelings are a little hurt about the fact it couldn't be. Also the formatting hates me as usual. I've decided not to be OCD about it anymore. Sorry sportsfans.

Cell Number Eight

Eliot said he'd bust them both out, but it didn't take Nate long to realize things wouldn't be as easy as Eliot had made it sound. For one, as much as Eliot was moving around and acting for all the world like Nate was the one who'd taken the worst of the beatings, Nate knew he was just good at coping. Every so often Eliot would move too fast or turn a little to much and pain would flare across his face before he breathed through it and went on like nothing had happened. It hurt a little to watch.

Secondly Nate quickly realized when Eliot had mentioned lessons he'd meant it.

The words were barely out of Eliot's mouth before he was putting away the chess board and sorting through the larger of the stones they used for pieces. Before Nate could ask him what he was doing Eliot scratched one along the stone of the floor producing a nail's on chalkboard sound. He put it back in the pile, testing two more before one produced a light gray line on the darker gray stone. "Perfect."

Eliot scooted back into his corner, resting his back against the cool stone wall while moving the stone to write on the wall to his right. After testing the stone again, licking his thumb and smudging out the line he nodded. "Like lists." He said, writing a one on the wall. "lists and numbers, habits and protocols. They can getcha killed if you rely too much on 'em but they'll keep you alive if you use 'em right."

Nate nodded, despite being a little surprised to hear this coming from a thief. "So what's the first list?"

Eliot was stretching out, listing twenty-tree numbers on the wall. "I escaped Nishka's prisons not a month ago Nate. It took me twenty two tries before I got out on the twenty-third. Every time I failed I made sure I learned somthin' from it." He started adding to the number one. "'m not a teacher like you Nate but I figure if you know 'em then that's twenty three beatings you won't be takin' somewhere down the line."

Nate nodded, wincing at the idea but paying attention to Eliot as he wrote on the wall.

"You already saw what happens when you try to escape in front of a guard. Bad idea no matter how good ya are in a fight. Guards have guns. You don't. It's not a rule 'cause I already knew it but you don't mess with guns. Not with people who have 'em, not when you have one. It's askin' for trouble."

Nate winced, he'd never been shot but he'd always been uncomfortable with the idea he might someday. "You really don't like guns do you?"

"Get shot a couple of times and you won't like 'em either." He said with a grim smile. "The next couple are about picking locks.

1. Avoid direct confrontations with guards..

Nate grinned a little at rule number two. "Necessity is the mother of invention?"

"Desperation more like." Eliot said, letting out a long breath, his mind slipping back weeks.

That afternoon Nishka had been excited about a new torture device. He had Eliot on the rack and was driving the little silver and wooden spines into his skin. It wasn't bad, as Nishka's torment usually went. They were only five inches long and thiner than a pencil and only stuck in just enough to hold. It wasn't until Nishka brought over a candle and started lighting the ends, the poison on the tips reacting to the heat to send burning pain flowing through his veins.

Eliot lost track of time, tune out and signed off for awhile. He almost missed when one of the assistants knocked over a tray of the little spines.

When they were finished with him, releasing the straps holding him, Eliot dropped to the floor trying to pull himself back together. He had only a few moments but it was enough to act. A few spines were still scattered onto the floor. For a modern lock they wouldn't work but the clunky old fashioned shackles Nishka was using? It might just work.

He'd spent four days trying to figure out some way to get the cuffs off and now Nishka gave it to him. Irony.

He'd never forget though.

Eliot shook off the reverie, nodding to Nate. "Though you should also pay the third rule mind."

"Okay, What's next?"

Eliot rolled his shoulders and winced. "Reconosance, but first I need ta be a little more mobile and it needs to be a little later." He put down his chalk and started setting the chess board back up.

2. A lot of things can be used to pick locks.
3. Picking a lock fast is not a substitute for picking it quietly..

"Wait what?" Nate asked after their meal was delivered. "You're not serious."

"I'm going out there." Eliot said again. "To take a look around, get a lay of the land. The guards are gone, they won't be back for a couple of hours."

"Wh…how?"

"Theres nothng worse than running blind. The guards know this place, we don't. They already have too many advantages."

"You're going to get caught."

"Sneak" Eliot said holding up one finger before adding a second. "Don't stop moving. I only ever got caught for being careless twice. I know how to get out and back safely. I'll be back before you know it. Scouts honor." He gave something marginally close to a salute.

"wrong hand." Nate said tiredly. "How will you get out?"

"I snatched a key off a guard when we were tusslin' yesterday.

"You have a key?"

Eliot sighed and wrote next to number seven. "I'll be back in a bit."

4. Learn the guards shifts and the layout.
5. Sneak
6. Don't stop moving.
7. A key does not solve everything.

Eliot crept out the cell and down the hall. He'd time it so he was making this little expadition at night, after sunset but before it got late when most of the guards would have plenty of reasons to be elsewhere.

He ghosted down the hall, a shadow on dirty stone walls. A year ago he probably would have laughed if you told him the childhood of sneaking around to avoid That Man's attention would develop into this.

He kept his right side against the right wall, using it to keep from getting lost in the dim passageways. All he would have to do to find his way back to the cell was turn around and keep his left side to the same wall until he reached the little cell marked "8". It was something he'd read in a book to Joey when they were younger, called walking Widershins or something like that.

He ignored the bittersweet train of thought and focused on his surroundings.

He'd managed to get a feeling of what seemed to be most of the dungeons when something seemed to change. He couldn't put his finger on it but calm collected searching was beginning to turn a tad paranoid without obvious cause. It was… well he reminded himself of rule ten. Just because he didn't see guards didn't mean they didn't see him. Even if they couldn't see him he had a feeling things were about to go badly.

He didn't wait or question that. He turned around, calculated where he was in the map he'd been building in his head, set a route and returned to the cell as quickly as he could.

He would never find out if there had been anything out there to run from but he'd later tell Nate there was a reason rule eleven was trusting your gut.

8. Walk widershins.
9. Don't entertain revenge. Getting out is the priority.
10. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they don't see you.
11. Trust your gutt instincts.

Eliot ghosted down the hallway, exploring farther afield, getting a better idea of what was really going on.

What was really going on? Something wasn't right.

Why was he in Nishka's dungeons all of a sudden?

Voices up ahead. Eliot pressed himself into a shallow cranny. He had nowhere to hide and they were coming toward him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Fat Red and the Guy with serious BO. They were a pair of guards who'd argue so much it was a wonder Nishka didn't have them killed for being sloppy. They wouldn't of noticed him if he was standing in the middle of the hallway.

But just as they were passing his hiding place something happened. Eliot's mind was fuzzy about what, skipping over it and to the surprised face before they raised the alarm.

Suddenly guards were everywhere and Nishka was irate rather than disturbingly cheerful and he'd being dragged back to that room. Pull and stretched out onto the table, tied down so tight he couldn't even move Eliot closed his eyes and prepared himself.

What had he done? Just bad luck?

Why was it always bad luck.

Why was he back here?

Sparking alligator clips touched his chest and conscious thought flew out the window.

He jolted awake to find Nate shaking his shoulder. "You okay?" He asked.

Eliot nodded, shrugging away that look Nate was giving him. He was fine. Why did Nate look so worried? He didn't need to be. "I just got unlucky. It happens sometimes."

12. Annoyed guards are sloppy. Frightened guards are paranoid.
13. Sometimes you're just unlucky.

"It's almost time for dinner." Eliot said near the end of the next day. They'd spent most of it swapping lessons and stories. Neither spoke it out loud but they shared an understanding that Eliot needed to be in better health before they made an escape attempt. He could ghost down the hallways of the dungeon but the first attempt would be their best shot and he needed more than a couple of days to recover before he could make the best of it.

They weren't wasted days though. Eliot was giving Nate a crash course in more than just basic rules of escape and promised lessons in combat in a couple of days.

"What?" Nate asked, seemingly taken by surprise by the sudden change in topic.

"The guards should be comin' soon." Eliot said again beckoning Nate over to the cell door. "I got out of Nishka's partially thanks to something I heard the guards talking about. They were slipping out ta go into town."

"You want me to listen to what they're saying?"

Eliot nodded and they sat together by the door. "You escape out of back doors an'guards always know where they are. If ya can't hear them talk about one find a kitchen. Food means trash and some way ta get rid of it."

"I hear them coming" Nate said and they both fell silent.

14. Security measures change
15. Find a back door.
16. Listen
17. Smell

Careful, careful, Eliot told himself as he creaked open a door to the stairwell. He'd gotten the keycode and gotten past a couple of guards and he could almost taste the sun.

Bllreee blreee blreee

The alarm screeched in his ears, reaching higher and higher into a fever pitch. His heart pounded louder in his chest. They knew he'd escaped.

Guards came at him out of nowhere, leaving him no room to run and nowhere to hide. He fought back, hard. The first few who came at him didn't stand a chance but they got organized.

A stun gun's taser hit him in the back, taking him down but the guards closed in. He was humiliating them, infuriating them by edging closer and closer to escape even as they recaptured him.

A booted foot found his stomach, and another.

Fists and boots and whips decended, taunting him to get up and run even as his body was still trying to recover from the electro shock.

Blows rolled together until he could do little more than scream.

18. Alarms mean the game is up but you don't have to go quietly.

Nate lay awake late the third night after Eliot was beaten, waiting. He didn't admit what he was waiting for. Though the fact that Eliot had gone from sleeping soundly to barely being able to get a few hours of rest without nightmares may have had something to do with it.

So he was waiting, staring into the darkness of the cell and thinking about the latest four rules Eliot had shared. Guards carrying useful things to steal was relatively obvious though it might have no immediately occurred to him. Given adrenalin maybe it wouldn't ever had. Disguises weren't a question for a conman and he knew from first hand experience that crazy schemes works with unlikely regularity.

Though Eliot's story of how he broke out by walking through the guards barracks in the middle of the day was more than a little impressive.

Rule twenty-one?

It was the only rule he hadn't really elaborated on more than to say it was a reminder, that he'd learned it and relearned it. He admitted it was a little to pad the numbers out in his head.

Though Nate wondered just a little if there was a story behind it.

He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Eliot said that tomorrow they'd start making final plans for getting out of here. By Nate's count he'd been in here for ten days.

He was ready to get home.

There was movement on the far side of the cell. Eliot was having another nightmare.

Before they got out of here Nate needed to get Elliot to talk. He had a feeling Elliot hadn't dealt with what had happened to him at Nishka's hands so much as buried it. The beating he'd taken seemed to have brought it back up and Nate didn't want Eliot to leave here as shaken as he'd been when he arrived.

"Eliot…" Nate said softly, crossing over to the younger man.

19. Guards carry useful things
20. A disguise only works if you act the part.
21. Do what you have to to survive.
22. Sometimes it is crazy enough to work

Something shifted, something changed. Someone was there.

Hands undid the cuffs holding him to the table. A bright light washed clean the room and when he opened his eyes and saw again he was standing outside the compound. He looked up, saw blue skies, felt the sun on his face for the first time in three months.

And he remembered that little peace little moments. Like when he was small and he'd run just to feel the wind in his hair and the sun on his face and feel alive.

He felt alive again.

A hand slipped into his own and he heard two voices say together what he'd told himself not to many weeks ago. "Feel the sun on your face but keep moving…"

After a moment Eliot stilled beneath Nate's hand. He muttered something and Nate leaned close to try to catch what was being said.

"…Keep moving. Nate's not home yet."

23. Feel the sun on your skin, but keep moving. You're not home yet.