Moreau stared sadly at the empty space next to him. Once again, Eliot did not sleep in their room.

They had gotten home four days ago and the hitter wasn't still talking to him. Eliot followed him everywhere, as he always did, but he never said anything he would only nod or shake his head. At night, he would come (if he actually came) when he was already sleeping and would be gone by the time he woke up. He wasn't cooking, either, at least not for him. He and Chapman also seemed to be more vicious than usual, bickering and discussing all the time; on the other hand, he seemed to spend an awful lot of time with Dayan.

Like right now, he could hear, rather than see, them on the patio, fighting with what sounded like kendo swords. He didn't know why, but that made him so angry. Correction, he did know why, he just didn't want to admit it.

Sighing, he stood up and went to the bathroom, took a quick shower and then padded to the kitchen where he saw one of the last persons he wanted to see: Sandra was there, her elbows on the table, her fingers linked and her chin resting on them. Her eyes, dark brown, were cold as ice.

"You said you wouldn't hurt him." She simply said, and that, just that, made Damien feel even more guilty. He had been expecting it.

What he did not expect, though, was the hand that pushed him to sit down on a chair. No one, absolutely no one, ever dared to touch him without his permission. Besides Eliot, of course. But he knew it wasn't Eliot the one behind him, so he wasn't that surprised when Mikel rounded the table and sat next to Sandra.

"Why would you make Eliot believe he is not that important to you any more if you are so in love with him?" The hitter asked. "Why would you make Eliot believe that what you had was nothing more than past?"

-Flashback-

Mikel knocked on the door and waited. On a normal day she would have just come in to play some chess, discuss about some heist, some weapon, compare scars… just like she did with Quinn (after they had worked some problems of their own out, that is) but she wasn't there to discuss any of those things nor play chess. Not even close. Besides, that was the kitchen, Eliot's kitchen, and after the last time, when he threw her a knife because she came in without knocking first she always did knock. She was fully capable of dodge it, but precautions were never bad.

She heard the bare feet steps and then the door opened. Eliot didn't even try to put a mask on: he looked extremely haggard and tired.

"Wow. You look like shit." She said and the male only snorted as he moved to the side to let her in. She sat on the table, crossing her legs as Eliot went behind the counter and started to dice some onions. "So?"

"So what?"

"You perfectly know that Chapman and I know what happened over there, so what did exactly happen?"

Spencer sighed deeply before stabbing the knife on the cutting board. "It's complicated." He only said.

"Eliot, in our line of work, any kind of relationship is complicated." She pointed out.

"Why do you even care?"

Dayan shrugged and although an outsider would have only seen that, a shrug, Eliot knew better. "Maybe you don't, but I do consider you a friend. Therefore, I worry. Besides, if he gets killed because you weren't there to protect him, I have no job." She pointed out. "Now, tell me what the hell happened."

Reluctantly Eliot reduced the heat of the stove down and sat next to her, only that on a chair. "We were lovers." He said and Mikel nodded. "I was supposed to kill General Flores but… I knew him from before and I couldn't bring myself to do it. He kicked me out; I didn't even try to come back. Then I met Ford and the others, worked with them, you know that. Then Ford got himself arrested, I retrieved him out of jail and then a Italian chick appears and say that if we didn't take Damien down she would send Ford back to prison forever. I didn't tell that I worked for Damien them until we actually saw him face to face. We took him down, put him in jail and next thing I know I'm getting kicked out of the team."

"What? Why?" She asked, surprised. She never really believed that Eliot had walked away, but she didn't expected that either. She had seen how Eliot loved them; it just didn't make sense.

"Because I'm bisexual. They thought it was disgusting and when I said I was going to no therapy they said I couldn't work with them anymore. Besides…"

"Besides Parker." She completed and Eliot nodded. "How is that even related to what happened, though?"

"Well, seems to be that for Damien I'm nothing more than an employee he can fuck whenever he wants to." He replied dryly before standing up and going to the stove to stir whatever he was cooking.

Mikel frowned at that last sentence: it was obvious that Eliot meant so much more to Moreau, but they both seemed completely unable to talk about their feelings like the two grownup men they were supposed to be. Instead, they fought and hurt each other without any real reason.

"Why don't you talk to him?" She suggested.

"Talk? With Damien? Last time we 'talked' the house ended up looking as if a tornado passed by." He growled and then rubbed his temple.

"You see what you do." She said before leaning in and kissing him, nipping at his lips, and he responded the gesture. "But if you ever want to talk about it, just know I'll always be around." The female hitter abandoned the kitchen, leaving him alone.

-End flashback-

Damien did not know what to reply the hitter. She was right; he did make Eliot believe he was nothing more than another employee, even if he didn't want to.

"It's complicated." Mikel rolled her eyes at that: those two were definitely alike.

"That's no excuse." Sandra said, standing up and leaning across the table. "Have you seen him lately, Mr. Moreau?" The way she said his name was plain mockery.

"I have." He replied coldly.

"Then you must have noticed that he sleeps even less than usual. He is not exactly eating, either." She said.

"And what do you me to do, Signorina?" He asked, standing up and pouring himself a mug of coffee.

"Talk to him, sir. Apologise to him." She said, and now her voice had a pleading tone.

"And do you really think he will listen to me?" He countered and Mikel could hear an edge of sadness and tiredness in his voice.

-Flashback-

"Ellie?" Sandra opened the door to the gym, where Eliot was doing his morning katas.

"Hey Sandra. What's up?" He asked as he stopped and moved to one side so she could join him.

"What is up with you?" She asked back as she joined him.

"Nothing." He replied.

"C'mon Ellie. Can't fool me. You trained me." She remembered him and Eliot huffed. "Since you came back you are… sad."

"I'm not sad."

"Of course you are. You are just like that time when…" She suddenly stopped and she looked ready to kill. "He did it again, didn't he? He hurt you again! After he promised…" She trailed off.

"After he promised… what?" The hitter asked but Sandra shook her head. "Sandra…"

"It's nothing important, I swear. Anyway, what happened?" She said as she sat down and patted the floor so her protector would sit next to her.

And Eliot did sit next to her, rubbing his face. "We went to Madrid, had a meeting with this French guy and he said… I was a whore."

"Ellie you are not…"

"That's not it. Thing is Damien didn't let me say anything. When I asked him about it he said I was just another employee. A fucking employee. Should have seen it coming. Should have known a long time ago that what we had back then was never going to come back." She hugged him tightly, knowing that even he always said he didn't need affection, he so needed. More than any other men she had ever known. Even more than her deceased brother. "But… lately he had been so nice to me. He would touch me, at night he would let me sleep in his arms and in San Lorenzo he even kissed me!" He said and Sandra almost growled in a way that would have made Eliot proud.

"He kissed you." She stated and Eliot nodded. "Why?" He shrugged, not wanting to tell his protégé about what he had done in San Lorenzo. "Have you talked with him? You know, about this."

"About what? About he being a bastard? No. I have not. And if I can, I'm not going to talk to him unless it's really necessary." He huffed as he pushed away.

"Why not?" She questioned.

"I'm not going to make the first move. Not again." He said as he stood up and went to grab a towel.

"If you really cared about him, you would. He is also having a hard time, you could tell from his look." She said, not believing that it was she who was defending Moreau. She then kissed his cheek and left, leaving the hitter to stew in his own juices.

-End flashback-

"He will." Sandra replied, her eyes glued to Moreau, who was now staring at the coffee in his mug, as if trying to see something in it.

"Quinn!" Parker yelled and ran to the hitter, who caught her mid-air. Quinn hadn't come by for one day and a half because he said he had something to take care of.

"Hey Parker. What's up?" He asked as he left her on the ground again.

"Have you talked with Eliot lately?" She asked, smiling up at him and he could see the letter poking out of her pocket and shook his head. He did talk with Moreau, though, after Spencer and him ended their brutal fight.

When Chapman said they would be seeing that type of fights for some months, he never expected something like what he heard. He had never heard Eliot lose his cool like that. Never.

"Quinn?" The thief said as she sat down on one of the stools in the bar.

"Yeah?"

"Did El send you?" She asked softly, crushing some pretzels.

He was going to deny it but her eyes, her hopeful eyes, killed him. God, he was softening. "Yeah. How did you know?"

Parker shrugged carelessly. "You didn't want to come the first time we asked you and now you are helping us before you go to your job? Just didn't make sense." She popped one pretzel in her mouth before continuing. "Besides, you are staying at his place." She pointed out, grinning.

Quinn chocked with his beer and almost splattered all over the table. "How do you even know that?"

"I followed you the other day. Eliot taught me to track." She replied as she brought her fingers to her neck and started playing with a sapphire that resembled a water drop.

"He gave you that?" He asked.

"Yeah. He sent it the other day, he said he wanted to thank me for getting something for me." She explained and Quinn nodded.

"You and Hardison still together?"

Parker jolted and blinked, confused. "Hardison and me? We broke up like three months ago. Maybe four. He wasn't the person I loved. He started making fun of Eliot all the time, even if I asked him to stop. So I left him." She shrugged, as if it wasn't such a big deal. "You? Have someone?"

"In our line of work, relationships are not exactly easy, Parker. I could be dead, kidnapped or in jail one day. Besides, most of the time we can't tell what were we doing while being away." Quinn replied.

"So there is someone." Parker said.

"What? I just told you…"

"You told me why you shouldn't be with someone, not if you had someone." She pointed out and the hitter huffed: god, he was really understanding Eliot now.

"There is someone. But I don't think I'll ever tell him."

"Why not?"

"Too risky." He said and shrugged before taking a pretzel and making it roll between his fingers.

Hardison frowned. "What is it?" Sophie asked next to him.

"I don't like it." He replied.

"Don't like what?"

"Parker and Quinn. They are too close. I mean, when was the last time you saw Parker smile like that?" He pointed at the frozen image in the screen, where there was a very smiley thief.

"Parker always smiles." The British said.

"Hardison is right." Nate said as he came in. "Those two are planning something together and I don't like it at all. Hardison, keep an eye on them."

"Parker too?"

"Yeah. Parker too. And bring up everything you have about Eliot." The mastermind said.

"About that… There's something weird."

"Weird? What do you mean weird?" Sophie questioned, frowning.

"There are no records of an Eliot Spencer until he was eighteen. No medical records, no grades, no quarterback called Eliot Spencer… Nothing."

"Maybe it was an alias?" Sophie suggested.

"I don't know. But I've tracked him down, pulled a photograph of him as a kid that Parker had but the facial recognition program didn't pop anything up. It's like he didn't existed." The hacker explained

"Try orphanages."

"He wasn't orphan. He always talked about his sister and nephew. Even about his mom." Sophie pointed out.

"Sophie, after you, who was the best grifter?" Nate asked, facing the screens where all the data Hardison found about Eliot was.

"Eliot." She replied bitterly but, in the end, he was the only one who fooled her and made her believe he was another person.

"Exactly. If he was able to fool one of the best grifters in the world, why couldn't he have lied about his whole life to us? If he has been living as Eliot Spencer for more fifteen years, he knows his personal story upside down, there was no way for us to know that he was not who he was saying he was." He explained.

"So you are saying that Eliot has been living under a fake identity since he appeared in the system? No one can pull this off!" Sophie exclaimed. "Even a professional grifter like me, or Marcus would have slipped at some point!"

"But Eliot had training. Military training. He knew how to get into a story and live it. I bet every single hitter of his category knows how to grift, to live under a face identity." Nate said. "Hardison, orphanages. Sophie, you are going to take another little trip to Europe."

"Where am I going?"

"France." Sophie whooped, her head filled with all the shoes she could buy there.

"What for?"

"Well, Quinn said Moreau was planning something in France. We are going to find out what and catch him there. With his hands in the cookie jar." He finished.

They were going to get Moreau, and now that they had Quinn's help, it was going to be easier. A lot easier.

Just to clarify, Signorina is "Ms." in Italian.

Hope you liked it!