A/N: One chapter today and the next tomorrow.

(I just like torturing you guys with cliffhangers, but I'll only make you wait one day for this one.)

Chapter Eleven

Since Flores ran to the window, Nate dove to the floor. "Parker?" He didn't want to shake her shoulder because of the earlier taser incident, and he was afraid to lift her up because of the fresh injury. She was breathing regularly. "Parker, can you hear me?" Nate patted her cheeks. "Come on, wake up." She groaned at him. "Come on, say something."

Her eyes popped open. "That's the second time he's done that."

"To be fair, it's the second time you attacked him."

"That's true." She struggled to get up, and she let Nate help her get to a sitting position, propped against the heavy desk. "Ah! I am so sore." She clutched her middle and looked around. "Where's Eliot?"

Nate ran a hand through his hair. "He jumped out the window."

"He what?!"

Flores called out, "He used your rappelling equipment."

"But it's not set up for him—"

"No, he didn't use it like that. He scaled the wall."

"He scaled the wall?" Nate repeated.

"He's on the roof."

Nate sat back on his haunches and held his face in his hands.

Parker shook her head. "It's all my fault. I had him. I was getting through to him. I mentioned Mr. Bunny."

"When did you give it to him?"

"At that school when he was down there with those homeless people, and they were playing really loud music and made them freeze." She wrapped her hands around her middle again.

Nate nodded. "He remembered it, chalked it up to a dream, and then you confirmed it was reality."

"He looked so scared. Didn't he look so scared? It's all my fault."

Flores went to the door and shoved the cabinet aside.

Nate put a hand on Parker's good shoulder. "No, Parker. We all screwed this up."

"All of us except Hardison." She pulled another com from her pocket.

Nate chuckled softly. "He's been the most reasonable one of us in all this."

Sophie and half a dozen guards poured into the room.

"Where's Hardison?" Nate demanded.

Sophie bent down next to Parker. "He went up to the roof."

"He what?" Nate jumped to his feet.

Parker climbed up, too, leaning heavily on Sophie. "So much for reasonable behavior."

xxxxx

Ignoring the pain, Eliot scrambled over the ledge and collapsed on the roof. He had to get out of there. First, he had to rest for a minute and get his bearings. He took a couple of deep breaths, straining his ribcage. It hurt.

He was definitely cracking up. Or…someone out there, some group, was setting him up to make him believe he was losing his mind. That seemed more likely. He just had to think clearly, let the dizziness fade and pull himself together.

His mission was completed, as well as could be expected, anyway. Flores was warned, he should stay on guard. He might live.

But what of Eliot? He had nowhere to go that Moreau wouldn't eventually find.

Eliot realized he'd been close to passing out when he heard a door. He struggled to his feet, holding the taser in front of him. He grabbed at his pant leg and reached inside his boot for a knife.

He was armed and ready.

Eliot squinted in the dark. The lights of the city were just enough for him to make out a shape across the roof. It was a man, skinny and on edge. Eliot's eyes adjusted quickly, and he watched the man jump when the door shut behind him. Then he turned around and scanned the roof. When he saw Eliot, he froze. He literally stopped moving, he even stopped breathing.

And then it all came flooding back.

Hardison.

In the blink of an eye, Eliot was covered in snow gear and it was cold. Hardison pulled him into a hug. Another blink and he was storming out of a hotel in Dubai and all of the sudden, Hardison was there, and Eliot grabbed him and pulled him into a hug. And then Eliot was in a cemetery, his heart pounding in his chest, faster than his fists were flying. He was fighting someone, but he didn't care, he had to get to Hardison. Eliot flew over the grave and wrenched open the coffin. He pulled Hardison out. Hardison held Eliot so tightly, and Eliot—so used to protecting them, so focused on making sure they were safe—didn't know what to do. So he squeezed back. He let Hardison know he was there for him, he was alive. Maybe he even squeezed back because he was so afraid Hardison would be dead when he opened that coffin.

Eliot blinked again. Of course he'd be dead in a coffin. That's what coffins were for. Did he just stand on the roof and have a dream of bringing someone back from the dead?

"Eliot?" Hardison's voice was soft, light and scared.

"Hardison."

"Oh man, you remember me. I knew you would!"

"Of course I remember you. You're not dead."

Hardison stared at him. "Uh, nope. Not dead."

"You were. You were dead. You were in a coffin."

Hardison's face tightened. "Oh man, seriously? That's what you remember? Come on, now, that's just wrong. You need to forget that like I try to every day. You just lock that one up," he mimed tossing something in the air, "and throw away the key."

"You were dead."

Hardison's voice was getting soft again. "No, no, that's not technically true."

"You were in that coffin."

"I didn't belong there."

Eliot had been so worried. What if they'd gotten there too late? What if Hardison wasn't around anymore? What if Hardison didn't need him anymore? Eliot felt he belonged, he felt like he protected a lot of people, but he only remembered protecting Hardison, the cop. Eliot was overcome by a flood of emotions to match the images pouring into his brain.

Flores said he was ragged and needed to trust somebody, and if there was one thing he knew that transcended any doubt, it was that Hardison could be trusted. Even with his life.

Eliot sprinted across the roof and reached out for help. Hardison backed away, and when Eliot threw his arms around him, he screamed and slammed his back into the door. Eliot embraced him, letting go of all the confusion, the worry and the fear. Eliot held him tight. This was what brothers were for.

"Ah! Eliot! Eliot!" Hardison breathed hard and started muttering to himself. "No, no, he's hugging me. The man came at me with a taser in one hand, a knife in the other, and he's hugging me." Hardison tried to push him back. "Eliot, Eliot, it's okay. Take it easy."

They stumbled back a few feet.

"I remember you," Eliot said lightly.

"That's great, really, oh my God I think I'm going to pass out."

Hardison. A cop who loved computers and drank orange soda. Wait…Eliot's eyes snapped open. Computers. He tried to fish with a computer. He'd lost their prisoner from the back of the squad car. Hardison had arrested him and banged Eliot's head in the police car, and then told him to walk it off. Eliot flashed back to the treacherous mountain. Hardison was hugging him, and Eliot pushed him away. Then he was at the hotel again, he was dazed when he'd embraced Hardison. Eliot had been drugged!

He clutched Hardison, holding him in place. There were so many memories, but one came in clearer than any of the others. Eliot froze, his arms still wrapped around him. "You ate my sandwich," he growled.

"Okay, help! Guys, I need help! He's remembering things wrong—eck! Eliot…I can't…brea…"

The door split in two, and everyone and their mother seemed to spill onto the roof. Eliot pulled Hardison back.

"Get him off me!"

"Eliot, let go of Hardison." It was the general, the bad one. Ford. Only that wasn't his name.

Eliot held onto Hardison.

"I didn't eat your sandwich, man."

Ford turned to the blonde. "Parker." He took something out of his ear.

"No!" Hardison's eyes got wide, and Eliot turned their bodies sideways.

The blonde walked up to him with a taser. "Don't do it," Eliot growled. "I've got a tight hold on him. He'll get it, too."

The blonde shrugged and seemed to take great joy in zapping him. Eliot was no longer in control of his muscles, and he convulsed and went down. Hardison went limp in Eliot's hands, and he couldn't hold onto him anymore. Hardison fell on top of him. Eliot cried out as his breath was forced from his lungs, and his vision went gray.