The second day was always the worst. It was just something about being sick or hurt. The first day you were almost numb to it, the adrenaline helped, and the hospital injecting you in the hip with morphine didn't suck. But the second day was usually the bitch. Moving didn't help any. And still that car ride kind of ranked up there with a shot to the balls. You didn't realize just how bad it was gonna hurt until it happened, and then it just floored you. It made the half a dozen little trips from couch to chair to bathroom and back again seem effortless in comparison. And there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it, but suffer through.

Okay he could have asked for an extra dose of percocet before the had left Nate's. If it had been anyone else in his condition he would have offered them one. But it was hard to say with Eliot, he reacted to things like pain and injury in ways the rest of them just didn't. With him there was always a mix of too tough and doing what he had to. If he was bleeding he put in stitches, he cleaned the wounds and wrapped them, he didn't abuse his body but he did push himself past most rational expectations. The pain didn't always matter to him, yes it was s signal that you might be doing something you shouldn't be but he knew his body well enough to be aware of when too much really was too much.

A car ride should not have been too much. It shouldn't have made his head swim and his stomach sick. It shouldn't have made his ribs creak and his chest feel tight and heavy. But in all reality he knew he should have been expecting it. It just was what it was, and it was more activity than his body was ready to handle. It made the idea of just staying in bed for the rest of the day sound like less of a cop out than it normally would. And he had let Parker and Sophie take him to bed without a bit of argument. He knew that if it wasn't for the team, and Parker specifically he'd be in the hospital right now wondering who was out in the hall getting ready to gun him down while he lay helpless in a bed with a nurse taking care of him that was way too busy to worry if he liked his breakfast, had a blanket or had dried blood caked in his hair.

Parker had worried about all those things and more. He woke up and he could tell by the sun coming through the windows that he had been asleep for hours. He knew where he was basically, although he was only now getting a real look at it. The bed was comfortable, queen sized, good cotton sheets, and a certain soft furry blanket that made him smile. He pushed up on his elbows and shifted a bit; gritting his teeth at the ache in his ribs. But he could manage this much. The walls were a very basic eggshell white, the carpet a soft brown, and the curtains were dark red. It was actually a pretty nice room, not too feminine, he was alright with it. He had certainly woken up in worse places. He tried to call for Parker, he knew she'd be close but his voice just croaked and he started to cough harshly which made him feel like his ribs were being reduced to splinters.

Parker would walk in then, hearing him from the living room; she was by his side in a heartbeat. Her hand was on his back and she patted and rubbed gently as he tried to catch his breath.

"Hey, you alright?"

He nodded, yeah he wasn't going to keel over or anything.

"A drink..."

He would have asked nicer but his voice was a rasp. Just another side effect of the medication, dry mouth, felt like he'd been chewing on a soak.

"Oh, yeah sure...hang in there a sec."

Parker dashed to the kitchen and got him a glass of ice water from the dispenser built into the fridge door. She brought it back and held it out to him, keeping her hand under it as he took it in his clumsy and hindered hands and brought it up to his lips. She just figured that his ability to use his hands right now was kind of like wearing oven mitts all the time. Yes you could pick up the glass, but there was also a real good chance you were gonna wear it. But on the other hand she wouldn't treat him like a child that couldn't manage simple tasks on his own.

When it came to nuances Parker really was handling him perfectly.

He took a long drink and then sipped a bit more before he gently pushed it back to her and she set it aside on the night stand.

"Thanks."

He settled back into the pillows and yawned, he actually felt a little better now after the nap, of course in comparison to the car ride just about anything was considered feeling better.

"It's quiet."

"Yeah, I was just watching television...everyone left a few hours ago. They wanted to let us get settled. They don't want you to think they are all hovering."

"Well, I could do without the extra attention."

"I know, I mean...I know you'd rather I wasn't here either."

"No, I wish I didn't need you here. But you just being here...so far it's not so bad."

"Really? I'm not getting on your nerves yet? I'll have to try harder."

She smiled and took a seat on the bed, making sure not to be touching any of the more lividly bruised places on his person as she sat beside him.

"You look better. For a minute there in the car you had me a little nervous."

"I can't believe how that laid me out, y'know? It was just everything at once, too much moving, too much sun, and noise. I should have been expecting it I guess but..." He shrugged his shoulders and turned his head on the pillow to look at her better, with only half a field of vision everything got a little distorted. "Head injuries are just funny like that."

"Yeah just a big old barrel of laughs. I can tell."

"So what were you doing out there alone for the last few hours?"

He felt kind of bad, he knew Parker had to have better things to do but sit there being bored and babysitting him. She was always so active he wouldn't be surprised if he found her setting up a rig and dangling form the ceiling. So the basic simplicity of her answer kind of surprised him.

"I was watching a movie. Cable is included in the rent."

"What movie?"

"Goonies."

"Goonies, you mean the one with the kids and the pirate ship?"

"There's a pirate ship?"

"You've never seen it?"

"Nope, never saw it til now. So there's a pirate ship?"

"I'm not ruining it for you."

"You've seen it?"

"Yeah one of my favorites, it's a great movie."

"I can rewind it if you want to watch with me."

"Yeah...uhm, if it's not too much trouble. That'd be cool."

"I'll just make some popcorn and grab some sodas. And we can watch in here."

"Uhm...yeah I guess so."

While she was gone he basically managed to move over. From what he could see the television in the bedroom was in a cabinet on the wall across form the bed so the best place to watch it was right where he was sitting, which meant Parker should sit next to him. It just made sense. So he scooted to the side, a little bit at a time until he figured she'd have plenty of space.

She returned less than five minutes later, a bowl of popcorn covered in real melted butter and salt balanced in one hand and a bottle of grape soda for her, and for Eliot a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. He saw that golden amber liquid and he almost cried.

"You are an angel."

Parker smiled and sat her burden down on the table by the bed and walked over to the television cabinet and opened the doors. There was a decent enough thirty six inch flat screen in there, and she quickly hit the right buttons to bring up the movie she had been watching in the living room onto the set in here.

"I know your not supposed to have this but I figured one beer wouldn't hurt. You not going anywhere and your not taking as much of your pain meds as your supposed to be. Besides your a big strong guy and you can handle your liquor right?"

She also figured a little normal would do him good. He'd been poked and prodded, wrapped up and taped, bandaged and splinted and helped and assisted way too much over the last two days. He needed a break, and this sounded like a good idea to her. She smirked when she realized that he had made room on the bed for her, and she sat the popcorn bowl by his hip and moved to join him on the mattress.

"I'll take this as an invitation."

"Absolutely darling. Hop on up here."

He patted the bed beside him as best he could with the heavy wrap on his hand and managed the closest thing she had seen on his face to a smile since before they had met up on the roof.

"How can I girl refuse?"

"Just lucky I guess."

She opened her soda and his beer and wiggled over on her knees until she was beside him, she'd plant her bottle between her knees and hold his for him until he figured out just how to hold it using his left hand the best he could.

He was content enough with that, Parker was curled up against his side; on top of the blankets and he was resting against the pillows, honestly about as comfortable as he was going to get, he was managing not to drop his drink and she was happily munching the popcorn while the kids on the screen were tying up their older brother and running out to their bikes with a treasure map.

Parker glanced over at Eliot, who seemed about as relaxed as she had ever seen him and realized that he wasn't getting any popcorn, so her eating habits became one for you and two for me, as she just started kind of feeding it to him. It just happened that way. She didn't ask if he wanted any, she didn't make a big deal out of bringing the salty buttery puffs up to his lips, she just fed him the popcorn and maybe because she did it so effortlessly he just found himself eating it and drinking his beer like nothing was really amiss.

Half way through the bowl he just said, "I'm good." and she stopped sharing. Although when his beer was gone he did ask for a drink of her soda, and she obliged by taking the empty bottle form him and passing him her drink which he handed right back.

They enjoyed the movie and Parker laughed like crazy at the end with the pirate ship Eliot had promised her and Sloth and everything. She loved the movie and Eliot, well Eliot loved seeing her smiling and even laughing until she snorted. Funny he had never thought the way she snorted when she laughed was cute until now.

It was crazy but Eliot couldn't remember having a night this good in a long time. Here he was busted and broken, barely able to move form point A to B on his own, one leg propped up in a brace, one hand resting on the pillows just behind Parker's shoulders, the other almost as useless resting on his hip. His ribs ached and his face was a mess; and he was sharing a bed and a bowl of popcorn with a girl that he thought of as mentally disturbed even at the best of times. And he was for the most part content to be right where he was. Sure he'd change some of the particulars, but for the most part he'd been in better shape with different partners and not been this comfortable with them at all.

Sometimes it was just nice to be yourself, even if that self was a battered mess of a hitter, curled up next to the most sociopathic thief you had ever met.