Okay, I promise after this chapter, I'll start focusing more on moving things along, but until then, here's some emotional crap! Haha. Enjoy~ ^_^

Eliot

I watched as her body went limp. I knew Arianna would be back soon, so I picked her up to take her to her room. What I didn't expect was her waking up straight away.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled sleepily. "I told her to go easy, but she didn't mean it."

"So you two are talking now?" I questioned as I set down.

She stood a little shakily and nodded.

"How bad was she?" she asked.

"Not that bad," I lied.

There was no way I wanted to tell her what had actually transpired.

"You're a poor liar," Arianna laughed, but didn't press on. "So where's my breakfast?"

I sighed in exasperation. "You two are going to be the death of me."

She giggled and headed to the kitchen. I was still upset at how much Katheryn had torn into me, but the fact I'd lashed out to such little prodding weighed on me more. I was surprised when the fading girl had actually apologised, right as I was about to do the same. I entered the kitchen and pulled Arianna to me.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled then let her go.

"What was that for?" she asked confusedly.

"For Katheryn," I replied, beginning to make breakfast.

She huffed slightly. "Why does she get to see everything but I can't."

"She's had years to try," I told her. "And trust me, you don't ever want to see that side of me."

I hoped she wouldn't continue, but Ari was always a curious one.

"What happened?" she asked seriously.

"quit being stubborn and just leave it," I scowled.

"No," she snapped. "I want to know. It's still me whether you have Arianna or Katheryn. They are both me and we both get to know everything."

She sat on the bench, arms crossed.

I groaned. "I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because I hurt you," I half yelled.

She winced. She looked at her wrists.

"They ache a little," she said, holding them gingerly out in front of her.

I looked and died a little. There were red marks where I'd grabbed her. I dropped the plate I was holding on the bench beside her and walked out. I heard her scuffle to catch me, but I was already closing the gym door behind me when she caught me.

"You know I can unlock this door," she yelled, banging.

"Not if I lean against it," I shouted back.

What did I do? I let my head fall in my hands and groaned as the door pushed softly against my back. I'd proven Katheryn right. Of course she was right. I was scared, I was scared of her in so many ways, it just didn't make sense. The nudging became more insistent.

"Just go away," I called out.

"But you're upset," she said through the door. "And I want to make it better."

I stood and opened the door. "Don't you understand? I hurt you. I lost my cool and basically attacked you. Aren't you scared I'll do it again?"

My heart felt like I'd been stabbed, and it didn't help when she shook her head. I groaned in frustration dropped back to the floor.

"Why?" she asked. "I just want to know what happened?"

She pushed my head out of my hands, forcing me to look at her. She stared into my eyes so intensely, trying to understand.

"If you do that, bad things will happen," I warned, trying to look away.

"What will you do?" she challenged. "Just tell me already."

"I pinned Katheryn to the bed,"I admitted, finally giving up. "I threatened to hurt you if she pushed me that way again."

"But you wouldn't," she insisted.

I shook my head. "Of course it was a bluff, but I still managed to hurt you."

"I don't get it," she sighed. "You're one of the toughest guys I know. How did Katheryn make you snap?"

"She was calling me a coward, saying that I was scared of you," I mumbled.

I had to admit, I didn't know why I'd let such petty teasing get to me. I looked at her wrists and felt worse.

"You should get some heat on that," I told her. "Before they bruise."

"Why would you be scared of me," she asked, ignoring the off topic comments.

I picked up her hands lightly. "Because of this."

Arianna

I sat there, my hands in his. The marks twinged a little as he rubbed them, as if trying to remove the marks. This had turned out much more than Katheryn had told me. I thought she'd just given him some crap, but from the sounds of it, she went all out on the emotional abuse side. I shivered. I'd have to confront her about it tomorrow when we switched again. It was a bit scary to know that Eliot lost his cool so quickly, and in such a way that he would do the things he was admitting to, but I knew people only acted at extremes when pushed that far. I looked at the top of his head, now buried in his hands again, and reached out to smooth his hair. There was nothing he could do to take back what he'd done, and there was nothing I could do to make him forgive himself. I decided to give him some time alone, and left. Only once I returned to my room did I break. I wondered vaguely why I was so emotional lately as tears streamed down my face. My wrists twinged again and I stared at the marks. I was a logical person, but it didn't stop me feeling scared. Not only of Eliot, but of the fact I was scared of him at all made it even worse. I went and sat in bed for a while, trying to calm down. A knock at the door startled me and I quickly pretended to be asleep. They came in and sat on the bed. After a few silent moments, Eliot spoke.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

Something wet fell on my shoulder and I looked up. He jumped in surprise and quickly tried to wipe the tears away. I tried to stop him and gave him a watery smile. If the toughest guy in the world was crying over hurting me, I couldn't help but forgive him. I sat up as he looked at my swollen wrists.

"I never meant to cause you any harm," he sniffled.

"I know," I replied. "You're too strong for your own good, I guess."

He tried to laugh but it came out more like a cough.

I leaned in and hugged him. No-one had ever shown me as much kindness as Eliot did. He always looked out for me, and just being around him made me happy. I looked up at him and he returned my gaze. I don't know why, but it felt so right, to be there in his arms. I had the sudden urge to lean in and...

There was a knock at the door. I jumped, hoping Eliot hadn't realised what I'd been thinking. I scooted to the edge of the bed and went to the door.

"Are you guys okay?" Parker asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Never better."

"Are you sure? Eliot looked a little mad when he went past us before," she continued, motioning to Hardison behind her. "Well, a lot mad, actually."

"Yeah," I repeated. "It's okay now, he just needed to talk to me."

Parker nodded suspiciously, eyeing off my probably terrible looking eyes.

"Where is Eliot?" Hardison asked.

I knew Eliot wouldn't want to be seen the way he was. "He's just resting his eyes, as he calls it."

I tried to be as light-hearted as possible, and though I knew they didn't buy it, I thanked them internally when they left without pressing the matter.

"Hey, come here," Eliot said, patting the bed.

I went and sat next to him.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, and I nodded.

"I feel better now, knowing how much it really meant to you that this happened," I mumbled.

"you know you're not allowed to tell anyone about this, right?" he warned.

I sighed. "Do you think they'll be willing to go with that?"

He shook his head and groaned. Looking at him as he was, eyes still red, moist and beginning to puff up, he seemed so much more normal than before. Though my head always knew he was, he always put up his strong facade. Seeing him break made me realise that even the strongest people can break.

"Quit staring at me," he warned as I realised I had been.

His forehead was creased in the usual worried look he held, so I tried to smooth it out.

"You'll get wrinkles," I sighed.

He smiled, standing up and bringing me to the mirror where we both looked at our tear-soaked faces.

"You look terrible," he commented.

"You don't look so great yourself," I giggled in reply.

He ran some warm water.

"This will help the marks," he promised. "And maybe where a long sleeved shirt."

Hardison

"I should go check on them again," I said, checking the hallway for what felt like the millionth time.

"Just leave them," Parker urged. "We all need to calm down and give each other some space. Look at what's happened so far."

I hated when she was actually logical.

"But it's like they're avoiding us," I continued much to her displeasure.

"Fine, go check again," she relented.

Just as I jumped up from the couch, I heard the door open. Both Arianna and Eliot emerged, Arianna looking somewhat red around the eyes, but smiling.

"You guys finally show up," I complained. "Have you two worked out your bugs yet or what?"

Eliot shot me a warning glance but Arianna nodded.

"We're okay," she laughed, dropping down where I'd just been sitting. "Hey Parker, I need to practice my lock-picking."

She barely said the word and Parker was off to get her set of locks.

Eliot headed for the kitchen so I decided to follow.

"Hey, I know you wanted space and such," I began.

"We're fine," he stated calmly. "Just a little hiccup, but it's over now."

He made it obvious not to push further, so I didn't. Soon the cook came in to start working for lunch as Eliot was still cooking ours. He picked up three of the four plates and gestured that the one remaining was mine. We went back through to the girls where Parker and Arianna were jumping around, celebrating Arianna's new record time.

"Just in time for celebrations then," Eliot chuckled as he handed each girl their plate and we all sat at the table. I decided now was a good time to tell everyone.

"Guys, we had a new assignment come in," I said. Going into report mode. I don't think Eliot was paying attention as he kept slipping looks at Arianna.

"What happened to your wrists?" Parker asked suddenly and Arianna quickly moved her sleeves back down.

"I put some new bracelets on last night and forgot about them when I fell asleep," she replied. "I knew they'd look bad, so I tried to hide them. Eliot helped me make them feel better though, so it's okay."

Parker grabbed her arms and pulled the sleeves down. She looked at me and then at Arianna.

"You should show me the bracelets later," Parker said slowly.

Arianna nodded and covered up the slight bruise marks again. I continued with my presentation. Our mark was the new, quickly growing empire known as Growth Inc. and their ways of handling "Bad Publicity." Many people had gone missing in the past month, but no-one could connect the dots, not until our client did. However, any evidence she'd found supporting her theories had been harshly discredited without reason, and as the company owner, George Cowrie, always stressed a clean future for everyone, the company seemed to do no wrong. This made it incredibly hard for the information to get out.

"Our client, Becca, has asked that we get the truth out," I finished. "So we're going to need get a little dirt on Growth Inc.'s pristine appearance, irrefutable proof that no-one can ignore."

"I have just the thing," Parker chimed in and I let her take over.

Luckily for me, Arianna seemed to be so engrossed in the presentation, she hadn't realised the slip in her sleeves again. I took a quick look and figured out the reason for Parker's look. They didn't look anything like bracelet marks, unless she had both hands in one bracelet all night.

Arianna

I caught Hardison staring at my bare wrists. I shot him a warning look and he stopped. Yep, we were caught. Considering the marks only appeared on the outsides of my wrist, it was a pretty poor lie to go with. I looked to Elliot, he caught my eye and sighed. He knew the jig was up as well.

"And that's the plan!" Parker finished.

All three of us looked embarrassed, having none of us listened.

"Say it again babe," Hardison said. "I think it's cute the way you explain stuff."

She blushed and started again. This time, we all tried harder to not be distracted by the elephant in the room. When she finished, we all knew our parts. Mine, seeing as I'd been in hospital that week, was to sit, and watch the screen again.

"It sort of sucks," I breathed. "But I know it's best."

Elliot was going to be the infiltrator this time; a developer with new technology he's created that was eco-friendly and cheap to produce. Hardison was behind he scenes with me. It was his job to create two prototypes. One for a working version of the product, and one that didn't work so much. This job seemed fairly straight forward, but if the last job had taught me anything, it's that you never know what will happen when you start a job.

After we were all informed, I wandered into the game room and hooked up the gaming system Hardison had bought. I knew it wasn't long before he sought me out, me making it obvious he should find me to talk. He came in and looked straight at my hands.

"Before you say anything," I snapped. "Everything is okay, and it was an accident."

"How the hell do you get bruises that look like you been held down and say it was an accident?" he accused.

I sighed. "Mistakes were made when I had some issues, and this is what I ended up with. But you gotta believe me, it was never meant to happen."

He looked at me sceptically. "Who grabbed your wrists?"

I considered lying, but telling the truth was just as bad.

"I'm going to find Elliot," I stated, getting up. "He'll be able to explain it better."

I was halfway to the door when Hardison asked, "Did he do it?"

I paused and I guess he assumed that was a yes.

"I'm gonna rip him apart," he growled, going for the door.

I stood in his way. "No, you are not, because you will have to go through me first."

"How can you defend behaviour like that?" he yelled. "He hurt you!"

"And it kills him," I shouted back.

My eyes began to sting again.

"You wanna know how bad he felt?" I continued. "He cried. The strongest guy on our team cried because of how bad he felt. So you know what? Yes, I will defend him, and even if he does things you don't like, he's our team mate, and you know he'd have your back in a second if you asked."

I finished my little rant, still glaring at Hardison, daring him to go against me.

He scratched his head and muttered, "Well damn."

I relaxed a bit as he sat down

"Did he really cry?" Hardison asked and I nodded. "I've never seen that."

"I didn't think you had," I told him. "That's why I told you, because I knew you'd understand how serious he took it if he managed to go that far. He didn't want anyone to know, but I knew it would be the only way you believed me when I said that I'm okay now."

He shook his head. "It's kind of hard to believe, but if anyone were to do that to any girl, they would be scared shitless."

"I was for a while," I admitted as I came to sit beside him. "So, you see why I forgave him? It's not every day the great Elliot Spencer is that rueful that he tears ups."

He nodded and I went to leave.

"Hey, what about Parker,"he called.

"You're mature enough not to tease him about it," I replied. "But Parker could randomly blurt it out at any second. I'll let Elliot handle her."

Speak of the devil, I thought as I entered the lounge. He and Parker were already talking. She jumped up and hugged me when I approached.

"We've had a good chat," Elliot told me.

Hardison arrived at that moment, and he, and Elliot shared an intense stare at each other, as if communicating telepathically. Hardison then made his way to the couch where we all managed to squeeze on; Parker sitting on Hardison's lap. I hopped up to face the group.

"I just wanna say that the last few days have been very turbulent within the group," I said. "But I hope we can all get back on track and move on from all this drama."

Parker nodded profusely. Hardison was staring in to space and Elliot did a slow, sarcastic clap. I mock-punched him when I sat back down and Hardison turned the TV on to a movie as we all settled in to watch. It was quite packed with 4 of us on the couch so Elliot hung his arm back, causing me to fall into his side. This made watching the movie very hard, especially when your thought start running wild, but I sat there silently and dealt with them.

Elliot

Having her leaning against me was almost more than I could take. I wanted so desperately to hold her, and was suddenly very jealous of Parker and Hardison. I had to admit it to myself. I really had strong feelings for our newest team member. This didn't help my situation, however, because I still had no idea what to do with the information. It hadn't even been a month since she met us. I had to be sure if I was going to make an advance, and so far, I hadn't seen any green lights. Sometimes I thought she looked at me in the same way I did at her, but that could have been due to wishful thinking. All I knew right now was that being this close for too long was going to do my head in.

"Hey Ari," I mumbled. "Want some popcorn?"

She nodded and smiled. Parker frowned and went to speak but I nodded and she smiled too.

In the kitchen I relaxed. Military training could get you through hell and back, but it never covered dealing with your own emotions. That battlefield was filled with land-mines and you were thrown in without a metal detector. I heard footsteps behind me and found Hardison. I knew he was going to give an ear-full.

"I hope you realise how lucky you are," he said.

I nodded and he shook his head. "No, you don't. That girl out there is hell'amazing to go through that and be able to forgive you so quickly. I hope you learned your lesson."

"Trust me, it'll never happen again," I assured him.

"See that it don't," he warned. "Cus if I find out it has, and she forgives you again, I'm still gonna come after you, even if your stronger, I'll find a way."

I looked him dead in the eye and said, "If it does, I won't fight back."

He nodded and grabbed on of the bowls I'd prepared. We headed back and the girls looked at us in surprise.

"What?" We asked in unison and they giggled.

"We were just wondering why the shouting hadn't started," Arianna admitted, Parker Nodding her agreement.

"We've reached an agreement," Hardison told them.

They looked sceptical but shrugged it off. Parker jumped back up to let Hardison have the seat and I sat back down in my spot. We missed some of the movie and it was near the end, but having popcorn now made it necessary to watch another movie, much to my dismay. I tried to keep my head in the movie, but the movie they'd chosen next was one of those sappy ones and soon both girls were tearing up.

"You're never allowed to leave me," I heard Parker say to Hardison.

I looked down at Arianna as she choked a little. I put my arm around her and she blinked in surprise.

"Don't worry, I'll never leave you either," I whispered in the most sarcastic voice I could.

She laughed but didn't mind me leaving my arm around her as she leaned against me again. I was about to say something to her when I noticed she wouldn't have heard me anyway. Picking up her sleeping form, I said goodnight to the others and took her to her room before heading to my own. Her scent still lingered on my shirt and I wondered if it would be wrong of me to enjoy it, even a little.

I overall didn't like this chapter when I kind of regretted having Elliot do that, but I couldn't just let him get away with it without everyone finding out. Too bad that took up heaps of writing to do. It will get better though. I promise I'll make it better. Well anyways, I'm still feeling the sting of inspiration, and it doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon, but the problem is I'm working tomorrow, so I don't know when I'll get the new chapter out. Don't worry though, it'll be really soon. As always, let me know your thoughts, suggestions and spelling errors you spotted. ^_^