Thank you everyone for your kind reviews! I love hearing from you! Thanks to quirkapotamus for her wonderful betaing and brainstorming, and to Valawenel for her constant love and support. Thank you all for reading!

Chapter 14

The next few days were a blur. Eliot spent most of that time working with Parker on how to get the General and his men out. Hardison consumed much more than even his normal amount of orange soda, doing all the computer stuff behind the campaign — Eliot learned quickly not to bother him, or to ask him what he was doing. Sophie was with Vittori out on the campaign trail, and Nate was doing whatever it was he did during cons … plotting … ordering people around … generally being an asshole.

Eliot hardly saw Matty and Maria at all. Maria was also out campaigning for Vittori, and Matty went with her. Secretly, though, Eliot was glad of that; Nate wouldn't let Eliot himself go out with Sophie — "She'll be fine, and we need you here," he'd said, as if Moreau's men weren't just one order away from putting a bullet into her skull — but Vittori and Maria often gave joint campaign speeches, and Matty would be a reasonable deterrent for Moreau. He was a good soldier … even if Eliot did question his judgment about whom to take bullets for.

By the night before the election, he and Parker had a pretty solid plan to get her into the Tombs (even if it was crazy), and Nate had figured out how to get the rest of them down there, too. Now they just needed to brief Matty and make sure everyone knew where to be and when the next day.

Matty groaned as he walked through the door to the back room at campaign HQ, rubbing his neck and looking exhausted.

"Where's Maria?" Eliot didn't like idea of her being without Matty.

"With Sophie, just outside. They're talking about … whatever. It's like they've known each other forever."

"Yeah, Sophie's good at that. … How is she?"

"Maria? She's okay." Matty sighed as he flopped into the chair at the conference table next to Hardison. "She had quite a few big contractions today. Tried to hide them, but I can tell …"

Eliot frowned. Maria shouldn't be hiding anything from you.

"I honestly have no idea what will happen if she goes into labor tomorrow," Matty continued.

"Don't worry," Nate said from his seat in the corner. "I've got that covered in Plans R through Z."

Matty's eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Plans R through Z? You've planned for Maria going into labor? And … you actually letter your plans?"

"Yep!" Parker appeared right next to Matty, who jumped in surprise.

Eliot smirked — Matty's reflexes were almost as good as his, but Parker could get the jump on anyone.

"Hardison dies in Plan M!" Parker announced cheerfully.

"Plan M?" Matty turned to look at Hardison. "That's like, the first half of the alphabet."

"Don't get me started," Hardison mumbled without looking away from his laptop.

"But, wait … Is Plan M always the same?"

"Try not to think about it, Matty," said Eliot. "It'll just hurt your head."

"I want to hear these plans about Maria —"

"Just suffice it to say I've got it under control, and we'll address those plans if we get to them," said Nate. "So how'd it go today, Colonel?"

"Stop calling me that," Matty grumbled. "This isn't a mission, and you're not in the military. But you have this way of saying it that always reminds me of …" He tilted his head back and rubbed his face.

"Of who?" Parker asked.

Matty looked at Eliot. "Juan."

Eliot chuckled. "Yeah, he has that same …"

"Ability to convince you to do whatever he wants? Yeah, I noticed that."

"If you guys are done talking about me," Nate said with a smirk, "I'll ask again: how was your day, Matty?"

Matty groaned. "Okay, now you sound like my wife."

"And you're still deflecting." Nate's smirk evolved into the grin that always made Eliot want to punch him, and from the look on Matty's face, he could tell Matty dearly wanted hit the mastermind, too. "You can't con a con man, Colonel."

Matty glared, then sighed. "It went about as well as could be expected, considering what we're trying to do."

Nate cocked an eyebrow. "Care to elaborate?"

"Not really." Matty turned to Eliot. "So, you found a way in? Tell me your plan."

"Ooh, ooh, can I?" Parker asked. Without waiting for an answer, she said, "Hardison, run it!"

Hardison looked up from his furious typing. "Run what? I don't have a briefing for you. Y'all are on your own, I got tons of other crap to do."

"Come on, Hardison, I never get to say, 'Run it'! Can you just put the blueprints up on the screen?"

"Parker, the blueprints are right here on the table, why can't you just point at them?"

"Hardison, just put the blueprints up," said Nate.

"Seriously?!" When Nate didn't react, Hardison sighed and grumbled, "Fine." The blueprints appeared on the projection screen.

"Thank you." Parker beamed, and Hardison grinned in spite of himself as he turned back to his computer.

"So what's your plan?" Matty asked with his arms crossed and leg jiggling at a high frequency. "I've got to be honest, I've spent years poring over these plans and I've never found any way in other than the elevator. How are you going to get in?"

Parker spread her arms as if she were saying Ta-da! and said, "The steam vent!"

Matty blinked. "The what?"

"The steam vent." Parker pointed to the location on the blueprints on the table, ignoring the ones that had just been projected on the wall. Hardison's jaw clenched, but he didn't break his typing stride.

"No, I heard what you said, I just …" Matty blinked again, then looked at Eliot. "What?"

"Why does everyone have that reaction?" Parker asked.

"Because it's a steam vent, Parker," said Hardison, rolling his eyes. "Normal people don't travel by steam vent. It's hot and it burns you."

Parker frowned. "But it's a dry heat."

"Parker, we've been through this," Eliot growled. Three times just today. "It's not a dry heat! It's steam! It's literally the opposite of a dry heat!"

"No it's not!" Parker countered. "The opposite of a dry heat is a wet heat, like swimming through a pool of boiling water. Which I've also done."

The four men in the room stared at her.

"What?" she asked. "The point is, the average human can withstand that type of heat for twenty-seven seconds."

She spoke as if that explained everything, but the additional information did nothing to stop the staring.

"There's something wrong with you," muttered Eliot.

Parker smiled and wiggled her eyebrows a few times.

"You can't possibly do that," said Matty with a shake of his head.

"Yes I can." Parker nodded vigorously. "I did something similar when I stole the Rosalind Diamond, only that steam vent was twice as long as this one. This'll be like stealing Louis the Fourteenth's portrait through the Louvre skylight."

Hardison leaned over to Matty. "That means it's easy … I think."

"Yeah, I got that," Matty snapped, and Hardison sat up a little straighter. "El, are you serious about this?"

Eliot had known this was going to be a hard sell, but he hadn't expected such a strong reaction. Was Matty nervous, or actually pissed? "Matty, we've studied these blueprints for days. You've studied them for years. This is the only way in."

Matty thought about it. "Can she do it?"

Eliot, Nate, Hardison, and Parker all said, "Yes," simultaneously.

The speed and synchronicity of their answers appeared to slightly alarm Matty, but then he looked Eliot in the eyes. "Juan's life is at stake here. Do you trust her with it?"

"Absolutely," Eliot said without hesitation. "She can get in."

"Okay. So she gets in and gets them out? What do we do?"

"That's just phase one!" Parker chirped. "The rest of the plan is even better!"

Matty's mood seemed to improve as they briefed him on the rest of the plan. By the time they finished, he was actually smiling.

"This is crazy," he said as he sat back in his chair, shaking his head. "With this going on in the background, and Sophie coaching Vittori, we might not have to steal anything. I think we might actually win."

"It doesn't matter who wins," said Nate quietly from the corner.

Matty blinked. "What do you mean, 'It doesn't matter who wins'?" As he spoke, Matty's voice rose a few notches as his face reddened. "If it doesn't matter, then why the hell are you here? Why are any of us here?"

Uh-oh.

Eliot sighed. "It doesn't matter who wins, Matty, because Moreau will do whatever it takes to make sure that the winner is him."

"That's exactly the problem, El. How is what you're doing any different than what Moreau does?"

Eliot's heart skipped a beat. He knew Matty meant the team, not him, but that didn't make the words hurt any less.

"It's — It's different, Matty!"

"No it's not! Moreau and Ribera stole the last election, and now here you are trying to steal this one. This isn't right!"

"Ah," Nate said. "That explains your deflecting earlier."

"Don't psychoanalyze me, Ford. This whole thing is your idea. And I don't like it."

Just then the door opened and Sophie and Maria entered, laughing.

"… really done wonders with him!" Maria was saying. "You should do this for a living!"

"I do, darling," Sophie said.

As they looked around the room, they seemed to feel the tension, and their smiles faded simultaneously. But Sophie didn't miss a beat.

"So how's the planning going?" she asked, glancing at Nate.

"A little less well than a few minutes ago," Hardison murmured. He'd stopped typing.

"Matty doesn't want us to steal the country," Parker said.

Maria sighed. Eliot thought at first it was due to exhaustion, but then he watched her face darken.

"Matty, we've been over this. Ad nauseum. Every single night since —"

"Eliot came back, yes, I know." Matty rolled his eyes. "But you have yet to convince me it's a good idea."

Sophie stepped in. "Matty, do you think Ribera is bad for the people?" she asked in her con voice.

"Don't patronize me. I'm not Michael. You can't con me the way you've conned him."

"Matty." Maria's voice was pleading now; she looked exhausted again. "Can we talk about this later? Maybe we can set up a call with Papa, and —"

"I've talked with him already, Maria. Several times, in fact. And he, like you, is dead convinced that stealing our country from the people, that stealing the election, is the only way to win."

"Eliot and his team —"

"Oh yes," Matty sneered. "The prodigal son returns, and let's do it his way! Maria, we have been working for eight years to try to win this country back! And you're willing to throw that all away just because Eliot comes back and says we can steal it instead?"

Eliot's stomach dropped to the floor. Matty and Maria never fought — not that he'd seen, anyway — and he didn't like the idea that it was because of his team. No, because of him.

"Throw it all away?" Maria's voice rose three octaves. "Throw what away? We've been fighting for this country a hell of a lot longer than eight years, Matty. We've been fighting since before your father died! And in all that time we haven't gained anything. In fact, we've lost ground! Moreau has a president in his pocket now, and he's worse than anyone we've ever seen. So yes, I am willing to try anything at this point, because I am tired of fucking losing!"

Her voice gave out on the last word. She was in tears now.

"I thought people weren't supposed to swear around your babies," Parker muttered.

"Parker," Eliot hissed. But no one else on the team rebuked her. They clearly had not forgotten that Maria had yet to apologize to him for what she'd said during their reunion.

Matty didn't make any move toward Maria, instead glaring unsympathetically at his crying, pregnant wife. Eliot's heart ached. The Matty he knew, who had proposed to Maria in the same breath that he first professed his love, would never have done that.

What happened to them?

"So that's it, then?" Matty's voice was cold. "You're willing to steal an election, just like Moreau?"

Maria's eyes widened, then flashed darkly. "What would you rather do? The same thing we always do? Just vote and hope for the best, and let Ribera win again?"

"I'd rather lose honestly than win like this!"

That was the last straw. "Dammit, Matty! Not everything is black and white!" Eliot smacked the table, and everyone in the room jumped.

Except for Matty. He was calm; Matty was always calm. He never yelled. Maria was hot; Matty was cold.

"Thank you, Professor Spencer, for that lesson in Ethics 101."

A sharp pain sliced through Eliot's heart. Matty always knew which knives to twist. Everyone in San Lorenzo did. Eliot had never been able to figure out what upset him more about Matty: the fact that he always took the moral high ground, or the fact that he had every right to be there.

"Well you haven't changed in eight years," Eliot hissed.

"Neither have you," Matty hissed back.

Eliot felt the team tense next to him.

"Now hang on right there," Nate said darkly.

Eliot gripped the back of the chair in front of him so hard his knuckles turned white. He hung his head and tried to breathe slowly. "I hate this fucking country."

"Then why don't you leave for another eight years?" Matty retorted.

Eliot's head snapped back up. "Dammit, Matty, I came back to —"

"You came back because you were forced to, so don't give me that bullshit —"

"That's enough! Both of you!" yelled Maria.

A tense silence fell over the room. Eliot and Matty glared at each other.

"Neither of you have changed in eight years!" Maria continued. "Always bickering, always arguing over the 'best' way. Well guess what! There is no best way. This whole thing is bigger than the two of you, and you'd think that after eight years, you'd have learned to grow the hell up!"

A memory, one that Eliot hadn't thought of in years, flashed in his mind.

.

.

.

"Dammit, Matty, we can't spend days planning this out! We have to hit him now!"

"I'm not saying we spend days, El, just that maybe we take a step back to think this through. We need an actual plan." Matty's voice was raised a couple notches above its normal volume, and his face was slightly flushed; he was pissed. "We can't just barge in there and hope for the best!"

"Hope for the best? You're kidding, right? I know his organization, I understand —"

Pete pushed his chair away from the table as loudly as possible and stood up; the commanders all turned their heads at the noise.

As he moved to leave the room, the General said, "Excuse me, Pete, where do you think you're going? This meeting isn't over yet."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, I was just going to go pee," Pete said, to the chuckles of the room. "I figured they'd still be at this when I got back. Can I get you guys anything?" He looked around the room. "Coffee? Tea? Popcorn?"

More chuckles, and then Pete turned to Eliot and Matty, who had stopped arguing. His face was filled with something close to disgust. "I've seen this movie before, and it's getting a little old."

He moved back to his seat, leaned forward to place his hands on the table, and looked between the two of them.

"The longer you guys argue about whose strategy is the best, the longer Moreau has to prepare. And I gotta say, I am getting damned tired of him being so much more prepared than we are. So maybe you two could take a couple breaths, think about what's important, and work together to come up with something we can work with."

He stood up straight and shrugged, and then he grinned. "And if that doesn't work, maybe you can just rock-paper-scissors it."

.

.

.

Eliot snorted at the memory — he hadn't thought about that in years.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Matty asked, his lips curled into the tiniest of smiles. He'd clearly remembered the same moment Eliot had.

Eliot started to smile, but then the pain in his heart overwhelmed it, and he turned away.

"So, should I try to make a joke right about now, or did that just happen in your heads?" Maria's eyebrow was cocked, and she wore a smirk similar to the one that always made Eliot want to punch Nate in the face.

"Ooh, ooh! I know a good joke!" Parker raised her hand like she was in class. "Knock, knock."

Eliot expected Hardison to placate her, until he realized she was looking at him. "Knock, knock," she repeated slowly, as if he hadn't heard.

He rolled his eyes. "Who's there?" He saw Matty smirk in his peripheral vision and glared at him.

"Cow." Parker was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet now, ready to burst from the excitement of the punchline.

Eliot let her relish it for a long moment before asking, without a shred of her excitement, "Cow who?"

"No, cow moo!" she blurted, then exploded into a fit of giggles. "Get it? Because cows moo?"

Eliot shook his head and smiled in spite of himself. Her laughter was infectious. The tension dissipated as everyone chuckled. Eliot was reminded of Pete, and when he met Matty's eyes, he could tell the other man was thinking the same.

As he felt Parker's joke and his own smile leech the tension from the four members of his team, it did not escape his notice that they had been willing to go to bat for him. Against Matty. His heart squeezed as he thought again about leaving when this job was finished.

Cut it out, Spencer. It's for the best.

"Best for whom?" said the grammatically correct voice in his head again, the one he hadn't heard in eight years. He pushed it from his mind.

"First of all, I'd like to set the record straight," said Nate, walking toward the conference table from his corner. "We are all here because we want to be. No one was forced into anything." He looked pointedly at Matty. "We stopped Moreau from selling a bomb and set him up to take the fall for an awful lot of crimes. But he scampered off to San Lorenzo… no extradition treaties."

"You guys should get on that, by the way," Hardison muttered.

Matty and Maria glared at him.

"Moreau was out of our hands," Nate said, commanding their attention again. "But I wasn't satisfied. I wanted him done. I wanted to make sure he could never hurt anyone ever again. So I asked them all to help me finish him. I told them that if any one of them" — he glanced in Eliot's direction, and Eliot rolled his eyes. Seriously, Nate? — "said no, that we would walk away. And no one did. No one did." He looked Matty in the eyes. "Just so we're clear."

Matty's gaze flickered toward Eliot, who rolled his eyes again. We get it. I didn't say no. Can we move on?

Nate continued. "We want to get rid of Moreau just like you do. Although probably not quite as badly." He paused, then asked quietly, "When did your father die?"

Matty straightened and crossed his arms. "Nineteen years ago. He was killed by Moreau's men." Matty's voice was cool and his gaze was steady, but Eliot saw his jaw clench and knew that inside, he was anything but.

Nate's eyes widened. "Nineteen years?"

"How old were you?" Parker's voice was small.

"Eleven," Matty said. Maria moved toward him and touched his arm gently. He didn't acknowledge it.

Sophie brought her hand to her mouth, and Parker hugged herself. Hardison reached to touch her, but she flinched away.

Nate put his hands flat on the table, hanging his head. Then he turned slightly toward Eliot and said, "You should have told me that."

Eliot's rage boiled to the top again. How in the hell is this my fault? "What, so now you don't just need to know about my past, you need to know Matty's, too? I didn't think it was any of your damned business, Nate!"

Nate stood up straight. When he spoke, his voice was cold. "It would have been nice to know how long Moreau's had this country in his death grip."

"Why, so you can get more pissed and take even bigger risks?" Eliot snarled. He knew he shouldn't be doing this in front of everyone, but he couldn't help it. Nate had started it.

The mastermind's mouth formed a grim line. "We said no more secrets, Eliot."

"It wasn't a fucking secret! I didn't think —"

"Parker, do you have any more jokes?" Sophie interrupted. "I think we might need another one."

"Oh yeah, I've got lots! What do you get when —"

"I don't think we need one right now, Parker," Nate said. He tried to meet Eliot's eyes, but Eliot turned away. He couldn't look at Nate, especially not now, when all he wanted to do was deck the man.

He gripped the back of the chair has hard as he possibly could. He tried to count to ten, but couldn't force the rage away. He badly needed to hit something, but remembered he only had three of Parker's stolen pillows back in his room. If he didn't calm down, he was going to explode, and that wouldn't be good for anyone. So he did the only thing he could think of.

"Tell us your joke, Parker."

"Okay," she chirped. "What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?"

Eliot breathed slowly, still gripping the chair, eyes still closed. "What?"

"Elephino! Get it? Elephino sounds like 'Hell if I know'!" She giggled.

Eliot could tell she was bouncing up and down again. He felt the rage fade into the background; it wasn't gone completely, but at least he was no longer in danger of exploding. For now.

He opened his eyes and smiled at Parker. "That was a good one."

She beamed, and his heart lightened — but only a fraction.

He knew his rage still simmered close to the top; he needed to get as far away from these people as possible. But he couldn't leave now; not before Matty was convinced that they were not — that he was not — like Moreau. So he retreated to the corner of the room opposite from Nate's and stood against the wall with his arms crossed.

Everyone was staring at him. He glared; the effect was instantaneous.

Nate was the last to look away; as his eyes dropped to the floor he frowned, heaved a large sigh, and shook his head.

Fuck you, Nate. I know I'm just a big disappointment to you. I can do without the dramatics.

Nate pulled out a chair and sat at the table. He rubbed his face with both hands. "Sit," he said to Matty.

Matty did as he was told without hesitation. Eliot's lips curled into the slightest of smirks: Nate did have that "ability to convince you to do whatever he wants," as Matty had so succinctly put it. He just uses it differently than Juan.

Everyone else sat, too: Sophie next to Nate; Maria next to Matty; and Parker next to Hardison, who had never stood up from his computer in the first place.

No one dared to look at Eliot this time. He wasn't moving from his spot.

"Matty," Nate began. "You are a good, honest man. Trust me when I tell you that is the highest compliment I can possibly pay."

Matty glanced Eliot, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"But you're not naïve. In fact, that makes your honesty even more admirable," Nate added, almost to himself. "But we can't beat Moreau honestly. If we could, you guys would have done it by now. It doesn't matter who wins the election because Moreau and Ribera will stuff as many ballot boxes as necessary to ensure that they do."

"But the election inspectors —"

"Have no real power but publicity. That keeps us alive, but everyone already knows Ribera is corrupt. That's why the inspectors are here in the first place. If we let the election play out naturally, the only difference between this one and the last one is that the world would know it was fixed. And you'd be right back where you started." Nate looked Matty in the eyes. "We have to do it this way, because Moreau can't be beaten any other way. He's going to steal the election. The only way to stop him is if we steal it first. The difference is, we're going to give it back to the people. Moreau won't. We're stealing it back for the people. Then we'll hand it over to Vittori, and the General, and Maria, and you."

Matty looked at the table, and then turned to his wife for the first time since she'd come over. She grabbed his hand, and they seemed to have a silent conversation. After what felt like an eternity, he squeezed her hand and turned to look vacantly at a spot in front him on the table. Then he shook his head, ran his free hand through his hair, and met Nate's eyes again.

"I just wish there was a better way."

"So do I," Nate said.

"Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get." Parker's voice was quiet, but strong.

Sophie and Hardison smiled at Parker. Nate and Maria didn't remove their gazes from Matty, who was looking at a spot on the table again.

When he finally looked up, it was Eliot's eyes he met. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He nodded, and Eliot returned it.

Matty turned to his wife and kissed her forehead, and they smiled at each other, but Eliot frowned. The kiss was almost … chaste, nothing like the passionate, loving kisses they used to share. And their smiles seemed forced, as if they were putting on a show. Eliot hoped it was the stress of the past week, and that things would change after the election, but he doubted it; the strain of living in the shadow of Moreau had crushed stronger relationships than theirs.

"You look exhausted," Matty said.

"Well that was uncalled for." Maria's frown was good-natured.

Matty's smile was dashing and ornery. "If you had let me finish, you would have heard me say, 'And yet you can make even that look amazing.'"

Maria rolled her eyes. "Nice recovery, Ramirez."

Eliot allowed a small smile. That was the Matty and Maria he remembered.

"We should get home," Matty said, helping his wife to her feet. "Big day tomorrow."

"That's the understatement of the decade," Maria muttered.

They all laughed, except for Eliot. He didn't think it was funny.

As the laughter died away, Maria looked at her husband with tears in her eyes. "I had to say good night to Berto over the phone again. Did you say good night?"

Guilt flashed across Matty's face. "They were walking me through tomorrow."

Eliot felt a pang. He only knew a few things about Berto Ramirez: he was three years old; he had trouble distinguishing red and blue; he slept in a big boy bed — in a safe house, not his own home; and for the past week he'd had to tell his parents good night over the phone. And sometimes not even then.

His fists clenched. Hardison was right about one thing: he did have a soft spot for children — especially the children of old friends. The hacker just didn't know why.

"It's all right." Maria stroked Matty's cheek. "You can kiss him good night when we get home."

Matty's expression didn't change.

"So, what is the plan?" Maria's question was spoken to Matty, but directed at the room. Her voice was light. "What's the way in? I've been waiting all day! Did they find something we didn't?"

Matty chuckled. "Yes. The steam vent."

"The … steam vent?" Maria looked nonplussed. "How …?"

"I'll explain on the way home. But suffice it to say that the average human can withstand that type of heat for twenty-seven seconds." He winked at Parker and smirked. "Who knew?"

Maria raised an eyebrow. "How long is the steam vent?"

"Apparently about half as long as it could have been," Matty said.

Maria smiled at the team in bewilderment. "When this is all over, we are going to have dinner, and you're going to tell us about some of your adventures."

"Preferably without making us accessories," Matty mumbled. "Let's go, mi vida."

"Good night, everyone," Maria said. "See you tomorrow."

"Good night," everyone said.

Except Eliot. "Call me when you get there."

Matty turned and flashed his most dashing smile. He gave an unofficial salute. "Aye, aye, Commander." He and Maria left, laughing.

Now that's different. Matty never used to make so many cracks about serious matters. He must have gotten that from Pete over the last eight years.

"You should try it sometime, El," said the voice in his head. "It makes things considerably less awful."

With effort, Eliot pushed the voice from his head again.

"All right, everyone, we'll meet again at six," Nate was saying. "Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."

You have no idea, Nate.