(A/N - Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Here comes Nate's take on the reconciliation! Please, let me know if you like what I'm doing with these last two chapters or if you think I've gone totally off-track with how they would behave.

Gotta get back to my NaNovel!)

Trust Issues

Chapter 28

"You've screwed with everybody's emotions real bad."

Nate wanted to deny Eliot's accusation, to say that he didn't have that power, that he didn't matter enough for his personal actions to effect the team that much – but the evidence was all around him that he was wrong. They were upset, including this calmly stern young man sitting beside him.

He just wasn't quite ready to give what he was seeing a solid form in his mind. He wasn't even sure he could deal with what was implied by all the powerful emotions coming from them.

He retreated to the issue he'd already faced. "I know my suspicions…"

Eliot cut him off and insisted he had to face a few consequences of being Nathan 'nothing touches me inside' Ford. The accusation struck him as particularly unfair, considering how much pain he kept locked up inside just so it wouldn't touch these people.

Almost as if he knew what Nate was thinking, Eliot suddenly suggested he keep his mouth shut and listen to a few facts. It wasn't easy, but Nate found himself becoming calm and even accepting Eliot's viewpoint.

'This team, this family, they do mean everything to me. Why am I so scared of that?' He continued to listen, although he had to look away when Eliot told him he was pretty sure the team had worked out what Nate's motivations and feelings really were. It wasn't easy to hear.

Finally, the hitter finished and asked him, simply, "Do you get it?"

'Don't screw up again now, Nathan Ford,' he told himself. 'You owe it to these people, and maybe you even owe it to yourself. Admit it, you love them. And for some crazy reason, they seem to actually care about you.'

He responded to Eliot's question with simple honesty. "I think I get it. I'm sure as hell going to try to get it."

Eliot rewarded him with a smile but still pressed the issue, asking him if he understood he was going to have to start thinking about other people's feelings. He returned the smile as he replied that he had no choice. He stopped his automatic irritation response when Eliot still pressed it, telling him he had a choice, but only that one if he wanted to do right by his family.

'Really my family.' He felt awestruck by that knowledge, which made it easier than he would have thought possible to ask for Eliot's advice on how to handle facing the rest.

Before Eliot left to go talk to Hardison, the two of them even managed to joke a little about how every one of them was still going to be who they were, and Nate made himself admit he was going to have to get comfortable with actually accepting criticism from the rest. He could see it in the hitter's eyes that Eliot understood he was really saying he would do his best to be open to accepting their warm feelings for him.

It had been a long time since he'd been able to believe his pain could possibly mean something to anyone else. Probably since Maggie had agreed with the hospital staff that when he watched their 8-year-old son die of his illness, his nearly losing his mind with grief was excessive. Of course, back then she hadn't known that Sam's death could have been prevented, but they had been denied the needed treatment – by the insurance company for which he'd made a career of recovering millions of dollars in stolen artwork.

Then Eliot told him that the team loved him, 'bull-headed genius superiority complex and all'. Nate knew that his subconscious was testing this new paradigm even as he asked the hitter a question: "And functional alcoholic?" The surprise was the weight of sadness in Eliot's voice when he responded.

"At least until it kills you."

Of course he was aware of how much the team hated his drinking. They mostly expressed it in the way society said they should: by focusing on how it hurt him. Yeah, right; he'd always known – thought he knew – that it was mostly anger at his weakness in needing the alcohol to numb him inside. If he were to accept that they – his throat tightened up at the thought, and the resultant coughing fit was a welcome distraction. But he waved off Sophie's immediate concerned reaction and forced himself back to trying to wrap his mind around the difficult realization that the team; no, that Eliot and Hardison and Parker and even Sophie actually loved him. And if that were true, then he had to acknowledge it was the self-destruction, not the weakness that caused it, that they objected to.

And what if Hardison wasn't so angry at him because he'd acted a complete fool? What if the kid was more upset because he'd done himself so much harm by his foolishness? How the hell was Nate supposed to change his mindset and view himself as valued not for his skill as their mastermind, but for… himself? Could Nathan Ford actually be a person and not just a valuable commodity?

He'd promised Eliot he was going to try. And that started with Hardison.

With his mind made up, he found a lot of his tension slipping away, and soon realized it was actually easier to breath. Too much stress was bad, he knew, but damned if he'd ever considered that it could combine with a badly bruised and swollen throat to half-choke him. He focused on breathing and on relaxing until he heard the door to Doc's office open. He turned his head and received a warm smile and a nod from Eliot as the hitter walked past and headed to cut off Parker, who had jumped down from the counter the moment the two young men had appeared.

Then Hardison slid into the chair beside the exam table where Nate lay. Nate met the hacker's eyes, and it was a relief to see they weren't filled with blind anger any more.

"Hey, Nate, man, how you doin'?" There was as much unease in his voice as Nate was feeling.

"I'm a lot better off than I probably deserve, considering I've been acting like an idiot, oh, pretty much since we finished that last job. Probably longer than that, come to think of it."

"Nah, Nate. You can't do that to yourself. Well, I mean, I gotta admit I feel kinda like you… I mean, running off that way was like…"

"Like I betrayed all of you?" Funny how he suddenly noticed that speaking only in a whisper was becoming an unconscious habit already.

Hardison turned his eyes away with a pained frown. But he didn't duck the question. "I hate to say this, but yeah. I felt like if you could think that of Eliot…"

"I understand, Alec." He almost never used Hardison's given name, and yet it seemed so natural at this moment. "And I totally agree with you that it was so wrong to think that. To tell you the truth, I can barely understand it myself. I… in my defense, I was pretty drugged up when I reasoned it out, and once I got that idea stuck in my head, I couldn't shake it." He paused, and then decided that he should follow Eliot's suggestion of complete honesty.

"Look, Hardison, I hope you won't get upset about this – God knows I've done so many things already you have a right to be really upset with me about – but I…" It was incredibly hard to bare his soul, but this young man deserved to hear it, and Nate was just going to have to take the chance that he would drive him away. "I figured it wouldn't matter that much to you guys. I mean, I didn't want you to know that Eliot would…" He sighed.

'And everybody thinks my plans get convoluted!'

He tried again. "I'm going to try to explain this from the point of view I had at the time. Remember, I'd totally made it logical in my own mind for Eliot to want to kill me, because I figured maybe I was getting about half-way around the bend and becoming a real danger to all of you."

Hardison looked so sad at that it was painful for Nate to see. But at least he wasn't looking angry.

"You know, man," the hacker told him. "Some of the blame has to go to the rest of us on this. I guess we can be pretty damn sarcastic. I just never really realized it bothered you."

"Mostly it doesn't. Except… well, I have to admit, it hit me pretty hard when I realized that every single one of you actually thought it was possible I killed Beck."

"Well, hell, it's not like the man didn't just so completely have it coming. So what if we thought you got a little expeditious?" Hardison reddened a little right after he said that. "No, I didn't mean it like I made it sound. I guess it was like…" he was clearly thinking hard. "It wasn't that any of us thought 'Oh, look, Nate killed a guy.' It was like 'Well, he sure needed killing, who could blame Nate if he did?' You know?"

And when he put that way, it suddenly made sense to Nate. He actually felt a weight lift off of him at Hardison's words – far more weight than he had even imagined he was carrying from their seeming suspicions of his character.

"Huh," he laughed very softly. "I do know. I get what you're saying. Thanks for telling me that, Alec, you've made me feel a lot better."

Hardison grinned. From the looks of his expression, this was all helping take a bit of weight off of him, as well. But he was still utterly serious as he spoke again. "Let me see if I dig you right, here. You got yourself convinced that we had all gone off you, didn't trust you, maybe didn't much want you around anymore, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I really had." Nate didn't try to explain it now, he wanted to see how perceptive his young friend – he knew he was still shying from applying the word Eliot had mentioned, even though he could feel the truth of it deep within him – was actually going to be. And if Hardison could understand enough to express Nate's reactions for him, then he was already a long way toward forgiving him for those reactions.

"And so you added the idea – totally crazy, by the way, that you were actually becoming a danger to us, Eliot knew it, and he had decided to protect us by…" The distress that filled his young face tore at Nate's heart.

"Right, we both know what crazy idea I got fixated on." Nate made his voice as warm and soothing as he could. "You don't have to say it."

Hardison nodded. "So you decided, didn't you, that it was best for all of us if you just went and disappeared on us, left us all alone, abandoned us…" Hardison's voice was starting to rise in pitch.

"I couldn't let him have my blood on his hands," Nate cut in. "But even then I couldn't just go." A past perplexity suddenly came back to him. "By the way, how the hell did you spot me so fast outside the bar? I thought I'd put together a pretty good disguise!"

"Facial recognition, man." Hardison lit up.

"I thought you set up an interference zone for several blocks around…"

"Yeah, I hadn't gotten around to mentioning it to you all, but see, I worked out how to get my cameras to work; I fixed up this shielding, 'cause like, I knew exactly how the interference worked, right?"

Nate barely remembered in time not to laugh out loud, if he didn't want yet another coughing fit. He did smile broadly. "Now see," he said, "that proves I haven't been firing on all cylinders. I should have known you would do that. I should have worked that into my planning."

"Yeah, well, like you said, you was in bad shape. I mean, I don't even want to imagine what the hell it feels like to get one of them long, thin throwing knives stuck in you like that. And then surgery, and they had you like all drugged up. And after that, man," Hardison shuddered. "You were out there on the streets, running around when you shoulda been…"

"Easy, Hardison." Nate put a hand on his companion's shoulder. "Don't forget, all this is what you were so angry about. Remember? Me running around, spying on you guys, and then… well, I still don't know what did happen during the day and a half I was unconscious."

"What?" Hardison's eyes went so wide the whites were visible all the way around the irises. "You were unconscious for a day and a half?" he exclaimed. "Wait a minute, so all the time Eliot was playing peekaboo with Da Kill and trying to rescue you, you was layin' some place unconscious? Where, in some damn alley?"

"No, no," Nate reassured him. "Nothing like that. Actually, did you notice a door in the office back there kind of facing this one?"

"Uh, yeah, I think I did. But what has that got to do with anything?" Hardison asked.

"Well, you see, it leads to a little back room with a cot in it. That cot is where I woke up this morning. Somehow or other I ended up getting back to Jorheed after I ran off from Eliot, and when I collapsed on him, he and Doc got me here and took care of me."

"Yeah, yeah." Hardison's irrepressible excitement when he was following a logic chain was one of Nate's favorite things about the youngster. "Eliot looked that house where you disappeared over real good, man. Leastwise, he looked the basement over pretty good. Let me tell you something, man, that place is so hinky I don't even know what to think of it." He paused and tilted his head slowly to the side as he grinned at Nate. "You know something about that place, don't you? You knew that tunnel was there, and you had it all planned out as part of your escape before you ever set up to watch the bar and your apartment, didn't you?" He chortled. "Man, every time I think you gots no more tricks up your sleeve…"

Nate must have given him a pretty blank stare, from the way he trailed off.

"What tunnel?" he asked. "We're still talking about Balmoral, right? The old mansion with the stone walls around it? Where I locked Eliot out of the courtyard, and then nearly got grabbed by a couple of mean-looking goons who were waiting for me on the street out front? Did Eliot find some sort of a tunnel out of there?" He shook his head. "I remember there were always all sorts of stories about the place, how it was originally built by a pirate back in the early days of Boston, and a lot of smuggling and stuff went on there over the years. I guess a tunnel makes sense, come to think of it, if they were smuggling stuff in and out. How'd Eliot come to find the tunnel?"

"Mostly he was following a trail of blood that musta been yours."

"Could be. I don't remember much after I dove into the basement through the window." Nate shook his head slowly. "I do know that must have been when I got this." His fingers strayed to the bandage that currently covered several stitches to his scalp.

"Why would Eliot search the place?" he reverted to the main topic of their conversation. "Did he think I was hiding there?"

Hardison started to explain, but suddenly looked past Nate's shoulder. When the mastermind rolled his body in that direction, he saw the other three members of the team approaching.

"You two doin' okay over here?" Eliot asked.

"Oh, yeah, we good. Right man?"

Nate met Hardison's eyes and gave him a smile and a nod. "We're good," he responded. "Except maybe for one thing."

"Huh, what's that?" Hardison gazed at him blankly.

"I just think I ought to give you a straight-forward apology for causing this whole mess."

"Causin' it? You maybe tangled it up some, but it was whoever the son of a bitch was who hired Da Kill to go after Eliot and maybe the rest of us that caused it all."

"Well, then, I apologize for tangling it all up so badly. I'm sorry for causing you so much pain, Alec."

Hardison gazed at him for a long moment, then rose, leaned over, and gave Nate a bear hug, although he backed off again quickly when Nate hissed in pain.

"Sorry, I forgot about your arm, there. What the hell happened to your arm, anyway?"

"Hardison, why don't we save telling each other the details of the last few days until we get Nate safely home?" Eliot interrupted.

Parker was giving Nate a rather puzzled look, scanning the fresh bandages Doc and Jorheed had used to replace those that had become sooty and disarranged during their recent adventure at the warehouse.

"Is there any part of you that we can touch without hurting you?" she asked with an arching eyebrow.

Nate leaned toward her, raised his own eyebrow, and grinned. "I think I could manage to survive if you… no, you can't hug my neck, I've got rope burns and swelling." He shifted against the raised backrest that supported him in a half-sitting position. "Hm, shoulder, chest, stitches on my scalp… I don't think it would hurt too bad if you touched my right arm. Just don't pull on it or lift it up, cause..."

Parker huffed at him, then turned her head.

"I saw you were limping as Eliot helped you across the roof. What's wrong with your legs?" she asked.

"Oh, just a sprained ankle," he assured her.

"Which one?"

"Huh? The left, why?"

Instead of answering Parker pointed at his right leg, which he'd bent to get purchase on the surface under him when he turned toward her, Sophie and Eliot. "What about the right? Busted kneecap? Shin splints?"

"No, nothing." Nate let his head drop back to enjoy a good laugh, but Sophie's hand over his mouth stopped him. "Stop irritating your throat!" she ordered. "At least you have the sense to only talk in a whisper, but you need to be aware of other things besides talking that can start you coughing."

He nodded and finally let his eyes meet hers. Their lovely brown depths were full of things he couldn't even begin to understand.

'I don't know what to say to her,' he thought. 'I guess I've caused her an awful lot of pain. Why isn't she yelling, or throwing things at me, or… something? This mother-hen-ing thing isn't her forte.'

Parker saved him from his confusion by wrapping her arms around his raised right knee and squeezing.

"Mmm," she murmured. "There, now I feel better." She turned to face him again. "Don't ever do this sort of thing again, do you understand?"

"Yes, Parker, I think maybe I finally do. And I promise, I won't do this sort of thing again, ever."

"Good." She nodded her head sharply and then turned to Eliot. "Can we take him home now?"

To be continued

(A/N - Next, Doc returns and makes some surprising revelations.)