A/N - Hey all, here's a little bit of light-hearted banter for Money Monday, to get us a little closer to Eliot leaving the hospital!

Also, story correction. Beretta Spencer is Eliot's Step Sister, not Half Sister.

I have gone back to chapter 32 to correct that oops.

A/N - Parker is laughing at the speech therapist who we should all remember was called Miss Indiana Jones.

Enjoy your week and please REVIEW!

Ps. Major hot scene with Parker and Eliot is coming up... The weather is warming up here so I thought it would be fun. So the rating is going up to M next chapter!

Since Eliot was doing so well breathing on his own, respiratory therapy signed off because he had reached their goal. He still had a bit of tenderness from the wounds to his lungs and it still hurt a little when he took a deep breath, but the point was that he could take a deep breath without the aid of a machine. So he didn't need the hyperbaric treatments anymore either. Eliot noticed that his hands were tingling again, though not as severe because he held onto the rose quartz stone. He wondered if the tingling was a side effect from the hyperbaric treatments. Someday, he was going to have to ask Parker what it all meant; the stone and the tingling in his hands, if he remembered. The rest of the day he slept off and on to help erase the effects of the anesthesia. Nate popped in from time to time to bring the two team mates meals. They got sneaky though. So the hospital wouldn't think that their patient was starving, they would dump some of Eliot's food into the containers Nate brought in and then he'd walk out with those refilled cartons. Parker didn't come back that evening as Sophie said she wouldn't.

The next morning, Parker had magically reappeared on the pull out bed from the chair. He realized that he must have been so unconscious that he hadn't heard her come in and relieve Sophie. He had been watching her for the past hour; so she must have come sometime in the middle of the night. She had been sleeping like an angel. His hands stopped tingling again… Eliot wasn't stupid; he thought that maybe there was a pattern to all the tingling in his hands. When Parker was there, the tingling stopped and when she wasn't there, the tingling started. And the further away she was the stronger the tingling got, but how was Parker involved? The rose quartz stone seemed to lessen the amount of tingling, but it didn't fully cease. However, what did the stone have to do with Parker? Then a little Filipino whirling dervish nurse named Delia came in and started raising hell. She came in and put a sheet over a padded chair. And then she started to get Mr. Lazarus Ford out of his bed like she had a God-given right to! She brought him some crutches she'd left by the door as she came in. She was bound and determined to get him up. Eliot tried to shush her but all her racket woke Parker.

Then the small woman maneuvered Eliot into the chair. He landed softly on the pillow she'd stolen off the bed and put on the chair. He was so sorry Parker had to wake up that way. Once the nurse got him up and into the chair she scurried off with a few choice words from Parker. Then a few minutes later she scurried back in with his breakfast tray. This time it wasn't so bad. There were two boxes of corn flakes and one of Froot Loops. Fortunately, the milk was still cold; the box hadn't started sweating too much yet. There were two boxes of milk and a couple packets of sugar. Then they had a half cup serving of cottage cheese and fruit cocktail plus a piece of dry toast without butter or margarine. He decided to stick this breakfast out instead of calling Nate to the rescue. At least he could share some of it with Parker. She could have the Froot Loops since she was allergic to milk. Even though it was hell getting out of bed and into the chair; he was glad that he could be out of bed for at least one meal.

Parker was shocked awake by a woman making chattering noises. She narrowed her eyelids as she sat up. Eliot was being maneuvered into a chair; how dare her! Did he say he wanted to be moved? The thief got up and got all up in the small woman's too-perky-for-that-hour-in-the-morning-face with those beautiful narrowed eyelids.

"Who are you?"

"I am Delia the nurse."

"Well, Delia the nurse, I can have you deported in the next twenty minutes if you don't scram. Got me?"

"Be right back with the meal," the nurse scurried out of the room, with her head held high like she didn't give any credence to anything the thief said, which pissed Parker off.

"That's more like it, dammit," she spoke after the nurse left as she made up the pull out bed back into a chair.

"Sorry, didn't know she was coming. I'm sorry she woke you up."

"Ugh, I'll have Hardison on her ass so fast if she's here tomorrow…"

"Calm down Bethany. She's just doing her job."

"Don't defend her. I bet she drives other people nuts…"

"And you've never driven anybody else nuts…" Eliot commented.

"Maybe, but you love me anyway. You guys sort of get my kind of crazy. At least you try the most not to change my kind of crazy."

Then the nurse came back and dropped the tray of food on the table with a clang as silverware hit the tray. And off she went… Parker was mad as hell and she got on her phone. It only took her a few minutes and she had sent a couple texts to Hardison. Within a few hours, that nurse would be facing serious charges of stealing drugs from the medication room.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Eliot watched as she pointed at the box of Froot Loops.

"Maybe… Maybe not," he teased her.

She narrowed her eyelids again and he realized that the look on her face could be dangerous, but he laughed at her. Then before she could be offended, he tossed the box into her lap as she sat in the pull out bed chair. A smile bright as the sun flashed across her face and then as quick as a hummingbird's wings it was gone as she dove into the small box. She wasn't a total pig and cereal was all over the place. No, he watched her first eat the yellow round circles; then the orange ones; then the red ones; then the purple; then the blue, and soon after the green ones. Eliot wondered if she did the same thing with M & M's and Skittles.

"Did you want to wash them down with this extra milk?"

"Nah, not enough time to take my dairy-eating pills, but you go ahead."

"Thanks."

"No problemo."

By noon, the speech therapist had come in and after she had heard Lazarus Ford speak rather clearly, she signed off on his case. At that point, Bethany scared her off because the woman was trying to get a date with her, 'brother.' Eliot rolled his eyes behind her back and almost thought he saw claws growing out of Parker's nail beds… It didn't really matter that Bethany Ford found her name so funny that she laughed as the woman left. He was kind of glad to hear Parker laugh. With all the seriousness going on all around them it was nice to hear the thief cut loose. The hitter planned to try and make her laugh more often when he got out of the vicinity of the hospital.

The next day, Thursday after lunch with Sophie, Nate, and Parker, the occupational therapist showed up. Luckily, the woman had a ring which Parker noticed right away and left her alone. She was in her early forties with mulberry colored hair, about as tall as Parker. Helena Ashwood came to help him practice moving his fingers on his fractured right arm and the toes of his fractured right leg. And then the toes on his broken left leg to make sure the nerve pathways hadn't been severed. If they had, he was going to need more therapy so that he could rebuild those pathways. Because, Lazar needed occupational therapy or he'd never be able to walk again or use his right arm. Occupational Therapy was the use of certain types of treatments to help develop, recapture, or sustain the daily living and work skills of patients with a physical, mental, or developmental condition. Since Lazar Ford had so many physical impairments, he needed some help. Eliot didn't want to admit it but he did need the help at least until he was able to leave the hospital. If he wasn't able to use his daily living skills; there was no way he'd be able to use his work skills. It was too soon to get him up on his feet though because adding weight to his healing lower extremities could cause them to heal in the wrong places.

Parker watched the two of them as the woman evaluated Lazar's range of motion with his arms. She couldn't check his legs because they still had to be in casts. The thief liked the idea of Eliot having to stay off his feet for at least a couple more months. It meant that her plans to having him be with her on the farm could actually become a reality. She had an image flash into her mind of her and Eliot trapped in the farmhouse with snow drifts covering everything on the first floor. He could be sprawled on the couch Sophie helped her pick out and she could be seated down by his feet; both sharing the roaring fire in the fireplace. It wouldn't be all that claustrophobic in the farmhouse because they could always go upstairs and get out through those windows. What would be more fun would be to open the front door and chip off some ice and melt it for drinking water. She could make a tunnel to get out that way. It reminded her of being stuck in the cave on top of that mountain. Parker smiled to herself as she remembered that Eliot had calmed her down in her moment of panic.

That Friday took them by surprise. Eliot had been in the SICU for almost a week. He remembered the deal he'd made with Nate… Just a few more days stood in his way. He had no idea that a surprise was about to blindside him; probably worse than Hardison's nuptials but not as bad as finding out how crazy Parker was when she jumped off of that high rise building during their first job. He was playing a game of Crazy Eights with Crazy Parker when a knock came on the big door. It was open and this woman stood there waiting to be allowed entry. She wore her fire engine red hair back in a pony-tail. She was about the same height as Parker, though not as skinny as the thief; but still a slim healthy weight. Parker had to be so thin to help her in her work. The woman wore a tie-dyed t-shirt her kids made for the last mother's day and a pair of bell bottom jeans plus a vintage pair of Converse High-Top sneakers. She had round shaped sunglasses a la Ozzy Osborne with a rose colored tint and a medium sized black leather purse hung from her left shoulder.

"Gee, you'll do anything to get out of letting me teach you how to surf…" She spoke as she entered the room.

Eliot couldn't see her because the curtain was pulled to block the view of the bed, but he knew that voice… What the hell was Beretta Spencer doing there? He hadn't gotten around to talking to Hardison about her yet. How did she find out he was in the hospital?

"I prefer my feet on the ground…" Eliot said as Beretta Spencer appeared from behind the curtain.

Next thing he had his arms full of his step-sister as she gave him a big hug as he sat up in bed.

"You look good."

"Wish I could say the same about you? What the hell happened? And don't worry, a nice man told me about Lazarus Ford before I came," Parker shared a look with Eliot like they could be in trouble and when he shook his head no, she shrugged her shoulders.

"What was his name?"

"Nathan I think. I heard someone named Alec in the background," Eliot visibly relaxed, but then why did his team call her?

"This is Bethany Ford… I want you to meet my step-sister, Beretta Spencer."

Parker wore a bit of a shocked look but then she settled down and Eliot relaxed that the surprise meeting was over. She shook her hand with a faked smile so that they could all get back to normal.

"You didn't answer me. What happened?"

"What did that nice man tell you?"

"Just mentioned that you'd been in a car accident, but I didn't think that was the whole story since you're undercover, Bro. All this time and I haven't heard a word from you… Two years, Mr. Hot Shot. There is so much to catch you up on it might take an eternity to get you caught up."