This time, the plate that had more or less appeared beside him held a dessert. A small, single serving, two-tiered, gorgeous black forest cake that had liberal chunks of chocolate work all over it. It smelled divine, and he was certain it would taste just as good, but Hardison did his best to ignore it.

He wasn't going to eat the food bribes Eliot kept giving him until he got an apology. It was insulting that he thought a little snack would make Hardison forget almost drowning. He'd have taken the slight more personally if it weren't for the fridge stuffed to bursting with more food than any of them would be able to eat in a week.

Eliot had been on something of a manic cooking spree since Moreau left for San Lorenzo three days ago. Every morning, he had come in with food prepared overnight. He put together appetizers and meals as they worked through meetings and discussions on how to take down Moreau, always busy with freshly bought groceries. The only time he didn't cook was when he was struggling to explain Moreau's operation to them based on what he remembered, or calling in favours for more recent details. The picture those details laid out was terrifying, and showed just how lucky they had been the first time through.

Strange to think that nearly drowning was "lucky."

A hand snaked into his peripheral vision, grabbing the fork and snatching a bite of his cake. Sophie moaned in ecstasy at the taste. "Hardison, this is amazing! Here, try some."

"Not hungry," he said, never looking away from his screen. He'd been ordering pub food rather than eating the meals Eliot made.

Sophie hummed quietly. Hardison could feel her pulling him apart piece by piece in her mind. "He's been overdoing it lately, hasn't he?" she said, glancing at the door to the adjoining room where Eliot could be heard on the phone again. "Not that I'm complaining, mind. When the food is that good—"

"Hey, if you want it so much, you can have it."

"—It almost makes it worth it."

Hardison turned to stare at her. Sophie took another bite of cake, meeting his gaze, completely unperturbed. In those immortal words, it's a trap! But it's not like he could just let her say that and walk away. "Makes what worth it?" he asked, reluctant.

She plucked a chunk of chocolate off the cake, biting into it with a snap. "Hmm."

"Sophie," he said, unimpressed.

"Well, maybe it helps him," she said with a shrug. "Doing something else with his hands. It's kind of sad, though. He makes all that wonderful food and doesn't even eat it."

Hardison frowned, ready to ask more questions, but Sophie set down the fork and walked away before he could. In the other room, Eliot was still growling into the phone in some other language.

Sophie was obviously poking him into talking to Eliot, making some obscure point about whatever she'd gleaned about the hitter's state of mind. Normally even she struggled to read him, but he'd been pretty obviously off balance since they got back from DC. She could have been lying to him just to get him to go talk to Eliot, he supposed, but Hardison didn't think so. He may not have noticed what she had, but now was not the time to make things more complicated. So Hardison took what she'd given him, what he knew, and thought.

When Eliot was feeling things strongly enough, he had a tendency to stumble all over the words he wanted to say. When he was working a mark, he tried to pause long enough to work through it in his head first. Other times, he made the stammer a disarming part of his character, but those times always read a little different. When he was with the team, not on a con, he sometimes let himself fumble through what he was trying to say. And sometimes he didn't say anything at all, which didn't let anybody know what was going through his head.

Maybe he was cooking as a coping mechanism, like Sophie said. But not eating what he'd cooked only made sense if there was a more important reason behind making all this food than just blowing steam.

Hardison picked up the fork, eating a bite of cake before he could overthink it. At the taste, he dropped his head into his hands.

The cake wasn't sweet. It was almost bitter, but the tartness from the cherries mellowed it out to make it amazing. It was rich, sure, but not overly so. It only had a hint of alcohol taste to it. And somehow it screamed I'm sorry.

"Why can't you just use your damn words?" Hardison muttered to himself, rubbing his face. The cake couldn't answer that one for him.

Hardison finished the cake and dug into the fridge to pull out some soup...stew...thing, following the hand-written heating instructions for two bowls. He carried them into the room Eliot was using, setting one bowl on a nearby table and holding the other as he sat down out of the way. He couldn't say he was surprised by the way the hitter's growled words stumbled just a little at his presence.

Eliot covered the microphone, less speaking and more emphatically gesturing that damn it, Hardison, I'm busy threatening people for information on Moreau so that we don't all nearly die this time around, I don't need an audience for that. Don't you have geek stuff you should be doing?

In response, Hardison deliberately took a spoonful of soup-stew stuff and ate it. It tasted like a rib cracking hug with tears. Also, delicious. Tender beef, just enough pepper to make it warm in more than one way, whatever spices he had going on both highlighting and blending the flavour of the vegetables in a thick, creamy base. Still not too rich, though.

Eliot looked from the bowl to him and stared. The person he'd been berating said something probably rude, audible over the phone speakers in the otherwise silent room, and Eliot responded with that tone of threat that made most sane people do what he wanted. The man on the phone was not sane, given that it turned into an argument.

Hardison kept eating the apology stew, watching him work. It didn't seem to take much after a, well, distinctive low snarl for Eliot to get the information he was looking for, nodding along as the man finally laid things out and asking the occasional question. Eventually, the information ran dry and Eliot hung up. "...Hey," he said, clearing his throat.

His mouth full, Hardison nodded, waving his spoon.

"You—" He cut himself off, trying to pick out his words with care. He ran his hands through his hair, looking stressed.

"'S good soup," Hardison said easily, breaking the silence.

"Stew."

He waved the correction off. "Whatever. Tastes great. But you know what would make it even better?"

Eliot looked like he had some annoyed rant to reply with, but he swallowed it down and shook his head instead.

"It's sad."

His look clearly reflected some level of the what is wrong with you? that he typically directed at Parker, but he didn't say the words aloud. "Okay," he said after a moment.

"Hey, man, I get it," Hardison assured him. "All that 'cookies made with love' stuff—figured it was nonsense. But this—" he pointed at the stew "—this tastes like Wash dying."

"Who?"

"How do you not—! Firefly? Serenity? I know we've had this conversation, Eliot," he said, wagging the spoon at him sternly. "Same problem with the cake, by the way."

He was starting to look irritated again, but he didn't let himself answer that way. Just another flat "okay."

"Try it yourself," he encouraged, pointing at the second bowl. "You'll see."

"I'm not hungry."

Hardison finally let himself turn serious. "Eliot, if you want to apologize to me, do it to my face. Don't just do it with food. Food's good and all, but I need to hear the words, too."

Eliot struggled with words the way he never did with a physical challenge, especially when it really mattered to him. "I can't—" His hand flexed as the words refused to come. "I'm not—" He pushed his hair away from his face, and his words became steadier as he found the right ones. "I don't expect you to forgive me."

He scraped at the stew sticking to the sides of the bowl. "Well, good. That's my choice to make."

"...I hurt you."

Hardison froze at the hoarse statement, staring at his bowl.

"I lied to you. I was trying to protect you, but I—I put you in more danger. I failed the team. I failed you."

He stopped talking then, just letting the list of wrongs hang between them. He didn't say he was sorry. He didn't promise he'd never do it again. The stew pleaded that he was, and that he wished he never had to. Hardison looked up at him slowly, and Eliot met his gaze even though it looked like it hurt.

Hardison exhaled softly, setting aside his stew. "You knew what you were going to do when you faced Moreau, what he'd do in response, right?"

He nodded once.

"Why not do it alone?"

His mouth worked without sound as he fought again for the words, fought for a voice. The ones he found were exhausted. "He wouldn't have let me leave."

Hardison found himself moving without thinking, getting up and wrapping his arms around the hitter. Eliot tensed, because of course he did, but Hardison didn't let go. He was still angry, trust still shaken, and frankly terrified both by what they had just done and what they were about to do, but the thought of Eliot leaving to face Moreau on his own and never coming back—no. Unacceptable. If almost-drowning was what it took for Hardison to keep that from happening, he could almost agree to it. That didn't change the fact that he wasn't given the choice, just...just told him that Eliot found the idea pretty damn unacceptable himself.

There was a part of him that wondered if that was one reason Eliot hadn't told them. Because Nate would have tried to use that connection to get to Moreau. Because Moreau would have taken Eliot and used him to hurt a whole lot of people before it was over.

The fact that Eliot let him hug him without complaint said way too much about where his head was at. Hardison squeezed him once before letting go, stepping back. "Still mad at you."

"Uh-huh."

"Soup still tastes sad."

"Stew."

Hardison smiled. There was the irritation he'd been looking for. Things weren't okay, not yet, but he definitely didn't need Eliot walking on eggshells around him.

"Who put you up to this?" Eliot asked him.

"Wha—no, you did not just—I chose to come back here, man. I didn't have to."

"Uh-huh." He folded his arms and waited.

"...Sophie."

"Uh-huh."

"You know what? I went to the trouble of heating it up for you. Eat your soup."

"Stew," he growled.

Hardison met him eye to eye, pointing at the bowl and waiting. After a brief staring contest, Eliot forcibly grabbed it and hauled it over. "I braised the meat. Low and slow, okay? That's not how you make a soup." He took a quick bite. "And it doesn't taste sad. What is that even supposed to mean?" he muttered, taking another bite of stew.

Hardison set a hand on his shoulder. Eliot's gaze snapped back to him instantly. "We're going to destroy him, Eliot. You know that, right?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"I don't forgive you," he reminded him. "But this is way more important, right now. We can work it out. Just might take a little longer than it would otherwise, you feel me?"

Eliot clapped a hand to his shoulder briefly before turning away to make another phone call, still so serious. Maybe things weren't okay, but they would be able to work it out.

He'd still told Nate to keep them from being alone together for this job if at all possible. Just for this one.