A/N: You guys were right! When Tacodestroyeravenger first mentioned the thought that Eliot raised awareness for dog fighting, and did not promote it, I rewatched the scene, and it did not change my mind.

When Gilbert H. Karr said the same thing—that Eliot was an activist against the terrible dog fighting—I rewatched the scene another three times.

Guess what? If you listen really closely, after the guy smashes the glass and right before we see Eliot on the television, a voice can be heard stating they are about to interview a Canadian animal rights activist.

Man! I never heard that, the several times I watched the scene! I was so careful to watch every scene that I refer to in this story, to be as accurate as possible, and somehow, I missed that.

(I still say no animal rights activist is that happy-go-lucky, but maybe they were teasing Canadians for being so polite. :) )

I won't change it in the story because, if I can misinterpret that, so could an eight-year-old, but man! You, my fellow fans, are so awesome and eagle-eared!

Here is a nice long chapter for you guys to sink your teeth into…

Chapter Nine

"No, Parker!" Nate couldn't believe he was having this conversation.

"I'll jump with him. I'll be in a harness, of course, but he won't have to do it alone."

"No."

Hardison took over. "Parker, we want to save Eliot, not kill him."

"He didn't die the first time. We're surrounded by water. I'm sure we could find a nice, broken down pier, and then we can push Eliot over the side."

Nate squeezed his eyes shut. They were in General Flores's office. The general was on the ground floor, talking to his men, thank God.

"We have to push him off a pier. That's the only way to fix his memory. I saw in on Charles In Charge."

Hardison held his hands up. "I did not show her those DVDs."

"Parker." Sophie glided over to her. "Listen, sweetie, we have a slower but kinder way to do it."

"What, Nate's plan? Keep him chained up until he eventually remembers everybody? He'll kill himself trying to escape. My way is more humane."

Hardison spoke to Nate. "Knocking Eliot out is definitely on my list of things to do, but, unlike Parker, I think we need to do it with drugs, nothing physical. If Sophie's right and he's got a concussion, that's a brain injury. I don't even know if drugs will hurt him more, but he's like a wild animal who's got a knife sticking out of his leg, and we just want to treat him before releasing him back into the wild. But to do that, we've got to take him down. How do we do that without hurting him? How exactly are we going to do that at all, Nate?"

Nate rubbed a hand over his face. "Vittori approved Moreau's dinner. There's enough tranquilizer in it to knock him out until morning. The plan is to let Eliot get to Moreau's cell. He goes in, we shut it up tight. Moreau is out, and we have 'til morning to hit Eliot with the tranquilizer."

"Lock Eliot in a cell with Moreau?"

"Moreau wouldn't be a threat to Eliot even if he was awake, and Eliot thinks Moreau is his boss. Why else did he come to San Lorenzo? No, no, no, he won't hurt him."

Hardison's voice raised a pitch. "And if we can't get Eliot in the cell? Or if he somehow makes it out?"

"Moreau will be dead weight. It'll slow Eliot down. The plan stands. We let Eliot in, but we do not let him out."

Hardison nodded. "It sounds good…"

Sophie bit her lip. "…but it's Eliot."

xxxxx

Eliot was trapped. He was a prisoner. One of the guards held a taser to his chest, but Eliot had the guard's wrist and was holding him away. He meant to break that wrist, grab the taser and get out of there.

But that's not what he did. He had an overwhelming urge to stay. His brain screamed at him, but he eased off the guy's wrist. He really didn't want to do it but he did, and the guard shoved the taser into Eliot's chest and Eliot blacked out.

He woke up in a cold, wet dungeon. He was locked in a cell. All he had was a cot, a short-sleeve shirt and a terrible headache. What was that noise? It was blaring, it was cranked up so loud the sound waves reverberated off the stone walls in his cramped prison, and he thought his ears would bleed.

He was so distracted he didn't hear someone pick the lock on his door, but he watched it spring open. He tensed, at the ready, his body shivering from the freezing temps.

A blonde woman crept in and wrapped a blanket around his chest, pushing the edges around his arms and legs and under his chin nice and tight.

"There," she said happily. "I just tucked you in. Now you have to tuck me in one day when I'm all worried."

"I'm not wor—"

"I brought you some food, too. I wanted to bring you a TV, but Hardison says you don't watch TV, but I've seen you watch TV, but he wouldn't let me bring the TV—"

"Stop saying 'TV'!" he snapped.

"So I brought you this instead." She waggled a stuffed animal in his face. She whispered, and he had to read her lips because he couldn't hear over the screaming music. "It's Mr. Bunny!"

Eliot shot out of the hotel bed. The woman he mowed down in the middle of the day in public…brought him a stuffed animal when he was being tortured.

He wiped his face with a bare arm. He began to seriously consider the possibility that his mind was turning against him. That he was…could he be cracking up? Could it be the concussion? He was having flashbacks of things he didn't remember doing but of things that had actually happened.

Maybe he'd have to see a doctor. But what could he say? 'Hey, Doc, I'm meeting these people I don't remember killing.' They'd try and lock him up. An examination room had more weapons than he needed, but that wouldn't really be fair to the medical staff.

At least he hadn't dreamt about murdering the red-headed old lady.

He remembered every kill up until this point. He remembered why he did it. Not as a justification, but it was a choice he'd made. He had no sense of this one. She looked like Barbie but without the sexual or airhead connotations. She had a purity and an innocence. She was like Barbie's little sister, Skipper.

Eliot didn't know what was more disturbing, the fact that he knew the name of Barbie's little sister—or that Barbie even had a little sister—or not remembering anything about this woman he'd killed.

He felt the opposite of every negative emotion for her. He was drawn to her, like he wanted to protect her. Maybe that was why he'd dreamt about being imprisoned and tortured, and she appeared from nowhere to tuck him in.

Eliot leaned back on the bed. It was hours before sundown. He would get Flores tonight. He was concerned that Moreau might send someone else—and Eliot would be next on his list. Or that Eliot's brain would finally lose the battle and render him capable of nothing more than drooling on the floor and getting tasered by ghosts.

xxxxx

Every time Eliot's eyes slid shut, he saw her. He tried to force his eyes open, but they wouldn't cooperate. The last thing he needed to do was sleep, but it happened anyway.

He was at the carnival. He wasn't happy about it. In fact, he was pissed. He tried not to feel the full force of his rage, but something had set him off and he pounded the rides and started hitting people.

Whack! The ride hit him back. He felt his body go flying backward, and then he was face down, his body screaming at him. His head spun, but he had to get to the child.

There was a child—a girl—that needed him. He had to get to her. He heard her calling for him, deep in his mind, a scared, little voice, calling from the dark, but Eliot couldn't move. He had to get up, no matter the cost. He forced his eyes open and regretted it immediately, but he picked himself up. Hardison was in his ear, calling his name, over and over. Shut up! I'm trying to concentrate! He said nothing and limped to the girl.

Eliot groaned in the hotel bed, awake again. He'd never rescued a girl from a carnival. He'd never got taken out by a carnival ride, either. He'd remember that.

It was that woman's fault, the one from the café. He'd fallen asleep thinking about her childlike tendencies. He didn't hurt kids. Even Moreau didn't push him on that. Eliot knew it made little difference—Moreau just hired someone else to do it. Some of Moreau's men would kill whole families just to get their target.

Eliot didn't belong there, but he couldn't get out.

He squeezed his eyes shut for just a second.

He was dressed in red; red jacket, red pants, everything lined in white. He wore a big black belt around his fat waist. Scratching his chin, he got a fistful of itchy white hair. He looked down at his big black boots and heard a jingling sound. It was coming from his red hat.

He jingled!

A woman in green walked toward him. She wore pointy shoes—she wasn't a woman, she was an elf! An elf who was leading a kid toward Eliot.

"No, no!" Eliot screamed.

The kid picked his nose and held it out to him.

"Oh, God!" he cried.

The elf hissed at him, "Behave, Santa."

Santa? Now he was Santa Claus? And the elf was the hit-and-run/taser/stuffed bear woman?

The room spun, and he fell off the Santa chair. Now he was in another dungeon. No, a tunnel. He was squared off against four Santas. And he was taunting them.

"We doin' this beards or without beards, boys?"

Then he proceeded to beat the crap out of Santa Claus.

Eliot shot out of bed yet again, and raised a trembling hand to his face. He was so messed up he didn't know what to think. There wasn't much more he could do before admitting defeat.

xxxxx

"And then we could cover the ropes with leaves and mud."

"Leaves and mud?" Hardison shook his head at Parker. "You don't think it might be a little obvious?"

"We'd have to hide the trap or he won't step into it. The rope will grab his ankle, yank him up, and then we can talk to him until he gets his memory back."

"I don't think we should string up a concussed man. I keep telling you that's a brain injury."

"His brain will be upside down," Parker said as if that explained everything.

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. They just might be very slowly going insane.

Hardison tried again. "It's not a forest, Parker. This is Moreau's cell and I'm pretty sure Eliot would spot a rope covered with leaves and mud in a jail cell. I'm pretty sure Eliot would spot a rope covered with leaves and mud in the woods no matter how hidden. With a concussion. And blindfolded."

"It'll be dark. No one can be threatening while upside down."

Sophie walked to the window. "I think it would make Eliot mad."

Parker's face paled a little. Nate was starting to get a little pissed himself. He was worried. Worried that his plan would go south. Worried that he'd missed something or one of the guards would forget Eliot was a good guy or Eliot would manage to slip past them. Or that somehow, despite his best efforts, despite thinking through every scenario he could come up with, Eliot might end up hurt. The fact that he was already hurt and that the rest of the team kept coming up with ways to incapacitate him—that were getting more ridiculous by the suggestion—did not improve his mood any. They stood and sat around General Flores's office, Flores sitting behind the desk, quiet. At least someone was quiet.

"What if we got a cat and dressed him up as a—"

"That's it." Nate jumped out of his chair. "Out." He pushed Parker toward the door. "Out." He grabbed Hardison along the way and steered him towards the door, too. "Sophie."

"What?" Sophie asked.

"Out!"

"Me?"

"All of you! It's getting dark. Man your stations. No ropes, no tasers, no piers and no cats. Just do like I've said and be careful."

"But—"

"Get out."

Sophie grabbed her wig and hat and followed Parker and Hardison out the door. Nate shut it behind them and leaned against it.

Flores kept his feet resting on his desk as he leaned back in the chair. "I assume I am allowed to stay?"

"Sorry, General, but they're…" he coughed nervously and flicked off his com. "They're driving me nuts. I need to think. We need to focus."

"You're quite a team. Some days I wake up in disbelief at what you accomplished here, not so long ago."

"We're happy to help. Sorry this happened."

Flores waved a hand. "Do not apologize, my friend. I knew Eliot before any of you. He is quite the man."

"That's true. That's what I'm worried about."

"You are all worried about it. Don't take that away from them."

"They need to focus."

"It is their way of handling the stress." Flores took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. "Except for Parker. I gather she is like this all the time? Even while on vacation?"

Nate laughed and turned the com back on. They were talking over each other, talking to themselves. Sophie was complaining that Nate had cut them off, Hardison was upset that his computer wasn't working, and Parker was wondering if she could get Eliot to eat some of Moreau's dinner.

Maybe Flores was right and Nate should let them…express themselves. He calmed himself before speaking. "Sophie, did you want something?"

The others fell silent.

"I was just thinking what'll happen if Eliot doesn't try to free Moreau tonight. What if he tries tomorrow or the next day?"

"Then we'll be here, waiting."

"No matter how long it takes," Hardison said.

Parker spoke softly. "Eliot would do it for us."

Without a complaint, Nate thought, remembering Parker's earlier words. Eliot was the quietest of the group. He rarely spoke on the com if it wasn't a necessity. The most professional of them all. Or maybe it was his predatory instincts, always on the alert for any hint of danger. Eliot probably didn't listen to ninety percent of the ramblings over the com. Nate wished he could tune them out, but he had his job and in order to lead them, he had to listen to them—though it should be the other way around.

Although, Eliot had started chatting over the coms, a little bit here and there. He was comfortable, more open with them. Nate noticed.

They waited in silence for a half an hour; 'they' referring to Flores and himself. The others chatted ceaselessly, and Nate allowed himself the luxury of tuning them out. The thought of enduring this for a whole night was unbearable, but if Eliot really did wait a few days to strike….

A couple of hours passed.

"Nate, the security camera just went black on the east side," Hardison reported.

Nate stood up. "This is it, people. Are we ready?" He glanced at Flores who nodded. Over the com, he got a quiet yes, a nervous yes and an excited yes. They were in position in the cells of the dungeon next to Moreau. Most of the guards lay in wait by the elevator, out of sight. Eliot shouldn't notice the light staff because of the cameras they placed everywhere. Technology was replacing people every day, even back whenever Eliot thought he was.

That was another problem with going to ground. You rarely grabbed a newspaper or looked at the date if you did. It was only about survival, and normal things didn't filter in, especially with a concussion clouding your judgment and taking most of your attention without you even realizing it.

A good fifteen minutes passed. Then another ten.

Flores stood from his desk. "It will be okay. We will get him back."

"Nate, shouldn't he be here by now?" Sophie asked.

He'd just been thinking the same thing. "Eliot is a careful man. Keep calm, be ready and be careful." Everyone was silent, even Parker had nothing to say. Nate regretted his wish coming true. There was nothing to distract him now. He opened his mouth to ask Hardison about the security cameras when he heard a grunt and a thump. "What was that?"

"What was what, Nate?" Hardison asked.

Flores stood behind his desk. "I heard that, too."

Nate turned to Flores. "It didn't come over the com?"

"What didn't?" Sophie asked.

There was another thump, this one closer. Both Nate and Flores turned their heads as one. "It came from out there?" Nate whispered, pointing at the door.

Flores nodded.

"Are you talking to us?" Sophie asked.

Nate racked his brain and came up with one more scenario he hadn't considered. He sprang to life, ran for the door and secured the lock. "Quick, help me with this."

Flores moved fast and rounded the desk in a second, but it was too late. Someone was kicking down the door.

Nate's heart pumped fast, but he forced calm. "Uh, guys, we have a problem here."

"What is it, Nate?" Sophie demanded. "What's going on?"

The door flung open with a snap, and Eliot marched in, a scowl in place that made Nate's blood run cold. Eliot had always been there when they'd needed him, and now that Eliot was the one in need, Nate had screwed up. He screwed up on one of the most important jobs he'd ever been on.

Eliot scanned the room, blocking any escape while he did it, before focusing on General Flores. "I'm Eliot Spencer, and I've been sent here to kill you."

Nate whispered, "I've joined the club."