Chapter Twelve

Nate held his hands out. "All right, everybody freeze! All the guards, man the door and any access points. No one touches Eliot."

A threatening growl cut through the night air.

Nate knelt down. "Parker, help me." Together, they hauled Hardison off of Eliot. They sat him with his back against the wall, next to the broken door. "Hardison? You okay?" Nate asked gently.

Hardison opened his eyes and shivered. "You tasered me. You did it on purpose."

Parker smiled, quite pleased with herself. "You're welcome."

"I'm what? What did you just say?"

She grinned. "We got him."

Nate cut in before they could celebrate. "Not yet we don't. He's waking up."

Hardison wrapped his arms around himself. "Those are possibly the scariest words ever uttered."

"Do you feel up to helping us?" Nate asked.

"Where's the needle?" Parker asked.

Flores rushed over with it. "We have to hurry."

Eliot was stirring. They grouped around him; Flores, Hardison, Parker, Sophie and Nate. "Okay, here we go." Nate prepped the needle and angled the crook of Eliot's arm toward him.

Eliot's eyes popped open.

"Crap!" Hardison yelped.

"Grab him!" Nate ordered.

Hardison took hold of Eliot's shoulders and held him down, but Eliot snatched his wrist. Parker flung herself over Eliot's torso, without pressing down, and Eliot gasped, momentarily releasing his grip. Hardison grabbed Eliot's right arm and sat on it. Eliot made a fist with his left, but Nate kneeled on his forearm. It was difficult to balance himself so as not to hurt Eliot yet keep him pinned down, all while being careful with the needle.

Eliot kicked, nearly tossing Parker off him. He flailed wildly and knocked the needle out of Nate's hand, and it skittered across the roof. Sophie seized Eliot's legs, and a guard rushed another syringe to Nate.

Flores knelt down and held Eliot's left arm against the roof so Nate could focus on inserting the needle. Parker adjusted her weight on Eliot's chest while Hardison held down his head and shoulders, and Sophie lay across Eliot's legs. He struggled, frantically trying to gain an advantage, desperately trying to escape.

Nate pushed the needle into his arm, and Eliot cried out. After several seconds, Eliot's movements were jarring and sporadic. He lashed out, but there wasn't any power in it. Then, it looked like he was just struggling to keep awake.

Flores let go of his arm. "It's okay, friend."

Eliot's head lolled from side to side. "No, s'not."

Parker picked herself up, off his chest, and sat back. "Yeah. It is." She reached over and brushed the hair off his forehead.

He reacted to her touch, trying to move away from her.

She held his cheeks in her hands. "We're safe now."

Hardison's voice sounded shaky, and he still held Eliot's shoulders. "She means you're safe now."

"No, I mean we're safe now. He's crazy-strong."

Eliot's hands twitched, his fingers brushing against the roof. "Can't…get away."

"You don't need to." Parker put her hand in one of his fidgety ones.

Hardison leaned over and tilted his face to look at Eliot right side up. "Seriously, man? You remember the sandwich? The sandwich?"

Eliot angled his head to look at him, his eyelids sliding down. "Dr…Ralph…O. Khan."

Hardison looked surprised. "You remember that, too?"

Eliot swallowed. He spoke so softly. "I…beat up a…Federal Marshall…in a morgue."

Parker held his hand tighter. "You lead such an interesting life."

Eliot's eyes glazed over, but he refused to succumb to the drug. Nate was frustrated. Eliot spent every day taking care of them, just this once Eliot could let them return the favor.

"What year do you think it is?" Hardison asked.

Eliot's leg twitched. Sophie had let them go a minute before. Suddenly, Nate grabbed the man's jeans. "We'd better disarm him. Just in case."

"He can't even move," Parker said. "And we finally got him back!"

"Not quite." Nate took a knife out of Eliot's boot. Nate patted him down and found a switchblade and another knife. He looked at Hardison, and Hardison took his hands off Eliot's shoulders. Nate nodded. "Excuse me, Eliot." He rolled his friend to the side, and Hardison held him in position while Nate found another three knives tucked into the back of his jeans and belt. Nate gently eased him back. "Well, that's all I can find."

Hardison let go. "Which doesn't account for the fifty or so he's still got hidden."

Parker nodded slowly. "I told you he's really good at hide `n seek."

"Ralph…O…"

"What does that mean?" Sophie asked.

Hardison shut his eyes for a second. "It's a code we used. I'd told him, if there was trouble… Eliot took his com out on a job…" Hardison shook his head.

Sophie leaned in and laced her fingers into Eliot's other hand. "You mean he's calling for help?"

Eliot's eyes were barely slits. "Ralph—"

"You're not in trouble, Eliot." Hardison shook his shoulder and Eliot groaned, his eyes snapping open.

Nate grabbed Hardison's arm. "We're supposed to be knocking him out, not waking him up."

"He looks so helpless! He should never look like that. It's wrong."

"So wrong," Parker echoed.

Nate watched Eliot force his eyes open again. The sheer willpower it took to fight the drug was astonishing. Nate realized he'd screwed up on yet another point. Eliot was racking his brain, not searching it. He was trying to come up with a way out, not dismissing three possibles in favor of the most likely to succeed. Nate had forgotten that the Eliot they were dealing with was ten years younger. Nate was so focused on thinking of Eliot as a stranger, but the point was, he was younger. Nate started laughing, crouched on the roof, armed guards standing all around their little circle. He just laughed.

Sophie touched his arm. "What is it, Nate?"

"This shouldn't have worked."

"It nearly didn't."

"This is Eliot ten years ago."

Parker scrunched up her nose. "I thought he didn't travel through time."

"It took all of us and then some to barely subdue him. This Eliot has a decade less experience, a decade less training, a decade less figuring out how to escape dire situations."

Hardison said, "Oh my God, you're right. You know what this means?"

Parker nodded. "He's super awesome!"

Sophie smoothed Eliot's pant legs. "It means we take him for granted. We've seen him in action, but I, for one, never realized what he's capable of. He does this for us every day."

"Yes," Parker said. "He's super awesome."

"I'm still…here."

"Do you remember us yet?" Parker asked hopefully.

Eliot widened his eyes enough to glare at her.

Parker crossed her arms and stuck her lower lip out. "We'll keep you here until you do."

"Not on the roof," Sophie said.

"Yeah, what are we going to do with him?" Hardison asked.

Nate wasn't looking forward to this next part. He motioned to Flores who went to one of the guards by the door. "Eliot, this is going to do nothing for your morale."

Flores walked back, loaded down with chains. "Hold tight, my friend."

Eliot started shaking. He flailed his right arm and managed to brush Sophie's knee.

"He's trying to get up!" Hardison said.

"Super awesome." Parker scooted back as Eliot managed to bring his knee up.

His boot scraped along the roof and if he was trying to kick at them—which was really the only thing he could be doing—he wasn't able to follow through. "What are you…going to do…with me?"

"We're going to protect you," Nate said.

Eliot rolled his head side to side. "Don't…believe…"

Nobody said anything. Sophie patted his arm.

Eliot pulled away from her. "What…do you…want?"

"We want you to get well," Nate said. "God, we want you to pass out."

Eliot offered the slightest shake of his head. "Mind games. Don't…believe…"

Nate reached over and held Eliot's shoulder. "You have a concussion. You were just tasered. You have enough tranquilizers in your system to knock you out for two days, and you're carrying on a coherent conversation." He leaned into him. "You are ridiculous. Just let go."

"If I…lose conshish…ness…I die." He said it so matter-of-factly.

"He really believes that." Parker scooted back to him. "That's how you live? That's terrible. You just go to sleep, anyway. I'll protect you."

"You?" Eliot squinted up at her. "You tasered me."

"Sometimes friends have to taser friends." She said that so matter-of-factly as well.

"That's…how you live? S'terrible." Eliot was finally slipping under. "Thrr's somming wrong with you, Skipper." He struggled uselessly.

Nate held his arm as Hardison pushed on his shoulders. Sophie held his legs down again, and Parker placed gentle hands on his cheeks and forehead. Eliot pushed against them but the group easily held him down.

"No…" His eyes slid shut and he stopped fighting.

Nate held his arm. Eliot's breathing slowed, and his head flopped toward Parker. Nate felt the tension leave Eliot's body.

They stayed like that for another minute, then Nate let Eliot go. "All right, people. Let's get him downstairs."

"What about the chains?" Flores held them up.

Hardison pushed them away. "We'll carry him downstairs, and then the doctor will check him out, and then we'll chain him up."

Flores nodded and started issuing orders to his men.

Nate glanced at his team, including the unconscious Eliot. "Yeah, I like that plan, but maybe we can switch two and three."

"Good idea." Hardison nodded. "You ready?"

Nate bent down. "On the count of three." He counted and Hardison gently tucked his hands under Eliot's shoulders while Nate lifted Eliot's legs.

Sophie rounded them and pushed the hair out of Eliot's face. "Be careful of his back."

"And his brain," Parker added.

"You sound like a zombie," Hardison said.

"You keep saying he has a brain injury. Look how you're holding him—lift his head up." Parker squeezed in next to him and cradled Eliot's head in her hands.

"I'm doing the best I can."

"It's fine. I've got him, too."

Sophie darted for the door and pushed the broken pieces out of the way. She spoke soothingly to Hardison and Parker, both walking backwards, and helped them maneuver the stairs.

It was slow work, but they finally managed to place him on a comfortable mattress in an interior room on the ground floor. They secured the leg irons and handcuffed him to the bed. He would be able to move but not get up or hit anyone. They tucked washcloths between his ankles and the leg irons, and a rubber membrane between the cuffs and his wrists.

Parker examined the outcome when they were done. Nate thought she was going to critique their efforts. Eliot looked so peaceful lying on the clean white linens, his head sunk down in a soft pillow, his hair framing his ashen face.

"This is so wrong," she said.

"I know, Parker." Nate put his arm around her shoulders.

She sighed. "But it's so Eliot, too."

Nate smiled. "Life is like that sometimes."

Hardison raised Eliot's right hand and let it go. It fell, weightless, the cuffs clanked. "He's really out. Are you sure he didn't get too much of the drug?"

"I told the doctor what we wanted, his height and weight and to assume he'd had a full meal. We gave him the maximum amount."

Hardison snorted. "Concussion, taser, climbed a building, tranquilizers. Even Superman can't fight kryptonite the way Eliot fought all that."

Parker tilted her head and shut one eye. "He looks sad. Doesn't he look sad?"

"Come on." Nate pulled her away. "Let the doctor do his job. We need to rest, too."

"But I want to stay."

"We all need to sleep, Parker."

"But I promised to protect him."

"Yeah." Hardison stared at Eliot's still form. "It wouldn't feel right going back to the hotel."

Sophie nodded. "I'm not leaving, either."

"I figured you'd say that, so I made arrangements with Flores. We'd be in the way now so we'll have dinner, and by the time we're done, there'll be four cots set up for us in here." Nate steered them out.

"That's why Eliot's room is so large," Sophie said.

Parker hooted. "You know us better than we know ourselves!"

Nate smiled, feeling weary yet optimistic.

Hardison sighed deeply. "Seriously? He holds a gun on you, he attacks me with a knife and a taser, and he gets a bed while we get cots?"

"Ooooh!" Parker clapped her hands in excitement. "It's a sleepover! Oh, no, there are no windows in the room."

"We're not jumping out the windows," Hardison explained.

"I wonder if there's a pool around here."

"We're not handcuffing each other to chairs, Parker!"

"But then it's not really a sleepover!"

Nate whispered, "Do I want to know?"

Hardison made a face at him and stumbled over his words, trying to get Parker to act normal. Nate led them down the hall, knowing it was a useless endeavor, but allowing himself to enjoy the moment. He'd finally gotten his team back.