Nice spot on the Goodwin alias Christy! I almost went with Archie too but I thought it would be a little much :D Thanks to all my reviewers, it means to me that you took the time. Peace x

P.S. My dentist sucks! I had to go to the other day after I tripped up the stairs and cracked my tooth (what a douche!) Anywho, the dentist was yanking my jaw open so hard he left a bruise on my throat! I was like SERIOUSLY! When my Dad saw it though I had had to hide the phone so he didn't ring up and yell at him XD He can be pretty scary, but it was still hilarious – Dentist Boy does it again though and I'm drawing him a map!

"You should know that I would never ever do something like this again. I want you to understand that, okay?"

"It's okay Eliot I'm not going to judge you; we've all done things we wish we hadn't."

"Ever torture a man? Ever heard him screaming for you to stop? Begging you to kill him?" He heard Sophie's harsh intake of breath and looked away. He let himself flop back on to the grass his head landing hard enough to cause a slight jolt of pain and then rested his forearm over his eyes.

Sophie gentle moved his arm, looking him in the eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

"Don't you understand Soph? What Roskin said was right; I am a monster. What will it take for you to understand that! You wanna know some of the details huh? I broke every one of his fingers. Just to get some kind of bearing on his pain toleration levels, and y'know to watch him suffer! Then I cut off his thumbs so that he could never use his hands properly, you know why I did that? Because I, I, decided he wasn't human enough to deserve opposable thumbs, like I have any right to judge!"

"Eliot..."

"THEN I moved on to the more major joints like the shoulders and the knees and let's put it this way, he wasn't going to be doin' any walking or y'know waving any time soon. I destroyed the ligaments and the tendons. Even world class surgeons would a hard time puttin' him back together again."

"Eliot please..."

"Oh, there's more. I won't go into the gory details but let's just say he ain't so much of a man these days either. I burned him and cut him and made him beg forgiveness for all the depraved things he did to m..." He stopped suddenly as if halting himself from saying something he hadn't meant to share.

Sophie was shocked and silent. And then something came into her face that he couldn't identify.

"Oh Eliot, what did he do to you?" It was Eliot's turn to look shocked now. After everything he said she wanted to know what he had done to him.

"Didn't you hear what I just said...?"

"I heard. I also know you would have done any of that unless he had done something worse to..."

"I took his tongue. I took his eyes..."

"But he did worse though didn't he." She said this as a statement not a question. She was so certain, so sure. He stood up; standing over her on the ground. He swung his arms out gesturing wildly.

"Don't you get it?! It doesn't matter what he did! Who was I to judge him? It isn't my place to decide that he should suffer that! I did other things too, worse things, things that I can't tell you because it would be unfair of me to inflict that on you. Because if you knew they'd keep you lie awake at night, sickened and scared. The things I did to him... And I wasn't trying to extract information either! I wasn't trying to save anybody this time! All I was doing was sending him to hell in the most excruciating fashion possible.

"Not killing him though, because living would be worse than dying, because death would have been mercy. You know where he is now? He's in a world of darkness and pain and fear. A place where he has no control; where he'll never feel safe again!"

"Are you talking about him now or you? Is that where he is or you are?" Sophie demanded anger in her voice.

"I've spent most of my life there!" he yelled. His hand flew over his mouth. He definitely hadn't meant to say that. He turned away desperately wishing he could take that back; to un-say it.

These were things he had never spoken about, things he had intended to speak about. And he hadn't been able to stop them spilling out. Absently something in his brain told him the anger he had heard in Sophie's voice was faked, designed to get an honest response from him; to make his anger overrule his brain.

Sophie restrained herself from trying to hug Eliot recognising the man didn't want to be touched right now. So instead of pushing to find out what Vyacheslav had done to incur Eliot's uncontrolled wrath she moved away from anything to do with the incident at all. He would tell her at some point she felt confident of that. She lightened her tone as if none of had just occurred had happened, she was an actress after all.

"So, I should probably call the others so they don't wonder where we are."

"Hardison put a tracker in my truck that he thinks I don't know about so they know where we are already." Eliot said quietly before adding, "I'm sorry for telling you that stuff. I understand if you want to tell Nate. If you want me to leave the team I can do that too. I don't want this to be a burden on you."

He finally looked her in the eye, making sure that she knew he was serious. Sophie touched his face lightly and smiled.

"Of course I don't want you to leave." She then took his arm and led him back to the truck as if to make a point that she wasn't going to leave him.

When they made it back into their respective seats; Eliot choosing to drive this time, both heard their phones bleeping loudly. They had both left them in the truck; Sophie not wanting to be interrupted and Eliot out of habit. If he was riding the President himself could ring he wouldn't take the call so there wasn't really any point carrying it.

Sophie retrieved hers and tossed Eliot's to him. There were multiple missed calls from both Hardison and Nathan (although mostly Hardison.) Sophie called Hardison's cell, setting it to speaker phone so Eliot could hear too.

"What the hell is wrong with you guys? Do none a y'all answer your damn cell phones no more?"

"Well, hello to you too." said Sophie with laughter in her tone.

"Sorry to interrupt your morning but we have a problem. You see I have this computer programme that is constantly running. I won't bore you with the details of my brilliance, but what it does is it comb's through the internet searching for images or picture or mentions of our names. Now mostly it comes up with false alerts and occasionally things that I just delete."

"You plan on gettin' to the problem anytime this century Hardison?" Eliot asked short-temperedly.

"Impatient much? You know I am seriously underappreciated! I'm here savin' all a y'all butts and..." He was interrupted by a growl so threatening Hardison decided getting to the point would be essential to his continued well-being even with Eliot so far away. "I found a posting online... it was a video of Eliot. I took it off the internet obviously, but..." Hardison trailed off.

"But what?" Eliot demanded.

"There was a message posted with it... it had been posted a few hours already before found it and deleted it... Roskin... he put a hit out on you. I'm really sorry man."

"Don't be. Unless you're planning to kill me, which I highly doubt, you have nuthin' to apologise for." He heard Parker whisper 'Are you planning to kill him?' He rolled his eyes.

"I hacked his e-mail account. He got some replies already. I deleted any he hadn't read yet, but I was too late to intercept a few. I sent a virus disguised as a reply so his computers about to go down in flames."

"Can you track down the people he already replied to?"

"Yeah I sent them e-mails calling it off but I don't know how well trained killers respond to that kind of thing."

"Have you figured out who any of the people are that he asked?" Sophie asked her concern clear in her tone.

"I'm working on it but it ain't easy."

"Anyone I should really be concerned about is unlikely to be traceable; you don't last long if someone can figure out who you are by tapping a few keys."

"Hey! I don't just tap a few keys and 'hey presto!' all the answers appear. This is not easy. I'd like to you try doing this!"

"Hardison focus! I'm not saying I could do it, I'm saying they ain't goin' be loggin' on to their home computer and sending out e-mails saying 'sure I'll shoot the guy in the face!" They'll be going out to neutral locations like an internet café or a library and making sure to shield their face from any cameras in the vicinity."

"Bet he's done that before" Parker laughed.

"I can hear you Parker."

"Oops! Sorry."

"Okay," Sophie said, "we're on our way back. Hardison keep looking and where is Nate."

"He went out to get coffee but I'll tell him you rang."

Sophie suddenly realised she was a little disappointed at missing Nate and then kicked herself for caring. She hated that she spent so much of her life preoccupied with him but was unable to disengage.

She pushed her own issues to the back of her mind and focussed on more pressing matters. What were they going to do now?

TBC

Okay there's going to be more action next chapter.

Also I hope you don't feel I portrayed Eliot too harshly (or not harshly enough, who knows!) I didn't want it to be too graphic as I don't know how people would feel about that. I'm going to write more about what Vyacheslav did to deserve this so Eliot shouldn't seem so vilified in case you feel he seems that way atm. I'm going to stop rambling now!