Notes: Well, college has finally decided to stop eating me alive and let me get back to the important stuff. sorta.
In any case after much struggling I finally got this piece written to my satisfaction. We've got five more tag fics for the three remaining episodes of the summer season. Depending on how the next season goes "The Way of Our World" the tag to The Lost Heir job may be the offical "end" of the Black King White Knight verse. However I'll still finish up Two Knights Opener and maybe add in a few peices here and there I missed the first time I ran through. I also have a baby plot-bunny idea for a long fic that would take place between Two Knights Opener and Black King White Knight.
All in all there is plenty of goodness yet to come including more Legacy Job and maybe even a Parker/Eliot/Hardison fic.

Quiet at Day's End
After The Top Hat Job Hardison, Eliot, and Parker talk about (among other things) Nate/Eliot and "evil therapists" trying to brainwash Eliot.

After the job with the magic show was when Hardison made the decision that he would never want to be a hitter. Okay, so it was more during the job, when those goons were beating the crap outta him and trying to get him to tell them where the team was but after the job he decided it again.

They were all doing wrap up. Or specifically Sophie and Nate were doing wrap up. Parker almost never had any loose ends to tie up, Eliot mostly only had wrap up to do when they'd been on an extended con and needed to close out fast (then everyone did wrap up) or he had some people left to beat into submission.

Hardison normally had wrap up to do but Nate had given him a free pass to go check himself out in the bathroom and orders to get Eliot to take care of him if he was hurt worse than originally thought.

Staring at the mottled purple and blue bruises solidifying on his torso, a pattern they'd all gotten used to keeping in mind probably decorated Eliot on any given day (not that the stubborn bastard would ever let them see it but that didn't mean they didn't know it was there)…

Hardison came to two conclusions.

He was never going to be the team's or any team's hitter. He liked his body the way it was too much to let people use it as a punching bag.

He wasn't going to complain about injuries to Eliot unless there was a knife, gun, or a potentially lethal trip to the emergency room involved.

There was actually a conclusion 3 in there (It really sucks to get the crap beaten out of you) but he'd come to that conclusion on a few occasions before.

Hardison was just rebuttoning his shirt and getting ready to move on with life when Sophie knocked on the bathroom door. (And since when did he know who was knocking by the sound? It's a very distinctive sound. His internal Eliot told him.)

A moment later Sophie was letting herself in. "HEY! How'd you know I wouldn't be naked? That's not cool!" Hardison half shouted in surprise.

Sophie's grin in response did not make him feel better.

But after just a second the grin slipped away, replaced by a look of concern. "I wanted to make sure you were taken care of. It sounded pretty bad over the coms."

"I'm fine. Believe it or not I have been beat up before." He started before his mind ground to a halt and switched trains. "Wait. Over the coms?" Sophie nodded. "Shit."

Hardison hastened his attempts to button up his shirt while Sophie took half a moment to recover. "Whats wrong? You didn't realize we could hear what wa…" Her voice trailed away as she caught on and stepped out of the way. "He went up to the studio right after you came in here."

Hardison nodded and slipped out past her, into the apartment and out the door. A flight of stairs and stretch of hall later he let himself into the small studio apartment Eliot had been using as a training area.

He opened the door slowly, half expecting to find Eliot beating the hell out of the punching bag or one of the practice dummys, maybe going all samurai with one of the awesome swords Hardison was forbidden to touch or something. As usual since Hardison had found out about the Black Knight, River Tam came to mind.

He was almost done opening the door when he realized Eliot didn't have any behavioral conditioning (at least not that could be triggered by a safe word, the back of Hardison's mind added darkly) and if Eliot had gone Black Knight Hardison was so very screwed.

He had not expected to find the apartment's lights dimmed and the curtains on the windows drawn to darken the room further.

He had not expected to see Eliot kneeling in the middle of the floor, his legs folded under him, a look somewhere between frustrated, calm, and exhausted on his face.

The door closed behind Hardison and Eliot's eyes snapped open.

Like a great cat, slow and casually but still deadly, Eliot unfolded himself and rose to his feet with more ease than any man had a right.

Hardison had expected a lot of thing, but he hadn't expected the calm resignation on Eliot's face. "Come over here, let me see." Eliot turned, walking over to the strange lounge like chair with only minimal padding that had never looked particularly comfortable. When Eliot gestured to it with a half muttered "sit" and opened a nearby cabinent to pull out first aid supplies it occurred to Hardison that he could stop working on a medical ward for this castle. Eliot had that taken care of.

Catching onto what Eliot was thinking Hardison shook his head. "No, I'm okay man. I… actually came up to see if you were."

Eliot stopped, his back turned to Hardison and Hardison hadn't picked up enough to be able to read Eliot from behind. Hardison sighed internally. He was walking a potentially dangerous path, getting touchy feely with Eliot was Never easy, at least Eliot could look at him so Hardison could try to figure out the other's reactions.

"'m fine." Eliot said offhand, already putting the supplies away.

Before Hardison could think of something witty to respond to that with the door opened with Parker stepping in. "Elie I need to ask you a question." Parker blinked, probably noticing Hardison had intruded into Eliot's sanctum.

Wait… Elie? Was Parker seriously calling Eliot by his sisters nickname for him? And he was letting her? Was that a smile. What?

"Dude, did you dump Nate for Parker? Is that what's been going on?" Hardison said before he could stop his mouth from shooting off, the hurt and confusion in his voice more than he'd willingly admit.

Parker looked confused. "I was about to ask if he'd dumped Nate for you."

Hardison blinked. "Uh… what?"

"Well… he's a guy. You're a guy. Sophie said they broke up so I thought…"

Their conversation was saved from further devolution by a bark of laughter from Eliot. Two pairs of confused eyes went to Eliot as he shook his head, amusement and exasperation warring for dominance.

"We didn't break up." He stated after a moment. "I'm not sure what Sophie heard but whatever it was it wasn't that."

"She said she overheard you and Nate fighting." Parker explained. "On Monday. She came by and she heard you guys fighting through the walls about something and then you said you were leaving and would be back later for you stuff and you stormed out."

Eliot look confused a moment then, Hardison could have almost sworn, Eliot looked…

Embarresed?

"No. We did not break up." Eliot said, his frustration less than normal. "We were fightin' 'bout somthin' else."

"Oooh. Trouble in Paradise?" Hardison said before he thought to shut the hell up before he got himself beat up again. No wait. Eliot probably wouldn't kill him so he'd probably wait until Hardison was better before beating him up. Maybe that was enough time to earn forgiveness?

Eliot was giving his angry "I'm gonna punch something" look. Crap.

"Come on." Parker said teasingly, or attempting to be comforting and sympathetic. Hardison was never really sure. "What was the fight about? Please Elie?"

Eliot closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose (and seriously? Wasn't that something Nate did? Were they already picking up each other's mannerisms?) and didn't answer.

"Elie?" Hardison asked, a raised eyebrow aimed at Parker.

"Eliot said I could call him that." Parker defended. "When we were gardening together on the roof after the job with the FBI guys and the kids."

"When it was just the two of us." Eliot interjected. "I said, when it was just the two of us you could. There are three of us in the room."

"Oh…" Parker said, making a face and looking sideways. "Sorry Eliot."

"So" Hardison said in the silence that briefly followed. "Now that we've got the name game sorted out will you tell us kids what Mommy and Daddy were fighting about." Hardison knew it was a mistake before the words were completely out of his mouth.

Were there places in the world where you could hide from someone like Eliot? Did they have wifi?

Maybe he could convince Eliot he'd been hit in the head too many times and apologies latter?

Eliot took another long "I must not kill my team mates" breath, reigning in his temper, probably hampered somewhat by Parker muttering "Rule 41".

He took another long breath and spoke. "Nate wanted me ta talk ta someone alright?"

"Talk to someone?" Hardison asked. That was it? Wait. Talk to someone… "Talk to someone like a client or Talk to someone?" Eliot's glare told Hardison all he needed to know.

Hardison briefly entertained the idea of making a joke. The image of Eliot on a shrink's couch was begging to be mocked.

But…

It was three months since Kentucky and week or two under four months since the team had found out about the Black Knight. On the surface things were getting better, though there was looming trouble from Sophie's direction.

But they all knew on one level or another Eliot was doing "better" in as much as he wasn't a bad encounter away from falling apart or going black knight permanently like things had been back in Kentucky anymore. He laughed and fought and cooked and bantered.

But he also found his way down to Hardison's hacker's den in the middle of the night three or four times a week. He didn't even make excuses anymore, just let himself in and sat down in the sturdy wooden chair that had appeared after the second swivel computer chair that had previously appeared went ignored. A few minutes would tick by as Hardison ran a location check on the girls (easier now that Parker was spending most nights in her den on the second floor).

Most of the time after that Eliot would leave. Other times he'd sit in silence for a few minutes before asking Hardison what he was doing. He'd cut Hardison off, mid explanation, whenever it was something hacking related and utter two words that never really stopped catching Hardison off guard. "Teach me."

They didn't normally talk about the real reason Eliot found his way downstairs. They didn't normally talk about the nightmares that etched lines of exhaustion into Eliot's face when they went too long between jobs.

But Hardison knew, and he knew that it wasn't just him being more perceptive. If he was seeing even the few signs he was that Eliot was not okay Eliot was probably still much more messed up that he'd ever willingly admit.

Yeah. Hardison could tease Eliot about this. He probably could even get away with it alive.

But for once Hardison took a step back from his curious nature and desire to know the most he could about the team and admitted this wasn't his damn business.

Parker however. "Are you going?" She asked.

Eliot nodded jerkily before turning away. "Tomorrow's my second session."

"Do the have one of those couches? You really shouldn't lie on them. Or make them cover it with a blanket or something. I saw a movie once about those phyciatrists and their patients having sex on one of those. A lot of patients, a lot of sex." She paused eyes widening. Hardison could almost see her thought process jumping and skipping one train of thought to the next at random. "Eliot, be careful and make sure your therapist isn't evil and trying to brainwash you."

There was a moment of silence while Eliot and Hardison both briefly tried to catch up with Parker's train of thought, gave up, noted her earnest expression and somehow a hint of laughter bubbled up Hardison's throat.

A moment later a chuckle somewhere before amusment and that place where something's so ridiculous it's hilarious escaped Eliot.

"What?" Parker said, looking between them. Her confused expression caused the chuckles to grow into laughter. Real laughter, maybe not "carefree", but as close as they were likely to come. Even if Hardison had to wrap his arms around his chest, holding back the wince as laughter shook his abused frame he didn't care.

Eliot was not okay. Sophie was getting close to something and Hardison could only tell it would be bad. Six hours ago Hardison had come a good deal closer than was comfortable to being tortured. Nate's control freakyness was bordering getting out of hand and Parker apparently couldn't tell the difference between a movie the was likely a bad porno and reality.

Things on the team were, as usual, unstable at best.

But the job was done, the bad guys were punished, and food was safe. It was the end of the day and things might get better without getting worse first.

It felt good to laugh.

When the laughter had mostly died Hardison looked back at Parker to see an odd, almost satisfied look in her eyes. Like she'd just stolen something.

A moment later Eliot was telling him to take off his shirt (apparently the man had seen the way Hardison had held his ribs) and Parker left with a backward call that she'd give them privacy and would keep Nate occupied.

Neither of them said a word as Eliot helped him out of his shirt and sat him down. Reminded of why he'd come down in the first place Hardison felt a dozen questions and statements hovering at the tip of his tongue.

But calloused and scared hands ghosted their way over bruises, checking him over for serious damage even as Hardison noted for the first time that Eliot's knuckles were bruised and cut like they never usually were after a fight.

There was a lot that could be said, maybe even a lot that should be said.

But it was the end of a job and what should be said would be said soon enough and what could be said could wait.

It was the end of the job and for once Hardison felt no need to disturb the silence.