Title: The Intersection of Points N and E
Summary: Snapshots of Eliot and Natalia's adventures over their years together.
Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage or any of the characters associated with the show. I only claim ownership to the character that I created. Also, no profits are being made off of this story. It's only for your entertainment.
Author's Note: Apologies for making you all wait so long. I've been working on two chapters at once and neither really wanted to write itself, but hopefully I can get that one up soon too. Enjoy!
Chapter 7: You Look Like Hell
~May 27th 2003 ~ Florida
Natalia remembered the sirens, the slam of the concussion grenade, and then blackness.
Faint flickers of consciousness revealed bits of the hours she spent at the mercy of a world out of her control. There was the blinding wash of an overhead light. The murmuring of doctors. A strong pair of arms placing her limp form into a bed. Her bed.
As consciousness flooded back she could feel the familiar protective presence at her side.
"You look like hell," Eliot said in a soft voice, a cautious smile on his face.
"Mmm, thanks Eliot, that's sweet," her voice was husky, her mouth dry. She slowly became aware of more and more of her body, and of just how much it fucking hurt.
Almost immediately her brain kicked into gear. "Did I break anything?" She wasn't sure yet, but the statement made her acutely aware that she had a split bottom lip.
"No. You have a concussion, a dislocated left shoulder, a wrenched knee, and more cuts and bruises than I can count, but no broken bones. You got lucky," He smiled, gazing into her half-lidded green eyes.
"My shoulder," she began as she shifted around to sit up. She could feel that it was wrapped tightly, in an effort to protect her from herself, mostly. Eliot quickly sprung to his feet, ready to help in any way. He knew he should stop her, but he also knew her better than that. He propped a few pillows behind her back as she blinked hard to clear the dizziness that suddenly manifested. "Did I tear anything?"
"Your rotator cuff."He heard her curse under her breath. "The doctors said it was mild. They think you popped the bone back into place before you passed out. Saved yourself a lot of damage." Eliot was still amazed even now. "How on Earth did you manage to do that?"
"A cement wall and some force. What about my head?"
"'Blunt trauma to the right frontal lobe' is what they called it. From when you hit the ground. No internal bleeding, and only mild swelling, but they're still not sure if it scrambled your brain," Eliot knew the potential symptoms of damage; he had smashed his head once in exactly the same place. He was going to watch her like a hawk over the next few days.
"And you," she looked over at him, "how did they know to call you?" Natalia didn't have emergency contacts. She couldn't afford to. There were no special numbers in her phone, no list of people to call in her file. And yet somehow, the only person in the world she wanted to see at the moment was sitting right beside her.
"Gordon was your doctor. They had you admitted under someone else's care but he fixed that fast. He didn't trust anyone else to treat you. Once they had you stabilized he called me. Said that he figured I was the only one you'd listen to."
"He was right," she coughed to try to clear her throat. "I guess he got his wish then. He's been dying to see me in my underwear for years." This had Eliot laughing. She still had her memories. And sense of humor.
"Thank you," she angled her eyes up at the hitter. He had allowed his normally short hair to grow slightly and a stray strand just barely brushed his eyelashes. "I like your hair," her voice was soft and so childlike that he laughed, more at it than her statement. "What happened here?" It became serious again as she frailly brushed the backs of her fingers against the cloth of a bandage strapped to his right bicep.
"Sniper's bullet."
"Where were you?"
"Myanmar."
"Nice," she offered a slight grin.
"Can I get you anything?" Eliot leaned an elbow on the edge of the bed and softly brushed a lock of hair from her face.
"A bath. Some ice," she paused, "and a pack of cigarettes. Not necessarily in that order," she smiled weakly.
"Well momma, I got you covered on one of those," Eliot reached into the pocket of his leather jacket hanging on the back of the chair, and held up a small box wrapped in plastic. Natalia didn't smoke – except on the rare occasion when she was overly stressed. When that occurred, only two things helped clear her mind; smokes or sex. When the latter wasn't an option, she made an exception to her rules. It gave her something to do with her hands, forced her to breathe in and out steadily, and somehow helped her process. At the moment she was torn up, temporarily decommissioned, and in pain whether she wanted to admit it or not. Eliot couldn't offer her his body, but he hoped some Marlboros would suffice.
"I got your bath comin' up," he squeezed her hand and turned around to fill the tub. She looked to her left at the nightstand, finding an orange pill bottle. She squinted her eyes at the label. 'Oxycodone/Acetaminophen.' She grunted in disapproval. Oxycodone never failed to knock her out cold, which she hated. It took control out of her hands.
Her gaze then fell on her cell phone.
Damn. The once sleek black casing was dented, with scars of silver marring its surface where the paint had been scraped off. The front screen was cracked and she picked it up and flipped it open. The inside screen still worked. She carefully reached over with her good arm and fumbled around to dial her boss.
"Davis," she answered when he picked up the phone.
"Natalia! Good to hear your voice. How are you feeling?"
"Like shit," she heard Davis chuckle on the other line. "And you owe me a new phone," she joked with as much of a smile as she could muster.
"Hey, I'm not the one who wrecked it! When you're feeling better you can come down and pick one out yourself."
"When am I allowed back out?"
"Depends on what the doctors say, but I say you're on mandatory leave for at least a month."
At this, Natalia started to protest.
"Look hun, I know you're not happy about it, but I need you to take it easy and get back to 100% before I put you out there again. We need you, but we need a whole you, alright?"
"Yeah," she whispered.
"Feel better Natalia."
"Thanks Davis." She hung up as Eliot walked into the room.
"I've got an Epsom salt bath with your name on it momma."
"Can't wait," she tossed her phone back on the nightstand and carefully placed both legs over the edge of the bed. Only then did she notice that she was wearing only a robe of soft jersey material with a brace strapped to her right knee. Eliot gave her enough space to move, standing at the ready just in case she needed him. And he did so with good reason. No sooner had she stood up than her knee buckled and she collapsed into Eliot's waiting arms.
"Easy there momma." Eliot flinched as she let out a grunt of pain. "I've got you," he gently scooped her up, taking care to spare her shoulder and carried her into the bathroom. He gingerly set her down on the steps leading up to the tub, careful to keep his arms around her until she sat up on her own. He knelt on the tile floor and his hands moved to her knee brace, gently pulling on each Velcro strap until he could remove it. He hesitated before looking up into her green eyes.
"Do you want me to…" he gestured to the collar of her robe.
"Can't do it by myself," she whispered, and shrugged her good shoulder.
Eliot slowly, even tenderly, slipped the robe off of her body, unable to shake the gentlemanly habit of averting his eyes as he undressed her. Ordinarily the sight of her naked form would start his head spinning. You couldn't pay him to look away. But the figure before him was not the assassin who brought him to the edge of sanity with the touch of her hand, or a whisper falling from her lips.
She was vulnerable. Physically broken. At his mercy. And he was deathly afraid that he couldn't do this. Seeing her so fragile almost scared him. Amidst his thoughts he felt her fingers on his chin, tipping his face up before she stared down into his blue eyes, which glittered in the dim light of the bathroom. She looked exhausted, yes, but in her emerald orbs he saw an unconditional trust that he would sooner die than betray.
With his help, she unwrapped her shoulder and slipped into the tub, feeling the warm water envelop her. The salt in the bath stung the her scraped skin, but the pain quickly dissolved, giving way to a soothing comfort. Once Eliot was sure she was alright, he left before returning with a bag of ice and some tape which she affixed to her shoulder.
"Comfortable?"
"Very," she looked over at him while he settled on the marble ledge of the tub opposite her. He shuffled around to get something from his pocket before she heard him rip the plastic from the box of cigarettes he had bought. He placed one between his lips before lighting it and handing it to the assassin. She held it up to the side of her lips that hadn't suffered an injury and inhaled before blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling.
"You're wondering what happened aren't you?"
"It just ain't like you, is all," Eliot ran a hand through his hair.
"That's because it wasn't me." She watched the paper burn as smoke curled from the end of her cigarette before fading, leaving nothing but its pungent scent in the air. "They put me out with the new guy. Davenport was his name." Eliot made a mental note. Davenport was gonna be getting a visit real soon. "It was simple enough; drug cartel weapons cache in the states. Take out communications and guards and then let the FBI in for search and seizure. I could have done it solo, but he needed experience. He had the radio, I had the guards, the FBI was waiting down the block. I was up on the catwalk waiting for his signal but he fucked up and set off an alarm. I got off as many shots as I could on my way down to the radio. I think I smashed it just before someone let off a stun grenade."
"Stun grenade," Eliot furrowed his brow as he thought out loud, piecing the incident together bit by bit. "You hit your head when you hit the ground. Tried to break the fall with your left arm, dislocated your shoulder," his eyes darted to each injury as he spoke. "And you managed to wrench a knee somewhere in there. It wouldn't be hard."
She looked up from staring idly at the faucet and tapped her cigarette against the side of a glass ashtray. It was resting on the marble ledge amidst candles that decorated the space between the tub and the window. Evidently she had done this before.
"But your shoulder. You got back up?"
"I can barely remember slamming my shoulder back in place before I passed out."
"And the FBI got you out?"
"Don't remember. But it had to be them," she took another drag off of her cigarette.
"You're lucky you didn't get shot," his eyes flit away from hers momentarily before locking on them once again. "Or worse."
Natalia stared into the fading suds on the surface of the water, her mortality hitting her for the first time in years. Fear was never something that stopped her momentum. She lived for danger. And with the way she was, Eliot was almost afraid to say that she could afford to. She flung her entire being into everything she did, without regard for personal safety, but tempered with impeccable attention to the little details that could ultimately lead to her demise. 'Careless dies, reckless kills,' she once told him. She hadn't necessarily been wrong.
"Hey," Eliot whispered as she put her cigarette out in the ashtray.
"Yeah," her voice was small but her eyes were clear when she looked up at him once again.
He stood up from his spot across from her and bent over the tub before gently pressing his lips to hers. It was a kiss of reassurance. A kiss of validation to each that the other was actually there. And that they would stay that way.
I'm thinking of maybe revisiting this situation in a later chapter... let me know what you think!