Author's note: all the usual disclaimers about not owning the Leverage characters/concept and not making any money from this apply.
That last chapter was really short - plus I'm not sure when tomorrow's posting will happen - so here is a second one of a more satisfying length!
It wasn't that Eliot didn't appreciate Parker's thought behind appropriating him a crutch, but it really wasn't working for him. If Udall had to shoot him – twice – could he not, at least, have had the consideration to hit the same side? As it was, he was forced to use the crutch on the same side as his leg injury, and his left shoulder, the one that until today he would have described as his 'bad' shoulder (the one that needed icing after a tough fight and heating pads on cold mornings), did not appreciate the weight distribution this created. After a few steps he abandoned the attempt and reached again for Hardison's shoulder. Parker moved in on his other side, saying something again about hospitals, which he reflexively denied. They hadn't gone much further before Eliot realised he had no idea where they were heading.
"Where are we going?" he asked, a couple of plans starting to take shape in his mind if neither of them had thought ahead that far.
"Hotel," Parker told him.
Eliot nodded. They needed to hole up a day or two to make sure they were all clear of the flu. It would be kind of a wasted effort to prevent the release of the virus in D.C. only to infect a planeful of passengers heading who knew where across the country.
"Wait," he stopped as another thought suddenly occurred to him, bringing the others to a halt on either side of him. "Our hotel? Where we stayed last night?"
"What's the problem?" Hardison asked.
"Riley knew I was in D.C.," Eliot explained. "He won't be the only one."
Hardison frowned.
"We need to get out of town?" he asked.
Eliot thought about it. They had been in D.C. for two days and Riley's phone call was the only sign of his old life rearing its ugly head.
"Not immediately," he said. "But we should probably switch hotels and aliases."
"Already done," Parker told him.
Both men looked at her in surprise.
"Yeah," she said, matter-of-factly. "I moved our stuff while Eliot was getting patched up, and did that backdoor thing with the tv in the hotel room to make it look like we checked in a couple of days ago."
Hardison was impressed; he'd only shown her how to do that once and that was more than two years ago.
"How did you get in the room?" he asked.
"Oh, I used Tara's towel trick from back when we had to kidnap that corrupt mayor," Parker replied, leaving Eliot choking on a stifled laugh.
"Which hotel?" he asked, before Hardison could ask for details.
"The Manderley," Parker replied. "Come on. We can get a cab just over there."
"The – the Manderley?" Hardison stammered.
"Yeah," Parker said. "What's wrong?"
"We stole a car from there earlier," Hardison groaned.
Parker shrugged.
"I didn't know that," she said. "Did they see you?"
"Did they see us?" Hardison repeated. "We practically took the keys from the valet attendant's hand! I'm pretty sure they more than saw us."
"So we won't valet," Parker said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"And if they've circulated our description among all the staff?" Hardison demanded.
"I don't think the valet got that good a look at us," Eliot said.
"And if they fingerprint the car?"
"Vance was taking care of all that stuff," Eliot said, tiredly. "Let's just go."
"You trust him?" Hardison asked.
Eliot hesitated. He didn't exactly trust Vance. Vance used people as necessary to achieve his ends. But Vance knew he owed them right now, and he took that kind of thing seriously. Plus, the less paperwork that existed on them, the more useful they could potentially be to him in the future.
"Right now, and with this? Yeah," Eliot said, as they started moving again.
"Okay," Hardison said, readjusting the grip he had on Eliot. " 'Sgood enough for me. You are kind of conspicuous right now, though."
Eliot glanced down at himself. Conspicuous...yeah...
"Either of you see what happened to my jacket?" he asked. There wasn't much he could do about the leg wound, but the jacket would cover the more obvious bandages criss-crossing his upper body.
"I think I saw someone putting it in an evidence bag," Parker said. "You want me to ...?"
She gestured back towards the scene behind them.
Eliot nodded.
"If you can, yeah," he said.
Parker flashed her up-for-a-challenge smile and jogged off.
"You want to sit down and wait for her?" Hardison asked, pointing out a bench nearby.
Eliot shook his head. They didn't have much further to go across the park to where they could hail a cab, but he was moving pretty slowly and Parker was generally twice as fast as you thought she would be.
Sure enough, they had barely gone another fifteen yards before Parker caught back up to them.
"Here," she said, holding out Eliot's jacket, breathing barely disordered.
"Thanks," he took it and, letting go of Hardison's shoulder, started to ease his right arm into the first sleeve.
It was a tight fit over the bulky dressing, but Parker helped him get it on and zipped up to cover most of the bandaging. She stood back and gave him a considering look. Her eyes lingered on the still obvious white bandage around his left thigh, looking for a way to hide it. But after a moment she just gave a quick nod and moved back in to Eliot's right side. The jacket was the best they could do right now.
They got lucky. Despite the fact it was late afternoon in downtown D.C., it only took them a few minutes to get a cab, and thirty minutes later they were pulling up in front of the Manderley, just blocks from where all the drama had started that morning. As Eliot got out of the cab, he looked down the street to the train station, wondering how Theresa was doing...and who had taken out the morning's other two victims. His thoughts were derailed as Parker ducked under his left arm, pressing close up against his body. After a moment, he realised what she was doing. People might notice a guy draped over a hot blonde crossing a hotel lobby, but they would associate the pair with a whole different set of scenarios than they would a limping guy leaning on another man just enough taller to make it look uncomfortable. Stepping away from the cab, Eliot felt Hardison fall into step just behind them.
"You got a room key?" Hardison asked Parker as they entered the lobby and headed for the elevators.
Parker nodded.
"All taken care of," she said. "Suite 2203."