A/N: I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. I don't own Leverage or any of the characters, and make no money off of any of this. Constructive comments always welcome. Please read and review. I don't write slash. Thank you!

A/N 2: Editing Chapters 3 and 4 to make one change. Master Yu is a Naturopathic physician, instead of a homeopathic physician. Naturopaths are the ones who blend Eastern and Western medicine. I always get the two mixed up. Apologies for the mistake, and a special thank you to the person who pointed it out to me.

I hope you enjoy the new chapter...

Chapter 7

Five days had passed. The restraints seemed to be making the hallucinations worse, and as a result, there were fewer periods of lucidity. Nate could only imagine what those hallucinations were, considering what little he knew of the hitter's past. The screaming, thrashing fits were longer, and there was less time between each one. One thing was certain, Eliot's voice would be shot all to hell when he finally came back to himself. It was also harder and harder to wake Eliot up. And it was heartbreaking. Nate wanted to honor Eliot's wishes—if he didn't want the girls to see this side of himself, Nate could certainly understand that. He certainly wasn't planning to take another job while they were down a hitter, so he gave the rest of the team the week off, telling them he would call them if Eliot was better sooner than that. Still, they all acted as though it was business as usual, and the only conclusion he could reach was that they wanted to be there for Eliot, and to support one another. They each went to sit with Eliot at least once a day, to give Master Yu a break. Whatever the fallout from that, they'd deal with it when things were closer to normal.

Once, Nate caught Parker standing at the door to the room that Eliot was in, and his voice came out harsher than he meant when he snapped, "Parker, come away from there."

"Why?" she asked petulantly.

"Eliot doesn't want us to see him like this. He's trying to protect us."

"How is this protecting us? I can hear him screaming, Nate. I'd feel better if I could see that he was all right."

Nate didn't really have an answer for that, so he just shrugged and nodded. "Don't get too close. He's restrained, but he might hurt you accidentally, and then he'd never forgive himself."

"I'll be careful."

Parker walked up to the bed, and sat down in the chair, nodding to Master Yu that he could leave for a few minutes. She looked down at Eliot to find him twitching, as he thrashed against the restraints and screamed. His wrists were bruised from testing his bonds.

"Oh, Sparky," she said, speaking in a low voice and ever so carefully smoothing the sweat drenched hair on his forehead.

She smoothed the hair from his brow, and he looked into her brown eyes, which were deep and unreadable, inviting him to lose himself in their depths. She laughed as she straddled him, thrilled at their forbidden tryst in the grass hut, in a jungle on the Cambodian border, half a world away from where either of them belonged. She was his nurse, more by necessity than training, and he was a patient, newly pronounced on the mend. They both knew it was wrong, but that was, somehow, what made it feel so right. The world, their world, in particular, had gone crazy, and they were simply themselves—the only thing they could be—the only thing that made sense. A man and a woman in a war zone, too far from home. It wasn't love, they both knew that—no, it was more a response to everything they'd lost. A response to the fear, to the violence that surrounded them, and probably most of all a response to the need to feel human in a place where they seemed to be the only living things for miles. A decidedly physical response, to be sure, but a response.

Her laughter was a balm to his soul, and he wanted to crawl inside it, and pull it around him, like a child pulls his favorite blanket around his ears as he sleeps to ward off the evil creatures of the night. Her fingertips were on fire as they traced small patterns down his chest, and she gently kissed his forehead, where she had smoothed his hair away just moments before.

"Anne? Annie? What are you doing here?" Something in the far reaches of his mind told him she had died there, in that hut in Cambodia, but it was too far away to grasp, and anyway, she was right here, draped across his chest and looking into his eyes, a jaunty smile on her face.

She pressed her lips to his, and he deepened the kiss, and it seemed they stayed that way for an eternity, kissing, hardly daring to breathe, eyes open because of the reassurance that brought, that this was real, and they were real and here and in this moment, happy. A moment later, she stiffened, and a strange look crossed her face as she slid off of him, and ever so slowly, crumpled to the ground. Her look of shock was hidden only by the fact that she was facedown, and he sat up, looking for her, fearing the worst, but not knowing what had happened. His eyes finally found her still form, facedown, the hole in her back from a large caliber weapon, he thought, in a manner that was strangely detached. It was then that he discovered the bullet had gone clean through her, and lodged in his hip. He knew someone would be coming in soon, and weakness like a gunshot wound made him vulnerable. He needed to hide, to find a way out, but somehow, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Oh, Annie," he said, and then just sat, staring at her, as silent tears ran down his cheeks.

Eliot had grown quiet when Parker touched his forehead, and he had stopped thrashing around. She was starting to think that she had helped him, until she heard him say a girl's name, and she had never heard him sound so hopeful. A moment later, when tears started sliding down his cheeks, she sensed that he was in a far worse place than the screaming had taken him, and her heart broke for him, and all she wanted to do in that moment was run away. Somehow, she felt she had caused this, and she didn't know how to make it better.

"I'm so sorry, Sparky," she whispered, and then rose, and fairly bolted from the room.

When she stepped back into Nate's living room, all three of the other team members could tell that something was wrong, but she refused to talk about it, saying it was between her and Eliot, and they would talk when he woke up. She quickly gathered her belongings and walked out without another word. Hardison tried to follow, but by the time he made it to the door, she was nowhere to be found. Thinking she might be on the roof, Sophie went up there, but she was back ten minutes later, wondering where on earth the little thief could have gone so quickly. Calls to her cell phone went unanswered, and she ditched or destroyed whatever tracking devices Hardison was currently using to try to track her. She was simply gone.