A/N: I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. Reviews make my day, so please read and review. I don't write slash. I don't own Leverage or any of the characters, and make no money off of any of this. Thank you.

Chapter 11

Neither Vance nor Eliot heard exactly what Conrad said, but the words apparently connected somewhere in Eliot's subconscious mind. With a roar, he lunged forward and began striking out blindly at anything in his path. Under the best of circumstances, Eliot was dangerous, and that was when he was exercising an iron-clad control over his temper. With the words spoken by Conrad, that control had been taken away, and there was something wild about Eliot. Wilder than Vance had ever seen in the man. He had to get the situation back under control, and soon.

"Eliot," he called out, hoping to see some recognition in the man's eyes, but there was nothing there except cold menace. It was as though Eliot was locked in his own world, inside a waking dream, unable to recognize anyone or anything familiar. "Eliot!" he said again, and still he got no response.

Vance set Parker down gently against the wall, and whispered to her to be still and quiet. Then, he turned to engage Eliot before he killed someone or got himself killed. He was surprised to see that Eliot was headed back towards Conrad and his man. Afraid that Eliot would be shot or otherwise injured, Vance followed, but all he could do was watch as Eliot beat first one and then the other of the unarmed, restrained men. Vance knew he had to figure a way to get them all out of there. The police were on their way and it wouldn't be good for them to be found there. Slipping up behind Eliot, Vance clamped down on the pressure points in the neck and shoulder area, and Eliot slumped to the ground. Not knowing how long his friend would be unconscious, the rules of prudence called for Vance to immobilize him, as he was a danger to himself and others. Taking off his belt, Vance quickly secured Eliot's hands behind his back, tightly enough that the other man, when he came to, would not be able to break the bonds.

Quickly checking the restrained men over, Vance learned that Conrad's man was dead. Conrad was alive, but barely. On the bright side, if Conrad was smart, he wouldn't come after Eliot or his team after this, knowing he had been well and truly bested today. The weapon he had tried to create had backfired on him, and been used against him. Going back to Parker, Vance scooped her up and took her out to his SUV, where he laid her out across the back seats, and went back for Eliot. By the time he got back, Eliot was starting to come around, and Vance leaned over him, looking down from above, and when those blue eyes focused in on his with recognition, he spoke quietly.
"Listen carefully, Spencer. I tied your hands because Conrad planted something in your mind that makes you dangerous to anything in your path. Don't fight it. It's for everyone's protection. We're going to get you some help. Can you walk?"

Still not fully understanding what had happened, Eliot trusted the face and the voice. When asked if he could walk, he nodded and rose with a grunt to his feet. They made their way to Vance's SUV, with Vance walking just a little behind Eliot in case he started to fall. Vance helped Eliot climb into the passenger seat without his hands, and then buckled him in, and ran around to his own driver's seat. As they put some distance between themselves and the old abandoned storage building on the farm, Vance saw the squad cars in the rearview mirror. He kept going, planning if he was stopped to show them his badge and tell them that the passengers in the car were people he had apprehended. It turned out not to matter, as the squad cars seemed not to be paying any attention to them.

All of the stress of the last day and a half took its toll on Eliot, and he finally gave in and passed out again as Vance drove. Vance glanced in his rearview mirror to see how his other patient was doing, and frightened blue eyes, filled with sadness, met his.

"I'm a friend of Eliot's. I won't hurt you. I'm taking you back to your headquarters so we can get you both patched up."

"No. I can't go back there. Not if what Eliot said is truly what they think of me."

"Eliot didn't mean what he said. You know that, right?"

"Then why did he say it?"

"He said it to keep you safe. Eliot knew if he showed any feelings toward you at all, Conrad would kill you right in front of him, just out of spite. It was safer for him to pretend you meant nothing to him."

"How do you know that for sure?"

"I've known Eliot for a long time. I know him well. Don't take my word for it. Ask him yourself when he wakes up. He'll probably try to talk to you about it if you don't anyway." He saw a grimace of pain cross Parker's face and added, "We'll get that leg dressed and check out any other injuries after we get you someplace safe."

(0o0)

Hardison was seated on the sofa, working on his computer. Nate and Sophie were seated at the dining room table, working a crossword puzzle in the newspaper and talking, when there was a knock on the door. Hardison, being closest, rose and opened it, and then froze, staring at the tableau before him. There on the doorstep to Nate's apartment, stood a very tall man with Parker in his arms, ignoring the fact that she was struggling and trying to get down, standing next to another man covered in blood with his hands behind his back, whom Hardison figured out, after a moment, was Eliot. Moving up behind the hacker to see what had him frozen in place, Nate said, "Hardison, let them in, so he can put Parker down, and they can explain what is going on."

Hardison stepped aside, and Vance strode into the room, half dragging Eliot behind him. Hardison swallowed reflexively a couple of times and started to say something, when Vance cut him off with a glare. "Colonel Vance. Eliot is my friend, and both he and the young lady are injured. I'll explain everything after I get them patched up."

Nate found his voice first. "There's a makeshift treatment room right through that door. Eliot keeps it well-stocked," he said, indicating the door in question. Without another word, Vance and the two people with him disappeared through that door, and Nate heard the lock click.

Vance put Parker down on the bunk, and Eliot sat on one of the visitor chairs still in the room. Vance sat on the stool next to Parker's bunk. Parker seemed to realize at this point that Vance was not someone she trusted, though he was Eliot's friend, and while she had allowed him to carry her to safety, her willingness to allow a stranger to touch her ended there. She fought him as he tried to pull her pant leg up, and slapped at his hands when he tried to clean the wound.

"If you don't stop, I'm going to have to tie your hands," Vance said, frustrated.

"She doesn't like to be touched. Especially not by strangers." He looked at Parker. "Stop it, Parker. You can let him treat you, or you can let me, but one of us is going to fix that leg. Otherwise, it'll get infected, and a one-legged thief isn't any good to anybody." Vance undid the belt that bound Eliot's hands, since Parker clearly didn't plan to let Vance touch her. Eliot quickly did a neuro check, and determined there was no worry of a concussion. He checked for internal bleeding and breathed a sigh of relief when he found none.

"Why do you care? You wanted to let Conrad shoot me."

Explaining things to Parker could sometimes be interesting, but in this case, he knew he had to try.

"I'm sorry for what I said, sweetheart". I had to act like I didn't care what happened to you. A man like Conrad will exploit any weakness, and friends or family count as part of that. If I had shown any type of care for you, Conrad would have seen that, and killed you in front of me to try to take advantage of me. " While he spoke, he gently cut her pant leg off, and started inspecting the wound. Speaking softly to her, as if he were speaking to a spooked filly, he said, "Cut's not too deep. Didn't hit the artery and it doesn't go to the bone. Still needs stitches, though."

She shook her head, and Eliot said, "No choice." While he readied the supplies he needed, he asked Parker, "How did they catch you, anyway?"

An angry look crossed her face, and she said, "After I left Nate's, I was still watching the team. I wanted to make sure everybody was okay, and I wanted to talk to you when you woke up. I saw you leave and planned to follow you and talk to you wherever we ended up, but they apparently had someone watching me, too. They followed me until I reached the clearing in the woods, then they shot me with a tranquilizer dart. When I woke up, they beat me up pretty good, but only in places that didn't show, and then brought me to that building where you and Vance were with Conrad."

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? Exactly how is any of this your fault, darlin'?" She looked sad.

"I thought you said what you did because you were mad at me for what I did."

What on earth could she have done? There was only one way to find out.

"What did you do?"

"When you were being treated for the nerve gas poisoning, I wanted to come and see you. Nate told me that you didn't want us to see you that way, and that you were trying to protect us, but you were screaming, and I wanted to see for myself that you were all right. He told me to be careful not to touch you because you might hurt me by accident."

"He was right. You know I wouldn't ever hurt you for anything in the world, don't you, Parker? Not if I could help it, anyway."

"When I saw you, you were shaking, and sweating, and your hair was stuck to your forehead, and I know how you don't like it in your face, so I just wanted to move it off for you. You got really quiet when I did that; you stopped screaming and everything. I thought I had helped you at first. Then you said a girl's name, and you sounded so sad, I felt like I did something wrong, but I didn't know what I had done and didn't know how to fix it. I knew Nate would be angry with me if I told him I touched you after he told me not to do it, and I didn't know what else to do, so I just left." She hung her head and studied her hands.

"Parker, look at me." He waited until she did to continue, "I'm sorry you had to watch all of this. What happened wasn't your fault. You haven't done anything wrong. I didn't want you to see me because I was trying to protect you, and in all honesty, because this was embarrassing to me, and I didn't want you or Sophie to see me like that." He knew Parker wouldn't settle for anything less than the absolute truth, so he said, "When you smoothed my hair for me, it triggered a memory of another time when I was sick, with another friend who did the same thing. Someone killed her, trying to make me suffer, and I re-lived that memory during the treatment. That's why I was sad."

"We aren't china dolls, Eliot."

"I know, but I was raised that there are some things ladies shouldn't see, or shouldn't have to see, anyway, and this is one of them. It's more about me being weak than about me thinking you are too weak to see it. I don't like to show that kind of weakness to anyone. In my line of work, any type of weakness can be exploited, and can mean a death sentence to the person in whom it is seen. Do you understand?"

Parker nodded. Then she caught a glimpse of her leg. There was a row of neat, even stitches. Eliot had cleaned her wound, given her a local, and sewn it up in the course of his conversation with her. Now, he was filling another syringe while he talked to her. One had already been filled and laid on the table in front of him. He raised his eyes to hers, and caught her gaze, and she was unable to look away.

"This is a tetanus shot. That aluminum plating on the wall in the storage building was rusty, and there's no telling what all it might have had on it. This will sting a little bit going in, but it is necessary." He pointed to the one in front of him. "That one is morphine. It will take care of the pain."

She shook her head. "Uh uh. No way." She tried to struggle, but Eliot put a stop to that by the simple expedient of having Vance hold her.

"If I really wanted to do so, I could stick you in any one of about ten different places. You couldn't get away from me. It will work faster and hurt a lot less in the arm, so cooperate, yeah?"

Parker didn't answer, but she stopped struggling, and looked pointedly at Eliot. That was its own kind of answer. He had given her both injections a moment later, and when she fell asleep, he looked at Vance.

"Did you hear what Conrad said?"

"No. I tried, but I didn't hear it."

"It isn't safe for me to be around the team until we know what the triggers are." Eliot looked thoughtful. "Any suggestions?"

"I have one, but you're going to hate it." Vance looked squarely at Eliot.

"What is it?"

"You need Doc Carrington."

"Are you sure there isn't another way?"

"None that I can think of, and definitely none as quick or as surefire."

"You're right. I do hate it. Call her."