A/N: I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. Sorry this chapter is a bit later than the others have been. For some reason, I found it harder to write. 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 13

Fortunately, the bullet had gone through and through, so there was no concern about retrieving it. He had sustained some extra damage from forcing his arm and hand to serve him after the injury, but soon Doc had started an IV, sewn up the damage, and strapped his arm to his chest with a brace. Now came the part that he was dreading.

She gazed at him intently for a moment, and then asked, "We've done this before, Eliot, and you know you can trust me. We've been through too much together…seen too much together for you to think otherwise. So, why are you so nervous?"

He wanted to tell her, and he knew she would find out once he was under anyway, and thinking about it, he knew he would rather put it in context for her than have her see it out of context, but still it was hard for him to say the words to her. He stared at his hands, and felt her gaze boring into him, never leaving him. He knew she expected an answer. An answer he wasn't exactly prepared to give her. But an answer he owed her nonetheless. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a bottle and two shot glasses. Uncapping the lid, she poured a finger of liquid into each glass, and handed one of the glasses to Eliot. Sipping hers, she gazed at him over the rim of her glass, waiting for what he would tell her.

"Kat," he said quietly, "when we did this before, I was little more than a kid. Lot of water under the bridge since then. I'm not sure I want you to see the man I've become."

The usually confident man's tone was slightly insecure, and there was something pretty damn close to fear in his eyes. Interesting, she thought, filing that information away for later.

"I see. You're afraid I'll see some of your deep, dark secrets, and I won't be able to handle what I know of you, so I'll what? I'll just run away—is that it?" She gave a mirthless laugh. "I've spent most of my adult life traipsing through the dark places of the human psyche. I think I can handle it. Those dark places aren't really ugly, Eliot. They're just human."

He couldn't bring himself to speak, but he nodded and tossed back his drink, then set the empty glass over on the little table next to his chair, acknowledging the truth of what she said, and the lie it was to him. His dark places weren't just human, they were dark and ugly. There would be no redemption for Eliot Spencer, he was too far past any hope of that, but he didn't say any of that to his friend.

"Close your eyes, Eliot." She bound his hands to the chair, knowing that if they found the trigger word before she realized what it was, he could be a danger to her. She rose and moved over behind him, injecting something into the second IV port as she did so, reclined his chair so that he was lying down, and gently started massaging his head. He felt himself starting to relax, as her voice washed over him. They had discovered long ago that he was susceptible to hypnosis, and Sophie had reminded him of that with the neuro-linguistic programming. NLP wasn't that far from hypnosis, and he slipped under easily. After a moment, she started probing for the trigger.

(0o0)

A non-descript black van was parked outside an equally non-descript house in one of the older, more spread out suburbs of Boston. There was no activity around the outside of the house, and except for the van parked outside, there were no signs of life on the property. It was the perfect place to hide, if this were a normal situation, involving normal people. The people and the situation in this case were far from normal, though. A figure dressed in camouflage crouched in one of the top branches of the decades old oak tree in the front yard, and the leaves covered his position so well that there was no way he could be seen through the branches, so long as he didn't move. Holding the binoculars to his eyes, he peered through the picture window at the front of the home, right into the living room. No one had thought to draw the curtains. Suspicions confirmed, he slowly fished his cell phone out of his pocket, careful not to move too much or too fast, and sent a text message, and then resumed watching, not moving at all.

It could have been hours later, for all he knew in that tree, but his internal time sense told him that only a few minutes passed before another rather plain car pulled into the driveway and came to a stop. The figure in the tree watched as a man got out of the car, and walked up the driveway to the front door, a small messenger bag on his shoulder. He didn't ring the doorbell, which was a bit curious, but instead knocked several times, in a distinctive pattern, before the door finally opened, seemingly of its own volition, and he stepped inside. The door swung closed behind him. An hour later, the front door opened again, and the same man walked back out to the car and left quickly. The figure in the tree found it prudent to make mental note of the goings and comings to and from the house, just in case it became important.

(0o0)

Doc's foray into Eliot's mind had not been entirely successful so far. He was cooperating, far more easily than she had expected, actually, but truth be told, it was dead hard to find a trigger word if one didn't know where to look. They had been through some pretty dark places looking for it, too, She had listened in mild shock as he described the jobs he had taken after his official stint with the government, working for both PMC's and then for various clients as a retrieval specialist. She was currently listening to him describe his work with Damien Moreau.

She was beginning to understand, as she listened to him, why he said he didn't really want to show her the man he had become. She hoped he didn't think she was that shallow, or that she would judge him without knowing the whole story. Whatever happened in his past, it was clear they would still need to have a very serious talk when he was awake again.

When Eliot finished speaking, she didn't have another question for him immediately, and so they sat in silence for a few minutes, as she tried to decide which direction she wanted to take it from there.

"Noooo!. Stop. Don't. Please don't." Doc's attention was drawn to the girl on the bed. Catching the flailing fists that flew everywhere, she stood watching the young blonde sleep, wondering what had happened to her that was causing her nightmares. A moment later, the young girl stopped crying out, and her eyes opened to blue slits. A look of confusion crossed her face. She obviously expected to wake up either alone or with someone familiar to her in the room with her.

"Who are you?" Parker tried to pull her hands away, and found herself caught in an iron grip. When Parker was awake enough not to flail around, Doc let her hands go, and looked her in the eye.

"Doctor Catherine Carrington. I'm a friend of Colonel Vance and Eliot. You may call me Kitty or you may call me Doc. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Parker said, not willing to admit to a stranger that she was still in pain, and equally unwilling to allow yet another stranger to do anything for her. She grimaced, and her body convulsed in pain for a moment, while she tried to breathe through it.

"Your words say you're fine. Your body says otherwise. I think you need some more pain meds."

She shook her head, and then said, "I just want to go home and go to bed. I'll be fine in the morning."

"You are in no condition to go anywhere. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and you can believe me when I tell you that I am every bit as competent as Eliot. I promised him I'd take care of the team while he was out of commission and that's what I am going to do. It'll be easier for both of us if you don't fight me."

Parker had no intention of submitting to Doc's will without a fight, so she started flailing again, and trying to get up. Doc pinned Parker's legs underneath her, and enveloped her in something like a bear hug, before injecting her with the pain medication. She held the girl until her eyelids grew heavy, and then helped her stretch out again.

Turning back to Eliot, she saw that he had fallen asleep in his recliner, and she pulled a blanket over each of her patients. She knew that she and Eliot would have more work to do tomorrow, since the search for the trigger had so far been unsuccessful, but it was late, and she wasn't willing to wake the hitter up to continue tonight. She turned off all the lights except for the small desk lamp, and then left the room, closing the door behind her.