A/N MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Here's your gift from me to you! Well, if you celebrate, if not happy December 25th! I'm gonna apologize ahead of time for the fact that this chapter isn't very Christmas-y but this just happened to the chapter that fell here on the posting schedule, but I hope you all enjoy it anyways :D
Spring turned into summer, which moved on to fall, and Eliot and Parker had long since settled into the new status quo of their now semi-shared homelife. At work, however, things remained business as usual. Other than their one major falling out, and a few minor incidents of small arguments at home that might have spilled over into being irritated with each other during work hours, there was nothing to indicate to the other members of their crew that anything had changed in how the pair had taken to spending their time off in the last six months.
Well, no significant indications.
That is, unless any of them had noticed that if he didn't sit on the couch, Parker had taken to sitting on the arm of Eliot's chair almost exclusively during team briefings, and he never once complained beyond a token eye roll. Or that she now automatically helped Eliot clean up after team dinners without him prodding for a volunteer; the two of them having a comfortable, practiced rhythm moving around each other in a kitchen. And, of course, there was the fact that whenever the duo were paired together on cons, it seemed as though they no longer had to speak to communicate. They had become so efficient at reading one another that they each knew what the other was thinking with a simple look.
But, if anyone noticed any of those things... well, no one mentioned it.
It could have continued on this way indefinitely, if it hadn't been for one day in early autumn, when what should have been an easy job went south.
It was supposed to have been a basic snatch-and-grab. In, out, and on their way. The job was one that they should have been able to do in their sleep. In fact, they had already run several substantially more difficult variations of the same job quite successfully.
Their client had had their life's work, in the form of a prototype virtual assistant, stolen by their corrupt employer before being blackmailed against speaking out. The Leverage team was tasked in getting it back for them, before taking down the CEO for good measure.
It was an all too familiar story.
The only unique aspect to this job was the corporation's security system, which tagged each item in the inventory, keeping track of said item's position inside the building. It was a completely new, proprietary system, and Hardison didn't know how to hack or disable it without spending more time than they could afford. Getting to the prototype wasn't the problem. A stolen key card and some spoofed camera feeds and they were golden. The problem was that they weren't able to get the prototype out of the lab without setting off alarms, let alone walk the item out the front door undetected. There was an easy fix, however; they just wouldn't use doors.
The plan was simple. Nate and Sophie who were working the CEO angle, would run distraction under the the guise of potential foreign investors, in an after-hours meeting. Eliot would accompany them as their personal assistant and then sneak away to retrieve the item. Parker, waiting on the roof, would then rappel down the building, take the handoff from Eliot through the window and deliver it to Lucille, where Hardison would be waiting. Then, Eliot would reconvene with Nate and Sophie and they would all be on their way, with no one the wiser.
They were more than halfway through the con, and everything was going exactly according to plan.
"Alright, I'm in," Eliot said softly, using the key card Sophie had lifted for him, to gain entrance to the development lab.
"You lookin' good from my end," Hardison said from the van, keeping an eye on the non-spoofed version of the security feed. "Remember, you're looking for-"
"I know what I'm looking for!" Eliot growled into the comms. "I saw the same pictures you did, Hardison!"
"Well then get to finding, Eliot!" Hardison retorted.
"Boys," Sophie murmured warningly, unable to say more while she and Nate were busy distracting the mark.
"I got it," Eliot announced after just a few moments, pulling the prototype, no larger than a deck of cards, from a shelf. "It was just sitting out in the open. Not locked up or hidden at all."
"It doesn't have to be," Parker said, from her position on the roof where she was double-checking her rig. "This whole building is a safe. They just didn't account for us."
"Nobody ever does, Mama," Hardison said smugly.
Eliot pulled a glass cutter out from the inner pocket of his jacket. "Ninety seconds Parker, til the hand-off."
"Copy that," she confirmed, standing at the edge of the roof, ready to rappel down the seven floors from the roof to meet Eliot at the third floor for the exchange.
"Whoa whoa whoa, where did you come from?" Hardison asked, sitting up straight in alarm when a guard came into view on his screens. "Hold up Parker, don't move yet. Eliot, you're about to have company. Security is coming in."
"Dammit Hardison!" Eliot exclaimed, shoving the prototype into his pocket. "You were supposed to keep them off this floor!"
Whatever the hacker's response, it was lost on Eliot, who was moving to block the hole he'd already cut in the floor to ceiling window, as the lab door swung open.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in here!" the guard shouted, pulling his sidearm, and pointing it in Eliot's direction.
It took the hitter only seconds to size up the guard. Young. Barely more than a kid. Obviously no formal training. But if Eliot had to take a guess, by the eagerness of his stance and the glint in his eye, he would say that the kid had most likely wanted to join the military or law enforcement and had been turned away, ending up in private security instead. He was barely more than a mini mall rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur. He knew the type, and it made the gun in this kid's hand far more dangerous than if he was merely facing off against ex-CIA or an ex-Ranger.
"Hey now, bubba," Eliot said, letting his accent thicken, as he raised his hands in front of him disarmingly. "I was lookin' for the bathroom and wouldn't you know it, I got myself all turned around. Do you think you could point me in the right direction-"
He took a slow half-step forward, knowing that he had to get in close in order to disarm the guard, before he spooked and got trigger-happy.
Up on the roof, Parker heard the sound of gunshots and the shattering of glass in real time, a split second before she heard the same sounds echoing through her earbud. With wide eyes, and all the air gone from her chest, there was nothing Parker could do but watch as Eliot crashed through the third-story window and tumbled through the branches of a large oak tree, until he hit the ground with a sickening thud that she would never be able to unhear.
She was vaguely aware of Hardison shouting, and Nate and Sophie extracting themselves from the mark over the comms, but she ignored it all as she leapt off the roof. She hit the ground hard, having barely touched her handbrake on descent in her rush to get to Eliot.
"Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead," she chanted, as she ran to his side and fell to her knees, looking for signs of life.
A gash over his left eye was badly bleeding, but she took that as a good sign. After all, if he was actively bleeding, his heart was still actively pumping. But despite how obviously bad that looked, it wasn't her main concern. She knew that even superficial head wounds were prone to heavy bleeding. The five gunshots she'd heard while she was on the roof were far more worrisome.
Working quickly, she ripped open the jacket Eliot was wearing, her eyes and hands moving over his body inspecting the damage. She quickly determined that he'd been hit twice, once in the shoulder, which she knew was not likely to be life threatening, and once in the stomach, which could be. Parker whipped the sweater she was wearing up and over her head, balling it up and pressing it hard against the wound. Eliot's eyes fluttered and he groaned painfully as she applied pressure.
"Hey Eliot," she said with no small amount of relief, as he regained consciousness. "Flying through windows is my job, so why don't you leave it to me next time, huh?" she joked weakly, as if being able to make light of the situation would mean it wasn't as serious as it obviously was.
"Pa… Park…" he struggled to say her name before coughing wetly, bringing bright red blood to his lips.
"I'm right here, Sparky," she assured him, pressing harder against his stomach, wincing when he groaned again. "I'm sorry. I have to," she apologized, having no desire to add to his pain. This was not the same as when she poked at his bruises to gauge his reactions so that she could determine for herself how badly he was actually hurt, since he always tried to hide it. "Just hold on, okay? Just hold on."
With what clearly took a great effort, Eliot managed to lift his arm just enough to reach out and push a lock of hair that had escaped her braid from her face, his fingertips lingering against her cheek, before his eyes rolled back and he once again lost consciousness.
"Eliot! No, stay with me! Eliot!" she called, panic creeping into her tone. Suddenly she was aware of the fact that her teammates had been yelling in her ear all this time. "Where the hell are you guys?!" she yelled back. "Eliot needs a hospital ten minutes ago!"
"We're almost there," Nate assured her, sounding strained.
Sure enough, just as he said that, Lucille came careening around the corner, tires screeching. From there, it was all a blur as they worked to get Eliot to the hospital as quickly as possible without aggravating his injuries. Nate was kneeling with Parker in the back of the van, trying to stop the bleeding from Eliot's other wounds, while she kept pressure on his stomach. Hardison was making sure they had the proper aliases at the ready, and Sophie was driving like a woman possessed. After what felt like hours, but was really only minutes, they pulled up to the emergency room doors. Their shouts for help brought the triage staff running, and before Parker could even process what was happening, Eliot was loaded onto a gurney and immediately wheeled off to surgery.
Parker didn't know what kind of story Nate and Sophie possibly could have spun that would account for both the gunshot wounds and the fall injuries, to both the doctors and the police who'd shown up to take a statement. And quite frankly, she didn't care.
All she knew, was that she needed Eliot to be okay.
Time seemed to lose all meaning underneath the clinical fluorescent lights as she sat motionless for hours in the uncomfortable waiting room chair, waiting late into the night for any kind of news.
Nate and Sophie were sitting across from her, speaking in low voices while drinking crappy hospital coffee. Hardison sat next to her, tapping away on his laptop, doing whatever it was that he did when he cleaned up their electronic trail in these kinds of situations. But all Parker could do was stare at her hands, the memory of Eliot's warm blood seeping through her fingers all too fresh in her mind.
"Are you alright, Parker?" Sophie asked, when she glanced up and saw the look on the thief's face.
"Eliot's blood is on my hands," she said flatly, still staring at where they sat in her lap.
"Oh sweetie, what happened to Eliot, it's not your fault," Sophie quickly assured her. "There's nothing you could have done. Nothing any of us could have done. In fact, you getting to him so quickly probably saved his life."
"What?" Parker asked looking up, confusion shining in her eyes.
"She meant it literally, Soph," Nate muttered, nodding towards the rusty red streaks going up Parker's forearms. "Not metaphorically."
"Oh, of course. Come dear, let's get you cleaned up," Sophie said, rising to her feet and motioning for Parker to do the same.
Pliantly, Parker allowed herself to be led to the restroom, and with a little gentle prodding from Sophie, she began to scrub the blood that she hadn't been able to rub off on her jeans, off her hands and arms. She stared into the sink, mesmerized as the dark red blood turned such a pale pink as it mixed with the soap and water before swirling down the drain. When the water ran clear, Sophie leaned over and shut off the faucet.
When Sophie handed her a wad of paper towels to dry her hands, Parker looked up at herself in the mirror for the first time. Even though she didn't really care, she could see that she looked like shit. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was more pale than usual. Even her hair seemed to hang limply around her face. Leaning in closer to the mirror, she noticed three small flecks of dried blood high on her cheek, the contrast high against her ashen complexion.
They were right where Eliot had touched her face before he'd passed out.
A small voice inside her head wondered if that would prove to be the last thing he'd ever do.
"Eliot's going to be okay, isn't he Sophie?" Parker asked, still staring at the stains on her cheek.
Reassuring, but empty, platitudes rose to the grifter's lips, but she swallowed them down in favor of the truth. "I don't know, sweetie," she said honestly. "But the doctors are doing everything they can, and our Eliot is a fighter. If anyone can come back from this, he can."
Parker didn't respond verbally, but she did use the paper towels still in her hand to scrub her face clean.
They were walking back out to the waiting room to rejoin the others, when the double doors that led deeper inside the hospital swung open, admitting a doctor in surgical scrubs.
"Family of William Pratt?"
"That's you, Elizabeth," Sophie whispered, giving Parker an inconspicuous nudge forward.
"Yes, that's me," Parker said, stepping towards the doctor, the others coming to stand at her sides. "Will is my-" She hesitated for a split second. She remembered Hardison giving them their aliases in the van, but she couldn't remember their relationships. They had the same last name, right? So that had to mean that they were supposed to be either married or siblings. She just couldn't remember which one. She took a guess. "Will is my husband."
She took the fact that Hardison inhaled sharply on her right, and that Sophie was subtly slipping a ring onto her left hand, to mean that she'd guessed wrong.
"Is Will going to be alright?" Nate asked.
"Well, the good news is that he's made it through surgery, and has been moved to the ICU for recovery," the doctor told them. "He's currently stable, but it was touch and go there for awhile. His heart stopped momentarily, but we got it restarted before there should have been any lasting damage."
Parker felt like her own heart stopped at the news, but the doctor wasn't finished yet.
"The fall ruptured his spleen, which we had to remove," he continued to explain. "The gunshot wound to his abdomen perforated the small intestine, so we will have to watch carefully for signs of infection going forward. The other gunshot wound to his shoulder broke his left clavicle, which we repaired with a plate and two screws. He also sustained hairline fractures to six different ribs and comminuted fractures to both the radius and ulna of his right arm. We also repaired a torn meniscus in his left knee and sutured various lacerations including the one to his head. While the next twenty-four hours are critical, he is currently stable and I believe that given time, and physical therapy, all of these injuries should heal."
"I hear a but coming," Sophie said, reaching out to take Nate's hand.
"But, his head injuries are concerning," the doctor admitted. "There is significant swelling, leading to increased intracranial pressure."
"What does that mean for Will?" Nate asked.
"It means he's yet to regain consciousness," the doctor told them.
"Are you saying he's in a coma?" Hardison asked tightly, reading between the lines.
Sophie gasped and slapped her free hand over her mouth.
"It's too early yet to define it as such. However, the longer he remains unconscious, the greater the risk of…."
The doctor kept talking, but Parker had heard enough. She didn't have time for this. She needed to see Eliot, and she needed to see him now. Slipping away from the group unnoticed, as only she could, she took matters into her hands and went looking for him.
The sun was starting to rise by the time she found his room. And despite her eagerness to see him, she hesitated in the doorway.
He looked… small.
Intellectually, Parker knew that Eliot wasn't the largest guy, but his presence more than made up for it. But now, laying in that bed, covered in tubes and wires, she couldn't quite make herself believe that it was really him. She crossed over to his side with the same care as she would had the room been filled with laser wires and pressure plates. In the dim morning light, Eliot's normally swarthy complexion looked sallow and grey. Except for the entire left side of his face, which was a mottled mess of swelling and bruises. Cautiously, she reached out and touched her fingertips to his, careful not to disturb the IV line in the back of his hand. His skin felt cool to the touch, at odds with the way the hitter usually radiated heat.
The rhythmic beat of the heart monitor was loud in the otherwise silent room, and she could feel it echoing in her own chest. It was at once both a reminder that at one point his heart had stopped, and an audible reassurance that it was still beating.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there, just listening to the heart monitor beep, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest with every breath, before the rest of the team came walking through the door.
"There you are, Lizzie," Sophie announced their arrival. "I figured we'd find you here."
"I couldn't wait anymore. I wanted to see him," Parker said softly. "I needed to see him."
"Of course you'd want to see your husband," Sophie said for benefit of the nurse who'd shown them in. She turned and whacked Nate on the shoulder with her clutch, "See, I told you she wouldn't have left."
Nate just shrugged. They all knew that Parker's reactions in time of emotional stress could be unpredictable. He didn't think it was out of the realm of possibility to think she might have taken off, wanting to be alone for awhile.
The nurse made some comments about visiting hours, and reminded them that they could only stay for a few minutes before they would have to leave. But Sophie worked her magic and soon the nurse was leaving, warning them that she would be back in a bit.
"Parker, you're supposed to be Eliot's sister, not his wife," Hardison complained, once the team was alone.
"I forgot," she shrugged, not taking her eyes off the unconscious hitter, wholly indifferent to the hacker's concerns. "Does it even matter?"
"Does it even matter? Does it even matter she says!" Hardison exclaimed. "Woman, these identities aren't some sloppy cut-and-paste jobs. These are ironclad works of art. This means I'm gonna have to change birth certificates, school records, create a wedding license, photos. Does it even matter…" he grumbled.
"Are you saying you can't do it?" Nate asked, knowing which of the hacker's buttons to push.
"Have I ever said I can't do it?" Hardison asked, rounding on the mastermind. "Of course I can do it."
"Then you should get started," Nate said, dryly. "It's for the best, anyways. Spouses always play better in these situations." The change had the added benefit of giving the hacker something to channel his worried energy towards, which he knew was the real issue at play here, not that Parker messed up the aliases.
"Yeah, until someone from intake points out that Will Pratt's wife was his sister on arrival," Hardison muttered, even as he was already on his phone, making the necessary changes.
"Parker can be my sister," Nate decided. "If anyone notices the slip, we can dismiss it as a misunderstanding in the confusion in the ER. And Sophie will be my wife, that way we're in-laws and family as well. "
"What, so everyone gets to be family except for me?" Hardison complained. "I see how it is."
Nate pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly wishing he had a drink. "Hardison, you make the identities," he reminded the younger man. "Make yourself a cousin, marry yourself into the family. Whatever. I don't care."
"This isn't right," Parker said suddenly, bringing the attention back to her.
"What, now you have a problem with the identities too?" Nate asked, sounding tired.
"Huh?" Quite frankly she hadn't been paying any attention to the conversations happening around her.
"What's not right Parker?" Sophie prompted.
"Eliot," she said softly. "He shouldn't be here like this. He always gets back up, that's what he does. This… it's not right."
No one seemed to know what to say, none of them able to disagree. Eventually Nate simply rested a hand on her shoulder in solidarity, while he, Sophie, and Hardison discussed the finer points of the identification changes that would need to be made.
"Someone needs to stay here until he wakes up," Parker announced, once again diverting the conversation. "He won't react well if he wakes up in a hospital alone."
Nate and Sophie exchanged a meaningful look, knowing the thief was right. Of course they didn't have any intention of just abandoning Eliot in the hospital, but Parker made a very valid point. If Eliot woke up disoriented, he could very well hurt himself or someone else trying to escape if one of them wasn't there to explain what had happened.
"I'll take the first shift," Nate said. After all, Eliot was part of his crew, it was his responsibility to look after them. "You guys go home and get some sleep."
"Are you sure?" Sophie asked, concern lacing her words. She knew how he felt about hospitals and wasn't confident that Nate was the best choice. "I don't mind staying."
"I can stay," Hardison offered. "I'm gonna have to stay up and fix these aliases anyways."
"I'm staying," Parker said firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "You all go home."
Nate, Sophie and Hardison all spoke at once, trying to make their case on why they should be the one to stay.
"No. I'm staying," Parker repeated. "I'm supposed to be his wife, right? Isn't that what wives do?" she asked looking at each of her teammates in turn, waiting for one of them to correct her.
But her argument was sound and they all knew it. It was only a matter of time before the nurse came back and tried to kick them all out. As his spouse, Parker had the best claim for disobeying hospital rules.
"Are you sure?" Sophie asked, concerned about Parker's behavior since Eliot got hurt, not confident that leaving her alone was the best idea right now. "I could stay here with you."
"No, I'll be okay," Parker said, pulling up the visitors chair and sitting down, clearly settling in for awhile.
"Alright," Sophie finally conceded. "Can we bring you anything before we leave?"
"No… actually yeah, can you bring me my go-bag I keep stashed in the van?" she requested. "I need to change."
"Of course," Sophie said. Turning to Nate and Hardison, she had a short whispered conversation, sending them down to the van to complete the errand.
Even though her tank and jeans were black and looked fine at a glance, she could feel the dried blood where it had soaked into the fabric, making it stiff and crusty. She'd be dumping this outfit into the first available trash can. Her gaze shifted back to the man in the bed, and she knew Eliot wouldn't approve of her plan.
He'd told her once, while she watched him pretreat his laundry with hydrogen peroxide, that if hadn't learned how to get blood stains out years ago, he wouldn't have any clothes left. She'd asked him why he didn't just throw them out and buy new ones, it wasn't as if he couldn't afford to, she even offered to steal him clothes when she out getting her own. But he'd just given her the look, and gone back to his laundry.
But she didn't care if what she was wearing could be washed out, she never wanted to see these clothes again. In fact she'd burn them in effigy if it meant Eliot would wake up just to give her his annoyed sigh at her wastefulness.
Once the men were gone, Sophie pulled over a second chair and sat down next to the thief, reaching over to take her hand. "Parker, honey, tell me honestly, and remember I'll know if you're not being truthful. Are you alright?"
Parker considered the question a long time before answering. "I don't know," she finally said. "I'm just… I'm… I don't know," she said again, unable to verbalize how she felt. "I don't think I could…" she trailed off again. "Why is this so hard?"
Sophie squeezed her hand. "Because you care about him, Parker. We all do. He's our teammate and our friend. Actually we're more than that now, we're family. It's hard to see someone you care about hurt."
"I saw him fall," Parker confessed softly. "And I froze, I couldn't do anything. He always catches me, but I couldn't catch him. I couldn't even breathe. All I could do was watch."
"Oh, Parker," Sophie said mournfully. She knew that Parker had been on the roof at the time, but she hadn't realized that she'd actually seen Eliot's accident. She'd only heard it over the coms and that was bad enough that she was sure she'd have nightmares for weeks.
"What… what if he doesn't wake up?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes.
"We can't think like that, sweetie, we have to stay positive," Sophie said surely. "For Eliot as much as ourselves. You put positive thoughts out into the universe and then you'll get them back."
Parker didn't understand what Sophie was saying, but she took the grifter at her word like she always did, trusting her to steer her in the right direction on these matters. If there was any chance of it helping Eliot, she could stay positive.
"He's gonna be mad we brought him here when he wakes up," she mentioned, reaching out to gently poke his elbow, finding that it just wasn't the same when he couldn't glare at her for it. "He hates the hospital."
"We didn't really have much of a choice," Sophie pointed out. "He would have died if we hadn't."
Parker looked over at Sophie with the smallest hint of a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. "Do you think Eliot's gonna see it that way?"
Sophie chuckled lightly knowing exactly what Parker was talking about. She could already hear their grumpy hitter growling about how all he needed was an ice pack and some aspirin, not a hospital. And despite what she'd just told Parker about thinking positive, she couldn't help but worry that she'd never hear it from the man himself. She didn't have long to dwell on it however, since Nate and Hardison reentered the room with room with an impatient looking nurse.
Nate entered the room first, setting Parker's bag down by her chair. "We'll be back later today, but call me if anything happens before then, alright?" He waited for the thief to nod, before he moved to wait for the others by the door.
Hardison approached Parker next, handing her a laptop. "In case you get bored," he explained. "It's got a bunch of media on there."
Parker took the computer and set it to the side, as Hardison joined Nate in the doorway.
"If you need anything at all, even if it's just to talk, I'm just a phone call away," Sophie reminded the younger woman, as she too stood to leave.
And then Parker found herself alone, sitting vigil over the injured hitter. Waiting, watching and hoping.
AN And there we have it! I told you guys last chapter that we were gonna be switching gears a little bit going forward and I wasn't lying, lol... I do want to disclaimer that I am not a doctor nor do I have any medical training so if I got anything wrong, blame google...
So leave me a gift and let me know what you thought! Oh and bonus points for anyone who figures out where Hardison got their alias names from ;) And I will see you guys with the next chapter where we will find out Eliot's fate in 2018 :D