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Even in Chaos, There is Peace – Part 2/2

"You got the oven pre-heating, right?" Eliot asked from Nate's sofa. He was pushing himself up from a half-reclined position against some pillows that Sophie had arranged for him, preparing himself to come help when she leveled him a stern stare that screamed don't you dare get off that couch. His motions stopped.

"Yes, Eliot. Three seventy-five, just like you reminded me ten minutes ago. Relax, my dear, I got this," she reassured him before ducking down to go rummaging through Nate's cabinets. "Any idea where Nate keeps his cutting board?"

Eliot chuckled and leaned back. "Cabinet above the dishwasher. Not like Nate would even know that. I spend more time cooking in this kitchen than he does," he finished with a smirk.

She stood up, moved to the appropriate cabinet and a few seconds later emerged with the heavy wooden cutting board that Eliot had bought for the kitchen to replace Nate's plastic one. There were just some habits that died hard. Kitchen implements changed with the years, smaller pots more appropriately sized for apartment living replaced old iron kettles and dish washers like the industrial one Nate had installed at his place made doing an initial rinse of the cutlery obsolete.

Eliot still stood over the sink and washed each dish by hand before carefully arranging them in the dishwasher even as Nate stood at the counter shaking his head at the seemingly waste of effort and time. And the hitter still preferred the smooth wood grain under his fingers as he diced vegetables for their weekly dinners. It was the way he was raised, standing perched on a chair next to his mother she patiently showed him just the right way to peel a potato to keep from chopping off any of the edible parts. There were rules in the kitchen, protocols to abide by. It had an almost ritualistic feel to it sometimes. It was as good a form of meditation as Eliot had ever found and some patterns didn't ever need to be changed.

"You know when the others are getting back?" Sophie inquired as she began setting out the food items on the counter.

"Hardison said dinner with his old foster family should be done in a few hours. Nate went to church and Parker tagged along because apparently 'cooking is boring if she can't eat and she likes fieldtrips,'" he chuckled. "I'd assume we have a little over two hours until they all get back."

Sophie looked up from her ministrations, beginning to look a little panicked. "That's enough time to get this recipe done, right? I mean, I know it's ample time for you, you can work at a frenzied pace and still somehow keep the chaos manageable, but then you got hurt and I got thrust into this role. I'm no cook-"

"You're fine," Eliot soothed, "And maybe you're not a gourmet cook yet, but everyone gets a start somewhere. The times you've helped me cook breakfast you've done just fine," he added, hoping to bolster her confidence.

She nodded appreciatively before turning to the fridge to retrieve the chicken they'd left to marinate since early that afternoon. She laid the glassware on the counter and peeled back and saran wrap and put out a finger to poke the meat.

Eliot laughed and shook his head. "Relax, it's good and dead and ready to be cooked. Let's get it in the oven and start in on the vegetable plate."

And so the evening progressed. Eliot's posture had started rigid early on in the night. This was one of his mother's recipes and he'd never had to walk someone else through how to make this meal. All the times he'd made this meal had given him fine muscle memory for every action that needed to be performed, nowadays he need not pay the process a second thought. Teaching someone else as his mother had once taught him, and doing it from the couch no less, well, that was a nerve-wracking experience to say the least. This was their Christmas feast, and there were times like these where he couldn't help but pray that the meal would go off without a hitch.

Eliot had allowed those fears to ebb into a comfortable silence in the back of his mind. Sure, there were times when Sophie had to ask for him to explain something again or remind her in what order ingredients got added to a particular dish. But her initial nervousness faded into a relaxed mood between the two. He coached and she executed each action just as he would have done himself. A meal that under normal circumstances would've been his creation was suddenly a fusion of both of their collective efforts.

It was strange. He didn't watch people cook very often. When Eliot was in the kitchen, sweat usually beaded on his brow. His hands flitted between two sizzling pans on the stovetop while he occasionally paused to fend off Parker's attempts to prematurely sample his wares. He'd never seen Sophie cook on her own before. It was usually her watching his technique before attempting to duplicate it, or it was her sitting at the counter occupying him with tales of old missions-gone-awry as he made their meal. She wasn't able to drop into the role of a cook as easily as she could adopt the skin of a new persona on a con. From time to time she looked over to him with a furtive expression. Am I doing this right? that gaze would ask. And with a firm nod, he'd respond, It's perfect.

She chopped her vegetables into larger chunks than he would, perhaps, and she kept peeking in on the chicken in the oven more often than he would've liked. He mused silently that she was letting the heat out every time she opened the oven door, adding a little bit of extra time that would be necessary for the oven to rebuild the temperature and finish darkening the seasoned chicken to a deep, rich brown. But it would be perfect enough, in the end.

For the life of him, he still didn't understand exactly how he had ended up confined to a couch. He longed to be standing behind Sophie as he instructed her in proper dicing technique, their two bodies pressed up one against the other. Her smooth curves contrasting against his sharply angled frame and yet somehow they fit together like two parts of a single whole. He survived thugs and bullets whizzing by his head day in and day out, only to have been brought to a state of infirmity by a strained back and a tumble down a few stairs. And as he had fallen prey to the demands of his body to rest and heal. As of taunting him, in shifting his weight, the muscles in his back pinched for a moment, pain flaring at the injury site.

Sophie had stepped in and offered to cook the moment Nate had proposed take-out for their Christmas dinner. Sophie had met Eliot's eyes for just a moment, and whatever she'd seen there had prompted her to step up and volunteer her own efforts.

And that effort spoke volumes.

Where Sophie's hair usually cascaded down her back in undulating waves, it was tied in a loose bun to keep it off her neck and out of the food. A few hairs had wriggled free and hung out at odd angles. It was one of those rare times where she forewent make-up (god knows she was beautiful enough to not need it) and let her natural complexion shine through. She wiped her brow with the back of one hand as she rolled potatoes in a skillet with a spatula in the other. She was out of her element and submerged in his, and she had stepped into that role without hesitation.

"I think they're done," she suggested.

"They're softened up some?" he asked.

"Yeah, a few are getting mushy," she said as she pressed the spatula down on one of the potato wedges.

"Turn off the stove, then, and leave them to cool."

She complied, laying the spatula in the sink before pressing her palms flat on the countertop and stretching to crack her back, stiff from so much sedentary standing. "What's left to do?"

"Just the salad, the stuff for that should be in the bottom drawer in the fridge," Eliot replied.

Sophie nodded, pushing off the counter and heading over to the fridge. The open door obscured her figure for the few moments she spent rummaging around for the food, but a moment later she emerged with a bag of greens in one hand, and one filled with baby carrots in the other. She kicked the door shut with her heel and then moved back over to the counter where she deposited her load. "I think I might actually be able to do this one well enough. We just mix everything together in a bowl?" she inquired.

"Yep, nothing too complex. Bring the greens over here, though. I bought them earlier this week, before this whole thing happened," he said, motioning to where he was restricted to the couch. "This particular type has a tendency of spoiling pretty easily and as much as I love giving gifts, giving food poisoning to all you guys wasn't at the top of my to-do list for the day," he finished with a light chuckle.

She raised an eyebrow but crossed the kitchen and into Nate's living room light on her feet. Eliot nodded approvingly at that. She had abandoned her heels for the time-being. He appreciated all the work she was doing here, but expecting her to do all of this while on heels might be a bit too much for even Sophie's feet.

She held the bag out for him. He lightly pulled it from her grasp and broke the bag open, removing a few leaves. He scooted a bit to the side on the couch to leave a few inches open on the very edge, ignoring the slight spike of pain in his back. He patted the vacated spot with one hand, "This will take a minute. Come sit for a second. You have to be getting tired."

"I'm fine-"

"Oh, humor the injured man. Come sit with me for a minute. Making me feel guilty, you flitting about in the kitchen and me sitting here like a bum." That was apparently enough to let Sophie set aside her stubborn streak. She daintily lowered herself to the couch, careful not to jostle Eliot. But the limited space didn't allow for her to remain independent of him completely, her body just barely pressed up against his.

Eliot returned to looking over the greens. He rolled the leaves in his hand, inspecting them carefully and then sniffing them. "These should be fine."

He set the bag aside and then pressed against the back of the couch as he struggled to sit up a bit straighter.

"Eliot, stop stressing your back!" Sophie chastised as she put a hand under his arm to help him with the effort.

"I'm fine, Sophie," he grumbled, but not harshly. He was more annoyed with the current circumstances than anything else.

"Okay, okay," she said, pulling her hands off him. She went to stand up and give him space but the hitter stopped the motion by grabbing her hand and pulling her in toward him. "What, Eliot?"

He smirked and held one of the leaves above their heads, pointedly fixing his stare on it.

"I may not know my way around the kitchen, but I do know the difference between mistletoe and spinach leaves," she weakly admonished. It wasn't a very convincing effort either. If she had wanted to finish that statement with a little bit of sting, she should've restrained the chuckle that bubbled up.

"Can you blame a man for trying?" he asked, stroking the underside of her wrist with his calloused finger. He felt Sophie's skin ripple under the touch. He responded in turn, pulling her across his lap in one practiced motion.

Having not expected the move, Sophie tumbled into his arms a bit. The world around them stilled. Their faces hovered just inches apart, close enough for them to breathe in one another's exhalations. He absorbed her scent, a pleasant mixture of the light fruity perfume she must've put on earlier and the more natural scents picked up after a day in the kitchen.

"I suppose it's the thought that counts," she whispered.

She leaned forward slowly. Too slow, Eliot thought. He'd had to watch her all day, without the opportunity to smell her or hold her or touch her. No more. He locked his hands together in the small of her back and pulled her down on top of him. He banished the complaint his back levied. Some things were more important.

Their lips pressed together.

Eliot groaned inwardly, but restrained himself. There was an insatiable greed that churned inside him, a desire to abandon all sense of moderation and pull Sophie's hair loose of its binding and run a hand through the long locks, smoothly untangling a few of the knots that would've formed there. But they would wait for that night, they both had agreed to that. There were some gifts meant to be shared in the night, behind closed doors without threat of interruption or intrusion. Somewhere they could press skin against warm skin with no boundaries to keep them apart.

Eliot restrained himself. He lightly bit her lip and then leaned back, gazing into her eyes. There was a longing there too, but for the moment both of them would have to be satisfied with what snatches of shared euphoria they could steal.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of someone fiddling with the door. A moment later their teammates filed in through the opening. The quiet atmosphere was exchanged for one of chaos as jackets and scarves and hats were shed, bulkily dressed forms eventually transforming into the familiar figures of Hardison, Parker, and Nate.

"Well there are our two lovebirds," Hardison jived. "Dinner ready? My foster family tried to feed me but I saved some room in anticipation of our feast here," he added, rubbing his hands together.

Eliot nodded, "Just have to mix the salad and we'll be done. You can go ahead and pull the chicken out of the oven to cool."

Sophie cut in next. "How was church, Nate?"

He shrugged. His expression was mixed. Eliot knew the man still struggled with his belief in a God that would be so cruel as to take his only child. But some vestiges of his broken faith were hard shed, and every year he went through the now-empty motions of attending the Christmas service. "Service was about what you'd expect. The son of God born again to forgive man for his sin and all of mankind rejoices as the gift." There was bitterness in the statement. Would Nate be wrapping presents for his own son and setting them under the tree if the child were still alive?

Parker slunk forward. "It was boring. They made us sit there the whole time. And the only food we got was a few drops of wine and some really dry bread. I'm taking my own snacks next time," she complained.

Eliot chuckled at that, meeting Nate's gaze just as the man finished rolling his eyes. "I take it Parker didn't enjoy her fieldtrip so much?"

He shrugged. The motion made the silent statement- the only response one could make to the thief sometimes- It's Parker. Nate held up a box in one hand. "She made us stop for Dunkin' Donuts on the way home. She was threatening to go steal something if we didn't feed her. I figured we could bring back the rest for dessert."

Parker wheeled around from where she'd been watching Hardison in the kitchen as the man donned oven mitts. Her head snapped toward Nate at that and she scampered over to the man, snatching the box of donuts from his hand before retreating several steps and holding them protectively to her chest. "I never said anything about sharing!" With that said she trotted toward the kitchen, hopping onto a stool and returning to observing Hardison's ministrations. She didn't relinquish her grip on the donuts, instead setting them protectively in her lap.

Nate shook his head. Eliot had to agree with that.

Nate started toward the kitchen. "I'll see if I can't coax them away from her. There somewhere I can put them if I succeed?"

Eliot nodded. "We have the pies in the dining room already. You can set them there."

Nate moved off in pursuit of the blond thief and the sugary treats she had commandeered.

Eliot squeezed Sophie's hand. They had been afforded one more private moment before they would need to go help set the table and sit down to the Christmas dinner feast that they had so painstakingly worked to prepare.

There was a quiet smile on her face. Her breaths were soft and level and she didn't move to get off his lap for the moment.

He had to pause and just revel in the knowledge that this beautiful woman was his just as much as he belonged to her and this moment belonged to them both. Sophie was his. She went by many other names. There were the ones she made up for each fabricated personality for each con. There was the one she had offered to him in a whisper in his ear. Her true name. And as beautiful as her real name was, he continued to call her Sophie. That other woman, who went by another name, she lived in a different world and in another life that Eliot wasn't a part of.

Eliot was part of this shared life with her. Not the one she kept under lock and key, where she had real parents and even a sister that Eliot had yet to meet. That was the young woman who had grown up on the East Coast to a lawyer father and a mother who'd worked at a fashion magazine. The others piqued an eyebrow to how well she had known the city when they'd first moved to Boston. He knew that she used to take the train in with her sister for the occasional day in the Big City as a youth.

Eliot knew her as an expert grifter. The woman who could charm her way past the defenses of even the most paranoid men. In this life, she was Sophie, the woman who risked her life alongside his every time they stepped into another con to bring down another evil person in the world. This was the woman he had fallen in love with, under this name and in this life. And even though she wondered about his reluctance to call her by her real name, his resolve in this never wavered.

He leaned forward, close to her ear and let the quiet words roll off his tongue. "Merry Christmas, Sophie."

There was a crash from the dining room that caused both of them to jump. The sound of a plate breaking and then a gruff shout, "Parker! Come down from there and give me those donuts! You eat more of those and you aren't going to be hungry for the actual meal we're about to sit down to."

Sophie stood up and smoothed her hair with a practiced hand. She crouched down to straighten Eliot's tie, then. "I love you, you know that? And if I teach you anything in all the time we have together, I'll teach you to tie a tie properly someday."

She helped him to stand up. Between the two of them floated the knowledge that they best be getting in there before Parker managed to break anything else.

They heard Parker's cackle from the other room. "You bought these for me, Nate! I never said anything about sharing."

"Parker, the chandelier was not intended to hold up the weight of a whole person. No, not even one as small as you. Now get down here!"

Together, Eliot and Sophie abandoned their peaceful refuge and descended into the chaos of another team Christmas, hand in hand. And in truth, in that moment, the two of them wouldn't have preferred to be anywhere else.

-THE END-

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