Title: Code Blue
Beta: sgs09
Rating: PG-13, violence and a little swearing
Genre: canon/action/adventure/h/c
Summary: Nate felt sick as he was taunted by the man on the other end of the phone, "I will give you the deal of the century Mr. Ford, three thieves in exchange for one. You give me Eliot Spencer and the three I already have are free to go."
Author's Note: Sooooooo, I may have had this done for awhile and forgot to post it. Ooops.

Epilogue

"Achoo!"

Eliot tilted his head against the back of the couch cushions and resisted the urge to groan as his head throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat. It only took a second for a Kleenex box to be shoved into his line of sight and he took one without glancing at who had offered it to him but muttered, "Thanks."

"No problem," Sophie assured him, leaving the box on the coffee table in front of him as she continued on her way to the kitchen where Hardison and Parker were arguing over supper. They had started to take turns cooking since Eliot had been unanimously banned from the kitchen by the rest of the team until he was recovered but the hacker and thief were having trouble agreeing on what actually constituted a meal.

It had been three days since they had all successfully slipped out of Ackers' grasp and they had been staying together at a safehouse ever since while the FBI searched their homes and apartments looking for them. So far the cops hadn't found any evidence to suggest that any 'international thief' other than Eliot had even been in the city, which pleased the team as it served to discredit Ackers even more.

So far everything was going as planned; Ackers was in jail and the team had gotten away without a hitch. The only complication they had run into was Eliot. He had been practically hypothermic for an entire day and despite their best efforts to take care of him the hitter had quickly developed a cough and fever that they all feared was escalating into pneumonia. At first Eliot had insisted he was fine, but over the last day he had become so miserable that he didn't even protest when they laid blankets over him or brought him soup and medicine. Right now he was camped out on the couch perpetually drifting in and out of sleep as he was constantly waking up to sneeze or cough.

"Go! Get out! You're gonna ruin it!"

The yelling didn't help either.

Pushing himself to a sitting position he peered over the top of the couch and watched as Parker shoved Hardison out of the kitchen.

"You can come back when it's ready," she told him triumphantly and then gave him a look that practically dared him to try to follow her as she turned around and went back to the stove.

"This is discrimination! Just cause I'm a man I can't be in the kitchen! I don't see anyone gettin' all pushy when Eliot cooks," Hardison ranted, flailing his arms indignantly as he stood just outside the threshold to the kitchen.

"That's because Eliot doesn't think that microwave burritos qualify as a meal," Sophie pointed out from a stool at the counter.

"I'm also not sure that Hardison qualifies as a man," Eliot added, chuckling as he dropped back down onto the couch. It was an unusually harsh comment but Eliot didn't care – it had taken over four hours to get out of those handcuffs so he figured the hacker deserved it.

"Can't get an ounce of respect in this place," Hardison mumbled shaking his head as he tried to sit on the couch to check his laptop. "Seriously man, you need all three cushions? Slide over."

"Bite me," Eliot grumbled. His laugh from a moment before had turned into a harsh coughing fit that caused the other thieves to share brief looks of concern.

"Sorry man, it's all yours," Hardison said quickly, grabbing his laptop and moving over to an arm chair.

They all turned when they heard the front door open and sighed in relief when Nate came in alone, making a beeline for the cupboard.

"How'd it go?" Sophie asked quietly but Nate ignored her and as he frantically searched through the shelves and then let his head fall forward against the cupboard in dismay.

"No coffee, of course," he muttered, clearly exhausted.

Nate had been with the police since the night before. They had known that Ackers was going to rat them all out to the Feds, even Nate who had no criminal record, but instead of running Nate had decided to go with them willingly in an attempt to discredit Ackers even more.

"Yeah, it was fine," he finally told them all as he moved into the living room. Eliot moved his feet to make room for the mastermind to sit, which earned him a glare from Hardison, but Nate didn't notice anything as he crumpled from exhaustion. "They had a lot of questions about you guys. I told them I chased you all but hadn't seen you in years. I also made up a story about Ackers never liking me because we had gone after the same thieves several times over the years and I screwed him out of his bounties when I caught them first. They couldn't link me to any one of you so after checking everything out they let me go."

"And now the Feds think that Ackers was trying to frame an innocent man on top of everything else," Eliot surmised with a nod of satisfaction. "This just keeps getting better."

"You like that? You'll love this," Hardison said with a smile as he clicked a couple keys and linked his computer screen to the TV. The hacker scrolled through a few scanned documents and then stopped to enlarge something that looked like a court filing. The team was all squinting to read the fine print so Hardison read it off for them. "In the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, James W. Ackers has been charged with the following crimes: flying an airplane without a registered flightplan, kidnapping, attempted international smuggling and attempted human trafficking. Man, even if none of the charges stick the trial alone will take over a year."

"Took long enough for them to charge him," Parker commented from the kitchen.

"I can explain that one too," Hardison assured them and changed the screen to show some medical documents. "Ackers was only released from the hospital last night, they didn't bother charging him for awhile cause they knew he wasn't going anywhere. It seems that bullet wound in his shoulder got a nasty infection because someone told the Feds that a second ambulance was going to come take care of the guy. Of course, it never showed up. His arm didn't get treated for like six or seven hours."

Nate tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch, fully aware that he was 'someone' who was supposed to call the ambulance. "Well, that's just tragic."

"Terrible, terrible thing that," Sophie agreed with the same sarcasm and lack of sympathy.

Eliot huffed out a laugh which again turned into a coughing fit. Nate could tell that the hitter had gotten worse in the hours since he left and asked, "How you feeling?"

Instead of answering Eliot just growled.

"That good, huh?" Nate was saved from any further comment when Parker emerged from the kitchen with a tray of food.

"Move it people, man's gotta eat!" she announced, kicking Nate's feet out of the way as she placed the tray on the coffee table in front of Eliot so the hitter wouldn't have to move. Eliot sat up and looked at the meal in stunned amazement: a bowl of spaghetti, a cut up apple, a handful of peanuts and a bottle of beer.

"Um …" Eliot was half a second away from asking about the odd assortment of food when he realized that everything on the tray was something that Parker had seen him eat before which made it obvious that she had chosen them because she knew he liked them. He shut his mouth and nodded to her. "Thanks Parker, looks great."

The thief bounced on her toes and looked proud. Eliot's eyes lit up as he reached for the beer as he hadn't had one in days. However, the bottle was snatched off the table and out of his grasp just before he could reach it.

"I don't think that's going to help you get better any sooner. I'll get you a juice," Sophie said without room for argument as she disappeared into the kitchen with his beer. Parker glared at her retreating back and then looked at Eliot with a promise in her eyes to steal the drink back for him later.

Hardison nudged Parker and lifted an eyebrow in anticipation. "Didn't you forget something?"

"Oh yeah! There's dessert!" she cried as she flew back into the kitchen.

"I didn't even eat yet," Eliot protested, then became wary as he noticed the mischievous glint in Hardison's eye.

Having completely ignored Eliot's protest Parker emerged walking carefully from the kitchen with another tray. Behind her Eliot could see Sophie trying to hide a smile behind her hand as she saw what the thief was carrying.

"So, I really wanted to get the truck one or see if they'd make one shaped like a knife, but Hardison said you loved horses more than all those things so …"

As Parker spoke she laid down the tray to reveal an elaborate ice cream cake cut out in the shape of a bright pink, smiling My Little Pony that had "Get Well Soon Eliot" written in light blue across the body.

For a moment Hardison thought that Eliot was actually trying to kill him with his eyes, the hitter's scowl was that deep, but then in the blink of an eye all anger disappeared from his face as he looked up at Parker who was waiting expectantly to see if he liked it.

"It's awesome. Thanks," he told her as sincerely as possible. Nate was fairly certain the hitter's jaw was going to break soon it was clenched so tightly in a forced smile. "Why don't you put it back in the fridge though so it doesn't melt? I'll have some after I eat."

"Okay," she agreed happily and bounded back out of the room with the tray.

"You're lucky you're not wearing that cake," Eliot hissed at Hardison when the blond was out of earshot.

"But you love horses," Hardison commented innocently, flinching away on instinct but then relaxing when Eliot backed down because Parker had come back in the room.

Nate shook his head, got up and headed for the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat for the rest of them.

"Don't touch my peanuts Hardison!"

"You've got a whole bowl!"

As Nate sighed heavily Sophie appeared next to him and asked.

"Nate, the bad guy's in jail, the cops can't find us, we're all home safe and the others are bickering like children, what else could you possibly need?"

"Coffee," he breathed out longingly.

She smiled and placed a full bag of coffee beans in his hands then went back to the living room to compliment Parker's 'beautiful cake' and give Eliot his juice.

Nate looked at the coffee, then at his team together in the other room and smiled.

"Now everything's perfect."

The end.