A/N: Yes this is a different story, sorry but I could not stand how the other version was going. But I think that this one will be much better! Please review!

Chapter 1: What goes wrong . . . must stay wrong

"Booth, wakeup, phone call."

Seeley Booth rubbed his eyes. Waking up early he could, and had been, handling however, after being promised a full three hours of sleep, he was less than thrilled that one of the privates under his command had woken him up a mere hour into his circadian rhythm. "Who?"

The soldier shrugged, "Didn't say but they threw some clearance code number at me, 18436."

That was all that was required to have Booth on his feet and covered down, "That's from the white house!"

"Yes, Agent Booth, I am calling about a former acquaintance of yours."

The voice was vaguely familiar but through a sleep-induced haze, he couldn't place it. "What acquaintance, Sir?"

The voice dropped to a just audible whisper, "Are you alone, Agent?"
Booth made a motion to clear the tent and leave him time with the phone, "Yes, Sir."

"Elliot Spencer."

Booth's eyes narrowed and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone, "Sir I assure you that I . . . who are you?"

"Are you sure you are alone," Booth didn't answer. "Listen Booth, Elliot is in trouble."

"And again I say; who are you?"

"Nathan Ford."

"Shut up!" Eliot ducked his head so his hair fell into his eyes when Parker followed him into Nate's apartment.

"I'm just saying, I've never seen you fall down on a job." Parker never broke stride as she tossed her bag on the couch and walked straight to the kitchen.

"Have you ever seen me hit in the side of the head with a monkey wrench, hu?" He shook his hair back showing a growing bruise and still bleeding cut at his temple.

Sophie stomped down the last stair, adjusting her shirt as she went. During their latest job she had been a frazzled house wife and was glad to be back in her designer wear. "Eliot Fainted?"

"I did not faint!" he growled, letting his hair slide forward a bit. That just served to barely hide the blush creeping up his neck and across his cheeks. No one tried to stop him as he stalked to the downstairs bathroom.

Through a mouth of CoCo Puffs Parker muttered, "Did too faint: dented the wall an' everything . . ."

"Easy Parker, you don't want to call the big bad wolf down on us again," Hardison chuckled.

"Whenever you children are ready or anything we can start." Nate, with a freshly poured coffee martini, stood at the monitor, not really looking at anything inparticular. When Hardison and Parker, still munching on cereal, made it to the couch, Nate started, "We'll go on ahead without Eliot."

Lights spun in front of Eliot's eyes even as he rested most of his weight forward on the sink, his elbow mostly being bruised from the soap dish but not caring as it took his mind off of the fricken' jackhammer pulsing at his temple. For a moment, albeit a brief one, he wanted to apologies to anyone he himself had hit in the head with a monkey wrench. No one simple monkey wrench could have made the hitter ache like this, but it sure didn't help.

When he was sure he wouldn't be losing his lunch any time soon Eliot began pulling out the first aid kit, hoping that the butterfly bandages were still stocked. Luckily the cut taped up easily enough and by then his head had stopped pounding a bit. He ran his hand through his hair and put away Nate's first aid kit, sliding it easily behind the toilet. From the other side of the door he could still hear Nate going on about their job and what went wrong, though he was sure that the man had downed about a half bottle of coffee . . . and bourbon.

"Eliot, thank you for joining us," Nate paused mid-sentence to address the hitter, a map of the mark's office building was pulled up and Nate was showing where Parker should have slipped in and how she ended up in the security hub; hence Eliot having to step in and save her.

With a grunt of acknowledgement, Eliot waved him to continue and sat on his chair, an ice pack was waiting on him. As Nate continued Eliot caught Parker looking at him out of the corner of her eye and she smiled. The hitter sighed; it was as much of a "thank you" as he needed.

Two days later, Nate had picked their next client and began the phone tree that was calling the team to action. The game was: Nate had already decided to get Mary McCoy's husband out of prison. Apparently the man, a secretary to the Virginia Governor, had uncovered some form of government corruption and, after trying to bring the information to light, was tried for treason and now faced life in prison.

"Nate, can we at least come to the agreement that any job that requires travel to be given twenty-four hour notice?" Sophie was lazily sipping a white mocha late. Thou fully dressed and makeuped it was obvious that she had been fast asleep a mere forty-five minutes ago.

"Yeah man, you gave me ten minutes to find five tickets on a flight to Virginia, B.T.W, not easy in the slightest," Hardison handed Parker a steaming mug and sat down next to her. "And another thing, I'm tired of these three a.m. phone calls, they're throwing off my circadian rhythm, Ima have to get a Leverage Signal or somethin' like Batman . . . yeah, something cool – and not loud."

The thief was in a pair of sweats and sipped the coffee, her nose crinkling at the bitter taste.

"You've worked with less. Now that we're all here, we can get started." Nate, shifting his notes from the client meeting started, "First, does everyone have a bag?"

Sophie raised a hand, arms crossed and shot Nate a look that he could not mistake, "Aren't we forgetting something?" When Nate gave her his, "I have no clue what you're talking about" look, she continued. "About yea tall, blue eyes – "

"– long hair, bad attitude," Hardison continued.

Parker was adding sugar to her coffee (wherever she got it from) "and Eliot."

Nate looked around, as if seeing the group for the first time, "Did anyone call him?"

In the same instant, Hardison, Parker and Sophie all responded with, "I thought you did."

The mastermind sighed and pulled out his phone, easily dialing Eliot's number. After several rings it went to voice mail, a cover message saying the caller had reached a lumber company based in Canada. "Yeah, Eliot, I thought we agreed that everyone would answer their phones when I called. You need to get to the office now, ewe have a seven a.m. flight to catch." When he hung up the entire team was staring at him. "What?"

Sophie was the first to speak, "I know that voice; that was your sleazy conman voice! Nate, you can't use that on your team!"

Nate, incognizant of any wrong doing shrugged, "I was getting into character." While Nate and Sophie bickered, Hardison called Eliot again, still no answer.

"Parker, try your com," Hardison ordered while dialing one more time. "Guys, Eliot's still not answering. When's the last time anyone saw him?"

"Well, I spoke to him after our last job," Nate did not sound near as sure of himself as the others felt he should.

"That's great Nate, you send him off to lick his wounds without even calling to be sure he's aright?" Sophie hit Nate's shoulder.

"Hardison, do we have any idea where he lives?" Nate sat his coffee down, holding his hands up to Sophie when she glared at him.

The hacker's fingers flew over the keys, "I'm running a search on all of his aliases, but we may get some decoys like Parker's comic place thing."

Parker rejoined the group, a bit more frazzled than she had left. Her hand around her mug was white, "His com is on but no one's answering. What's going on?"

"We're trying Parker,' Nate, seeing nothing that he could do otherwise, was looking over Hardison's shoulder.

"Meaning we don't know – yet," Sophie was struggling with the desire to panic and training to stay calm. Eliot had never not responded before; except for that time he was in the lake . . .

"Okay, I got five addresses." Quickly, Nate jotted down the addresses on post-it notes, "We'll split up, Sophie, you go with Parker, Hardison, we're on our own. Keep coms on, call if you hear anything."

Nate looked down at his post-it note that had two addresses on it, the first one had been a decoy, obviously set by Eliot. Luckily Nate had seen the booby traps before barreling in.

Hardison had fared no better at his address and Sophie and Parker, on their way to their second address, had met (and terrified, when Parker broke into his apartment) an elderly man named Brad Macky.

Now here Nate was, standing in front of a rickety apartment down some smog ridden alley. This was definitely not the place he had expected to see the hitter staying at. He had to climb three flights of metal stairs until he reached what was hopefully Eliot's floor.

"Room 319." Nate sighed when he reached the room, "I hope this is it."

"You one of Mr. Gantry's friends?" A one-eyed plump woman was exiting the room across the hall. Nate didn't have to ask about the name, knowing it as one of the hitters aliases from a few years ago. "I don't know how the building didn't crash down after his visitors last night. Loud music; the entire floor shook. Mr. Gantry's just as good and kind as the next tenant but –"

Nate waited to hear no more before slamming his shoulder into Elliot's door, glad and worried at the same time when the door frame gave way. "Damnit; Sophie, call Brennan."

"Dr. Brennan speaking," Bones held the satellite phone to her ear with one shoulder, not wanting to take her hands off of the infant skull she had found. Without the rest of the body that was trapped under the remains of a toppled ancient structure she was the only one who could answer half of the questions about the child's short life.

"Temperance," the British voice sounded strained, "It's Elliot."

A/N: Okay, so how was the changes? You likey? Please review or I'll keep changing it! Lol.