Chapter 11

Wick walks down the hall to his brother's hospital room feeling much lighter and more rested than he has in a while. He had run into Eliot's doctor on the way in, and she had told him that her patient is out of danger and should be able to go home in a couple of days. Provided, she had said with a meaningful look, he stays in bed and doesn't do anything too strenuous. Wick had laughed and thanked her for dealing with his cantankerous brother and completely ignored her question about his health.

Yes, things are finally going well. He's feeling better - not great, and certainly not best, of course, but okay, at least enough to last his next two shifts before he'll be able to curl up in bed and tune out the rest of the world…until Grace's birthday and her party, during which he'll have a half-dozen elementary school kids running around his house and giving him a headache - and he's looking forward to seeing his brother. In addition, now that he's no longer in danger of dying, maybe Wick will even be able to pay him back for all the fussing he did when Wick was injured.

Yeah, things are going pretty well, overall.

As he comes up to the door, he hears -

"Go!"

He stops in the doorway in time to see Grace working furiously at something in her hands. Something...

Hold it.

Is that a lock?

"Six point three! Yeah!" Eliot's blonde friend says and holds her hand up for Grace to high-five.

Eliot, awake and sitting up in bed, acknowledges his presence with a nod and a small smirk. Jerk. A jerk who is obviously feeling much, much better. Wick feels a little of the tension in his back and shoulders melt away at the sight of his brother enjoying the sight of Grace picking a lock.

"Let me do it again!" Grace cries, "I can go faster."

He hasn't seen her this excited about something in a while. In a long time, actually. It's good to see her laughing and smiling like this again. This is how a kid should act, not...not like she has been acting lately. He sighs. His little girl is growing up too fast, he thinks with a sad smile.

Sophie, who is sitting directly across the room from him, sees him leaning against the doorway and catches his eye with a knowing look. He throws her a wink as he strides into the room, schooling his face into the most serious, forbidding expression in his arsenal.

"What's going on here?" he asks quietly, pinning Grace to her seat with a stern look.

She gulps and puts her hands - and the objects in them - behind her back in a poor attempt to hide what she was doing. "Uh, hi, Dad. Did you sleep well?"

He raises an eyebrow and holds out his hand.

After a moment, she puts the lock she had been working on into his palm with a guilty look. He picks it up with his other hand, looks it over with a critical eye, then holds his hand out again with a "gimme" gesture. The slender lock-picking tools slide into his hand.

He looks down at the objects in his hands with an appraising gaze. He weighs the lock, tosses it lightly in the air and catches it, then closes it with an ominous click. "Picking locks?" He turns to Parker. "You're teaching my daughter how to pick locks?"

"It's a useful skill," the woman says brightly, as innocent as a babe, as if she sees nothing wrong in it. Right. Sometimes he forgets that his brother and his friends are criminals, and a little bit crazy to boot.

He turns back to Grace and sighs deeply. "And you, you should know better. You're better than this."

Grace bites her lip and looks down.

Since she's not looking at him, Wick risks a smirk identical to his brother's. "Six seconds, Grace?" he says, blue eyes twinkling mischievously, "That's still faster than Eliot and you've got the 'doing it quietly' part down, I'll grant you that, but it's not all that fast, hun. Six seconds." He shakes his head as if in disappointment.

Big, disbelieving blue eyes snap up to stare at him. "Dad?" Poor Gracie. She sounds so confused.

Wick chuckles. "Oh, honey. I practically live at the fire station. Lock-picking is..." He looks at the grinning Parker, "kind of a necessary survival skill, along with whoopee cushion inflation and saran-wrapping toilet bowls. And it's you know, kinda useful for the job, too."

The room explodes half into giggles (from Parker and Sophie), and half into disbelieving outbursts of "What?!" (from Hardison and Grace).

"This guy," Eliot finally says from the bed with a wide grin, jabbing a finger at his brother, "When we were kids, oh, man, if we wanted to get into...someplace, we always made sure we had him with us. He could get us in and out without anyone knowing for sure we were in there. Couldn't prove anything." He holds up his hand for a high-fiving handshake.

Wick clasps Eliot's hand, then adds, "Ya mean, until they installed the security cameras," he chortles. "Then were we in trouble!" He lets go and sneakily feels Eliot's forehead in the guise of messing his girly hair up and knocking his head lightly to the side. Roughhousing while nursing. That's how brothers do it.

"Good times," Eliot chuckles, oblivious for now to the start of the fraternal mother-henning, and puts his hand to his stomach, trying to stop laughing so much. "Remember hood surfing?"

"Oh yeah. We were pretty wild back then," Wick agrees.

Grace stares at her father wide-eyed and with her mouth hanging open. Wick catches the look and says, "What? I was young once, too, ya know? Before I got all boring and dad-like."

Sophie smiles and says nothing. This man who looks like Eliot may lead a seemingly normal and only slightly adventurous life (in comparison to his brother, at least), but he is not boring, no, not at all. Quite interesting, actually.

"Oh yeah," Hardison wags a finger at Wick, "I dug up some crazy shit about you. Defibrillating a guy in a room full of water? That's insane."

"You did what?!" Eliot erupts, while Parker's eyes light up maniacally. Water and electricity. Awesome!

"I wasn't standing in the water," Wick shrugs, after throwing a glare at the man who has obviously been digging into his personal life, "That woulda been stupid." Then he smirks, tucking his hands into his pockets as he does so, "I did a handstand on his chest while I was defibbing him."

"You dumbass!" Eliot sighs tiredly and sags back against his pillows. "And they used to call you the smart twin."

Sophie nods and a satisfied air creeps into her smile. See? Not boring in the least, although the craziness may be hidden under a veneer of normality.

"Dad," Grace recovers and says indignantly, "Dad, how come you never showed me how to pick locks? You're supposed to pass that kind of thing on to me!"

Wick hands her the lock and tools in his hand. "Here, practice. I'll add a stop to the hardware store to my list of errands to do today so I can change the locks on all my embarrassing stuff to something you can't pick as easily."

"You have embarrassing stuff?" Grace asks, then holds up the lock, which swings open. She frowns because she remembers that he had closed it, and looks from the lock to him. "Did you pick this while you were talking?"

"He's good," Parker comments from the side. "Fast. But not as fast as me."

"Wait, Dad," Grace says again, snagging her dad's sleeve, "You said embarrassing stuff. What embarrassing stuff?"

Wick lets his head fall back and groans. "Oh, you have no idea. College was..." He whistles. "Seriously. Don't think about it."

"Embarrassing like Lord Argus?" Grace asks slyly.

"How?" Wick starts and his eyes narrow, darting from his daughter around the room to...the hacker. "Yes, honey, embarrassing like that. And you, stay out of my personal life." He glares at Hardison, who lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, feeling like he got off easy, real easy.

"Huh," Eliot remarks, sounding surprised, "You got off easy," he tells Hardison.

Wick rolls his eyes and leans over the back of Grace's chair to kiss her on the cheek. "He's just lucky I'm in a good mood because Gracie did the laundry." Grace's eyes dart to Sophie and Parker, who suppress giggles.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Wick says, completely oblivious to the con the girls had run on him (or is he?), and runs his hand through her hair. Then he frowns and does it again, snagging his fingers on a tangled clump of curls.

"Ow, Dad!" Grace winces and pulls away. "I didn't use conditioner today."

"Why not? Did you run out again?" Wick asks, "There's a reason the grocery list is on the fridge. So you can write down what you need me to pick up."

"I forgot," Grace huffs with a pout.

"You can remember to put 'pony' and 'rainbow frosting' on the list, but you forget the thing you actually need?" Wick sighs and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Sometimes I feel like I'm raising a feral wolf cub."

"I need a pony, Dad," Grace huffs, then adds, "And frosting is yummy and rainbows are pretty." She takes the list out of his hand and digs in his pocket for a pen. "Here. Conditioner. I wrote it."

"Well, thank you," Wick says sarcastically. "Now I'll remember to buy it."

Eliot looks over Grace's shoulder. "That says 'condi-ton-er.' You're missing an 'I'."

Grace groans and adds the missing letter. "Fine!" she snarls, "Here, Dad!"

Wick nods and pats her head. "Good job. How are we on shampoo?"

"Still half full," Grace reports.

"Okay, need anything else that's not on the list?"

"Mmm," Grace thinks, "I still need that pony."

"Haha, good one," Wick says and gives her a hug from behind. "I'm off. I need to order someone's birthday cake from the bakery."

Grace gasps and clasps her hands together. "From the Russian place? Ooh, the cakes from there are so yummy! And Tanya is really pretty..." She looks sideways at her dad.

Wick laughs, "Ohh, yeah, she is. Real nice, too. But stubborn."

Grace perks up in surprise and blinks at him.

"I used to date her," he says with a wink, "Didn't work out, so stop trying to set us up."

Eliot sits up taller at that. "You what? You're dating again? Since when? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Yeah," Grace agrees, grinning and bouncing excitedly. "When? Why didn't I know? God, you never tell me anything!"

"You didn't know?" Eliot asks Grace. "When and how did you go out without Gracie noticing?"

"Yeah, Dad," Grace says, "How come I didn't know? This affects my life, too, you know."

The look on Wick's face brings a jarring halt to the half-teasing.

"Dad?"

"You dated her before you met your wife," Sophie says gently.

Wick looks at the grifter. "God, you people are nosy," he scoffs softly, wiping his lips with his hand in a nervous motion and turning away to cover up his expression.

Hardison pokes his nose into peoples' personal electronic lives as part of his job, as a part of his very existence, even, and he never feels bad or wrong about doing it. But this, this feels wrong. This feels too personal. The expression on the man's face...He'd lost his wife and the raw, hurt look on his face, a face too much like Eliot's, makes Hardison feel awful for the first time about what he'd done, dipping his fingers into this man's personal life.

The man doesn't know that Hardison knows everything that's online about him, everything that's personal that should be kept secret. He knows a lot of little things, things like flowers being charged on Wick's credit card on the same day every year. Things like a prescription for anti-depressants issued directly after Jessica Lobo's accident, presumably taken for a year and a half, abruptly stopped, then re-issued again off and on throughout the years. Even Eliot probably doesn't know about that. If Wick is anything at all like his brother, Eliot doesn't know anything about that.

Grace bites her lip. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and gives her father a hug. Her mother is still a sore point with him. He's still in love with her, even though she's been dead for most of Grace's life. She glances at her uncle and sees the same look on his face that she feels on her own. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I thought, I thought maybe..." She trails off, not wanting to word her hope that he has finally moved on.

"I know. It's okay, honey. It was my own fault for bringing it up." Wick smiles tightly and composes himself by tugging the ends of her hair absentmindedly. Grace scowls but doesn't say anything about it.

Instead, she says, "I miss her, too, Dad."

Wick clears his throat. "Anyway," he says, "I uh- Do you want me to pick you up before work tonight and drop you off at Tita's, or you want her to pick you up here later?"

"Later," Grace says, jumping at the chance to move on from an uncomfortable subject - and to stay with her beloved uncle as long as possible.

"Alright, I'll call her. Nine o'clock."

"Nine thirty."

"Nine," Wick says firmly, gladly taking the familiar distraction from the reminder of his wife's death. "Nine thirty is bedtime."

"But- "

"No," and Wick's eyebrows go up in an 'I'm serious, Grace Lobo' expression, "You have school tomorrow. Bed at nine thirty."

"Aww, Daaaaad," Grace draws out the one-syllable word, "I'm almost ten. Other ten-year-olds get to stay up later."

"Maybe," Wick says, "but you're not other ten-year-olds. You're my nine-year-old, and I say bedtime is at nine thirty."

"Uncle Eliot lets me stay up late," Grace pouts.

Wick narrows his eyes at his guilty-looking, silently-protesting brother. "Well, Uncle Eliot is a pushover. Nine thirty, or I'll drop you off at Tita's at seven thirty and send you to bed right away."

"Not fair, Dad."

"Take your pick."

Grace sighs. "Tita picks me up at nine," she grumbles.

"And you're gonna be in bed by...?"

"Ten?" Grace heaves another sigh at the look her father levels her. "Nine thirty. Not fair."

"Good girl." Wick puts his arm around her and squeezes. "I love you," he says softly into her hair, smiling because he knows that she is still miffed at him for the "restrictive" bedtime rule. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hrrrmmrrmm," Grace mumbles into his shirt.

After Wick leaves, Eliot comments quietly, "Would it kill you to say 'I love you' to him out loud?"

"Would it kill you to say it to a girl who's not me?" Grace shoots back, feeling prickly.

"Touché." Eliot tilts his head. "But he's your father. And a girl oughta love her father and tell him so when he's feelin' down."

"I do. But he was being totally unfair."

"Even so. You should tell him. And not just when you're all tired and not as stubborn about it."

"Why don't you tell him?" Grace asks, huffing a bit.

"Because I'm a guy and guys don't do that."

"That's sexist. Why can't you tell your brother you love him?"

Eliot laughs uncomfortably. "Stop turning this on me, Grace. He knows I've got his back."

"Because you're his brother and you love him?" Grace smirks.

"Yes," Eliot sighs, giving in, "because of that."

"Say it. Say it, Elly."

"Arruvyerdudbecrrzmrbrrrvrr," Eliot mumbles, repeating after Grace, "There, happy?"

Parker lets out a sharp "Ha!" and Hardison and Sophie laugh out loud. They have never seen Eliot being such a...pushover. This girl has him firmly tied around her pinky finger, and he barely even puts up a fight.

Grace sits back and gives Eliot a "seriously?" look. "So basically, I inherited this emotional block thing from you? That's great."

"Shut up, kid," Eliot grunts, "At least I tell you."

"Do you love me, Elly?" Grace asks saucily, pulling her feet up onto her chair seat with a giggle.

Eliot just looks at her.

"Do ya?"

"Yes, I love you, you little brat." He reaches out for her. "Get over here, scamp."

Grace scrambles away and hides behind Parker. "Nu-uh. You're gonna tickle me."

Eliot makes as if to rise up out of bed to get to his mischievous niece.

"No!" Parker and Grace both shout, "You have to stay in bed."

Hardison grins wide and Sophie chuckles softly into her paper cup of tea.

Nate chooses that minute to walk in.

"Did I miss something?"

"I'm bein' kept prisoner by a coupla blondes," Eliot complains.

"How are your chances at escaping?" Nate asks seriously, prompting more giggling.

"Bad. Very bad. Somewhere between fourteen and twenty-two and a half percent," Eliot says somberly.

"Ah," Nate shakes his head gravely, "I can't say if you've had worse, but those numbers," he shakes his head again, "Serious, yes."

Grace crawls up onto the foot of the hospital bed and prods at Eliot's legs. "I want you to get better soon, Elly. Resting is how you get better."

Solemn blue eyes look into Eliot's, making him sigh. If he's this tired of being in the hospital, then Gracie must be sick of having to wait for the two father figures in her life to wake up and be there for her again.

"Following orders, ma'am," he salutes. "Now get your little butt over here so I can tickle you properly."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

AN: The name of the Russian girl from the bakery never came up in "Career Day" so I made her name up. Any objections/corrections? (Thanks Ultra for telling me which episode it was!)

What Eliot mumbled: "I love your dad because he's my brother."

Anon review:

Drjones: I see you, you lurker! Alright, fine. See? New chappie. How are you feeling now? Interesting that you happened to review my "Lindsey gets drunk and barfs" story right when you were sick! ;P I love the Evil Hand! So what do you (or anyone, really) think? Would calling a story "The Hand Job" (meaning the Evil Hand) get taken down from the site for having too suggestive a title? I need an opinion on this. I mean, it's not exactly PG, although each individual word is...