Author's note: all the usual disclaimers about not owning the Leverage characters/concept and not making any money from this apply.

Well, folks, this chapter ends this particular story. Thank you for reading and reviewing! It has, once again, been a lot of fun, and I hope you like this ending. See you again soon :).

Nate had the Leverage offices to himself for the early hours of the morning. Sophie spent them at the theatre, starting the morning with a sunrise acting exercise for her drama students. Well, it would have been a sunrise acting exercise in LA. In Portland it turned out to be a slightly damper watch-the-clouds-turn-a-lighter-grey-through-the-r ain acting exercise that had caused her hair to frizz. Sophie and Portland had mostly come to terms with one another, but the hair remained a point of contention. By the time she joined Nate at the office at mid-morning, he was working his way through the list of potential clients Hardison's webcrawlers had identified. He had started out reviewing the progress he and Hardison had made toward tracking down the Black Book, but switched to the regular client research and planning in case anyone showed up early for the meeting. It was a good thing, too, he thought as Sophie sat down beside him and started reading over his shoulder.

"This guy," she tapped one of the photos on the screen with a manicured fingernail, "is one nasty piece of work."

"Uh huh," Nate agreed. He sat back in his chair to look at her. "You see a way in?"

Sophie leant across him, scrolling down and then clicking through a few other windows Nate had open, considering.

"He and his wife seem very...invested...in their country club tennis tournaments," she observed. "Perhaps it's time they had some friendly competition in the mixed doubles. How's your forehand these days, Nate?"

"Hah," Nate laughed. "The tennis is a good idea, but I want to save you for the role of CEO of the company they are going to be unable to resist investing in."

"Hardison and Parker, then?" Sophie asked.

Their eyes met. From her expression, Nate suspected she was having similar visions of balls flying off in all directions from Hardison's long-armed, but uncoordinated reach ("Oops, my bad!"), or whizzing with murderous intent and speed at someone's head from Parker's forceful volleys.

"Ah – maybe not," Nate said. "But Eliot...Eliot as the hot new trainer in town, guaranteed to improve their game, could work. Especially since Mrs. Country Club looks like she could use a little extra coaching on her singles game."

Sophie smiled slowly.

"Just one question," she said, straightening up. "Can Eliot play tennis?"

"We haven't found anything he can't hit or throw yet," Nate brushed off the possibility of this as a hitch in the plan starting to take shape in his mind. "Maybe he can even get another sandwich named after him."

"Wait, what?" Sophie asked. She didn't remember any sandwiches.

Nate was focused on the computer screen again.

"It was just before I went to prison," he replied, distractedly. "Ask him about it sometime."

They were interrupted by the sounds of the other three arriving from the airport, their voices preceding their entrance into the Leverage office. Parker was arguing vociferously that there were plenty of dishes on the menu with which cinnamon rolls would go well, while Hardison contended that if that was the standard then his suggestion of a gummy frog sundae should be up for reconsideration. Eliot's deep-throated growl broke through as they came in from the restaurant, telling them to leave the menu and running of the kitchen to him if they wanted the Brewpub to stay open for more than another month.

Sophie turned to greet them as they all dropped their bags in a corner of the office, Eliot taking advantage of the pause to snatch the copy of the menu Parker held.

Left hand, Sophie noted, same as had just dropped his duffle bag. There was no mistaking the limp as he moved over to the briefing table, nor the way he held his right arm still against his body. Shoulder and leg, then, for the "flesh wounds" he had been so dismissive about when she followed up on Parker's cryptic summary of their activities. He looked okay though, and the most telling clue that there might be slightly more to the story than the brief text messages had indicated was in the careful way the other two moved around him.

Parker didn't seem bothered by the fact she had lost the menu. She looked slightly affronted for a moment that Eliot had been able to take it, but then moved off giving Sophie a quick wave hello as she passed by on her way to what they had all finally accepted was the junk closet – where they kept the things none of them could agree on where they belonged.

Sophie leant in closer to Nate's ear.

"I think you might want to revise that country club plan," she murmured to him.

"What's that?" Nate asked, finally looking up and noticing the three new arrivals. "You guys are here...good. Anything new from D.C. we need to discuss, or are you ready to meet the next client and mark?"

"Eliot got shot," Parker announced helpfully, emerging from the junk closet with a crutch in one hand, a box of cereal in the other, and something tucked under her arm. She handed the crutch to Eliot. "I found in a sling in there, too, if you want it," she told him, pulling it out from under her arm and dropping it in front of him on the briefing table.

Sophie bit her lip, schooling her expression into one of sympathy rather than amusement, as Eliot dropped his head into his left hand in resignation, finger and thumb squeezing the bridge of his nose. She could just imagine what two days of concerned caretaking by Hardison and Parker had been like.

"Headache?" she asked sweetly, earning the full intensity of the scowl he turned on her. She couldn't help laughing a little: a small helping of payback was fully deserved for his cavalier attitude to her concerns about Parker's report of bullet wounds. She could see he was hurting, though, so she didn't press further.

Beside her, Nate sighed heavily.

"Anything else you three left out of the D.C. story?" he asked. "We've got time while I come up with a plan for our next mark that doesn't require Eliot to hit anything or – well – walk."

"I'm fine," Eliot grumbled. "I just need a few days."

Parker snorted and Hardison rolled his eyes. Apparently they had heard that claim a few more times than they were willing to believe it in the last fort-eight hours. Nate raised his eyebrows sceptically, then stood to pace as he revised his plans.

Sophie moved to stand beside Eliot.

"Trust me," she told him, "you'll like almost anything he can come up with under those constraints better than what he was working on when you arrived: private tennis coach to some high powered country club types."

"Tennis coach?!" Eliot sounded as much outraged at the suggestion as exasperated by Nate's ongoing assumption that they would each pull out whatever skill was needed for the task they were assigned. "Does he realise I've never played tennis in my life?"

Sophie shrugged.

"He didn't seem too concerned about that," she told him.

"No, no, this is better," Nate jumped back into the conversation. "Here's what we need to do..."

Sophie, Hardison, and Parker all took their seats at the briefing table as Nate outlined his newly hatched plan for their next mark.

Sophie snuck glances at Eliot. She could see him watching for an opportune moment to tell Nate his plan still needed to wait a week, because the point of back-up was that it be able to back you up when you needed it.

"What?" Eliot demanded the third time he caught Sophie's eyes on him.

"You cut your hair," she said.

"Oh," he said, hand going self-consciously to his head and running down the newly shorn hair and recently bared neck. "Yeah."

"I like it," Sophie told him. "But I'll miss the pony tail."

Eliot just shook his head. Whatever opportunities Vance's job offer may have encompassed, it could never have matched this crew for sheer unpredictability. Or, he had to admit, loyalty. He hadn't even needed a minute to think about his answer the other morning. This crew was his now. And he, apparently, was theirs.

The End.