Worlds Collide

Part 1: The Confusion

At the Library

    Eliot woke up feeling like he had been hit by a truck. He slowly opened his eyes and raised his arm to touch his head. His earbud was missing. What the hell happened, he thought. Last thing he remembered was being on a job with Parker and Hardison. Why could he not remember anything else? He tried to sit up, but could hardly move. He lifted his head and slowly looked around the room. Where was he? He didn't recognize anything. There were books and strange looking objects all around the room. To his left, there was a pretty little red head sitting in a chair reading a book. He read the title, Spells to Speed Healing. What a strange title, he thought. Why is this girl sitting by him? Maybe she knew what happened and where he was.

     "Hello," he called out to her.

     "You're awake," she exclaimed as she ran to his bed. She called to the others out the door, "He's awake!"

     He looked at her confused, "Um, yeah, can you tell me where I am? Do you know what happened to me?"

     "We are not sure what happened. We heard this explosion from down the hallway. When we got to you, you were on the ground unconscious. We called Jenkins for a door and Flynn came to help Ezekiel bring you here."

     "Who," he asked as four more people he's never saw before came into the room. He looked at them all strangely.

     The red head gave him a strange look as a tall blonde woman smiled at him and said, "Welcome back, Soldier."

     "I knew you would be fine, Mate. I wasn't worried at all," said a kid, who had to be younger than Hardison. He looked Asian but sounded Australian.

     An older gentleman, wearing a suit and bowtie spoke next. He spoke to the other man that had come in with them. A man slightly older than Eliot, wearing an ascot and a lapel. "You were right, Mr. Carsen, that elixir did the trick," said the older gentleman.

     "How are you feeling," Mr. Carsen asked Eliot.

     "I, honestly, feel like I got hit by a truck. I don't know what happened, where I am, or who any of you are," Eliot replied.

     Mr. Carsen got a worried look on his face. He looked at the tall blonde as she said, "We are in the Library. You don't remember any of us?"

     "No, should I," Eliot looked at the growing concern on the faces around the room.

     "You don't know who we are? Ezekiel Jones, Cassandra Cillian, Jenkins, Flynn Carsen, Eve Baird, none of those names ring a bell," the blonde asked.

     Eliot shook his head no. "We're your colleagues. Your friends. Your family," said the red head almost in tears, "We have been for the last five years, Jacob!"

     Eliot felt for her. "I'm sorry," he said, "but who's Jacob?"

Meanwhile at Leverage HQ

     Jacob awoke to the sounds of people talking quietly in the room. He heard a man ask, "Has he opened his eyes, yet?"

     "No. The doc said it could be another day," said a different man.

     "But he shouldn't have any other lasting effects, right," said a woman with a British accent. She was almost as hard to understand as Jones.

     "We won't know the full effects until he wakes up," the second man said.

     The first man asked, "What happened out there?"

     Jacob felt someone move from his right side. Then a female voice, different from the other one, said, "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have sent him in there." Her voice was cracking. He could tell, she was almost in tears.

     "Babe, it's not your fault. No one could have known that something was going to blow up. Everything is going to be alright," the second man said to the second woman.

     Jacob waited until he heard the four people leave the room before he fully opened his eyes. He looked around the unfamiliar settings and tried to think back on the last thing he remembered. He was in the Library annex arguing with Jones about something stupid. Jones usually says something stupid so that's not a surprise. Cassandra had just come into the room to yelling at them to quiet down, when the clippings book flipped open. He can't remember what the case was about. He was trying to remember what Jenkins told them as they went through the door, when he heard, "You're awake."

     Jacob looked up and saw a younger man come in the room. It was the second guy he heard speaking. "Guys," the man called out the door, "he's awake."

    The strange man came over and hugged him. As he pulled away, the man said, "I know what you are going to say, Dammit, Hardison, don't do that again." He smiled as he said, "You know what I don't care."

     A blonde woman, a dark-haired woman, and a dark-haired man all walked into the room. They all came around the bed Jacob was laying on. The dark-haired man was the first to speak of the three of them, "You know if you wanted us to come back, you could have just called."

     Jacob looked at the blonde who reminded him a lot of Cassie. She would probably be in tears just like this woman. He looked away as the dark-haired British woman spoke. She said, "When you said you'd protect them until your dying day, I had hoped it would have been years from now. We were all so worried, Eliot."

     Jacob looked at her and said, "What? My name's not Eliot. I don't know who that is."