He really doesn't. What was he looking for here? Carter to suddenly cheer, shake his hand, tell him he did great, tell him how good of a person he was now?
No, Eliot knows he's not a good person.
Did he want Carter's forgiveness? That wasn't happening. As much as he would like it, that definitely wasn't happening.
He remembers Carter's smile, right before he left. When he told him he didn't expect to make friends here. What wouldn't he give to see Carter smile like that at him again.
"I don't know." It's a mutter. "I thought maybe...you'd like to know that it wasn't all for nothin'. This..." he nods his head towards the door. Towards Moreau. "...you did something good for me, and I...you made a difference." In my life.
Thoughts like poison worm their way into his mind. Imagining Carter in those first few days, wondering if he was dead. A very real and likely possibility. Did he mourn? Or what happened if and when he found out he was alive and he'd just...left? How angry was he? How betrayed did he feel?
How afraid was he without Eliot there to protect him?
He should have told Hardison the truth, asked him to send a message. Or even somehow, someway arranging it in person.
Until one day it'd been a year and it was too late. Until it'd been many years and he was too afraid to even to really think about what he did to Carter because it made him feel so bad, though he couldn't forget. He never forgot the people he's killed, either.
For someone who willingly faced physical danger every day, he was afraid of this.
And yet he realizes he's never actually stopped thinking about Carter, because this...what happened...stayed with him, forever. Carter's words haunted him every time he did a job and thought about killing somebody because it was so much easier sometimes, when being good was difficult and it was taking everything he had not to take revenge, when he was on a job and even Nate was falling so close to that dreaded line and Eliot feels like he's talking to Carter sometimes, someone that doesn't want to be a bad guy even though it's too late for that because of the life they were leading...
Carter's been with him all this time.
He thinks about what it would be like to leave Hardison and Parker and the thought is so abhorrent he almost recoils--and then he realizes what he's not getting here. He was falling into his old way of thinking even trying to prove so much that he'd changed.
And now he's realizing how much he missed Carter. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
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He really doesn't. What was he looking for here? Carter to suddenly cheer, shake his hand, tell him he did great, tell him how good of a person he was now?
No, Eliot knows he's not a good person.
Did he want Carter's forgiveness? That wasn't happening. As much as he would like it, that definitely wasn't happening.
He remembers Carter's smile, right before he left. When he told him he didn't expect to make friends here. What wouldn't he give to see Carter smile like that at him again.
"I don't know." It's a mutter. "I thought maybe...you'd like to know that it wasn't all for nothin'. This..." he nods his head towards the door. Towards Moreau. "...you did something good for me, and I...you made a difference." In my life.
Thoughts like poison worm their way into his mind. Imagining Carter in those first few days, wondering if he was dead. A very real and likely possibility. Did he mourn? Or what happened if and when he found out he was alive and he'd just...left? How angry was he? How betrayed did he feel?
How afraid was he without Eliot there to protect him?
He should have told Hardison the truth, asked him to send a message. Or even somehow, someway arranging it in person.
Until one day it'd been a year and it was too late. Until it'd been many years and he was too afraid to even to really think about what he did to Carter because it made him feel so bad, though he couldn't forget. He never forgot the people he's killed, either.
For someone who willingly faced physical danger every day, he was afraid of this.
And yet he realizes he's never actually stopped thinking about Carter, because this...what happened...stayed with him, forever. Carter's words haunted him every time he did a job and thought about killing somebody because it was so much easier sometimes, when being good was difficult and it was taking everything he had not to take revenge, when he was on a job and even Nate was falling so close to that dreaded line and Eliot feels like he's talking to Carter sometimes, someone that doesn't want to be a bad guy even though it's too late for that because of the life they were leading...
Carter's been with him all this time.
He thinks about what it would be like to leave Hardison and Parker and the thought is so abhorrent he almost recoils--and then he realizes what he's not getting here. He was falling into his old way of thinking even trying to prove so much that he'd changed.
And now he's realizing how much he missed Carter. It was as simple and as complicated as that.