The Houdini Job

by messersmontana

Summary: Parker disappeared six months ago making the team dynamic change, but still function. Now on a con, they discover Parker has moved on. Parker/Eliot established relationship. This is AU since the writers don't see what we do when Eliot and Parker are together in any scene. Flashbacks will be in bold italics.

Author's note: I want to thank Meghan for helping me write some of this (helping me keep the characters as close to the show as possible, and adding the scenes I'm not comfortable to write, like mature scenes), and Emma for advice and help, and thank Wendy for beta reading it.

Chapter 1

Nate Ford walked into his apartment to see Sophie, Hardison, and Eliot waiting on him to start the meeting. He was studying his team, or what was left of it. Six months had passed since Parker had pulled her vanishing act. She had left no note, no phone call, giving them an explanation for her sudden disappearance. The team was still trying to come to terms with her absence.

Nate tried to think of a reason Parker would bolt without a word to any of them but kept coming up empty. Sophie had used all of her connections to try to find Parker. Hardison still checked for activity on all of her aliases, daily. Eliot spent all of his downtime sullenly searching for her.

Nate stood in the doorway and watched what was left of his family. Sophie, his beautiful Sophie, was always so sad these days, sorrow tugged at the edges of her smile. Hardison had lost some of the glimmer in his eyes, like he had lost his best friend, and he had. Eliot had become even more of a loner isolating himself from everyone by not hanging out in the office after meetings anymore. He had become hard to read lately, closing up to everyone.

Nate had a suspicion that Parker and Eliot had become really close shortly before her disappearing act, but couldn't prove it. He didn't come right out and ask, and now he wished he would have. Eliot froze them all out for almost a month after Parker left, and had never came all the way back into the fold, but he still did his job. Nate worried about how angry and tightly wound Eliot was these days, in fact ever since he alerted them all to Parker's disappearance.

A sleeping Nate is rudely woken when Eliot storms through the door. "She's gone Nate. Parker's gone."

Nate, still half asleep can only stare at Eliot. "What do you mean, she's gone?"

"I mean she's gone, vamoose, as in no longer around here. Parker's not on comms, she's not at her place, and I've checked everywhere I know she likes to hang out." Eliot explained as he paced in front of Nate,his movements tense, stiff, and his anger and fear held tightly in check.

Enough thinking about Parker for now, they had a new client, and a job to do. He walked over to his team.

"Hardison, go ahead and start the meeting."

Hardison nodded and pushed a few keys on his keyboard. "This is Peter Grayson, principal of Montague Elementary in Greeley, Colorado. Barbara McCloud, the head of the school's booster club says he's taking the club's money, and accusing her of the crime."

Nate turned to the others. "Barbara came to me and asked for our help. We've got less than a month before her trial to get evidence to keep her out of jail."

"How did she hear about us?" Sophie asked.

Nate looked at Hardison to give them the explanation. "Barbara is Karen Scott's cousin and she told Barbara to contact us."

Karen Scott's husband, Alan, had been killed during a storm while climbing Mount Kibari in Alaska. The team had gone in and found Alan's body, and proved that John Drexel was behind the murder. It was a case they would not forget for a long time. Hardison shivered just thinking about the cold and snow now, Sophie choked up, remembering Alan's dying message to his wife, and Eliot closed his eyes remembering that it was the beginning...

Nate looked at his team again. "Eliot, you're going to be the school's new janitor. That will give us access to almost anywhere in the school."

Eliot gave a curt nod, but did not speak. His mind was only half on the meeting, while the other half was on his next move to find Parker. He still couldn't believe she would leave like she did. Well, he could because it was Parker but...he really thought they had something going on. He and Parker had spent the whole night in bed, sweaty from energetic love making, exhausted, and tangled in each others arms. Then he woke up, and she was gone.

After this job Eliot was getting on the next flight and going to talk to Archie. He had to have some kind of idea where Parker could be. He had felt hollow inside ever since the morning he woke up to find her gone. He loved Parker, or at least felt something damn close to it, but had only recently realized it, and had not gotten the chance to tell her. He thought she loved him too.

Six months earlier

He and Parker have been doing this for three months now dating, screwing, whatever it is they don't acknowledge it outside his apartment. He hears the shower running he gets up stretching out the kinks from sleep. He moves toward the sound relishing the idea of getting the jump on her. He pulls back the curtain to find the shower running cold and empty of Parker as is the rest of the place upon closer inspection. His heart kicks into a funny beat.

Hardison nudged Eliot in the ribs, effectively knocking him out his reverie.

Nate next looked at Sophie. "I want you to go in as the head of the school board. Tell Mr. Grayson that you need his help to prove that Mrs. McCloud took the money. Get him on your side."

"What about me?" Hardison asked Nate.

"You and I will be working to come up with anything we can on Mr. Grayson. I want any dirt we can find that will prove he took the money and why." Nate explained.

They all nodded, acknowledging they knew their part in the con. "Get packed, we leave for Colorado in an hour. Let's go steal a principal." Nate said and they all got moving.

End part 1