Eliot noticed before she did, it wasn't very obvious at first. A misstep here, a stumble there. It didn't seem very significant to anyone else, but Eliot knew exactly how each of his team members moved, knew what each one was capable of, and he knew that Parker didn't lose her balance. Her body, like his, was a fine tuned machine, honed for their respective skills from a lifetime of dedication.
It was a slow change, and nearly a year passed before Parker seemed to realize that anything was wrong. It took him by surprise when he found her in his office, head between her knees curled up in his chair.
"Parker, what's wrong?" he growled, not sharply, but he did have a reputation to keep up on, he didn't really want to show too much compassion, somebody could get the wrong idea.
"It's blurry," she replied, a hitch in her voice as she clutched at her temples. "I can't see; it's blurry." Eliot perched himself on his desk, eyes softening as she looked up at him with big watery tears. "I couldn't see the numbers on the vault lock." She sniffed, and Eliot in a brief lapse in judgment, he brought her to his chest in a hug; she just sniffed again.
"Maybe you need glasses," he suggested softly, trying to calm down the nearly hysterical thief. He wasn't surprised that she was worked up over something like that though, in their line of work every sense was absolutely necessary, and he doubted she'd ever been to the eye doctor.
"Glasses?" she pulled away from his chest slightly, though still tucked into his sturdy grip, with a horrified look on her face. "But glasses would fall off of my face when I'm rappelling, or climbing, or crawling through air ducts," she spat out, a disgusted look on her face.
"Well then maybe you could get contacts too," he chuckled lightly, not really surprised when she latched her arms around his neck, and legs around his waist. He stood up, not bothering to support the thief, she didn't need it, and he walked out into the living room of Nate's apartment, still serving as their office headquarters. "Do you want me to take you to the eye doctor?" he offered, knowing that the term doctor would be sure to prevent the thief from going by herself.
She nodded against his chest and Eliot sank into the couch, ignoring the strange looks from Nate, Sophie and Hardison. They still hadn't come to terms with it, but Eliot didn't mind the parasite that had attached to him koala style.
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She kicked and screamed the whole way to the eye doctor's, despite having previously agreed to go. He didn't really blame her though. Hell the girl hadn't even gone to high school; much less regularly visit the doctor. Even perfectly sane adults had reservations about medical professionals.
Eliot couldn't help but wonder what she would have been like had she attended his high school. He suspected that she would have been pretty average, friends but not extremely popular, involved in some sort of rock climbing or skydiving club. But it didn't matter really; he liked Parker the way she was now. Even if the way she was bordered on clinically insane at times.
He was thankful that carrying her was no problem, because she latched onto him again as they walked into the doctor's office, her limbs snaking around his torso like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around its prey. She dragged him along when her name (Alice White, as she had insisted) was called.
In retrospect, he wished she hadn't. She didn't notice the frown on the doctor's face as he performed the routine tests. She didn't start to worry at the neuroimaging because she didn't know any better, had nothing to base what was normal on. But Eliot did. He knew that something wasn't right, that this wasn't just a glasses or contacts issue, and he tried to ignore the way his stomach clenched with worry.
"So do I have to get glasses or can I get contacts because I don't want glasses to fall off my face," Parker asked the doctor when the tests were complete. Eliot shifted uncomfortably in his chair, unable to speak up.
"After looking at your medical history and the results of these tests, I can say with some degree of certainty that you have nutritional optic neuropathy. We'll need an MRI to be a hundred percent sure though," the doctor explained.
"What does that mean?" Eliot was slightly relieved that Parker had asked, because while he was well versed in medical literature, he wasn't familiar with it either.
"Basically," the doctor explained gently, "the lack of proper nutrients, specifically B12 has caused degeneration of your optic nerve."
"How do you fix it?" Parker looked confused, and Eliot's stomach clenched again, she had simply been expecting a pair of annoying glasses, and she was now being told she had a disease.
"Well, with some supplements and a more nutritional diet, you shouldn't experience any additional vision loss. You may experience some restoration of your vision but there is no guarantee."
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She was unnervingly quiet on the way back to Nate's, and Eliot couldn't help but wallow in his guild some. He had tried to get Parker to eat healthier, but he hadn't pushed the issue too much. All of this could have been prevented if he had done so much as to insist that she at least take a daily vitamin, and now the doctor was informing them that the damage done was probably permanent. He couldn't help but shoulder some of the responsibility.
The MRI confirmed what they were hoping was a mistake, and Eliot didn't really question it when Parker all but moved into his renovated farm house. He simply took it as an opportunity to cook for her more frequently. He didn't question when she crawled into his bed in the middle of the night, clinging to him the way she had done at the doctor's office. He simply placed a kiss on the top of her head and let himself surrender to the blindness of sleep.
It took several months for him to notice that her vision was getting worse, and he was stunned by her hysterics at not being able to find Bunny, when he could see the stuffed animal sitting right in front of her.
Eliot just pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back in soothing circles and suggested that they return to the doctor. It took days to coax her into agreeing, and even longer to get there with the current Leverage job getting in the way.
Neither knew what Best's Disease was, but they knew what it would mean. Her vision wouldn't get better, only worse, and the damage from her diet hadn't been the only problem. There was nothing they could do. No treatment, no cure. There was no way to tell how bad it would get, especially considering how early she had arrived at stage four.
They didn't talk about it after that, but Parker moved in officially without any discussion or fanfare. They didn't tell the rest of the team about her diagnosis, and Parker compensated as best she could, thankful that at least she maintained most of her peripheral vision.
It was nearly a year later when she finally left the team. She explained in brief detail that she could no longer do her job, and Eliot apologized and withdrew from the team too.
They already had all the money they could ever need, Leverage had been about helping people. Eliot still did what he could on his own, but he flinched every time she bumped into the counter, or hit her shoulder on the door frame. And he would never tell her in so many words, but he had a new goal now, to help her. Not out of the goodness of his heart like Leverage had been, but because he loved her. And he would still love her even when she couldn't see him at all.