Title: Appropriate Response

Author: AllOverTheWorld

Ships: Maybe Parker/Eliot but let's have them as friends for the moment.

Summary: Parker goes missing but when she resurfaces there is some revenge to be exacted and Eliot learns the definition of appropriate response.

Authors Note (1): Thanks to southrnbygrace, TheNaggingCube, Frankies Girl 21, Irish63116, Katie, csimesser, tiggrr527, cedricsowner, sadies, race2win, jd, Jenn11, SharkGurl, Brittany, Pamikae, HerLadyship86.

Authors note (2): The response to this story has been overwhelming, I just hope that I can meet all of your expectations and do the summary justice. Due to the fact that I had a snow day to day and I have one tomorrow you will get one maybe two more updates. :D

Enjoy

"Parker." Eliot said gently, setting down the bag of first aid supplies he had purchased from the local drug store and looking around the motel room.

It was really quite shitty, and yes the cursing was necessary. It was needed mostly because of the mysterious stains on the mauve carpeting but also for the bare flickering bulb that hung from exposed wire that snaked back into the ceiling, the gurgling, sputtering sound that was coming from the radiator (it was supposed to be providing heat but was failing pretty miserably) and bathroom, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the early nineteen eighties.

"You here?" Eliot said, his senses on high alert, this place was shabby enough as it is without all the addicts, 'working girls' and god knows who else lurking around.

They had come here for the simple reason that Parker had refused to go anywhere else. Eliot had offered first to take her to one of her safe houses but she had rejected that as well as one of his own safe houses. So, against his own wishes, she had selected this dump and even more reluctantly he had left to go and retrieve first aid supplies for her various wounds. Now, upon his return, the room seemed abandoned.

Taking two, slow, cautious steps forward Eliot scanned the room for any sign of unrest or any other clues that would tell him where Parker was. At first glance he saw nothing but as he took a second glance he saw her. She was curled into such a tight ball and pressed so deeply into the corner she looked no more than a shadow.

Soft whimpers were coming from her direction and, it was barely noticeable but she was shaking, full body tremors wracking her body as Eliot stood there. His instincts were telling him to take Parker up in his arms but something was holding him back. That something was his common sense. He knew that Parker was not a child but something traumatic had happened to her, something bad. Something beyond getting her ass kicked. He knew this because the last time he had seen even remotely close to this state her like this was when the phony psychic had talked about her brother.

Crouching down so that he was at her level, but still a few meters away so as to give her space "Parker" he said "Darlin' it's Eliot."

Nothing.

"You can trust me."

Her eyes peered up at him and after a moment of studying his face her shoulders relaxed but she remained as tightly curled as before, not to mention she didn't say a word.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He said, sitting down with his back against the wall, while still leaving enough space so that she had a way to get out if she felt too trapped.

There was a pause before he heard a muffled "I know."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I suppose I have to." Parker said, beginning to unravel herself, wincing as she did so.

Eliot nodded "Take your time." He said, he would not force her to tell him what happened but one way or another he would find out.

Parker hummed to herself, they had just finished a con and there had been a pretty big pay off. A pay off that involved a second Swiss Bank Account and about, hmm, six zeros. These were the types of con's that made her smile, in her special happy place. So, why was she wandering around the docking yard at nine thirty pm?

The answer was quite simple. She liked to walk down the isles of shipping containers, loosing herself in row after row of alphanumeric boxes. For Parker these walks were soothing, plus the minor adrenaline rush that came from avoiding port security. She would often wander the streets of wherever the Leverage Team was staying if she couldn't sleep or something was bothering her.

However right now it was winter break and even with the chill the streets were still noisy, populated places, not somewhere she could go to relax her mind. So she had turned to the dock yards, the only people that wandered around them was the night security. Security that mainly consisted of, guys who would rather be watching the basketball game than wandering outside in the cold checking on hundreds of locked boxes.

"Yo, hurry up man. We got like ten seconds till the pigs come around again."

Parker froze midstep, just short of turning around a corner when she heard someone else, another male, respond "G, calm down. There is nuthin' they can do. Plus we got Jimmie on the inside."

She peered around the corner and two guys loading something from an open shipping container into black duffle bags. Parker took another step forward, her curiosity piqued as she wanted to know what they were stealing. Her mistake. Her foot landed on a twig and it snapped, the noise echoing around the shipping containers.

The two thieves heads snapped up and they saw Parker "Hey!" They shouted and started to chase her, unfortunately for her they had guns. How just as bad for the Parker knew how to scale shipping containers, she didn't think of this however until the men had both seen her face and got off a few shots, none hit but still.

Half an hour later Parker ducked around the corner into a, thinking she had escaped her pursuers once and for all. How wrong she was.

Eliot had listened as she recanted her story in silence and sure, it did raise some questions, but it did not answer the one question that was burning in his mind. He reached out and placed one hand on her shoulder, careful to make sure that it wasn't on any of the bruises "Why didn't you come to us, come to me?" he asked

"I didn't think anything of it. We said that we were going to take a break from each other for a few days, no way was I going to show up saying I got chased by a couple of guys with guns."

"So what did you do next?" he asked, probing gently.

"I went to one of my safe houses."

"Here?" Eliot asked

"I have them everywhere." She said

Eliot sighed, he was going to have to ask her the question outright because Parker was clearly trying to avoid it "Did they come back and find you?" he asked

Parker looked away from him "Not exactly, later that day I was wandering around, looking for somewhere to eat, you know just walking. I bumped into one of the loons, I didn't notice at first until I turned down a side street and-" she broke off "They jumped me."

There was a beat of silence before Eliot made to say something but she stopped him.

"I fought back Eliot, I really did. I got one guy in the face but then-then..." she trailed off, the tears springing to her eyes and her bruises and cuts seemed to burn as she retold her story.

"I know you fought back darlin'." Eliot said, taking Parker into his arms, her head resting on his chest "I know you fought back and I'm sure that the bruise probably hurts like hell."

They sat for a while, like that, as Parker let down some of her walls and Eliot let her cry, not saying a word, not passing judgment.

Finally she stopped crying and said "You have the first aid stuff?"

Eliot looked down at her, the pale skin visible under the bruises now tinged with red from crying "Yeah" he said, helping her to her feet.

As he walked over to grab the first aid supplies and when he turned around Parker had taken off her sweat shirt revealing a mess of bruises on her stomach, even some defined enough to resemble the footprints. Bile rose in his throat as he turned to look at him and he saw a three inch long knife wound, it wasn't deep enough to cause serious damage but it probably hurt like hell.

"Don't say anything." She said, her voice barely an above a whisper.

Eliot complied and pulled out Hydrogen Peroxide, cotton balls and gauze. As he poured some of the Peroxide on one of the cotton balls and said "I'm going to start with the cut on your back." He said and as he did so, one of her hands snaked up and grabbed Eliot's hands, the one not holding the cotton balls.

Ten minutes later the cut on her back, along with several other ones had been cleaned and bandaged, she was now lying on the bed, ice packs covering most of her abdomen and she was even lying on some to help her ribs. As for Eliot he was sitting in the almost broken chair, flipping aimlessly through the magazine that had been in the drawer next to the bed. Parker had the T.V. and was watching some cop show but pretending the read the magazine gave him a front, because he was trying to figure out what to do next.

No doubt the others would want to know where he, and Parker, were and there was no way they could keep this from them, everything was too visible. At the same time he had an almost uncontrollable urge to hurt someone, well, let's be honest, he wanted to hurt the guys that had hurt Parker.

"Eliot?"

He looked up "How can I help?"

"The remote." She said "It fell."

Eliot nodded and leaned across Parker to grab it, big mistake because next thing either of them knew the door was flung open and they could both hear Hardison say "Well aint' this cute."

Um, well, yea….

I don't really have a lot to say about this chapter. I know where I want the story to go and I know what I needed to happen but I just couldn't get it to sound right. Over all I think it's okay, I wonder what Hardison will think once he realizes nothing is as it seems.

Also if things seem like they are straying slightly from the title/summary they are not! It may venture away for a while but it will return to point.

Thanks,

AllOverTheWorld