Eliot leaned back in the recliner, opening his book. He glanced over at Parker, smiling slightly as she snuggled her head down into the pillow he'd just slipped under it, then turned his attention to the latest chapter by the not-so-literary genius, Terry Pratchet. he didn't often read solely for pleasure, preferring to learn in the few instances when he had some down time, but the works of Terry Pratchet were his one weakness, not that he'd ever let Hardison know that. EVER.
It was maybe half an hour later when he was snapped out of his comedy-induced reverie by a soft moan from the couch. He looked up to find Parker shifting slightly under the afghan, whimpering. She bolted upright suddenly, screaming shrilly, and he was beside her in an instant, trying to calm her. He quickly found that trying was the operative word. She didn't respond to him at all, staring straight ahead as she cried out.
Her body was stiff under his hands as he tried in vain to get her to lie down, to look at him, to hear him, anything. Suddenly he felt her body start to relax, and he laid her back against the pillow. Moments later, she was asleep again, no sign that she had been screaming and crying moments before except the tear tracks on her cheeks.
Eliot sat back on his heels with a long, shuddering sigh, running one hand over his face and through his hair. It had been a long time since he'd witnessed a night, or sleep, terror, but they hadn't gotten any less horrifying over time. He wondered briefly if Parker would remember it when she woke; he knew for sure that she would be decidedly hoarse either way.
He knew that she may well sleep for hours yet, but couldn't quite bring himself to leave her side. Instead, he sat on the floor, back leaning against the front of the couch and started reading again.
Parker woke slowly, shifting slightly on the couch and grimacing as she felt how stiff her ribs were. She swallowed, and her throat burned painfully, causing her a moment of confusion before she remembered what happened. She hoped she hadn't freaked Eliot out too badly; she hadn't had a night terror in years. Deciding it was probably time to deal with any fall out from it, she opened her eyes, and found the hitter's face bare inches from her own as he stared at her, a worried frown darkening his gaze.
"I'm sorry," she croaked, feeling bad that she had caused him even more concern this day, after everything she had already done.
"You don't have to apologize," he told her, shaking his head quickly. "Wait, don't try to talk," he ordered as he grabbed a glass of water from the table and, helping her sit up, brought it to her lips and virtually poured about half of it down her throat.
Parker sucked down the water gratefully, feeling it sooth the dry, damaged tissues of her throat.
Once she had drunk about half the glass, Eliot set it back on the table, then turned concerned eyes to the blonde. "I'm takin' it that you remember what happened, then?" he asked, and she nodded, face paling slightly.
"It hasn't happened in a long time," she told him simply, avoiding his eyes as she spoke.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, darlin'," he told her gently, but she still wouldn't look at him. Eliot studied her face for a long moment, then nodded, allowing her to divert the conversation. "How much pain are you in?" he asked instead. "You're about due for some more meds."
"I'm sore," she admitted, shifting on the couch so she could stand up, intent on getting to the bathroom as another pressing need made itself known. "I gotta go," she told him, pushing herself upright and limping into the hall.
Eliot had a moment of fear when he thought she meant she was going to leave, but as he saw her heading not for the front door but for the bathroom, he calmed down and headed into his office to get her pills.
With them in hand, he sat down on the sofa and waited for her to join him.
Parker shuffled out of the bathroom, holding herself stiffly, and made her way back to the lounge, where Eliot was waiting, pills in hand and a firm expression on his face. As much as she wanted to refuse, not wanting the drugs in her system, she knew he wasn't going to allow her to not take care of herself, so she accepted the pills and the rest of her glass of water with as much grace as she could, swallowing them neatly as he watched.
He didn't say anything, and she was grateful, she had a feeling if she'd heard the words 'good girl' out of his mouth she might not have been able to keep from hitting him. She's not a damn dog, after all.
"Parker, we need to talk," Eliot said once the blonde was settled on the couch, curling into his side as he unconsciously raised his arm and draped it around her.
"What about?" she asked, snuggling into his warmth, enjoying the closeness and the way his body heat seemed to relax her muscles.
"First, what we're gonna tell the others, cos there's no way we're gonna be able to hide that shiner, and you're in no condition to be on the job."
"I'm fine for it," she objected. "It's not like anyone else can do my part."
"No, you're not, and Nate can just come up with a plan that doesn't use you this time, at least not in that capacity," Eliot replied, a quiet growl underlying his words. "Besides, do you want to explain to Sophie how you're just fine and good to go? Because even if Nate would let you, she won't."
Parker sighed but admitted defeat. "I…I don't want to tell them what happened. They'll want me to 'talk about it'," she rolled her eyes.
"I know, Parker. We just need to come up with a plausible story."
"I've got one, but it'll probably mean that Nate'll try to curtail my activities for a while…" Parker said slowly.
"What is it?"
"We tell them that I was practicing last night, testing a new harness, and it didn't quite perform up to standard. When it slipped, I cracked some ribs, hit myself against the side of the building, which is what bruised my face. Nate's not gonna let me practice alone for months, though…"
"Still, it's a good story. And I'll keep you company," he added, glad of the opportunity to volunteer to spend more time with her, something that six months ago he would have thought himself insane for.
"Okay," Parker replied. "So that's taken care of, and Nate'll work out the details for the job, so what's second?"
"I need to know if you saw the guy who did this to you," he said bluntly. "I need to know if you have a way of identifying him."
"Other than the fact that his balls are probably going to be bruised for at least another two weeks? I didn't really see him; white, average height, average weight, dark hair under a green baseball cap, his nose looked like it had been broken before and he had a small scar at the corner of his right eye, just a couple of centimeters long going down his cheek. Two or three days of stubble growth, brown eyes. Sorry, I really didn't get a good look at him."
Eliot blinked slowly, trying to assimilate the detailed description she had just given with the idea that she didn't think she had really seen the guy, then realized it was Parker and gave it up as a bad job.
"Parker, you did great," he assured her instead. "Trust me, you saw a lot more of that guy than you realized."
"I did?" she asked, surprised, then brushed it off, preferring not to think about it at all. "Is there anything to eat?" she asked instead, glancing around.
Eliot just smiled, shaking his head, and led the way into the kitchen. "Sit," he ordered, pointing to one of the stools at the bench, then proceeded to hunt through the fridge to see what they had on hand.
He was soon preparing an Asian stir-fry, Parker watching his knife move with fascination in her eyes and her hands folded firmly in her lap, remembering the last time he had cooked for her and the decidedly descriptive threat he had made if she so much as tried to filch anything off the board…or, more importantly, touch his knives.
Crossing to the freezer, Eliot grabbed an icepack and wrapped it in a clean dishcloth before he passed it to Parker. "Put that on your face for a while, try to keep the swelling down," he ordered.
Parker pressed it against her eye and nose, hissing slightly at the sting of the cold. Eliot gave her a sympathetic glance as he added the sliced onion to the wok, then turned his attention fully back to what he was doing.
"So, what you want to do here is slice the bamboo so that you get nice, square noodles," he told her as he sliced up the two inch long, moist pieces. "See?" he held one up for her inspection, and she nodded her understanding. "Then what you want to do…" he kept talking but her mind tuned out the meaning of his words, simply enjoying the timbre of his voice, the way it almost vibrated through her as he spoke.
Eliot watched Parker out of the corner of his eye as he stirred the contents of the wok and talked to her. From the expression on her face, he was fairly sure that she had stopped actually listening to him a good five minutes ago. He decided to test this theory, and without changing his tone smoothly switched his topic of conversation from the method for preparing his special sweet'n'sour stir-fry to something far closer to the young thief's heart.
"Then you put the money into the fire to make sure it's burning the right colour," he watched and Parker didn't so much as twitch. Chuckling, he leaned down next to her. "Penny for your thoughts," he said softly in her ear.
She jumped, making a little, startled squeak, and Eliot's humour immediately evaporated. "Sorry, darlin', I didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't," she quickly denied, although the contraction of the pupil in the one eye he could see and the speed of her breathing easily revealed her lie.
Eliot just looked at her, then raised a hand and cupped her un-bruised cheek. "I did, and I'm sorry I did, alright?"
Parker was caught unaware by Eliot's action, but relaxed into his hand, enjoying the feeling of his rough calluses against her soft skin. She lowered the icepack in order to look at him properly, finding the view through only one eye unsatisfactory.
Eliot found himself staring at Parker from a distance of less than six inches, his hand on her face as her eyes burned into his. His eyes drifted lower, then he leaned in and pressed his lips gently to hers, pulling away after a moment to gauge her reaction.
Parker blinked in surprise, then a soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth before she leaned in and kissed him back. The kiss deepened until Parker pulled away with a pained hiss, one hand going to her jaw. "Sorry," she mumbled, picking the icepack back up and pressing it against her face.
"Nothin' to be sorry for, darlin'. We've got plenty of time," Eliot told her softly, being very, very careful not to let any of his emotions peek out, because he's fairly sure that his internal freak out will push her away if it becomes even slightly external, and for some reason he doesn't actually want to push her away.
He had just kissed Parker. HE HAD JUST KISSED PARKER. He knew he liked her, had known for some time, but he hadn't really been sure he wanted to act on it. Her brand of crazy was just a little too crazy for him, sometimes, and besides he wasn't really sure that she liked him; her reactions were too far outside of normal to judge. Well, he supposed she had kissed him back; that was something. Shaking his head slightly to try and reset his train of thought, he turned back to his stir-fry, which was in danger of burning, and went back to work.
Eliot just kissed her. And then she kissed him. That meant they both liked each other, right? She knew that she liked Eliot, but she really had convinced herself that there was no way he could like someone as 'wrong' as her. But he kissed her first, and when she couldn't keep kissing him, he told her that they had time. That meant he wanted more, didn't it? She wasn't sure simply because she had literally never done anything like this before. An actual relationship was a first for her. She wonders if her realizes that…probably not. She hoped she'd be able to figure it out. For now, she decided to just enjoy the moment, and went back to watching Eliot cook.
Eliot finished mixing the hokien noodles into the mixture in the wok, then grabbed a couple of bowls and scooped a generous serving into each. He set one in front of Parker as he took the stool beside her, handing her a pair of chopsticks. "Enjoy," he told her as he settled into his seat, his shoulder brushing against hers as he pulled it closer than he previously would have.
"Thanks," she said, offering him a small smile as she set aside the icepack and started filling the gaping hole in her belly.
They ate in companionable silence, and were about half done when they heard a key in the front door. Three pairs of footsteps and their teammate's distinctive voices floated back to them.
"Kitchen," called Eliot to let them know where to come, and Parker shifted slightly in her seat so that her back was no longer entirely to the door, so that she could see them as they came in. "How'd it go?" he asked as they came through the door.
"Went off without a hitch," Nate replied, focusing on a file folder in his hands.
"How was your…Parker, sweetie, what happened?" Sophie was beside the smaller woman in a heartbeat, lifting her chin to examine the bruising.
"Parker?" Hardison and Nate asked in unison, concern lacing their voices as they moved around Sophie to see what she was looking at. The hacker's exclamation of shock and the mastermind's horrified expression said it all.
"It's not that bad," Parker said, flinching away from Sophie's gently probing digits as the British grifter felt around the edges of the bruising in an attempt to determine how much damage had been done.
"There's no breaks, Sophie…not there, anyway. But she's got some cracked ribs," Eliot reported.
"What happened?" demanded Nate, his expression livid. "And why didn't you call us?"
"By the time I knew for sure she was hurt, you were already gone," Eliot told him plainly. "And as for what happened, she was testing a new harness last night, alone," he frowned slightly at the blonde, "and it didn't perform to the required standard."
"Twisted around and bashed me against the side of the building," supplied Parker. "Fortunately the building wasn't that high…I don't do tests on skyscrapers, so I had enough rope to get down to the ground." Eliot was mildly impressed with how well she was handling herself.
"I'm going to have to come up with a new plan," the mastermind said, frowning slightly. "I was actually thinking, with what we uncovered today we could just switch this one for a simpler job. I'll look into it. And Parker, no practicing alone anymore. What would have happened if you were knocked out or hurt to badly to lower yourself to the ground?"
Parker rolled her eyes but didn't object. She just barely kept herself from snorting; she hadn't suffered an equipment failure in over ten years of jumping off buildings, and had given up off-the-job testing until she joined up with the team and Nate had ordered her to test anything before she took it on a job.
"You were hurt when you came in here this morning," Hardison said slowly, staring at Parker. "But…I couldn't see…what is wrong with you? Why wouldn't you tell us that you were hurt?"
Eliot growled angrily at the accusatory tone in the hacker's voice. "Back off, Hardison," he ordered, stepping between Parker and the tall man. "Maybe you can't understand the urge to take care of yourself, but I'm pretty sure the rest of us can." The hacker scowled at him, then turned and left the room, muttering and throwing his hands in the air.
Sophie sighed, but nodded, and Nate grunted his agreement.
Deciding to deal with the social situation by the simple expedient of ignoring it, she turned her attention back to her half finished meal. Eliot barely kept from snorting at the rather typical reaction, then chose to follow suit.
"She's fine," he told Sophie when the grifter seemed determined to examine all of the blonde's injuries. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that as soon as she saw the bruises on Parker's torso, their story would be blown; anyone with the slightest knowledge of violence would know exactly what had caused the wounds. "There's stir-fry on the bench." So saying, he took his seat once more and resumed eating.
Glancing at Parker out of the corner of his eye, he took in the set of her jaw and the slightest mistiness in her eyes. He shifted slightly in his seat, bumping her shoulder gently with his, and smiled gently at her when she looked up at him. "Don't worry about him," he muttered into his noodles, but only the slightest dip of Parker's head told him his message had gotten through.
Parker finished her noodles and dumped her bowl in the sink before stopping and thinking for a minute. Hardison was in the lounge, and her office didn't have a couch…with no further thought required, she turned and limped into Eliot's office, curling up on the hitter's couch, cuddling a pillow with one end tucked under her head.
Eliot quickly added some water to her bowl before serving himself some more stir-fry and, leaving the others to whatever they were doing, entered his office and shut the door.
He wasn't good at the touchy-feely stuff; he knew that, but he was worried about how Hardison's idiot reaction had affected her. He sat in the leather chair at the end of the couch and looked down at Parker where she was curled tightly around his only cushion in a way he was sure could not be comfortable and therefore was most likely indicative of emotional pain.
"Parker," he started softly. She didn't respond, and with a sigh, he reached out and laid his hand lightly on her hair. "Parker, darlin', look at me," he ordered.
Parker snuffled, then raised her face out of the cushion. If her eyes and nose looked rather red, neither she nor Eliot felt the need to comment on it.
"He doesn't understand, Parker. We both know that Hardison saw the good side of the system, you didn't. Hardison has a criminal career that is based on not getting hurt simply because he isn't normally in harm's way. He doesn't understand wanting to crawl away and lick your own wounds, not letting anyone know you're hurt in case they use it to screw you over. Don't let him make you feel bad for following your own instincts, instincts that he was never forced to develop. Okay?"
Parker frowned in thought, then nodded slowly.
"Okay. Now, get your gear together, we're going home," he ordered.
"What?" asked Parker, confused by the sudden twist in the conversation.
"I want you to come back to my place tonight, Parker. I want to keep an eye on you, and I also want to know that you're somewhere safe when I…" he trailed off, not actually having intended to tall her that part.
"When you what?" asked Parker, for once displaying her aptitude for complete obliviousness.
"Nothin', darlin', it's not important," he quickly dismissed it. "Come on, get ready to go, my guest bedroom is much more comfortable than this couch. I'm gonna go tell Nate I'm takin' you home."
"You don't need to do that, I'll be fine at home," she objected, but he just shook his head.
"You're coming home with me, darlin', and there isn't anything you can say that will convince me to let you go back to your own place, although we can stop by and get some things if you don't want to sleep in my sweats."
"Fine," Parker agreed, but the small smile she gave Eliot belied the apparent annoyance of her response. She hadn't wanted to spend the night alone, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get any rest that way, but there was no way she was going to ask anyone to help her. Eliot had effectively solved both her problems for her. She was starting to think that he was good at that.
Eliot stalked into the lounge, scowling. He wanted nothing more than to rip Hardison a new one for what he'd said to Parker, but he knew that not knowing the true events of the previous night made it harder to understand why she hadn't told them, so he settled for glaring fiercely at the younger man before turning to Nate.
"I'm gonna take her home," he told their leader, who nodded.
"I actually think we can wrap this one up with just the three of us, but I'll keep you in the loop," he replied, waving him out. "Take care of her," he added as an afterthought, and Eliot nodded.
"Eliot," Sophie's voice stopped him. "I can take her. She might be more comfortable with me…"
"No, Sophie, you're a part of the con already. If Nate can pull it off without a hitter and a thief, he's still definitely going to need his grifter," Eliot pointed out, and Nate nodded his agreement. "We'll see you guys later." With another pointed glare at Hardison, Eliot left the room.
"Come on, darlin'," he smiled slightly at Parker, who was standing by the door with her small backpack hanging from her hand. They made their way down to the garage in companionable silence, and Eliot led the way over to his truck, avoiding Parker's attempts to get to her car by the simple expedient of keeping his own body between her and it and ignoring her clear yet unvoiced desire. "I'm gonna need you to tell me which way to go," he told her as he opened the passenger door and gave her a hand climbing in.
"Turn left," Parker directed him as they left the building. "Straight down here. Left at the lights, then take the fourth right. Straight until the end of the road, then turn left."
Eliot followed the directions, frowning at the area of town he ended up in. He hadn't realized that Parker had been living in this sort of neighbourhood; sure, it wasn't quite Washington Heights' levels of bad, but it was definitely Harlem, if you were using New Yorker terms and when exactly had he started doing that?
"Just in here," Parker pointed to a building that was slightly less dilapidated than the buildings around it.
"You live here?" he growled, and Parker shrugged, wincing when the action pulled on her ribs.
"What's wrong with it? It's got four walls and a roof."
Eliot couldn't quite think what to say to that, so followed Parker inside and up the stairs, and up the stairs, and up the stairs. They finally stopped at the top floor, Eliot completely bewildered as to how his…he didn't even know what word to use to describe her right now, had gotten back up to her apartment the night before, or how she had gotten out this morning. He waited as she set to work opening her door, which took a surprisingly lengthy period of time.
"Come on in," she invited two minutes later as the door swung open and she made her way into the apartment. Eliot entered, pushing the door closed behind him and looked around, not entirely sure what to expect.
It was nothing like as bad as its exterior had made him believe. The floors were wooden, a few scrapes here and there but nothing too bad, and Parker had thrown down a couple of decidedly authentic Persian rugs. There wasn't much furniture, and the walls were bare except for one painting, one that he recognized as having hung in the Monaco museum until just before their second job together as a team.
The place was decidedly Spartan and very clean, except for the trail of torn, dirty clothing that started halfway through the 'kitchen' area and continued to a partially open door. He swallowed hard as he realized what he was looking at. Parker didn't meet his eyes when he looked at her, instead squaring her shoulders and heading straight for the door. Eliot followed behind, kicking the clothes in front of him to form a pile that he could dispose of more easily.
He followed her through and into her bedroom, which was equal parts freakishly neat and orderly and totally trashed. The bed was made, not to military standards but it was neat, and the sky blue comforter matched nicely with the dark blue paint on the walls, a job he was guessing that Parker did, or had done, herself. The remainder of Parker's clothes were scattered with a large circle as though the thief had been ripping them off her body and throwing them wherever she could, which he thought was probably accurate, and there were several large, fluffy, still damp towels mixed in with them.
Parker set about grabbing some clothes, her stiffness and choppy movements clearly indicating her distress to anyone who knew her well enough to look. Eliot moved quietly around her and collected everything on the floor, having already decided that everything would go. If there had been anything even remotely special looking in the pile, he would have asked Parker, but it was just a basic outfit. He stuck his head in her bathroom, but found that other than being on the damp side there was nothing amiss in there.
"You got any rubbish bags?" he asked as Parker shoved some pants in a duffle bag.
"Under the sink," she replied without looking at what he was doing, although he knew she knew. He made his way back out of her bedroom and added what he'd collected in there to his pile, then grabbed a rubbish back and scooped it all up, tying it off just as Parker emerged, the duffle trailing behind her on the floor. Eliot took it without asking and, lifting the rubbish bag, turned back towards the front door and took it in for the first time in all its glory.
He suddenly understood why Parker would choose to live in a building like this one. The apartment wasn't as bad as you would believe from the outside, but it also wouldn't be inspected until after she moved out, meaning her rather extreme modifications to what had originally been a fairly flimsy barrier would go unnoticed.
She had attached a, he twisted his head slightly to get the right perspective to gauge the thickness, 1.5cm thick steel plate the inside of the door. With several large deadbolts that he knew were more or less unpickable, not that they were accessible from the outside at all. And at the top, middle, and bottom of the door were large hooks that allowed for the three enormous ironwood bars to drop in and prevent it from being opened by brute force, as they would extend beyond the door for a good foot on either side. What struck him was that all of this was security for when Parker was INSIDE the apartment. She had decent locks on the outside, but someone could still potentially get in when the interior locks weren't engaged.
"Tell me you have other exits," he demanded, and Parker shot him a look that said he was a moron.
"Out the window, down the pipe, or up onto the roof, or up into the roof through the bathroom, and a couple of others," she informed him. "Let's get out of here." The glance she made around the room made Eliot wonder if she would come back to this apartment at all, at least to do more than move out.
"Your wish, darlin'," he replied, ushering her out the door. She quickly locked it behind them, then followed him back down the stairs. He tossed her duffle in the back seat of his truck, then dumped the garbage bag in the nearby dumpster before climbing back into the cab. "Lets go home."