A/N: So much love for all the reviews I'm receiving - thank you all so much! Now, why did Eliot & Parker need to share a room? Here's why...
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 4
Eliot woke to the sound of an animal crying outside. At least that was what he thought he heard. It was almost like a hungry cat or maybe a lost possum making a kind of a whimpering sound, and yet the more awake he got the more he realised the sound was closer than he imagined, inside the room not outside. He was frowning as he picked himself up off the floor and looked over at Parker on the bed.
She was asleep still, completely dead to the world, and yet it was her making the noise that had brought Eliot out of a good night's rest. They never slept in the same room before, so the hitter wasn't sure what to make of the noise coming out of the little thief beside him. Now that he thought about it, he never saw her sleep in front of the team at all really. She started to doze and then she took herself off home, and Eliot understood that. He was just exactly the same, not willing to be vulnerable amongst other folks, even when they were the team and family he had come to put his trust in. Old habits died hard, that he knew. He figured it had to be the same for Parker.
She was twitching as she murmured now, making noises of fright and fear that Eliot wished he didn't recognise. There was a nightmare in her head, of that he was certain, but wondered whether it was best to wake her or not. In some ways, getting her out of a bad dream had to be a good thing. At the same time, Eliot was cautious. If she was afraid and then he startled her, either with yelling or worse touching her, she might lash out or just scream the damn place down. Neither was a good option, and yet watching her fear increase, seeing her thrash around with tears trying to leak out from behind her lids, in started to break the heart Eliot claimed not to have.
"Parker," he said softly, wary still as he hovered over her form lying there on the bed. "Parker, sweetheart, wake up," he urged her, a little more loudly. "It's just a bad dream, Parker, you're okay," he promised, reaching to take a hold of her arms when she thrashed around some more, fixing to injure herself badly if she was to catch her arm or worse her head on the headboard or the bedside locker.
"No!" she yelled loudly, struggling against him still as she sat bolt upright so suddenly, she clocked Eliot square in the chin with her head.
"Damnit!" he cursed, though he never let go of her, and tried not to glare when she opened wide eyes to stare at him.
It wasn't Parker's fault, she hadn't meant any harm. Hell, she'd been asleep and probably thought he was whatever monster she saw in her nightmare trying to hold her down. It made him almost sorry he had done such a thing, but he had to wake her before anything got worse. The fact she was wide-eyed and lucid now was enough to make it all worth it, including his throbbing jaw.
Parker took deep gulping breaths of air, pulling her arms free from Eliot's gasp which he let her do easily now. It was a nightmare, she knew. Just a black dream she needed to escape from and she was out so it was all okay. What bothered her was that she couldn't hide from the world and wish it away like usual. Eliot was here, Eliot had seen and heard her. He probably thought she was some sort of freak, even more than before, and if she gave into the sobs that rose in her throat, he'd think she was a coward too. Parker wouldn't show weakness, not over a dream, not in front of anyone, not even Eliot who she put her faith in so many times before. She pulled her knees up to her chest, back tight against the headboard as if she were trying to make herself so small he wouldn't see her anymore.
There was a horrible moment when Eliot actually thought she was afraid of him, that he had genuinely scared her. It was that time in the park all over again when she asked what he did for Moreau and he couldn't bear to tell her for fear she would judge him, hate him, never trust him again. Fortunately, the retreating into herself didn't seem to mean that Parker was afraid of him so much as herself when she spoke.
"I'm sorry," she sniffed, tears falling unchecked from her eyes a moment later. "Sometimes, I... I get bad dreams and..."
"It's okay," Eliot assured her, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed, mindful of startling any more than was necessary right now. "It's okay, Parker, I promise you," he swore to her.
Whether he was saying he was okay with her having a freak out in the middle of the night, or reassuring her that what she saw in her head was far from reality, Parker couldn't be sure. All she did know was that as long as Eliot was around, she never actually got hurt, and always got out of trouble. He was the team's protector, and that included her, even now they were far away from the rest of their make-shift family.
Swallowing hard, she fought for composure, but failed miserably in the face of kindness when everything hurt so badly. She launched herself forward into Eliot's arms and held on tight, knowing that here of all places she was safe. Parker was all aware of the fact she might annoy him or at the very least startle him with her behaviour. She didn't hug, she barely touched at all, and yet in such a state as this she was like any other normal person who needed comfort.
Eliot wasn't sure what to say or do, except hold Parker close and rub her back whilst she cried. She stayed so strong in the face of danger, hardly ever broke in front of the team, but nobody could be so hard and emotionless. Parker had been through so much, foster care and living on the streets and everything. She was treated badly by many different people in her past, though she never said exactly who or what they'd done. It was clear from how badly she reacted to men that someone, probably more than one guy, had done her harm in ways Eliot didn't want to think about, and yet she trusted him. She was here in his arms, in her most vulnerable moment, scared out of her wits and the both of them half-naked. The hitter started regretting thinking about that in a moment, and went right on back to doing his best at comforting the poor sobbing woman in his embrace.
"Hey, come on," he told her, when her sobs slowed to almost nothing. "Parker, it's okay," he promised as he moved and tried to see her face.
She wiped a hand across her cheeks to clean away some of the tears, staring at Eliot with red-rimmed eyes and a forlorn expression. She felt dumb, though she had no real reason to. Everybody had nightmares, himself included, though he never told anyone about that. Maybe she could be the exception to that rule as she already was for so many others Eliot had in his life.
"It's so stupid," she sniffled, looking everywhere but at her friend. "I'm twenty nine years old and they still... I still can't handle it," she admitted, feeling so completely foolish right now.
This was never an issue anymore. She made sure she never slept in front of the team so they never saw how bad she got in the night sometimes. She hadn't really thought it through when she jumped into the back of Eliot's truck and came along for this ride. Of course they would have to sleep, she would have to let go of reality when he was there. It was doubtful she was quiet when she writhed inside a nightmare, she ought to have know he would hear and then see her cry like a child over the nightmares that ran through her head most nights.
"Hey," Eliot said softly, putting a hand to her cheek when she tried to look away again. "You think you're the only one who gets nightmares and feels bad about it?" he asked her seriously.
"I don't know," she shrugged in response.
The look in Eliot's eyes suggested he understood a whole lot better than she ever could have imagined. He probably had bad dreams too, she guessed everybody did sometimes, but hers came with such shocking regularly and were so vivid as to make her sob like a baby when she did finally wake. She couldn't imagine her hitter friend crying over such things.
"Sweetheart, some of the things I've seen, some of the things I've done"... he told her, shifting awkwardly at just having to bring it up. "I get nightmares, believe me, and I don't exactly deal with them well either," he admitted. "You're not the only one, Parker, and it is normal to be freaked out by this stuff".
"Normal," Parker scoffed. "First time for everything," she muttered, at which Eliot couldn't help but raise a smile.
At least she was doing the same now, albeit the happy expression on her face was fleeting. It was only then he noticed she was still shaking, perhaps not so much out of fear now as out of cold. Picking the covers up from the bed, Eliot wrapped them around Parker's shoulders.
"You wanna get some sleep now?" he asked her but she shook her head.
"It never works," she shuddered. "I just end up back in the middle of it and I can't," she continued to shake her head in the negative as she explained, hugging herself and what appeared to be a stuffed bunny close to her chest.
Eliot didn't think he should ask what exactly Parker's dreams entailed or how much of them were based in truth. He itched to know, to find those that hurt her and beat them to a bloody pulp for causing a good person so much awful damage. Instead he chose a different tactic.
"Where'd the rabbit come from?" he asked her, actually genuinely interested in how she had come to have such a thing.
The toy certainly looked well-loved and well worn, that was for sure. Chances were good she'd had it a long time, though knowing Parker she could just as easily stolen in yesterday from a garbage can, such was the wonder of her.
"Bunny's been with me almost as long as I can remember," she shrugged. "When I didn't have anybody else, he stuck around, and even though I have the team now… I don't know, I just couldn't imagine being without him".
Eliot nodded along with what she was saying, not finding it so very starnge apparently. Lots of grown women kept teddy bears and bunnies and such, either on their beds or in their closets. It wasn't the craziest thing he ever heard from Parker, not by a long way, and her explanation made sense too. She never had people to rely on, everybody left. This Bunny as she called it couldn't go anywhere, it was the one constant in her life. It was so sweet and so very sad at the same time, Eliot wasn't sure what to say.
"More evidence that I'm crazy, huh?" Parker smiled slightly as she looked across at him in the semi-dark.
"I never said that," Eliot rolled is eyes at her assumption, as if it were completely unfair.
"It's what everybody thinks, and they're probably right," sighed Parker, snuggling further under the covers and burying her face in Bunny's ears.
It made Eliot feel guilty somehow. When he said she was crazy, when he implied there was something wrong with her, he never meant it in a malicious way. She was a sweet girl, an amazing thief, and a better person than he could ever hope to be himself. She didn't hurt people, she was just attracted to stealing shiny objects and paintings and all. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't so bad. She may be eccentric and different, but she really shouldn't have been treated as badly as she must have been her whole life.
"Parker…" he said, reaching out a hand to her face and trying to get her to look at him. "Y'know, I'm sorry if I made you feel like you were… like there was really something wrong with you," he told her seriously. "Believe it or not, I have a lot of respect for you, for anybody who isn't afraid to be who they are and not just follow a crowd for no good reason, y'know?"
Parker nodded that she understood but she didn't say anything, she didn't know what to say. She was all aware that Eliot could be really sweet sometimes, but it didn't happen often between the two of them these days. Just lately, the terrible mood he'd been in over all the Moreau stuff, it felt as if he would never be anything but angry and sad ever again. Maybe there was hope if he could smile and be gentle like this with her now.
"Tell me a story?" she said then, surprising Eliot more than a little. "I don't mean like the Three Bears or something" she rolled her eyes, realising what that had sounded like out loud. "I'm not a kid, I just… I wanna be anywhere but here, where the nightmares were," she explained, not even sure if she was making sense right now, but hoping so.
Eliot had a hundred and one stories he could tell her, and if was going to help her get through this, then he'd do it. The trouble was picking something she would want to hear that was also something he was willing to share, whilst avoiding horses, ex-lovers, and the death of anyone or anything.
"Okay…" he said eventually, "but after this we sleep, you got that?" he said with mock-severity. "I got a lot of driving to do tomorrow".
Parker nodded her agreement and Eliot huffed out a breath.
"Right, so I was ten years old, and I'm sitting up on the kitchen counter watching my Momma make an apple pie for 4th July picnic we were gonna have…"
Parker listened with rapt attention to the tale of how Eliot first got into baking and cooking. The fact that shone through above all others was how much he loved his 'Momma' and how much she in turn loved her son. Parker might have been jealous if she thought about it that way. She didn't even know who her mother was, or her father for that matter. She'd had more foster parents than she could name or cared to try to, and though a couple of those had been reasonable maybe even loving people, it could never be the same as the real deal.
This story was followed by another that came to mind, and then Parker started to join in, speaking of the house where she had first learned to pick locks, and the boy she met on the street that educated her in boosting cars.
Stories were traded back and forth, mostly interesting, entertaining, and fun, nothing that might make anybody feel sad or teary. They laughed a lot more than either Eliot or Parker ever would have expected to in such a situation, and by the time they were done, the dawn light was peeking through the blinds and neither had gotten a wink of sleep since before midnight.
"Huh," said Parker as she looked towards the light. "For a guy that doesn't say much, you can really talk when someone gets you started," she yawned then, unable to help it.
Eliot almost laughed, until he released the time. He had a long way to drive today and so far he'd had no more than a couple of hours sleep. This was not a good day to be proving he could live on that little amount of rest, not when he was in charge of a truck on a main road, carrying an important passenger.
"I'm sorry," his companion said guiltily then, apparently knowing him well enough by now to read his unhappy expression at a glance. "You needed sleep and I kept you up all night".
There was a dirty comment on the tip of his tongue that Eliot bit down on, save for ruining everything. Parker trusted him, so much so that the woman who stabbed first thought later with almost every other guy she knew had spent last night alone on a bed with him, talking about pasts they never shared with anyone else. It was incredible if Eliot thought about it much, but right now wasn't the time.
"It's okay," he shrugged, moving to get off the bed, his body protesting as he tried to stretch it out after being cramped up too long. "We'll get a couple of hours now, then head out to find food," he considered. "Since you slept half the way here in my truck, maybe I'll make you drive the next leg," he told her.
Parker wasn't sure if he was teasing or not, especially since he all but snapped her head off yesterday for daring to suggest she would drive his most beloved vehicle. She might have asked if he was serious, but when she peered over the edge of the bed, he was already laying amongst the blankets with his back to her, trying to sleep.
The truth was, Eliot felt kind of guilty. He thought he was so hard done by, but the truth was he brought a lot of the crap in his life down on his own head. Parker hadn't asked for the hand she was dealt, nor the awful childhood she had to go through. He always thought his life was so tough, but it was nothing compared to Parker's own. If he could make her feel just a little bit better about things, he was going to do it.
Eliot was determined to be the guy Parker seemed to see him as, rather than the decidedly black figure that lived in his own head. Maybe that would prove to be more use to him in the long run, than any other part of this trip.
To Be Continued...