A/N: This is a little on the short side, and a teeny bit rushed because I wanted to give you guys something for Valentines Day! I really appreciate all of the reviews. I want to clarify something, because I slipped up in Chapter 2 (I've since fixed it.) The team is currently based in Buffalo, NY. They've been there for a while, and all have permanent residences. You'll find out why later. And fear not. Abby is a plot device, and while she'll play a small but relatively significant part in the plot, she won't be involved in any romantic entanglements. I'm not really a fan of pairing canon and OC characters! Hope you guys don't hate her too much.
By the time Parker woke up again, the sun had long since sank below the horizon, and darkness had crept into the room. Still sprawled out over the uncomfortable chair, Eliot was not sleeping. Nearly there, but a little to alert to actually pass into unconsciousness. Parker began to stir, and he woke up immediately, sitting up in the chair at the ready, an instinct that he hadn't quite gotten over, even in their years together where he no longer had to constantly worry about his own safety.
Her eyes fluttered open, and her gaze came to rest on Eliot, a small smile spread across her face.
"Hey," he smiled in response, leaning towards her, ignoring the screaming in his back, old injuries acting up.
"Alex?" she questioned, trying to focus her eyes and separate between the two, because as far as Parker was concerned, while they looked identical, Alexander and Eliot were not the same person. "You didn't leave." She sounded surprised, and Eliot couldn't help but frown.
"I said I would, didn't I?" he replied, somewhat bothered that she seemed to be doubting him.
"People don't usually stay with me," she offered up as an explanation, and her matter of fact tone startled him, despite the fact that it wasn't too unusual for Parker.
"Maddie," he replied sternly, hoping she would realize that Eliot was talking to Parker, and not their aliases, because he knew she didn't quite grasp the concept, "have I ever lied to you?" he had to ask, almost offended that she hadn't believed him when he agreed to stay. But at the same time, he honestly had to wonder about all the horrible people she had encountered in her life. Had her foster parents honestly left her alone in a hospital?
"No," she frowned, she hadn't meant to make Eliot angry, and she glanced at the rings on her finger, "no you haven't lied. And you have to stay because we're married," she forced a smile at him. "Where are Hardison and Sophie and Nate?" she looked around the room, though she still hadn't sat up, her body was aching.
Eliot's brows furrowed, Parker really wasn't suitable for grifting, "they headed back to the hotel," he replied, perched on the edge of his chair and he picked up Bunny, who had fallen to the floor. He tucked the stuffed animal into Parker's side, and her arm curled around the ratty creature.
"Can you take me home?" she asked meekly, petting Bunny's ear, and Eliot was beyond shocked at how scared she sounded. Parker was scared of horses and people, and even when confronted with the two, he hadn't heard her sound so utterly powerless.
"Darlin', I already told you that they want to keep you here a few days. You broke ribs and they want to make sure that they don't shift and cause more damage," He hated that he had to say no, that he couldn't give her what she wanted.
"Please? If I promise not to move at all once I get there?" she pleaded with him, trying to bargain like a child, and not for the first time, Eliot was reminded of how child-like Parker could be, not that it was entirely a bad thing, he just forgot how innocent she could be.
"If I could, I would, Mad," Eliot felt guilty even as he uttered the words, "but if there's anything else I can do to help, let me know, what ever it is." He smiled weakly making a note to bother the doctor about when she'd be able to leave.
"No its fine," she sighed resignedly and to Eliot, that was probably worse than begging, or even crying. She picked up the museum book in her good hand, "I can keep myself occupied for a little while," she sounded distant, and he couldn't help but wonder if she was mad at him.
"Alright, Darlin', I'm going to grab something to eat, I'll be back in an hour or so, you can call me if you need me earlier than that, okay?" He replied, standing up from the chair with a few uncomfortable pops from his stiff joints.
"I don't need you," was Parker's somewhat bitter reply, and that was a whole other can of worms, and he wasn't about to get into it now.
"Okay, well if you want me," he forced cheerfulness as best he could, fighting his rising anger as he walked out the door.
"I don't want you," she muttered, but he was already out of ear shot.
"Nate, this is not good, this is so, so not good," Hardison looked up from his computer set up for the first time since he had started nearly two hours ago.
Nate was sitting at the table in the hotel suit, tiny empty bottles of alcohol in front of him.
"Like the opposite of good, as in like really really bad," Hardison continued, no real end in sight, and Nate had to cut him off.
"Hardison," his voice was stern, and slightly annoyed, "what's bad?"
"There's a transfer here, a lump sum of ten million dollars, Nate, its from the Maldives." Hardison's worried gaze met Nate's cool stare. "You know that can only mean one thing, right?"
"Oh course," though the look on his face worried Hardison even more than the transfer itself. They were way out of their league, and they knew it. "Its Rawlings," Nate replied before walking out of the room.
"Really man?" Hardison called after him, "you gotta do that even when I'm the only one here?"
Eliot nearly had a heart attack when his cell phone started to ring; if Parker was calling, it had to be an emergency. He didn't recognize the number though. "Hello?" his gruff greeting was hardly friendly.
"Mr. Kline?" a female voice questioned, and he panicked again. If they were using that alias, if they thought he was Alex, then the call had to do with Parker.
"Yes?" he replied, attempting to sound more friendly and concerned than ready to bust heads open.
"Mr. Kline, is your wife with you? This is her doctor, Dr. Tadros."
Eliot could feel his eye twitching, "You lost her," it wasn't a question, it was an accusation, he was swearing internally, knowing that she had pulled one of her classic vanishing acts. He should have known better than to leave her alone. "Wasn't anybody watching her?" he growled into the phone, "you know what, never mind, I'll find her." He hung up the phone before the woman could reply and speed dialed Hardison.
"What's up Man?" He sounded a little anxious, but Eliot couldn't even make a note of it.
"Can you tell me where Parker is? She escaped," he asked, trying not to sound panicked as his mind went reeling through all of the worst possible scenarios.
"Yeah sure, after the Archie incident she agreed to let me put a GPS tracker in her tooth, but man we've got other issues. Oh here, she's still in the hospital, tenth floor, right wing. But Eliot I was going through financials-" Eliot snapped his phone shut, unconcerned with what ever Hardison's problem was, his main goal was to locate Parker before she bled to death in some closet, or fell out a window this time to her death, or got mistaken for a mental patient and locked up in the psych ward.
It took him only five minutes to locate her, in a heap on the ground in an empty room, coincidentally one of the few rooms with window access to the lower roof section.
"Maddie," he rushed to her side and she groaned audibly, "what did you do?"
She tried to roll over, and Eliot growled when he spotted the pooling blood on the ground, smeared across her hospital gown, and it said something that he was far too concerned for her safety than to notice the expanse of bare skin where the gown met in the back. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he snapped as he pressed the call button next to the empty bed. "Don't move," he could see her collar bone jutting out of her pale skin, and he had no idea what sort of other injuries she had caused herself.
"Can't stay here," her breath was shallow and ragged, and Eliot wondered if she had punctured a lung.
The nurses showed up only moments later, followed by Dr. Tadros. Once again he was abandoned as they took her to radiology, no doubt to check for internal damage, and then he was sure they had taken her into surgery, though no one bothered to keep him informed.
This was his fault, he scowled, mentally beating himself up. Maybe he could have reasoned that what Jacobs had done wasn't his fault, but this? This was entirely and absolutely his fault. She had asked to leave and he had denied her and left. They all knew Parker, but he perhaps understood her flightiness best. They both knew how to cut losses. He should have known she would make a run for it, it was classic Parker, through and through.
He settled back down into his chair in the waiting room, which he had claimed as his own during the first wait. It was minutes later when he remembered that the ought to call the rest of the team. Hardison and Nate returned within the hour, but they had been unable to get a hold of Sophie. But honestly, they were all too distracted to put too much effort into finding her. They all knew the grifter could take care of herself.
"Abby!" Sophie called, rushing forward to hug the woman she had spotted getting off the plane.
"Soph, good to see you!" the woman was tall, leggy, though her fashion sense was drastically different than Sophie's. The grifter took in the flannel shirt, skinny jeans and cowboy boots, and the natural Australian accent that had been earlier came through. A devious grin spread across Sophie's face, she had definitely called the right person.
"Sophie, you have to tell me more about this... job? You called it?" Abigail demanded as she picked up her bags, following Sophie towards the exit, arms linked.
"Its not what you're used to, but I think you can have some fun with it. And we might need your help with something more serious, if you don't mind getting involved," she had gotten the information about Rawlings, and couldn't help but wonder if it was some sort of cosmic intervention that she had called Abby of all people, because they would definitely be able to use her.
"Okay, but you've got to tell me more on the way," she grinned, climbing into the taxi cab after the grifter.
"I swear to god, Nate, she's bat-shit. I think we need to figure out a way to get her out of here before she kills herself." Eliot growled in the waiting room, and neither the Mastermind nor the Hacker could ignore the tension in his face and the vein throbbing in his neck.
"Alex," Nate responded, which Hardison was a bit grateful for, since Eliot was scaring him a little. "We're going to do all we can for Maddie, she's a part of the team, and you know that. But there's a bigger issue we need to worry about at this moment," Nate explained.
"What do you mean a bigger issue? Didn't you hear what I said?" Eliot growled again. "This is her life we're talking about, and she just let her collar bone stab through her skin to get out of here, so clearly I'm not exaggerating."
"I get that, but this concerns all of our lives," Nate really couldn't help but be cryptic sometimes, and Hardison cut in.
"Alex, Jacobs was working for Rawlings" That shut Eliot up, and he sank back into his seat, a nearly dumbstruck look on his face.
"Like, Maldives Rawlings?" Eliot had to ask even though he already knew the answer. A worried look fleeted across his face, not the angry sort of worry either, but real fear.
"Yeah, that one," Hardison rolled his eyes, a defense mechanism to hide his own fear.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Eliot groaned, the situation didn't seem like it could get any worse, "what's the plan?" he turned to Nate, because this time, he really had no idea how to handle it. "What are we going to do?"
Nate just furrowed his brow. "Working on it. Sophie's bringing in a friend of hers, an asset, especially considering Pa-Maddie's out of commission on this one. But I'm still working out the details."
"Hope you're not waiting on us, Nathan," Abigail interrupted, her Australian accent as clear as day as she and Sophie walked into the waiting room. "You know I hate to be an inconvenience." She grinned at the man she had clearly met before.
"Abby," he raised an eyebrow at her, recalling the numerous times when she had been an inconvenience in the past, back when he still worked with the insurance agency. "Never a bother, of course."
"Everyone, this is Abigail," Sophie introduced the woman, a small smirk on her face as she eyed Eliot.
"You can call me Abby," she corrected with a charming smile.
Hardison and Eliot shared a glance, neither thrilled about adding another variable into the already difficult situation.
"Hardison, and Alex," Sophie introduced, as the men seemed rather opposed to divulging their names. "I've already explained some of the situation to her."
"Great," Hardison's super enthusiastic response. "Yay." Deadpan.
