Author's note: all the usual disclaimers about not owning the Leverage characters/concept and not making any money from this apply.
Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I'm so glad people are still enjoying this! If anyone else still has post-Rundown stories mulling around their brains, apparently the market for them has not yet reached the saturation point :).
Parker could feel Hardison thinking, disturbing the calm they had momentarily achieved in the warm humidity of the shower. She would have blamed it on the proximity of his brain as they stood with their foreheads pressed together, but past occasions had taught her that Hardison's thinking could be felt from across the room, if not through walls, when he really got going. And judging by the tension once again thrumming through his body where it was lined up leg-to-leg and rib-to-rib with hers, his brain was going a mile a minute now. She sort of understood it– she remembered her own panic when he had been buried alive and they had been racing to find and free him before he ran out of air, and recognised he had probably been feeling something similar when she ran out of the subway car with the briefcase full of flu virus – but that was over now, surely he saw that? At any rate, it was probably time they got out of the shower and on with rest of what they needed to do.
Parker turned off the water and opened the shower door, shivering as the cooler air rushed in. Hardison snagged a couple of towels from the rack next to the shower, and they dried off and then wrapped themselves in the towels in silence, both reluctant to leave the relative warmth of the shower stall and the comforting proximity of each other. But they couldn't stay there forever, and the warmth was rapidly dissipating. Parker made the first move, stepping out and over the laundry bag they had sealed their clothes into before starting the shower. In the bedroom, they dug through their respective overnight bags for clean clothes. The trip to D.C. had been meant to be quick, so none of them had packed very much. Parker pulled on the tank top she had slept in the night before and a clean pair of leggings. She hadn't packed any shoes other than the boots she had worn that day, and she wondered if Eliot's instructions to bag their clothes included shoes. Hardison eyed the shirts and pants he had pulled out of his own bag dubiously, and Parker saw him add "clothes shopping" to his mental to-do list. She ran a comb through her wet hair and twisted it back into a bun while he got dressed. Like Parker he was barefoot and she watched as he wriggled his toes against the carpet, apparently unfamiliar with the sensation. She shrugged at him as she looked up and their eyes met. Barefoot was barefoot; for now, he would just have to deal with it.
"Eliot?" Parker asked, checking that they were ready for the next item on their mutual to-do list.
Hardison nodded and opened the door leading out of their bedroom for her.
"You go in first," he said as they crossed the living room that separated their room from Eliot's. "If he's sleeping, you're quiet enough not to wake him."
Parker snorted. No way would Eliot be napping. After four years of working together and dropping in on his home or hotel room at all sorts of unexpected hours of the day and night, she could still count the number of times she had caught him sleeping on one hand. Still, she lightened her tread as she approached his door, just in case. For just one moment as she looked in, she thought she had been wrong. He was stretched out on the bed where they had left him, body relaxed and his head tilted back against the headboard, eyes closed. She paused, thinking he might really be asleep and not wanting to wake him suddenly if that was the case. A floorboard creaked under her feet as she hesitated, and his eyes flicked open immediately, no trace of sleep in them. She recognised his posture now as one of conscious relaxation intended to avoid aggravating the pain that must surely be radiating from those bullet wounds and to enable rest without losing awareness.
"Hey," she said, stepping into the room as his head lifted. "He's awake," she said over her shoulder to where Hardison was hanging back a few steps.
"Hey," Eliot replied.
"Looks like you've been busy," Parker said, taking in the signs of activity surrounding him on the bed.
She was pleased to see the Gatorade bottle was empty, sitting on the nightstand next to a half empty litre bottle of water. He had also emptied out and sorted the remaining contents of the paper bag – mainly gauze and tape and other first aid supplies Parker had picked up earlier during her hurried relocation of their stuff from their old hotel to this one. His cell phone sat between him and one of the first aid piles, next to the hotel-provided notepad and pen which Eliot had used to make notes. His chicken-scratch handwriting was even less easily decipherable than usual from where Parker stood, and she realised he must have been writing with his left hand. Most of the items on the top half of the page had been crossed out, and she suspected it was Eliot's version of the to-do list.
"What needs doing next?" Hardison asked, coming up behind her.
Eliot gestured at the note pad, and Parker picked it up. Hardison read over her shoulder, eyebrows drawing together as he puzzled over the scrawled notes. Parker could make out 'Vance' at the top of the list – it and the sub-item 'car' had been crossed out, but she couldn't make head or tail of the 'incub?24h' that had been circled. It obviously made some sort of sense to Hardison though.
"Twenty-four hour incubation period?" he asked. "Seriously?"
Eliot gave a one-shouldered shrug.
"Apparently that's what Udall's research files say," he said. "Vance said he'd let us know if anything shows up to indicate that's wrong."
"Okay," Hardison said, and Parker saw his eyes move on to decipher the next scratched out puzzle piece. "And you called Nate?" he asks when he thinks he's got it.
Eliot nodded.
"Told him we'd try to get a flight the day after tomorrow."
"I texted Sophie, too," Parker said, looking down at the rest of the list, oblivious to the apprehensive looks the boys were exchanging. She couldn't figure out what was directly under Nate's name, but after than it seemed to turn into a shopping list – mostly for more medical supplies, but also some more mundane items that they would have packed has they planned on staying in D.C. for more than one night.
"What exactly did you tell her?" Eliot asked.
"That we stopped a pandemic and are going to hang out here for a day or two because you got shot," Parker shrugged. She handed the note pad to Eliot. "What's this word?"
Eliot shook his head in disbelief as he looked where Parker was pointing on the paper. It was a good thing that Sophie specialised in reading between the lines and had taken the advanced course in communicating with Parker. Most people faced with that message would probably have found a reason or two to panic. It did, however, explain the text he had received from Sophie, asking about bullet holes.
"It's a name, Parker," he told her. "Someone who can sew up bullet holes with fewer questions than hospitals tend to ask."
"Old friend?" Hardison asked.
"'Friend' would be stretching it," Eliot said, a little grimly. "Let's say 'someone who owes me a favour.'"
"Got it," Hardison said
"Speaking of which, I need to get in the shower before she gets here," Eliot said, pushing himself into a more upright sitting position and dropping his feet to the floor.
"She?" Hardison echoed.
"What about the rest of the list?" Parker asked at the same moment.
"Wipe whatever you're thinking from your mind, Hardison," Eliot warned. "Parker, you up for a little shopping trip?"
"Depends," she said, waving a bare foot at him. "Do the boots I was wearing need to be burned?"
"Probably not," Eliot told her. "But there should be some Lysol wipes you can use on them in the side pocket of my bag."
"You need anything besides what's already on the list?" Parker asked, as she picked up Eliot's bag. "Clothes or stuff?"
"I do," Hardison said. "Want me to come with you?"
Parker shook her head.
"Just write it down," she told him. "I'll get it."
She pulled the package of disinfecting wipes from Eliot's bag then opened the main compartment and pulled out clean pants and boxers and a shirt for him. Judging by his bag, Eliot was better prepared for an extra two-day stay than she and Hardison were.
Hardison read back through the list when he finished adding his items.
"You need more shirts or anything?" he asked Eliot.
"I think I brought enough," Eliot said, mentally reviewing the contents of his bag.
But Hardison was holding up the clean shirt Parker had pulled out dubiously.
"How about shirts you don't have to pull over your head?" he asked, nodding at Eliot's shoulder. "You bring any of those? And what about shoes you don't need to lace up?"
Eliot had to concede that he hadn't been thinking about that.
"The shoes are fine, but a button down shirt might be a good idea," he said.
Hardison added that to the list.
"Parker?" he asked, pen poised.
"I know what I need," she said, tearing the page off the note pad in his hands, and picking up the Lysol wipes. "I'll be back in a little bit."
