Parker nearly freaked at the words that Hardison had just uttered. A Facebook page. Photos of her on the Internet. All it would take was one shot, one that caught her in the wrong light, one that looked even remotely like what the photo recognition software aged photo that Manticore would be constantly running of her and she was screwed. Granted, she wasn't a natural blonde, her eyes weren't naturally blue, but she was still clearly identifiable through face-matching software.
She clamped down on her emotions, forcing herself to remain calm and breath evenly, even as Nate told her firmly that she had to go to an event where it was entirely possible her 'secret' identity had been breached, where Manticore could be waiting.
She wanted to just run. This is what she'd been afraid of, working with a team, forming a family – people who didn't know better who could blow her cover.
It was over half an hour before she could get Eliot alone.
"I can't do this, Eliot," she paced frantically in his office. He was still pissed about her stunt with the elevator, but what none of them knew was that if she hadn't done what she did things would have been much worse. No one was dead, and they all got out, so it was a win in her book. She couldn't actually explain it, even Eliot didn't quite understand the scope of her ability to calculate angles and odds, not to mention see microscopic faults that could be potentially life threatening.
"Yes, you can, Parker. It's just for a little while, you just have to pretend for a little while…"
"NO, you don't understand. I represent a billion dollar investment for the United States government. Do you think they've ever stopped looking for me? Really? And Hardison…Alice White has a frickin' Facebook page! They might know who she is!" She paused for a moment, then gave a half amused chuckle. "Huh…never thought about it like that before. I am actually the first and most expensive thing I have ever stolen…"
Eliot gave a half smile at that before turning back to the more serious topic at hand. "Is it really that big of a risk? I mean, your photo must have gotten out before…"
"I've never gotten caught, Eliot. It's always been crappy surveillance photos. But this is Hardison, do you think he'd settle for that?"
With a bad feeling, Eliot sat at his computer and quickly pulled up Facebook, then ran a search for Alice White.
Parker gave a slightly pained, fearful moan at the clarity and quantity of the photos on the account. "Lydecker…He's going to find me…" she seemed to curl in on herself, looking younger and more fearful than Eliot could ever remember seeing her. In fact, he couldn't remember ever seeing her this afraid.
"Hey, hey, it's alright, darlin'. I'm not gonna let anyone get to you, I promise. " He wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders, rubbing her back, trying to help her relax.
"You don't understand, Eliot. There's nothing you can do, nothing anyone fully human can do if they come after me. The people Lydecker will most likely send after me…they're just like me. Stronger, faster…more."
Eliot scowled at the idea that he couldn't keep her safe, but considering that she'd taken him out, even if it had taken a reasonable effort, and had acknowledged that he was the toughest human she'd ever faced, he couldn't deny that she was right. When she had told him she wasn't even one of the direct combat units, designed instead for infiltration and assassination, he had known he was completely out of his depth.
"Who is Lydecker?" he asked instead, and saw her flinch, her eyes full of fear.
"He was…our trainer," she said, the words almost silent, forced past the lump in her throat at a volume Eliot only picked up because she was pressed against his chest close enough it was as if she was trying to merge with him. "He was…everything. Controlled us totally. We couldn't do anything without his say-so." She shivered violently in Eliot's grip, and he wrapped his arms more firmly around her. She buried her head against his chest and he heard a soft whimper, and felt growing damp on his shirt.
"You don't understand, Eliot. I didn't…I didn't do what I did today because I'm stupid, or insensitive, or inhuman…I did it because it was the only way to not get you all potentially dead! And now, in payment, I get to go and be a sitting duck for the man who killed several of my sibs in horrific 'training accidents', who tortured us mentally and physically, a man who has hunted me since I was twelve, and ruled my life until that time with an iron fist and…" her words ended in a muted wail as she once more buried her face against his chest, shaking in fear and grief.
Eliot just held her, not sure how to respond to the whole situation so doing the only thing he could right now, being there. She wasn't willing to tell the others, had resisted every time he'd brought up the idea, and he doubted that that had changed now.
He started to hum, stroking her hair until she finally calmed. "Now, let's go talk to Hardison about why we don't put photos of wanted criminals on the internet, okay?"
Parker nodded, grabbing a tissue off Eliot's desk and wiping her face before blowing her nose and dropping it into the bin. They made their way out of Eliot's office together and found the tech geek in his office.
"Hardison," Eliot growled. "Parker and I need to talk to you."
"What you all upset about?" Hardison asked, glancing from one to the other in concern.
"Photos," Eliot growled. "You set up a facebook page in Parker's alias's name. Didn't it ever occur to you that if anyone had a PICTURE of Parker they could track her down if she ever went out in public under that alias?"
Hardison's mouth opened and closed as he tried to come up with a response to Eliot's question. "You all are just bein' paranoid!" he finally burst out.
Parker gave vent to a soft but clearly enraged scream. "Take it down. Take it all down. Any photo you have put of me, anywhere, I want it gone! NOW!"
"That goes for me too, Hardison. They'd better be gone in an hour, or your dolls are going to pay for it," Eliot told him, nodding significantly at the shelf of original action figures Hardison had on the wall of his office.
"Now, those are an important part of your covers," Hardison objected, and Eliot actually snarled, but it was Parker's reaction that really startled Hardison. She jumped across his desk, no part of her actually touching it, from a standing position and landed with her feet on either side of his legs on his chair, her hands on either side of his head, in a position that could have been decidedly sexy if it wasn't for the expression on her tear swollen face.
"They are not ANY part of my cover," she hissed. "It goes. Or I am gone. You won't see me again. And you'll never find me." She jumped backwards and fetched up standing in front of him, between his desk and his chair.
"Dude, you don't do the things we've done without having some fairly serious people looking for you," Eliot spoke up, even as he came round the desk and put a hand on Parker's shoulder. "So get rid of them, or we're both gone." He used the hand on Parker's shoulder to gently guide her out of the room and down the hall, rubbing his thumb into the tense muscles next to her shoulder blade as he did so. He brought her back to his office and sat down on his couch, pulling her down beside him and wrapping an arm around her.
"I can't do the jury duty, Eliot, I can't," she whispered, pressing against him.
Eliot cupped her cheek in his free hand and tipped her head back, bringing her eyes up to meet his. "Darlin', I hate to say it, but the only way you'll get out of it is if you tell them the whole truth," he told her gently. "
"I can't!" she insisted, eyes wide. "I just…I can't!"
Eliot nodded and pulled her against him, holding her as she shook and shivered. "It's alright, darlin', it's alright. I've got you," he whispered. "If that's the way it is, we got to do this, darlin'. We have to make this work. I'll be there, everyday. And while you think he'll send people like you, I think it's much more likely he'd send ordinary soldiers, less likely to draw massive amounts of attention. Between the two of us, we can take whatever comes."
"It…it's not just about me, Eliot. The potential for collateral damage is enormous, and if…if they identify any of you as close associates, they'll come after you to get to me. And none of you are as off radar as I am, well, maybe you are, but the rest of them aren't. They're known; they're good at not being noticed, but they are well known. I can't…this is the first…I won't lose my family again, I won't!" Parker took off running then, at faster than human speeds, before Eliot could catch hold of her.
He turned his head, listening, but got no hints of where she was. He couldn't even call her over the comms because the others would be privy to the conversation, and it wasn't one they could have in public. He hurt for her, his heart aching as his ears still rang with the raw pain of her last sentence. 'I won't lose my family again!' He was blessed with his family. His parents were both passed, his father long before his time and leaving his family exposed to things that led to who he was now, but his twin brother had two kids, a girl and a boy, who he saw whenever he could find the time, and they were all close. He knew that they were safe, and he kept it that way by keeping their relationship under the radar. But all Parker had was them, as far as he knew, anyway, and they weren't exactly under the radar.
They had brought Parker into something she hadn't had since she was twelve and she and her siblings ran. A team that became more than that, that became family. He didn't know for sure, but he was fairly sure that there had been someone in the intervening years, someone who took her under their wing. She would have needed it; coming from a rigidly controlled, harsh environment she would have needed someone, some kind of structure. Still, she hadn't had family again, not really, until they'd been brought together to work that one job, and never left.
The thought of losing them must, he knew, terrify her. It would be like him thinking about anything happening to his remaining family, and the mere idea of that caused his gut to clench in undeniable fear. He could only imagine that with her past experience, and the fact that she just didn't deal well with emotion in general, it would be much worse for Parker.
"Eliot, where's Parker?" demanded Nate suddenly, and Eliot paused, trying to decide what to do. He wanted to snap and snarl at Nate, who had put them in this decision, but at the same time, it was kind of Parker's fault. What she had done with the elevator had seemed incredibly reckless, sending them plummeting down the building at a rate that was only stopped by the emergency brakes, which she was also responsible for triggering. He didn't know what she had seen that had told her that they were in danger, but he did believe her when she said that it saved their lives. She couldn't bring herself to trust anyone with her secret. He knew, because she had told him, that he was the only one she had ever told. She would never forgive him if he betrayed that trust, but he couldn't see any way for this to end well without the rest of the team being informed.
"I'm just on my way to find her," he told the mastermind, and continued on before the mostly inebriated man could stop him. And when he found her…he would figure it out then.
It took most of the night, but he finally found her in one of her favourite places, the roof of a building not quite the tallest in Los Angeles, but close.
"Parker," he said softly. He knew she knew he was there, but he still liked to give verbal acknowledgement before invading her, admittedly large, space bubble. Parker's bubble was odd; at times, often annoying times, completely non-existent, and at others so huge it seemed to take up most of the enormous roof the two were currently sharing. Parker was sitting, arms wrapped around her knees, staring out at the city below, just watching life pass by.
She turned her head towards him slightly, acknowledging his presence, and he felt it was safe to approach. He sat down beside her and waited, silently, for her to speak.
"Max and I always loved heights the most," she whispered finally. "We were both infiltration units, cat and eagle and shark DNA, that I know of. We were complete opposites – dark to light – physically, and she was bigger than me, a couple of inches. She was my best friend, my sister. And I don't know if she's dead or alive, if she's free or not, and I hate it." Her voice caught in her throat, and Eliot glanced over, shocked, to see tears glittering in her eyes. "I almost ran, when Hardison said we were more than a team. I couldn't bear the thought of getting that close to anyone again, but…I was too late. We weren't made to be alone; they included enough wolf DNA to make sure of that. We crave a pack around us; I was able to lone wolf it for a long time, but by the time I realized what was happening with the team it was too late and I couldn't leave and…"
"Parker," Eliot interrupted softly, laying a gentle finger against her lips to stop her desperate babbling. "It's alright, darlin'. And, for what it's worth, I don't think they've found that Facebook page, because if they had they would have already turned up looking for the person who posted it, wouldn't they? And it's down now, and I'll make Hardison check for any other pictures and take them down too. I promise you, darlin', it's gonna be alright. But if you aren't gonna tell'em the truth, you're gonna have to go through with this trial, you know that, right? I'll be there, every day, I'll take care of you, I promise."
Parker snorted lightly at the idea of Eliot taking care of her, like he could, but it still warmed her that he wanted to, that even knowing what she was he still wanted to be there for her.
"Thank you," she whispered, shivering, and shifted towards Eliot to steal his body heat, a thought he thwarted by giving it freely, wrapping an arm around her once she was close enough. He waited until she was ready, then led the way down from the roof – by the stairs – and away.