AN: If you've seen Rescue 77, you know the episode where Wick gets his first (and probably only) acting gig? Hilarious, right? I loved it! That's what's being referenced here. If you haven't seen it, that's fine, too.

Anyway, this chapter. 'Tis short. It was supposed to be the beginning of the next chapter (one loooong chapter), but I decided that 11 pages on Word is much too long for a story averaging 5 pages per chapter, and since I want to write a bit more before I post that, I decided to split it up. Think of this as an interlude. Chapter 11 will be better, overall, in my opinion, if you would be so kind as to wait for that one. Thanks!

Chapter 10

Leaving Grace with Parker, Nate reflects later that day, was not his brightest idea. Scratch that. Leaving Grace with Parker and Hardison had not been good idea. At least Sophie had been there to stop- to help- Well, she actually hadn't helped much, to tell the truth. "Enabled" might be a better word for what she did.

"Show me Lord Argus again!" Grace commands with a giggle.

Hardison obliges and pulls up a very short, very bad quality video clip featuring a baby-faced Wick Lobo in some kind of warrior costume being "defeated" by Hercules.

"Oh, this will never get old," he comments with a chuckle because an Eliot look-alike in a costume like that, with the questionably Viking-like helmet? Priceless. "But you gotta admit, Hercules Undercover was pretty bomb, back in its day. I am like 95.4 percent sure your dad's a geek."

"Yeah," Grace agrees. "We watch cartoons when he has Saturday mornings off."

"That's cool," Hardison nods, "I respect a man who watches cartoons with his kid. I respect that."

"Like you respect privacy?" Sophie says airily, making a hypocritical note to herself to ask Wick if he had ever had aspirations to be an actor – he did choose to move out here to Los Angeles, after all.

"Yeah, like you do, too, right?" Hardison retorts with a grin, "I know what you were doin' with Grace yesterday. Tryin' ta get family secrets outta her. My way worked better, though. Didn't it? Huh? Yeah."

Parker snorts. "You thought Eliot stole her."

"I- Well- Yeah, okay. I read the facts wrong," Hardison flounders, "but at least I got 'em!"

"Why would Eliot give you away like that, though?" Parker asks Grace, "I didn't think he was that kind of a person." The look she casts at the sleeping hitter is a trifle disappointed. Eliot twitches a little in his sleep, as if conscious of the thief's scrutiny.

"I'm sure he had his reasons," Sophie says, "Most people who make that decision, which I'm sure was very difficult, do."

"Sometimes," Hardison says seriously, as if remembering something from his own past, "parents don't think they can take care of their kids, or maybe not as good as they deserve, so they give 'em up so they can have a better chance."

"That doesn't make sense," Parker frowns.

"He gave me up," Grace explains, "because my parents wanted a kid, and he didn't really know how to take care of me, even though he loved me and he was gonna try. He thought leaving me with them would be safer and better for me than keeping me. That's why."

Parker still doesn't looks satisfied, and opens her mouth to question Grace further, but Grace sits up straight and looks her in the eye.

"I love my dad," she says, "He's a good dad. He tries really hard to raise me right, even though he's sometimes totally not fair about the rules, and like, bedtime. But it's hard being a single dad who sometimes has all night shifts and sometimes has to do overtime and stuff like that. I'm sure Uncle Eliot would have been good, too. I mean, I know because he took care of me when Dad was hurt, but he's...It's just not the same as it is with Dad. When Dad wouldn't wake up, I was so mad at- at everybody. For lying to me and making me think they loved me. I was mad at Dad for getting hurt. And I was really, really mad at Uncle Eliot for giving me away. And then, I don't know. We talked, and then it was...I don't know how to explain it, but...

She sighs and picks at her uncle's bedsheets with her fingers. "It's not the same as before I knew, but I love both of them. One's my dad and the other's not, and sometimes I feel confused, but you know, it doesn't really matter because- because it doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter even if we weren't related. They're my family."

Parker nods slowly. "Like we're family." She stops to clarify, "Not you, I mean. I like you, but you're not family. Or maybe you are. Because Eliot's in my team family and you're in Eliot's real family. So maybe that makes us sort of family."

"Yeah, maybe," Grace grins. "That would be cool! So." She tilts her head and casts a calculating look at Parker (she has already figured out the Nate/Sophie relationship and thinks it's super-romantic). "How do you feel about Uncle Eliot? Do you think he's dreamy? Handsome? I think he likes blondes. And I need an aunt, so Uncle Eliot can have kids for me to play with. I want cousins, 'cause Dad says 'no, no, uh-uh, not ever' about a little brother or sister 'because one hellraiser is enough.' And it's not like he ever dates anyone anyway. Dad, that is. Uncle Eliot really likes girls and dates and stuff."

Hardison chokes on his soda and Sophie smiles. Oh, Grace. She's beginning to like this little girl quite a lot.

"Well," the grifter says conspiratorially, "I have been talking to him a bit about what would happen if we all settled down. Which of us would be able to live that life to the fullest, and so on. And from what he told me, he doesn't seem adverse to the thought of settling down, perhaps building a new life…"

"So you think he'd be a good dad, too, right?" Grace agrees, "I do, too."

"He's good at building stuff," Parker says (having unscrunched the confused expression from her face), but Hardison's not exactly sure if she means metaphorically, or if she means that Eliot is good with his hands…And that is so not where he wants his mind to go.

Oh, man. He silently wills Eliot to wake up before the estrogen-powered gossiping drives him insane. Or, you know, Nate could come back from the hotel room where he's planning the next Eliot-less job. He'd be happy with that, too.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nate sits among a pile of papers and taps his pen on a yellow legal pad.

Plan…G will have…hmm, yes. And a- a penguin…hmm…

He already has plans for when various team members are absent or incapacitated. For this next job, all he has to do is tweak a little…

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Da."

"Our friend in Los Angeles says Eliot Spencer was seen there."

"Khrosho. Good. Get men. We go to L.A."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Russian Translation (phonetic, as always):

Da - Yes

Khrosho – Good

Nate and the penguin. Don't ask. I don't know. It just popped into my head. As I've said to a few reviewers already, I don't really know where this story is going, or rather, how to get from here to where I want to go, haha. You'll see when I figure it out. Until then, thanks for sticking with me!

Foreshadowing! And Russians! Mwahaha!

Anon review replies:

Drjones: Aww, thanks again! You are so sweet! And more Crossfire Trail/Leverage fic? I've gotten a lot of requests, and I have ideas, so that's probably going to happen.