A/N: Well, I'm sick again. Great. Just as I was getting over my last cold. Maybe it's because I stayed up until 3 A.M watching... Eclipse, which was amazing, by the way. I went to the midnight premire and also the showings of Twilight and New Moon, so I was at the theater for over seven hours. Plenty of time for me to be exposed to all sorts of nasty bugs.

But, anyways, it's a cold on top of my alergies, so I'm pretty much confined to bed rest. Good news for all of you, except yesterday I decided to write outside. Did I mention that I only had three hours of sleep because I had to be up at seven to be at my last drivers ed class? Well I did, so it wasn't that surprising that I fell asleep. What was surprising was that it was, for once, sunny outside.

Sunburns suck.

Anyway, now that I have been re-confined to bed with a bottle of Aloe Vera, kleenex, and lots of Gatorade, there should be quite a few updates.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Leverage. They're just... on lease to me for now. I'll try to get them all back to Chris Downey and Dean Devlin in one piece.

Night Terror – Laura Marling

I woke up and he was screaming
I'd left him dreaming
I roll over and shake him tightly
And whisper "If they want you
Oh they're gonna have to fight me"
Oh fight me

If I look back and he's screaming
I'd left him dreaming, the dangers fade
And I roll back and shake him tightly
And scream "If they want him
Oh they're gonna have to fight me"
Oh fight me

Parker'd never seen Eliot sleep because he was her hitter who never slept because if he slept then he wouldn't be protecting them and if Eliot didn't protect them Alec's hands would be broken and Nate would be shot and someone would steal Sophie's shoes and Sophie had a truly impressive amount of shoes that Parker could steal as long as she brought both of them back together. The only time Parker had ever actually seen Eliot sleep she hadn't actually seen him sleep – Parker thought he wasn't really asleep even though he was really asleep because Eliot was a grifter too and he could pretend and put on his faces just like Sophie and Nate could.

Parker didn't have masks. She was who she was she liked that because if Parker didn't know who she was then who would know because Parker was the only one who knew and no one knew the real Parker as well as they thought they did because certain parts of Parker were always changing like her passwords changed because if she didn't change then someone would eventually be fiddly and patient enough to crack her code and the only way to stay alive was to stay always growingmovingchanging so someone like Hardison couldn't get what he wanted.

Alec didn't have masks either. Hardison had his orange sugar and his edible amphibians and fire pockets and motherboards and hard drives and firewalls but he didn't have masks because he knew who he was just like Parker knew who she was and knew that she was not Shelia or Alec because that would be stupid to believe because she was Parker not someone's skanky girlfriend or an overly-compassionate foreign exchange student who liked sleeping even though Parker really did like to sleep as long as she was upside down or had Bunny but she was not from Pittsburgh Detroit Atlanta.

Parker didn't have masks like Sophie and Nate, and that was why it was so obvious that she was worried right now. If Eliot jumped out of a plane because he was sleeping that was okay as long as she was with him to make sure he didn't mess up because everyone knew that Parker's thing was ropes and harnesses and she kept them neat and organized and "surreal" and everyone knew that every time Eliot jumped off of something high something went wrong but not with Parker because she was the best but Eliot wasn't on a plane now he was at his house one the second floor and it was a nice house with lots of wood and security and booby traps and locks but being there was bad because he had no harness and Parker always used a harness if it was over three stories and Eliot's home was four stories.

Parker knew that Eliot knew how to fall but not from sixty-five plus feet up like Parker did because if Parker was the changeable like Wind Eliot was strong and constant like Earth and Nate was the warm and light like Sun and Sophie was beautiful and sparkling like Fire and Hardison was flowing and steady as Water.

She wasn't spying, really, not this time she was really there to check on him because the job had been hard and Eliot saw someone he knew someone who scared him and no one noticed but her and it was an accident and there were nothappyscared noises coming from Eliot's room – noises that were all too familiar to her because she still made them sometimes and all she wanted was to jump off something really really really high and feel the bloodadrenalinelife running through her veins again to banish the memories but once she was on the roof she was alright.

But Eliot wasn't on the roof so she turned from the window abruptly and tip-toed quiet-as-a-mouse into his pitch-black room and half-shuffled over to perch on his bed like a cat because she liked cats – so graceful beautiful free alive Parker was like a cat because she could see good in the darkness – she could just see his rare this-is-really-scaring-me face that Parker never really saw unless he was in an air duct (he barely fit into even the largest ones all his stupid hitter muscles and broad shoulders and boots got in the way and he almost got stuck) or if she jumped off a building and that made Parker hate that face because Parker hated Fear and his brows scrunched together eyes flickering quickly back-and-forth beneath closed lids uncontrolled thrashing mumbling pale look made Parker feel like the time when she had eaten a dish of cicada's and scorpions when she was in Beijing to steal one of Zhang Chongren's paintings.

"Please… Sorry… No… Please… Please…" she used to say that and in her sleep she still said it and each word was like a rusty pipe stabbing her through her heart because Eliot shouldn't know what it's like shouldn't be scared shouldn't have night terrors like Parker so carefully she reached out barely brushing his arm as gentle as the time she had stolen Pablo Picasso's Garçon A La Pipe, trying to wake him.

But he flinched away and another piece of Parker's heart cracked off and fell into her special "Angry-Place" as he half-curled beneath the tangled sheets his breaths coming closer together.

"Eliot," Parker hissed but he kept sleeping and what if she couldn't wake him up should she throw water on him but no he was a hitter he would panic and maybe think he was being tortured in a prison in Pakistan and Parker didn't like to scare Eliot unless she was free-falling. "Eliot." Louder this time, should she call Nate? Sophie? Hardison was his friend he would help but what could they do Eliot wasn't hearing her and what would she do if he didn't hear her? Parker snatched for his arm like it was trying to run away because Eliot wouldn't dare try to run away from her because Parker was a Specialist herself and she could find anyone anywhere she could steal from Death and Eliot would not be taken by Fear. "Eliot!"

Warm skin Earthy warm soft touched cold sharp marble Wind and Eliot jerked straight up but he shouldn't be moving Nate said "don't move" and Eliot moved not listening to Nate wasn't something you did but Eliot did and now Parker clutched the edge of his soft mattress as he mumbled words that made her stomach hurt and she felt just a little bit sick too because the scorpions were back but Parker didn't like Chinese anymore.

Parker didn't know what to do "Eliot!" but his blue sky blue mustang blue wild eyes were wide and not looking at her not seeing Parker not seeing what was real he had to stop gasping like he was drowning because Parker had drowned people before but Eliot wasn't breathing just turning his head every which way like he was looking for someone to fight but he was afraid to fight and Parker said "If you want him you're gonna have to fight me" she told the ghosts in the room. "Eliot's mine and awake and it's Parker. I'm Parker they tried to take you through your night terror but I didn't let them because I steal from Death all the time and no one takes what's mine."

Blue eyes like the sky finally really saw her. "Parker?"

"Parker's me," she assured him trying to copy Sophie's soft quiet mother voice because he wasn't all the way back in her world and she wanted to fight off Fear steal his life and give him to Death but Eliot didn't need her to fight for him because he was their hitter and he hit things that Parker couldn't always see and now he pulled his knees halfway to his chest to rest his forehead against them to breath like the drowning man again but when he raised his head to look at her through his pretty long hair she could tell he was Eliot again so she wrapped herself around him and held him like she had seen a mom hold her son in a movie and stroked his hair and wondered if anyone had ever protected him before had they even tried to protect him like Parker tried but one look at his bare chest and the scars from being a Retrieval Specialist and ones too old and she knew that no one ever had and it made her fingers itch and her chest burn and maybe latching onto him was the only thing keeping Parker from running screaming off of Eliot's roof and finding everyone anyone who had ever hurt him and make them hurt too.

But instead she just kept stoking his hair and murmuring in his ear about the best way to break into the Antiquities wing of the Cairo Museum until they both drifted off to sleep just as the sun stained the sky with an orange glow.