Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Uhm...so let me know whatcha think, your reviews are appreciated xxx

Parker had never felt a rush like it.

Eliot was a living breathing rock she wrapped herself too. Conscious of her extra counterweights, she hooked her feet around his legs, gripping him tight, linking him by more than carabiners and straps. They were one whole body, completely in sync as he unconsciously distributed his weight to allow her to steer them, trusting her implicitly despite being taken off guard, and thrown off a roof. His bulk allowed her to propel their momentum further, and as they arched downwards, ever downwards, she forced them out wide, so they were no longer simply falling,but flying. Her hair whipped at his face, and his eyes stayed on hers, and she saw the shock fade to thrill, then to acceptance. Eliot looked like a man ready to meet whatever rushed up to meet them, and it stretched her heart beyond endurance. His arms were around her waist, hers at his neck, their legs entwined, and Parker could not recall a jump ever feeling so good. So right.

It was the longest, shortest, scariest, safest jump of her life, because Eliot was with her, and even if they crashed into the side of Tiffany's which was a real possibility, in a flash she knew he would spin to take the impact. He just would. It's what he did.

A grin split her face and her cheeks stung as wind rushed at her, but the sound of New York below was a blur, her heart beat and the whistling sound of air buffeting and flowing filling her ears instead. She kissed him. A quick sweet press of her lips to his, in gratitude, in excitement, she wasn't really sure, just that in the moment, in the sweet exhilarating high of the jump, it seemed right. His eyes remained open, as her lips pulled away, her head and his staying close as the velocity forced them together, making independent movement hard. The muscle strain to meet his mouth was worth it. His eyes were dark and scorching on hers. Though she had not gone further than a peck, just a fleeting graze of mouths, heat swelled between them in the seconds after. She let it, in fact welcomed it. They could splat any second. Death followed you, she knew that, and life rolled on without you. Sometimes you just had to do.

The landing was not elegant. She managed to hit the target, having prepped her line for a roof jump gave her extra slack and leeway for error, but they hit hard and rolled, Eliot clinging to her and forcing her on top of him as he crashed into the floor when their feet and legs gave way at impact. You couldn't always land on your feet she thought, a little mad at herself, but still, they were in one piece. Relatively speaking.

Breathing hard, she took a second to stare up at the sky above and the building they had just plummeted from, laying on her back as Eliot eased her over, and laughed, utterly delighted that it had worked. Eliot was also breathing hard, but unhooked them and got to a crouching position first, leaning in his knuckles as he squeezed his eyes of the tears that the bracing air had forced from them. Her face was wet too, so she wiped the leaks away and got it together.

"You OK?" He asked as he sorted his aches out, running a hand across his shoulder blades and spine, and she knew the strain hurt. She nodded, reaching up to help him, but he moved away, just a fraction so she couldn't touch his shoulders. The kiss, she realised, feeling panicked. He was withdrawing from her. Oh crap.

"Are you kidding me? Best. Jump. Ever." She grinned and he hesitated before cracking a grin in return, laughing a little.

"Crazy doesn't do you justice Parker. C'mon let's go."

At the air duct, she told him the score, in hushed tones.

"Remember the Cartwright job?" He nodded, serious and focused. "Well it's like that but with four more floors and live guards."

"How many?" He retied his hair as he asked and she recalled his mouth under hers. "How many Parker?" Impatient as always. She wondered if he would ever talk about it. The kiss. Then knew he wouldn't. Hardison had. That fake make out, he had wanted to talk about right after it happened. This hadn't been a fake kiss. but a spontaneous act of ...affection. Yeah. Parker wasn't sure what that meant. Maybe it didn't need talk to put it in context. He was still waiting, watching.

"Five. All first floor, CCTV covers the rest." He nodded again, thoughtful now.

"So we run it like we did in Chicago and add that short-cut we needed in Dakota?" Parker nodded. Nice. She agreed, then smiled in recollection.

"Dakota was fun." As she recalled, Eliot had dispatched quite a few of the marks henchmen using a rolling pin at one point. He smiled in return.

"Yeah, yeah it was. But we can get all misty eyed after we've finished this little matter we are kinda in the middle of." He was concentrating, the kiss nothing but a memory, and probably not even that. Man she was feeling Hardison's pain suddenly. She wanted it bought up. Not sure to what end, but an acknowledgement would be nice. She needed to focus. Whatever Parker. Stop being such a, well, girl.

"Right." Usually she was all business. She blinked, this was her job. She ran the floor plans in her head, one last time, planning the quickest route to the alarm system and pictured the security of the shop floor. Totally do-able.

"Call it 9 minutes?" It wasn't really a question from Eliot as set his watch and Parker did the same. She was actually about to rob Tiffany's. It made her tingle. She mock saluted him, before dropping into the vent. He would need her to let him in, which she did in precisely 12.5 seconds. He looked impressed as he entered.

"Nice." She shrugged, indifferent to the praise.

"I've thought about this a lot."

He smiled in a pained way and shook his head. "Most girls dream about a ring from Tiffany's. Not you. You dream of its schematics. Crazy is as crazy does."

With another shake of his head, he vanished, and she knew he would rewire the camera footage. Looping should cover it. Patrols were harder to handle, but he had her back. Full of confidence, she got to work, and headed to the alarm system.

Four and a half minutes later, the guards were asleep, and the alarms disengaged and the outside world cut off. They owned Tiffany's. Sat cross legged on a glass cabinet however, Parker was frowning as Eliot swept in, having dealt with the guards as gently as he knew how. He didn't like hurting civilian security. He was funny like that. Unless they pointed guns at people with intent that is.

"What the hell you waitin' for?" He shrugged at her. She shrugged back.

"It doesn't feel right." She whispered it across the space, and he jogged up to meet her at the cabinet, his brow so creased she thought he may turn himself inside out.

"Feel right? Parker tell me we did not break in to Tiffany's for you to have a crisis of freakin' conscience. I did not fall 40 storeys for a scout badge darlin'."

"I don't know," she really was not sure what was going with her herself. Just that when she was about to start cutting glass, something stopped her. It seemed, well, wrong. "They didn't do anything bad." Eliot paused and sighed at that, before leaning next to her, arms crossed, surveying the store.

"Dammit Parker you let Nate get in your head. Dude has a way a doing that." He tapped the side of his own head, grimacing. "You still do your own jobs don't you? So what's the difference?"

"I guess, now we did it, it feels kinda tacky. We could empty this place you know."

"Yeah we could." A cocky, we did it grin from Eliot and they fist bumped. Parker smiled.

"But that would screw Rule Four right? Maybe it's the knowing we could that I needed. If we do this, it's just so I get more stuff." It wasn't satisfying. There was no big pay off. Art work? That enhanced your rep. Tiffany's had already been robbed back in 93. This wasn't new ground. Balls it was annoying.

"Stuff that translates into cash Parker." She made a whatever noise.

"I just keep looking at the sparkly stuff and...I feel empty." It bothered her a lot. "I got a bigger rush jumping you off the building next door than this case is giving me. Do you think I should just get into extreme sports as a career?"

Eliot looked at her, assessing whatever he saw carefully.

"Maybe you just need a reason now. That's all. Hey, do they profit from blood diamonds? That'd make it cool to-"

"Nah they're pretty solid. They're on the World Diamond Council and fight for Mining Reform." She said it in her mimicking voice and sighed, annoyed by Tiffany's ethical attitude.

"Well unless you wanna be caught for the crime we didn't commit? We gotta go, but-" He looked about, concerned. Parker knew why."Leaving it like this is gonna cause issues."

"Yeah." Then Parker grinned as a new idea sprung to mind. "Hey Eliot?"

"What?"

"Give me a hand."

Every single cabinet was switched. Nothing remained as it had been. It satisfied a childish sense of mischief in Parker, to imagine the staff arriving in the morning to discover the entire collection had been scrambled. A $28,000 diamond encrusted watch now cost the same as a sterling silver Infinity ring, at $125 and vice versa. It was silly, but so satisfying.

Eliot grinned at her delight, and even signed a cabinet in marker pen, Because we could, H & T.

Now time ticked against them as they worked, with quick grins and experienced hands. When finished, Parker grabbed Eliot by throwing an arm about his shoulder and took a photo of them, head to head with their work behind them. Eliot allowed it, but was gone in an instant as soon as the cell snapped the picture. He shoved his hands in his pockets. She didn't regret not stealing anything. This? Nah, this was better.

It appealed to a sense of achievement in her beyond the thievery. The knowledge that she could also resist when she wanted. That she was in charge of the stealing, and not the other way around. A small, but important distinction, that had only raised its head on occasion before, but seemed to matter a great deal right now.

They exited the building with twenty seconds to spare.

Eliot didn't speak as they drove away, and Parker wondered if she should say something. Anything. But then decided against it. Confusing emotions bubbled up inside her as she watched his profile, and any words she could think of fell short of what ever it was she wanted to say.

"Thanks Eliot." That seemed safe enough. He glanced across at her, whilst she untied her hair from its knotted bun, and she felt his scrutiny, even as the adrenalin of the not quite a job wore off. His intent gaze increased the pumping of her blood weirdly, and for the first time, she felt truly nervous in his presence. Not because she really wasn't sure what he might do, but because she wasn't sure what she wanted him to do. Which was dumb.

"You're welcome Parker." Cool, his reply was very cool. She shifted in her seat. They drove by Radio City Music Hall, and memories of a delinquent childhood on New York's streets flooded her. They really weren't all bad. Apart from meeting Archie, and the X's, she had ran wild in this city for a long time. It was a big bad city and that had suited her well for a while.

Curling up in the seat, and slipping her shoes off, she rested her head on the head rest and watched him as he drove. She felt peaceful as the quiet of New York's early morning sped by, the folks in SoHo drinking coffee and still selling a kind a wares that didn't have a closing time, and she yawned, relaxed.

"Why don't you get some shut eye Parker? We got a long ways to go yet." Eliot's voice was low and she nodded, even as her eyes refused to open again. Sounded like a great idea.

"Wake me up when it's my turn Eliot."

"I will Parker. I will." He sounded tired too Parker thought as she drifted off.

Eliot pulled in at a gas station near Hoboken after the Holland Tunnel and topped up the tank and bought a coffee. He considered waking Parker, the dismissed the idea. She was out like a light, all curled up like a cat. A blonde pretty cat. He sighed and leant on the side of the truck a spell, as the dawn began its journey across the sky.

That kiss. Damn that kiss. It played over and over in his mind. Man it was...well, it had been, just...Shit he had no idea how to define it. Had it been the fact that adrenalin was already pounding through his veins from the jump that made it hit so hard? That made it burn, her lips on his? that made him want to open his mouth and kiss the hell out of her as they flew through New York's skyline? Guilt clogged him up. Hardison. So far away, but right here at the same time. Parker had given no indication that it meant more than a burst of gleeful excitement during the moment. And it had been chaste after all, a peck, though the pressure of her lips on his had felt like a whole lot more. At least to him. Which made him all kinds of fool. He needed to get his shit together with this deal. Even if it had meant something more to Parker, what of it anyhow? Hardison was a good guy. Eliot may be a no good son of a bitch but he didn't mess with people he cared about. Any one else, well, he had been less than discriminate on occasion, but this? He wasn't this guy.

But he really wanted to be. Which was fucked up.

He bought another gallon of coffee and more snacks for when Parker woke up, knowing she'd want to eat. He'd wrapped the second plate of pancakes and put them in his bag too. Why he'd done that he had no clue either. It was worryingly thoughtful. Damn it. She was gettin' under his skin. And he couldn't undo that. but he could put a stop to it. Had to. Back on the road, he got on the New Jersey turnpike, turning up the radio to help him keep awake, needing the distraction from the thoughts the girl beside him had triggered. The items in his pocket mocked him. Crap. This was getting all kinds of messed up.

Dawn was streaking across the sky now, prepping the way for the sun, and the grey of night gave way to white and pink and mauve, with orange gold cresting the horizon. Another reason he had wanted to drive had been for this. The moments of wonder you only got when you were driving some place at hours no one else did. The Newark Bay gleamed in the distance, and the sight of water soothed him, as a song began on the radio he had heard before but never really listened to. Had a good chorus, kinda uplifting so he turned up the volume and settled back, an elbow on the window letting music and the dawn take him away. Then found his eyes drawn to Parker as the words lingered in the truck, light hitting the windscreen and her hair shining like white gold.

Time waits for no one,
So do you want to waste some time,
Oh, oh tonight?
Don't be afraid of tomorrow,
Just take my hand, I'll make it feel so much better tonight

He glanced at her, the night and all that had happened replaying in his mind.

Suddenly my eyes are open,
Everything comes into focus, oh,
We are all illuminated,
Lights are shining on our faces, blinding

Damn it, everything was about Parker now? Yet the lyrics hit him hard, and he swallowed, blinking as he reached the Newark Bay Bridge.

Swing me these sorrows,
And try delusion for a while,
It's such a beautiful night,
You've got to lose inhibition,
Romance your ego for a while,
Come on, give it a try

Oh man he was in over his head on this trip. That kiss, had she lost her inhibitions? The girl he had been pretty sure didn't have any? Steel glinted bright and he tried to concentrate, but the water was hypnotic and the sky was stunning, and Parker, crazy Parker was lit up from within every time he glanced at her. Which was a lot.

Suddenly my eyes are open,
Everything comes into focus, oh,
We are all illuminated,
Lights are shining on our faces, blinding

He started humming, then the words made so much sense he was singing along, tapping the steering wheel and ignoring something obvious because he wasn't prepared to do otherwise. Ever. Nope. But damn it was so clear, beneath the streaky New York morning sky, and he hated his own sorry ass for being such a schmuck. yet he sang the last lines anyway, hoarsely, trying not to wake her. Idiot.

Suddenly my eyes are open,
Everything comes into focus, oh,
We are all illuminated,
Lights are shining on our faces, blinding
...

The sooner this weekend was over the better. For everybody. And beyond that? Eliot was a realist. If shit got complicated, he wasn't contracted to stay for Gods sake. Like he needed the hassle?

Maybe Croatia needed liberating again. Or some damn place a million miles away.