You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart – Sinead O'Connor

I hope you're happy now..
I could never make you so...
You were a hard man...
No harder in this world
You made me cold, you made me hard
And you made me the
Thief of your heart

Parker was fascinated with heartbeats. Whenever she hugged someone – which was rare, but not as rare as it used to be because now she had Eliot and since Eliot didn't clutter up her silence with words and liked to touch instead now she was getting used to returning the touches – she would press her head to their chest and listen for the steady thumpthump thumpthump thumpthump that told her they were alive and breathing and blood was still moving through them.

Nick didn't have a heartbeat. His heartbeat was gone and no heartbeat meant no more ice cream no more scary stories under a blanket at night no more fireworks no more swinging in the park no more riding bikes no more baby brother.

Her stepfather and her mother hadn't had heartbeats either but that didn't make her cry – that made her happy and she hugged Bunny and whispered to him Don't worry now Bunny we'll be alight now that they can't hurt us anymore so heartbeats were very important to Parker because a heartbeat could mean either that she didn't do it right or she did do it right – only a heartbeat could tell her the truth. They were her grading scale. If she was told to be in and out of a building with no casualties and she accidentally stopped four or five hearts that meant that she would have to work the lasers again but with no ice cream and that was no fun because there was no challenge and for every heartbeat she stopped – or didn't stop – it was another hour at the lasers.

She understood now that it was practice and practice makes perfect Parker was perfect now but Archie used to say most people will practice until they get it right but we practice until we never get it wrong and until the STERANCO Parker never had gotten it wrong.

But now that she was a "good guy" she was graded on how many heartbeats she didn't stop and it was her job to ensure that the hearts of her teammates didn't ever stop because that was the ultimate challenge for Parker to work with a team to keep them alive.

Well, she told herself, actually it was Eliot's job but quis custodiet ipsos custodes* to them who was Eliot to say that he didn't need any help because he did need help but not help with acting or chess or World of Warcraft he needed help with keeping his heart beating and that was something that Parker knew how to do because heartbeats were very important to her and even though she could see him walking around with barely a limp she still worried and Parker didn't like to worry because Archie said that worrying was for people who didn't know what they were doing but right now Parker really didn't know what she was doing because she was doing something she had never done before in her life – she was winging it.

Parker dropped down from the air vent into his kitchen and threw her arms around his broad shoulders with her hand over his heart to feel the strong pulse of his heart Eliot's heartbeat was one of the strongest she had ever felt before even when he wasn't in motion it was like it was trying to fight it's way out of his chest and Parker thought that it wanted to be with her too and she would steal Eliot's heart.

Even though she knew that his heart was strong and healthy Parker worried for him because she didn't have a plan for Eliot he was new to her and she didn't know what she was doing but she would fight to keep his heart strong fight for him until his heart stopped beating and maybe even then because this thing that they had together was both wonderful and terrible

but Parker loved every beat it lasted.

*Who will guard the guardians