See Chapter 1 for disclaimers.

Author's Note: More reviews mean more chapters :) ... Also, we're getting to the meat of the story now (at least, the meat as things stood before the story grew to twice its anticipated size), which makes me more impatient to keep things moving. I hope you like this one!

Eliot grabbed a coat for Parker as well as himself on his way out. She hadn't gone far. She was sitting on the front porch steps, arms wrapped round her legs and chin resting on her knees. She unwound long enough to shrug on the coat Eliot handed her as he sat down beside her.

"You want to try explaining?" he asked.

Parker shrugged.

"That wasn't really a question, y'know?" he nudged her.

She squinted at him, why ask like it was? written all over her face.

Eliot sighed.

"What was it about the food that bothered you?" he asked.

"It tasted like last times and leaving," Parker blurted out. "And you said cooking was how you let people see inside your head."

"I'm not leaving, Parker," he told her.

"You've already left," she said sadly.

"What?!" he protested. "I'm right here."

"Changed, then," Parker dismissed his objection.

"People do that, Parker," he told her. "Nothing stays the same forever."

Parker gave him a scathing look.

"We're supposed to change together," she said.

"It doesn't always work like that," Eliot told her. "Sometimes we need to change in different ways to keep the whole thing working."

She scowled.

"We were working just fine before," she said. "And we had more fun. You didn't have to change."

"The jobs changed," he told her. "We've been going after bigger, meaner targets more likely to retaliate, and pissing off a lot of people on both sides of the law while doing so. Ignoring that would be stupid."

"And, what? The best solution is for you to be our watchdog instead of our friend?"

Eliot didn't flinch. Parker almost wished he would, because the steady gaze he turned on her was far more unnerving.

"If that's how you want to look at it, yes," he said. "If you want to put it another way, it's about me being in the best position to do what needs to be done to keep us safe and able to keep helping people."

"Doing what needs to be done used to be both our jobs," Parker pointed out.

"Used to be," Eliot agreed.

Parker frowned, turning that over in her head to figure out what he meant.

"You've changed too, Parker," Eliot explained.

"I haven't!" she snapped. "I don't change unless I want to, and I liked how everything was."

"You have," Eliot insisted, quietly but relentlessly. "But it's a good thing. You and Hardison somehow made a way through that wall that used to separate us from the rest of the team for you: your instinct now is to do the right thing, not whatever is needed to get the job done."

"No," Parker denied.

Eliot kept quiet, giving her time to think it through.

"No," she said again, coming to stand in front of him, arms folded defiantly across her chest. "You said that being able to do the things the others couldn't or wouldn't do was a gift. How can it be a good thing for me to stop being that?"

"I said you could take it as a gift," Eliot reminded her. "And that's the best way to look at it from my side of that wall. But it's a gift you give to others, not a gift for yourself."

"What if I want to keep doing that?" her voice shook.

Eliot stood to meet her eye-to-eye.

"You don't," he told her. "I know it's frightening because you've never lived on the other side before, but it's a good life. A better one. And the closer you've got to it, the happier you have been. All you've got to do is take the final step and close the door behind you."

"Come with me?" There were tears starting now.

Eliot shook his head.

"I spent a lot of time looking for a way through, over, or under that wall," he told her. "There isn't one for me, and I don't want one anymore."

"Then how can you tell me it's a better life?"

"Because it is," Eliot insisted. "It's just not one that I can live."

"I don't understand."

Eliot was starting to think he needed to give Hardison more credit for patience.

"Look," he said, a little impatience creeping into his own tone, "my job is to keep everyone safe. To do that, I have to be able to the kinds of things most people can't or won't do. For me, the pay-off is worth it. I would rather do those things than have something happen and then have to live with knowing I could have prevented it."

"But that's what you expect me to do," Parker said, wanting to be sure she understood correctly.

Eliot paused. He hadn't really considered that she would see herself in that position.

"No," he told her. "It has never been your job to prevent those things from happening – at least, not by doing the kind of things I do. And besides, I'll be here to take care of them."

"And if they happen to you? Who's keeping you safe?"

"I am," he replied. "You, Hardison, and I all do what we can to watch out for each other, but I watch my own back too. None of that changes."

"But – " Parker started.

"And if it ever does come down to that?" he interrupted, really not wanting to hear her say the words. "You need to know that I'm okay with it ending there. You two keep yourselves safe, and your hands clean, and I'll thank you for it a lot more than any stupid heroics."

Parker was smart enough not to argue with that. She recognised the truth when she heard it.

"So, I have to leave you behind," she said.

"Yeah," he smiled a little, the argument was apparently over. "Think of it as your last time doing what needs to be done. And as my gift to you."

She nodded, face settling into resolution.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"You start by going inside and eating Christmas dinner with your family," he told her.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I'll be in, in a bit," he said. "Will you grab me another beer on your way?"

She nodded, turning towards the door. After a couple of steps, though, she turned around again and came back, wrapping him in a boa constrictor-type hug.

"We're your family too, Eliot," she told him. "And we're the world's best thieves. So, we could steal you, too, just like they stole me."

Eliot's eyes squeezed closed, and he couldn't have said if it was with pain or laughter.

"You can't steal what's already been given to you, darlin'," he reminded her. "Besides, I'm right where I need – and want – to be. Now, go eat before the food gets any colder."