A/N: So, this is finally the end of the story. For a while there I thought it'd never be done! Well, the honest truth is, it still isn't. I might kinda have an Epilogue to follow this, little bit of a flash-forward just for the sake of more E/P after the looong wait. Thanks for all the fab reviews fo far. Oh, and you're welcome ;)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 21

Eliot couldn't sleep. He had spent several hours tossing and turning, determined to get some rest. Besides, getting up and doing anything else would probably disturb Parker and he really didn't want to do that. His mind had been buzzing ever since she told him about her High School based coma dream, mostly because of his part in it. He was being ridiculous, Eliot was all aware of that. Just because Parker had some fantasy in her head where he was her High School boyfriend, it didn't mean she had feelings for him. At the same time, she hadn't exactly tried to get away when he thought about kissing her. Surely even Parker wasn't so naive she didn't see what would have happened if the team hadn't shown up when they did.

It actually made Eliot feel like he really was back in High School right now. As a teen it was impossible to navigate dating and girls feelings and all. He was good with women now, but back then things weren't so simple. No High School boy was that smooth and confident, at least not in the beginning. Getting closer to Parker was like learning the ropes all over again, because she wasn't like any other woman Eliot ever knew. Of all things he could face up to, screwing up with her was something he was genuinely scared about. That bothered Eliot more than anything else.

"You're crazier than she is, man," he muttered to himself as he got out of bed at last.

He had to be doing something, anything, and if he was quiet he could manage not to wake her. Stealth was practically his middle name, it had to be in his line of work. Pulling on his sweats, Eliot decided to head down to his gym and work out for a while. The noise wouldn't carry enough to wake his Sleeping Beauty down the hall, it never had before, and hitting something might actually make him feel better.

Eliot padded down to the gym in the basement without a sound. He started stretching out his muscles just as soon as he was in the door and then turned towards the mats and the punching bag hanging from the ceiling. He stopped short of starting any kind of work out when he spotted something on the other side of the room. There was a bench against the wall and more than once Parker had sat herself down there to rest. It seemed she left a book behind, and Eliot went over to retrieve it from the floor where it had fallen.

The hitter wasn't surprised when he realised the book wasn't of the fiction kind, since he had found Parker hadn't the patience to actually bother to read books most of the time. Instead it was a sketchpad she had been working on. She liked to draw and she was pretty damn good at it. Eliot encouraged her when she decided to pick up the old skill and run with it. The holding of the pencils and such, the concentrated movement of her fingers, hands, and arms, it had to be good for her. It helped Parker get the dexterity back in her upper body, and that was no bad thing at all.

Eliot never had seen the pictures his little thief drew here in the gym. Once or twice he peeked over her shoulder when she sat at the table or bunched up on the couch. She would draw pieces of furniture, copy pictures he had on his walls. A couple of times she had conjured up treasures she had stolen in the past from a Faberge egg to a Cloisonné vase and a rough interpretation of her favourite Vermeer. She didn't draw people much, though Eliot knew she could. Of course, he thought that only because he hadn't seen her do so recently.

"Huh," he reacted with some surprise when he let the pages fall open as they had been before and found a perfect portrait of himself, hitting out at the bag across the room.

Curious by now and not thinking about decency or privacy, Eliot turned the large pages over and over in the pad. There was more than one picture of him, and all were very good, but it was the one towards the back of the book that confused him. It did look like him, and yet not. The drawing was of a boy rather than a man, an interpretation of what he might've looked like aged seventeen or so, he realised. Of course, Eliot knew better than Parker. He didn't have long hair back then, and she hadn't quite got his features right, but she was close, almost scarily close.

Eliot stood there just staring at that picture that was meant to be a younger him, when a crash rang out from upstairs. With the sketch pad still clutched in his hand he bolted for the door and up the steps in record time. He swung into Parker's room, making quite a clatter himself, only to find her sat on the edge of the bed looking just fine.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, momentarily breathless from the shock and the hurrying.

"I kinda wobbled," she admitted, feeling stupid. "Put my hand on the table, table went crash," she admitted, gesturing towards the piece of toppled furniture.

Eliot's eyes barely shifted from the figure of the woman herself. In the shorts and vest top she slept in, she was all pale flesh and well-toned muscles. Parker was obviously hot and gymnastic in her clothes, but out of them just hammered the point home. Eliot forced his eyes shut to block out thoughts that poured in unbidden, until she spoke again.

"Is that my sketch book?" she asked wish a slight frown, watching the hitter as he looked as confused as she was.

The truth was Eliot had almost completely forgotten the thing was in his hand until she said it. He moved to hand the book over, the both of them staring at the page it was still open on - the picture of a make-believe teenaged Eliot Spencer.

"That's not bad," he smiled slightly, meeting Parker's eyes. "Not exactly how I was but..."

"I was just guessing, doodling, y'know," she shrugged awkwardly.

Eliot got an idea then, and though he knew it might be his dumbest ever, it was all he had so he was running with it.

"I wanna show you something," he told the thief, holding out his hand for her to take.

Parker grabbed onto it without hesitation. She never did have a trust issue or a touching problem with Eliot. He was one of the very few people in her life she could say that about, even if she couldn't explain it. She grabbed the comforter with her other hand, dragging it up off the bed as she got to her feet. Eliot helped wrap it around her shoulders with his free hand, and took her through to the living room, encouraging her to sit down on the couch.

Making herself comfortable, Parker watched Eliot as he searched through to the back of a cupboard on the far side of the room. It didn't take him long to put his hand on the item he wanted, which she was surprised to realise was an old VHS tape.

"This oughta entertain ya," he smiled, flipping the video over in his hand before inserting it into the player Parker hadn't even realised was hidden under the TV.

She really wasn't sure what she was about to see as the hitter took a seat beside her, pushing his hair out of his face as he pressed play. There was a lot of black screen and crackling picture at first, then a buzz of sound and voices fading in and out.

When the video and audio finally synched up and cleared, Parker saw a bunch of faces, a couple of teenaged boys and a girl. They all wore blue and white clothes, football shirts, she supposed, and a cheerleaders uniform. This was a tape of high school, and she was just going to open her mouth and ask what movie they were watching when an oh so familiar face appeared, speaking in an all too familiar voice.

"Oh my God," she gasped at the sight of Eliot as he had been aged seventeen.

His hair was much shorter than it was now and his face looked thinner somehow. He was not much like the picture she carried in her head from her own High School fantasy, but there was no doubting at all he was Eliot, from the sparkling blue eyes to the Southern drawl.

Parker leaned forward in her seat, and Eliot watched her watching him as he fooled around with his friends on the screen. They were headed to the Homecoming game, getting all fired up about the win they were determined to get. A couple of cheerleaders stood up in the back of a truck, waving their arms and bouncing around as if they were sugar high. A couple of Eliot's buddies were talking about thrashing the opposition team, and everyone just looked so very happy.

The film cut after a few minutes, wobbly scenes from the Homecoming game came next, then somewhere dark. The cheerleaders and football players and other teens danced around, cheering happily about their win. Then Eliot appeared again, standing on the cab roof of his old truck, playing air guitar to music that blared from the radio, whilst others whooped and hollered for him. He wore the crown of Homecoming King and he just looked so happy.

"Hey," the screen went blank in an instant and Parker turned to look at the real Eliot then, only noticing then that she was crying. "I didn't mean to make you feel worse, darlin', I'm sorry," he apologised, reaching out a hand to her cheek and wiping away a lonely tear.

"I'm okay," she assured him, leaning into his touch without really thinking about it. "You just looked so happy. You almost never look that happy now."

Eliot's hand dropped away from her face then and he glanced away.

"Things change," he said grimly. "People change. Life ain't a bowl of cherries when you stop being a kid."

"Life's not so great when you are a kid sometimes," she countered with a look he had to face. "I know you're not perfect, Eliot," she told him then. "You've done things you wish you hadn't, but we could all say that. At least you got the happy part first," she shrugged, with a vague gesture towards the now-blank TV screen.

It tore at Eliot's heart to look at Parker then. She had suffered so much, and so little of it was her own fault. The hitter himself could bear the guilt of all he'd done wrong. In comparison to his reputation that was mostly based in truth, Parker was practically an angel. Sure, she was a thief, the best thief there was, but she didn't hurt anybody, not really. She had missed out on so much in her life, and Eliot would love to give it to her if he could. Unfortunately, a happy childhood, a high school experience, none of that could be bought or even stolen. What he could do was try to make her future that much brighter than her past. He could love her like she had never been loved before. Eliot had started to wonder if he was capable of feelings that deep for a long time, but if anyone could evoke them in him, it was her.

"Parker," her name came out much softer than he intended as he lifted her chin with one finger. "Darlin', if I could give you what I had, all the good times when I was in high school and all, I'd do it. I'd hand it all over in a heart beat if I thought it'd make you happy."

She couldn't breathe when she looked up then and met his eyes. The feelings were so familiar and real. It was as if she was transported back to the High School she had conjured in her head, and Eliot was holding her on the dancefloor, the king to her queen. He was going to kiss her, and she wanted him to, more than she wanted diamonds or money or anything at all in this moment.

Parker's eyes fell shut as she let herself drift forward and suddenly felt Eliot's lips on her own. It was different to how she had imagined it, but in all the best ways as his arms wound around her, pulling her closer whilst the kiss went on. By the time he pulled away enough to meet her eyes again and let her breathe, Parker felt the very best kind of dizzy.

"Woah," she declared without thinking about it. "That was different."

"Good different?" Eliot checked, a smile on his lips that was both amused and oddly nervous.

"Oh yeah," Parker nodded quickly. "I always thought reality could never live up to imagination but... you do," she smiled, "and then some."

There was nothing at all for Eliot to say to that so he didn't try, just moved in to kiss Parker again. She responded favourably, pulling him to her as tight as she could, falling into a moment she would have happily let go on forever.

Her High School dream had been fun, and when she returned from that other world she was sure she would miss it. The truth was, she did miss seeing Archie and poor Frankie too, but the only thing she felt such a desperation to have back was the relationship between herself and Eliot. If he was kissing her like this, it had to mean something, had to mean they were going to be as they had been in her fantasy.

"So, you're my boyfriend now, right?" she checked, breaking the kiss so suddenly that Eliot almost lost his balance and fell on top of her. "I mean, we're gonna do this kissing thing a lot now, and I... I have these feeling for you, which you must be having for me too, right? Or is this not what I think it is...?"

"Parker," he cut her off with her name, tone just harsh enough to silence her but soft enough to be kind. "Sweetheart, slow down," he urged her, tucking her hair behind her ear. "How about we take this a day at a time, and not put a label on it, right now we'll just be Parker and Eliot, and see how things work out?" he suggested. "I know we're not exactly giddy teens and all, but we got plenty of time, right?"

All Parker could do was nod her head in agreement, before letting herself fall back against the sofa cushions and pulling Eliot down with her, into another deep kiss. No, they weren't teenagers, and he couldn't give her what she missed, but that was okay. She didn't really need the bother of attending classes or going to dances. Parker didn't have the hottest, sweetest, nicest guy in school to call her own. Instead, he was the best guy in the whole world to her, and right now, all she wanted and needed.

The End...

...except not quite because there is an Epilogue coming soon )