A/N: Some people portray Parker as basically normal with just a few quirks, but I tend to see her as a little more – ah – clinical . . .

)()()()(

Parker drove until the fuel light came on, then left the keys in the ignition and stole another car from a parking lot, muscling Eliot from one seat to the other. She drove without a plan, picking exits at random. It was getting late by the time she ditched the second car for a diesel truck, which she drove to a Super 8 Motel following the signs on the highway.

The desk clerk had to ask her to slow down – apparently she was talking too fast, or just not making any sense. Finally she got a room and paid for it with the clerk's own stolen cash (she'd lifted it within the first few minutes of entering the lobby).

Things were taking on a dream-like quality, like when she'd first learned to steal and realized she'd never have to want anything again. For three years she'd taken everything she could get her hands on, not even keeping track of what she'd stolen, taking things just to help her steal something else – wallets, fancy jewelry, credit cards, cash. The world had been suddenly open to her: nothing had been out of reach.

She'd hurt people, she realized that now, even regretted it, distantly, but how could it really matter – how could it make a difference, when she was the only living thing on the face of the earth? Everybody else was a shadow moving in slow-motion; only Parker was alive, dreaming, feeling, wanting, moving at the speed of light. Crazy? Oh yeah, she'd been crazy in those days, maybe she always had been and still was. She'd only stopped when she wanted to take on bigger challenges – true heists, which took a lot of planning. Petty theft was the act of an instant, natural as breathing, but robbing a bank had the necessity of research, of forethought, the need for stillness that burned the fever from her veins.

She dragged Eliot into the room and left him sprawled over the bed, hurrying back into the night. She was fairly certain the bad guys couldn't track them (after all, she wasn't sure where they were, herself) but she still had one thing left to do.

It took her a while to find a stretch of road out in the country with a high enough bridge.

She parked the truck and leaned out over the guard rail in the blinking of the hazard lights. It looked a lot like the place where she'd come out of the water herself – was it only a week ago? She even checked the banks for trampled bushes, just in case. There was no sign of any disturbance (that was good: returning to the scene of the crime was a total amateur move). The water slipped away silently beneath her, visible only as a glinting sliver ribbon in the flicking light of her headlamps.

It was hard to believe she couldn't ever go back to Nate's apartment and make herself some cereal. Everything had changed – or, maybe it had just gone back to the way things had always been. She was alone in the world, no future, no ties. And now she was a killer.

Parker leaned out far over the railing. She had Nate's gun in her hand, and she stretched her arm as far as it could reach - then opened her fingers and let the gun drop down into the black water. Maybe it sank into a deep pool, or maybe it was carried hundreds of miles downstream. Either way, they would never trace it back to her, or Nate.

Parker wasn't someone to dwell on the past. If she thought too much about all the terrible things that happened, she would - well, she wouldn't have any fun. Forget that.

All she had to do was drop Eliot off someplace close to Boston, and then she could get out of here. She was thinking of returning to Thailand, where she had once lived for almost a year. That was the longest she had stayed in one place since she was seven years old – except for the time she had been with the Leverage team, of course. And it was a short hop to Kuala Lumpur, which had a thriving financial district . . .

She had evaded Hardison for six months in Sierra Leone, but it didn't seem like a good idea to go back there any time soon.

She retraced her steps to the motel, then drove the truck off the road into some bushes where nobody would find it anytime soon. When she climbed out it was perfectly silent outside, and the absence of a moon made the night dark as pitch.

She loped easily back down the road and across the parking lot, back to the room where she found Eliot unmoving, exactly where she'd left him.

She approached him cautiously (he really hated it when she took him by surprise). He was still stretched across the bed on his stomach, which didn't really look very comfortable. "Eliot, wake up," she demanded.

No answer.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

Now that the adrenaline of her adventure had passed Parker was drained and cold and, maybe, a little freaked out that Eliot hadn't yelled at her yet.

She worked to roll him over onto his back - of course, Eliot had to be the biggest, heaviest man on the face of the planet. Parker consoled herself, as she wrestled him over, that it could have been worse - he could have been a yeti, like Hardison claimed to have seen once in Portland (this was pretty close, though).

She couldn't see any obvious injuries that were, like, gushing blood or anything. The only thing she noticed, where his shirt rode up, was angry black bruises on his stomach. At least one of them looked like the mark of a boot.

She tucked him under the spare blanket - he felt hot, or maybe her hands were just cold? Parker didn't know. She looked hard into his slack, gentle face. This was Eliot she was talking about - he was built like a rhino! He would be fine by tomorrow, and then she could start financing her trip to Phuket.

There was only one bed but Parker didn't worry about that. She snuggled up to Eliot's broad back and closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep fast. Eliot was like a giant teddy bear, a giant heated teddy bear. Which sounded like a real bear, come to think of it. Maybe Eliot was at least a little less likely to eat her.

Somewhat comforted, she closed her eyes and tried to go straight to sleep, listening to the unfamiliar sound of someone breathing next to her.

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