The Retrieval Of

Kenna Shane Spencer

Home Is Where Your Hitter Is

"You, my son, stink." The little boy smiled at his father from the changing table. "I know what you eat my little friend and I know it does not smell that bad going in."

"Daddy, whys you talkin' to Chance like he's big?"

"Because your mother gets pissed when I talk baby talk."

"You said a bad word daddy." Eliot looked at the little blue-eyed girl standing on a turtle at the end of the changing table.

"Yeah Peanut, I did. Don't tell Mama." He grabbed wipes out of the container.

"What will you give me if I don't tell?" Looking up he glared at his daughter.

"You have been spending way too much time with your aunt and uncle. I will put brussel sprouts in your spaghetti-o's from now on if you say one word about my mouth." She made her sour puss face.

"You win." She stepped down. "But you really need to watch your mouth Dad." She stomped out of the room and Eliot shook his head.

"Damn Spencer temper." He looked down at Chance. "You better be the mellow one of the family mister, 'cause I cannot take anymore mood swings around this place." Eliot finished changing the baby's diaper and took him out into the living room. Kenna was still sleeping and he hoped she would be okay waking up alone. Faith was sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest watching Sponge Bob on the television.

"Turn it down Faith Valentine…you are not deaf and your mom is still sleeping."

"Yes, sir." She grabbed the remote and punched the volume button till the TV was at an acceptable volume. "I liked you better when she was gone." The little girl mumbled.

"What was that Faith?" Eliot looked over at his daughter.

"Nofing daddy." She returned. He put Chance in the bouncy seat.

"It better be nothing Faith Valentine. Pancakes or eggs?"

"Eliot eggs please." Still grumpier then he would like but a little less disrespectful.

"Sophie sausage or Bonanno bacon."

"Sophie sausage and Hardison hash browns." The girl looked at him. "Can we bring Mama breakfast in bed?"

"You bet." She turned off the TV and went to the kitchen and climbed on the stool and sat on the counter next to her brother's seat.

"Will Mama let me sit like Auntie Parker?" Eliot cracked eggs into a bowl.

"I'm sure she won't have a problem with it. She's not fond of chairs herself."

"I missed her." He looked up at his daughter. She was looking at Chance and letting him grab at her finger. "Do you think she missded me Daddy?"

"Darlin' she missed you more than anything." Reaching into the fridge he got the milk out.

"Then why did she gets another baby?" He stopped what he was doing and went to her.

"Faith she didn't…" Where the hell was Nate when he needed him? He would know what to say. "Chance…Mommy thought you would want a brother to play with…to love." Eliot could handle interrogations with a gun to his head but a three year old with braids and big blue eyes was gonna be the death of him.

"I guess he's okay. He's kinda tiny."

"He'll grow Peanut." Eliot ruffled her hair. "I thought the same thing about Auntie Jodi when Grandma brought her home." He went back to breakfast.

"You like Auntie Jodi."

"Yeah, but she was really tiny when Grandma brought her home. I was only two and I was mad cause they brought home this new toy I couldn't play with."

"When Auntie Parker brought Chance to Uncle Steve's she broughts me a new hippo."

"That's cause Auntie Parker thought you needed another hippo." Eliot smiled and rolled his eyes.

"That wasn't nice of Grandma not to give you a hippo."

"Well grandma didn't know about the whole hippo thing back then." He put the sausage in the frying pan. "Grab the Nathan napkins, will ya?" Faith reached into the drawer beneath her and grabbed a hand full of napkins and set them on the counter.

"Does Chance eat Eliot eggs?"

"No darlin'. He just drinks milk." Eliot closed his eyes. He so hoped she wouldn't ask about Kenna nursing last night.

"He's kinda cute." Looking up at his daughter and son Eliot's heart skipped a beat. Faith was stroking her brother's cheek. In all his thirty eight years he never felt he was worthy of any kind of normal life. Even when he was younger he knew he wasn't destined for a wife and kids. Now here he stood, in his kitchen, cooking with two kids and a wife. "Daddy, Sophie is burning." Faith's voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"What baby?"

"The sausage." Eliot looked down and pulled the frying pan off the stove.

"Guess I was daydreaming."

"Is that like night dreamin'?"

"Kinda. Jump down and get some silverware for Mama." The little girl did as she was told and Eliot served eggs, sausage, toast, hashbrowns and juice and put it on a tray. Chance had fallen asleep in his seat so Eliot moved the seat to his room. "You ready to bring mama her breakfast?" As an after-thought he grabbed a cup of coffee.

"Yep." She grabbed her mini hippo she carried everywhere with her and headed up the steps. "You like you new room Daddy?"

"Yeah, Peanut, it's great. How is your new room?"

"I likes it berry much." Opening the door Eliot let the little girl in the room. Kenna was in the middle of the king size bed. Faith went to jump up but he set the tray down and grabbed her before she tackled her mother.

"Slow down darlin'. Your mama hasn't had us waking her up in a while. We don't want to scare her." Eliot put his knee on the bed and slid the knife that he kept under his pillow out and into the bedside drawer. "Kenna?" He shook her a little bit. "Kenna?"

"You better have coffee."

"We's got Jodi juice and Eliot eggs." Faith put her face inches from her mothers. "You gonna open your eyes Mama?"

"Maybe if your daddy's got coffee." Eliot moved the cup to the bedside table.

"He's gots it Mama." Kenna smiled and pulled the little girl into her arms and started blowing raspberries against the little girls neck. "That tickles Mama."

"Good." She opened her eyes and looked at her daughter. "How's my baby girl?"

"Daddy made you breakfast…me too but I gots to wait till we bringed yours."

"Well thank you for waiting for me sweet pea." The little girl smiled.

"I missed you Mama." The girl hugged her mother.

"I missed you too Faith Valentine." She looked over the girls shoulder at her husband. He looked like he had gotten a little more sleep last night. "Thank you Daddy." Smiling Eliot handed her the coffee he knew she desperately needed.

"You're welcome. Chance is fed, changed and napping. Nate called and they're on the midnight flight from Paris so they want to have breakfast with us in the morning."

"I want to go meet their flight." Eliot nodded.

"Okay, I'll put the kids down at Amy's or Parker and Hardison's tonight. I don't think they'll mind." Kenna nodded.

"Thank you." He leaned against the dresser.

"Anything for you darlin'." He watched the interaction between mother and daughter and was amazed how they had barely missed a beat. Other than Faith's bigger vocabulary it could have been any morning in the last seven months. Again he thanked whom ever gave him this life. The woman in his bed and the kids in his heart were his everything now. The money and the job were just a bonus.

"Eliot?" The sound of Kenna saying his name broke him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah."

"Faith wants some Eliot eggs."

"You got it Peanut." He picked the little girl up. "Eat, take a shower…go back to bed. Take it easy, you my dear deserve it."

"I'll be down in a little bit." Eliot leaned over and kissed her.

"Don't take too long. I did the one kid thing but I'm not sure I can deal with two."

"Eliot Spencer is admitting weakness?"

"You didn't see what I had to change this morning." He smiled. "Meet you down stairs." Kenna watched her husband walk out of the room with their daughter. She laid back and finished her breakfast. She was home now. Safe with Eliot and their family. Nate and Sophie would come home tonight and they would all be safe. Or so she hoped.

o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o

"How long do you think she can hang like that?" Eliot looked at his daughter. She was hanging upside down from the railing of the stair case.

"You left her alone with Parker. She'll want to sleep upside down now." Kenna shook her head.

"Hi Mama." The little girl smiled. Her brown braid hitting the floor.

"Hey Sunshine." Her hands hit the floor and she did the perfect walk over. "We should enroll her in gymnastics."

"And tell them that our thief taught her the basic moves but she needs more tweaking?" Eliot chuckled. The little girl bounded up to them.

"Can I have some ice cream please?" She gave her mother the wide eyed smile.

"You know where the apples are Faith." Eliot looked at her.

"Yes Daddy." She scrunched up her nose and headed to the kitchen.

"An apple?"

"Faith and I have an understanding. If she still wants ice cream after her apple she's more than welcome to a bowl. And we have it for desert on Tuesday's, Thursday's and Saturdays."

"How many times has she gotten ice cream after her apple?"

"Twice. Both times she pretty much ate the whole day. I think she was going through a growing spurt." Eliot looked at his wife. "You okay?" She looked a little pale.

"Yeah, I'm going to work out for an hour or so. You okay with the kids?"

"Yeah, I'll manage." He touched her cheek. "Don't push it, okay." Smiling she nodded and headed toward the gym. She was gonna push it and he knew it. "Faith, call Parker and tell her you need a keeper." The little girl grabbed her apple from the table and tapped her ear bud.

"PARKER! Daddy says I need a keeper, you gots to come up here."

"On my way monkey." Parker said. "Tell daddy to turn the volume down on you tonsils."

"Daddy!"

"I heard Peanut." He took the ear bud out of the little girls ear and adjusted it. "I'm gonna go change. You tell Auntie Parker that Chance is sleeping and the monitor is on the counter. Finish your apple."

"Yes Daddy." He went upstairs leaving his daughter to her apple.

o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/

Kenna's punches hit the bag with such force that she was sure if Eliot hadn't reinforced the bag she might have put a hole in it. Her kicks hit the side of the bag hard and precise. Her punches were harder than they had ever been before. Her body was toner and she had lost a good five pounds but her curves were still there. Her fists slammed into the bag harder and harder. Closing her eyes she took a breath and continued the jabs.

"You've been practicing." Kenna looked at her husband standing at the door.

"I had nothing but time between jobs." She elbowed the bag hard. "I had so much crap going through my mind, it helped block some of it." Her body continued to beat on the bag with alarming force. Eliot moved but her senses were also heightened and her leg turned just enough to sweep his legs out from under him.

"I'm not the enemy Kenna." She turned and looked at him.

"I was angry and hurt that you did nothing to stop them from taking me." She reached down and offered him her hand. He pulled up on it and stood in front of her. Reaching out she touched his shoulder. "Then I saw you lying on the tarmac with the piece of metal in your shoulder and …I shut down. I let the anger boil inside me. It was almost as bad as when you left me in Kentucky. This time I couldn't drown myself in a bottle of moonshine."

"Did you tell them you were pregnant?" She took a step back and took a fighters stance.

"Not at first." She took a few short jabs at him and he ducked and blocked them. "I thought I would have a few weeks to figure out a way to get a message to Hardison that I was okay and that I wasn't dead. They watched me like a hawk for the first week or so." Eliot took a few swings at her but she blocked them with the expertise he knew she had. "Then they put Philip on me."

"Or he put himself on you." They spared silently for a few minutes, Eliot working harder than ever defending himself against Kenna's hits. "What happened when they found out you were pregnant?"

"Moreau looked almost guilty. I should have known then that he wasn't the one who planned my abduction." She stopped then. Even sweat covered and angry she was beautiful. Looking at him, she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms across her chest. "I lost hope of ever coming home after I had Chance. Moreau said he would bring him home for me but…I couldn't let him go. If I could have been the one to hand him over to you I could have lived with it. Knowing that you knew I was still alive."

"But if I had proof of life I would have stopped at nothing to find you."

"But you knew I wasn't dead."

"I was the only one other than Parker and Faith. Nate tried to humor me for a while. Let me go off on my own, but I knew I couldn't leave Faith and find you. I did my best to put feelers out but I needed to be home with her."

"I know. I did my best to leave traces of me behind at those jobs. A finger print here, a drop of blood there, thinking some red flags would pop up but then never did." She stood straight. "I'm sorry that I have to work this out in bits. I blocked a lot of it out till now."

"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." She smiled.

"I may never be the woman you fell in love again."

"Kenna, no matter what the hell went on the last seven months won't change the way I love you anymore than what I did the twenty years between meetings changed your feelings for me. You know what I've done. The people I've hurt. You never stopped loving me." She looked into his eyes. Not once since she walked back into his life had she seen anything but love for her in them. Even when they were fighting.

"I did really bad things Eliot." Her eyes never left his. "I had our son growing inside me and I did terrible, awful things." Tears ran down her face. "I can never take them back."

"You did them to save him Kenna, and to save Faith. No one is gonna judge you. You did them to save us." He reached for her and pulled her into his arms. "You saved us all Kenna. Don't ever forget that. Moreau and McClosky were the epitome of evil Darlin'. They had you but they didn't break you." He kissed the top of her head. "Your heart is what rules you. The only one allowed to break that is me." He held her close. "And that ain't never gonna happen." Her arms went around him and he felt her relax for the first time in days. He knew what Moreau could do to break a person and he also knew that it would take a lot of years and a whole lot of positive reinforcement to get over what the man had done.

"I couldn't bear it if this hurts more than just MY soul Eliot. What if Nate…"

"Darlin' Nate knows nothing in this world is black and white and he knows what Moreau and McClosky have done. He also cares so much that sometimes he needs to take time to decompress. Losing Sam nearly killed the man Kenna. Losing one of us just might." Eliot always knew Nate Ford was a man of emotion. He thought as much with his heart as he did with his head. That's why they did what they did.

"I just don't want them to be disappointed in me." Eliot knew the feeling. The day he met Moreau to find out about Ramshorn was the hardest day of his life. He had to leave Hardison flailing in a pool, strapped in a chair and the team found out how really bad Eliot Spencer was.

"Kenna no one, especially Nate could ever be disappointed in you." She was seven years old again. No one to care about her, afraid to mess up because it meant a beating, or worse. "None of us are angel's, Darlin'. Well maybe Faith and Chance but hell, they're our kids so you know they ain't gonna stay that way. Faith already has a head start." Kenna laughed.

"I've never been this messed up Eliot. I know I said I was a different person when the flight attendant had her hands all over you but I so wanted to rip her throat out."

"We'll work this all out Kenna. Don't be afraid to tell me you need to take a breath. I know how hard it can get. We all do. If it gets to be too much, just say so."

"I never have been weak Eliot, you know that."

"Yeah, and I also know that you are too hard on yourself. Worse than I am on myself." He pushed her arms length away and looked her in the eye. "We'll get through this together." She nodded and curled back into his arms. Eliot held her close. It was hard to see her struggling and he would do everything in his power to make things right but she had to fight back and he was afraid she didn't have it in her to do it.

o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o

"How can a midnight flight be late?" Eliot paced the luggage claim.

"Weather, traffic, dumb ass ATC's. You name it." Kenna looked at her husband. "Something bothering you cowboy?"

"No, I just would rather be home in bed with a sexy blond." He growled.

"Nothin's stopping you." She smirked.

"Haven't lost that mouth." He stopped in front of her. "I heard a little soap can do wonders." He grabbed her chin and kissed her.

"Oh god, Eliot, I never asked about Jewels. She was so sick just before I left."

"She's hanging in there. I never told her about…the explosion or the fact you might be dead. I took Faith to see her a couple of times but the little peanut was getting chatty and I didn't want her to tell her that her mama hasn't been around."

"We should go see her." He kissed her again.

"It's on the list along with going to check on the ranch." Eliot took a deep breath. "You know he has at least a dozen cases just waiting."

"I know." She hugged him. "I think we got enough catch up time the last few days."

"Oh darlin' there will be never enough catching up." He kissed her harder and ran his hand down her back.

"Hey you two! Get a room." Kenna broke the kiss and looked over Eliot's shoulder. She smiled.

"Sophie! Nate!" She pushed passed Eliot and went to hug her friends. She wasn't sure what to expect from the two but a warm welcome is what she got. Both her and Sophie started to cry and Eliot was pretty sure Nate did too. Kenna hugged him tightly. Eliot hugged Sophie.

"Welcome home Kenna." Nate closed his eyes. "God I missed you." Kenna smiled.

"I missed you too Boss." He pushed her back and looked at her.

"You look good."

"I feel good. Physically." He nodded.

"We have lots to talk about then huh?" She smiled.

"Tomorrow is a new day. Faith misses you and you have a nephew to meet." Eliot and Nate found the couples bags and headed out of the terminal. The four of them walked out to the car.

"How's Faith getting along with her little brother?" Sophie asked as they got into the car.

"She thinks Parker stole him." Eliot informed them.

"Oh, my, that can't be good." Nate chuckled at Sophie's response.

"She says he looks like me so he can't be stolen." Kenna smiled. She missed this. The four of them having an adult conversation was the closest thing to normal they had in this life.

"Did you shop enough in Paris?" Kenna asked.

"We enjoyed the city with minimal damage to our pocketbooks." Sophie answered. "But we did bring back presents for everyone."

"Oh goodie." Eliot said sarcastically and Sophie stuck out her tongue . Things were getting back to normal and Kenna began to relax again. Eliot and Nate would protect her. One miscalculation shouldn't bring her to mistrust them. Looking up she saw her husband watching her in the rearview mirror. Smiling to reassure him she was okay, Kenna thought again how maybe things might not be normal ever again.