Chapter Two:

A/N: The second section to "Part of Parker's Past".

Disclaimer: Still not mine

The silence echoing in the small flat felt thick enough to cut with a knife. All of the questions that they hadn't asked seemed to pile onto my already aching chest. My back was to all of them, my way of trying to keep them out of something that, despite my denial, they were already in. I could feel their careful eyes all burning with curiosity; worry flickered from face to face before resting on me again.

'What are you waiting for?' I wanted to demand into the quite room. How much worse could their questions be than this impenetrable silence? How long had we sat like this, how many hours since my shaking stopped, and my tears dried into stained streaks down my face?

Sophie's soft hand still clung to mine, drawing small circles on the back, but holding on as if afraid to let go. Despite her death grip on me, she sat as silently as the others, all watching but none of them brave enough to ask the question they are all thinking.

My eyes had settled hours ago on something I could barely see outside the window. Part of me was ready to run; I had done it so many times before surely it wouldn't be hard. I could be gone long before they even realized it. The thief in me, the Parker that had survived so long on my own was ready to run. She had the escape route planned; the things to grab on the way out, and the tracks to cover so no one, not even Hardison could find her. Despite all her plans, I sat very still holding the hand of a woman that just a few years ago I would never have trusted.

I'm not sure what made me do it, perhaps the silence had gotten too heavy to stand, or I couldn't bear starring into oblivion one more second. What ever it was I chanced a glance at them over my shoulder. Surprise and a different kind of pain hit me all at once. The four of them all starred without really looking at anyone or anything. Each of them lost in their own pasts and their own nightmares. The silence was no kinder to them than it was to me.

Elliot's eyes were cold like stone, and his hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles had turned white. He wasn't here in this room; he was a thousand miles away, doing things that he would never tell us about.

Hardison was stiff watching the floor, waiting for it to open and swallow him whole. His eyes glazed over with a shadow that he manage to hide from everyone. Or maybe we let him hide it, so we could hide our own.

Nate's eyes were glossy his face etched with pain. His monsters were not of what he had done, but of what he couldn't do. I'd seen that look a dozen times; it was the look that told me if a shot had been within reach he would have taken it without thinking. His mind was far away from me, from us, and instead it was with a child that he couldn't save.

Sophie's eyes were the ones that surprised me the most. Her perfect control had slipped away and her eyes glittered from unshed tears. Her face was open showing all the pain, fear, regrets, and loss that she always hid behind her mask. They were there with such startling clarity that I wondered how I had never noticed it before.

I squeezed her hand tightly, calling her out of her memories, and drawing her eyes back to my face.

"Can we order pizza?" My voice was softer than I'd expected, it sounded broken even in my own ears, but it brought a small smile to her face.

"Pepperoni?" She asked.

I nodded my head vigorously and returned her smile.

"Meat lovers," Elliot murmured awakening from a nightmare that he would never really feel absolution from.

"No, supreme," Hardison said shaking his head, as he too came awake to the room, leaving his past where it belonged, even for just this moment.

The two bickered about which pizza to order, as Nate slowly met my eyes. The pain that I had seen hadn't gone away entirely it was still there along with the questions he hadn't asked me yet. I knew watching him that it wasn't over. He would ask, they all would, but not now. Not yet.

For a few more moments the five of us would pretend that what we had here was all there was. As if we hadn't buried ourselves when we came into this group, and started down a path that none of us were prepared for.