A/N: I agree with suddencarolina, Mayhem21, cresdin, Likeka, Chipmunk169646, vickyloka - also my lovely beta, BookLover223, spnchick, luna-pendragon, georgie's-jail3, redqueen74, SuzSeb, SiriusDoctorWhoHoney329, lilz54, vampout, eligin, SeaStarr, wishyouknew222 and Angel JJK letting them jump off a cliff was a completely horrible way to end the chapter. Sorry. :) So this chap is where the whump finally hits big time. Oh, and FYI, I want everyone to know that I am TOTALLY fine with long-winded reviews. For some reason people seem to think I would find that annoying. My feeling is, the longer, the better. Next chap will, more than likely, be the last. Enjoy! -pj

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They both tried their best to fall loose and roll with it instead of against it, but Parker still felt the sickening crack when her arm gave way beneath her and Eliot's ankle banged painfully against more than one rock that he narrowly missed with his head.

His ribs met a few though.

They landed in a small, cold stream at the bottom of the cliff. Eliot was pretty sure he didn't lose consciousness, and he waited until the men's shouts from the top of the summit died off to move, hoping they would think he was dead from the fall. At least he knew who sent them now, but he couldn't think of revenge just then.

"Parker, you alright?" He called allowing himself a few moments to stop the world from turning before he pushed up into a sitting position. He groaned and clenched his teeth, various and sundry new injuries making themselves known, along with the gunshot wound that was bleeding gain.

He paused when he realized there was no answer and he didn't hear thrashing in water or groans of pain either.

"Parker?"

He forced his eyes open and his stomach objected vehemently when he whipped his eyes around searching for a blonde head and khaki shorts. Finally saw her, limp and wet a few feet away, mercifully laying face up in the six inch deep stream.

"Parker!" He scrambled over to her, ignoring his body's every protest of pain, and pulled her into his lap, seeing a trail of water diluted blood soaking into the hair on the right side of her head.

Parker had not been so lucky with the rocks.

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Eliot bit his lip, his brow furrowing as he looked around, a thousand rules and instincts whirling around his head at the same time.

Feel pain, push it aside. Parker's here, protect her. Out in the open, must find cover. It's cold, ignore it. There are hostiles, take them out.

The world started to tilt slightly and Eliot closed his eyes, forcing a few deep breaths down into his lungs and he reached up to touch a bump throbbing on the side of his head. Maybe he hadn't quite avoided all of the rocks.

He opened his eyes again and squinted in an attempt to keep everything straight. First things first. He had to get them out of the water and he had to find cover so he could see more clearly what their injuries were.

He quickly assessed the risk/reward of the few options he could see nearby and decided a cluster of bushes near where the water dropped a few feet in a mini waterfall was the best bet.

Moving to his knees, Eliot ignored the pain of sharp river-rocks digging into his skin and slipped his hands under Parker's limp neck and legs. He shifted to his feet and stood, only to fall painfully back down when his ankle gave out, narrowly missing crushing Parker beneath him as the world darkened around the edges.

Eliot cursed and heaved a breath, which caused agonizing pain to flash across his ribs and he took a moment to collect himself.

Have to move. Have to get out of the open. Not safe. Hurt. Not safe.

He shook his head slightly and then bit his lip, realizing the sudden movement was not a good idea. There wasn't much he could do for himself as far as first aid until he got his hands on some ace bandages and someplace soft to lay down and he couldn't help Parker until he calmed down.

Eliot growled at himself, glancing around again out of habit, though he knew there was no way the men had found another way around the mountain yet. He realized his hands were trembling and made fists and pressed them against his eyes. He hadn't been this shook up during a mission since his first week of basic training.

Eliot froze.

No. Not a mission.

A hike.

A hike on a damned well deserved day-off when he was supposed to relax and laugh and enjoy himself for God's sake.

But he knew better than to try and believe that's what it was anymore. It may not have started out as a mission, as a job, but that's what it was now. A mission to get them both out alive.

Eliot could still feel his heart racing, his mind fuzzy from panic and distress, so he resorted to an old interrogation evasion technique he hadn't thought of in years. It had become second nature there for a while.

What did it mean that he now had to think about it?

He didn't want to know.

Eliot dipped his chin, his brow furrowed in concentration, and closed his eyes taking slow, deep breaths.

He visualized his heart, allowing the sound of it thudding in his chest to invade his head and made a conscious effort to slow it down, imagining the organ inside his chest and imposing his will upon it as if he physically held it in his hands.

He saw his fear, his panic, his anger and his pain, black and ugly and trying to choke him. He fought them as he would any human opponent that threatened his life and threw them into a locked box. He reached up and put the box on a shelf behind the curtain in his mind where he kept the names of all the people he'd killed and the look Aimee had given him across a room full of friends at her wedding reception.

He saw the adrenalin and determination, friendly faces he could count on, and focused on them, enlarged them and allowed them to flow through his veins until it was all he could feel.

Stay calm. Complete the objective.

Steeling himself, he shifted his feet beneath him once more, this time more carefully, and pulled Parker into his arms, for once grateful for her slight weight. He kept his breathing even, his heart rate slow as he half limped, half stumbled over to the stand of bushes, dropping down to his knees gracelessly and got Parker into position across his lap.

Not safe, but safer. Parker's here. Take care of her.

He licked his lips and did his best to tend to her injuries with what little they had on them. He splinted her arm with strips cut from her hoodie and a relatively straight stick he'd found nearby. He wrapped her head and bound the deeper cuts she'd gotten from the fall, his movements quick and efficient. Practiced.

When Parker finally groaned and her eyes fluttered open Eliot stilled completely, staring at her.

"Parker?" He asked, the sound of his voice almost too loud in the quiet of his mind. He'd not been able to look up as often as he liked while he tended to Parker and his sensitive hearing had automatically made up for his distraction.

Parker snapped back to reality with all the speed and clarity of someone a little too used to coming out of a concussion. For a moment her entire body went stiff and then just as quickly it exploded in white hot pain and she vaulted upright, only to be pushed back down by a pair of strong hands.

"Lay still."

She recognized Eliot's voice, but he didn't look like himself. She titled her head at him and squinted.

"Eliot?"

"Are you alright?" He asked, the voice was all business, holding none of the concern or softness he usually reserved for her.

She frowned fully. This was way past grumpy and growly.

"Not my first time falling without a line. I'll live," Parker she said matter-of-factly, "what's wrong with you?"

Eliot gave her an incredulous look and folded his knife, slipping it back into his boot.

"Nothing another fall over a 100 foot cliff couldn't cure." He snapped, whipping his hair out of his face and satisfied when his vision swam less than before. He kept his eyes glued to the tree line, keeping up a steady scan.

Parker's brow knitted and she pushed herself up against a large rock, pulling her injured arm across her body protectively.

"Eliot?"

His eyes snapped over to her quickly then looked away again. His mouth was pursed into a thin line, the planes of his face set in tense, sharp concentration. He was wound tighter than a coiled cobra. He looked ready for a fight. Hell, he looked ready for a war.

"Eliot," she said again, this time almost to herself. He ignored her.

"Eliot look at me right now."

He did, frowning, "can you stand?"

"No," she said immediately, a cold weight settling into her stomach. She didn't recognize those eyes. They were the same open, Oklahoma sky blue that she remembered. There was a coldness there she didn't know. A calculating, dangerous, wild look in them that made her want to shrink away. Briefly, she wondered how many people's last conscious thought had been of these eyes as Eliot robbed them of existence.

She'd seen Eliot fight a half dozen guys with nothing more than strength, speed and a cocky smile. She'd seen him deal out painfully accurate blows that instantly sent someone to their knees, choking for air.

But seeing that look in his eyes was the first time Eliot had ever scared her. So she did the only thing she could ever do when she was scared. She reacted.

Parker's good arm shot out and hooked around to the back of Eliot's neck and pulled him to her, smashing their lips together hard enough to bruise them both. She felt him immediately get tense and his arms flew up to hers and she panicked, knowing what damage he could do when in this state, and pushed her tongue into his mouth greedily. Desperately.

Eliot's eyebrows shot up in surprise as she worked him over, each muscle in his body slowly relaxing to return to the subdued power she'd come to expect from him.

He tilted his jaw away to breathe and rested his forehead against hers, "I told you 'bout those distractin' lips."

Parker didn't smile, but pulled away to level him with an assessing look.

This time when he met her eyes, she saw him, saw Eliot. The cold look retreated away from the clear blue irises and the shadows parted like clouds.

"Where did you go?" She whispered.

He looked at the ground, closing his eyes briefly before looking back up at her, "I needed to get the job done," he lifted his hand to her face and brushed his fingers along her cheek, encircling her ear before falling back down to his side, "had to keep you safe. Had to get to a place in my head where I could push everything else aside and do that."

Parker frowned, "well don't do it again. It scares me," she poked him indignantly in the leg, "you're supposed to scare the bad guys, not me."

Eliot nodded seriously and lifted her good hand to his lips, brushing them across the bruised knuckles, "I'm sorry, darlin',' though he couldn't help feeling like it was a lie. He would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

Always. Period.

He forced a small grin and stood, "ready to get going?"

Parker sighed, too tired to voice the string of complaints that popped into mind and let him help her up. She paused at the head rush she got from standing, fighting dizziness and nausea, and they started walking. Eliot limped severely beside her, his ankle protesting on one side and his ribs on the other.

"Eliot," Parker said after they'd been walking for a while in silence. He grunted, too tired to come up with a real response.

"I need to pee."

He glanced over at her, she was wringing her hands and bouncing slightly with each step.

"We're headed toward a ranger's station about three miles from here. Saw it when we were up top. You can go when we get there."

"No. I need to go now."

Eliot sighed, he'd suspected as much.

"Alright, well…pick a tree."

Parker nodded and turned to step away a few feet into some nearby bushes. She paused in reaching for her shorts and turned around.

"Turn your back."

"Aw Parker c'mon we need to-"

"I know we do," she snapped irritably, "so just turn around so I can do this."

Eliot sighed, muttering, "Ain't like it's nothin' I haven't seen before," but did as she asked.

Parker nodded her head once, satisfied and then went about her business. As she was pulling her shorts back up she bit her lip, having a hard time with fastening the button as her vision went slightly blurry and doubled. She stumbled back a few steps, disturbing some fallen sticks and leaves and yelped at a sharp pain in her leg.

She looked down, still swaying slightly, but was pretty sure she saw blood on her leg and something moving around down there.

Eliot heard Parker's scream and took off, slipping a knife out of his belt and into his hand in one swift movement. But when he got to Parker she was alone. He saw her puzzled expression and followed her gaze down just in time to see blood soaking into her sock and a snake slithering away into the bushes.

"Shit," he whispered, and grabbed Parker by the arms, swinging her away from the area and down onto the ground against a tree, ignoring her yelp of surprise and groan of sudden nausea.

Parker swallowed hard to keep her breakfast down. She was pretty sure it wouldn't taste good the second time around. She wanted to ask what was going on, but Eilot's movements were quick and precise, his face pinched in an expression she knew to be anxiety masquerading as annoyance.

She bit her lip and watched silently, knowing better than to interrupt him, her worry growing with each calculated movement. Eliot quickly retrieved two semi-straight sticks and broke them in half. She held back a wince as he carefully but quickly drove each stick into a spot just next to her leg, two on each side, completely immobilizing it in it's position straight out in front of her, angled down on the slight incline where she sat.

"Eliot?" she asked quietly.

Eliot grit his teeth and looked up at her. She gasped at the look in his eyes. She'd almost been afraid he was back in that other place, the scary one, again. But he wasn't. She almost preferred that cold look to the one he wore now.

She'd never seen him scared before.

"That was a Copperhead viper," he explained slowly, seeing the recognition in Parker's eyes, he continued, "they're bites usually aren't lethal but…"

"It's venomous." She said, understanding now why Eliot had taken such quick action. The more movement, the quicker the poison would circulate through her body, "okay." She bit her lip and nodded, "you're gonna have to go on without me."

Eliot immediately shook his head, "no. No way."

"Look, you said the ranger station is only like three miles away. I can't walk like this and you know it. You can run that far if it's just you in like twenty minutes, be back here in forty and we all go home."

"Dammit Parker," Eliot hissed, "I'm not leaving you here. You've got a concussion and a poisonous snake bite."

"So you're gonna do what?" she was getting impatient now, every second they spent arguing was a second they lost that their pursuers gained, "you can't carry me all that way and you can't fight those guys if they find us."

Eliot cocked an eyebrow and grunted and Parker shook her head.

"There were six of them, Eliot. And you've got a twisted ankle, broken ribs and a concussion," he gave her an odd look and she shrugged, "your pupils are dilated funny, you probably hit your head when we fell."

The headache Eliot had been trying not to think about flared for a moment before he pushed it back down. He hit the ground with his fist, every bone in his body telling him it is wrong to leave her behind.

Parker understood his dilemma. Eliot was so easy to read sometimes.

She reached for him and he responded almost automatically, moving to kiss her quickly. She pushed him back almost immediately.

"You're wasting time."

He nodded. Knew she was right. For once, he was following her logic and it was sound. But…damn it felt wrong.

He sighed and stood, walking away to the bushes where the whole thing had began and took out his knife, cutting down several boughs and bringing them back. He situated them around Parker to conceal her and then started moving the dirt around to cover their movements and her legs.

He grabbed her hand and pushed his cell phone into it. It had no service out but they could use the GPS if nothing else.

"Stay quiet. Stay awake," he said, dropping his head to kiss her one last time, "I'll be right back."

With that, he got up and took off at a run, adrenalin and worry and anger spurring him until his ankles and ribs were nothing but an afterthought and he ran harder.

Parker fought to keep her breathing under control, every call of a bird or movement of an animal set her on edge. She was alone, immobile. Vulnerable.

There was nothing she hated more.

Parker had no idea how much time had passed but eventually she felt eyelids starting to get heavy and her leg was on fire. She thought she heard voices in the distance, but couldn't be sure, and as she finally succumbed to sleep, she couldn't help feeling like she was letting Eliot down.

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TBC- So....what didja think.....