A/N: Hey, people! So, my head has been out of the game recently, not at all in a fanfic place, but its cool, I'm getting back around to it. Since this fic is pretty popular and Leverage is my fandom of choice right now, I had to make sure I updated this story first. You all still out there wanting to read it?

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 10

Parker couldn't sleep. It wasn't entirely unusual for her, because honestly she didn't get tired much, and quite often deep sleep just brought on nightmares she'd sooner not deal with. Still, she hadn't had any problems sleeping here at the retreat the night before, and maybe that was what her biggest problem was.

Sharing a bed was different for Parker. As a kid she'd had to do it a few times with various foster brothers and sisters, or other children at the home. However, as an adult she had always slept alone, and it never once occurred to her to do anything else. It wasn't that getting naked bothered her, more that when she was asleep she had to believe that whoever else was there beside her could be trusted not to harm her. She trusted Eliot, he was on her team and always out to protect all of them. There was no way he would ever take advantage of her. Hell, he seemed almost afraid to touch her earlier when she almost wished he would.

It was these kind of thoughts that had Parker frowning hard and not sleeping at all. She wasn't particularly surprised that Eliot never made a move on her, she didn't expect guys to want to do that and the shock of meeting one who did never failed to send her spiralling out of control. That was how Roger had ended up nearly drowned in the pool earlier, and yet when Eliot was trying to talk to her about it, trying to be comforting, it was Parker that had leaned into him, actually liking the simple contact of his hand around hers, his shoulder beneath her head.

Next her mind wandered to the sleeping arrangements here, how skittish Eliot seemed to be about them sharing a bed. Parker figured it was one of those things that 'normal' people thought about but that just never bothered her. Clearly others associated sleeping with sex somehow. Sure, she knew both were done in beds, sometimes anyway, but she couldn't think for a moment why Eliot would put her and sex in the same sentence when he was afraid to even try to be friendly with her most of the time, when he was always the first to say there was something wrong with her, or that she was crazy.

It was likely that Sophie would understand, and Parker kind of hoped she got the chance to talk to the grifter about all this weird stuff that was whirling around in her head at such an unreasonable hour. The clock told her it was well past midnight, and a yawn from her lips confirmed she was way past tired by now.

Perhaps the strangest of all Parker's thoughts when it came to Eliot and their non-relationship was the last thing that occurred to her as she finally fell asleep. In all honesty, she kind of hoped that when she woke up in the morning she would be exactly where she had been today at first light, wrapped safely in the hitter's arms. Ask her why, and Parker never would have been able to explain it, but she wished it just the same as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

"Sophie? Soph?" Nate jostled her elbow in a attempt to her get attention as the grifter continued to stare off into space a moment more, then snapped back to reality with a start, "I know I have a tendency to bore you on occasion but you were a million miles away there" he said as he watched her re-connect with the room around her.

"I'm sorry" she sighed, shaking a misty haze from behind her eyes, "I suppose I'm just tired, I mean, it is getting pretty late... Wow" she said as she looked at her watch and realised how true her words had been as the hands both pointed just past the twelve.

"Geez, how'd that happen?" Nate commented as he realised she as right, "Maybe we should call it a night for now" he agreed as they both got up from the table.

Hardison had headed home a while before, probably several hours now that the pair left behind thought on it. He needed sleep too, and to look at the information they had collated so far with a fresh pair of eyes in the morning. Nate and Sophie had stayed behind to figure out a new plan the best they could, though conversation had drifted several times to other things as they called for take out and shared a drink too. Sophie seemed to become more and more distracted as time wore on and though they had now both agreed to call it a night, Nate still wanted to know what was really on her mind and decided to ask her outright.

"I don't know..." she sighed as he helped her on with her jacket, "I was just thinking about Parker, what she must have been through in her life, you know?" she said with a sad smile, "We're the first proper family she's had, I know that much, but things must've been so bad for her before. Nate, she can't handle a man making a pass at her without losing it and... and I suppose I'm just worried about her"

"Well, y'know, she has Eliot in there with her" he said, hoping to be of some comfort as he went on, "And she seems perfectly fine with getting close with him"

"Yeah, that's curious too" Sophie frowned then, "I mean, the girl freaks out when a man puts his hand on her thigh, and yet not long before she was practically straddling Eliot on a desk to an audience. It hardly adds up"

Nate spent a moment considering that statement before he gave an answer to it.

"I guess it's a matter of control" he shrugged his shoulders, "Parker is fine when she's in charge of what's happening, but when that Roger guy came onto her she didn't expect it and she didn't want it, so it bothered her"

"Maybe" Sophie agreed with a nod, "I'm just glad most of the people she has to deal with at the retreat are women, for her sake and for the con" she said as she opened the door to leave, bidding Nate a goodnight.

Left alone, the mastermind leant his back against the wall and got to thinking. His mind wasn't so much on Parker but the last thing Sophie had said. There weren't a lot of men at the retreat, not on the staff at least. One male therapist out of two, but most of the rest of the employees were females, a couple of porters not withstanding. Of course, there was one man very much involved in the running of the retreat, at least Nate assumed that Jeremy Kendall, the owner's wife, must be helping with the business, figuring out the best ways to make new divorce clients out of the rosta of struggling couples.

"Maybe we've been coming at this from the wrong direction" he said to himself as he headed back to the boardroom.

Sitting down at the table again, Nate poured himself a further drink of scotch as he rifled through papers spread out before him, seeking out an address they had yet to visit, and culminating that new plan he had told Eliot he should have by morning.

The light in his eyes reminded Eliot that he wasn't at home, but still at the Twin Souls Retreat in the room where the flimsy drapes barely met in the middle of the window and did little to block the early morning sun from his eyes. His first reaction was to roll onto his back and away from the blinding light that was striking him as he lay now, in a similar position to how he'd gone to sleep the night before. The problem was there was something stopping him from turning over, and it took a moment more to realise that the something was actually more correctly a someone pressed up against his back.

Glancing down, Eliot found that either he had either grow a third arm in the night, or Parker had one of hers wrapped around him from behind. The light weight on his back certainly felt like a head between his shoulder blades and two slim legs were tucked up behind his own. It was a long time since the hitter had woken up to find himself spooning with another person, and even longer since he'd been the little spoon in the equation. Not that he really wanted to complain about the situation, because he had to admit there was nothing bad about the feel of a shapely female body pressed up against him this way. Of course remembering that said body belonged to Parker made him frown some. This was the same woman who had pretty much run screaming from a guy who dared to lay so much as a hand on her just yesterday, and now here she was snuggled up to him like they were some kind of lovers.

Eliot made a real effort to push these thoughts out of his head just as soon as they appeared. Yes, it was weird that they'd woken up snugly, twice in as many mornings, but he was not about to start getting sexual or romantic ideas about Parker. They were team-mates, they were perhaps friends in a strange way, but that was all... no matter how hot she was, or sweet she could be, or how turned on he was right now by the idea of finding out what else the body pressed up against him could do!

A quiet sigh in the silence, broke Eliot's stream of consciousness as the contact along the length of his body suddenly peeled away. Whether Parker was turning over in her sleep or because she had woken up, the hitter couldn't be sure, though he suspected the former over the latter. There was a very good chance they had landed up in this awkward position as a product of sleep, and that it would never happen if they were both awake and aware of what they were doing. Besides, if Parker had woken up to find herself all over him like that, Eliot was pretty sure she would have bolted from the room before he even had a chance to process what had occurred, such was her way when it came to these things.

Cautiously, Eliot rolled himself over and noted that Parker was now laid on her back beside him, her eyes still very much closed. It was a relief to realise she had only been wrapped around him that way because of an unconscious act, although beneath that relief there was just a hint of disappointment that confused the hitter to no end. It wasn't as if he wanted Parker to like him that way, because that would make this beyond awkward, and yet the more time the two of them spent here together playing at being a couple, the more he was starting to wonder on things.

Laying on his back with one arm behind his head now, Eliot stared up at the ceiling, as if wishing that if he looked hard enough he might find some kind of answer to the questions inside his head written up there. There was no way he wanted a serious relationship with Parker, or with any woman. He wasn't that guy and hadn't been in years, if it was ever him really...

"No!" a yell from the woman beside him had Eliot's attention in a second, "No, no, no!" Parker yelled as she came to very suddenly, sitting bolt upright in the bed.

"Hey" he said, shifting to sit up beside her, "It's okay, Parker, you're okay" he assured her, his hand on her arm without even thinking.

Though her breathing was a little fast, when she turned to glance at him and their eyes met, she did at least seem to know where she was and believe that she actually was safe here. Nodding her head slowly to prove she understood, she then allowed herself to fall back against the pillows with a thud.

"Bad dream" she said flatly, "Weird... and then bad" she said, frowning suddenly and shooting a very confused look Eliot's way.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked, wondering what had her so baffled.

He was starting to think maybe she was remembering something that involved the two of them being as close as they had been when he himself had woken up, before a nightmare replaced it and scared her awake.

"No" she said swiftly as she moved and swung her legs out of bed, "Really don't" she said definitely as she got up and set about throwing on her clothes, even putting in her ear bud and seeing if the team were around.

"Good morning, er, Parker" responded Nate sounding somewhat vague at first, "Is Eliot up too?" he checked.

"Eliot" she said, looking back at him where he was now sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on his jeans, "Ear bud" she instructed him with a finger pointed at her own ear to illustrate her point.

"I'm here" he said, the moment the bud was in, "What's goin' on?"
"Nothing yet" Nate admitted, "but I have a new plan, just like I promised" he told his undercover duo, as he paced the length of the Leverage boardroom, a drink in his hand as usual, "The, er, the bag that Hardison gave you, the one where you found the hard drive before..." he said, as Eliot went to the bedside locker and pulled said bag out.

"What do we need?" he checked, once again pouring out the contents onto the bed as Parker sat on the opposite edge to see what she could find of use.

"We're looking for button cams and hidden mics, kids" the Mastermind said into both thief and hitter's ears, "The only way we're going to get the evidence we need is to put a little pressure on the right people and see if they crack at all"

"Who are the right people?" asked Parker, fingering the microphone she had just picked out of the pile of gadgets and working out where would be the best place to hide it on her person.

"Well, the only ones we have very little intel on are this Ritter guy, who should be talking to Eliot in a session this afternoon" he explained, "And one person that you two can't get at; Laurie Redfern's husband, Jeremy Kendall" he explained, "I'll be talking to Sophie about him just as soon as she gets here"

"What about Alvarez who took our dance class?" asked Eliot curiously as he fastened a button cam to the front of his shirt, "We got another session with her in a couple of hours"

"She seems nice" shrugged Parker, "She sure likes us a lot" she grinned at Eliot then, who somehow found the smile infectious, unable to do anything but return it, despite his better judgement.

Nate advised that it maybe wouldn't hurt to at least use the recording equipment in that session too, though neither of his team were really listening. They were recalling their dance class and how well they had done in it, not to mention how close they had gotten during said dance. It took a moment for both Eliot and Parker to realise what a bad train of thought that could potentially be, and suddenly they were very much concentrating on the job at hand.

That might've pleased Nate if he were paying attention but his mind had already switched to step two of today's con. For that he needed Sophie to do what she did best. At least he knew that would go according to plan!

To Be Continued...