Chapter 12. Enjoy. I don't own, and I don't profit. Leverage and the Leverage characters belong to John Rodgers, Dean Devlin, and/or TNT. Thank you for reading.

Chapter 12

Parker was seated at the desk Eliot usually used in the corner of the treatment room. She had a small sketchpad in front of her, with partial faces penciled in. The faces lacked the features she wasn't sure about.

Lee was seated in one of the chairs in the room, doing some work of her own, and surreptitiously watching Parker in case she needed help or decided she wanted to talk.

"These are the only features I am sure of," Parker said, holding up the sketch pad and looking at Lee. But Lee was staring straight ahead, with a strange expression on her face. A moment later, she slumped sideways in the chair, and started wheezing as she struggled to breathe. Without thinking too much about what she was doing, Parker hobbled out the door and into Nate's living room.

Eliot's eyes grew wide when he saw her, but she spoke before he could. "I think your friend is sick. She needs you." Without a word, Eliot rushed to follow her back into the treatment room. Lee was writhing on the floor when he got to her, and then suddenly stopped and lay eerily still. Eliot quickly checked her for any injury, then he hurriedly rolled up a blanket and used it to elevate her feet.

Opening his desk drawer, he grabbed an epi-pen, and pulled the top to pop the needle out, then plunged it into the side of her leg. Parker watched wide-eyed, but she didn't say anything. Eliot watched Lee closely, and when nothing happened after the first dose, he jabbed her with a second one. After a moment, her breathing evened out, and she started to stir. He scooped her up and put her on one of the cots, and then seated himself in the chair next to her. A moment later, he had started an IV to continue fighting the anaphylaxis.

"Thank you, Parker. You probably saved her life." Parker didn't answer, but she smiled her genuine Parker smile at him. He looked at her appraisingly for a while, and then said, "How are you feeling?"

"A little better," she said, haltingly. She traced the outline of the faces on her pad absently, and Eliot noticed.

"What's that you have there?" he asked.

"Oh," she said, looking at the pad as if noticing it for the first time, "Lee thought if I could draw the people who took me it might give you a place to start to find them."

"It might."

"The problem is, I can't seem to remember what some of their features look like. She told me she could help me, but I don't think she'll be able to do that now."

"Can you trust me to help you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Lee told me I can trust you." She paused for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed, and then continued. "Can you make my knees feel better first?"

Eliot bit back the urge to say something sarcastic, knowing that, in her mind, she was a taking a big chance by trusting him. He smiled his charming smile, and said, "Yes, I believe I can. Just a moment." Sticking his head out the door, he asked Sophie to join them, and after a minute or two, the attractive grifter walked inside. At Eliot's signal, she sat down on the other side of Parker, and said, "I'm Sophie. You might not remember me right now, but you and I are friends. I'm so glad to see that you are doing better. All of us, the whole team, have been worried about you."

While Sophie was talking to Parker, catching her up on everything that had happened over the past few days, Eliot was busy wrapping her knees and making her more comfortable. When he finished, he sat there, watching Lee like a hawk, until Sophie trailed off. Then he said, "May I see the drawings you made, Parker? Maybe we can scan them and run them through Hardison's facial recognition program to see if we get a match."

Parker tossed him the sketchpad and said, "Knock yourself out, Sparky." She froze. That nickname. Where did it come from? She hadn't meant to say it, it just popped out. She half expected him to be angry about it, but he just chuckled a bit and said, "It's good to have you back, Parker. Part of you, anyway."

"What's wrong with Lee?" Sophie asked.

"She had an allergic reaction to one of the vaccines I gave her. She'll be all right in a day or two probably, but she would have died if Parker hadn't come to get me when she did." As he spoke, he took out his phone and scanned it over the drawings Parker had given him. Then, he set the facial recognition software to scanning. All in all, there were several hundred matches. He was able to narrow those somewhat by applying filters, such as filtering obvious facial deformities and other obvious markings, since Parker would probably remember those. There were still too many potential matches.

He looked again at her drawings, and realized he couldn't even tell if they were men or women.

"Parker, tell me about the people who took you."

"What do you want to know?"

"For starters, are they men or women?"

"Two men, one woman." She looked at the drawings and frowned, then she motioned for Eliot to hand the paper back to her. "One of the men has a scraggly beard, like Shaggy Doo."

Eliot watched as she drew in a scraggly beard on one of the faces. After a moment of thought, she also drew in a moustache and goatee on the other male of the trio.

"Good. Now, I want you to close your eyes, and picture bearded man's nose." He paused. "Is it round and bulbous or hooked like a beak? Is it large or small?"

"It's prominent, but not too big. It is hooked, but not in a bad way. It is striking, and gives his face a regal look."

"Draw it like you see it in your mind. Don't open your eyes." She did so. Eliot was pleased to see that the cognitive interview was working. A face was starting to emerge from the lines and shadows on the paper below. When she was finished, he moved on to the next part that wasn't filled in.

"What about his eyes?"

"They were cold eyes, evil, almond shaped and aquamarine."

Aquamarine?! That was certainly an unusual identifier, and it might help them find him if someone had noted it before. That is, if he had a record.

"Why do you say they were evil?"

"They were."

"What happened that makes you think so?"

"He-he," Parker broke off and looked at him wild-eyed. "I can't—" she said.

"Take it easy, Parker," he said, as he saw how worked up she was getting. He quickly changed the subject. "Can you draw in his eyes?"

She did so. He moved on to Mr. Goatee, and soon they had a complete composite of both men. Eliot scanned them to his phone and started the facial recognition again.

He appraised Parker for a moment, and then spoke. "Thank you, Parker. I know it wasn't easy to do what I asked, but it may help us to identify the men who took you."

He suddenly felt very fatigued, and his stomach was killing him. He sank down on one of the cots in the room, and stretched his feet out in front of him. He rested his back against the wall. Droplets of sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip, while chills ran up and down his spine. His eyes slipped closed.

(0o0)

A second later, Eliot heard a woman's voice calling his name.

"Eliot?"

"I'm okay, Sophie. I'm just resting my eyes."

"You just keep telling yourself that." The voice chuckled softly.Wait. That didn't sound like something Sophie would say, though he never exactly knew with Sophie. He didn't spend too much time thinking about it, though, as he found himself sinking back into the comforting warmth that surrounded him. He felt a stinging sensation, as unknown hands gently slapped his cheek and called his name.

"Eliot?" Moments later, the voice called again. "El-i-ot." He didn't respond. He couldn't wrench himself away from the warmth of the place he was in to answer. "ELIOT!" the voice demanded, and he started the slow climb back to consciousness. A few moments later he opened his eyes.