A/N: Here's chapter 13. Thanks to everyone who is reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing. It's good to know you like the story. Reviews really make my day. I don't own Leverage or any of the characters or worlds within, save those of my own creation. I write for fun and not for profit. I don't write slash. Hoping you enjoy, and that you'll drop in and let me know what you think.

Chapter 13

Parker had not taken the interview well. She refused to make eye contact with Sophie, but she snuck furtive glances at Eliot, who seemed to be unconscious over on his cot, and at the desktop computer screen, which Hardison apparently had rigged to sync with their phones, and which was now running the sketches Eliot had scanned with his phone against hundreds of faces in a variety of databases, looking for a match.

As she thought about them, and turned her attention to them, she heard a loud beeping sound which indicated that a match had indeed been found. She looked up at the screen and found herself riveted to the face in front of her. She couldn't look away. This was the man who had taken her, yes. She recognized him—felt the heat of his eyes on hers, smelled the stench of his breath in her face, shrank again under his touch-his weight—on her. As she looked at his face on the screen, in the safety of this room, she realized that she knew him from somewhere. Not anywhere recent, but he was definitely familiar to her from a time before the team. Well before, she thought.

She sat turning the picture over in her mind, trying to place that face, those eyes. Eyes she had seen before. Her thoughts were as fragmented as the images running through her head. An idea occurred to her, and she reached into her pocket for her phone to follow through, before she changed her mind. She dialed Hardison's number, reasoning that if anyone could find her the answers she sought, it was him.

When his picture, the one he had uploaded of himself and saved to her contacts, appeared on her screen, he stared back at her through aquamarine eyes, and smiled a knowing smile.

"NOOO," she yelled. She yelled again, louder. She heard wicked, almost inhuman laughter coming from the phone, and when she looked down at it, her captor's picture had replaced Hardison's. He winked at her and blew her a kiss. Horrified, she scrunched her eyes tightly closed and flung her phone away from her, as hard as she could. She took a sort of perverse pleasure in hearing it shatter against the wall.

A moment later, she wrenched her eyes open. She was covered in cold sweat and half sobbing/half hyperventilating. She couldn't catch her breath. She caught a glimpse of her usually brilliant and unflappable friend, Sophie, who hadn't made a move to help her, but simply stared at her, dumbfounded.

Another voice sounded from somewhere on her other side a moment later and asked, "Parker, are you all right?" Turning her head, she saw Nate looking at her with concern. She nodded, but she knew it wasn't very convincing. Nate and Sophie exchanged glances, and then Sophie said, "Eliot didn't want his military friends involved."

"I know that, but Eliot can't help us, and I have no idea how to handle any of this, so unless you do, we're in way over our heads here. We need their help."

Parker heard Eliot's voice in her head, barking at her to control her breathing. She tried to do that and concentrate on the conversation at the same time, but she found it impossible to do so. Finally, she gave up and focused on her breathing, reasoning that one way or another she would know the conversation soon.

"You do realize that Eliot's going to hate this when he finds out."

Nate nodded. "I'll deal with that when the time comes."

Sophie considered for a moment, then nodded in agreement. It wasn't like they had many other options.

Nate knew what he had to do. Eliot had shown him the number, and explained that this was a one-shot deal, only to be used in a real, dire emergency. He didn't know if this is what Eliot would consider an emergency, but in his mind, it counted. Now, it was just a matter of convincing himself to dial. He didn't like the idea of having to rely on others. Drawing his phone out of his pocket, he stared at it for a long time. Once he even punched in a digit or two, but then he stopped, unable to shake the feeling that he was missing something. Eliot usually had a reason for everything he did, and if he didn't want his buddies involved, maybe the team should trust that instinct.

While Nate was deciding to do what he knew they had to do, the door to the treatment room opened, and Hardison walked in, followed by one of Eliot's military friends, a young man Nate had only met once before. Nate's eyebrows drew together and his eyes narrowed.

"Hardison, I thought we agreed that you were staying at the safe house on the North side until the danger passed. You haven't been vaccinated. You can't be here." Nate looked daggers at his hacker, but it was the other man who answered.

"Well, it hardly matters now. We're both acute. That makes Alec here a potential target, and knowing that Eliot would have vaccinated all of you, Doc suggested that it would be safer from both a strategic and a medical standpoint to keep all of the acute cases in one place. She's on her way." Seeing the look on Nate's face, Shelley said, "arguing with Doc when her mind is made up is about like arguing with a hurricane."

"I heard that," Doc said, hiding a smile as she closed the door behind her. Shelley winced, and the smile finally erupted, only to be quickly suppressed. She nodded to Nate and Sophie as she took in the room, and then moved rapidly over to Parker's cot, watching her closely. The young woman had a blank look on her face, but she seemed to be concentrating hard on something, and her breathing was clearly labored, though she seemed to be trying to control it.

Her voice was calm and steady as she guided Parker through the breathing exercises that would bring her breath back under control. "Ignore the distractions. Focus on my voice. Breathe in, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Breathe out, two, three, four. Again. And again. Good, Parker. Keep going."

When Parker was no longer in danger of suffocation, Doc turned to her and asked, "Do you want to talk about your nightmare?" She hated that question. No, she didn't want to talk about it. She wanted to pretend it didn't exist. She shook her head, reaching into her pocket for the phone and finding it empty.

"How did YOU get here?" Parker asked, eyeing Doc warily.

"I came here because Shelley called and asked for my help, and because Eliot owes me some answers, though he doesn't appear to be in much shape to supply them at present."

"I need Hardison," she sputtered, looking around for him. "Where is he, anyway?"

Hardison spoke up, "I'm here, Momma."

Parker craned her neck, as if looking for him but unable to find him. Finally, she gave up and said, "Hardison? I need your help. That facial recognition software you have—I know it will do age progression, but will it do the opposite?"

"It will if I tell it to, Babe. Why?" The 'why' was a bit absentminded, as Hardison was momentarily more interested in the fact that Doc sat down beside him. He turned his head to look at her. She smiled and nodded toward Parker. He turned his attention back to her just in time to hear what she had to say.

"One of the men who kidnapped me seemed familiar, but I couldn't place him. I thought if you could do a series of age regressions for different periods of time, I might recognize him."

"Babe, do you know what you're asking? I can give you an age regression, but it isn't an exact science. I don't have any way of knowing what experiences shaped his life, or which ones might have had an effect on his appearance. And it'll take some time. Possibly a lot of time depending on how many you want."

"I know, and I realize I'm asking a lot from you. I also know that they may not be 100 percent accurate…." She broke off, embarrassed to be asking but not knowing what else to do.

"It's a good idea, and definitely worth a try," said Doc, staring at the faces on the screen before her, reading the names attached to them. Adam Lance and David Kelley.

A moment later, she shook herself and moved over to the chair next to Eliot's cot.

"Eliot?" she asked, uncertain whether or not he was awake.

"I'm okay, Sophie. I'm just resting my eyes," he said, words slurred by sleep.

"You just keep telling yourself that." Doc chuckled softly. Concerned that he wasn't becoming more alert, she began gently slapping his cheek while she called his name. "Eliot?"

She waited a moment, then slapped his cheek again, harder this time, and called out, "El-i-ot." He didn't respond. "ELIOT!" she demanded. A few moments later he opened his eyes.