A/N: Sorry it has taken so long to get this latest chapter out. RL has been extremely busy lately. Better now. This is shorter than usual because the next part is more involved, and I didn't want to make you wait much longer for it.

Usual disclaimers apply. I don't own, nor do I profit. I write for fun. Hope you all enjoy.

Chapter 17

Parker was sitting in the treatment room, staring at her hands and thinking. Too much thinking. She alternated between wracking her brain trying to remember what happened to her, and replaying over and over the bits and pieces she did remember. In the middle of all of it, she saw flashes of a face and shrank in remembered fear. And she couldn't shake the feeling that it was a face she should know. She wished she could just shut her brain off and stop thinking and there were times that she didn't even have to have her eyes closed to feel his hot breath on her face, or his weight as he pinned her down. She didn't know how it would ever possibly get better, and at the same time, she didn't know how long she could stand this. She just wanted to slowly fade away, until she was invisible. In her mind, she saw her soul shatter into a million tiny pieces and watched as it got carried away on a breeze.

"Parker?" asked a somewhat raspy, gravelly voice. When she didn't look up, he said her name again, louder. "Parker!"

"Eliot. You're awake," she said, feigning a cheerfulness she didn't feel. He looked at her appraisingly. Then, he pulled himself into a sitting position, and forced himself to stand up. He moved stiffly across the small room, and dropped into a chair next to her.

"What's wrong, Darlin'?"

"Nothing." He simply stared at her, waiting. The longer he watched her, the more defensive she grew. "I said there's nothing wrong."

Eliot's expression didn't change. He simply continued to watch her. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore, and she rose and left the room, leaving Eliot staring after her.

She needed to go somewhere, anywhere else before Eliot came looking for her. She didn't think for a moment that he wouldn't. Quickly and quietly, she climbed up into the air ducts and closed the vent behind her. Then, she moved a little way down so she could think without being seen. She studied her mental map of the building, trying to figure out where each path would put her out. Finally, she began crawling down one duct, until she came to where it connected with another. Turning down that path, she continued to follow it along. Finally, when she thought she had gone far enough, she kicked open the vent cover and slid to the ground, only to find that her injured knees gave way, sending her sprawling to the ground.

"Well, hello there, Parker," Doc said quietly. "I'm glad you dropped in." Parker was struggling to get up.

"Don't get up. Let me look at your knees first." Doc was already kneeling by the young thief, and at her pained nod, she began sliding the younger woman's pants legs up. A moment later, she said, "Well, you'll need an x-ray, and maybe an ultrasound, too. Come on. Let's get you up." With those words, she pulled the little thief up and put one of the girl's arms around her own neck and helped her hobble over to one of the cots Doc had set up in the room. While Parker stretched out and tried to get comfortable, Doc wheeled over a portable x-ray machine. A moment later she was finished, and she looked at Parker appraisingly.

"If you don't stay off your knees for a while, you will need surgery."

"I know. That's what Eliot said when he treated them before." She saw the way Doc was looking at her, and felt as though she needed to explain, so she said, "I needed to get away from the offices for a while."

"I see," Doc said, and went back to the paperwork she was completing at her desk. "You may stay as long as you like. You don't have any business trying to walk back anyway." The silence enveloped the room and grew until it was something with a life of its own. Parker, swallowed by her own thoughts, tapped her foot on the floor, suddenly a bit uncomfortable with the silence, to which she had never been a stranger before.

Doc watched the younger woman surreptitiously, but resisted the urge to say anything. In her experience, people told others what was on their mind when they were ready, and Parker didn't tell anyone anything. Ever. She had grown a lot in the past few years, and from what Eliot had said about the girl, she had started trusting the team enough to tell them little things, but something like this? She still couldn't trust anyone that far. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Doc understood where she was coming from.

"I-I just wish that I could go back to a place before any of this happened. I feel like everyone but me knows exactly what happened to me, and I don't know how I feel about that. Sometimes, I just wish I could fade away. One part of me wants to track down the people who did this and kill them, while another part of me doesn't want to find out exactly what they did, because when that happens, I can no longer pretend that nothing happened to me out there." She paused. Doc started to say something, but fell silent when she continued. "Mostly, I just want to fade away into the universe, or else go far away to a place where I don't know anyone, and start over. A place where I don't know anyone, and where no one knows me—no one knows what happened."

Doc was mildly shocked that Parker had chosen to speak like that, and to her—someone, who, in Parker's world, was a virtual stranger.

"Were you raped?" Doc asked, wincing inwardly at asking so bluntly, but knowing that Parker wouldn't respond well to attempts to soften the question.

Parker refused to make eye contact, and instead looked down and away as she answered.

"That's the problem. I don't remember. Maybe."

"Do you want to remember?"

Parker nodded, still not looking at the other woman.

Doc asked gently, "Parker, have you told anyone else on the team?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean, it isn't like this is something I can just blurt out in a team meeting. 'Oh, by the way guys…'" She let that thought trail off.

Doc nodded her understanding. "I thought you might have mentioned it when Eliot was treating you."

"And have him run off half-cocked to find and dispatch the people who did it? Besides, I didn't want to hear him growl about it all night. That'd be a pleasant conversation."

The girl had a point. Still, it was something they needed to know earlier. Didn't really matter now anyway, though.

"Is that the reason you came to me?" Doc asked, in a sudden burst of insight.

Slowly, Parker nodded. "I want to remember what happened to me. I want to know why the face I see in my mind is so familiar to me, as though I've seen him somewhere else before now, too. And I want to do it on my own terms, without having to see the team's looks of pity and despair."

"I can help you with that, but you're going to have to trust me, and to do what I say."

Parker nodded, using her hand to brush the tears away from her eyes when she thought no one was looking. Doc allowed herself a small smile, both impressed at the girl's bravery and touched by the trust she offered.

(0o0)

Eliot had walked the length of Nate's apartment looking for Parker. When he didn't find her, he decided that she must have gone into one of the air ducts, but he wondered how. Her knees were healing nicely, but they were still injured, and she would have trouble climbing up and crawling through the air ducts. Either that, or she had gone outside, to one of her usual haunts, but that would require going up, which would also be taxing on her knees.

He stormed back into the treatment room, his face lightning and thunder. Hardison gulped when he saw the look on the hitter's face.

"What are you doing, man?"

"Looking for Parker. I need to talk to her. Have you seen her?"

"Only for a moment, when she stormed out of the treatment room. She went on out the front door."

"Dammit, Hardison. Why'd you let her leave?"

"Have you ever tried to stop Parker when she's determined to do something?"

Eliot's only response was a frustrated growl, and then he launched himself out the door behind her.