Notes: As of now I have the entierty of this story written. I just have to get it past the ever wonderful ALS_Wonderland whose actting as beta. Fanfic viewers who also are on Lj may also notice we are now caught up with what I have posted on my lj. With only a few more bits posted to Black King White Knight there won't be any stories posted on my lj that arn't posted here.
Notes: Longest chapter yet with a lot of tieing off of loose ends (sorta?). I'm really really happy with this chapter, though my favorite scene is oddly enough a tie between the ending scene and the scene where I make my first foray into Parker/Hardison. hmm...
As usual, this nicely polished fic is brought to you by she who should be praised: Als_wonderland. The chapter title is brought to you by TV Tropes article "Jumping the Shark".
Warning: Vauge and not to vauge implications of past sexual abuse.


Fathers
Chapter Six: Jumping the Building


Parker was fifteen when she decided to name herself Parker. She didn't actually start using the name for a few more months, because she was still living with Parker Paul and she was pretty sure it would be really confusing to other people if she and her foster father happened to have the same first name.

She'd never liked her real name. Her last name was always changing with whomever it was who was putting up the most recent roof over her head. She'd gotten used to her first name being shouted at her most of her life.

She'd been put into the system when she was three, when her father had killed himself and her mother in a car accident. He hadn't been drunk or anything. As a social service worker tried to explain to her years after the fact: "Sometimes things just go wrong."

Her life in the system had swung pretty low on the scale of badness a few times, though she knew from the threats that a couple of her foster families had made that there were even worse places and families to be in. She supposed her "condition" made it worse. She'd actually been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at one point, leading to that foster family throwing her out and even fewer families willing to take her in afterwards.

She'd taken it hard the first time it happened, and that was when the social worker had tried to explain her parents' death to her and from that conversation Parker had come to a non-sequitur conclusion. She was one of those things that just went wrong. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her foster families' faults. It wasn't any ones fault. There was just something wrong with her.

And that was okay.

It wasn't like there was anything she could do about it, so why worry? She'd just be herself and if that didn't work; if people got offended; if for whatever reason she got thrown out of yet another family because things didn't work out (because she scared them); if she did something that might have hurt someone who was threatening her bunny (which was hers and no one else's); hell, if she accidentally blew up something; it was okay. She was just wrong, and that wasn't her fault, so anything that happened because she was just wrong wasn't her fault. Quite simple, really.

That carried her a long way. It made the years between when she figured out she was wrong (at the age of eight), to when the world went wrong (at fourteen), more or less bearable.

At first the Jones household hadn't seemed that bad. It hadn't been any worse than any other home, and even if the father was a little creepy she wouldn't be there long enough for her to feel the need to give a damn.

After two weeks grace, to welcome her into their home, her new foster mother started traveling for work again. She'd be home a week and then gone a week, back for a couple of days and gone again.

It was the second time her foster mother left her that her foster father came into her room at night.

It was the ninth business trip that Mrs. Jones came back home early to find her husband brutally raping their fourteen year old foster child.

When her foster father claimed Parker had seduced him, her foster mother had ignored the bruises, fading and new, and called Parker a whore, a slut, and other things a normal fourteen year old girl should not have been used to being called.

But they were titles her foster father had whispered into her ear a dozen times.

She'd shut down after that. The foster mother had thrown her out and she'd been bounced to a new home. It was then that she was taken in by Parker Paul. A somewhat successful child physiologist he had bypassed the normal condition that a working single parent couldn't foster by arguing his profession might help him reach Parker better than anyone else.

It took him a week to get something other than an apathetic non-response from her. Another two passed before she started speaking in more than clipped scattered monosyllables. It was nearly a month and a half before he actually managed to break through and reach her in any way that mattered.

She'd shut herself down and closed herself off, and was telling herself that things just went wrong, and it was no one's fault, and so she wasn't allowed to feel anything about it. She was just wrong, and her life was just wrong, and if she didn't care she'd be okay.

At first she hadn't responded to him because she hadn't heard him over the roar of her own mind. When it had started to quiet, when she froze over, she didn't respond because she couldn't. When his patience and gentle prodding started to thaw her out she didn't because she was wrong, and her life was wrong, and things just went wrong when she got involved.

She didn't want him to go wrong too.

One day, just any other day, they were walking through the park together. She liked to climb trees and he'd discovered that after watching her scale every climbable tree in their backyard. When she responded or made progress of any sort he'd reward her and one reward was taking her to a park to climb trees.

They'd been walking through the park when a dog had barked at them. It hadn't been threatening but he'd flinched, obviously not particularly fond of dogs. But he didn't walk away. After taking a breath he'd walked forward and petted the dog until it wagged it's tail.

Later, when she'd asked him about, it he'd told her it was something his foster father had told him when he was a boy. "Face your fears like you greeting an old friend. Take a moment to recognize them, then embrace them without hesitation and then let them go. Never run from what you fear."

He didn't fix her. There was something wrong with her that couldn't be fixed all the way, but he reached her, taught her to face her fears, and when she was forced back into the system after six months in his care, he was the first and last person she'd called her father.

She'd ran away a week after that, escaping the foster system for good, taking nothing but her clothes, her stuffed bunny, and the name Parker.

~*~

When the group broke up Sophie had followed Eliot and Joey upstairs and into El'sbedroom. Watching and feeling useless as they settled him onto the bed and Eliot got a first aid kit to clean the cuts on his palms. A few minutes later Joey shooed both of them out the door so she could change El's clothes and finish cleaning him up.

They stood together in silence, much unsaid lingering in the air.

Almost at the same time they both made noises that could have possibly been a reluctant, murmured, apology. For separate things, and vastly different reasons, they both sought and gave forgiveness.

The tension in the air eased a little after that, and Sophie was the first to put something into words. "I understand now." She said, not explaining. "I didn't before but I do now." She shook her head and cut him off when he opened his mouth, not really sure she could put into words what she understood. "I'm still pissed as hell but I still trust you and when this is all over… I want you to know I…" She swallowed hard letting out a long breath before continuing. "I don't want just him to be happy. I want you both to be happy."

Eliot seemed a little shocked at her words. She didn't blame him. She was shocked at them herself.

He was quiet for a long moment before he turned, ducking into his room and coming back with a pistol in a holster. "'Was gonna give it ta Joey for her safety, but the way things are runnin', you should hang onto this." He bit at his lip, his usual confidence and easy calm still missing, but somehow his attitude reminded her of something else… that time ring in the MMA job.

Thinking back to that time, she realized why he was giving her the pistol and she dropped it, looking up to him with horror on her face.

There he was again, the Eliot she'd seen briefly in that ring, who'd explained his need for control to her. There was uncertainty there, and fear. He was afraid, of That Man, of his past, of the monster he knew was inside him and that maybe this time that monster would get out.

He glanced down at the gun and back up at her. "I'm not goin' down easy… but if I go down and stay down, if that thing takes hold…" He closed his eyes, emotions playing across his face in ways he would never allow himself if he hadn't been dragged back into his own personal hell. "Someone'll need to take the shot ta end him. Parker can't shoot, Hardison wouldn't, an' Nate'd put the next bullet in his own brain if it was him." He picked the gun back up and folded her hands around it, careful not to nudge the safety.. "Aim careful and don't hesitate. I…if it comes ta that you won't get two chances."

Before she could put together a response he'd turned, retreating into the guest bedroom that was likely left open specifically for him, and locked the door behind him.

Sophie was left standing in the hall with a gun and a responsibility she was awed that he'd trusted her enough to give her, and cared enough about the team to ensure someone had.

~*~

Parker observed the tag end of the exchange between Sophie and Eliot from the roof outside his window. She couldn't hear what was being said but she could guess at what it meant.

She ducked to the side when Eliot came into the room, watching from just a corner as he sat on the bed and put his face in his hands, shoulders slumped and body shaking. He was behind closed doors for the first time since the Picnic House and she figured he was letting out what he'd been holding in.

She briefly considered leaving him be, she knew what it was like to need a quiet place to break down for a little while, but maybe…

She pushed open the window slowly and slid into the room, ignoring Eliot's growled order to get out. She could hear the tremor in his voice.

She didn't look at him, instead walking to the far side of the room and studying nothing, just to give him some space. After a few moments, when she was sure he wouldn't bodily force her out, she tried giving that wisdom thing one more shot.

"One of my foster parents once told me you should face your fears like embracing an old friend. I only sort of got it then. When you said falling in love was like repelling it made me remember something I decided later. You should face your fears like you jump off a building. Leap and swan dive off into them and trust you've prepared enough to survive it. Trust yourself... and luck I guess."

She turned around to face him, a rueful "Parker" grin on her face. "You're afraid. Afraid there's something wrong with you, that that thing inside of you is going to win, that you'll loose control and hurt someone you care about and it's gonna be your fault. You've spent your whole life afraid of who you were made to be, and that maybe somehow it's your fault that you are who you are."

He looked at her, obviously surprised, but there was something about the way he looked that she knew she was getting somewhere. She wasn't sure if it was right but she was certain she had done something and was gonna go with that.

She crossed over to him and leaned over, meeting his eyes - though the way he inched backwards suggested she'd probably gotten too far into the personal bubble thing Sophie was telling her about. Still…

She pressed onward. "It's not." She said, Parker matter of factly. "Sometimes things just happen. Bad things happen and sometimes you just can't do anything about it." She looked toward the next room and back. "But sometimes you can, but you don't know if you can, if you refuse to jump off the building and see if you can."

Without another word she spun around and sat next to him, leaning sideways to rest her head on his shoulder.

They sat there in quiet as seconds stretched into minutes.

A rough, calloused, hand found Parker's slim one, fingers twinning through hers briefly before letting go as a long breath escaped Eliot. He didn't relax, not yet, not with everything still spiraling out of control, but when his fingers slipped away Parker could almost feel the tension easing just a little.

He stood and walked out of the room without looking back. Parker hurried to follow, internally cheering for herself and her awesome wisdom powers, and beckoned to Sophie to follow.

~*~

Sophie's question of "what now" spoken to the group, was met by a long silence.

Eliot spoke. "I'm tired of runnin' scared, playin' by his rules. What d'ya say we start playing by ours?"

Something in that moment, changed. Like a slow breath out and a deep breath in, the crazy spiral that had been that day, ended. They'd been recovering the best they could, and now they were ready to regain the ground they'd lost.

~*~

It would be a few hours later, after they'd developed and put into motion a basic but effective con Hardison insisted would be forever called the Kentucky Shuffle, that Nate ordered them to all call it a night. It was midnight and even if they all could function longer without sleep, he wanted everyone on their game when things went down.

Everyone also needed time to decompress.

Hardison had retreated to the den where he'd set up shop, followed a moment later by Parker. Sophie had stayed out on the back porch.

Eliot and Nate had walked together into the house and without a word of confirmation or they'd headed together up the stairs to the Guest (but-really-Eliot's) Room.

Eliot knew he and Nate needed to talk about this, about tomorrow, about a lot of things. He knew they should have talked about this all a long time ago. But…

Joey came out of El's room and stopped them before they disappeared into Eliot's. "Elie…" She said softly. "He woke up… he's asking for you. I…"

Eliot nodded, giving Joey a quick one armed hug and slipped into his nephew's room.

"Hey little man" He said, closing the door behind him and looking around before letting his eyes settle on the twelve year old sitting curled up with his comforter, at the head of his bed.

The boy had always been small. He was probably like his mom, destined to hit something resembling a growth spurt in his mid to late teens. Hell, Eliot probably would have hit a decent one himself if he'd been living under half decent circumstances at any point as a child.

Still… small for his age, dirty blonde hair the boy'd been growing out since he'd started to hero worship his uncle over the summer, bright blue eyes, and scared.

Yeah. It wasn't at all like seeing himself as a kid. Not fucking at all.

"Uncle Eliot?" El said, his voice soft and unsure.

"What?" Eliot asked softly, coming to sit by the boy on the bed. His mind was spinning, trying to prepare a million reassurances and answers he could make as convincing as possible.

Yes, El was safe.
No, That Man would be dead long before he could ever even catch a glimpse of El.
Yes, he'd be okay.
Yes, it was okay that he was scared, Eliot would be too, so…

"Is Marie going to be okay?"

Eliot's mind spun to a halt and a bitter, smile crossed his face. Of course that would be what he'd be worrying about. "Yeah kid, she'll be alright."

"I… I know I'm her big brother." El said. "And she's out there with him all alone and it's night. She's still scared of the dark. What if she has a nightmare? I won't be there to keep her safe." El looks away to the spot where his bed was wedged into the corner of the room. "When she has a nightmare I'm the one she wakes up and she sleeps between me and the wall so I can keep her safe."

Eliot looked up and away, thinking back years and years, to his own bed wedged into a corner for the exact same reason. He shifted, reaching out to pull the boy into a one armed hug next to him. "Listen, I'm gonna tell you a secret 'bout little sisters. It took me years ta figure out but it's important." He looked down, meeting El's eyes. "Our job is to protect them, but their job is to protect themselves and us when we can't. They have a little kind of strength, but you'd be amazed how much they can do with it. She'll be fine. Promise."

El nodded and looked down but stayed leaning against Eliot. They sat together for a long time, until El's breathing had evened out and he'd slipped into sleep.

~*~

Once the door was closed Joey looked from the door to Nate and back to the door. She shook her head slowly, sadly. "I never thanked you. Never really got a chance I guess… but I always wished I could."

Nate watched her, waiting a moment for her to explain before gently prodding. "For what?"

She gave a soft, half bitter laugh. "For this, for helping him forgive himself enough to come back to me. For keeping him alive and sane and whatever else you did for him in that cell…" Her voice trailed off as she looked back to the door. "And for that." She added barely above a whisper. She let out a slow breath.

Joey turned back to Nate, a brittle, broken smile on her face that made her almost look like a little girl. "From the time I was eleven to the time he finally found me twelve years later he barely touched me… or anyone…At least not how it mattered." Her mouth opened halfway and she seemed to struggle for words for a second. "What… what That Man did to him… It took me years to understand."

She looked down, swallowed, and found the words she'd been looking for. "He was broken you know. Shattered. I never… When he sent me into the system I… I was the only thing holding him together and he just fell apart… went crazy. So much, he didn't even know it anymore. So much, he convinced himself he wasn't. And I pushed him away." She was strangely calm, though somehow Nate had a feeling Joey didn't cry any more than Eliot did. She looked back up, meeting his eyes. "But you… you fixed him. You reached him and made him better, made him… showed him how to be… human. When all the world would have called him a lost cause, a disaster… you were kind and reminded him of something we both lost as kids and he never got back." She let out one slow breath. "So thank you."

She turned to leave, going to her bedroom door and pausing before turning back. "And um… you have my permission to date my brother. Though convincing the kids'll be a little harder."

With that she was gone and Nate leaned against the wall, letting out one long slow breath.

~*~

He should sleep. He really should. He had been up for nearly forty-eight hours already, which was actually more or less par and course for him. Hardison was a caffeine junkie for a lot of reasons, including but not limited to, the fact he actually did suffer from insomnia and most sleeping meds made his head way too foggy.

He didn't make a big deal out of it but Hardison was actually a certified genius. IQ of 169 and all. But it seemed to also mean his brain was wired differently than other people, and the same parts of his brain that allowed him to code and hack at two or three times the speed most other hackers could, unfortunately also seemed to mean his mind rarely if ever worked at a speed conducive to sleep.

Which, with the added bonus of everything that had happened in the past fourteen hours serving to increase the amount of information his mind was processing by a few gigs a second, he wasn't actually likely to be getting any sleep tonight, or tomorrow night if he wasn't lucky.

So instead of sleeping he got on his computer and started looking up psychologists that specialized in Dissociative Identity Disorder, adult survivors of childhood abuse, and Post Traumatic Stress disorder. He'd make a list and then start hunting down the best in the field. Money would obviously be no object and really, location wouldn't be either.

The issue would be convincing Eliot to go, but Nate would have that covered.

He was so focused on his work, his mission, and trying to channel his dozen trains of thought into one or two to focus that he didn't notice Parker had followed him into the den.

At least not until she closed his laptop and sat on the desk behind it, all but forcing him to look at her. "You're not going to understand this, and that's okay." She said. "But I wanted to tell you I want to go repelling with you. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've been afraid that you wouldn't feel like that, and you'd say mean things, and things would go wrong, and we'd both fall really hard onto metaphorical pavement, but I want to go repelling with you. And I know now's not the best time, and I'm not sure if we're both ready, but I want to go repelling with you." She gave a small, forced, Parker grin and sighed. "Well… just thought I'd let you know."

She turned to leave and it took Hardison until she was almost at the door, to recover. He didn't want to go repelling, hell it scared the crap out of him, but this was Parker. "Hey Parker."

She turned to look back at him.

"Any time you want to, just let me know. I want to go repelling with you too."

That brilliant Parker smile he wished he'd see more often told him, even if he didn't really understand all she'd just said, he'd said the right thing.

She slipped out the door and Hardison turned back to the computer, tempted briefly to start looking up repelling tips, but shook it off. There would be time later for that. Tonight was about Eliot.

A moment later Parker reappeared with a blanket. She lay down on the nearby couch and Hardison opened a separate word document, and started to type out an outline for what he needed to do and look for. Parker had told him one time when they were sharing a room on a job and he'd been worried he was keeping her awake, that she thought that the sound of him typing was soothing "Kinda like rain but not so gloomy".

It was only a few minutes before she was asleep.

At least one of them would have a good night's rest.

~*~

The house was quiet when Eliot slipped out of El's room, checked on the security measures Hardison had installed earlier one more time for good measure, and slipped into his room.

Nate was sitting on the bed, dozing a little against the wall.

For a minute Eliot was tempted to slip out and leave him there, not sure either of them were ready to deal with what today meant for them.

But Parker was right (though that sentence alone made his head hurt). He couldn't run from this. Face his fears. Jump off the building.

He came to that conclusion right as Nate woke up.

"Eliot." He said, his voice not betraying anything.

"Nate I…" Eliot started to say, not even sure what was going to come out. Apology? Explanation? Defense of himself, and trying to shift off the stigma he was sure the team was now attaching to him "Poor little Eliot Spencer, he's so mad and tortured because he got abused and raped as a kid. It's all an act to try to show the world he's not afraid." Even if he knew they would never think that he'd been pulled too far into his nightmare scenario to really believe it the way he should.

"Don't" Nate said, cutting him off and standing. He walked over to Eliot, resting his hands gently on Eliot's shoulders. "No explanations. No apologies." He let out a breath. "What you went through… it made you who you are, but it wasn't the only thing that did. It made you hard, but protecting Joey made you a good man who could survive in this world of evil men. You're still a good man, you're still Eliot Spencer, and the team still knows who you are. Now they just understand why."

Slowly Nate drew him in to an embrace, holding Eliot like he had years ago, in that cell in Cairo when he'd been beaten, too weak to sit up and left at the mercy of old memories. Held him like he did when Eliot woke from bad dreams about a worse reality.

Like he did when, for just a brief moment, the man who'd become the team's white knight protector, who for all the violence he committed, just made them feel safe, needed to shrug off his armor and be taken care of.

Exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave, adrenalin giving out for the first time since the phone call that morning and if Nate hadn't been holding him there might have been some very undignified collapsing occurring.

He got his legs back under him and Nate helped him sit on the bed, shrug out of his blood stained shirt, and kick off his shoes. They laid down together, and as blackness was threatening to pull him under, three words bubbled up from his chest, up his throat, and out his lips in a whisper.

The last thing he heard as the darkness claimed him - and that hell of a day came to an end - were those three words, repeated back to him.