Notes: Takes place not long before The Bottle Job but isn't really a tag. Also this little fic was brought to you by the wikipedia entry for Parkour and TV Tropes which was how I found out about the concept. Out of courtesy to fellow addicts I have refrained from linking.

The Distance Between Two Points
Parker has been a student of Parkour for years so she likes to believe she's an expert when it comes to crossing the distance between two points.

Parker was seventeen when she first heard the meaning for the word "Parkour".

Or, as she likes to think, when she first heard the word for the meaning.

Parkour: a physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.

If that environment happens to involve obstacles like people, park benches, parked cars, moving cars, buildings, overpasses, rooftops, small bodies of water, and or sky scrapers it doesn't really matter. Or is the matter she supposes.

After all Parkour is, in simple terms, the art of efficiently crossing the distance between two points in a straight line.

For years Parkour was Parker's general approach to all aspects of life. She found the most direct route and went.

It didn't work as well with people as with thefts or evading the police but that didn't really bother her too much.

At least not until Chicago and Nathan Ford. Not until Sophie and Eliot.

Not until Hardison.

It took her awhile, a few lessons on acting from Sophie (con acting, not horror movie acting), and some time when they'd gone their own ways after the David jobs to realize that she may have been ignoring a key part of Parkour.

It wasn't just about crossing the distance between two points.

It was about how you crossed that distance.

Hell. She was starting to think maybe it was about the distance itself.

Maybe that was why Sophie had gone to Europe. Maybe she thought if she made the distance big enough she'd be able to see it clearer and tell where along the line the distance between her and Nate became something she couldn't cross and what the new point she was moving toward was.

Maybe it was the reason Eliot wouldn't move to sit next to her on the couch during the briefings with Sophie gone and why she felt a little better when Hardison did. It felt like he was changing the distance between where they were and where they were going.

Maybe it was why they had all officially moved into the same building. Even she had. They had started before but after Sophie left it became something official. They needed the distance between their points to be as little as possible while being a distance.

She shook her head. Her metaphors were starting to confuse themselves. She needed to stop thinking.

Maybe she should steal something.

She looked up from where she'd been absently sketching on a bar napkin (the floor plan for the Smithsonian museum on natural history's gem exhibit) to the others scattered around the bar. In her mind she traced the paths between herself and their points.

Hardison was closest, hovering a little ways away chatting to the bar keeper. There were only a few barstools between her and him. Easy to cross.

There was also the canyon between the roof tops of two skyscrapers made out of things that she couldn't seem to say or figure out and what he couldn't say and wouldn't risk and their only chance to cross it was repelling. But that was a different kind of distance she was trying not to think about tonight.

Tara was second closest, sitting at a nearby table finishing her drink and getting ready to leave. They'd finished their fourth job together not long ago and it seemed like Tara lingered just a little longer after every job. There were two chairs, nine feet, and one person between her and Parker.

There was a larger distance between her and the rest of the team but they were shortening it every day.

Nate and Eliot were the farthest from her, standing together on the far side of the bar, not being very subtle about the fact they'd done away with the distance between the two of them a long time ago. There were three tables, roughly twenty two feet, four chairs, and one person between her and them. Of course, judging by how close they were sitting together there was quite a bit more mental distance between them and her.

Being "A million miles away" was a metaphor that had actually always made perfect sense to her.

She knew Eliot was still aware, even if Nate probably wasn't paying attention. As if on cue he looked over to her and raised an eyebrow that asked why she was watching him.

She gave a devious smile and looked back down to her napkin.

He'd worry about what she was up to for the rest of the night.

A few moments later, though, he turned away from her and Nate when a man entered the bar.

Quickly but easily Eliot slipped away from Nate and greets the new man. Judging by the broad shoulders yet casual danger in his stance probably one of his old hitter friends. They show up from time to time.

He had blue eyes like Eliot, Parker noted, absently wondering if all hitters have blue eyes.

Parker couldn't hear what they were saying but she saw the distance between their two points was unusually close. Eliot normally kept his distance farther than that.

Nate came over, moving in close to Eliot and even Parker recognized a claiming of sorts though she half wondered if Nate did.

If Eliot's slight half step away was any indication Eliot at least recognized it.

Parker watched as introductions were made and some sort of playful argument broke out between Eliot and his friend. Nate didn't seem amused though.

He seemed less amused by the second.

Then Eliot went to leave with the other guy and Nate said something, putting a hand on Eliot's shoulder.

Eliot paused only long enough to give Nate a look before stepping away and leaving with the other guy, laughing at something as they stepped out the door.

Something inside Parker twisted painfully as she watched, the distance between Nate and Eliot widening suddenly with nothing she could do.