Notes: Tag to The Bottle Job. Also a super drabble (five hundred word segments to be exact).

Ten Seconds
Eternity in ten seconds

It's somewhere between taking down her hair and pulling up her skirt, somewhere in those ten seconds between when she starts to fall into character and when she approaches the mark that she realizes she doesn't hesitate anymore. As eccentric as Nate is, as crazy as his crew is, she's started to take her cues from him without question.

She files that thought away before she even finishes the breath it was born on.

When she's starting to con a mark isn't the best time to be dealing with the realization that she may be starting to trust this crew.

oOo

"Tara knows." Parker tells him when they're heading upstairs. "Tara knows so you can stop flirting."

It takes a moment for Eliot to register what Tara would now know, and a moment longer to follow Parker-Logic, but then he shakes his head. "That aint why I'm flirting." He says.

She looks at him questioningly and but he doesn't explain.

A possessive hand on his shoulder, Nate's growing need for control, and the valentine's day cards he saw in a store earlier.

"Oh." Parker says, like life makes sense now, and then slips away.

God Eliot wished it was that easy.

oOo

It's a short moment. Longer than it would take to fall from most short buildings but still pretty short.

But she feels something like she's falling.

Hardison takes a box cutter to the back of Old Nate and Parker's heart clenches and she's crossing the room in what feels like slow motion.

Then Hardison shows what he's really doing and asks them if they thought he was sentimental.

She doesn't answer. She can't. She's hurting in her special angry place.

Beside her Eliot is silent. He understands.

Wherever Old Nate is the team is.

And where they are is home.

oOo

He can feel Eliot's eyes on him.

He can hear the silence of the team, holding their breaths, waiting for impact.

He feels the weight of the glass.

He feels the weight of Eliot's gaze.

He can see Cora among the guests, trying not to let her panic and worry show through.

He feels the slosh of liquid in the glass.

He feels his heart beat, his breath catch.

He hears Sam flat line, sees Eliot's skin bruised and bloody, young eyes dark.

He remembers blissful nothingness.

He feels glass against lips and the burn as something inside him gives.

oOo

Hardison holds his breath, feeling ten seconds ticking by too fast.

Time always seems to pass too fast.

Things always pass too fast.

Nate sober had passed too fast.

The team being together and all good and all happy always passed too fast.

And when the clock was ticking down and the job was going south and they had to rely on an inebriated Nate to pull through time always passed too fast.

Then Nate makes the bet and Hardison celebrates.

Time is passing too fast, as always, so he'll celebrate this victory.

It may be awhile before the next.