Chapter 49
Los Angeles
"What do you mean, she disappeared?" Sophie whispered urgently as she stared between Eliot's and Nate's concerned faces.
"Just what we said," Eliot's raspy whisper filling the space between the three of them as they stood in the middle of the hospital hallway, "…she up and left a couple of hours ago."
"Nearly as soon as she regained consciousness," Nate added.
Sophie dropped heavily onto the nearby chair, next to Joshua who was sound asleep and cloaked beneath Nate's jacket.
"Is she alright, even?" Sophie asked, looking up at Nate and Eliot with pleading eyes, desperately needing good news. "I mean is she back to herself?"
"The doctors couldn't tell us," Nate answered again, "she basically opened her eyes and left."
Sophie sighed heavily and rolled her head backward. "Do we even know where to begin looking for her?" she asked softly.
Eliot shook his head.
Nate sat beside her and massaged her shoulders, "We don't know what's going on in Parker's head right now. She's been through a lot in the past few years. Maybe she just needs to decompress…" He straightened and looked into the room directly across from where they were sitting and stared at Hardison's unconscious body lying there, "Besides he's the one with the best chance of finding her."
"What if…" Sophie started to ask but couldn't bring herself to finish the thought. They were too close to the finish line to bring negative thoughts into the equation. Hardison would regain consciousness. They would find Parker.
"I'll stay tonight," Eliot announced after the silence stretched too long, "It's late. I think Skip's knocked out," he looked at Joshua's tiny body curled under the jacket.
Sophie and Nate looked at their son and then at each other. It all still felt new and strange, and terribly contradictory. They were several days removed from that eventful night of unraveling all of Sonia's misdeeds, then they'd flown to Los Angeles to be close to Alec and Parker as they recovered, yet there were moments when an irrational anxiety would course through each of their bodies. They were happy, yet sad; at peace, yet still on edge. Joshua was theirs- the tests confirmed his parentage, yet neither Nate nor Sophie had fully accepted it. Sophie still slept in spurts of ten minutes at a time, waking with a start to ensure that her baby was still asleep in the bed she'd tucked him into. And, on more than one occasion, Nate was startled by the presence of the tiny face staring at him with the eyes so much like his own. He would forget-wholly- that the child was there, and his. It would be a process, but one they were both learning more about every day and grateful for the chance that they'd been given to do so.
"Okay," Nate accepted Eliot's offer. He stood and gathered Joshua into his arms, "I'll be back at nine tomorrow morning. I have a phone call with Sterling at seven."
"Sterling?" Eliot repeated, his hackles rising immediately.
"Just calling to discuss some of the fallout from Sonia's scheme," Nate disclosed nonchalantly.
"Oh…" Eliot persisted but Sophie stood up between them before they could continue.
"Please boys, no shop talk tonight," Sophie announced firmly, "You guys can talk about this ad nauseam tomorrow, like you always do. I just want to get Joshua home now."
Nate nodded his agreement and then nodded at Eliot to signal his 'goodnight' before he turned and headed down the hallway.
Sophie offered a small smile and a wink to Eliot before touching her cheek to his as she said goodnight. As she was pulling away though, he felt her startle and heard her gasp and the ever-ready soldier in him perked to attention.
"HARDISON…" Sophie half yelled, half exhaled, as she peered into the room where the hacker's eyes focused weakly, but definitively, on them.
Sophie and Eliot rushed into the room and Nate shuffled back up the hallway, holding Joshua tightly as he did.
They crowded around Alec's bed and began calling to him to gauge his awareness. Sophie pressed the button to summon the nurses.
Alec simply stared with half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes.
The medical team arrived with fanfare, loud and busy and ready to poke, prod and pull him back fully into the land of the living. They read his monitors, checked his stats, tracked their lights in his eyes and halted his pain drip. Then a pair of nurses removed his breathing tube.
Alec gagged, and sputtered. His half-closed eyes sprang wide. He heaved and took quick breaths with lungs too tired, it seemed, to open themselves fully. Then his eyes refocused on Nate, Sophie, and Eliot and he shaped the only thought in his head into a word.
"…Parker?"
His voice was hoarse and horribly ragged, and his throat burned like he'd swallowed lava but he asked again, and again.
"Parker?... Parker?"
Finally Sophie angled around the nurses and stood next to his bed close enough to touch his hand to calm him.
"Parker is alive," Sophie whispered quickly and it was all Alec needed- or all he could have handled. The relief flooded him and his head instantly lolled; he fell asleep.
"Don't worry," one of the nurses added, "that's totally normal. He'll be fine. He just need to rest."
"Come back tomorrow," another chimed in as she attached a less invasive oxygen tube to his nose, "he's most likely out for the night."
Sophie, Nate and Eliot looked at each other warily. The relief they felt at Alec's awakening dimmed by the prospect of having to tell him that Parker was nowhere to be found.
"Go home," Eliot exhaled as he sat heavily into the room's lone seat, "I'll call you guys if anything happens. There's no need for all of us to be here."
Nate looked to Sophie and they nodded their agreement to each other.
"I'll be back at nine," Nate announced again as he walked out of the room, "Goodnight."
Sophie looked at Alec's sleeping face once more before she left his side, touching Eliot's shoulder gently as she made her way out of the room behind Nate and Joshua.
One by one, the nurses left the room and Eliot looked over at Alec, "Com'on man," he urged quietly, "You can beat this. You're going to get better and get up and be out of here in no time."
"…and you better hurry up, because I really hate hospitals," Eliot half smiled at the little joke he shared with himself.
He leaned back and rested his head against the wall behind him. Deep sleep was an elusive mistress on a good night; in a hospital, sitting at the foot of his best friend's bed, he knew it would be nearly impossible. But his tired eyes, and tense muscles, demanded a few blissful moments of rest. With a long expulsion of the deep breath he'd been holding, Eliot let himself have a few peaceful moments.
"This was just the first wave," Sterling announced pensively; the apprehension as clear through the phone as if they'd been speaking face to face.
It was precisely what Nate didn't want to hear first thing in the morning, he gripped the phone tighter.
"Do you have any leads?" Nate asked, pinching the bridge of his nose to soothe the rising tension headache.
"Nothing concrete," Sterling offered, "There's just a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of connections that seemingly lead nowhere."
Nate blew out a low groan, "Where's Sonia?"
"She's still in custody," Sterling answered, then quickly added, "…for now."
"What," Nate perked.
"We're having a little trouble making the bigger charges stick," Sterling labored the words.
Nate squeezed his eyes to ease the mounting headache, "If Sonia is freed, she'll be nearly impossible to catch again…and she'll make our lives hell."
Sterling took a breath before he spoke again, "She covered her tracks well, Nate… but I think the bigger picture here is that Sonia nearly succeeded in throwing the world into a state of utter chaos. If she hadn't overplayed her hand or even, perhaps if she was less personally invested with you and your crew, who knows what she would have accomplished."
"What's your point Sterling?" Nate asked impatiently.
"My point is," Sterling hastened, "that we don't know when, or where, or who's going to strike next. And the next time they may not leave anything to chance."
Nate dropped his forehead onto his palm, the frustration and worry settling over him and tightening like a vise.
"We were lucky with Sonia," he breathed as he thought of the damage that she caused- the damage that they were still living through, "I don't know if we have one more in us."
Sterling sighed heavily, "I'll be sure to keep you in the loop."
"Thanks, Sterling," Nate offered genuinely.
"Yeah," Sterling responded evenly.
And they each hung up the phone and sat back in their chairs wondering what fresh bit of hell lurked around the corner.
His recovery was slow and very painful. Alec's body had become so reliant on the small pacemaker that Sonia had installed, that simple tasks now required three times the effort. He felt as though he was starting from scratch, or had aged considerably. He had to learn his body again. His limbs felt heavy and awkward, and his joints ached and lacked their full range of motion.
The presence of the team, Nate, Sophie, Eliot, and little Joshua, buoyed his spirit and kept him fighting when he didn't think he had another step left in him. They visited every day and even the mundane conversation and silly board games they played with him were a welcome respite from the agitation and sadness he felt when he was alone and forced to think about Parker.
For two weeks, after he'd first woken up, they told him she was fine, just resting. Then when he became aware enough to notice their averted eyes and tense shoulders he asked for the truth and Eliot finally admitted that they didn't know where she was.
Alec felt as though he was back in the dark tunnel from three years ago, all over again. The feeling of loss was so profound it actually physically hurt to think about her. But he couldn't tell them about the sadness that was building inside of him, the ache that hurt worse than his surgery. He just did as he always did and made a way when others couldn't.
Alec pushed his physical therapy so hard he was too spent some evenings to even carry on a conversation. He pushed his body beyond capabilities the doctors- or even he- thought possible, but he had to get out. He had to find Parker.
He wouldn't entertain the thought that she was lost to him again. He would never give up so easily on her. He did once. He didn't go looking for her when she needed him. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Until he saw Parker with his own eyes, he would not stop trying to find her.
So he fought through the pain, the exhaustion, the despair that called like a siren's song, and three weeks earlier than expected, Alec walked out of the hospital and into a small apartment he owned in Los Angeles. He walked to the computer as soon as he and Eliot walked through the door that first night back and there he remained, every day and night, for months.
His need to find her consumed him- more than it did before. And although it worried then, Nate, Sophie and Eliot didn't make any serious attempts to stop him. They realized it was what he needed. They playfully told him he needed to get some fresh air, feel the sun on his face, and they even tried to help where they could but Parker was elusive. There wasn't any sign of her, anywhere.
And he looked everywhere. He scoured the globe, tasked every contact, called in every favor.
Nothing.
At least not until the night the power went.
The rain had been falling for the better part of two days and Alec told Nate and Sophie that it would have been better if they'd kept Joshua at home and out of the rain for a second day. They agreed, but Eliot stopped by anyway. The hitter took the opportunity while the others weren't around, to convince his friend to go easy on himself.
"I'm not saying that you have to give up, Hardison. I'm just saying you're running yourself too thin. You need to be healthy when you find her."
Alec knew he was right. He was so intently focused on his search for Parker that he ignored his hunger, his tiredness, the pain and itching of the scars on his chest, everything. And it was catching up to him. His body was achy and stiff from lack of movement and he'd been getting short, sharp pains in his chest-which he didn't tell anyone about.
"Ok," Alec answered his friend, "I'll take the night off."
Eliot smiled, "Yeah uh huh, sure. You're feeding me that bull to get me out of your hair." He laughed softly as he went to the refrigerator to grab a beer.
"No, I'm serious," Alec assured, getting up from his desk with a slight grimace, "I'm going to watch TV, take a nap, catch up on some light reading. I'll get back to the search tomorrow."
Eliot looked at Alec with a raised eyebrow.
Alec smiled, "I'm ser…."
Just as he was about to further convince Eliot, the room fell into a deep and sudden darkness, punctuated by the eerie glow of the two computer screens and the emergency flood light mounted in the hallway. They were both stunned into silence.
Eliot went to the window and saw that the entire area for a few blocks had gone dark and he immediately began running through contingencies in his mind in case the blackout was an staged attack.
"It's not an attack," Alec called to him, knowing Eliot would have reverted instantly to his training and suspicion.
Technology was always Alec's go to.
"The city's grid suffered a little flooding and they had to shut down as a precaution," he held up his phone so Eliot could see the large EMERGENCY ALERT notice on the electrical company's webpage.
Eliot turned to the window again a different unease raising his hackles.
"People lose their minds when there're no lights," he said more to himself than to his Alec, who'd positioned himself on the large sofa in the living room.
"Are you talking about break-ins?" Alec asked as he rolled his head back and allowed his body to relax for a moment.
"Yup," was all Eliot replied.
"Eliot, get out of here," Alec offered as he watched his friend grow tenser, "There's no power. I can't do anything but go to sleep anyway."
"Who do you think you're fooling? I know you have emergency power?" Eliot responded knowingly.
Alec smiled in spite of himself and at how well his friend knew him, "Yeah, okay, I do, but I'm not going to use it. I'm going to get some rest, I promise." He held up a Boy Scout hand pledge.
Eliot shook his head and smiled, then he turned to look out the window again. By then a larger area had gone dark.
"Yeah, okay. I'm going to head out," he announced as he gathered his coat and made his way out. He turned at the door and looked back to his nearly sleeping friend, "If anything feels strange or…"
Alec interrupted him, "I got it…you'll be the first one I call." He smiled sleepily and Eliot was assured.
The door closed quietly behind the Hitter and plunged the room into silence.
Alec sat on the sofa for a few minutes listening to the rain pelt the window and the distant thunder that was approaching. They were in for another rough night.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd listened to the rain. There was always something to do, something to look at, engage in. He hadn't had opportunity or desire to so something as simple as watch a thunderstorm in a really long time. It was surprisingly pleasant, and he realized, extremely calming. The anxiety in his body eased with each distracted breath he took but as the sleep beckoned he decided to go to his bed.
He walked to the bedroom and realized that his body felt different with just the short time away from his desk- and he also began to realize how sleep deprived he really was.
He kept on his sweatpants but took off the shirt he'd been wearing. They were identical to the pair he'd lent Parker a few months earlier. He made the connection and felt a moment of sadness. Where was she? Was she okay?
He opened the blinds to the large picture window and looked out at the lightshow that nature was providing.
He settled into his bed and leaned back. The cool, soft sheets felt very good as he settled his weight into its center. He chastised himself for all the nights he grabbed a quick half hour nap on the sofa between his research into Parker's whereabouts.
He'd just comfortably arranged himself into a position he'd be able to rest and look out the window when he heard a knock on the door.
He laughed a little as he slowly made it toward the door. He was convinced Eliot was back to prove he wouldn't be able to take the night off.
"I haven't even looked at the computer screen, man," he called to the closed door before he'd even opened it.
But when he twisted the handle and pulled it open the sight before him nearly made his newly minted artificial heart stop in its paces.
There she was, at last: A soaked-to-the-bone Parker, holding a bag of Pretzels.