A/N: Woah, look at all those reviews! I mean, yay and thank you, so very glad to have them, but no way did I expect 15 on the first chapter alone! lol Really hope the rest of this fic doesn't disappoint as we go on...

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 2

Eliot wasn't sure when he came to realise that of all the things he could talk his way out of, Parker wasn't one of them. She got under his skin somewhere along the line. Maybe it started the first day they met, maybe sometime between their time in LA and after in Boston, he honestly didn't know. The fact was, if she wanted something and he could give it to her, somehow he always would, whether he meant to or not.

She liked her own way, she was used to getting whatever she wanted, and Eliot found he was no exception when it came to her sneaky thieving ways. In the space of five minutes, she had stolen his personal journey out from under him. Now it was a road trip for two, no arguments. Well, hell, if there wasn't at least going to be some rules!

"No touching my radio," he told her, gently slapping her hand away from the dial and resetting it to his favourite station that played mostly country with a side of rock. "That's rule one, you got that?"

"Yes, sir," Parker said in an over-the-top way, saluting for good measure.

Eliot growled crossly in response, already sure this was a bad idea. When he found her in the back of his truck at his first stop, he knew damn well that telling her to go home and leave him be was the best plan. Trouble was, she didn't want to go, and he knew why. She cared, and he couldn't be mad at her for that exactly.

It took a lot for Parker to care about anybody but herself, and yet here she was, having more or less admitted that she was here to watch his back like he had so many times for her. Eliot would like to regret his own words that she now used against him, the things he said to her after all that business with her 'father', Archie Leech. They were a team now, they didn't go off half-cocked and alone. That was exactly what he'd done, though he had at least bothered to say goodbye. Clearly those words had sounded way too permanent to Parker, and she would not stand idly by while a member of her new-found family walked out the door and drove off into the sunset, maybe for good.

Looking sideways at her now, Eliot watched Parker watching the scenery go by with a smile on her face. He wondered how much of the world she had really seen. She had travelled around, they all had, but she was so fixated on the job she was doing, the thing she was stealing at the time, it made Eliot think she probably hadn't ever taken time out to appreciate the world and nature and all. Perhaps this trip would be as good for her as it was for him, though the idea of being stuck in her company twenty four seven was not as appealing as it might be.

Parker was a good person and he had learnt to live with her crazy ways over the past three years or so. Still, Eliot always knew he had an escape from her, from the whole team before. He could go home, go away, get out. On this trip, there was really nowhere to go. She seemed dead set on not leaving him and he would never forgive himself if he just left her some place, even if it was the next town rather than the side of the interstate. Eliot had enough to feel guilty about already, it was why he was here, mostly anyway, he was not going to allow Parker to add to a too long list of bad things he had done.

"You're not going to make as many car rules as Hardison has for his van, are you?" she asked out of the blue.

"That depends," Eliot replied, eyes on the road always. "I don't listen to Hardison's van rules, so I wouldn't even know what they are".

Parker might've at least sniggered at that comment, if she were listening properly. As it was she was counting off Hardison's rules on her fingers before Eliot had barely finished speaking.

"No touching anything electrical unless he says so. No eating. No drinking - which is totally hypocritical because he always has soda in there. No talking when he's concentrating, which is usually hacking or surveilling. Oh, and no climbing on the roof or riding on the outside when he's driving," Parker sighed. "That's the worst one".

Eliot shook his head, feeling a little dazed. Those were pretty sensible rules, but some that you would only need if you had a girl like Parker hanging around. Hardison loved his Lucille like nothing else, cared even more for her well-being than Parker's fun apparently, and that was saying something.

"I don't have that many rules about my truck," he told her easily. "You can eat and drink if you have to, but you make a mess in here and we're not gonna get along so well, you got that?" he told her with a glance that would have been scary if Parker didn't know the hitter so well.

"That's cool," she shrugged. "Don't touch the radio, and don't spill," she recounted. "Not a problem," she nodded once, getting comfortable in her seat and watching the world spin by once more.

It occurred to Eliot then that she hadn't asked where they were going. He probably wouldn't have told her if she had, but it was weird that she never cared to ask the question. Most people would not be happy about a magical mystery tour like this, especially with a guy like him, but then Parker had proved time and again that she was nothing like any other person Eliot ever met.

She was so used to being dragged around as a kid and then running from trouble when she became a thief, it probably just never bothered Parker where she landed up. Much like Eliot, she seemed to like to travel light and keep on moving, at least until they got snared by the team and became part of something more solid. It had seemed that way, some place permanent to call home, not Boston perhaps, but with this group of people, in this weird hybrid family unit. It was all less clear now, coming apart at the seams, little by little.

Eliot wasn't really aware of his own actions until he saw Parker react to the fact he had hit the steering wheel so hard. She looked over at him with surprise and he spared her a glance, an apology in the back of his throat but never quite making it out. It couldn't really matter that he startled her. She was settled back down in her seat two seconds later, humming along to a tune she recognised on the radio. Eliot might have been a little surprised or even mildly amused that Parker knew any country music, but he wasn't exactly paying any real attention. His mind had been elsewhere since the moment he left Boston, it seemed almost safer that way, and yet the places in the past were as dangerous to wander into as the present reality, maybe worse in fact.

"Why didn't you want to come back?" said Parker in the silence that went on way too long for her liking, after the song she liked was over and another she didn't care for began.

"I never said I wasn't coming back," Eliot growled low in his throat.

He didn't like this topic of conversation, and yet he knew before long it was going to come around again. They hadn't really established the truth of anything in the coffee shop. She accused him of lying when he left and he hadn't quite managed to deny it, but he never did explain himself and she never told him how she could be so sure he lied in the first place.

"You have most of your clothes in the back," she noted, never taking her eyes off her own fingers as she worked to remove the last of the wrecked nail polish there. "All the important stuff from your place - your guitar, a photo album, the sword Nate and Sophie got you last Christmas..."

"Did you go through everything back there?" he asked her, part annoyed, part astonished that she had managed to do so without him really noticing.

"Yes," she answered simply, clearly not understanding what an invasion of privacy that was, but then Parker hardly ever got that kind of thing, even three years down the road from Job One. "I mean, I packed all my essentials too, but then that's because I figured if you weren't coming back then maybe I wouldn't either".

Eliot frowned at that and very nearly forgot to keep his eyes on the road. He always knew that Parker was one of the few people left in the world that could still surprise him, but now she had done it twice in less than a day and it was the most disturbing thing. She had come along on this trip with him, in some misguided attempt to keep him safe and watch his back, like he had so many times before for her. Now she was admitting, all free and easily, that she had packed up her life to bring along with, having a genuine understanding of the fact that she might never go back to the family he knew she held so dear.

"You'd miss 'em too much," he shook his head then. "You need Sophie and Nate to play Momma and Daddy. You got too used to it to just up and walk that way," he told her.

"Maybe," Parker shrugged, wondering vaguely why he hadn't mentioned Hardison at all, but letting it go for now because it wasn't the point. "I've had a lot of foster parents and some of them were nice, and yeah, I guess I missed them after I left, but I never regretted it," she shook her head. "I promised myself at age eight that I was never going to end up anywhere that I didn't want to be," she emphasised with a finger pushed definitely into her own chest.

She was in charge of her own destiny, she was determined about that, and if nothing else Eliot had to respect that attitude. He shared it, in a lot of ways. After Moreau in particular, he was determined to make his own way in the world, to not be under anyone's thumb anymore, to not put himself into a place where he had to feel that way again. It was strange how much he and Parker had in common these days, or maybe it was there all along and he just hadn't thought on it until now.

"Hold on a second," he said as realisation hit suddenly. "You were eight when you first went out on your own?" he checked, glad he could dare to look at her a moment on the straight and empty road.

"Uh-huh," Parker nodded, clearly not getting that it should be a shock to anyone.

She was also oblivious to the fact that Eliot was waiting for her to further explain how that had happened. If she had realised, she might have told the story. It wasn't like it mattered anymore and she knew she could trust Eliot with that kind of thing. As it was, she just shifted the subject again without a moments pause.

"My bag is under the tarp, pushed into the corner between a couple of boxes," she told him. "Just in case you look back there later and wonder what that is".

"You brought one bag on a trip you thought you were never going home from?" asked Eliot before shaking his head and answering his own question. "Of course you did, you're Parker," he realised aloud.

It made sense to him, that she learnt to travel so light. She'd have some clothes, maybe wash stuff, he guessed. No doubt there was a harness and lines stuffed in that bag, and essential food, which for Parker would be cereal and candy. There was nothing else she would really want or need, he supposed, except for little things like lock picks and such, and they were probably in her pockets, never far enough away to be lost.

It was still weird to the hitter to realise that the crazy little thief could live without so many material things, and yet seemed determined to not have a person like him slip through her fingers. Sure, folks should care more for people they loved than items they owned, but Eliot never considered Parker felt much of anything for him. They were a team and they had each others backs, but it was kind of above and beyond for her to hide away in his truck like this and come along on a journey that might never take either of them back to where they started.

Parker pushed herself down into her seat, eyes closed, humming along to the radio again. Eliot frowned some as he realised this was the next in a long line of country songs she seemed to know. He never had her down as a fan of that kind of music, or a fan of any music really, not enough to know the tunes and some of the words. It occurred to him he didn't think much about anything Parker did outside of her job. She was the very definition of a woman - an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Maybe this trip would change that and he'd get to know her better here, since getting to know himself only created a bad feeling in the pit of Eliot's stomach these days.

"I didn't have you down for a country music fan, darlin'," he told her with a smirk, though his eyes remained on the road, checking the mile marker for the next town.

The sky was beginning to darken, it was best they found a place to sleep for the night. Eliot could sleep in the truck if he had to but he had no reason to try it. Besides, sharing the space with Parker would make things that much more complicated.

"You don't know everything about me," she smiled, still with her eyes closed against the remaining light. "I had a life before the team, before I was even a thief," she sighed quietly, continuing to hum along to the radio.

Eliot found himself smiling too and joining in with the lyrics to the song that floated through the truck. So far this trip was nothing like he planned, but truth be told, it wasn't half bad.

To Be Continued...