A/N I hope you all are ready for chapter 4! As promised this is actually the second half of the last chapter... it's the longest chapter yet so here it is I hope you enjoy it!

Once again my thanks go to Alexandra926 who puts up with far more whining from me than any one person should have to...

Eliot only had one good nerve left, and Parker was tap dancing all over it.

It didn't help that he was nursing a minor concussion and several cracked ribs, courtesy of an angry South African mercenary wielding a 2x4, from their last job. Add that to the fact that on the flight back to Boston, he'd somehow gotten stuck in the row behind Hardison, who had managed to find himself sitting next to his geeky soulmate. All the meditation in the world hadn't been able to block out the two of them babbling on about whatever the hell an MMORPG was for the last four and a half hours of the flight.

And now that he was home, all he wanted to do was take a shower, sit down on his couch with a beer and an ice pack on his ribs, and watch the game in relative peace and quiet. He'd managed to get the first part done, but when he walked out into the living room to let Parker know that the shower was free, he couldn't just sit down and relax like he wanted to, because he

had to clean up the mess she had managed to create in the twenty minutes he'd been out of the room.

First there was her boots, which were sitting in the middle of the room just asking to be tripped over. Her jacket was draped over a barstool, instead of hung on the hook by the door fifteen feet away, which he had installed for that very purpose. Her dirty gear bag was sitting in the middle of his dining table. The coffee table was completely covered in a newspaper that Parker had ripped apart, apparently in search of the crossword, if the half-finished puzzle sitting on the couch was any indication. He didn't even know where she had found a physical newspaper, since he'd been with her since the moment they got off the plane and he'd never seen her grab it. And there was a mostly-finished bowl of cereal balanced precariously on the arm of his leather sofa.

But what really made his eye twitch were the glasses.

The freaking drinking glasses.

He found one glass on the kitchen counter next to the fridge, a mug on the breakfast bar, and yet another glass on the floor next to the couch. How anyone could manage to use three glasses in less than half an hour was completely beyond him. It had become something of a running battle between the two of them. It seemed like he was forever picking up dirty cups and mugs that Parker left scattered all over the condo, only for her to complain that she was still using them. But no one needed that many glasses.

He'd just finished setting the room to rights and finally sat down on his couch, when Parker emerged from the hallway, dressed in yet another one of his stolen shirts, a pair of thick woolen socks, and with her wet hair piled up on her head in a towel turban. He didn't give her more than a cursory glance when she sat down next to him on the couch.

"Hey, where's my cereal?" she asked, when she noticed it was gone.

"There were like two bites left," he said gruffly, not looking away from the TV. "I put it in the sink."

"But I wasn't done with it," she sighed. "I was gonna have another bowl."

"Then get a new one, Parker!" he said, exasperated.

"Did you get rid of my glass too?" she asked accusingly, when she noticed that too was missing.

"Which one?" he ground out, gripping his bottle of beer so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. "You had three of them going."

"They were for different drinks," she replied, as if it was obvious. "One was for milk, one was water, and the mug was for tea."

"And you needed all three at the same time!?"

"Duh. I can't mix them. That would be gross," she informed him, as she went back into the kitchen to pour herself another bowl of the cereal that he kept specifically for her.

Eliot didn't say anything and simply clenched his jaw when she walked back into the living room carrying another bowl and two more glasses, filled with milk and water respectively.

"Why are you so cranky tonight?" Parker asked with her mouth full, as she dug into her cereal. More curious, than put-off by his attitude. "Is your concussion worse than you said it is? Should I be making sure you don't fall asleep or something?"

"Don't do that!" He raised his arm to roughly bat her hand away when she reached out to poke the lump he had right at his hairline, but otherwise didn't answer her question.

Instead, he sat and stewed. He was trying but failing to focus on the sports highlights playing on the TV, instead of Parker's crunching in his ear. When she finally finished, he tried to keep his cool when she put her dirty dishes on the coffee table he'd just cleared off.

"If you're done, go put them in the sink," he told her, with a carefully measured calm.

"Yeah, I will in a bit," she said dismissively, not sure yet if she was done with cereal for the night.

"Now, Parker."

"I'll clean up before I go to bed," she replied, not sure what the big deal was.

She knew she had a habit of spreading out during the day, but she always picked up after herself before she went to sleep. It was part of her routine and Eliot had never complained about it before. Which is why Parker was taken aback when Eliot lurched to his feet, threw his cold pack onto the the coffee table before roughly snatching the dishes from where she'd left them, ceramic clinking angrily against glass.

"Damn it Parker!" he said, storming over to the kitchen. "How hard is it to just put the damned dishes in the sink when you're done with them!?" he shouted, dropping the last glass so hard that it broke against the bottom of the stainless steel sink.

"Because I wasn't done with it!" she shouted right back, following him into the kitchen. "And now we're gonna have an odd number of glasses!" Parker exclaimed, throwing her hands up in annoyance.

"We? What we?" Eliot exploded. "You don't live here! If you don't like the way I keep my house, you know where the door is. In fact, I think you should leave."

"What?" Parker asked, her voice small and shocked.

"I said, I don't want you here Parker!" he shouted, spinning away from the sink to face her. "Get out of my house! Leave!"

Parker flinched back as though he had physically struck her.

As soon as he saw the look on her face, Eliot instantly regretted his words. Parker never physically recoiled from him. Not her, not ever. But despite the fact that not even so deep-down he knew that he was being the asshole in this situation, that he was blowing things out of proportion, he wasn't ready to let go of his anger, irrational as it was.

Not that she gave him the chance to apologize, even if he had been so inclined. Without another word she turned and fled, the guest bedroom door slamming behind her. With an irritated sigh, he turned to carefully clean the broken glass out of his sink before it could destroy his garbage disposal. While he was there he washed and dried the rest of the dishes in the sink, and by the time he was putting the last clean glass back in the cupboard, he felt a lot calmer. And when he went back to the living room to retrieve his cold pack and realized it was one of the ones that Parker had bought him - raccoons, because they're nature's thieves - he knew he had to go talk to her and make things right.

Knocking on the guest room door, he waited for any kind of response. "Parker?" he called through the door. "Come on Parker, open the door. I'm sorry, okay?" the words tasted bitter in his mouth. He hated apologizing, but he knew that this time he was in the wrong. "I was being an asshole. I do that sometimes."

Leaning his head against the jamb, he listened for any kind of movement or indication that Parker had heard him, but there was nothing but silence. Of course that's all there would be unless she wanted to make noise.

"C'mon, darlin'," he wheedled, "come talk to me." When there was still no reply, he set his hand on the knob. "I'm coming in," he warned, before testing to see if the door was locked. It wasn't.

Pushing the door open, he saw the reason why Parker hadn't responded. She wasn't there. The open window and the carelessly abandoned shirt draped over the foot of the bed were the only signs she had been there at all.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the flannel shirt, still warm from where she had been wearing it just a few minutes earlier. Parker had finally decided to listen to him for once. He'd told her to leave and she had.

But instead of making him happy, it just made him feel like shit.

Eliot had half-expected Parker to simply show up the next day like nothing had ever happened, and they could both just get on with their lives. Or maybe that's just what he'd been hoping would happen. But she didn't appear the next day, or the following day, or in any of the days of the two weeks before Nate found them their next job. It was the longest that she'd stayed away since she'd started splitting her time between her place and his. He could only conclude that Parker had taken his impetuous and angry words to heart.

He tried to tell himself that he should be pleased. Despite the way it had gone down, he could finally get back to the solitary life he'd enjoyed before Parker's near-constant presence had turned it upside-down. Quite frankly, he should have been grateful for her absence. As a self-professed loner, he should have been thrilled to have his personal space back. After all, he only put up with her incessant hanging around for her sake. It wasn't like he got anything out of the arrangement, other than a headache. Right?

However, instead of being relieved that she was gone, he was mostly just annoyed at the leftovers that were piling up in his fridge, because he had become so accustomed to cooking for two. And it irritated him that watching sports wasn't as entertaining without Parker throwing popcorn and hurling wildly imaginative insults at the TV at every bad play or call. He knew that she was mainly just responding to his reactions, since she had never shown much interest in learning the actual rules of the games, but it amused him anyways. He didn't even want to count the number of times he'd started to make a comment about whatever he was watching on TV, or ask what she wanted for dinner, only to remember that she wasn't there. And it really pissed him off that he was having a hard time falling asleep at night, wondering if Parker was sleeping okay, wherever she was.

He contemplated once or twice trying to track her down at her warehouse, or wherever else she might be holed up. But a combination of knowing that if she didn't want to be found she wouldn't be, and his pride stopped him. He was Eliot Spencer, he literally hurt people for a living; the fact that he'd hurt Parker's feelings shouldn't be keeping him up at night. It took him longer than he wanted to admit, to figure out that the reason he was having such a hard time with it was because he hadn't hurt someone he had actually cared about in years.

Regardless, he couldn't deny the relief he'd felt when he'd gotten the call from Nate that they had a job. He'd finally see Parker again, and at the very least he'd have a chance to apologize and hopefully set things right. He told himself that it was because they still had to work together, so it was just practicality that mandated that things should be straight between them. For the sake of the team, of course. The fact that his chest ached at the very idea that she was out there somewhere, hurt and angry with him, had nothing to do with it.

When he walked into the loft, he immediately noticed that Parker was already there, sitting on the couch next to Hardison with that special glazed-over look in her eyes that she got whenever whatever he was talking about got too nerdy for Parker's taste. He figured that he could try to pull her away and kill two birds with one stone, by rescuing her from the hacker's technobabble and getting her alone to apologize. But before he had the chance, Sophie walked through the door just a couple beats behind him, and Nate walked down the spiral staircase, wasting no time in telling Hardison to run it.

Eliot didn't have any better luck trying to corner Parker for the next three days, either. He didn't think anyone else on the team noticed, because she wasn't doing anything overt. But it seemed like every time he got close to her, she found a reason to be elsewhere. When they did have to be in the same room, she managed to keep as much space between them as possible. Instead of perching on the arm of his chair during briefings, like she had taken to doing recently, she made sure to put both Sophie and Nate between them. Instead of fighting with Hardison for shotgun when Eliot grabbed the keys to Lucille, she wordlessly slipped into the back. When she had to speak to him for the job, she wouldn't even look him in the eye. Instead, she looked right past him, focusing on some point on the far wall. The only time that they had been alone together, they had been in the middle of phase one of the con, with everyone on comms. And as much as he wanted to talk to Parker, this was not a conversation he was willing to have with the rest of the team in his ear.

If it had been any other woman, Eliot might have thought that she was punishing him. Purposely trying to make him feel worse while not even giving him a chance to apologize. But he knew better. Mind games just weren't Parker's style. Frankly, at this point he kind of wished they were, because the alternative was that she just genuinely didn't want to talk to him, or be alone with him, or even be near him, given the choice. And it bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

At a loss for any other ideas on how to extend an olive branch, Eliot announced that he was going to make dinner, then ran to the store, picking up all the ingredients for the coconut cashew chicken curry that he knew was one of Parker's favorites. This was better, he decided. He wasn't good with talking through his feelings anyway, he was much better at cooking them. He just hoped that Parker would understand what he was trying to say enough to at least talk to him.

When he got back to the loft with his groceries, Nate and Parker had spread blueprints over the dining room table, deep in discussion over the next phase of the plan. He couldn't help but keep an eye and half of his attention on them while he did his meal prep at the peninsula.

She was going over, in detail, every possible route of egress from the office building that they would be breaking into, categorized by each member of the team's skill set and ability level. He always enjoyed watching her when she was in her element, confident and competent, doing what she did best.

"Ohh, is that curry I smell?" Sophie asked eagerly, emerging from upstairs, drawn down by the smell of dinner. "You haven't made that in forever."

She wasn't wrong. It didn't make the usual rotation because Hardison had weird texture issues with coconut, and Nate really only tolerated most Indian food. But Parker always went back for seconds and sometimes even thirds, and this dinner was for her, so Nate and Hardison could deal. But he wasn't about to tell Sophie that.

"It's almost ready, if you want to start grabbing bowls," he said, instead.

Over at the table, Nate and Parker took that as their cue to start cleaning up the table.

"I'm going to open a bottle of wine," Sophie announced, as she pulled the dishware out of the cabinet. "Is anyone else going to have some?

"There's a riesling in there that will pair nicely," Eliot told her, by way of answering.

"Parker?" Sophie prompted, knowing there was no use asking Hardison who would undoubtedly be drinking orange soda, and Nate who already had a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

"Uh... no," Parker said, from behind the armful of rolled up blueprints she was carrying. "I'm not staying."

"What?" Eliot's head snapped up from where he was chopping cilantro, scallions, and cashews for garnish.

"I have plans already." She addressed her answer to Sophie, despite the fact that it was Eliot who'd asked. "I'll see you tomorrow!" Before anyone could respond, she had dropped the blueprints on the couch, grabbed her jacket and was out the door.

Eliot couldn't do anything but watch her go, letting out a defeated sigh.

"So tell me, Eliot," Sophie began, once the four remaining team members were sitting around the dinner table eating. "What's going on with you and Parker?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eliot lied, stabbing at his dinner with his fork with more force than strictly necessary.

"Sure you don't," Sophie said lightly, as she took a sip of her wine. "Because she always refuses to so much as look you in the eye. Just like you always spend the entire night watching her when you think no one else is looking."

"You're seeing things," Eliot insisted gruffly, sticking to his story.

Sophie wasn't deterred, "And you always go out of your way to make Parker's favorite for dinner, which she pointedly doesn't stay for."

"Yeah man, I don't think Parker's never not stayed when there is food to be had," Hardison agreed, carefully picking the chicken out of his bowl. He'd never claim to be able to read people or situations like Sophie could, but even he knew that Parker not staying for dinner was weird.

"She said she had something to do," Eliot reminded them, not believing the words coming out of his mouth any more than they did. "She's allowed to have plans."

"I don't care what's going on between you two," Nate interjected. "Just fix it. I can't be having tension on the team like this." He'd also noticed that there was something off between his hitter and his thief over the past few days, but he had planned on giving it a little more time and gathering more information before deciding if he needed to get involved. But since Sophie had already gone ahead and brought it up...

Eliot dropped his fork on his plate, suddenly losing his appetite. "Sure, because the only tension that's allowed on this team is the tension that you cause, right Nate?" he said wryly, not having any of the mastermind's hypocrisy right now. He pushed back from the table and crossed the room to grab his jacket. "And there is no tension, because nothing happened!" he growled, before slamming out of the loft.

He was getting into his truck when something told him to look up. Most people would never have noticed her, or if they had, would have explained it away as a trick of the fading light causing odd shadows, but Eliot knew better. He only hoped that she didn't spot him in the parking lot and make her escape before he could get up there.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he got to the roof and Parker was still sitting on the ledge, her feet dangling over the side. She didn't turn around, but the tension that settled in her shoulders told him that she knew he was there.

"I thought you said you had something to do," he said as he crossed the roof, stopping about ten feet behind her.

"I'm waiting for the sun to set," she replied.

He chuckled lowly in his chest, because of course Parker wasn't simply enjoying watching the sun setting behind the Boston skyline. She was waiting for the cover of darkness before she continued on with her evening plans.

"Can I join you?" he asked.

The shrug she gave wasn't exactly a yes, but it wasn't a no either, so he closed the last bit of distance between them and carefully sat down next to her. He wasn't thrilled to be sitting on the edge of the roof. It wasn't that he was scared of heights like Hardison was, he'd willingly jumped out of planes too many times for that to be true, but he didn't embrace them like Parker did either. If he had to categorize it, he would say he just had a healthy respect for them, or at least for what the sudden stop at the bottom could do to a human being. But if this is where Parker was willing to talk to him, then this was where he'd sit.

"You've been avoiding me." It was a statement; not a question.

"No, I haven't," Parker denied. "I've just... been staying out of your way."

"That's basically the definition of avoiding someone, Parker."

She didn't bother to respond, and they sat in silence for awhile, Eliot watching the sky change colors while Parker absently kicked her heels against the brick façade.

"Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you," Eliot finally said, as the street lights began flickering on, somehow finding it easier to apologize as night descended on the city.

"What?" Parker asked, glancing his direction for the first time since he sat down, sounding genuinely confused.

"I'm sorry that I yelled at you," he repeated, not sure how to make it any clearer. "I was in a shitty mood. It wasn't your fault, but I took it out on you and I shouldn't have done that. I was an asshole and I'm sorry."

It was hard to tell with her face mostly obscured in shadow, but Eliot was pretty sure she was giving him her 'I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds dumb' face, which he figured didn't bode well for his apology.

"You always yell at me," she said dismissively, clearly unconcerned about that fact. "You yell at everyone. Sophie says that your preferred method of communication is just set at a higher decibel than everyone else's."

Eliot wasn't sure how to take that, but he had bigger concerns at the moment. "Then why-"

"Usually you don't mean it," she continued, looking back out at the city.

"But I didn't-"

"Yes, you did," she interjected bitterly, before he could even get the whole sentence out. "Everyone always means it."

Now he was confused. "Parker, what are you-"

"You said you didn't want me. That you wanted me to leave," the harsh words burst out of her chest in a rush, her voice thick with hurt and betrayal.

Eliot felt his stomach drop. "I didn't mean it though, and I shouldn't have said it," he assured her quickly.

She pulled her legs up, and Eliot was afraid she was going to bolt, but she simply drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins, hugging them tight. "It always happens this way," she confessed, not much above a whisper. "Not all the homes I was placed in were bad. Most were," she shrugged her shoulders, "but there were a couple that I wouldn't have minded staying at. Those were the ones where I tried to be good. To be normal."

An uncomfortable clawing feeling grew in his chest as the pieces of what he had done came together. "Parker, sweetheart-"

"It didn't matter though," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Eventually they'd make the call to my case worker. I wasn't a good fit. They didn't want me anymore. It was time for me to leave. Even Archie sent me away eventually. He didn't want to take me to his real home, to his real family." Parker looked over and even in the dark, Eliot could see her sad, watery eyes. "I don't want to leave anymore."

Eliot had done a lot of bad things in his life. He had more than his share of regrets, but it had been a long time since he'd felt this much like scum on the bottom of someone's shoe. Carefully, because they were still sitting on the edge of a building, he reached over and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. She stiffened at first, but it only took a moment for her to relax into his side when he started to speak.

"No one's making you go anywhere darlin', I promise you that. Least of all me," he said with conviction. "And if you tried to go for the wrong reasons, I'd hunt you down and bring you back. I'm the retrieval specialist; it's what I do. The only way you're leaving, is if we're all leaving together. You belong here with all of us. We need you here; we want you here." He paused, considering his next words, "I want you here."

Parker pulled out of his grasp, "But you said-"

This time he cut her off, "I know what I said. I was an idiot. As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. I tried to go after you, but you had already left. I missed you while you were gone," he admitted, meeting her gaze directly, making sure she knew he was being sincere.

"Really?" she asked, as though she wasn't completely sure she believed him.

"Really," he confirmed. "I got used to having you around. Now it's too quiet."

Parker didn't respond verbally, but she let her head rest heavily on his shoulder, and Eliot knew that he was forgiven. They sat like that for awhile longer, just taking in the night.

"I'm hungry," she announced, eventually breaking the companionable quiet.

"I already made you dinner," Eliot pointed out dryly. "You didn't eat it."

"Everybody is gonna make comments if we go back inside for curry, aren't they," Parker sighed, her stomach grumbling, regretting that she had turned down one of her favorite meals.

"Yeah, they would," Eliot confirmed, as he carefully climbed to his feet and waited for her to do the same. "But I made enough that you can have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Come on. Let's go back to my place and I'll make you french toast."

Parker gasped and her eyes went wide. "You'll make me brinner?"

As much as she thought breakfast foods were the best option no matter the time of day, Eliot had an almost dogmatic disapproval of the concept of breakfast for dinner.

"Just this once," he warned, even as the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile at Parker's obvious excitement.

"Will you make whipped cream?" she asked hopefully, following him back into the building with a bounce in her step.

"Yeah," he dropped an arm over her shoulders as they made their way to the elevator, "I can do that."

"And bacon?"

"Sure, why not."

"And hash browns?"

"Extra crispy, just like you like them."

COMPROMISE: Parker would try to refrain from using more than one glass at a time, and Eliot wouldn't put it in the sink unless he was sure that she was done with it.

RULE: Eliot might tell Parker to get out of a room. He might tell her to leave him alone for awhile. But he would never, ever, tell her she's not wanted.

A/N So there's chapter 4! I truly hope you enjoyed it! And please let me know what you thought! I also want to give my sincere thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment on the first three chapters, you guys keep me going when the muse doesn't feel like playing along :)