A/N Welp it's that time of the week again, welcome back everyone! As always I need to thank Alexandra926 for all her invaluable help... and other than that I don't have much to say other than I hope you all enjoy!
"Hey Sparky, what were those funny colored chocolate-chip cookies you made that one time?" Parker asked randomly, while she focused on the intricate designs she was doodling on Eliot's black cast with a silver Sharpie. They were spending yet another morning lounging around in his bed watching Netflix, a little over a week after his release from the hospital.
Eliot had to think for a moment, while he twisted his wrist a little to give her better access to the section she was drawing on. He hadn't known what to think when she'd produced the marker a few days ago and asked if she could decorate his cast. His first instinct had been to tell her no, but she'd looked so hopeful that he'd quickly given in. She'd been working on it a little bit at a time ever since.
"You mean the red velvet ones?" he asked, when he finally remembered which ones she was talking about.
"Yeah, those were really good," she nodded. "I want those right now."
"Sorry, darlin', I don't think I'm really in any shape to be baking anything right now."
"Huh?" Parker asked, looking up from his arm in her lap. "Oh, I know. I wasn't asking, I was just saying," she said with a small understanding smile, before turning her full attention back to the mandala-inspired design that she was working on, on the inside of his wrist.
Despite the fact she gave no indication of disappointment, Eliot still couldn't help feeling like he was letting her down somehow. It was hardly the first time she had made a such a… well a 'request' was putting it nicely. But four times out of five, he usually indulged her if he wasn't otherwise occupied. Despite himself, he found himself running through the ingredients in his pantry, wondering if he even had all the fixings for the cookies she currently wanted. He did, but there was one big problem. It was hard to do any sort of baking without at least one good arm.
"I could teach you how to make them, if you wanted," he found himself offering, before he even realized what he was doing.
Parker's head snapped up in surprise. "What, really?" she asked, legitimately shocked.
Eliot's kitchen was his own private domain, and she was well aware how little he liked to share it. Sure she'd been in there doing some nominal cooking since he'd been hurt, but that was simply out of necessity. To actually offer to teach her how to make something, that was a whole nother level.
"Yeah, sure," he said, feeling more confident about his offer. It was a relatively easy recipe. Mainly just measuring and mixing, and he'd be watching her every step of the way. And frankly, he was getting a little stir-crazy after so many days of doing nothing but sitting around watching TV. "But you have to do exactly what I say. I mean it," he warned firmly.
"I promise!" she said, nearly vibrating with excitement, jumping off the bed and dashing down the hall to the kitchen.
By the time Eliot caught up with her, following at a much slower pace, she was already wearing an apron, had one of his bandanas tied around her head, and was brandishing a whisk like it was a weapon. He'd rather launch a one man incursion into Pyongyang than admit it, but damn did she look adorable.
"Why?" was all he asked, pointing to his own forehead.
"To help me cook better," was her response, as if that explained everything.
Eliot blinked, opened his mouth to respond, and then shut it again with an amused shake of his head, deciding to let it go without comment. He knew when to pick his battles and that one was not even close to worth it. Instead he simply reached over to straighten out the bandana so it sat evenly on her forehead, unable to hold back his grin at the picture she made.
"So what do I do first?" she asked eagerly, returning his smile. "I've never made cookies before."
Memories of standing on a chair in the kitchen of his childhood home, helping his mother make cookies for the church bake sale flashed through Eliot's mind. His grin faded, as he once again felt a rolling in his gut at the childhood Parker had been robbed of.
"First, put the whisk down. Then, roll up your sleeves and wash your hands," he told her as he carefully slid, cautious of aggravating his many injuries, onto the barstool that he'd started thinking of as hers, since it was where she usually sat while she watched him make dinner. "Then, you're going to preheat the oven."
All in all, their experiment in baking went better than Eliot had expected. Parker was clearly making an effort to listen and follow his directions, and they only had a few small hiccups along the way.
The first was when she learned the importance of making sure the mixer was stopped completely before pulling it out of the batter. Eliot couldn't help but laugh, holding onto his tender ribs, at the surprised look on Parker's now flour-covered face when half-mixed batter started flying everywhere. He wasn't even annoyed at the mess it made, since everyone made that mistake at least once.
The second was when Eliot had to convince her that yes, while she'd been burned in the past by trying a swig of straight vanilla extract, a few tablespoons mixed into an entire bowl of batter would only improve the mixture.
The third was when she took an experimental sniff of the beetroot powder Eliot used to dye the cookie dough red, since he didn't believe in artificial food colorings. She accidently ended up inhaling some and sneezed right into the jar, spreading a fine red mist all over herself, the kitchen counter, and the floor. Parker was distraught, sure she had ruined the cookies, but after a long explanation about dutch chocolate and anthocyanins in cocoa, Eliot assured her these days the red was just for show and that they'd taste the same, no matter what color the final cookies turned out.
"Do you want to lick the spoon?" Parker offered, carefully rolling dough into perfectly round balls between her palms. There was already one batch of cookies in the oven, and she was working on the second.
"That's okay, darlin'," Eliot told her.
"But you always let me lick the spoon," she pointed out, knowing that it was her reward for helping. Which of course in Eliot speak meant waiting patiently for whatever it was he baking, keeping her fingers out of the batter until it was done, and generally just not getting in the way.
"The last thing I need right now, on top of everything else, is salmonella," he replied wryly.
Parker's head quirked to the side, "I've never gotten sick."
"Yeah, but I've also seen you sit and eat an entire tube of raw cookie dough straight from the package in one sitting," he retorted, shuddering at the very thought. He was convinced her stomach had to be ironclad. "I don't even try to understand how you're able to eat the atrocious things you do anymore."
Parker grinned and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the doorbell before she could. The hitter and the thief shared a look of mutual exasperation. Despite Nate's assurances that he would try to keep them away, it seemed he'd only managed to keep their surprise visitors down to every couple days or so, instead of every day. At this point, even Parker was starting to understand why people had always told her that you were supposed to call before showing up at someone's house.
"Who do you think it is, today?" Parker asked, picking up a towel to wipe her sticky hands on, on the way to answer the door.
"It's been a few days since we've seen Hardison," Eliot guessed.
Parker unlocked and opened the door to find all three of their teammates standing on the other side of the threshold, Hardison and Nate both laden down with grocery bags.
"You were a third right!" Parker shouted over her shoulder, in lieu of any real greeting, before spinning on her bare toes and heading back towards the kitchen leaving the others to let themselves in and close the door behind them.
"It smells like all kinds of delicious in here!" Hardison exclaimed, a hint of surprise in his tone, as the trio followed Parker further into the condo and towards the smell of baked goods.
"I'm making red velvet white-chocolate chip cookies!" Parker announced brightly as she took up her station to finish rolling out the last of the dough.
"Parker is making cookies?" Sophie asked, cautiously peering into the kitchen, which was admittedly more than a bit of a mess.
"Yes, and she's doing a great job," Eliot said quickly, perhaps a bit more defensively than was strictly necessary. But the beaming smile Parker sent his way, made the speculative look Nate had developed worth it.
"Good work, Parker," the mastermind praised, as he worked on getting the perishables into the fridge.
"Hey Mama," Hardison said, looking over Parker's shoulder as he set the bags he was carrying down on one of the few counters that wasn't currently covered in either batter, ingredients, or dirty utensils, "if they're red velvet cookies why aren't they-"
"Hardison!" Eliot barked, his tone practically daring him to finish his sentence. When the hacker looked up and saw the hitter's expression, he shut his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. "What's with all the groceries?" Eliot asked, changing the subject.
The timer on the oven went off and Parker quickly donned oven mitts and pulled the first batch of cookies out and replaced them with the batch she had just finished preparing, even remembering to reset the timer like an old pro.
"Oh, well we thought you might be getting tired of takeout," Sophie explained breezily, easily going along with the topic change, having noticed the slight tightening around Parker's eyes at Hardison's almost question. "And while none of us can cook like you do, Nate has assured me that he is capable of manning a barbecue without subjecting us all to food poisoning, and Hardison jumped right on board. I don't know what it is about you men and cooking over an open fire," she waved a dismissive hand. "Anyways, we thought we'd have a bit of a cookout, since there won't be too many more nice days before winter starts to set in. And then, we can have some of Parker's lovely cookies for dessert."
Parker looked at her team speculatively, clearly deciding if she wanted to share her creations or not. After a moment, she nodded and smiled, agreeing to Sophie's plan. She started transferring the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack, only pausing to rap Hardison over the knuckles with the metal spatula when he tried to snag a cookie when he thought she wasn't looking.
"Sophie said those are for dessert," she informed the pouting hacker primly, much to everyone else's amusement.
"You really gotta work on your lifts," Nate teased, clapping the younger man on the shoulder.
"My lifts are fine," Hardison said defensively, cradling his stinging hand to his chest. "My lifts are pro. Tryin' to hold me to Parker standards ain't fair. No one is at Parker levels, that's why she's Parker. You know that, but you all still judging. None of y'all seem to appreciate the talent that these hands possess-"
Knowing that this could go on for awhile, Eliot shook his head with an amused quirk of his lips, and tuned the hacker out so that he could turn his attention back to Parker. "Why don't you go take a shower and wash up before lunch gets started," he suggested, knowing that nothing except copious amounts of shampoo was going to get that floury mess out of her hair.
"But I have cookies in the oven," she pointed out, concerned.
"We'll watch them for you, dear," Sophie offered. "I'll get them out of the oven for you."
Parker frowned, still clearly unconvinced.
"I promise I won't let them burn," Eliot assured her.
"Fiiiiiiine," Parker sighed, untying the apron from behind her back and lifting it over her head.
"And how about you put on some pants when you get out of the shower?" he suggested lowly, in that tone he had that said it wasn't really a suggestion.
"What? Why?" she asked. "I'm not planning on doing any of the things," she said, referring to the list they had negotiated over the past few months of activities that required pants.
"Because... we have guests." Eliot didn't think that excuse would fly, but he tried it anyways.
Parker's nose scrunched up, "Sophie, Nate, and Hardison don't count as guests. They're family."
"Yeah man, we're family," Hardison interjected, having finished his rant about his pickpocketing skills in time to clue into their conversation.
"They don't live here. They're guests," Eliot insisted, before trying another tactic. "You're making Hardison twitchy. Put some pants on and put the man out of his misery."
"Me? Twitchy?" Hardison scoffed, pulling a bottle of orange soda out of one of the grocery bags. "That's defamation of character. I'm not twitchy. You're twitchy."
Eliot shot Hardison a look, daring him to deny that fact that everyone, except perhaps the woman in question, could see the way his eyes kept darting down to Parker's bare legs before he remembered himself and forced himself to look anywhere but at Parker's legs, before starting the whole process over again.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Parker said with a pout. "I'm wearing shorts underneath like I'm supposed to," she added, lifting the hem of the shirt to prove that she was, in fact, wearing a pair of Eliot's boxers rolled up at the waist so they would stay on. The result of yet another compromise the pair had made a few months back. "Besides, I wear dresses shorter than this all the time for cons, and those are usually too tight for me to wear anything underneath."
A noise that could only be described as a squeak issued from Hardison's general direction, but when Eliot glanced his way he saw he was currently preoccupied with chugging soda straight from the two-liter bottle.
"See? Twitchy. And for Christ's sake, Hardison, there are glasses in the cupboard behind you." Eliot had one more card to play. "You're gonna need pants anyways, if you're gonna go up on the roof to show Nate how to get the grill started. You know there's a trick to it and I can't do the stairs yet."
Parker looked at Eliot dubiously through narrow eyes, pretty sure that she was being conned right now. After all, Nate was their mastermind; he should be able to work a grill. But then again, Eliot wasn't lying when he'd said that the grill was tricky to light. She'd even seen the hitter struggle with it a time or two and he knew exactly how to finagle it.
"Fine," she finally relented, picking up a cookie and eating half of it in one defiant bite.
"Hey, I thought those were for dessert," Hardison said, his knuckles still smarting.
"I made them. I'm allowed," she replied easily, picking up another cookie and sliding it across the counter to Eliot.
"Then why does he get one and I don't?" the hacker griped.
"Because he said no to the spoon."
"What does that even mean?" Hardison asked, bewildered. He turned to Sophie, "Do you know what that means. Is that code for something?"
Eliot took a smug bite of the cookie Parker handed him. "Couldn't have made 'em better myself, darlin'," he praised, making her smile.
She handed the spatula over to Eliot, who grasped it as best he could with his casted hand. When he gave her a questioning look, wondering why she was giving it to him, she simply pointed at her eyes with two fingers and then jabbed them in Hardison's direction. He couldn't hold back the chuckle when he realized she was giving him a weapon, and a direct order to stand watch over her cookies.
"I'll guard them with my life," he told her solemnly, though his eyes were sparkling with amusement.
"See that you do," she replied in much the same tone, before she practically danced down the hall towards the bathroom.
The four remaining members of the team just watched her go, until she disappeared out of sight.
Nate, who had been mostly silent since arriving, was the first to break the silence. "So, Parker needs to show me how to start the grill."
It was phrased as a neutral statement, but Eliot could hear the underlying curiosity loud and clear. He groaned internally, but didn't let it show. To be fair, he had been half-expecting this line of questioning eventually. With everyone all up in his personal space lately, he knew that Parker's familiarity with his home was going to pique interest and come back to bite him in the ass. Although he'd honestly been expecting it to come from Sophie or even Hardison, not Nate.
"Ever since we moved to Boston, Parker's been showing up from time to time looking to be fed. Like she's a stray cat or something," he said with a shrug, underplaying the situation. "I like to barbeque when the weather is nice. So she's seen me start the grill before, and she's paid attention to how to do it because that girl has a disquieting fascination with fire."
"She's very... comfortable here," Sophie observed, as she started cleaning up the mess that Hurricane Parker had left behind, wordlessly prodding Nate into doing the same.
"Parker is comfortable wherever Parker decides she wants to be comfortable," Eliot said blandly, practically daring them to deny that it was true.
"But still, she must be over here quite a bit," Sophie continued to push.
"It's not like I've ever invited her. I just can't stop her from breaking in once or twice a week," he said with a shrug of his good shoulder, using all the techniques that Sophie herself had taught him about lying, mainly that the best lies were based in truths; just the truths that you wanted to reveal.
"Once or twice a week?" Hardison repeated, his eyes widening.
"Yeah sometimes, I mean, if we're not working," Eliot confirmed casually, as the timer for the cookies beeped. "She's probably over here whenever you and Sophie aren't feeding her," he added, excluding Nate from that equation since Eliot himself was the one who fed everyone when they were at the loft.
Sophie shook her head as she grabbed the mitts off the counter and pulled the cookies out of the oven. "No, Parker has only broken into my place maybe a dozen times over the last couple years, and only when she wants advice about something."
"Parker only ever comes over when I invite her for movie night," Hardison added. "She's never broken in."
"That you know of," Nate interjected from where he was working on cleaning cookie batter out of the toaster.
Hardison opened his mouth to refute that anyone could get past his security without him knowing, and shut it again just as quickly. He realized it was naïve to believe that Parker probably hadn't broken in at least once, just to prove that she could.
Eliot was actually legitimately surprised to hear that. He was well aware that in the last few months she had been spending the majority of her free time at his place, but he'd always assumed that at least at the beginning he was simply on her rotation.
"I'm telling you she's a stray cat! I made the mistake of feeding her once and now I can't get rid of her," he grumped.
"It seems like you've gotten used to having her around though," Sophie said, clearly seeing right through him, despite his best efforts. Although the fact that she was standing in front of a fridge covered with Parker's artwork probably didn't help his case.
Luckily, Eliot was spared from continuing this conversation when Hardison, who was still drinking soda from the bottle, suddenly did a spit take, spraying a fine, sticky, artificially orange-scented mess all over the counter top that Sophie had just finished wiping down.
"Honestly, Hardison?!" the grifter exclaimed. "I just cleaned that."
"Parker," was all the hacker had to say in explanation.
Eliot couldn't really twist around to follow Hardison's line of sight, but he didn't have to when the woman in question came gliding around the kitchen island, fresh from her shower, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her torso.
"Damnit, Parker," he growled. "Pants!"
"Nuh-uh, that is the opposite of pants, Mama," Hardison babbled, shaking his head. "We are moving backwards on the subject of pants."
"Oh calm down, both of you," Parker said, annoyed, as she crossed the kitchen and pulled the grocery list Eliot kept running, from the side of the fridge. "I'll go get dressed in a minute."
"What are you even putting on there that couldn't wait two minutes?" Eliot asked, watching Parker scribble something across the pad.
"I keep forgetting I'm out of my shampoo. I had to use yours again," she explained. "I wanted to get it on the list while I'm still thinking about it."
"Oh, put my conditioner on there too," he added, when it sparked a memory. "I'm almost out and I don't want to use yours."
"Why are you using Eliot's shower?" Hardison asked, knowing that the guest bathroom had a tub/shower combo.
"If Eliot has shampoo, and Parker has conditioner, why can't they just share?" Nate asked, at the same time.
"Because Eliot has the best shower in the whole world!" Parker enthused, answering Hardison's question. "Water comes from every direction at once. It's like getting a massage while you're getting clean. Seriously, you should go try it. I did laundry yesterday, so there are plenty of clean towels."
"Because they have very different hair types," Sophie answered Nate. "One size does not fit all when it comes to hair maintenance. Honestly Nathan, they're not heathens."
"No one else is using my shower!" Eliot exclaimed, stopping that nonsense before it could get started.
"Hardison," he gestured with the utensil that he was still holding, "I swear to god, if I find you in my bathroom I will break your face. Nate, you could stand to use a little conditioner; you're lookin' kinda crunchy." He turned to Sophie who was currently nodding in agreement. "Those cookies need to get moved to the cooling rack or they're going to stick. And you," he leveled his best glare at an unimpressed Parker. "Clothes. Now."
Parker huffed and rolled her eyes at Eliot as she left the kitchen, which he retaliated to with a playful swat on the butt with the spatula as she walked past. She paused to stick her tongue out at him and then walked out of the room with as much dignity as one could muster when wearing only a damp bath towel.
When Parker reappeared minutes later, she was fully dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie of Eliot's that she'd all but claimed as her own after she'd stolen it when she'd had the flu a few months back. Without a word she went straight for the drawer where she knew Eliot kept the long-reach lighter.
"Alright, let's do this," she declared, flicking it on and smiling that unnerving smile of hers, before leading the way up the stairs.
Nate and Hardison followed Parker up to the roof, leaving Sophie downstairs with Eliot. Once the others were out of sight, Sophie leaned her elbows on the counter and turned her full attention on her remaining teammate. Eliot for his part remained impassive, refusing to speak first or to let the grifter see him squirm like he was one of her marks.
"Was that your sweatshirt she was wearing?"
"Don't start, Sophie," Eliot said warningly.
"What?" she asked innocently. "It was just a question."
"You're digging," he retorted, knowing her too well to not see right through her grifter tone when he heard it. "And I can already tell you're reading into things that aren't there."
"What am I supposed to think?" Sophie replied. "She's wearing your clothes, the joint shopping list, making cookies together," she said, taking a bite of one of said cookies. "It's all very... domestic."
"No, it's just that she has zero concept of boundaries. It's all just Parker being Parker. That's it," he said defensively.
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" Sophie asked, taking another dainty bite of her cookie.
Eliot scoffed like it was the most ridiculous suggestion he'd ever heard, but was spared having to reply when Hardison came stomping down the stairs.
"You have a demon grill, man," he complained before he was even completely in view. "Possessed by the devil, I tell you!"
"I take it Parker got it started?" Eliot responded with a bemused smirk on his face.
"It almost took my eyebrows off," Hardison said, clearly traumatized by his short stint on the roof. "My eyebrows!"
"Yeah, I guess I should have warned you about standing back. Sorry," Eliot said, not sounding sorry in the least.
"You think?!"
"It was Parker and fire, what did you expect, man?"
"Eliot does have a point," Sophie pointed out, breaking off another piece of cookie to pop into her mouth.
"Hey, why does everyone get a cookie but me!" Hardison exclaimed, reaching out to grab one off the tray only to earn himself another rap on the knuckles with the spatula. "Ya'll are picking on me. It's a conspiracy, don't think I don't see it," he complained as he got the meat out of the fridge. "If I wasn't so hungry for lunch, and Nate didn't need these steaks right now, I'd get one of those cookies. You wouldn't be able to stop me."
"Mm-hmm. Keep walking," Eliot smirked as he watched Hardison head back up the stairs. He'd get his cookies once Parker said he could.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Long after steaks had been eaten and cookies had been consumed, the others had gone home and Eliot and Parker were once again left alone to their own devices.
Eliot was already in bed, sitting up against the headboard reading. He was half-listening to Parker humming in the bathroom while she was getting ready for bed and entirely ignoring the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Sophie about how comfortably domestic the current moment was.
"Ey Arky?" Parker said poking her head out of the bathroom, her green toothbrush hanging out the side of her mouth.
"What Parker?" Eliot replied distractedly, not looking up from his book.
"I oes ebeyon eep owin ub ib ood?" she asked around a mouth full of toothpaste.
"What?" Eliot looked up at her incredulously. "Are you even speaking English?"
Parker rolled her eyes, but disappeared back into the bathroom so she could spit into the sink.
"I said, why does everyone keep showing up with food?" she repeated when she reemerged, padding on bare feet over to the far side of the bed. "I mean I know you can't cook right now, but don't they think I'm capable of keeping us fed?"
Eliot knew that was exactly why the team kept showing up with meals. "They're probably just trying to be nice, give you a break from having to worry about it," he said instead, as he watched Parker slide underneath the covers. He still didn't know how this had become a thing, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't already become accustomed to having her there.
"No," she shook her head. "They have judgey eyes, like they're surprised we're both still alive every time they come over."
Eliot sighed internally and shut his book. There were times that he missed the days when Parker would miss even the broadest social cues. But he wasn't going to lie to her and tell her that she was wrong, undermining what was still a relatively new skill of hers.
"They just don't have all the information, darlin'," he said, telling her that she was right without coming out and actually saying she was right.
Because while he knew that Parker would still live happily on a diet of cereal and fortune cookies, she knew that he didn't and therefore made the effort. Like the cheesy scrambled eggs she'd made for breakfast that morning. Sure, they were a tad overcooked, and maybe a little too cheesy, and he was concerned that his pan might never be the same again, but she'd tried. That was what was important. And that could be said for more than just food. The others, they just hadn't seen that side of her.
"But you and I," he continued, "we know better."
"I guess," Parker huffed, fluffing her pillow.
Without another word they both simultaneously reached over to turn off the lights on their respective nightstands, and Eliot once again had to push away Sophie's voice in his head. Because, sure, whatever it was that was going on between them was different, but it didn't have to mean anything. If it worked for them, then that was enough.
He was just starting to drift off when Parker's voice broke the silence.
"Eliot?" she asked, her voice small.
"What is it Parker?" he sighed, not opening his eyes.
"Are you still awake?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I."
"I dunno, maybe you're one of those people who talks in their sleep," she reasoned. "I had a foster sister like that once. You could hold a whole conversation with her and she'd answer you and everything. That's how I found out that she used to hide her allowance underneath the loose floorboard under her bed and-"
He cut her off. "I'm awake."
He rolled his head on his pillow in her direction and opened his eyes to look at her. She was laying on her back staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded primly on her chest over the covers. She was clearly nowhere close to falling asleep and something was obviously on her mind. He thought about asking what was wrong, but she'd already gotten his attention, so he knew she would speak once she was ready.
"Nate asked me a weird question when we were up on the roof today," she announced, after a few long moments.
"What'd he say?" Eliot asked warily, only able to imagine where the conversation was going to go next.
"He asked me if I was happy," Parker said, looking perplexed by the question even hours later.
Eliot understood her confusion. Not exactly in touch with his own feelings, Nate wasn't really one to come out and ask about the emotional state of his team. Even when there were times when it would have been more appropriate or beneficial, than when grilling steaks on Eliot's rooftop.
"What'd you say?"
"Happy about what?" she said, literally repeating her answer.
Eliot let out a huff, wondering if he was gonna have to drag the entire conversation out of her, play by play. "And then what did he say?"
"He asked if I was happy here," Parker revealed. "And I told him I liked Boston fine, it's just a city. And then I asked him if he was planning on moving the team. But then he told me he didn't mean here in Boston, but here with you."
"And?" Eliot asked, not entirely sure if he wanted to know. He knew that Parker's response wouldn't necessarily be the answer to Nate question, since he knew they were both operating under different assumptions of the situation.
"And I said that it was a stupid question," she said bluntly, rolling onto her side so that she was facing Eliot. "You're my favorite person, even when you're all grumpy and growly, and yell at me for annoying you or for not wearing pants. So why wouldn't I be happy."
"What did Nate say about that?"
"Nothing, he just got that look on his face that he gets when he's playing chess, but not sober chess," she clarified. "More like after his second glass of whiskey, but before his third."
It was an odd description, but apt. Eliot knew exactly the look she was talking about. It was a very distinctive expression.
"And then Hardison came back upstairs and they started talking about some research Nate has him doing," she said with a shrug. "It was weird."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Eliot told her, not really willing to get further into it. "Go to sleep, Parker."
For a second he thought she might not let it go, but then she relaxed into her pillow, and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. "Goodnight Eliot," she said, closing her eyes.
"Goodnight, darlin'," he returned, hesitating for just a moment before continuing. "You know... you're my favorite person too." He was surprised to find himself saying it, and even more surprised to find it was true. "Even when you're being all flighty and weird, and driving me up the wall."
Without opening her eyes, Parker smiled and reached out to let her fingers tangle with his. "That makes me happy, too."
A/N And there's chapter eleven! I hope you all enjoyed it! I'll let you guys know now that chapter twelve is gonna change things up again as we head into the third and last phase of this story... but until then, feed the muse and let me know what you thought!