A/N Welcome to another Monday! This chapter is a little shorter than normal, since it's a bit of a bridge chapter but I hope you enjoy it regardless. And as always I need to thank Alexandra926 for being generally awesome :)

Laying on his stomach, sprawled diagonally across his bed, his face buried in Parker's pillow, Eliot awoke with the smile of a well-satisfied man on his face. Rather than pulling himself into immediate alertness like he usually did, he allowed himself the indulgence of hovering in that special place between awake and sleep, where the world was soft and grey and nothing could touch him. He let his thoughts wander, and not surprisingly, they wandered directly to the events of the night before.

Sleeping with Parker had been… a revelation.

There was really no other word for it.

He'd forgotten what it could be like when sex was more than just a quick roll in the hay to let off steam. What it was like to be with someone he truly cared about. To allow himself to drop his guard, and to be fully in the moment. To not feel the need to stay in his head, completely in control of the situation, and instead allowing himself to lose himself in another person. Everything about it just felt right. He hadn't felt this way since he was a much younger man who still believed that things like planning for a future with someone was possible for a person like him.

A small voice in the back of his head told him that maybe he should be worried about how last night might change things between him and Parker; how this might complicate things. But he pushed that voice away, refusing to let it burst his bubble. This was the end of a road they had started down a long time ago, from the first night that Parker had fallen asleep on his couch. Or maybe it had been somewhere around the time she'd started popping by for dinner unannounced. Or perhaps this had been a foregone conclusion from the moment he'd watched her fearlessly take a flying leap off that roof on that very first job.

Regardless of where it had begun, what was important was that they had reached this point organically; their relationship had developed in its own time. Evolving naturally from strangers, to reluctant allies, to crew, to friends, to... whatever it was they were now. And while that journey hadn't been without its growing pains, the important thing was that they had navigated those changes together. Just as they would continue to do.

As he nestled his face deeper into Parker's pillow, breathing in the warm scent of her honey and peach shampoo, his mind was calm, his soul was at peace, and he was happy.

In fact, he thought, the only thing that would make him happier would be if he still had Parker in his arms.

Wait...

Finally opening his eyes, the blissed-out grin on his face faded. For the first time in weeks, he was waking up alone.

Parker was gone.

The light streaming through his window, told him that he'd slept later than he usually did. Which wasn't entirely a surprise considering the events of last night. So there had to be a chance she'd simply woken up before him and started her morning, right?

A quick glance towards the dark ensuite told him she wasn't in the bathroom, humming off-key to herself as she got ready for the day. Reaching out with his senses, he couldn't hear her puttering around the kitchen, pouring herself a bowl of cereal to munch on before he got up to force something with some sort redeeming nutritional value on her for breakfast. Nor could he hear the sound of her feet pounding against the treadmill in his home gym that she liked to use when she wanted to burn off excess energy. In fact, the only thing that he could hear at all was the low thrumming of the HVAC system kicking on.

"Parker? Darlin'?" he called out, hoping for a shout back, or better yet, for her to come wandering back through the bedroom door, wearing nothing but one of his shirts and an enigmatic smile.

He still wasn't able to quite accept that Parker wasn't somewhere in the condo, even as the warm and fuzzy feelings in his chest that he had woken with, were replaced by something hollow and cold. So he rolled out of bed, grabbed the pajama pants that had been tossed negligently to the floor the night before, and pulled them on before doing a quick check of the rest of the house. A quick patrol of the rooms confirmed what he already knew, but didn't want to believe.

Standing in the middle of his cold and quiet living room, there was nothing Eliot could do, but accept that she was gone. The logical side of his brain suggested that her disappearance could be something as mundane as her having gone down to the market down the street to pick up something for breakfast, and she would walk back through the door any second. But the sinking feeling in his gut told him that wasn't true. All his instincts screamed at him that she was gone. And if he had to guess, she'd probably left hours ago.

"Dammit, Parker," he sighed to the empty room, scrubbing a hand down the stubble on his cheek.

She hadn't taken anything with her. Her clothes were still in the dresser drawers, her hairbrush on the vanity, her favorite harness hanging in the closet, her green Chucks sitting by the front door. But he knew he couldn't take any of that as an indication that she would be returning any time soon. After all, it had been just a few short hours ago that they had been discussing the necessity of traveling light. He knew that, to Parker's sensibilities, anything she hadn't taken with her was easily replaceable.

In fact, there were only two items of importance that she had left behind.

Her name.

And him.

It stung more than he wanted to admit.

He tried to tell himself it was because he was the one that left in the middle of night, not the other way around. And if he was the one sneaking out before sunrise, he at least had the decency to leave a note. But if he was being honest with himself, he knew that wasn't the real reason he had to stop himself from punching a hole through his drywall.

Not wanting to examine that line of thought too closely, he stomped back to his bedroom, and headed straight for the shower. Turning on all the shower heads as hot as he could stand, he ignored the sting of what he was sure were crescent-shaped marks on his shoulders and long scratches down his back.

Sticking his head under the water, he closed his eyes and tried to find his inner calm, letting the pounding spray wash away the smell of Parker and sex from his skin. Instead of peace, all he found was the mental image of how he'd been hoping the morning would begin. Parker there with him, taking advantage of the shower more than large enough for two. Her long legs wrapped around his waist as he took her hard against the cold tiles, while hot water rained down around them.

With a muttered curse, Eliot flipped the hot water to cold with enough force that later he'd be glad he didn't twist the handle right off the wall. He washed up as quickly as he could, but his teeth were chattering by the time he'd finished his shower.

He dried off as perfunctorily as possible, wrapping a towel around his waist while he stood at the vanity, going through the rest of his normal morning routine on rote. He brushed his teeth, making sure to grab the blue toothbrush, not the green, reaching over the bubblegum toothpaste for his wintergreen. He cleaned the blonde hair out of his wide toothed comb, because someone always forgot to do that, and detangled his hair still dripping from the shower. He was working out a particularly stubborn snarl, when his eye caught something in the mirror.

There was a distinctly bite-shaped bruise on his shoulder.

Of their own volition his fingers moved to trace the mark, a shiver running down his spine at the memory of how he'd gotten it. He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been standing there staring at the mirror, fixated on his own shoulder, before he snapped himself out of it.

"There's something wrong with you," he muttered to his reflection, shaking his head at the fact he was acting like some kind of lovesick teenager who'd just gotten his first hickey.

He finished getting ready as quickly as possible, getting dressed in the first clothes he found and shoving a beanie over his still damp hair. He was pulling a jacket out of the closet when his gaze landed on his positively debauched bed. With the sheets a mess and the mattress still askew there was absolutely no doubt as to what had happened there last night.

With an angry growl that originated deep in his chest, he righted the mattress and ripped the bedding off of it. Washing the sheets wouldn't do. It wasn't enough to just erase the evidence, he wanted to obliterate it. With the bundle of sheets still in his arms, he stormed out of the house, letting the door slam behind him, and marched straight to the trash chute and tossed the bedding inside. He could always buy new sheets.

He purposely took the long way across town, the drive to Nate's giving him a chance to cool down. And by the time he was parking the truck behind the mastermind's building, he could almost pretend that the last twenty-four hours hadn't happened and it was just another day.

Letting himself into the loft, he took stock of the room. Hardison was already on the couch with a keyboard in his lap, his eyes locked on the screens in front of him. While Sophie was sitting at the dining table having a cup of tea and reading a magazine.

"Hey," he greeted them casually, hanging up his coat on the hook by the door.

"Hey guys. Wait, where's Parker?" Hardison asked after he glanced up and realized that Eliot was alone.

"How should I know?" Eliot snapped before he caught himself. He cleared his throat. "She's not here?" he asked, his stomach sinking. He hadn't even realized that there was a part of him that had been holding out hope that she might already be at Nate's, acting like it was any other day, until she wasn't.

"No, she's not. Why isn't she with you?" Sophie asked looking up from her magazine, surprised by the question.

"It wasn't my job to watch her," he grumbled.

"But it was sorta her job to watch you," Hardison pointed out. "Not that you need to be watched," he course-corrected when he saw the dangerous look that Eliot was shooting him. "But you are the one who's been doing your best Mary Had A Little Lamb impression."

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?" Sophie asked, looking at the hacker askance.

"Ya know, everywhere that Mary went that lamb was sure to go?" Hardison clarified. "Dude, I'm just sayin', you two have been attached at the hip for the past month. So if anyone would know where she is, it'd be you."

Eliot just growled something uncomplimentary about Hardison's parentage, and went to make himself a cup of coffee.

"But seriously, where is Parker?" Sophie asked, following Eliot to the kitchen. "Isn't she still staying with you?"

Eliot couldn't do anything but shrug, focusing all his attention on assembling the parts required to make a pot of coffee, purposely avoiding making eye contact with Sophie lest she read more in his expression than he wanted her too.

"Yeah, she was. But she was gone when I woke up this morning. I thought maybe she had come over here early," he said with forced casualness. "Or if not that, maybe one of you might know where she ran off to."

"Nah man," Hardison said, from where he was eavesdropping on the couch. "I ain't heard from her."

Sophie gave him a long evaluative look, which Eliot tried to ignore, before speaking again. "Did you two have an argument last night?" she asked.

"No," he responded, a touch too quickly, his gaze snapping to hers. They had certainly done a lot of things the night before, but arguing had not been one of them. "Why would you think that?"

"You're a little… tense," Sophie said, diplomatically. "In a way you haven't been since you and Parker had that fight a couple months ago."

"That wasn't a fight," Eliot denied reflexively, as he turned his attention back to watching the coffee maker drip. "It was just a… a misunderstanding."

"Oh right, my mistake," she said dryly, sipping her tea.

Eliot ignored her in favor of doctoring his cup of coffee just the way he liked it.

"Perhaps she just went home," Sophie suggested with a shrug, after a few moments. "You're basically all better, Eliot," she pointed out. "You don't really need her help around the house anymore.

"Yeah, maybe," Eliot said into his mug, clearly not believing the words coming out of his mouth for a moment. But not about to explain to Sophie why we knew that wasn't the case.

"What's going on?" Nate asked coming down the spiral staircase, reading the mood in the room.

"Little Bo Peep over there lost his sheep," Hardison said.

"Dammit, Hardison!" Eliot exploded. "Enough with the nursery rhyme sheep already!"

Nate wasn't even going to ask. "Parker?" he asked instead, realizing she was the only one missing. "Where is she?"

"That's the question," Sophie replied.

"Eliot, she's not with you?" Nate asked.

"Would we be having this conversation if she was?" Eliot retorted sharply, starting to wish he was anywhere but here.

"Has anyone, I don't know… called her?" Nate asked sarcastically, as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Eliot had made.

Nate, Sophie and Hardison all looked at Eliot, clearly expecting him to reach for his cell phone, but he simply crossed his arms over his chest and stared right back. He refused to be the one to call her. The way he saw it was, if she wanted to talk to him, she wouldn't have left. The stare-off continued until Hardison rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"I guess I'll call her then," he said, ignoring the way everyone was watching him while he dialed the phone. "It went straight to voicemail." His fingers flew over his phone, "She must have popped the battery, because I can't track her GPS, but the last place it pinged was…."

"Was where?" Eliot prompted impatiently, when Hardison trailed off.

"Was at JFK."

"She's in New York?" Sophie asked.

"Well, she was as of 5:32 am."

A deep frown settled over Eliot's face as he did the math of how soon she must have left after he had fallen asleep.

"Is she still in New York?"

"No way to tell," Hardison admitted. "From there, she could have hopped a flight to anywhere in the world."

"No, she'll still be in New York," Nate said, in what the others considered his 'mastermind' tone. "If she wanted to fly international, she could have done that from Logan. And if she didn't want us to know where she was, she would have ditched her phone before she ever left Boston. If there is anything that Parker knows how to do, it's disappear."

Eliot glowered darkly, knowing it was true.

"What is she doing in New York?" Hardison asked, since Nate seemed to have all the answers.

"I suspect if she wanted us to know, she would have left her phone on," he answered, taking a sip of his coffee. Nate wasn't overly concerned. With Eliot still recovering, he didn't have any jobs currently lined up, so it was a good time for her to go on one of her walkabouts. "It's Parker. She'll turn back up. She always does."

"She was telling me last week that MOMA just revamped their security system," Sophie mused. "That's something she'd want to check out."

"Yeah," Hardison shrugged. "I guess after these last few weeks, the girl certainly deserves a vacation."

"A vacation from what?" Eliot snapped irritably. "From me? Is that what you're sayin'?"

"I.. uh… what I mean is..." Hardison stuttered. That was kind of what he'd said, but the murderous look on Eliot's face made him want to take it back.

"I think what Hardison means, is that Parker's just not used to putting other people's needs above her own," Sophie said delicately. "And after being so responsible for over a month, it's only natural that she'd want to let off some steam."

"Whatever," Eliot grumbled before stalking out of the loft, not wanting to be there anymore.

"Well," Sophie said lightly, after the front door slammed closed, "this is going to be interesting."

Out in the hallway, Eliot was at a loss. He didn't want to go home to his empty house, filled with reminders of the woman who'd left him that morning without so much as a goodbye. But he couldn't really go back to the loft after he'd just stormed out so dramatically.

It was Wednesday, which meant the farmers' market was currently under way, but that too would only bring reminders of Parker at every turn.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, using all his years of training to try to find his center.

He had limited success when the skin under his cast started itching like crazy. Opening his eyes he looked down at his cast-covered arm. After more than a month of wear and tear, most of the intricate silver designs Parker had laid over the black fiberglass had worn and faded. But looking at it now, all he could see were the quiet hours she had spent with his hand in her lap, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, turning his basic black cast into a work of art in its own right.

He knew what he wanted to do.

When Eliot showed back up at the loft forty-five minutes later, he was looking slightly calmer. But he was also carrying a hacksaw, which garnered everyone's attention.

"You know, doctors have specific tools to do that," Nate mentioned, when Eliot sat down and immediately set about removing the fiberglass by sawing through it.

"This works," Eliot replied gruffly, not looking up from what he was doing.

"Are you sure it's even ready to come off?" Hardison asked, looking concerned. "The doc said six to eight weeks, before your arm was fully healed. Shouldn't you get it x-rayed again, check on the healing progress and all that, before removing the cast?"

"Nope," he said shortly.

In fact, under normal circumstances he would have taken the cast off already. If he was really being honest with himself, he'd only left it on this long because it had given him a physically visible excuse, as flimsy as it was, to have Parker at home with him full-time. Even though he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself at this point, and they both knew it.

"This doesn't have anything to do with Parker's leaving does it?" Sophie asked, joining in on the concern.

Eliot's rhythm with the saw faltered for just a moment at Sophie's question, thinking that perhaps the grifter had managed to read his thoughts. He wouldn't have put it past her.

"Because if you still need a hand with anything because of your cast, you know that all you need to do is ask," she continued.

"Of course not," Eliot denied immediately, although not as snappy with Sophie as he had been with Nate and Hardison. "We can't just all sit around here, staring at each other, forever. I need the cast off so I can start working out properly again. That way I can get back into shape and we can get back to work. "

"You mean we can start working, once Parker gets back, right?" Nate asked, one eyebrow arched, the question clearly loaded. It was obvious to him that Eliot knew more about the reasoning behind Parker's exodus from the city than he was willing to admit.

"Of course I mean once Parker gets back," Eliot replied through grit teeth, as he picked up the screwdriver he'd also brought upstairs to try to pry the cast open. He wished they had a job now; he really wanted to hit someone.

"Well, if we can't do anything until Parker gets back, this is the perfect time for the new episode of Doctor Who that I downloaded last night," Hardison said, cheerfully.

Eliot swore at Hardison's statement and then swore again when he cracked the cast open, and the screwdriver slipped jabbing the sensitive skin of his forearm.

"Dammit, Hardison!"

A/N ::pokes head out:: don't hate me? I know this probably wasn't the morning after you were all hoping for, but we gotta have a little drama right? But we're in the home stretch now, just three more chapters to go, so let me know what you guys thought!