a/n: fanfiction keeps taking out all my italics when I copy/paste here, so this is currently missing all the italics. I will go back in and edit them back in when I have the time!

~cosette141

It was nightfall by the time they made it to the prison.

Lucky for them, the few lights on the building acted as guides for them, sparks through the leaves as they continued the last mile or so through the forest.

The closer they got to the building, the slower Eliot walked. He had a hand closed around Parker's wrist and he hadn't let go yet. He probably wouldn't at all. One more thought of the two dead guards and he was fighting the urge to simply stuff her in a bag and run away until she was safe.

Parker and he were both silent as they made their way through the thinning-out forest. About half a mile out, Eliot quietly shh'd and she remained silent. He pulled her closer to him, toward his back. He was going first and that was that.

He figured after the day of searching for Parker that they wouldn't have given up looking just yet. But that wasn't a bad thing; the one place they wouldn't be looking was right around the prison. He was confident enough that they wouldn't run into trouble until they actually approached the building.

As they reached the very end of the trees, Eliot pulled Parker to a stop and they pressed their backs to a thick trunk of a tree, shielding them from the building's view.

Eliot wordlessly held out a hand and Parker reached in his jacket for the binoculars they took off the guards. He leaned around the tree and examined their target.

The building was the size of a large office building. The brick shell of it was eroded and worn; it's weathered many storms. Nothing like the one he was going to rain down on it. Eliot squinted a little, studying it. The type of weather damage suggested it had been frozen and thawed several times over.

It was a very distinctive type of erosion.

So, wherever they were, was somewhere that experienced winter. At least that cut out a few countries.

That still posed a question. Where were they? The men he heard through the comms, who attacked Parker, each spoke English with two different accents; American and Dutch. That wasn't very uncommon for jobs such as theirs; people from all over the world fall into this kind of work.

Eliot would know.

He pulled himself from his thoughts to continue examining the building. Hardly any windows. There were patrolling guards around the very edge of the building, but no more than half a dozen. Two guards walked together, timed so each wall was covered by two guards each rotation. Once one pair turned the corner, another appeared from the opposite one. The lack of guards made Eliot relax slightly. Part of him had been worried it was some sort of a Supermax prison. The more out in the middle of nowhere it was, the worse; the more they could get away with.

But it looked like a base of operations. Many of which usually have holding cells for prisoners too important for a prison.

Which begged the question even more what the team had managed to stumble into. But that could be answered after the team was back together.

But even without guards, with a closer look from the binoculars, the door leading in and out was well equipped. Lots of money went into securing that hunk of metal.

He handed the binoculars to Parker. He was Eliot freaking Spencer but aside from kicking the thing, he wasn't getting past it. "Can you crack that?"

Parker looked through the binoculars. "Mm," she mused. She considered for a moment then lowered them. "No, not without other equipment," she huffed. "To much computer-y stuff. Hardison could do it," she said quietly.

Eliot felt another wash of guilt and worry for their friend. He looked back toward the building.

"How did you get out?" whispered Eliot. No one would know a better way in than she would. Firstly, she'd been inside the building and knew it well enough to have escaped. And Parker was the best damn escape artist Eliot had ever seen. She still managed to sneak up on him and break herself into his many safe houses no matter how hard he tried to prepare himself for her. As irritating—and unsettling—as that is for him, he was damn grateful she was as good as she was.

"Ventilation system." Parker whispered back. Her eyes narrowed at the building in concentration as she thought, and Eliot could nearly imagine dozens of formulas being drawn right before her eyes, formulating escape routes, times, and options. "Cells are on the top floor. Mine didn't have an opening to the vent so I made one." She grinned to herself in that crazed, wild grin. She drew her finger from the corner of the roof—her cell, Eliot guessed—upward. "Got up to the roof and jumped down."

Eliot's brows shot up. "You— what? Parker that's a fifty foot drop!"

Parker just shrugged. "What? It's just like rappelling without a rappel."

Eliot looked at her like she was crazy. Mostly because she was. "No, that's just like jumping off a building! How did you even—!"

"Relax!" she huffed. "Jeez." She pointed to a tree next to the side of the building. "I grabbed a branch on my way down to break the fall." She gave him a blank look. "I had to improvise." She pointed back to the tree. "I can climb that quick and jump back to the building. It's got enough divots for footholds to climb." She turned her gaze to Eliot. "But you can't."

He gave her a look, still trying to imagine how he'd do what she was describing. "Why not?"

"You won't fit." She shrugged. "The shaft is too small for you."

Eliot set his jaw with reluctance. He knew what she was saying.

He didn't like what she was saying.

"So," Eliot finished, "you're saying that's our only way in."

"Yes," she said slowly, "but once I get in, I can open the door from the inside to let you in." She gestured to the guards with her head. "I mean, after you punch those guys."

Eliot felt his reluctance curl his fists and tighten his muscles. "Parker," he said heavily. "That means… what you're suggesting is that you go back into the place that's actively trying to catch you, alone."

Parker didn't get it. She just nodded. "Yeah. So?"

"So," said Eliot, "I won't be in there with you. If something goes wrong—"

"I made it out just fine," she said, and her pure innocence in the way she looked at him made Eliot's heart simply hurt . The urge to grab her and send her somewhere far away, somewhere safe was blinding.

The two of them going back into the facility wasn't a glowing option, but it had been on the table because Eliot would be going in with her.

But Parker going in herself?

He'd just gotten her back.

"Uh, Eliot? Hello?"

Eliot looked up from where he'd been staring into space with his thoughts. Parker was looking at him expectantly. "So, are we gonna do this?"

Well, she was Parker. Stealth and speed was her forte.

But they caught her twice already.

"You're glaring at trees again."

Eliot sighed. Parker finally seemed to catch on that something was bothering him, and she wrinkled her nose. Sophie would have been proud to hear her say, "Something's wrong. What's wrong?"

Eliot looked at her. "I just don't want to let you out of my sight. I'm worried about you, darlin."

"But I'm worried about Hardison," she said sadly. "And this is our only way. If he's in there, we have to try."

He knew that. He did. But that was when he thought he'd be right by her side.

What was it they said? One in the hand…

That was what they said. But Eliot's bush was apparently far more priceless to him than it was to whoever said that quote.

Eliot looked at her for a long moment, then sighed heavily. "Promise me you'll be careful, Parker."

"Promise."

"And you'll get that door open for me as soon as you get inside."

"ASAP."

Eliot huffed out a short breath, still hating the idea inside and out. But Parker was right; it made too much sense for Hardison to be inside this building and they needed to try.

"Okay," said Eliot.

Parker smiled and turned to walk away but Eliot gently grabbed her wrist and she turned around.

He pulled her into another hug, holding her tight to him. It stung his ribs but he didn't care. He let her go just as quickly, and she looked surprised but her smile grew.

"See you on the flip side, Sparky!" she said, and skipped off into the darkness.

Eliot watched her go, feeling the heaviness in his chest now that he was alone. Granted, he could still hear her short breaths and the slight movement from her comms, but he felt suddenly vulnerable for both of them.

He waited where he was and hoped against hope in that this plan worked.

Parker clung to the shadows cast by the moonlight over the trees, making her way to the tree she used to climb down from her escape.

It probably should have worried her that she was walking straight back into the building that captured her. But it didn't. There was a high chance that Hardison was inside as well, and it erased all the fear. Besides; she'd escaped once, she could do it again if need be.

Eliot, however, had looked very afraid, and Parker had never seen him openly wear his emotions like that before. It was unsettling. It made her own confidence waver a bit.

But one more thought of Hardison and Parker felt her determination settle in once again.

She rounded the tree she'd been heading for and gave it a quick glance. Each reliable foothold catalogued instantly in her mind and like a tree dweller, she expertly hopped from branch to branch with elegance and speed.

She made it to the top branch, which was fairly close to the side of the building. Here, she was still a story too low from the roof, but the window ledge would provide enough of a hold for her to reach.

She jumped from the branch and landed gracefully outside the barred and blacked out window, and crawled her way to the roof.

One upright, she let out a breath and felt a crazy grin spread across her face from the adrenaline. "On the roof," she told Eliot.

"Be careful, Parker," came his warning, but it wasn't like the gruff bark it normally would have been. It was soft and had a sort of desperation to it.

"I will," she whispered.

First things first, she had to get to the ground floor to let Eliot in. Logically, she felt that it would simply be easier for her to just look around the place by herself, but she knew she wouldn't be able to change Eliot's mind. And, if she was being completely honest with herself, the idea of Eliot being on the same side of the door as she was did fill her with a sense of security she didn't think she'd ever need.

She found the air duct she crawled through earlier and slipped inside.

The ducts led through most of the building, so it was a maze of metal that she followed with an instinct given to her from years and years of crawling through the things. Air travel patterns and building structures made ducts very similar and logical.

Eliot was silent on the other end of the comms as she travelled, and she finally stopped over a grate on the ground floor's ceiling.

"Okay," she said in a whisper. "I'm on the ground floor. Just need to get to the door."

"Be careful," said Eliot again, and Parker tried not to roll her eyes. Was she ever anything but?

Looking through the slats of the grate, she could see the floor. Concrete, dirty. Nothing in her view; no furniture, no anything. But most importantly, no guards.

With such tight security outside and a lock of that caliber on the door itself, Parker wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't see another guard for at least another few hallways. Besides, breaking into these places was never a primal concern; it was breaking out of them that was more of a problem.

"I think this hallway's clear," said Parker, slowly slipping her fingers through the grate slats. She could feel Eliot's apprehension.

Here goes nothing. Parker opened the grate and leaned her head out. Now, she had a visual of the whole hallway. It was indeed empty. It was quite a long empty hallway, the single door to the outside a handful of yards away from where she was.

Carefully, Parker leaned herself out of the duct, dropping to the ground gracefully. She looked cautiously around her, but she was still alone.

"I'm heading for the door," she whispered.

"All right. I've got ninety seconds clear out here. I'm almost to the door."

Parker grinned. "Please," she snorted. She approached the door and examined the lock. "I can do it in—" She froze.

That was a much higher-tech lock than she was expecting.

Eliot's breathing shifted pattern. "What's wrong?" he asked sharply.

"I… I don't… I can't pick this lock," she said, a bit of fear entering her voice. "There's an extra security measure on this side… I can't open it without a keycard."

A heavy silence from the comms.

"Then I want you to get out of there right now."

"But—"

"Get out, Parker!"

She could hear his growl both in the comms and on the other side of the thick door. They were inches away from each other.

So close.

With a disappointed huff, she dropped her shoulders. "Okay. Coming back." She turned to head back to the air duct.

And ran straight into something solid and tall.

Parker gasped, and stumbled back to see the grinning face of a guard.