A/N: This story has been twelve, almost thirteen years in the making. I started it on and got stalled, had a kid, got writers block, changed jobs, had another kid, changed jobs again - and kept coming back to this story. This story thread that wouldn't leave me. And finally over the New Year I figured it out. It's not a big bang, it's a gentle whisper, kindness, and friendship.

Chapter 5

Eliot looked at Faith, "your work is brilliant. I've heard Hardison talk about it. He is in awe of the advances you've made. He patted her shoulder and nipped at her shoulder blade, "Look, you're flying out tomorrow afternoon. Why don't I take a quick shower, and you do some packing? And then you shower, and I'll pick up the kitchen some?" At the look on her face, he added "I'm not leaving."

"But, …"

"And I'll text Hardison about layering a thing on his thing."

Faith broke out laughing at the shrug Eliot gave. "A neural net, it allows a computer to work more like the human brain, a lot of them have recursive or recurrent functions built into them to allow them to learn. He needs to layer one on his web crawler."

"Huh, that makes sense. I wish Hardison explained stuff in terms like that, instead of being all technobabble." Eliot headed towards the bathroom, as Faith started sorting through her closet. "The dark red dress, you should stand out from everyone wearing black and grey."

"Ummm… you don't think it's too." She waved her hand nervously. "Too…"

"Nope, just perfect for the smartest woman in the room, you'll own the conference in that." And he disappeared into the small bathroom and turned the water on.

Faith added the red dress to the black suit, and the grey dress she'd packed. "There are toothbrushes under the sink if you want one." And put in jeans, a couple of sweaters, and a sensible pair of walking shoes, and her favorite black flats.

Eliot laughed when he saw the goldfish shaped kids toothbrush; but, hey it was a toothbrush. He washed his hair and body in close to record time, the shampoo smelled like Faith. Finishing off he wrapped a towel around himself and walking out saw the suitcase neatly standing by the hall to the door. "Go take a shower darlin' I'll be waiting when you come out."

Her mouth started collecting drool when she saw the drops of water move slowly down his torso. At a loss for words she went into the steam laden bathroom, and saw that he'd used the toothbrush she kept on hand for Patricio, the little boy upstairs. His mom was a single mom, and often pulled extra shifts, so she would keep him when she could; he was often at her office, and a lot of her grad students brought him treats (probably hoping to butter her up; but, he was a really good kid). Faith was mortified, her cheeks flushed "I'm sorry you got Patty's toothbrush, I thought I had some adult toothbrushes."

Calling back from the kitchen where he was washing dishes, and organizing what he could. "No problem, who's Patty?"

"Patricio, actually, he's the little boy upstairs, I babysit him sometimes. His mom often pulls double shifts either at the hospital, helping Cora, or cleaning houses. He's a cutie." Cora kept babbling because Patty was a topic she was comfortable discussing, "Sometimes he comes to school with me. My grad students love him."

"I bet they do." Eliot drawled staring at the pictures on the fridge of the gap toothed kid. "Dominican?"

"Haitian. His mom is teaching me to cook Joumou soup. I love hers."

The hitter strolled into the bathroom, and gently flicked her bare behind with a dishtowel. "Faith, go take a shower; I'm not going anywhere."

Feeling less frazzled than before Faith took a quick shower, not even bothering to smell her favorite shampoo. Getting out she quickly braided her hair, wet hair flying around her face always bothered her.

Eliot heard the shower stop and the door open and stood in the bedroom door as Faith emerged like mermaid from the mist. A siren. He patted the bed, "Come here darling. You're singing a siren's song."

"A siren, I like that. As long as I'm not a fire truck."

Eliot chuckled as he advanced on her, peeling the towel off of her and feeling the dampness of her skin. He placed her on the bed and smiled as she arched up at him offering her breasts to his lips. When he took them, her head fell back in ecstasy, the already sensitive skin reacting to the feeling of his lips, tongue, and the gentle nip of his teeth.

Strong, she thought. A silly thought; as it crossed her mind as she knew he was strong; but, still her thought. She reached out, and stroked his back, feeling the scars, the dampness, and the ripple of muscles under his skin.

Their lips met, their tongues met, in a kiss made urgent by the fact that they only had a few hours before Faith had to leave for Geneva. This wasn't soft and sensual lovemaking, this wasn't the domination from earlier in the evening – yesterday. Yesterday, she realized as she looked at the clock. It was about twelve hours before she needed to be at the airport. The airport! Because Geneva! Her paper!

She pulled back and looked at him; and they rode the storm. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his rugged, beautiful body. Faith's fingers dove into the hitter's hair, gripped his damp hair, and they surrendered to each other. He surrendered to her need, as she surrendered to his. Eliot pulled her even closer, and they rolled on the bed, gripping her hair.

"Yes, yes, please" they both muttered as they rolled across the bed. Eager to give him more, she pressed up against him, and he moaned against her breast. It was a moan that could have been one of pain; but, instead spoke of intense lust.

Rearing up, Eliot guided himself into her. He gave himself up to the lust of a beautiful lush woman. They rose and fell together finding a rhythm that brought them to climax and they collapsed, sated; and fell into sleep in a tangle of limbs.

Eliot woke before Faith, and carefully stretched out so he wouldn't wake the beauty next to him. He carefully climbed out of bed, pulling on his boxers, only stepping on two books, and a Lego that had to be Patty's. Fuck, those things were lethal, he hopped on one foot cussing a blue storm and safely made it to the living room and cleared a spot large enough for tai chi. Their lovemaking last night had been intense, and he felt stiff and sore in muscles he hadn't used in a bit. It wasn't every day you found someone like Faith. It was a good sore, one he hadn't felt in too long. He paused to feel the stillness in his bones he moved into the Tai Chi movements going from the introduction into the first movement wild horses mane, then into stork cools wings, and brush knee, to lute player, and smoothly into grasp bird's tail left, diagonal single whip, hands like clouds, right foot, left foot, double dragon, and finishing with slanted palms flying. Slowly he moved through the movements again, and then a third time. As he emerged from his third round through he heard Faith starting to stir, and looked over at the clock it was almost six. He started a pot of coffee, and tidied the kitchen some more; reorganized the spice cabinet because it was a frigging mess! The garlic powder was next to a Berbere spice mix, which didn't make sense, not in terms of flavor profiles or alphabetical.

He made a simple breakfast of things that would go bad before Faith got back from Geneva. Some yoghurt crepes, he beat yoghurt into some of the milk and added flour, eggs, and some of the flax seed he found at the back of the freezer, because, some fiber and Omega-3s were always good, especially when you had to deal with international travel. There was some ham in a McRory's take-out container; he guessed that Cora had forced Faith to eat sometime in the last week. Well, it was last Wednesday when ham was on menu, so it was only four days old. It would still be good if it was fried. And there were two apples, so he fried them in the packet of sugar he found behind the coffee maker. Like his dad always said "leave a place better than you found it;" so he'd cleaned all the counters and the toaster oven.

Eliot heard Faith starting to stir so he plated the crepes with some whipped yoghurt and the fried apples, a little bit of ham; along with some coffee, and a little pitcher of milk. He figured Faith wasn't a black coffee kind of lady.

"Mornin' darlin'" He said leaning against the bedroom door holding the tray of food. Faith blinked at him, pulling on her glasses, mouth agape. "I told you I'd be here."

"You, you…" She pointed at the tray, while gaping at his semi-naked body. "You made breakfast."

Eliot did what Faith could only call a Gaelic shrug. She'd heard it called that in the movies; but, he made it more of a cowboy move. "Crepes, with fried apples, and ham. Stuff you had in the fridge."

"You made breakfast…" Faith was speechless, no one had ever made her breakfast before.

"And discovered some of Patty's Lego creations."

Faith made grabby hands at the tray. "I love breakfast, it's my favorite meal. And Parker has brought me some of your soup! It was amazing, a smoky pumpkin soup with ham. Gimme…"

The hitter chuckled as he settled on the bed with her, she seemed a lot more comfortable than last night. "Milk in your coffee?"

"Yeah, more milk than coffee. My Dr says I need more calcium." She took a bite of the crepes, and rolled her eyes? "This is heaven, almost as good as sex. No, not as good as sex. But, maybe better than…"

"Masturbating." Eliot added blushing slightly. He really hadn't met anyone like Faith before.

"Yeah; much better than Fred."

"Fred?"

Faith dived under the bed, grabbed a box and pulled out a purple glitter vibrator. "Fred."

Eliot laughed, "That's a good name for it. Fred." He held up a bite of crepe, stacked with ham, and apple. "To Fred, and better than Fred."

"To better than Fred!" She took another bite and a slurp of milky coffee. "SHIT! What time is it? I've gotta be at the airport by … by…"

"Parker texted and said you need to be at the airport by three. It's not noon yet. She also dropped off a present for Patty. She likes him."

"She does, he can pick a lock in less than thirty seconds. I'm only at a couple minutes for a basic Master Lock. She's pretty disappointed in me."

"Most people aren't like Parker"

"Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag?"

"Yeah," Eliot looked quizzically at Faith.

"We talk." She mumbled around a bite of pancakes, nope fancy pancakes, crepes.

"You talk?"

"Yeah." Faith took a bite of ham. "People don't get her. People don't get me. We talk."

Eliot took another bite, he could see that. Two geniuses, each in their own field, both of them fighting against society, wanting to be part of society. Even if it was in different ways. "Want me to take you to the airport?"

"Nah, Parker's going to drive me. She is a wiz with Boston traffic!"

"Some people say that."

"I think it was her time as a getaway driver that helped. Or maybe her time in Turkey?"

Eliot goggled at Faith with a bite of food halfway to his mouth. Parker never told anyone this much about herself. It had taken him almost three years to get this in bits and pieces. And Faith… Faith had gotten in a few months.

"What? People talk to me, I'm a teacher." She looked at the clock. "Sugar plums! Parker's going to be here in fifteen minutes! I need a shower! I need to finish packing! I've got to clean the house!"

"You packed last night." Eliot said soothingly. "Should just need toiletries. You did put that red dress in? Kitchen is clean."

"You cleaned my kitchen?"

"I made breakfast, my daddy always said 'leave a place better than you found it' so I cleaned up some."

Stabbing another bite of the amazing crepe with the apple she mumbled "thanks."

Eliot shrugged, and they ate in companionable silence. It was really nice, he thought that she didn't feel the need to talk about nothing – even when she was nervous. Her talking about Patty was cute, and Eliot actually kinda wanted to meet the kid; but, he'd need to brush up on his Haitian – Creole. It had been a while since he'd needed it. Her math talk was cool, she explained things in simple language which was a nice break from Hardison's technobabble.

"FAITH"

Both Eliot and Faith jumped about a mile at Parker's announcement.

"We're in here." Faith said, not bothering to cover up, which really surprised Eliot. He handed her a blanket, and she shrugged; but, did pull it on. "Parker comes when she wants; it isn't like I have anything she hasn't seen before."

"Skippy, did you make me some?"

"No." Eliot barked, grumpy that his morning had been interrupted.

"Yep, there is enough for three. Share my plate." Faith glared at Eliot.

Sigh… this was how this was going to go.

"You ready to go?" Parker asked. "Did you have good sex?"

"It was really good!" Faith exclaimed and went on starting to lay everything out to Parker.

"Faith! Parker! I'm right here."

"And?" Both of them exclaimed at once.

"I don't need to hear about our sexual experience right now." He paused, thinking of how Sophie would explain this. "Societal norms say this is something you do after I leave." And he looked around for his pants.

Parker took another bite from Eliot's plate. "Your pants are in the hall. And this is really good. Almost as good as cereal."

"This is better than your cereal." Faith argued.

"You eat granola."

"It's good for you."

"Tastes like cardboard."

Eliot stepped in before this escalated. "Granola serves a purpose. You hyper-processed sugar saturated ultra-processed grains serve no nutritional purpose."

"Are you packed?" Parker chirped, taking another bite of Eliot's crepe. "Are you taking Fred?"

"I don't think I'll need him."

Eliot looked at the ceiling. Why am I still he here he thought, this was devolving into weird geek-sex talk.

Both the PhD and the Thief looked at the Hitter,

Faith asked "Is this not right? I thought we were supposed to discuss sexual exploits?"

Parker nodded vehemently.

Eliot took a bite of ham, grabbing it from out from under Parker's fork. "No, you do this discussion without the guy in the room." And he went and grabbed his shirt.

"Did I make him mad?" Faith whispered to Parker

"No, he's just grumpy. Grumpy all the time."

"He wasn't grumpy last night. And he made breakfast!"

"Bye Skippy!" Parker yelled. "I'm taking her to the airport."

"Mrph." Eliot mumbled understanding that the sexy night had progressed to a girl's trip to the airport.

E/N: It has taken too long for me to figure out how to end this story. But, after years, I finally figured it out. Sex, and breakfast. Crepes make the world go round. And having a friend take you to the airport, especially one that knows how to navigate traffic: Priceless!