A/N: Hi!... So here's the next chapter of this fic... This whole thing is going to be pretty low angst and mostly fluffy... but that doesn't mean that i can;t put in little nuggets of anxiety here and there. :P

So enjoy and don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas... :)

Chapter 03

Whatever she had been expecting to see, this wasn't it. This, as Parker'd so eloquently put it, seemed to be a beautiful low, country style ranch house situated at the end of a long driveway with what seemed like real fruit trees behind it, and lots n lots of green, rolling pastures surrounding it. Of all this, Parker's eyes skidded to a stop at the paddocks at a distance and stables round the side of the house.

Okay... maybe agreeing to come with Eliot wasn't such a great idea. She'd forgotten that the hitter had a liking for the great, stamping, murderous beasts everyone called 'horses'. And there seemed to be at least half a dozen of them here

As if sensing the cause of her sudden hesitation, Eliot turned and murmured to her

"Don't worry Parker... All my horses are stabled and the stables have doors, with locks on them... okay? The horses are not gonna hurt you until you hurt them. Now come on... let's get inside"

Following the hitter in at a slightly more cheerful pace, the blonde thief came to a standstill again at entering the house. Again, this wasn't what she had expected. To be completely honest, she didn't know what she had expected his house to be like, but this wasn't it.

This wasn't a bare bones, sparse living space, nor was it an overly decorated picture perfect house... This was a house that seemed to be cared for, well loved and definitely lived in. The furniture was all big, comfortable pieces, some of which, like that brown cushy chair that she wouldn't have thought the kind Eliot would buy for his house. The living area at least, wasn't overly decorated, just one or two understated art pieces... a couple of original paintings of... horses (shudder) and a fully functional massive fireplace.

Stepping in further at the hitter gesture to follow him, Parker saw that the house was in an open plan, most of the single floored home consisting of a huge single room, which housed the living, dining rooms and the huge, elaborate kitchen. There were a couple of doors leading away, and Eliot was on his way through one of them when Parker finally decided to follow.

Through the door seemed to be a big bedroom done up in shades of blue, with a queen sized bed and cheerful bright blue curtains and sheets.

"Okay Parker... This is going to be your room for these couple of weeks. There's an attached bath through this door and you have your own closet with it. You can maybe unpack your stuff inside there..."

The hitter glanced at her with a little bit of amusement in his eyes before continuing

"The vent next to your feet leads right into the kitchen and all the way through to the living room and the window frames are made with reinforced steel so you can attach your ziplines and whatnots..."

At the thief's excited squeal, he however hastened to warn her that until she was fully healed, she shouldn't be jumping or rappelling, and turned his most threatening glare on her for additional effect.

"So until I tell you you're fine, no crawling through vents or jumping from windows or roofs okay?"

Pouting childishly, but knowing that if she didn't give in to his rules, Eliot might well find ways to enforce them to his liking, Parker quickly nodded, while making it amply known that she wasn't happy about the conditions. Besides, Eliot didn't need to know everything she was planning... With a slightly evil smile on her face, the thief trooped after him, out of the room that was to be hers back into the hallway.

The next fifteen minutes were spent walking, or rather hobbling slowly around the rest of the house as Eliot showed her what each room was and let her get acquainted with where everything was in the house. Parker had been surprised by a lot of things she'd learnt about the hitter that day.

For example, no one in the team had known that Eliot Spencer loved to read almost as much as he loved to cook. The presence of a huge and extremely well stocked library in his house was a revelation to her. Parker's perception of him as a person was changing subtly with each new things she managed to discover about him, and she found herself rather liking this slightly different, more rounded person that Eliot was becoming in her eyes.

Parker spent the rest of the day exploring inside the house, careful not to go out anytime without Eliot next to her... she didn't want to come face to face with a horse under any circumstances. While Parker familiarized herself with each and every nook and cranny of the house, Eliot busied himself with a long overdue workout, a shower and then making some of Parker's favorite Stir-fried noodles for dinner.

It was as if the two of them had been through this routine dozens of time before, the way they went through the whole cleaning up and getting ready for bed processes. Eliot hadn't wanted Parker to tax herself but she'd been insistent on being allowed to help him clean up after they finished dinner, so the two of them had washed and dried dishes, cleaned and wiped down the kitchen counters before turning in for the night.

Parker found that Eliot's master bedroom was down the corridor from hers and that, somehow made her feel more secure than less... a fact that she still couldn't understand. She'd never felt safe with other people around, especially at night. Most nights, when the team were forced to spend them in a hotel or at Nate's loft, Parker never slept basically because she never could go to sleep with someone else around... she never felt safe enough to. But tonight, Parker knew that she would be sleeping, and comfortably at that. Stupid, unpredictable things they were... these emotions. So difficult to understand.

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Eliot, on the other hand was a bit nervous about the whole thing. This would be the first time he was sharing his home with someone, someone of consequence in his life... and he was worried about his mind's reactions to having someone else in the house. Everyone in the team knew that Eliot slept only 90 minutes a day, but till now no one had asked him the reason behind it, choosing to consider it one of his quirks, which all of them had. Till now, no one had been in a position to know that Eliot managed to sleep only that much every night because of a reason.

Through his 30 odd years, Eliot Spencer had seen and done much more than any average Joe could even begin to consider. And being in the line of work he was in, Eliot had seen more death and destruction than any one else, even in the team. Most of it he managed to shrug away as part of his job, but there were some cases that stuck with him...

Most of the times he'd been working under Damien Moreau's orders were still etched in his brain with acid. The crimes he'd committed, the lives he'd taken, the families he'd broken... so many things that he hadn't ever brought himself to face, just shutting himself off when faced with a job like that, arose to larger than life size in his regular like clockwork nightmares.

Rarely had he been able to manage more than four hours of sleep without being woken from slumber by some or the other extremely disturbing memory... He'd also never let himself sleep when someone else was around. This night was definitely going to be interesting one way or the other.

Both Parker and Eliot lay awake in their respective bedrooms for almost an hour before the little thief succumbed to her pain medication and the physical exhaustion from a tiring day. Eliot lay awake for much longer before slipping into an uneasy doze. Everything was quiet and calm in the Spencer household for the next couple of hours as both the thief and the hitter rested.

At around two in the morning however, Eliot was rudely wakened from his sleep by noises. Going from asleep to fully awake in barely a second, the hitter was up on his feet and running to Parker's bedroom before he'd had a chance to think. Parker's screams and agonized yells were echoing around the still and silent house, sounding that much more terrifying to the hitter for the absence of other sounds.

In seconds, Eliot had the door open and ran into the bedroom, only to come to a screeching halt when he found Parker's slim form clad in an oversized t-shirt thrashing around on the bed, tears streaming from her tightly closed eyes, her hands fisted and her body taut with tension. Her yells and screams had toned down to mere whimpers and occasional sobs as she cried in the throes of her nightmare.

While relieved that it was nothing more than a nightmare that plagued Parker, he'd almost been expecting to see an intruder getting ready to kill her or something, Eliot couldn't just stand by and watch as she obviously relived some traumatic experience in her dreams. He hadn't decided what he would do yet, when he heard her speak garbled words in a decidedly childish voice. What she said gave him the chills... Eliot'd known that Parker had been in the foster care system for most of her early life and he had some idea that she hadn't had a nice or even normal childhood, but he'd never thought it might've been this bad.

Parker was whimpering out for somebody to stop... that it was hurting her. Her body was wracked with spasms as she twisted and turned in attempts to avoid getting hurt once more but from her sobs it seemed as if her attempts had been ineffectual... the knowledge that someone had laid hands on his little thief when she was a mere child and from the sounds of it, treated her very badly, made the blood boil in Eliot's veins. The need to just go out and pound that person into a grease spot on the concrete was so over powering that the hitter found his fists clenching and his body tensing up in preparation for a physical confrontation.

But that was not his priority now. He first had to take care of Parker... She was still in the throes of her nightmare, kicking and screaming as whatever was happening in her dream hurt and scared her again. Eliot was at her side in a second, gathering her fists in his hands, holding them softly in front of her as he pulled her entire body into his. His one hand held hers while the other delved into her golden waves, stroking and soothing her as he murmured comforting nonsense into her ear.

As he knew very well from experience, it was of no use to try to wake her up. Making sure she knew she was in a safe place and nothing could hurt her there was much more important for her to get out of her nightmare. Now, as he spoke softly in her ear and continued stroking her hair with a light touch, his hard, muscled body curled protectively around her softer, slim one, slowly, but surely, Eliot felt the thief relax. Her screams of terror quietened down to whimpers and finally came to a complete stop. Her taut body relaxed slowly, the tension bleeding out of her with every soft word he uttered.

As her fists unclenched unconsciously, he slowly let go of her hands to raise his palm to her face, softly brushing the tears away from her cheeks, his broad, callused fingers gently soothing the frown lines off her forehead. Without gaining consciousness, the thief seemed to realize that she was not in danger anymore. Somehow she seemed to sense that she was safe and slipped once more into a deep sleep. As soon as Eliot felt her relax completely, he realized that he had no more reason to be here and that it would be awkward for both of them in the morning if he were found in her bed when they'd retired to different rooms at the beginning of the night.

Gently untangling their bodies without waking her, Eliot stood, looking down into her now relaxed face. Without the distraction of her vivacious personality, she looked like an angel in her sleep. Her features softened by slumber, her body relaxed and her golden hair spread across the blue pillows, she made such a beautiful picture that Eliot found himself leaning back down to her without conscious thought. For once, he didn't try to stop himself, didn't try to do the right thing.

Softly, he brushed his lips against her forehead, pressed a soft kiss to the tip of her nose and another sweet kiss at the corner of her mouth whispering 'Good night darlin'... sleep well' before he could get himself to walk back out. As he turned to leave, the hitter heard the thief stir a bit, turn over and settle herself again. Heaving a sigh of relief, he was just about to step out of the room when he heard her sigh something and her face settled into a small, happy smile... The word that escaped her mouth had the hitter freeze in his tracks before turning to make sure she was still asleep. Turning back after looking in on her, Eliot finally got back to his room, this time with a wide smile on his face.

Parker's little sigh had almost permanently set a wide grin on his face. Happy thoughts assailing his brain, Eliot went to sleep again, this time with his mind stuck on what he'd heard from the thief... If he hadn't heard it himself, he might not've believed it, but as it was, he'd heard it clearly...

Parker had whispered his name... she'd sighed out his name in her sleep before smiling and settling back into slumber. With that knowledge wrapped around his heart, the hitter settled down for the night, sure this time, that he would be able to sleep uninterrupted by nightmares because he would be too busy dreaming about a certain blonde haired crazy little thief that was quickly making a special place for herself in his heart and his life.

A/N: So there it is... Hope all of you liked it as much as all the other chapters... :)

Review your thoughts and ideas please... I appreciate all kinds of feedback.

Next chapter might be up a little late cuz I am finding it quite difficult to keep going back and forth between the fluff of this fic to the angsty drama of my other fic 'Getting Over It'... So I might finish that up or at least give it some sort of a decent head start before I get back to this... Again, this is just the plan... might not happen the way I want it to... it all depends what story my flighty muse picks to stick to... :P

Anyways, thank you for all your support and please keep reading and reviewing

Lotsa luv and fortune cookies

Macybear