Title: His Suitcase is Packed

Rating: K

Genre: Family, drama

Length: ~4,000 words

Summary: Parker makes a distressing discovery: Eliot's 'leaving' suitcase is packed! The team scrambles to delay what they dread is coming, and they frustrate Eliot to no end. Sometime after Season 1. No spoilers. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage or any of its characters; I'm just borrowing them for fun and no profit.

Nate made his way over to his apartment kitchen for a drink, ignoring Hardison's indignant snort from the living room.

"It's the highlight of the movie, man. You really gonna walk away at the best part? Ain't no respect…"

Sophie, perched on the couch in a loose shirt and comfortable pants, sighed. "Hardison, you're the only one who wanted to watch this movie in the first place. Really, do you think Nate and I care at all whether the Space Invaders beat the giant bugs?"

"It's not space invaders, it's Starship Troopers, get it right, and for the record, if Parker were here, she would back me up." He crossed his arms and glowered at the screen, but only for a moment before getting swept back up into the excitement of his movie.

Nate shook his head, poured his drink, and settled next to Sophie on the couch. To be honest, with the eccentric thief out for the afternoon, the apartment had been quieter than usual.

…And that was about to change.

Nate heard the angry, fast footsteps charging down the hall even before his apartment door banged open. Without turning around, he called, "What is it, Parker—"

"He's leaving," she interrupted.

Nate wasn't in the mood for Parker's nonsense, and he didn't even try to hide his irritation. He sighed, "Who's leaving?"

She stomped around so she was standing in the middle of the living room, between the couch and the screen. Hardison leaned off to the side to keep his eyes on the screen, but she stood her ground, crossed her arms, and frowned at Nate in that determined way of hers. Nate knew he was in trouble, because there was no stopping Parker when she got like this. He just hoped the damage was minimal.

Parker rolled her eyes and stared at him like it was obvious. "Eliot! Who else?"

Nate scoffed and turned his attention back to the movie. "Eliot's not leaving."

Sophie smiled at Parker and tried to soothe her before she could get all worked up again. "Parker, what reason would Eliot have to leave? He hasn't been particularly grumpy lately, no one has gotten hurt, and no enemies from his past have interfered with any recent jobs. He is as content as he ever gets, so there is nothing to worry about."

"His suitcase is packed!"

Nate stared at her again, smiling ironically. "He might be working some kind of job, so what? Most people travel with luggage."

"Not Eliot." She paced as she talked, obviously agitated, but Nate was still convinced she was worked up about nothing. "Eliot doesn't travel with more than he can carry on his shoulder. That means no suitcases. This one is the only one he owns, and when it's packed…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "When that suitcase gets packed, it means he's leaving."

Finally fed up with trying to watch the movie around Parker, Hardison gave her his full attention. "How do you know that, Parker? It's not like he's left us before."

"Yes, he has. He left after that first job, the one that was supposed to be a walkaway. He was working jobs internationally and didn't keep his apartment."

Nate butted in. "Wait - what? How do you know that?"

"I like to know where people live. Anyway, he left again after the first David job, when we scattered for six months."

"I don't see what this has to do with him leaving now. As Sophie said, there haven't been any issues that would prompt him to leave."

Parker stopped her pacing and faced Nate again. "Then how do you explain him packing his kitchen knives, huh? Or the ones he has hidden all over the apartment in case he needs them? He hasn't cooked anything in over a week, and the leftovers are disappearing from the fridge." She took a step closer and lowered her voice. "There are only five containers left, Nate. What do you think he is going to do when he runs out of food and all of his cooking supplies are packed in a suitcase he only uses for leaving?"

Nate pinched his lips together, still skeptical. The others were less so. Sophie leaned over on his arm, worry glinting in her eyes. "What if she's right? What if Eliot is leaving, and we didn't even know it?"

Hardison shut the TV off mid-climax, which said more about his state of mind than it should have. "No, man, we can't just let him do this. He can't just walk away without saying something, not after everything we've been through. You've gotta do something."

As his gaze met the worried eyes of his teammates, Nate nodded his head. "Yeah. Sure. We'll, uh, we'll see how this goes. Hardison, see what you can find out about his recent activity. Any abnormal purchases, strange phone calls, and especially anything pertaining to those side jobs I know he likes to take." Hardison's eyes widened, and Nate smirked. "Yeah, don't think I don't know about those. And you aren't so innocent yourself, are you?"

Hardison opened his mouth to reply, but Nate waved him off.

"I don't want to hear it right now. Just see what you can find on Eliot."

A few minutes later, Hardison slid into one of the chairs at the table and opened up his laptop. Sophie stayed glued to his side, eager to see what he could find. Nate meandered over in his own time, as if he didn't really care one way or another. Hardison didn't want to believe that was the case - after all, they were more than a team, and losing someone was a big deal - but this was Nate, and Nate liked to keep his cards close to his chest. He'd probably keep up the appearance of indifference until it was too late, and then melt down.

Parker, on the other hand, showed every ounce of her distress. Cabinets slammed, dishes crashed, and furniture scraped against the ground as she rummaged around the kitchen. Who knew what she was doing in there. At Sophie's nudge, Hardison drew his attention back to the computer in front of him.

The first order of business was running the recent purchases on his credit cards - all of them. He knew the one connected to the Leverage account wouldn't show anything strange, and his personal one probably wouldn't show too much either. After all, Eliot knew that was the first place Hardison would look. It was the myriad of secret cards that Hardison was really worried about. Sure, he had worked pretty hard to track down as many as he could, but there was no guarantee he had found them all.

"Well? What are you finding?" Sophie was practically leaning on Hardison's arm, craning her neck to see his screen.

Hardison frowned at her and opened his mouth, but the worry lining her beautiful features robbed him of the heart to demand his personal space. Instead, he elaborated. "Nothing on the credit cards, and…" He pulled up a page of phone records. "…I ran all of Eliot's phones that I could find, and there aren't any suspicious calls." He turned to face Nate, who stood leaning on the back of the couch. "The man's a ghost when he wants to be. If he doesn't want us to know what he's doing, we ain't gonna find it. Pure and simple."

Nate cocked his head. "There has to be something. See if any of his aliases have flights booked or hotel reservations, in the states and internationally."

Hardison rolled his eyes and muttered, "Y'all think I don't know how to do my job… I'm the one that taught y'all to do that in the first place…" But he complied anyway.

While his programs ran, Hardison let his attention wander back to Parker, who now stood staring at the fridge. The frantic energy from before seemed to have left her, as she just had a forlorn expression on her face now.

Trying to be gentle, Hardison asked, "What is it?"

Slowly, Parker turned to face him while still holding the fridge open. "Eliot's food. We have some of his leftovers in our fridge - sautéd chicken, braised beef and tortellini, and spaghetti - but once he's gone, we won't have any more." She said it with such finality that even Hardison felt the loss. "I was going to eat one for lunch, but then I thought about it, and what will he leave of himself when he goes?"

"Parker…" Sophie had finally given Hardison some room, and was trying to talk the thief down. It didn't really help.

"We can't eat this food." She nearly slammed the fridge door.

Hardison winced at the sound, but didn't argue with Parker. She processed emotions differently, and saw relationships between people in more concrete terms than most. The things Eliot did for them were how she knew he cared about them, so it made sense for her to hang on to the food he had made for them.

Which meant if he couldn't keep Eliot from leaving, they would have those rotting leftovers in the fridge forever. Nasty.

After another minute or two, Hardison concluded that none of Eliot's known aliases were preparing for travel. "Guys, I'm not going to be able to find him. I mean, I can't even find where he lives. He leaves the bar in different directions, and then my cameras lose him. He doesn't use plastic often, and when he does, it's scattered all over the place. If he's lived in one place for who-knows-how-long and visits the same location - here - every day, and I still can't find him, what does that say about what's gonna happen when we lose him for good?"

At Parer's stricken expression, Hardison immediately regretted his last words.

Nate cleared his throat. "Ignoring all the doom-and-gloom, let's focus on the problem at hand. You don't know where he lives." He glanced meaningfully toward Parker. "But she does."

Hardison shifted to eye her carefully. "How did you manage to find him?"

She gave him a little smile. "It wasn't easy. Took me eight months to find him; he kept losing me too." She shrugged. "But I know how to sneak around unseen, and eventually he led me home."

"That's how you knew about the suitcase." Hardison nodded to himself and returned his focus to the computer. "My bag of tricks is pulling up nothin', Nate. How are we gonna play this?"

Nate pushed himself up off the couch and started pacing around the room, speaking more loudly than usual. Hardison straightened automatically, recognizing the "plan" voice. "Here's what we're going to do…"

Eliot slammed the door to his apartment and bolted it shut. It was the end of the day, he had been running nonstop for almost 36 hours, and he was exhausted. Nate had him up until 4:00 the night before looking over perfectly standard files that weren't even really urgent. He hadn't given any good reason, just said it was important.

Total crap.

Nate was up to something. He was always up to something. The question was when he would actually get around to telling his team. It really grated on Eliot's nerves to have his fragile sleep schedule messed up for no good reason, and it just made him more frustrated that Nate was being all secretive.

Eliot kicked off his boots and made his way through the apartment, stopping cold when he noticed something wrong in his kitchen. Moving forward slowly again, he eyed his space carefully. There were more than a few things that had obviously been touched or moved, but one was practically a slap in the face.

His kitchen knives were on the counter.

A quick survey of the kitchen revealed that every single utensil had been… well, not put back since they were all in the wrong places, but definitely unpacked. And that was very unnerving. Eliot moved through the rest of his house, locating the few personal items he knew he had packed. When he finally reached the bedroom, he saw what he had feared: the suitcase was completely empty, and tucked neatly into his closet.

Someone had unpacked his stuff.

And he only knew one person in the world who could and would.

Even more frustrated now, Eliot stormed through his apartment, gathering the things he had packed before and throwing them on his bed. When he realized six of his throwing knives were missing, he checked his former hiding spots and found them. So not only had Parker finally managed to follow him home and unpack his suitcase, she had also managed to find several of his weapon caches. Not all of them, thankfully, but enough for it to be significant.

Just when he thought he couldn't get more frustrated, Eliot caught sight of a black object half the size of a marble attached to his lamp. Carefully, he removed it and held it up to his eye. A minute of staring convinced him it was one of Hardison's, and not someone more dangerous.

Breathing deliberately to keep from punching a wall, Eliot crushed the bug in his fingers. A minute later, he tore through the rest of the apartment, ripping out every bug and wire he could find. Once his suitcase was packed - again! - and the apartment was as bug-free as Eliot could make it, he marched to his front door. After releasing the bolts, he took another deep breath, and made his was as calmly as possible toward his truck.

It was, admittedly, was not very calm at all, given his current state of mind.

Sophie sat at the table, silently watching Parker pace nervously through the living room. She had already said everything she could think of to comfort the thief, but there was very little any of them could do. Nate hovered over the back of the couch. Hardison was the only one working right now, sitting on the couch running his research on the big screens. Every few seconds, he shifted when Parker moved between him and the screens, but he hadn't scolded her yet. They were all too worried about Eliot to bother being upset with each other.

The door to the apartment slammed against the wall, causing everyone to flinch. Sophie barely registered Eliot's presence before he had hauled the hacker to his feet.

Eliot ground out, "What did I tell you about bugging my place?"

Hardison could barely look Eliot in the eyes, much less respond to the fuming hitter just a foot away from him. "Uh…"

Eliot shoved his shoulder a bit more roughly than usual. "I said don't you dare even try it or I will break your fingers."

Instinctively, Hardison tucked his hands behind his back and leaned away from Eliot, as much as he could with the couch blocking any escape.

Sophie gasped, sure Eliot would actually follow through on his threat this time. They usually ignored his frustrated warnings because they knew he would never hurt them, but he was leaving now, wasn't he? Had he stopped caring about them so much that he could bring himself to harm them? She didn't want to take that chance, but before she could say anything, Parker had wedged herself between Eliot and Hardison. Only the little thief could even fit, and she was squashed so her back was touching Hardison's chest and there was just a whisper of space between her and Eliot.

"Don't hurt him, it's not his fault!"

Eliot's temple moved with his clenching jaw, but he took a few steps back to give Parker some space and lowered his voice. "Right, it's not like he has the expertise to get into my fortress of an apartment, does he? It takes a thief - the best in the world." He glared pointedly at her. "What - is today prank day and I missed it? Moving my stuff around, bugging my house, spying on me? Huh?"

Before Parker could even speak to defend herself, Nate put a hand on Eliot's shoulder, but Eliot jerked away. With a sigh, Nate said, "I think you need to cool off before you come barging in here and threatening bodily harm to the team."

Sophie cringed at the horribly ill-advised words that would inevitably only make the situation worse. Before Nate could do too much more damage, she stood and approached the living room.

Eliot didn't wait for her. "Get out of my face, Nate." But Eliot took a menacing step in the mastermind's direction, counteracting his words. "After that nonsense last night, do you really think you of all people get to tell me—"

"Eliot." Sophie stepped right in front of him, as Parker had done, and met his flashing, furious eyes. "We can tell you're upset. I don't think anyone here really intended to hurt you. Why don't I make us a cup of tea and we can talk over at the table?"

His glare flicked over Sophie's shoulder to land on Nate, but she knew his good Southern manners wouldn't let him go through her to get at Nate. Thankfully, Nate didn't say anything. Presently, Eliot's gaze returned to Sophie, still dark with anger but a little less wild than before.

Without a word, he stalked toward the kitchen, pulled a kettle from the cabinet, filled it with water, and set it on the stove, all the while making as much noise as he could. Sophie eyed the rest of their teammates warningly before following him over. He plopped down in a chair unceremoniously and crossed his arms on the table in front of him. "So, you gonna try to fix me, Sophie? Make me talk about my emotions and realize 'we're all a family?'" The accusing glare sliced through her heart.

Did he really not want to hear those words? Was he so far gone that 'family' meant nothing? Or was this just because he felt bad about leaving? If that were the case, she had hope.

Encouraged, she settled into the chair beside him. "Why don't you tell me why you're upset."

It was more of a command than a question, but after a long, assessing glare, Eliot let out a heavy sigh. "I'm really not in the mood for your emotional manipulation right now—"

"You're mad at Hardison and Parker for invading your privacy, right?" She forged ahead, because who knew if she would ever get another chance to talk to him? "And that makes you feel… what? Disrespected? Taken for granted? Stifled?"

His only response was a slight narrowing of the eyes.

"And Nate. He gets on your nerves a lot, doesn't he? Do you want to talk about that?"

Eliot scoffed and pushed back from the table. "I don't need this."

"Eliot, if you don't deal with your feelings, all they will do is build up inside of you until they drive you to do things you regret. Please don't do something you'll regret!"

Without any more acknowledgement, he turned away and headed for the door, not stomping anymore, but definitely moving with purpose.

Parker shifted on the couch, walking Sophie talking to Eliot in hushed tones. It took all of her willpower to hold still, but Hardison kept elbowing her to keep her from jumping up and ruining Sophie's magic. Sophie could talk Eliot down, right? At least that's what Hardison said.

When Eliot shoved his chair back and practically charged toward the door with Sophie shouting after him, Parker couldn't hold herself back anymore. She threw herself in his path and he stopped short, glowering at her.

"We're sorry, Eliot! We didn't mean to make you mad. I shouldn't have touched your stuff and put Hardison's bugs in, and Nate was a real jerk for making you stay late for no reason. You don't have to be angry angry Eliot, you can just be normal, grumpy Eliot, okay?"

He gave her one of his favorite 'there's something wrong with you' faces. "What?"

"And anyway, we need you! Who is going to be our way out?"

"Your way out?" He echoed, clearly confused.

"Yeah, you know. Nate is the guy who gets us in, you're the one who gets us out. Duh." She made a face like that was obvious. "But you know how Nate is, and if you're not there, who is going to make sure we all make it out okay?"

"I don't see how—"

"And even if we didn't need you, we want you, because you're family!"

Her final statement elicited a stunned silence from the apartment, and Eliot just stared at her. "…What?"

Parker suddenly felt much less sure of herself. She cocked her head to one side and dropped his eyes. "You know… family…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Parker saw Eliot point to her and make a face at Hardison. "What's she talking about?"

"Listen to her, man."

Encouraged by Hardison's support, Parker met Eliot's eyes again and reached out with both hands to grab his hands. "Yes, family. I've never had a real family before but now I do, and it just won't be right without you. We need you, Eliot. What would we do if—"

"Wait." Eliot squinted at her as if he didn't understand what she was saying. "You mean…" His voice increased in intensity as frustration replaced confusion, "…you guys have been harassing me because you thought I was leaving?!"

Parker blinked.

Everyone paused for a minute, unsure of what to say. Finally, Hardison, uncomfortable with the silence, started. "You are, aren't you?"

Like a dam broken open, the words tumbled out of Parker's mouth. "Your 'leaving' suitcase was packed and your knives were all out of the apartment and your food is gone you've been leaving early after work and that's what you do when you're going to leave!"

Eliot stared at each long face in turn before settling his eyes back on Parker. Finally, his face broke and he laughed out loud. "I'm not leaving - I'm moving." When there was no apparent comprehension, he explained. "I move my main place in the city every three months so it's harder for people to track me down." He gazed pointedly at Parker. "I guess somebody finally succeeded, just a few days before I would have been in a new location."

Parker couldn't help the sheepish grin spreading across her face. "To be fair, it took me a long time."

Sophie butted in. "Wait - you mean you're not going? We got all worked up over nothing?"

He shrugged, a smirk playing on his lips. "Yeah, guess so. And, uh, Parker - I'd appreciate it if you didn't track down my new place and mess with my stuff."

Parker felt her glee melt at the serious tone. Nodding solemnly, she said, "I promise. And Hardison won't put bugs in there either, right Hardison?"

"Yeah, yeah man. As long as you're not leaving, I totally respect your privacy."

Parker smirked a little at what she knew was a lie, and Eliot rolled his eyes. "Parker, let go of me."

She complied, grinning again as she released his hands and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Now if you guys don't mind, I would like to be able to get into my new apartment, without extra work…"

He glared at Nate, who just smirked back.

"…Emotional therapy…"

Sophie blushed. "It was worth a try, anyway."

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "…And uninvited surveillance. And especially someone unpacking all my stuff so I have to start all over."

Parker threw her arms around Eliot and he staggered back from the force. "We promise. Just don't leave, okay?"

He rolled his eyes again and made his way out the door. As he left, Parker could have sworn she heard him muttering something along the lines of, "Always thinkin' I'm gonna leave… where'd they get that idea…"

Satisfied now, she skipped into the kitchen and happily grabbed a whole handful of fortune cookies. Her family was still together, and if she had anything to say about it, it was going to stay that way.