Notes: This started out as a couple little drabbles to try to get a handle on Adrian's character and just kept going. This takes place between the end of chapter six and the night before Nate gets out of the hospital and the con happens. Told entierly from Adrian's point of view while she witnesses some events and continues the plot with Eliot.

The In Between Days
Interlude: Part One

Later Adrian wouldn't remember much of the night she finally let herself process that Selina was dead.

She remembered the long drive home and focusing on the Pepsi max in her hands, cherishing her caffeine after having been forced to go cold turkey in the ward.

She remembered word searches and letting everything she couldn't deal with fade into a haze as her eyes scanned over countless letters that didn't seem to make sense to anyone but her.

She'd once told Kayla that when she looked at a word find page with one of those hidden messages she could tell what it was without finding any words.

It was how her mind worked, she had said, see the whole page and change your focus.

Kayla had told her she was nuts.

She'd reminded Kayla that they first bonded over the fact they were both nuts.

She tried to remember that conversation and not the one where they bonded for the last time over a pact to die together.

Adrian remembered the cold tile floor of the night after Selina died, and the cold porcelain of the toilet as she lost what little she had in her stomach, body responding to her violent need to just reject what she'd been told.

She remembered the shadows as she pressed herself into whatever tiny space she could.

She remembered words breaking through. She remembered Eliot.

She remembered strong arms, a wet shoulder, and barely visible scars on tanned skin.

She remembers crying herself out and her body going into a hard reboot and falling into a dreamless sleep.

Well. Almost dreamless.

She has a vivid memory of the smell of burnt pasta.

oOo

Waking up was a slow process for Adrian on the best days. On the other kind of days it was like a slow hard reset for a computer, a disk check running as she rebooted and started to process information again.

She waited for sensory input to function properly before opening her eyes, feeling the tee shirt and jeans and recognizing she'd slept in her clothes and only belatedly registering that it meant she really was out of the ward.

Darkness and quiet as her eyes slipped open told her it was night, the ceiling above her telling her she was at the safe house still.

She focused on those details, running in safe mode, not sure if she'd be able to function at a higher level yet.

That was when she heard a soft click clack and turn to look toward the other bed in the room.

She really should have been more surprised than she was at the sight of a thin blonde woman sitting on the other bed knitting something out of bright orange, green, and hot pink yarn.

She turned back to look at the ceiling muttering to herself. "Looks like I need to update my diagnosis." And well damn. She'd really hoped she would stay just chronic depression girl. Scitzo-effective disorder was a whole new ball game she really didn't want to mess with.

Of course that was schizophrenia comorbid with bi-polar disorder. She wondered what they'd call her.

"I'm real." The woman said.

"I'm sure that's what they all say." Adrian muttered as much to herself as the possibly real woman. "If you're not my head taking a new type of holiday who are you?"

"Parker." The possible hallucination answered. "I am on Eliot's crew. I'm keeping an eye on you for him. He had to get out for awhile and he didn't want to leave you alone." She made a slight face. "You weren't supposed to wake up before he got back." She gave a put out sigh.

"Sorry to bother you?" Adrian asked feeling somewhat lost. It was four oclock in the morning unless the clock on her nightstand was wrong. Parker looked like it was just another pleasant afternoon and Eliot had gone out.

Didn't people around here ever sleep?

"Do you like scarves or sweaters?" Came the question from Parker and Adrian was seriously reconsidering the whole "Parker is real" thing. "You make baby booties for people when they get a new kid but you're not a baby and Eliot isn't really getting you as a new kid but I stole all this yarn and Nate doesn't like it when we steal except for a client and with him in the hospital we should probably play by his rules for awhile so I need to make you something with it."

Adrian blinked, her brain decided it couldn't deal with trying to be anything but lost in the face of *that* statement and Adrian went for her long time default statement when those around her were being crazier than their diagnosis's or lack there of made completely necessary.

"There's something wrong with you."

The moment of shock then actual (if somewhat eerie) smile that crossed Parker's face was not helping refute that statement.

Parker did eventually retort. "You think I'm a hallucination."

Adrian nodded, not arguing that there wasn't something wrong with her as well. "I'm going back to sleep." She simply said turning around.

As she was drifting back to sleep she heard Parker say, almost seemingly to herself. "I'll make her a sweater."

She slipped back into sleep wondering when life had gotten so out of hands being clinically depressed started looking good when compared to the rest of the shit she was dealing with.

oOo

For Adrian depression wasn't an emotion. It wasn't feeling sad. It wasn't feeling nothing. It wasn't even the so called "oblivion" one of the inspirational guest speakers Selina had once brought to speak to their support group had referred to.

On better days Adrian would say depression was precipitation with bad manners.

It was a big, ugly, dark fog that rolled in without calling ahead to make sure you didn't already have plans, barged right on in without knocking, brought along a bunch of friends you don't like, settled in on your favorite chair and decided to stay as long as it damn well pleases while it's friends make so much chaos in your house you can't think straight.

The worse days she doesn't talk about extended metaphors.

The worse days she doesn't talk about much at all.

The worse day were when the fog was a weight behind her eyes, like the exhaustion of being up for two days straight. They were when she did nothing but sleep and still feeling that tired.

The worse days were when the fog made the world go out of focus and the air hard to breathe and her feelings slippery. They were everything causing her to feel like bursting into tears and actually bursting into tears for no reason at all.

The worse days were when the fog got too thick to see anything beyond the word find book or random web page in front of her and the little relief having something she could focus on but not think about gave her and knowing if she lets go of that for an instant she might fall apart.

The worse days were the in between days she doesn't even remember later.

oOo

When Adrian woke up in the morning the hard reset had completed but her mind was still running in safe mode and the fog had rolled in.

In muted silence she got up and dressed, came downstairs and turned on the TV. The shows not processing most of the time but the noise keeping silence from eating away at the fog as she tried to shove past it all and focus

She had a word find book. She had a pen. All she had to focus on was breathing and finding words.

Just see the whole page, pick a word, and focus.

Letters and words flew by spinning together into a wall to keep the fog out and at bay.

If only for a little while.

"Adrian." She blinked, shook herself mentally, and raised her eyes to look up to where Eliot stood nearby. When he saw he had her attention he continued. "I'm about to make some lunch. You like grilled cheese?"

She nodded slowly, trying to remember if she'd eaten breakfast. She wasn't hungry but if she hadn't (and she didn't think she had) she should eat something.

He nodded in response and continued. "Sophie is coming over later to make sure you're settled in." Adrian raised an eyebrow. It had been two days and Eliot had had her squared away within an hour. Eliot gave a small smirk. "Darlin' there are times when you just let the lady have her way. Side's she's gonna get you some clothes of your own. Her coming over gives you a chance to give a little input."

Adrian nodded again, managing a slight smile as the weight settled a little heavier behind her eyes and in her chest. The concept of talking to a relative stranger about clothes not one she wanted to consider when having her focus split between conversation with Eliot and breathing was difficult.

He seemed to notice because a moment later Eliot had sat down with her on the living room floor. Something about his manner seemed to change, she thought trying to pay attention and keep the conversation in focus. "How ya doin'?" He asked, voice just a hint softer than normal, just a bit smoother, a hand reaching out to settle on her shoulder.

The weight of it an anchor. Blue eyes seeking, understanding, compassionate.

Her lips twisted up into a forced smile, insistence that she was fine, that everything was okay bubbling up her throat as instinct built over the years kicked in and she started to straighten her posture, the small signs she'd been letting out that not all was well disappearing behind a well practiced front of health and soundness. "I'm f-"

"Bull shit." Eliot interrupted though his face didn't harden despite the words. As quickly as she'd pieced it together the faced started to unravel and Adrian looked away, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I need you ta be honest Adrian. I can't try to help you if I don't even know how you're doin'."

She swallowed against the wave of grief at the memory of a similar conversation with Selina and gripped her legs tighter. "…'m surviving." She finally answered more in a mumble toward her knee caps than actual speech to him. "'s not as bad as it can get. Just all foggy…"

"Foggy?" The word invited further explication while somehow managing not to demand it.

"Everythin's heavy and kinda out of focus and when I stop… when I stop focusing on something I start to feel it here." She tapped her knuckles against her collar bone. "Like air's too thick to breath. 'cept I know it's not. Not really."

"But when you focus on something?"

"It's a little easier…" She said looking back to the page she'd left in front of her. "But when I-"

Her next words were interrupted when the front door opened. They both looked up to see Sophie come into the house. "I'm a little early." She said almost apologetically, eyes watching the two of them on the floor.

Adrian picked the word find book back up off the floor and nodded just a little bit, mentally telling Eliot to go talk to his friend. She'd be fine.

She felt a hand settle on her shoulder again for half a second before Eliot was getting on his feet and joining Sophie.

Adrian watched from under the cover of a screen of hair as they met in the door way, speaking softly to one another. They looked comfortable together but Adrian's theory from the day before seemed confirmed that they were strictly business associates, or Maybe friends.

But there was no other interest there.

Though Adrian could have almost sworn from the way Sophie was watching Eliot she had some kind of agenda.

After a while in the system you learned to take serious note of any conversation grown ups were trying to have outside your hearing range and especially any that seemed to have an agenda.

The two walked through the living room and into the kitchen apparently just talking about how Nate was doing in the hospital. Once they were gone though Adrian took a deep breath, pulled herself a little more together and the world a little more into focus, got up and made her way into the kitchen under the pretense of getting a soda.

"It's been twenty years." Adrian heard Eliot snap as she approached the room and could make out their voices a little more distinctly. "None of that matters anymore."

"So the fact you just found out your boss is your half brother who abandoned you doesn't change things?"

Adrian paused. What?

When did this turn from Three Days of the Condor to The Young and The Restless? What next did they used to be having an affair or something?

Her half aborted last step toward the kitchen caught their attention though and she continued on.

Moments later she'd find herself mumbling through an explanation that she was pretty much just used to jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers to a seemingly somewhat disappointed Sophie.

Though the sight of Eliot all but face palming as he made grilled cheese sandwiches in the background was enough to cause her to smile a little.

Just a little bit of sunlight gleaming through the fog.

oOo

Later Adrian would remember little of the days that followed.

She wouldn't remember the routines that became rituals for her.

She wouldn't remember which day exactly Eliot first took her out running, though she has a vague recollection of him telling her to change into something she could excursive in. She also remembers him disappearing when she didn't respond definitively enough and coming back with suitable clothes and only somewhat gently nudging her into the bathroom.

She isn't sure if the morning she looked up from the pavement where she was focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and felt the sun on her skin and the fog lifting for just a moment was the first or second time he took her running with him but she knows it wasn't the last.

She wouldn't remember what they were eating when Eliot told her they'd eat at the table and she'd be in charge of washing the dishes.

She remembers the hand on her shoulder and understanding silence when she claimed it was raining indoors and that she wasn't crying because of the dishes she'd put off doing the night before she'd been taken and how she'd never be able to do them now.

She would also always remember the smell of the dish soap Eliot used.

She wouldn't remember the first evening she helped Eliot move things out of the living room floor so that he had enough room to train.

But she would remember that eventually they had to clear out a little more room.

She would never remember exactly when Eliot laid down the rules and that, until further notice, as far as he was concerned she was the chief threat to her own safety and he'd be keeping a close eye on her.

She also would never remember when looking up and seeing him there became just a little comforting.

But she knows it is.

oOo

She's pretty sure it's mid afternoon Saturday when Eliot warns her that another member of his team is coming over in a little while. After the fiasco with Sophie she thinks it's appropriate to take the statement as a warning.

Though, she was doing somewhat better today. The fog was starting to lift a little though she didn't kid herself by thinking it was going to be gone any time soon.

She's sitting at the kitchen table and Eliot's sitting across from her reading a book or on his laptop and it's strangely comfortable even if every so often she looks up to see him scowling at the later like he might be able to intimidate it into doing as told.

Sometimes when he's looking more frustrated than normal she wonders if he'd take offense if she offered to try to fix whatever problem he was having. She was a part of the internet generation after all.

The next time she looks up she bites back another offer to help and instead asks how many people there are on his team.

"Four others." He answers, looking up. "Nate's the leader, Sophie, Hardison, an' Parker. Hardison's the one coming over."

"What's his job?" She asked. "Nate is the boss. Sophie's is to trick people and be beautiful. What does Hardison do?"

Eliot shook his head like he was internally mumbling something about her state of being right in the head before answering. "Tech support."

Adrian couldn't hide the smile at that. So apparently she wouldn't have to try to not offend him by helping him.

"And Parker?" She asked, now feeling a little more hopeful that she hadn't actually hallucinated or dreamt about the woman.

Eliot paused for only half a beat before saying. "Acquisitions."

"Theif?" Adrian asked hopefully.

There was an odd, almost… proud… smile on Eliot's face when after another moment he responded. "The best in the world."

"So Hardison is a hacker?" Eliot nodded. "And you're batman?" That actually caused a bark of laughter from Eliot. "And together you're the A-Team?"

"Something like that."

Silence fell again for a little while as they both returned to their own activities though Eliot had put away his computer for a moment and was doing what Adrian secretly called the "puttering thing" where he wandered around the kitchen, looking in cupboards and drawers like he was seeing what he had on hand while deciding what to cook.

She had a theory that he could give her an inventory off the top of his head any day of the week but she figured it was ritual. Kind of like how he explained to her why they didn't just leave the space in the living room cleared out since neither of them would really be bothered if the furniture was permanently moved to the far corners of the room. He told her clearing the area and restoring it was partly just to help him make the transition in his mind. Now this is a place for fighting. Now I'm going to go back to acting as a civilian in my home.

She'd seen the sort of zen calm, no that wasn't right it wasn't zen but it was calm, he got when he was cooking. It was like when she did word finds. He found his center. Maybe him looking around to "see what he had" was him clearing his mind, seeing the whole kitchen, and focusing.

"You're watchin' me again." He commented over his shoulder and Adrian just smiled.

Eliot was definitely batman.

Though in honesty she'd spent a lot of the past few days watching him. He'd become her protector and care taker and a lot of things she wasn't quite ready to address enough to figure out if it was just her survival instincts reacting to the fact he was taking care of her or her actually beginning to feel like she had around Selina around someone else.

There were thoughts and feelings running around her head, getting lost in the fog but continually stumbling out of it to bump into her before disappearing again. One of these days the fog would lift enough for her to be able to catch up to them and metaphorically poke them with a stick until she figured them out.

Until then she'd keep watching Eliot.

And, if the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up occasionally suggested was true he'd keep watching her.

He had actually made lunch and had just put a plate in front of her when the front door opened and, who she hoped was Hardison called out. "You really need to upgrade your alarm system Eliot, I hacked it one handed."

Adrian looked toward Eliot. "You turned the security system on?" She asked, a little confused. He'd told her early on that the security system was really just for when he wasn't staying here. While he was in residence nine times out of ten he knew there were intruders before the system did.

He shrugged. "If you let him mess with his computer things it's easier to get him to sit down ta eat something." With that said he put a third plate down at the table and called out. "Back here."

A tall young black guy made his way into the kitchen carrying what looked to be the entirety of a Radio Shack's computer department.

Well, that would explain the one handed comment.

Eliot gestured vaguely in the direction of a couple clear counters. "We're eatin' lunch now. You can get your geek on later." He sounded unusually bad tempered, his voice getting a fresh edge on it.

"You're just mad 'cause your gonna have to learn how to type something." Hardison shot back as he put down the big computer case he was carrying, a messenger bag, and a back pack before turning back to them. "Hey there. You must be Adrian." He said with a friendly smile. "I'm Hardison."

Adrian returned the smile. "That's me." Though she wasn't entirely certain what else to say to that. She'd run into this problem in the hospital. What do you say when meeting the A-Team after they saved your life and are trying to get revenge on your half. 'Hello and thanks for not letting a bunch of guys bump me off.'

And that wasn't even getting into Selina and frankly she wasn't sure she was ready to poke that mess with the metaphorical stick again.

"I brought ya something." Hardison said saving the moment from getting awkward. He picked up the messenger bag and brought it over handing it to her. She felt a very distinctive weight in the bag and a smile spread across her face as she found a padded pocket and unzipped it. A new lap top sat inside. "The basic operating systems and security software are installed plus a few games in case you want to branch out."

"Just as long as you're not tryin' to get her addicted to that world of spacecraft game of yours." Eliot grumbled.

"World of Warcraft." Adrian muttered not quite being able to take her eyes off the laptop as she took it out to look at it.

There was a few beats of silence before she looked up. "I had a foster brother who played it." She explained with a shrug. She slid the laptop back into the bag and slung it over the back of the chair turning a big smile toward Hardison half stammering through thank yous that she really ought to get better at saying. She'd been thanking people a lot lately.

As she was looking back down to her computer she caught an odd thing out of the corner of her eye.

Hardison looked toward Eliot with an unreadable expression and when she glanced over herself she could have almost sworn she caught him schooling a smile off his face.

After that Eliot not so gently nudged the conversation back to eating before the food got cold.

Adrian fell quiet over the meal, Hardison was already (trying) to talk Eliot through the reason he was over. He'd updated some security systems and protocols with the free time he'd had over the past few days and he needed to update Eliot's computers and show him how things worked.

Eliot spent most of the meal trying to get Hardison to stop talking in geek.

Adrian was lost a couple minutes into the techno babble Hardison was spewing and spent most of the meal trying to decide if they liked or hated each other.

They argued and teased and taunted each other like they hated each other.

Or like brothers.

Sophie had said Eliot had a half brother but she'd specified the boss was the half brother.

Wasn't Nate the boss?

By the time the meal was over Adrian excused herself to go to the living room and Hardison paused his argument with Eliot long enough to tell her how to securely connect with the internet and Eliot reminded her not to let anyone know where she actually was.

Adrian took a deep breath and bit down her initial "I'm fifteen, not stupid" response and just nodded.

Sometimes you just had to let things go.

As she logged onto the internet and tried to remember the password for her email account (and tried to contain her excitement for actually being able to get online again for the first time in over a month) she heard Eliot threaten to break Hardison's fingers only for Hardison to react without any hint of fear.

That was when she decided blood or not they were like brothers. It was the only explanation Hardison wasn't completely terrified of Eliot.

How exactly Batman and Timothy McGee got to that point was a puzzle to be worked out later.

But as she listened to the chaos in the background, the sound of it reminding her of the house with all the kids and all the chaos where she'd met Kayla…

Her stomach churned and her chest tightened and the sun started to slip away, fog settling back in deeper.

She hunched a little further around the computer in her lap, forced herself to breathe through the coming back and lose herself in cyberspace.

oOo

Fog first started rolling in when Adrian was twelve, she doesn't remember exactly when. She didn't identify it for a long time. It didn't start off bad. Just a haze some days. Or other days when she felt lethargic. Or others when her emotions felt slippery and slid between her fingers and all over her sleeve.

It didn't start getting thick until she was thirteen.

It was Kayla who first recognized her symptoms, realized there was something wrong in her new foster sisters head.

Who first took her to the meetings and got her help.

In those days Kayla and the others and Selina would hold her hand and help her walk through the fog and she knew they wouldn't let her get lost.

After they… after everything she spent a long time curled up with her word find, lost in the fog and too tired to even bother stumbling blindly or calling out a marco.

But after Selina's death she found herself on her feet with the vague sense that Eliot dragged her up there, lost in the fog with just the faintest hint of "pollo" being called out of the mist.

So she started to walk blindly into the fog and hope she wouldn't stay lost forever.

oOo

There were some things Adrian knew for certain.

She knew she could survive for two and a half weeks on nothing but Ramen, Easy mac, and cafeteria lunches. She might be able to go longer but Social services found out she'd been left alone by then and she'd finally gotten a half decent meal. She also knew Eliot's food was a much much better alternative.

She knew she was in love with the country rock singer/actor Eric Shank, as should be the rest of the female and gay population of everywhere. He'd never return the feelings but she could privately daydream as well as any fifteen year old.

She knew the American Puzzlemaster Company had the highest rate of mistakes in their puzzles of any word puzzle publisher she'd seen (don't even get her started on the fifth edition).

She knew she hated yellow crayons with a (probably unreasonable) passion. If anyone told her she was crazy for waxing poetic about black ink lines on white paper she'd remind them she'd been in a phyc ward when she discovered this hatred.

She knew she missed Selina, would probably always miss Selina like she'd always miss her parents. She missed her cooking, the way her house smelled, the way her face lit up when Adrian called her "mom".

And she knew she should really be over her hatred of hospitals by now.

But here she was. In the corner of a private room in a hospital while Eliot did the final security check for Nate getting out tomorrow, wondering why the hell he couldn't have just left her at home with a babysitter if he was still so set on not leaving her alone.

And she was trying to ignore the way the place made her skin crawl and the air get a little bit harder to breathe and the escapegetoutleavenow feeling she got the moment she went anywhere that smelled like a medical ward.

It didn't help that when Eliot had asked Nate to watch her he seemed to have taken the request very seriously. The man had hardly taken his eyes off her and it made her skin crawl even more.

She was just starting to zone out completely, almost starting to get lost in the fog when he broke the silence. "How are you two doing?"

She looked up, catching those eyes startingly similar to Eliot's, and giving her automatic reaction. "I'm fine."

"And Eliot?" Nate asked an odd look on his face before it shifted into something friendly, gentling even.

The people on Eliot's team were very strange.

"He's Eliot." She said in response, feeling a little lost as to why Eliot would be other than fine. She didn't think Eliot knew how to be other than fine.

More minutes ticked by in silence.

Then Nate shifted and when Adrian looked up he was nodding to himself and smiling like he'd figured something out just from watching her.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Eliot should be back soon." He said finally then after a moment he added. "Keep an eye on him for us."

The last bit caught her off guard but when she met those blue eyes, so very like Eliot's but so very different she found herself nodding. There was something going on, a lot going on, most of which she didn't in any way understand.

But as absurd as it sounded she understood that she'd been given something to do, she'd been given a job.

And she could focus on that.

And try to ignore the feeling that she'd been conned in a single sentence and how utterly terrifying that made Nate.

oOo

When Adrian was little, when her parents were still alive, her father used to take her outside just after the sun went down. She'd chase fireflys around their yard and he'd chase her and eventually he'd speed up enough to catch her, swinging her into the air as she shrieked with mock protests. He'd hold her up in the air and call her his little fire fly.

Somehow they'd end up laying on their backs in the grass, staring up at the stars overhead.

She was only four when he taught her about the big dipper and how it would help her find her way if she ever got lost.

She'd been fascinated by the names of the stars and that they were, in her mind, giant connect the dot puzzles in the sky. Her father would point to a cluster and tell her what they were supposed to be and she'd spend long moments drawing mental lines between the dots, trying to make out the pictures he'd told her.

He was dead before she really grasped the concept of constellations.

But over the years since she's taught herself everything she could about the stars as a way to hold onto those summer nights when the vastness of the universe was made comforting by the arm she was resting her head on and the warm presence by her side.

Kayla had always teased her that it was no surprise The Lion King was her favorite Disney movie.

She'd lost count over the years of how many times she'd pissed off her current foster family by climbing out of a window onto the roof or a fire escape just to *be* under the stars.

She should have known she wouldn't have even settled on the roof of the back porch of the town house after slipping out the window before Eliot burst into her room like he suspected she was in the process of being kidnapped.

Yet another piece of proof that Eliot was indeed batman.

She sighed and aborted her attempts to settle herself. "Sorry. Sorry." She mumbled to him through the open window, keeping her eyes on the roof to make sure she didn't lose her footing. "I'm okay just wanted to be outside." No response came from Eliot and she sighed. "I'm coming back inside."

She didn't expect him to say. "Let me join you and you can stay out there." She looked up, surprised, and he explained. "We're away from the streets and the perimeter's secure enough but if I'm out here I can keep a watch for trouble." He smiled that grin of his. "Plus it's to nice a night ta stay inside if you don't have ta."

She moved over on the roof trying to take the fact he was apparently worried for their safety in stride. "Alright, but question. This trouble… are we talking snipers and if so are these snipers are trying to kill me? And if so should I be inside?"

Eliot actually laughed. Which wasn't as comforting as it could have been. "Trouble we're talking 'bout is a hitter being paranoid. This is the safe house I set up for my team. It's 'bout as safe as I can make it."

"It's a townhouse in the suburbs of Boston." Adrian pointed out. Sure it had a panic room in the basement that had a second door leading to the sewers but still…

"Every window's made out of the same kind of bullet proof glass they use for the windows of the oval office. All the walls have been reinforced and made as close to fire proof as you can get. Doors have a steel core. Backup generator and water supply. Panic room with an escape tunnel. Oh." He added. "an' me in residence. The place could hold out against a pretty decent siege. But that's not why it's so safe. It's safe because it's a townhouse in the suburbs. Cause 'm nice to the neighbors and pay my Home Owners Association dues on time and keep my lawn nice even if I'm always away on business."

Adrian caught onto his drift. "You can't attack what you can't find and finding this is like finding a needle cleverly disguised as a piece of straw in a hay stack."

He nodded approvingly before settling back against the roof and looking upward. "Selina did say you were clever."

That comment made her swallow against a lump in her throat and blink up at the stars.

Though it also sparked something warm into her chest.

"What were you doing out here?" He asked after a moment.

The explanation for her and stars died on her tongue. She didn't want to talk about that right now. She just wanted that comfort without the memories.

"I was looking for the north star." She said. She had been. She'd been feeling lost for a long long time and her father had always told her to look for the north star when you felt lost.

Eliot paused a moment before pointing upwards. "There." He said before moving his finger to sketch out the outline of the constellation.

She looked up into the heavens, following his finger until she could locate it. She raised a hand of her own, tracing the links between the stars in her minds eye. "Ursa minor, Ursa major." She half whispered before moving on, now that she'd oriented herself, finding other constellations. "…Orion."

"Someday you should see the stars out in the country. Nothin' quite like an Kentucky night sky." Eliot tells her. He sits up and takes off his jacket, tossing it over to her before leaning back again without saying a word.

She hadn't even realized she'd been shivering.

She slips the jacket on as he keeps talking. "You normally can't see the milky way from here. It's cleared up a lot these past few days."

She finishes zipping the jacket and looks up to find he's watching her again.

Slowly, carefully, testing the movement as much with herself as with Eliot she shifts to sit closer to Eliot, her eyes never quite leaving his.

Just as slowly he reaches out an arm to wrap around her shoulders.

There is a silent moment that isn't so much a promise being made as something being offered and the threads of two lives untangling from a haphazard not and being twisted together for the first time.

Adrian didn't know what would come next.

But she did know that as she settled back against the roof the expanse of the universe above felt safer than it had in a long time and for a few brief moments the fog in her head cleared out.

And she could just breathe.