Title: Diamond In The Rough
Author: Devereauxx
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen, Family
Summary: Parker never had a family.
A/N: Christ, I don't know where this came from. It's short, its PG and... yeah. Maybe I went crazy. Hm.

Parker never had a mother.

Well, okay, that's silly. She did have a mother at one point, obviously. She had to have come from somewhere, unless the stork really did drop her off. Parker idly wonders what his name would be, or if he was just called "Stork". She'd ask, but everytime she asks things like that people look at her funny like she's speaking Chinese with a Hebrew accent.

Parker wonders how that would sound.

But Parker's mother… she wasn't a mother. She was just the woman that pushed her out of her vagina. A mother should be more than that. More than the drugs and the liquor and the pimps. She's seen TV mothers; with their baking and their aprons and their cleaning. But that can't be how all mothers are like, because then Parker would be very confused right now.

Because Sophie is like her mother.

She doesn't bake; last time she did she set the oven on fire and Eliot had to put it out with a fire extinguisher while mumbling something about how none of them should try to be an artist like him. But Eliot doesn't paint.

Parker finger-painted once.

Sophie was like her mother. Parker isn't sure why; maybe it's because she's older. Or maybe it was because she taught her, comforted her, lectured her. But Nate lectures her, and he's not really… okay, maybe he is like her father.

Parker never had a father.

Maybe she did at one point, unless her mother was the reincarnation of the virgin Mary. Which might make sense since she's pretty sure she saw Jesus on a piece of toast once. Was she Jesus? No, that couldn't be right. She didn't have the beard for it. Or at all.

Maybe she could grow one.

Parker's father was probably a trick. Parker's whole conception probably was based on a fifty dollar exchange, but she doesn't like to think much about that. But Nate's kind of like her real father; like the TV ones. He yells enough to be one of them. Especially at her, Eliot, and Hardison.

Parker never had siblings.

Which was unfortunate, really. She could have played hide-and-go-seek with them, running around some big yard with a white picket fence and one of those little bird baths. She played hide-and-go-seek with Hardison once; though it wasn't much fun for him because he could never find her. He called her a ninja, and then accused her of having an invisibility cloak.

As far as she knows, she is lacking one of those. Maybe she should go buy one.

Hardison was like her younger brother.

Parker tried to play hide-and-go-seek with Eliot once, but he told her to go away. Eliot was like grumpy the dwarf, except he really wasn't all that short. Parker wonders if she should bite into an apple during times like that, because that's when Grumpy would save her. She never had someone to look out for her, protect her. Especially from poison apples and other tainted fruit.

So maybe Eliot's like her older brother.

Parker's never had a family. Family was for normal people; people who work nine to five jobs and come home and have dinner together. Though Parker and the rest of the Leverage team have had dinner together. Loads and loads of time, but never when Sophie cooks. Eliot puts on an apron that says "Kiss the Cook", except after Hardison decided to have himself a laugh, it now says "Kick the Cook."

His laugh didn't last long.

After Parker kicked Eliot, just because the apron said so, Eliot put Hardison in a choke hold and threatened his computer. Hardison bought him a new apron after that, but Eliot still wore his old one. Parker maybe thinks he likes being a kicked, just a little bit. Or maybe he likes kicking Hardison after each time Parker kicks him.

But they ate together. All the time. Like a family.

Maybe Parker never had a family. Maybe she never had a yappy little dog and nosey neighbors and normalcy. Nate didn't tell her when her bedtime was, Sophie didn't read her stories, she never complained when Hardison was born, and she never had Eliot beat up the mean kids at school.

But Parker had a family now.

And maybe blood is thicker than water… but diamonds are worth more. And they had lots and lots of diamonds.

THE END