A/N: So we've gone back in time a little from our last entry, but hopefully it won't be confusing. Alternately you can just consider that the episodes happened in different order. Enjoy! Shezzi

Parker froze stock still for a long moment as her eyes locked onto the key detail in the photograph she was staring at. It was tiny; so tiny. Just a sharp, dark corner that could be seen where a head was turned and hair and fallen apart, but it was there - a barcode. She couldn't identify the face, but one her sisters was in this photo, a smile stretching her face, her eyes laughing as she turned slightly towards one of the others. Parker stared, hungrily, eyes devouring every detail as she tried to take it all in. It was the first time she'd seen one of her sibs in so many years, and her heart ached as she stared at it, feeling an odd burning in her eyes that, after several long moments, she identified as tears.

She tried to turn away, to turn her back, but she couldn't. Her eyes clung to every detail of that tiny face, trying to pick out if that was Max's nose, or Kanga's eyes, even as tears slowly, silently, traced their way down her cheeks. The photo was a couple of years old, the small group of teens with a couple of adults all with their arms around each other, skis stuck upright in the snow behind them and ecstatic grins on their faces, eyes alight with pleasure. She wanted that picture, wanted it badly, but there wasn't time now. She was meant to be heading out to check the ski lift she'd be having an accident on tomorrow, and it would be closing soon. She knew that, but she just couldn't make her feet move.

"Parker?" the gentle query was accompanied by a hand to her shoulder, and she flinched away, suddenly freed from her paralysis, hands swiping at her cheeks in too fast for the (unenhanced) human eye to follow.

"What?" she snarled at the dark skinned hacker, who quickly withdrew his hand hurriedly.

"You alright, girl?" he looked her up and down carefully, eyes concerned, and she cursed her uncontrollable reaction to the photo.

"Yeah, fine. I've gotta go take a run down the mountain," she said, tone dismissive. She turned away from him but not back in the direction of the picture, avoiding getting caught in its spell once more, but a seed had planted itself within her in the long moments it had held her under its spell.

When Leverage, Inc. left the ski resort for Miami, they left it short one picture on its wall, not that anyone other the maid noticed.

Eliot knew something was bothering Parker, she had been distracted and jumpy and he knew that she was really unhappy about something, something that she hadn't talked to him about, but when she threw herself out of the second floor - even though he knew she could take the fall she hadn't jumped in a way that would actually allow her to absorb it, as though she was trying to hurt herself and it was only chance that he was there to catch her.

He finally managed to drag her into his office and push her into a seat - an act which only worked because she cooperated beyond a token resistance - then crouched down in front of her and looked up into her face, a position that he had discovered was a good place to talk to her from since it didn't put her wolf's back up, since he wasn't posturing over her but accepting her as physically dominant.

"What's goin' on with you, Pandora?" he demanded, his tone firm for all his posture was submissive, deliberately using her full, real name to hopefully force a confession. "What's got you so upset?"

The blond stared down at him in silence for several moments, then a hand went to the zip of her hoody. She slid it down, and a slipped inside to emerge from the inner pocket with a slightly creased photograph. She held it down for him and he looked at it without comprehension.

"What'm I lookin' at, ladybug?" he asked, curious.

A slightly bitter smile quirked the corners of her mouth, and one finger trailed down from the edge of the photo to rest on a pretty honey blonde girl who was turned slightly towards the young man beside her, eyes bright, clearly caught on the edge of a laugh.

"There," the word was barely a whisper. Her finger rested on the girl's hair, just above the nape of the neck, and Eliot's agile mind made the connection easily. He could just make out a sharp, dark line, and his eyes flew to Parker's.

Parker nodded at him without speaking, her eyes filled with pain but dry of tears.

"Oh, darlin'," Eliot whispered, moving now to sit beside her and pulling her against him.

"I...I can't even tell who it is," she buried her face against his neck. "I don't know who else actually got out, we all split up, it could be any of them! I thought...I wanted to see them, but...this is worse!"

"Is it really?" asked Eliot quietly, a few moments later. "I mean, think about it. You didn't know who else made it. You didn't know that ANYONE else made it. Now you do; you know that at least one of your sisters if free. You don't know where she is, but you can see in the picture that she is happy. Is that really worse?"

Parker thought for a long moment, curling in against him even as she carefully kept the photo flat, not allowing her hand to crinkle it up.

"You're right. I just wish...and I can't even put the photo in a computer and try and identify her, it would be too dangerous, for both of us."

Eliot just nodded, smiling sadly. "I won't say I really understand, because there's no way I can, but I can imagine, I think," he said softly. "I wish it was different, Pan, really I do."

"I know," Parker whispered, snuggling up against him and allowing his arms to hold her more securely. "Thank you for that."

They sat for a while, then Eliot let her pull herself up and watched as she tucked the photo away.

"Parker." His tone froze her in place. "No more jumping out of windows when you don't know someone's there," he ordered, his tone hard as rock.

She just looked at him, her expression sober, and nodded. He watched her for a second, then nodded in return and watched silently as she exited the room.