Notes: This follows a few days after the events of Not Going Anywhere and Stay.

Note the Second of Great Importance: This is the end of this fic but not the end of this Verse. The story continues in the fic "Fathers" which can be found on my profile page.

Blessed Be the Cracked
For they are the ones to let in the light.

Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.

There's just something wrong with her.

Champion of the creepyness contest she and Hardison had going.

And as it turned out the first on the team to figure out there was something going on between him and Nate.

Parker.

Just Perfect.

And just four short days after that really Really long day where the others found out about the Black Knight and he nearly lost his place on the team and a long week got a hell of a lot longer here he was. On recon for a mission.

With Parker.

Just Perfect.

Logically speaking Eliot knows why she's here. He'd been captured and injured during the last job and even though he was fine by his standards the others were being careful with him now. He wanted to be irritated, to complain that he'd been dealing with this mess his whole life and that just because they found out didn't mean he suddenly needed to be babysat.

But Nate had said to give them a little time to adjust. Let it sink in. Let them accept this new knowledge and they'll see he hasn't changed. So if Sophie wanted to send someone along to keep an eye on him he'd endure it.

Even if that someone was Parker who was probably less sane than he was.

Though if this meant Sophie thought Parker was the sane one of them there would need to be some serious talks when they got home from this.

The job they were doing was small time, something to keep busy with a few towns over, too close to bother flying. Just a little information check up. Nothing too exciting or earth shattering but it meant a long time driving back and forth.

A long time alone with Parker in a car on a highway.

In honesty it wasn't as bad as Eliot would have thought it would be. Parker mostly stared out the window looking like she was in some kind of trance induced by the lights flashing by. It was quiet, and Eliot found his mind drifting from subject to subject, fingers tapping a soft rhythm on the steering wheel.

He'd reached the kind of zen you can only reach driving an empty stretch of highway late at night when Parker broke the silence she'd spent the last hour or two in. "What's it like?"

Eliot furrowed his eyebrows. "Whats what like?"

"Being with Nate?"

He groaned inwardly. Of course she'd ask. "Not somethin' I'm sharing."

"I'm just curious. I wanna know what it's like. Is it like in movies?"

"Really not going to talk about my sex life Parker." With anyone else Eliot would have been pissed off. But with Parker? She probably was just really curious to what gay sex was like. But really? He was Not going there with her.

"that's not what I meant." She said with a pout.

Eliot let out a long-suffering sigh. "What did you mean?"

"What's it like to fall in love?"

Eliot just barely kept himself from reacting. It was strange. After eight months it was Parker who was the first to use the forbidden four-letter word to describe the thing between him and Nate. He mentally flinched away from the word. "Not in love it's just."

"Just what?" She pressed, curious.

"Trust." Eliot said. Out loud it sounded just as bad and made even less sense.

"oh." Parker said.

A second later there was a hand touching a part of his anatomy he was unused to being touched while he was driving and it was all Eliot could do to not crash into the shoulder in surprise. "What The Hell? PARKER!" He barked and hit her hand away.

"But I trust you and you trust me. You said yourself that you and Nate were having sex and that it was just trust."

Eliot let out a long slow breath, mentally counting to ten in Arabic and then Russian to try to avoid completely losing it at Parker. "It's not what I meant. You don't… just don't do that Parker."

"Then what is it?" She pressed.

"Complicated." Eliot replied feeling like a teenage boy. He so hoped they were getting there soon. Only he wouldn't put it past Parker to have this conversation in front of everyone in Nate's apartment.

"Then make it simple." Parker said, sounding like that was of course the most logical and easy thing to do. "Please?"

Eliot sighed, not responding right away. He could feel Parker's eyes on him and he knew she was waiting for an answer and before he really meant it he was forming words to try to answer her question in a way she'd get. "It's kinda like rappellin'" He said finally. "Sometimes it starts out careful, checking the details learning what you can makin' preparations. Sometimes you just dive into it quick but you jump off that ledge and hope you did and judged right. You fall free and it feels great. Sometimes you fall all the way. Sometimes you get it right and bounce back and hang there, high as cloud nine and safe for as long as it lasts."

He sees her nod out of the corner of his eye and she goes to look back out the window and somehow he's not embarrassed about getting all metaphorical. Parker was Parker and crazy as she was she took him as he was. She took his words in stride and understanding for once and maybe that was why he'd answered in the first place.

The rest of the drive passed quietly and the recon went by as well as could be hoped.

In honesty he almost forgot that little conversation, trying to keep up with Parker was a job enough without brooding. It was a few days later, when Eliot was working to convert the apartment in Nate's building Hardison had given him to turn into a training area for himself and the team (and likely to fill the job Eliot's office had once done, give him a little space to work off frustration on inanimate objects as opposed to team mates), that he was reminded of what he'd said.

Nate came into the apartment with a confused look on his face and what looked like a harness in his hands.

Eliot raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking what was up.

Nate said, looking even more confused. "Parker gave me this and told me to give it to you and tell you it's not safe to repel with someone if neither of you will admit you're repelling." He let the statement hang in the air like a question.

"Leave the harness. I'll ask her what she meant later." Eliot said with a shake of his head.

"Not too much later." Nate said as he put it down. "The rest of the team's heading home soon."

Eliot nodded and Nate turned to leave. "Nate." Eliot said, not sure what he meant to say when Nate turned back around. Well, he wouldn't admit what he almost said. "Forget it. I'll tell ya later."

Nate nodded and left.

Eliot picked up the harness, shaking his head as he recognized it had been adjusted to fit him. He looked it over, identifying padding put in places to help make it easier to be worn for a long time.

Parker…

He couldn't help but smile just a little. Maybe…

Parker was twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.

But wasn't that the point of that saying?

Blessed be the cracked, for they are the ones who let in the light.