By Paths Coincident

Chapter 23

Parker was watching Eliot sleep. The room was dark, but the faint, flickering glow of the motel sign coming through the window provided just enough light that she could see the rise and fall of his ribs as he lay on his side on the other bed, facing away from her towards the door. Even in sleep, Eliot never fully relaxed his vigilance.

He was not always willing to sleep in their presence.

Parker got that. Even now, with Hardison, she did not find it easy to sleep with someone else in the room. The sounds of movement not her own, of another person breathing, even if it was only Hardison, often set her nerves on edge, making it difficult for her to close her eyes. Occasionally, she still disappeared into the vents or even stayed in her Portland warehouse when she needed more solitude. Hardison never minded. Parker would come slipping back into their bed in the early morning hours, and he would snuggle against her all full of warm and sleep, and she would enjoy lying there awake.

Strangely enough, she usually felt safe enough to sleep when Eliot was around even if there were lots of other people.

But tonight, Parker thought Eliot needed her to watch out for him instead. She knew he had not slept since before that Colonel Baird had come back from the dead to haunt him, and although he had said nothing, she could see his exhaustion carving lines and hollows in his face. In spite of that, he had put off the moment he would have to commit to unconsciousness for as long as possible.

After they had hauled in their meager belongings, Eliot had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to go with some organic apples they had picked up in Airdrie on the way to get the horse. Eliot had told Hardison that if he made one more comment about filet mignon and seven hundred sports channels, Eliot was going to rip out his tonsils and turn off the coms. And when Hardison had mentioned that he was splurging on Orangina instead of Squeeze, Eliot had ranted about the necessity of pairing a good filet mignon with the perfect Cabernet for a truly impressive amount of time. Parker had clocked it.

While Parker was brushing the crumbs out of her bed, Eliot, who had sat disapprovingly in a chair to eat like a civilized person, had attempted to find a game on the television. However, after 10 minutes, the elderly set had begun glitching out, so the two of them had resorted to isotonic exercises to fill the time. For a while they had held a contest to see who could stand on their hands the longest, but that had eventually grown boring since neither of them would give in, so they had called it a draw. Finally, they had done a little practice sparring, Eliot working on his speed and Parker on her blocking, and when they were tired and sweating and a bit bruised up, Eliot had grinned with all the mischief of a 10-year-old and asked if she'd ever had a pillow fight.

Parker had not even known what a pillow fight was. Who fought pillows? And why?

Eliot had not explained. He had just grabbed up one of the motel pillows and walloped her with it. Parker still hadn't seen the point of that, but she wasn't going to let Eliot get away with it, so she had grabbed her own pillow and thumped him back. They had chased each other around the room, up and over the furniture, and across the beds. One of the chairs might perhaps have become a bit more rickety, and one of the mattresses definitely broke another spring. Their neighbor was knocking on the wall by the time they had collapsed on their respective beds laughing like maniacs with Hardison complaining in their ears that he wanted to pillow fight, too. Eliot had told him that he had permission to pick up one of those fluffy hotel pillows and hit himself over the head with it as often as he pleased, and Hardison had sulked.

Eventually, Eliot had run out of delaying tactics and had emerged from the shower eyeing his bed like a man might an enemy lying in ambush.

"I'll take the first watch," Parker had offered, and he had not told her not to be stupid.