Title: Who and When
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG
Length: 300
Content notes: vague hints at childhood angst
Author notes: for fan-flashworks for the Identity challenge
Summary: Parker didn't always go by the name Parker.



"Hardison?" Parker asked. The three of them were lying in bed, just starting to wake as the dawn light painted the windowshade.

"Yeah?" Hardison said, still groggy.

"Do you know my real name?" she asked.

Hardison paused. "Yeah."

"Dammit, Hardison! There's such a thing as privacy," Eliot muttered.

"You didn't mind when I hacked into the army records to find your real name," Hardison said to him.

"That's not the point--"

"I'm not mad," Parker said. "It's just, the case. Helping that woman Betsy. It reminded me, 'cause it sounds like Betty."

"Sure," Hardison said.

Parker explained to Eliot, "My real name is Betty." She looked over at Hardison then. "But I'm not Betty. Those things she did, the things that happened to her, that wasn't me. Maybe it was my fault, but it wasn't me. That was someone else. Do you understand?" She looked at both of them, seeming to struggle to believe that they actually might.

"Yeah, sweetheart. We got it," Eliot said gently.

"Me too," Hardison added, "But...."

"What?"

"Betty's not your real name. I mean, it's the name you had when you'd have been old enough to remember. But it's not the name you were born with." Hardison watched her carefully, worried about how she would respond.

But she smiled, leaned a little closer. "That's good. When I was Betty, I secretly hoped I had a real name that was something else."

"Do you want to know your name? Your birth name I mean?" Hardison asked.

She thought. "No. But I'm glad it's there."

"Yeah?" Eliot asked.

"Yeah," she said. "It's fun to have a secret me. A good one."

The two men held her a little tighter.

"We love the you we already have," Hardison said, "You know that, right?" Eliot kissed her temple.

"Duh."

They laughed, and hugged tighter.