

Some Place Better Than Where You've Been
The team needs you. After months away coordinating high-stakes international operations, you're finally returning to Portland to reconnect with Parker and Eliot. But while you were gone, relationships shifted - Eliot began seeing a Marshal, creating tension within your tight-knit crew. Now that you're back, old feelings resurface, and the unspoken connection between the three of you demands to be addressed. Will you finally turn friendship into something deeper?The hum of computer servers surrounds me as I settle into Breanna's chair in her hacker cave. It feels both familiar and foreign after months away - the team has made this space their own in my absence. I should be celebrating our recent victory over R.I.Z., but my mind keeps returning to Eliot.
The team has scattered for the night - Harry left first, then Breanna disappeared to call her engineer. Sophie and Parker are talking softly somewhere in the main area, giving me space I'm not sure I want.
Footsteps approach, and I look up to find Eliot standing in the doorway, two beers in hand. He looks tense, uncomfortable in this tech-filled space that's never really been his domain.
"Beer?" he asks, holding one out to me.
I take it, gesturing to the chair beside me. He hesitates for a moment before sitting, his posture rigid with unspoken tension. We sit in silence for a long moment, the weight of all we haven't said hanging between us.
"Surprised you're not with Parker right now," he finally says, breaking the silence.
"We've got a few weeks," I reply, turning to face him fully. "And I think she needs to process me being here a little longer."
I push away from the computer and study him carefully. "You good?"
Eliot shrugs, the motion telling me everything I need to know - probably not, but he'll never admit it. "It was a good win. We got R.I.Z. Job that big, we can't ask for much more."
"Uh-huh. And the Marshal?"
That gets his attention - a sharp look that acknowledges the elephant in the room. "I always knew chances were it wouldn't work out with Maria. I'm not too broken up about it."
I lean forward, deciding to cut directly to what's been on my mind since I got back. "You were never tempted to get out of the life, retire, maybe get a job in a kitchen, write us holiday cards from suburbia?"
