A/N: It's a general consensus among the group where kaniacs and grifters collide that Eliot needs a girl. Now, I happen to be an Eliot/Parker shipper myself. But after Reunion, I can't say I'm feeling overly inspired on that pairing (damn you Leverage writers!) And hearing John Rogers talk, I don't feel confident that this troubling 'Eliot is girl-less' situation will be addressed anytime soon. So, I thought to myself, 'Eliot needs a girl. Eliot is nobody's fifth wheel. Well, dear pj, Eliot-fic-writing enthusiast. Why don't you do something about it?'. Well, here it is. Me taking my own advice. I once really enjoyed creating an OC love interest for SGA's Ronon, and am looking forward to this as well. Each chapter is going to deal with one episode. Hopefully, this works. lol. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I only own the OC, and if TNT wants her too I'll gladly give her up.

oooOOOooo

Chapter One – The Jailhouse Job

Strip clubs had always been a comfortable, unexpectedly relaxing way for Eliot to spend an evening. A bunch of beautiful women with no qualms about taking their clothes off, who didn't ask him where he'd been or what that scar was or why he didn't like to cuddle.

Still, they weren't girls he could spend more than one night with. Ironically, Eliot Spencer, hitter, theif, con-man extraordinaire, preferred a little mystery from his women. He liked games. He liked the chase. The hunt. Liked to be challenged.

While most of Eliot's encounters happened in the backs of cars or rented hotel rooms, the purest, sweetest times had come from moments spent in darkness and silences. They were gentle. When it was just two of them and they had all night to explore and map and wonder. He liked that. Liked when women left a little something to the imagination.

Maybe he was just getting old.

Because here he was, a half dozen nameless, faceless, but beautiful girls practically begging to rip his pants off and he couldn't for the life of him get excited about it.

He almost smacked himself in the head when he pulled away from them with the excuse of 'going to have a smoke'.

Eliot pushed his way to the back door of the crowded, noisy club and burst through the fire exit that lead to the alley. There was very little light in the narrow passageway, tucked in between two large brick buildings. Boken glass glittered like diamonds near the wall and it stunk of garbage and mildew. Still, he was finding it easier to breathe now than he had inside the club.

Movement caught his eye and Eliot tensed instinctively, his hand sliding subtly to a knife he kept sstrapped to leather cuff he wore on his left wrist, but he relaxed again when two drunk, stumbling, giggling figures come out from behind a large dumpster.

The man smirked at him as he brushed past Eliot to go back inside, his fly still open. The women smiled sweetly and fixed her hair, following him.

Eliot rolled his eyes.

"No. Look, I said 'no', alright? I'm on my break."

Eliot's ears perked at a disembodied voice coming from somewhere else in the alley. He started toward it, telling himself it was because he had nothing better to do and knowing it was because he could smell a fight a mile away, and an unfair one from two.

"No! I said no. Why don't you just back off?"

Eliot's frown intensified at the note of alarm in the woman's voice and quickend his pace, sliding silently around a parked delivery truck and sidestepping a pair of stray cats enjoying their dinner in a cardboard box.

He could hear the low rumbling of a man's voice responding to the woman's but couldn't quite make out the words. Still, he had no problem recognizing the sound of a hard hand-to-cheek slap when he heard it and the startled female squeak that followed had him practically running through the puddles and garbage that littered the alley toward the voice.

He found them near the entrance of the alley, shoved back into the alcove of an abandoned back door, out of sight from the street and obscured from the light of a nearby streetlamp.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the tall, strong male figure in jeans and a black jacket was not being gentle. It didn't take hearing what Eliot had to know the petite, struggling woman pinned between him and the brick wall was an unwilling participant in the kiss.

No decision was required.

Eliot closed the distance between them in two large strides and grabbed the man by the jacket and, throwing all his weight back, yanked him off the woman and used the momentum to shove him into hurl him against the opposite wall.

The man, a stunned and surprised would-be biker tatted up and sporting a goatee, didn't put up much of a fight. He was angry and huge, outweighing Eliot by at least forty pounds, but also more than a little drunk and obviously used to lesser opponents than the Hitter.

Three sloppy swings and three well timed duck and counters later the man was cupping his bleeding nose and beating a hasty retreat.

Eliot stayed fight-ready, glaring a warning at the man until he hailed a cab and disappeared. Eliot snorted in disgust and turned around to face the woman.

She looked a little winded, her huge mass of curly hair flying in every direction from the wind coming off the water of the Boston Harbor and she smiled tightly at him to hide the shadows floating in her eyes.

"I suppose a 'thank you' is in order," she said quietly, rewrapping her brown, knee-lenth trench coat around herself, hiding the sheer white bustier and fishnets she wore underneath. Work clothes.

"Did you know that guy?" He asked gruffly, still a little pissed.

She let out a cold, brittle laugh, "Him specifically? No. His type, all too well," she shrugged. "Just another John who doesn't like to hear 'no'."

She stepped out into the circle of illumination provided by the streetlight, and in the corner of his eye saw her curly brown hair had bright blonde highlights and her lips were the deepest shade of red he'd ever seen. She kept her arms wrapped tight around her torso and shrugged just a little further into her coat when she seemed to suddenly realize that she was still in a dark, deserted alley with a man she didn't know.

Eliot noticed her sudden tension and looked away under the pretense of scanning the street for any further danger, allowing the woman to get her nerves back under control. It took surprisingly little time.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" she asked almost casually.

Eliot turned toward her and saw she'd tied off her trench coat and had fished a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. Her body language was relaxed but he could see the tension, the readiness, in her stance.

He didn't blame her, now that he was facing her fully he could see why the man had tried to take advantage of her. In the dim light provided by the streetlight her caramel brown skin glowed where it peaked from beneath her coat and slender, delicate fingers meant for something much more glamorous than lighting a cigarette danced on the ends of her hands.

Still, her bravado, and perhaps a bit of genuine nonchalance, amused him and he couldn't help but tease her.

"Lurking," he deadpanned, "I'm a lurker."

The woman's huge brown eyes narrowed on him and she tilted her head.

"I hope you aren't expectin' anything from me," a frown creased her brow and she set the cigarette between dark colored lips, still unlit, "because I told that other creep I'm on my break and I meant it."

Eliot shook his head, still a little amused but not wanting to anger or frighten her. "Just came out for a smoke."

The woman looked pointedly at his empty hands, "without any cigarettes."

Eliot just shrugged and the woman rolled her eyes and held her pack out to him. Eliot glanced at it and then reached out to take one.

"You got a light?"

She answered with a flick of her wrist and a small flame that lit her face dramatically, revealing a small smile on the corners of her lips. She held it out and Eliot lit his own cigarette, noticing the Marine Corps insignia on the side of the lighter, but didn't comment.

They stood in silence for a few moments, listening to the waves banging against the docks a few streets away and steeling themselves against the stiff, cool breeze that came with it.

"So, what are you stressed out about?" she asked. He smiled at the sound of her voice, suddenly glad he was shrouded in shadow. It was deeper and smoother than most girls he was used to talking to. Like her normal tone was almost a whisper and she just might be laughing at you with each word.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, flicking the ash off his cigarette, "who said I was stressed?"

The woman leaned back against the brick wall and tipped her head as if to look at the stars, blowing out a billow of smoke into the night sky.

"You did. The way you spaced out after the first drag and all your nervous fidgeting," she didn't notice his affronted look. Fidget? He did not fidget.

"The way you hesitate before each time you inhale, tells me you don't smoke all the time. And it's a good stress reliever, the nicotine," she continued, eyes still locked on the dark sky, the column of her throat exposed down to her collar bone.

"Very observant."

"Mm."

Over head, the clouds shifted out of the way to reveal a full moon and bathed them in a soft blue light that was almost ambient in the way it illuminated everything. Glowing.

"So what are you stressed about?" She asked again.

Eliot didn't answer, momentarily hypnotized by the glowing red ends of his cigarette and how it for some reason it reminded him of Parker, and how of all of them, Parker had taken Nate's capture the hardest. Even harder than Sophie. That had surprised them all.

Eliot wasn't sure how to forgive Nate for that. For hurting Parker. He wasn't sure how to forgive him for conning them either. For lying to them.

How was he supposed to keep working with these people, putting his life on the line for them, if they were going to keep letting him down?

"I'm a good listener," the woman's voice pulled Eliot back into the present. She dropped her chin to look at him, noticing not for the first time the intensely thoughtful look in his eyes and the way his shoulders stayed rigid even with the relaxed hands-in-pocket way he was standing.

Eliot returned her appraising gaze. She had a beauty mark on her left cheek.

"Have to be in my line of work," she continued, smiling in a way that made him want to join her. Light glinted off her large silver hoop earrings. "Lots of blowholes who like to hear themselves talk. So what is it?"

Eliot sighed, flicking away his cigarette and stamping it out in an excuse not to answer right away. Ordinarily that would be the end of the conversation and he would be walking away.

But something about the light of a full moon at four in the morning and the way the dark alley made him feel like the whole world might be sleeping that made him change his mind. Something about standing half a foot away from a woman who didn't know him and didn't care that allowed him to convince himself that it safe to tell her. Tell her everything.

And even a lone wolf like Eliot sometimes craved the kind of emotional intimacy his job didn't allow him to have.

Especially now.

Before was different.

Before he would go to Nate with a beer and a football game and call it a night. But Nate was in SuperMax and Eliot never had a conversation that mattered when there was a potential of it being recorded.

Before he would go to Sophie under pretense of cooking a meal for her and they could talk away the hours on everything and nothing at all. But Sophie was busy pining over and subsequently being furious at Nate.

And before he would go to Hardison with a DVD and an excuse. But Hardison was busy helping Sophie and finding subtle ways to move forward with Parker.

And he would go to Parker but…actually he wouldn't go to Parker.

So, since he couldn't honestly talk to any of them, he talked to her.

This radndom, nameless, dangerously sexy woman he'd never met before who was asking to know his secrets merely because she could.

Eliot cleared his throat, stuffing both hands into his back pockets an staring through the gap between the buildings on the other side of the street at the Boston Harbor.

"Tomorrow I'll be helping a friend."

The woman took a slow drag on her cigarette and nodded, tossing it to the ground as Eliot had done and ground it out with a five inch, white platform stiletto shoe.

"Like… help him move furniture?"

Eliot smiled, his gaze never moving. "No." He hesitated, "something slightly more illegal than that."

She raised her eyebrows, the lapels of her jacket being tossed away to reveal the lace upper edge of her white bustier. "Oh?"

"Yeah," he smiled cynically. "He lied to us. Usually I…hurt people that lie to me. But he's family, so..." he trailed off and chose not to dwell on the fact that he'd never used the 'f' word to describe the team before.

The woman nodded, tipping her head back again and this time letting her eyes fall shut, "it'll work out, Cowboy."

Eliot narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at her. With her face relaxed like that, in the low light of the moon and the streetlight, she was really exceptional looking. Beautiful and different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Some curls fell across her cheeks and she opened her eyes.

"Wanna know how I know?"

Eliot just nodded.

"Because you're doing it for a friend. For family. Fate bends it's will toward those with good intentions," she shrugged, "Karma 101."

Eliot 'hmm'd in response and ignored her gaze on his skin for several more seconds, pretending to be analyzing the group of rowdy college kids going into the club.

"Well, my breaks over so I gotta head back inside," she pushed away from the wall and stepped around Eliot close enough for him to smell the lilac perfume she wore and he turned to watch her leave, miles of smooth, caramel brown legs peeking out from beneath her short coat. She stopped suddenly and turned around and Eliot snapped his eyes up to hers.

A knowing smile tinted her tone. "Will I ever see you again?"

Eliot glanced up at the sky and then looked at her, matching her smirk with one of his own.

"Lurk in enough dark alleys in the middle of the night. Who knows?" he shrugged, his smile turning a bit more genuine, "our paths just may cross again."

TBC - Next is 'The Reunion Job'. It should be up before the end of the week.