A/N: I know, now is probably not a good time to start a new fic, but what can I say? When inspiration strikes, you just gotta go with it. This is a futurefic, the timeline is a little unspecified at this moment, but go ahead and assume that Season 1 to 3 happened as they did... for now, until I tell you otherwise, and we're a little ways further into the future somewhere. Okay, thats just clear as mud, huh? lol Well, its gonna be E/P, thats what most of you are here for anyway, right? ;)

(Disclaimer: Characters from Leverage belong to John Rogers, Chris Downey, and other important people that aren't me.)

Chapter 1

"Hey, Sophie" said Parker as she wandered into the kitchen area of Nate's apartment where the grifter was fluttering about, "Can I ask you something?"

"If it's how the men in this team seem to survive on coffee, orange soda, and assorted junk, I honestly have no idea" she complained, as she hunted high and low for something to eat.

"Actually, it's about sex" Parker told her, startling Sophie into pulling her head out of the cupboard fast and staring at the thief positively agog.

It wasn't really a topic the girls had ever discussed before, it just hadn't come up. Honestly, Sophie wasn't sure how to broach such a subject, since Parker was so very different to 'normal' young women. There was no telling how much or how little she had in the way of experience, or exactly how she felt about not just the physicalities of relationships, but any part of them.

"Um, okay" she said carefully, closing the cupboard door and moving to take a seat on a stool by the counter, "What exactly did you want to ask?" she said carefully, forcing a smile as she felt distinctly uncomfortable right now.

Parker wandered over with her hands in the pockets on her jacket, only taking them out to help her hop up onto the counter with her legs folded beneath her.

"Well, it's weird" she explained, not that Sophie was surprised to hear that since as much as she loved Parker like a sister after several years of working together, she wasn't blind to the oddness about her, "I mean, condoms are pretty simple things and you kinda just expect them to work but... do they just kinda not sometimes?" she checked.

Sophie frowned at the blonde's words and the fact she didn't seem awfully willing to meet her eyes. If protection failed to work during sex, there was the potential for one or both of two things happening - pregnancy or disease. She almost feared asking which was bothering Parker right now.

"Well, nothing is a hundred percent guaranteed, sweetie" she told her, putting a hand to her knee and getting her attention, "Are you worried that you might...?" she hoped if she left the question hanging that Parker might fill in the blank to save her having to pick an option from her short list of two possibilities.

"Be pregnant? Yeah" said the blonde with a sigh, apparently not quite as overwhelmed by the prospect as Sophie herself, "I mean, who woulda thought, after just one night? And with a condom?" she shrugged her shoulders, kicking out one leg and inspecting something invisible on the toe of her shoe, "I guess it makes sense that his 'little guys' are as tough as he is" she giggled at the odd prospect then, "Y'know, with little fists to punch through the protection" she said, miming the action.

Sophie wasn't finding any of this funny, not least because she was now completely lost by whatever Parker was rambling on about. It took a few moments before the light dawned in her head and she audibly gasped.

"Parker" she said, making the blonde meet her eyes, "Who did you sleep with that you think might have got you pregnant?" she asked outright.

"Eliot" she answered easily, like it was no big deal at all, "Didn't I say that?" she checked back over her words and realised maybe she actually hadn't, even though she'd meant too, "Kinda crazy, huh?"

"Yuh-huh!" said Sophie over-dramatically as she hopped down from the stool and started to pace the kitchen some.

It wasn't just the shock of finding out Parker and Eliot had slept together, not even that they might have accidentally made a child. What really had Sophie reeling was that the thief seemed almost entirely unabashed by the entire situation! Sure, these two weren't an obvious pairing, but who was these days? They did get along well, no matter how many times they bickered like kids, they always had each others backs. He would be the one to check Parker's harness twice. She was the first to fetch ice when Eliot came home battered and bruised.

"Parker, could you just..." began Sophie, trying to sort through the myriad of questions in her brain and come up with the most important one first, "Um, how did this happen? I mean, I know how it happens" she corrected herself, waving a hand in some random gesture, "But, when did you and Eliot...?"

"Er, like a month ago? Maybe a little longer" the blonde shrugged, still sat on the edge of the counter with her legs swinging back and forth, "I mean, we were just hanging out, I was helping patch him up after a job and he had his shirt off..."

"And one thing led to another" said Sophie with a knowing look, "Oh yeah, I've been there" she admitted quite calmly before suddenly exploding, "but I never got pregnant!"

"Geez, Soph, breathe!" Parker advised her, leaning away from her friend as she somewhat yelled in her face, "Its not like you're having this kid"

"No, but you are" the brunette replied, "Parker, sweetheart, you do realise what this means?"

The thief looked thoughtful a moment, kicking the counter one more time before swinging down and landing deftly on her feet.

"I'm gonna have to have the awkward after-sex conversation with Eliot, aren't I?" she sighed, not even noticing that Sophie's eyes were getting wider by the second, "I mean, I hoped we could avoid that. That night, he fell asleep, I left out the window, and after... it was kinda like it never happened, til now" she said, putting a cautious hand to her stomach that as yet showed no signs of growth, "It was just supposed to be sex. Really really great sex" she grinned perhaps too much, "but just sex" she shrugged.

"Parker, please" Sophie snapped, her hands to her temples like she felt the mother of all headaches coming on, "For the love of all that's holy, please stop saying sex"

The grifter's brain was running at a mile a minute. There were so many things to think about! On the surface, she kind of loved the idea of being Auntie Sophie to a baby, and though she could be beyond odd and quirky, becoming a mother might even be the making of Parker... or the breaking of her. For every up there was at least six downs that Sophie could come up with right now. There was no way Parker could carry on working for the team - no rappelling, no crawling through air ducts, nothing she loved, not whilst she was carrying a child. Then when the baby came, somebody was going to have to look after it all the time, and keep he or she out of danger, not an easy task when their little family of five was pretty much constantly in the firing line of someone or something.

Of course, right now would not be a good time for Sophie to talk about these things with Parker. The poor girl needed reassurance and help with the situation she had landed herself in. There was one other with some responsibility to take on in this though, and given half the chance Sophie would like to tear him a new one for what he'd done, even though it wasn't entirely his fault either.

"So Eliot doesn't know?" she asked then, "About the baby, Parker? You haven't told Eliot that you might be pregnant?" she prompted when the blonde looked at her with the usual state of blankness.

"Nope, not yet" she shook her head, before turning thoughtful, "You think I should go now?" she checked, apparently genuinely earnest.

"Er, yeah!" came Sophie's less than subtle response, though honestly, Parker still didn't seem to get that any of this was a problem!

For a person who seemed so active and sometimes so violent, Eliot Spencer liked his peace and quiet. He didn't tell the team where he lived, not to be rude or mean, but because he did not want his apartment to become as crazy as Nate's often did. When he wasn't working, he liked being alone to get on with his own thing - cooking, gardening, reading - solitary pursuits but he liked them just the same, able to find his calm centre somehow when he was left to his own devices like this.

Of course, one member of the Leverage team had seen his apartment, mostly the bedroom, though from that night to this they had never spoken of it. Parker hadn't come around since then and that suited Eliot just fine. The problem was that, where this certain little thief was concerned, just when you got comfortable and thought everything was cool, she would say or do something to send you into a tailspin.

The second Eliot heard a noise by the window, he was on his feet and battle ready, book dropped onto the coffee table and fists raised. He got a surprise when he realised the black clad figure dropping in feet first onto his living room carpet was someone he knew, though perhaps he ought to have guessed.

"Parker" he said, taking off his glasses and placing them with his abandoned book, "What the hell are you doing?" he asked curiously, not because she'd come through the window instead of the door, because for her that was normal, but why she was here at all.

"Visiting" she said easily, shrugging her shoulders, her hands hovering around her pockets then her hips, before dropping back to her sides.

She looked awkward and something was clearly wrong. Eliot studied her a moment, pretty sure from the way she climbed in here and the fact she had no visible marks on her that she hadn't been physically hurt - that was a good thing. Since offending people and being offended were rarely issues with Parker, he struck that off his mental list too. It kind of left Eliot coming up empty as his team-mate continued to hover by the window, looking around at his furnishings and trinkets, and never directly at the hitter himself.

"Do we have a job or something?" he asked, the only thing he could think of right now as a likely explanation for her being her, though even that was a long shot.

"Not that I know of" she replied, sparing him a glance, knowing she couldn't just stand here forever not saying what she came to say, "Um, you know that night a while back" she said, making some vague gesture with her hand that seemed to signify the time in the past she was talking about, "Y'know, when we had sex?" she said, blunt as ever.

Eliot didn't even pretend to be shocked by the way she just came out with it, but couldn't help the smirk that came to his lips at the sound of the question.

"I'm not exactly gonna forget it" he admitted, folding his arms across his chest as was his usual habit.

The smile slid away some as he thought on things a minute. A little panic crept into Eliot's head and tickled at his senses. If Parker was bringing up their single night of passion, it couldn't lead to anything good. He couldn't imagine she wanted a relationship with him, that she was in love with him or anything, that would be crazy. Sure, it had happened with other girls in his past, one night stands could go wrong sometimes, but Parker wasn't like that. She didn't feel that way, she was black and white on stuff like that, or so he'd thought at the time. It had just been sex, a physical release for the two of them, no strings attached, that had been the deal. He couldn't imagine why she would want to go and bring it up more than a month later, unless...

"I'm pregnant" she blurted out, her eyes meeting Eliot's own then, and she was pretty sure she'd never seen him look so completely shocked.

A hundred different emotions seemed to run across his face beneath the coating of surprise that coloured everything. Parker couldn't blame him for any of them, since she was pretty sure she'd had them already. This was one of the weirdest situations she'd ever found herself in, and that was saying something given the nature of the work she did now and had done in the past.

"What...?" said Eliot eventually, after so long of his mouth opening and closing without a word escaping, "I don't get it" he admitted at length.

"What's not to get?" asked Parker, looking at him like he was the dumb one as she wandered over to the couch and dropped down into the cushions, "I'm pregnant. We're having a kid" she said as simply as she could, "You and me, Sparky" she gestured between them, as Eliot turned to face her and continued to stare.

"Parker, we only slept together one time" he reminded her, holding up his index finger to reinforce his point, "And we used a condom" he recalled easily, since he always made sure he was protecting both himself and any women he slept with.

"Actually, we used three because... well, one night but three times" she showed him the numbers on her fingers just like he had done, ignoring the fact that Eliot looked every kind of uncomfortable having this conversation, "Anyway, one of them didn't do its job" she shrugged, "Sophie says they're not a hundred percent effective. Did you know that?"

"Hold on a second!" the hitter shook his head, looking less confused and more mad now, "You told Sophie about this before you told me?" he asked her angrily, though Parker barely flinched, even though he was leaning over her looking incensed.

"Yes" she admitted, looking up at him, "I didn't know what else I was supposed to do" she told him, a little cross that he was being so off with her, "I've never been pregnant before" she stated what was probably already obvious, slamming her fist into the next couch cushion just because she could.

Eliot knew he shouldn't be yelling at her. Parker never handled feelings well, and if what she said was true, she was going to be all over the place right now. It was a lot to take in from where he was standing too. She was pregnant, somehow, in spite of the fact they'd used protection. It could happen, he knew that, but it was still close to unbelievable. Had they been in some kind of relationship, sleeping together every night or most nights at least, he might've understood it, but the odds were on their side in this. It only took once to make a baby, Eliot was well aware of that, but it still seemed kind of crazy.

"Wow" he said more to himself than to Parker as he pushed his hair out of his face and turned a whole circle just because he didn't know where to go from here, or even what to say, "Er... Are you sure about this?" he asked as he turned to face her again.

"Yes, I'm sure I'm pregnant" she said with an eye-roll she didn't even try to repress, "And yes, I'm sure you're the father" she added flatly, "I haven't had sex with anybody else lately"

Eliot took a deep breath and tried to find a little of the calm he had a decent grip on just ten minutes ago. Now he might look okay, but on the inside, he was having a complete fit over this.

"Okay" he said, sitting himself down at the other end of the couch, "Then I guess we need to have a serious conversation" he told Parker, who turned her head to peer at him awkwardly.

Yep, this was going to be no fun.

To Be Continued...