A/N: Wow. That whole asking for reviews thing really paid off. Thanks so much for indulging me.

Eliot was finishing putting the slices of mushrooms on the second pizza he was making and his mind kept on wondering again how he ended up where he was. He didn't trust easily at all, and yet there was something about Cassie that made him trust her implicitly ... with some things. He wanted to spend time with her. A lot of time. He wanted to protect her.

As he stuck the pizzas in the preheated oven he thought about how long it had taken to foster that same feeling in him for his team. Sure, he'd gotten into some pretty bad fights those first few jobs they did, but it wasn't until Nate was in rehab for the con and Hardison was almost blown to bits that he realized that he'd protect them all with his life if necessary. Cassie was already in that category in his mind and heart ... and he'd spent less than two days with her. Talk about screwed up.

Who the hell let a virtual stranger make pizza in their kitchen? Sure, he knew some stuff about her from those files Hardison had hacked into, and she knew some stuff about him from wherever the hell she got that information. But it still wasn't the same.

He heard a slight noise in the doorway and looked up to see the man -- Teal'c standing there impassively with his hands behind his back and a bucket hat firmly in place on his head. Eliot turned back to where he was washing the knives, cutting board, bowl and grater, not knowing what to say or even if the other man would answer.

The soapy water ran over his hands as he scrubbed at the remnants of cheese on the hand held grater. They were always such a bother to clean with so many grooves for things to get stuck on.

"Cassandra Fraiser has a way of promoting fierce loyalty in those close to her," Teal'c finally broke the silence as the grater was placed on the drain tray.

Eliot's eyes remained on the dishes in front of him as he scrubbed. "I've noticed," he grunted.

A blink of the eye later and Teal'c was suddenly right next to Eliot, causing the shorter man to change his grip on the knife he was currently washing with lightning fast reflexes. He took a step away from the sink and held the knife before him in a defensive motion. Teal'c raised an eyebrow as he spoke again, "You have the marks of a good warrior about you. However that will not stop me from tearing your body apart muscle by muscle if you harm Cassandra Fraiser in any way."

Eliot tilted his head slightly as he relaxed and went back to washing the dishes. He didn't doubt one bit that Teal'c could and would carry out his threat. "I wouldn't expect it to."

"General O'Neill tells me that you are a warrior of great skill and ability," Teal'c continued. Eliot was a little surprised by the sudden compliment when not a moment before the man was threatening his life. The larger man walked a few steps away and Eliot started to wonder at his use of the word 'warrior.' His speech was too formal for him to have been American born. "He did not mention that you were also a master of the culinary arts."

Eliot shrugged one shoulder as he put the knife in the flatware container on the drain tray. "Gotta have a hobby when you're not workin', my mama always said."

Teal'c's eyebrow rose again, as if of its own accord, "Indeed."

It was then that the two men heard an indignant shout from the other room. "Vala Mal Doran you did not just say that!" Cassie cried in a huff.

This was followed by the laughter of the other two women. "You've gotta admit, Cassie," Tesa said through her laughter, "She has a point."

"No," Cassie argued in an overly loud voice. Eliot wondered who she was trying to convince with her tone. "No point. None. Her statement is completely pointless."

Now it was Vala's turn to speak up through her laughter, "I think you're protesting just a tad too much, Cassie. It wasn't like the idea's farfetched or anything."

"It's that you said it in the first place." Cassie could be heard moving around in the living room and followed up her comment with another one said too low for either of the eavesdropping men to hear.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow again as a smirk pulled at Eliot's mouth. What he wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in that room.

"Hey, Teal'c?" Cassie asked from the doorway to the kitchen.

The Jaffa turned to look at Cassie with one eyebrow raised in silent question.

"Will you tell Vala that Gambit is better than Wolverine, please? She doesn't believe me," Cassie pouted like a little girl.

Eliot snorted quietly at the revelation that the girls were arguing about X-Men characters.

Cassie sent him a half-hearted glare, "It's not funny, Eliot. Gambit is way cooler than Wolverine."

"You're comparing apples and oranges," he said, breezing through the rest of the dishes in the sink. "Gambit was made to be a bad guy and Wolverine is the bad guy turned good. In the end, though, they're both just mutants trying to find their way in a world that hates them." He was definitely not thinking about how that related to his own team's mission to help the powerless. They were not the X-Men. Nope. No way.

The brunette pouted and turned to Teal'c, "What's your vote?"

Teal'c looked pensive for a moment before replying, "I believe Rogue is the most compelling mutant character on the X-Men team."

Cassie sighed as she shook her head at him, "You've been hanging out with Jack too much."

"Indeed," he replied with a slight smirk, "I believe General O'Neill's favorite character to be Banshee."

Cassie crossed her arms, reminding Eliot of how his sister looked when she pouted as a child. "You're no fun." Her gaze turned again to Eliot and she silently asked him his opinion.

As he opened the oven to check the pizza, which was now sporting nice bubbling cheese on top and a golden crust, Eliot commented, "I was always partial to Archangel, myself. My sister liked Storm, though."

Cassie's pout turned into a genuine smile as her arms fell to her sides, "I didn't know you had a sister."

Eliot gave her a funny look, "Didn't you read my file?" he asked, knowing full well that she had and Teal'c probably had as well.

She shook her head, "Just the highlights. It didn't say anything about your personal life, just some of the jobs you pulled off. Like Croatia."

Eliot tensed slightly at the mention of his work in Croatia. He shook his head slightly as he searched for a pizza cutter, "That wasn't a job."

"It is the battles we choose to fight that impact us the most," Teal'c said sagely before moving to get down a set of plates from the cabinet. "Do you have any carbonated beverages Cassandra Fraiser?"

Her smile turned into a smirk again as she moved toward the fridge, "Yeah. There's cola, lemon-lime, orange, and root beer. Which one would you like, T?"

"I would greatly enjoy some lemon-lime, Cassandra Fraiser," Teal'c said with a smile as he carried the plates into the living room ahead of Eliot and the piping hot pizza.

Eliot stopped in the doorway, beside Cassie, who was grabbing a few cans of soda from the fridge. "What exactly do you know about me?" he asked, his brow furrowed and his heart unsure he wanted to really know.

Cassie stood up to her full height, just an inch below Eliot's as she formulated her response. Her hazel eyes found his blue ones as she replied, "Only about as much as someone looking for your services would know. Jack sent me a short list of some of the things you've done and people you've helped." Her eyes dropped to the pizza as she added, "You probably know just as much about me from that stupid search Hardison did."

"I know something about you that wasn't in those search results -- meager as they were. You're favorite X-Men is Gambit. That says a lot about a person," he smiled softly as she looked up at him again, trying to reassure her that he wasn't mad about anything, nor was he trying to pick a fight. He motioned his head toward the bottles on the top shelf of the fridge, "Grab me a beer, will ya?"

She smirked as she turned back to the beverages, "Coors or Sam Adams?"

"I know I saw a Stella in there. You can't trick me." He walked into the living room to the wonderful sound of Cassie laughing.

"I just don't understand it," Vala said around a bite of the heavenly pizza Eliot had cooked up.

"What's to understand?" Tesa asked, motioning wildly with the hand not holding her own slice. "It just is."

"Yes, but the lasers don't actually do very much to stop thieves from stealing, now do they?" Vala pointed out. "All they do is weed out the ones that aren't very flexible."

Cassie rolled her eyes, "It's just a movie, Vala. You can't expect Mission Impossible to be that realistic. I mean, it has a self destructing tape telling him where his next job is."

Vala huffed as she sat back in her seat. She was about to continue her tirade against lasers when movement caught her attention in the corner of her eye. Her head turned toward the balcony attached to Cassie's apartment and she frowned. "There's a woman standing on your balcony, Cassie."

Everyone turned toward the window and Eliot growled when a flash of blonde hair sped across his vision. "Parker," he grumbled as he got up and went to unlock the sliding glass door.

"What the hell are you doing out there?" he asked as he felt Cassie come up behind him, having waved away Teal'c and Vala.

The thief shrugged once as she dropped from the drain she had been holding on to. "Her air vents are too small for me to climb through. How else was I supposed to check on you?"

"Who told you to check up on me?" Eliot asked, his brow furrowed tightly as he processed the information that one of his teammates was a little less trusting or a little more paranoid than he had originally thought.

Parker looked back at him cooly, "Hardison wanted to make sure you weren't kidnapped by some secret government organization for going out to lunch with Cassie." She turned to the other woman, "Hi, Cassie. Got any more chocolate donuts on you?"

Cassie smiled genuinely at the thief, "Hi, Parker. Sorry, no donuts at home. But I can offer you some freshly made pizza that Eliot put together."

Parker's eyes widened with glee as Cassie led her into the living room, completely ignoring the irate Eliot. "Everyone, this is Parker. She works with Eliot. Parker, this is my new roommate, Tesa, a friend from college. One of my adopted uncles, Teal'c, and my other adopted uncle's girlfriend, Vala."

The two thieves eyed each other for a moment before breaking into identical grins that sent a chill down the spines of all who saw it. Parker held out her hand to Vala, "Nice to meet you. Cassie said there was pizza?"

"Pleasure's all mine," Vala said, motioning for Parker to sit beside her, "We were just discussing the futility of lasers in stopping theft."

Parker snatched up a piece of the delicious smelling pizza and started to munch on it as she thought about the issue at hand. "Well, when there's a row of them and they're too close together to move through, it could, I guess, but not really. I find they only make me act more flexible."

"Parker!" Eliot admonished, unsure she should be telling such things to strangers.

"What?" Parker asked with her trademark wide eyes. She pointed to Vala, "She's a thief like me, Eliot." Her finger pointed in turn to Teal'c, "He didn't get those muscles from the gym and he already knows." She shrugged once, "Besides, Cassie already knows, too. The only wild card is Tesa and if she's living here. If she's living here with Cassie, what's the harm?"

Eliot's eyes narrowed at her, "You're too trusting, Parker."

"And you're a stick in the mud," she retorted around a bite of pizza.

Before the conversation could escalate to a full blown argument, Vala jumped up and exclaimed, "Cake! Who wants cake?"

Cassie frowned up at the thief, "I have cake?"

Vala nodded with a grin, "I went out to buy it after we checked over the apartment. It's a 'We're happy you're not kidnapped' cake." She moved into the kitchen and came back a short time later with a very good looking three layered German chocolate cake. Another quick trip to the kitchen produced clean plates and forks.

Cassie frowned again in confusion, "What would you have called it if I had been kidnapped?"

Vala shrugged, "Nothing. Muscles would have been so depressed that we would have eaten the whole thing before Sam and Daniel got here with the troops."

Her eyes widened slightly at that announcement even as she accepted her very generous portion of cake.

Tesa clapped her hands together as she took her own plate. "Let's watch a movie."

Cassie groaned at the squeals of delight that came from Parker and Vala at the suggestion. She banged her head on the coffee table as she moaned, "I have to actually wake up in the morning, Tesa!"

Tesa playfully glared at Cassie, "You're a party pooper. It's only eleven o'clock."

"And I've been awake since four this morning -- working," Cassie dry-panned back to her. "While I know I can go a day without sleep and still function, it doesn't mean I want to."

The redhead thought over her options for a moment while Eliot got more and more uncomfortable with the situation. At long last Tesa replied to Cassie's statement, "Can we watch a movie if I wake up at four and do the pre-opening baking and stuff? I'm sure I can handle it with how you prepare, Cas."

After a tense moment Cassie nodded in acceptance to Tesa's plan.

"High Noon would be a most enjoyable film for such an occasion," Teal'c put in his opinion in such a way that Cassie automatically moved over to her DVD collection to find the Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly classic.

"What's that?" Parker asked as she alternated between a bite of pizza and a bite of cake.

"It's an old western with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly," Eliot explained to the culturally deprived Parker as Tesa looked at her with an odd look.

"It's all right, Parker," Vala said cheerily with a pointed look at Tesa, "I didn't know what Die Hard was until last week when Muscles made us watch it at team night. I didn't know who Gary Cooper was until Daniel and Mitchell had a rather extensive argument about whether he was better than John Wayne."

"John Wayne's better," Eliot said authoritatively. Vala gave Tesa a secretive look that Eliot wasn't sure he wanted to know the meaning of.

Cassie shook her head, "Gary Cooper kicks ass."

"Five words," Eliot responded, holding up a hand to illustrate the point, "How The West Was Won."

Cassie couldn't help but point out the obvious retort as she put the DVD into the player and powered everything up. "Dude, High Noon." She shrugged as she hit the play button, "Besides, Gary Cooper gets Grace Kelly."

Teal'c smiled slightly at Cassie's defense of Gary Cooper. "Indeed."

Less than halfway through the classic film, Cassie looked over to where Vala, Tesa, and Parker had sprawled out in front of the sofa. Tesa was curled up in a tight ball, sleeping soundly between the two thieves. Vala and Parker were both watching the screen with identical looks of interest and anticipation. Eliot was sitting on one side of the couch and Cassie was on the other while Teal'c sat in the massive arm chair he had contributed to Cassie's living room set when she had moved into her first apartment.

It was late for anyone who held a nine-to-five job and Cassie could feel her eyes droop sleepily even as she knew it would be hours still before sleep would claim her. She looked over at Eliot and found him looking at her with something resembling confusion. If it had been almost anyone else looking at her like that, she would have called them on it with a harsh words. Considering who it was, though, she thought Teal'c's method of staring at him silently would work better. He'd explain as soon as he was comfortable enough to do so ... or when he was so uncomfortable that he couldn't help but explain to get her to stop looking at him.

As they stared at each other, Cassie felt something ripple inside her, near the vicinity of her heart. Okay, so it was actually much lower than her heart. It was actually near her liver, but that's not the point. Eliot had the most expressive blue eyes she'd ever seen. Whenever Jack talked about how Sam's eyes told him things she was too afraid to voice, Cassie had never really believed him. Now she wasn't so sure.

After who knows how long (the train bearing the bad guy in the movie was approaching the town quickly and Grace Kelly had started to throw another silent fit about the situation), Eliot motioned slightly with his head for Cassie to follow him into the kitchen before getting up and taking a few of the plates with him.

Cassie followed suit, picking up empty glasses and dirty plates in an attempt to clean up a little before everyone left. Teal'c gave her a small nod as she brushed past him, letting her silently know that he was not opposed to the plan that was forming her mind.

When she walked into the kitchen Eliot was filling the sink full of dishes with warm water and adding some soap. "Do you have magic or some shit like that?" he asked quietly when she was a few feet away from him.

She was taken aback by the question but tried not to let him see how much it phased her. "Why would you say that? I don't understand."

He turned of the faucet before turning around to face her. His arms crossed protectively over his chest as he said, "I'm not a complicated person, Cassie. I've been burned so many times in the past that I don't trust people easily -- especially when I don't know them. You're a wild card." One hand went up to run through his hair nervously, "And for some unknown reason none of that matters when I'm with you."

With a deep breath she put the dishes down on the island in the middle of her kitchen before she responded without looking up at him. "You think I don't feel it, too?" she swallowed nervously as her eyes flickered up to his before turning to the floor so she could get through what she was about to say. "Things happened to me, Eliot. Horrible things that shouldn't happen to anyone, and I can count on one hand all the people I trust beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because they didn't leave me even when they thought I was about to explode."

Part of her hoped he took that statement figuratively, but when it came to Eliot's understanding, there was also a part that hoped he'd find out what she really meant by that. SG-1 had stayed with her, even with Nirrti's bomb inside of her, primed to explode. Sam hadn't left her to die alone.

She hesitated before lifting her head to look at the thief again. "This thing that's happening between us scares me. A lot, Eliot. I can't hide that when I'm with you, I don't want you to leave. When you saw me fighting last night ... I was more confident knowing you were there. I spent every minute I was at the bakery hoping that you'd walk in. And you did."

Tears pricked at her eyes and she tried to push them back, along with the torrent of emotion that accompanied them. She shook her head as she took one small step toward Eliot, "I'm not asking for commitment right now, Eliot. That would be silly. ... I just want to be able to talk to someone who isn't out to use me and who doesn't feel like they owe me anything. Someone who won't judge me."

He frowned as he considered her words. "What about Teal'c and Vala and the rest of them?" he finally asked, unsure why they would feel like they owed her.

She shook her head again, trying to put what happened in words that would not compromise "national security" and the integrity of the Stargate Program. "Teal'c and the rest of them feel responsible for how my family died. They're not, but they feel like they are. Tesa has spent the past five years trying to make up for yelling at me the day Janet died. The only reason we're even friends is because General Hammond thought she would make a good roommate for me in college."

That brought up another question he wanted to ask, "Why didn't you join the military when you graduated high school? Seems like you were headed that way with your family life and whatnot."

Her smile was bittersweet as she simply put things, "Because the one job I would have wanted was impossible for me to take."

"Okay," he nodded, accepting her answer as he moved to pick up the dirty dishes at her side. "You want someone you can trust. I do to. It's a rare thing for someone like me."

He turned back to the sink, depositing the dishes in the soapy water before resting his hands on the edge of the basin. Cassie came up next to him hesitantly, placing one of her hands next to his. Close enough that one of their pinkies could reach out and touch the other, but still not touching. "You're not a bad man, Eliot," she whispered. "We all have to do bad things sometimes."

Blue eyes turned to her and searched her face for any sign of insincerity before he whispered, "And what have you done that's so bad?"

The bittersweet smile returned to her face. "I'll tell you someday," she said, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"But not today," he added needlessly.

"No," she shook her head once, "Not today. Today it's enough that you trust me to stand behind you."

He smirked slightly, "And that you let me cook unsupervised in your kitchen."

Her smile turned more sweet than bitter, "Thanks for doing the dishes earlier."

"I don't like leaving messes," he replied, turning back to the sink full of dirty dishes as the sound of gunshots and yelling came from the television in the other room. "I wash, you dry?"

"Sounds like a plan, Cowboy," Cassie replied, picking up a dish towel and moving to his other side so she could more easily put the clean dishes away.

A/N: TADA!!!! If you review, you might get another chapter by Tuesday.