Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a Genre Swap to Deal With The Devil, a Berry-St series story, originally posted November 19 2011.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Iced to the Bone.

"The Notorious Lopez"
AU!Rachel & Santana (+ AU!Jesse/AU!Quinn)
Berry-St series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Genre: Mystery/gangster

They were all fairly small time, the three of them. They liked to think they were much more than they really were, a lot of the time, but for their own good, she had to call things the way they were, at least when it was necessary. It had become necessary when it became clearer, much clearer, that they were getting in over their heads. Her partners were too busy being all about one another to notice they were losing whatever edge they might have had.

They had been preparing for this con for over a month, and as much as they worked, they knew they were not ready. They couldn't even fix a date for their hit because they had too little information. The pull would be monumental, whenever they did it, so it was better that they be ready, but then… they never seemed to be getting there. If that wasn't enough, all of them had somehow grown accustomed to their fake little lives, as they held to their positions, gathering information, making plans… Some days it felt like they weren't trying to do anything except earn a day's wages. If they weren't careful, if she wasn't careful, then her partners would cosy themselves right into a house, a marriage, a family… She had bigger aspirations than this, and as much as she would have liked to leave them behind and move along, she knew she just couldn't do that. So she needed another option.

It was as they had started discussing bringing someone else on to their team, a local who would have a better view on the matter, that she'd had the idea. She would bring in a local alright… a local legend.

They knew of Santana Lopez by name only, though everyone would swear they knew her, like it added credibility to their name. Everyone knew her for what she was, a grifter, a swindler, a con woman, and yet she had managed to earn a reputation for herself. She was friends with lawmen, most of them perfectly honest and holding to the law, even though they knew exactly who she was and what she was known for. She was untouchable… and Rachel was going to achieve what most people in her standing could only dream of: she would get her to work with them.

The first step in doing that would be to get her attention, and as public and visible as she could make herself, the woman did not travel alone, usually surrounded by people whose sole purpose was to protect her from any harm. But Rachel had two things on her side: first, she was a woman, which from what she heard was a step ahead in catching Santana's eye, and second, she wasn't without skills in what she did or tried to do for a living. So one night she had left the house she shared with her partners, her best dress on, hair and everything done just right, and she made her way to the club where the woman was known to spend most evenings. So long as Rachel looked like she fit in there, she would have no problem.

Cutting her way through the crowded room, her eyes searched until she found her target, and when she did her breath couldn't help but catch a little. She had seen pictures of Santana Lopez before, in the papers, but those could never hope to do her justice, especially after having seen her in public… and this was still from across the room. She imagined being within speaking distance would be like breathing with only one lung working. She could almost feel herself take a deep breath in anticipation before she went for her approach. She traced her path strategically so to enter the woman's line of sight while she was still some distance away, and then she continued to do just this, all the while growing nearer. Eventually she had dared to turn her eyes in her direction, and was pleased to find the woman was staring back at her. So that was step one.

"Hey! You took my watch!" a man suddenly reached for her wrist, turning her around.

"Please, I don't know what are talking about," Rachel showed herself frightened. "You're hurting my arm, let me go!" she tried to free herself. A moment later, one of the large bodyguards who had been flanking the Lopez booth appeared out of nowhere.

"This guy bothering you, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice matching his stature entirely.

"She took my watch!" he held up his arm, and the guard frowned.

"That watch?" he pointed to the band which rested around the man's wrist.

"Well, I…" the man appeared flustered. "It wasn't there a moment ago, she…"

"Maybe it's time we cut you off for the night. Go home, sleep it off," he signalled the men at the door and the accuser was led away. "You alright?" the guard asked Rachel.

"I-I think so, I… Thank you," she looked to him.

"My boss would like to offer you a drink," he indicated the booth.

"Oh, it's not… I don't want to impose."

"It's no trouble," the man insisted, and so Rachel followed him. Santana stood from her seat, offering a hand for Rachel to take the step up into the booth.

"That was quite a show," was her greeting as they both sat and a waiter placed a glass before Rachel, refreshing Santana's drink on the way. "You know, the way you took his watch and then returned it to him while he was manhandling you? Seamless, really," she didn't express too much surprise or praise: she stated the facts. Rachel took a sip of her drink, dropping the doe-eyed act.

"I have a proposition for you." Santana laughed.

"Do you?"

"I have a crew," Rachel went on.

"Good for you."

"We're working on something, a big hit."

"Honey, I'm not struggling here," Santana shook her head.

"Bet you did, once. Had to start," Rachel didn't want to look thrown, and she wouldn't.

"So, what, you expect me to take you under my wing? I work alone, that's how it works. You came alone here tonight, something tells me you're the one with the initiative in this… crew of yours. If that's the case, then let me give you one piece of advice: ditch the extra weight."

"That's what I'm trying to do." For the first time since she had been invited to sit with her, Santana showed at least some curiosity.

"If it's that kind of assistance you're looking for, hate to break it to you but I don't do with killing."

"I never said anything about killing anyone," Rachel clarified. "No, but you're right, I'm plenty interested in going out on my own. But I've put in too many hours on this job already, I can't go at it alone, and if my partners catch wind of me trying to strike out, they'll cut me off, and then I can't afford that… unlike you. I just need to make sure I can send them off on their merry way, everyone satisfied, and right now there is no way that is happening, because like you said I'm the one with the initiative."

"Alright, I can sympathize with that. But in case I haven't made this clear already, you and I are in two completely different leagues. I can appreciate the admiration, but I don't see what you can offer me that would make it worth my while."

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of something," Rachel sat back, and if her message wasn't clear, then Santana had to be blind. Judging by her smirk, the woman knew exactly what she was suggesting though, and she sat back as well, considering.

"I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing, getting back down to those early days. You and your people might actually learn a thing or two," she picked up her glass and bowed her head to Rachel before drinking it down.

"So I'll take that as a yes," Rachel presented herself just as cool and unaffected.

"I'm warning you now, when I expect to collect from you, I will collect," she looked her in the eye, and Rachel held her gaze, finishing off her glass and slamming it back on to the table.

"You just name your price."

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!