A/N: Here it is, my long-awaited (well, by me at least) foray into multi-chapter fic. This baby has been percolating for quite some time and is finally almost finished, just in time for season 2 to start airing and throw the whole thing out the window. :) This story falls into my previously established AU timeline from His Girls and Her Diamonds, and will reference events that occurred in both of my episode tags, Aftermath and After Hours. Don't worry, though - if you haven't read any of those stories, you won't be in the least bit lost. This falls within the show's timeline sometime after Russet Potatoes but before Blood Brothers.

While inspired by, and titled after, the Barenaked Ladies song Conventioneers, this is not strictly a songfic. All characters from the show and places you recognize belong to their respective owners; I'm just having a little fun.

Onward!

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MGM Grand Hotel & Casino

Las Vegas, NV

Wednesday, 2PM

"Hello? Earth to Charlie!" The tall redhead waved her hands in front of her companion's face, trying to get his attention and snap him out of his reverie.

"Sorry honey," he said with a sheepish grin, "I guess I zoned out a little there."

His wife barely stifled a chuckle. "Zoned out? You were practically on another planet. You're bored, aren't you?"

"Nahhhh. Well, maybe just a little. I am definitely hungry, though."

Lucy Brown didn't even attempt to hold in her laughter at that comment. "You're always hungry. But we have been here all morning and we pretty much skipped lunch, so give me five more minutes and then our afternoon is all yours, okay?" She punctuated this request with the sweetest smile she could muster, that hid just a hint of mischievousness.

Her husband, Charlie, raised a skeptical eyebrow. "All afternoon? Promise?" Lucy leaned in close and whispered in his left ear, just loudly enough for their audience to hear, "All afternoon. I promise." Leaning backward, so as not to completely cut the vendor she'd been talking to out of the conversation, she continued. "I'll meet you in the lobby and we'll plan our next move." She made a little shooing motion as she turned back to finish her conversation, to indicate that their discussion was over.

Wayne Rigsby maneuvered his way around hundreds of booths of vendors selling every kind of antique imaginable, crossing the convention floor in the Marquee Ballroom at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at a fairly quick pace. Normally, an undercover operation in Vegas would have been his idea of a fun week's work, but this had been no ordinary operation, as he and Van Pelt had been posing since they'd arrived in town on Sunday as a young married couple on a delayed honeymoon. No sooner was he out of the convention hall, freed from the noise of wheelers and dealers, than he found himself dodging gamblers and waitstaff on the casino floor, assaulted by visuals and sounds of an entirely different color. He found an oversized chair in the main lobby and sank into it, grateful to be off his feet for the first time all day.

Rigsby's cell phone vibrated, and he pressed the button on his Bluetooth headset to answer the call. "Careful Rigsby, you and Van Pelt are getting so good at this undercover thing, you might actually convince some people that you're really married." Kimball Cho's deadpan humor coming through the headset would ordinarily be just the thing to break up the stress of this mission, but Rigsby was tired and in no mood to play along.

"Shut it, Cho. Wasn't Vegas PD supposed to have executed the warrant already?"

"LVPD sent plainclothes officers downstairs about ten minutes ago. Hotel management wanted them to get this done as discreetly as possible, since the convention is going on until Friday. Didn't want too many vendors catching wind of what happened and bailing out early." Their boss, Teresa Lisbon, took over, as Rigsby realized his colleagues were on speakerphone. "Rigsby, round up Van Pelt and come on back upstairs. LVPD has taken the suspects into custody so we need to wrap things up."

"You got it, boss. I see her leaving the convention hall; we'll be upstairs in ten." Rigsby tapped the power button on the headset, shutting it and his phone off at the same time and pulled the device out of his ear. He saw Van Pelt scanning the crowd in the lobby; she found him pretty easily, strode over to his chair and promptly sat in his lap, leaning in closely so they could have a quiet conversation.

"Did you talk to Lisbon? What's our next step?" She was leaning in so closely he could smell the lotion she'd put on this morning; her voice in his ear was driving him nuts, so he leaned back into the chair a bit, hoping to put a little distance between them.

"LVPD has taken over, so we're done for the time being. You're having way too much fun with this cover story, by the way."

Van Pelt noticed the change in his body language and backed off a little; she knew she might have pushed a little too far, but their cover story had been her idea and she didn't want to drop the charade until she was certain it was no longer necessary. She climbed out of the chair, grabbing Rigsby's hand and dragging him to his feet. "C'mon, let's get you back to the room. I'm sure you weren't kidding when you said you were hungry." He gave her what Van Pelt had dubbed the "charm smile" - a lopsided half-grin that made his hazel eyes twinkle just a touch - and she tugged him through the maze of corridors that led to their section of the hotel's immense property.