Author's note: This is based off a headcannon I found on tumblr. Not sure it went where I was planning but I think it turned out pretty good.
Headcannon: On at least three occasions, Sophie has posed as a police officer and been assigned to catch herself.
Disclaimer: I don't own leverage. i only own the plot
The first time it happened, Sophie thought it was hilarious. The police had run into the hotel, not bothering with subtlety and ended up raiding the wrong room. She walked out the front door and was about to catch a cab when she saw the spare uniform in the open trunk of the police cruiser. She couldn't really be blamed for what happened next, not when they left the uniform right there.
Sophie walked back in the hotel, now dressed as one of cops searching for her. Said cops were just now realizing they had the wrong room and moving to the correct room. Sophie movie closer to the door, she only need to grab a bag in the closet and she would be gone.
The man in charge gave the signal, the door was opened, and a dozen cops plus Sophie Devereaux swarmed into the room. Sophie moved to the closet as the rest of the men and women cleared the room and was nearly out the door when a hand landed on her shoulder. She froze for a second before turning to the man behind her.
"Where do you think you're going officer?" the man questioned gruffly, she recognized him as the man who gave the signal for them to enter the room.
"I found this bag in the closet, I was just going to get a bigger evidence bag for it."
"We found a passport on the dresser, radio in the details and get an APB, this woman isn't going to get far." He handed Sophie the passport as he walked her to the door and gave her her orders.
"O-Of course, sir. I'll do that right away." She turned on her inappropriately expensive heel and walked briskly down the hall.
She was 45 minutes away from the hotel when the adrenaline finally started to wear off and she laughed. Of all her characters, none of them had been charged to help bring her in.
The second time it happened, Sophie didn't laugh. She didn't smile. She didn't smirk at being able to fool the men chasing her. She kept her lips from trembling and the tears from falling. She kept her voice steady and her head high.
The police had raided her apartment. She wasn't sure how they knew about it but she was pretty sure Nathan Ford had helped. The painting she had taken from one his clients was one of two valuable things missing and the police tape over her door told her who had the necklace.
She had impersonated a police officer once in America, she could do it here in Vietnam as well. It took her a day to find a uniform and by then she had her fake ids ready. Sophie knew the painting was gone, Ford was the best and he wouldn't leave it in a police lock up, but the necklace, that would be with the rest of the jewelry with the police.
So, two days after the raid, Sophie Devereaux walked into the police station dressed to blend with men and women who worked there. She followed a man carrying a large bin that said evidence in large red letters into the elevator.
"What floor?" the man asked.
"Evidence." Sophie responded, Chinese was far from her best language but her Vietnamese was worse.
"I don't think I've seen you around here, today your first day?" he had a nice voice, Sophie noticed, there was something about it that caught her attention but she couldn't say what.
"I'm just collecting some evidence, this isn't my precinct." Like all of Sophie's aliases, this one had a complete background. Unlike most of her aliases, this one would not hold up under too much scrutiny. Luckily the elevator doors opened and saved her from any more questions.
She walked quickly down the corridor and found the evidence desk. Pulling out her id, she requested all evidence from case 217. She had done her research and knew she would be out of the building in 5 – 7 minutes, depending on how long it took the woman behind the desk to retrieve the evidence.
Exactly as planned, 5 minutes later she was standing in the alley behind the precinct, holding Cleopatra's Emerald. She smiled and mused at how easy it was to steal from the police.
"You're not really a police officer, are you?" She turned and saw the man from the elevator, no longer speaking Chinese she could hear his true, southern accent much clearer.
'That must be what I noticed before, his accent didn't sound quite right.' She mused as she looked him over.
He pulled out a gun and she stilled her movements, eyeing the man carefully. He had sharp blue eyes, his hands were steady, and his body language told her in no uncertain terms that he could and would pull the trigger if he felt the need.
Keeping both hands open and in view she moved closer to him.
"Obviously, neither of us are police, what do you say we just go our separate ways, forgetting we ever saw each other? Hmm, no harm done, we both get what we want." She smiled then, seeing him relax slightly. Then he smirked and his eyes were hard.
"Well ma'am that could work, 'cept I was sent here to retrieve that emerald that you're holding. Now I'm just guessing but if you're willing to sneak into a building full of cops, you ain't gonna just hand it over."
Sophie studied him for a moment. "No, no I'm not going to give you this emerald, perhaps we can come to some other arrangement. My name is Anna, by the way." She held out her hand, moving the hand with the emerald further from the man.
"Victor" he said as he removed one hand from his gun. Victor didn't reach for her outstretched hand though, instead he went for the hand with the emerald.
What happened next was a blur for Sophie. She reached for the gun but he was quick and pulled his arm away. His other hand was still reaching for the emerald and soon they were close, much closer than they had been. The gun and the emerald were between them. The struggle ended abruptly when the gun went off, the loud bang echoing down the alley. They fell and Sophie was quick to get off of the man beneath her. She stared in shock at the man, whose eyes which were so alive when he stepped into the alley not 10 minutes ago, who didn't appear to be breathing. She knelt beside him and reached a shaking hand to check his pulse, first searching at his wrist then moving to his throat. She couldn't find one.
She stood and started to back away when 3 officers ran into the alley, having been called by the gunshot. They asked what happened and she told them. She told them a woman was in the alley, she was trying to steal something and he tried to take it from her. They struggled and he was shot. The woman shot him. Sophie held out a diamond necklace, told them that it was what the woman was trying to steal. The largest man, the one clearly in charge, told her to get to the border, the woman was probably trying to flee the country and they needed to stop her.
So she went. She made it to the border, much like she had planned before the man had stepped into the alley. She made it all the way to England before she lost her composure. After a long sleepless night, she decided it was time to move on. South America was sounding like a nice option, a whole world away from China and dark alleys and blue eyed cowboys named Victor.
Meanwhile, back in Vietnam, in a small town next to the Chinese border, the three policemen left to get a coroner. They never saw the man's hand close tightly around a dark green stone. They never saw him get up and brace himself against the building as he inspected the bullet hole in his shoulder. They never saw him walk away with a smirk, shoving large emerald in his pocket.
Five years later, Sophie Devereaux would meet the cowboy again. Neither one recognizing the other until Nathan Ford asked them when the last time they met a Victor was. They never talked about it and when Sophie received a large fake emerald that clear said "made in china" 3 years later, they never felt need to explain why it made Sophie laugh or why her eyes seemed to glimmer just a little more.
The third time it happened, Sophie laughed and told Nate that she would be there in 5 minutes. She didn't bother answering the voice coming through the cruisers radio, warning all officers that someone had stolen a police cruiser and to be on the watch for cruiser number 127.
There was another crew in town and one of them had tried to kill her. Sophie hated it when people tried to kill her, it messed up so many of her plans. It also made her realize she needed to make some new plans.
She pulled up the police cruiser up to the auction house and walked over to Nate and Marcus, enjoying the surprise on his face as they told him how they fooled him.
She enjoyed the look on Chaos's face as he was arrested even more, even if was through security camera.
As she sat there in McCrory's Pub, surrounded by her friends, she knew she needed to leave. She needed to figure out who she was. She was going to chase Sophie Devereaux around the world if she had to. Hopefully she could do a better job than any of her cop aliases did.
Let me know what you think. All criticism is welcome.