Summary: A recap of the end of Sly 2, which marks a sort of first date between Sly and Carmelita.
Sly was a bit disappointed that what had happened was right before him and Carmelita were supposed to have their first date. Which meant that, unfortunately, they would have to wait to have their day together. Or, so they had thought.
The short version was that Carmelita's partner, Constable Neyla, had betrayed them and used the pieces of Clockwerk to become a similar being, dubbed Clock-La. Sly and his gang had defeated her, but at quite the cost. Bentley's legs were broken, and he was probably crippled. They stood amid the wreckage of the now vanquished Clock-La, but Sly had noticed that the parts weren't damaged in the slightest, aside from the separation of them. They remained pristine, somehow. As Sly stood beside Murray, who was clutching the now horribly wounded Bentley to his chest, Carmelita came down from seemingly nowhere in a helicopter.
The Inspector was absolutely livid, for plenty of good reasons: Neyla had stabbed her in the back, she had missed her date with Sly, and at the moment what she considered to be the worst of all was that her ex-partner wasn't there for her to land a few hits on. She had come up to the solemn gathering, and Sly could immediately tell that the vixen was seething with rage. Carmelita, in a sudden outburst of rage, grabbed the Hate Chip from the thief, thrown it to the ground, and crushed it with the heel of her boot.
Just like that, the pieces began to age, and after some time, faded away. Sly had thought it ironic that the Interpol agent had freed the Cooper lineage from Clockwerk, and he took some comfort in knowing that the hellish metal bird would never come back to threaten Sly or his children. He then smiled to himself, considering he had a pretty good idea who, exactly, he might be having some of those children with.
Carmelita, however, didn't have anything to think about except how much it sucked that she hadn't been there sooner, and raised her shock pistol.
"Alright, Cooper, game's over. You and your friends are under arrest," she told the trio.
Sly took a moment to glance over at Bentley and Murray. That glance told him all he needed to know, that all of them couldn't make a fast getaway like they had last time.
"Miss Fox."
Carmelita's eyes trained on the raccoon.
"I'll go quietly...if you let my friends go."
The fox considered it for a moment. She had learned a while ago that it was rather difficult saying no to Sly, and so, she simply nodded her head. Sly watched his friends walk away, before the vixen got behind him and pressed the barrel of the pistol into his back. She led him back to the helicopter, in handcuffs, and after a short conversation with her boss that consisted of a congratulations for clearing her name and a well-earned promotion, Sly couldn't help but smile, and think to himself, You're welcome.
Once the pair were on the helicopter, Sly and Carm had sat opposite one another. They did nothing for a while except stare at each other, trying to read the other's thoughts.
Carmelita was thinking about a few things, namely how her feelings conflicted on her capturing the thief. She was happy, because she had proven herself, and would be moving up in her field, but also sad, for she loved him and didn't entirely want to turn her in. She couldn't pick anything up off of Sly. He was good at remaining calm, and didn't show any hint of emotion on his face except that stupid smile he got when he was trying to be cute with her, which had annoyed her so many times.
"I suppose you win this time, Miss Fox," Sly had said, with a slight shrug. "It's a shame this is going to end."
"You and I must have different definitions of the word 'shame'," the vixen replied. The pair had to at least try and keep up the act, the one which showed that their relationship was strictly professional.
"Oh, please. You aren't going to miss our encounters; you telling me how much you'd like to see me behind bars and screaming how I wasn't going to get away that time, and me, of course, getting away that time?"
"You didn't get away this time, Ringtail, don't forget about that."
"I've got a trick or two you haven't seen too much of yet. Especially the one I used last time," Sly had said, a smirk on his face. He figured that she was probably going to blush or something, both at the reminder that he could get away and the reminder of how that getaway was probably his best one yet.
"You try that again, and I promise you you'll be in that cell with a couple hundred more volts in you than you should," Carmelita replied coldly, but she smiled at him afterwards.
"Oh, Carm, you wound me sometimes," he had chuckled, shortly before Carmelita laughed a bit too.
There was a bit of silence, in which Sly had gotten an idea. They had missed their date, because of all the craziness that had happened, and perhaps Sly could make this exactly that.
"So, Inspector, since I'm never going to see you again, as a sort of last request, why don't you tell me what it is you do when you aren't chasing me down?"
Carmelita wasn't quite expecting that, but she answered all the same. "Oh, you know, same as everyone else...books, music, art, all that."
He laughed a bit. "Could you be a bit more specific?"
She did get specific, and coincidentally, they shared many of the same interests. They both had enjoyed the book The Catcher in the Rye when the both of them were forced to read it in high school. Sly's all-time favorite book, though, was one called Catch-22 that Carmelita had never gotten to read, to which Sly promised he'd loan her his paperback of the book, which he also promised he had bought and not stolen. Carmelita said her favorite book was probably one of the Sherlock Holmes books, a series Sly had indeed read and thoroughly enjoyed.
After discussing novels for a bit, they moved on to music. Carmelita said her favorite musician was definitely Neil Diamond, saying she owned all of his records and not much of anything else. Sly had never taken a chance to listen to him, but promised himself he would now that he knew it was something she was interested in. Sly wasn't a big fan of commercial music, being a bit more into things he could do himself. Bentley had taught him to play guitar - Sly had insisted after finding out that girls were very much interested in musicians - and he was trying to learn how to play this golden violin he had stolen on one of his heists. It sounded horrible, though, probably had something to do with it being made of gold.
The pair briefly touched on the subject of art. Sly wasn't very much into art either, but Carmelita certainly was. She didn't own very many paintings, the best of them being somewhat expensive and not having enough space in her miniscule apartment to hang all of the ones she wanted to up. But, she said that one of her favorite artists was definitely Picasso, to which Sly replied that he had probably taken a few of his originals on his heists.
After a while, they had run out of things to talk and laugh about. They started talking a bit about their past encounters, and the vixen said something that caught Sly's attention.
"You know, I had a bottle of champagne saved for when I finally caught you."
"Really, now?" Sly thought that funny, considering how things were between them now.
As if to prove it, she showed him the bottle, and would have cracked it open right then and there and perhaps even given some to Sly if she hadn't seen her watch and noticed that they had been on that helicopter for two hours. She looked at Sly confusedly for a moment, before setting the bottle down, and heading up to ask the pilot what was taking so long.
Sly had gotten out of his handcuffs an hour ago. He had stayed because him and Carmelita were having so much fun, but, unfortunately, the fun had to come to an end now. She turned around, after seeing that there was no pilot in the first place, just in time to find Sly holding the bottle of champagne, and waving goodbye, saying, "I'll swing by later so we can reschedule, Miss Fox, but now, I've got to be going."
He jumped out, and began floating to the ground with the aid of his para-glider. He could scarcely hear it, but hear it he did, and it was the resounding call of Carmelita's voice.
"I'll find you, Cooper!"
She was peering out from the helicopter, and watched him float away. A small smile played at the corners of her lips. She wasn't going to find him, but he was definitely going to find her. She would be waiting for him, and the vixen said to herself one last thing before she would get back to HQ.
"I'll be seeing you soon, Ringtail."