A/N: Written for Leverage Bingo and 10 weeks of Nate & Sophie. Both of them have a prompt "The King George Job", but I'm too lazy to write two different fics.
I know you all hated my last fic (only one review, seriously?), but I hope you'll like this one a little more.
This fic is unbeta'd, so apologize for all the mistakes, English is not my first language. but I'm looking for a beta reader right now, is there any nice person out there who is willing to save me from all my grammar mistakes and make my stories a little better?
It has been a long day for Nate.
Seven hours flight from London to Boston, followed by the procedure to get A'Yan out, then a team briefing on Mark Vector, and now he is sitting here in the closed bar, exhausted but painfully awake, mind still racing about all the possible ways to steal them a federal witness. Besides, sitting next to Sophie during the flight didn't help him at all either. The way she spent a large half of the journey staring out of the window without a word, and the other half disapprovingly eyeing his glass of whiskey irritated him, in fact, he has had that unsettling feeling ever since they met Keller in the tea room. Even now, half a bottle down, a plan almost made out, the darkness in the bar completely embracing him, the feeling is still there, clenching his stomach and tickling his inside.
Nate always welcomes the darkness. He is the only one there; the door is closed, the shadow has swallowed everything, reducing the world outside to merely a humming sound. It calms him, he slowly breathes in and out the crispy cold air, trying to banish all the unneeded thoughts from his head.
It's Sophie who breaks the quietness (he can recognize her by the sound of her heels on the floor). The door cracks open and brings in the only light.
"You should get some sleep, Nate." She speaks softly, tiredness quite evident in her own voice.
He could make out her silhouette against the backlight, seconds later, when his eyes readjust to the light, he notices she has changed to something soft and comfortable, gone are the heavy makeup of Duchess and the tangled pearl necklaces around her neck. He always suspects this version of Sophie is closer to who she really is under all the layers and lies, but then, what does he know, really.
She sighs at his lack of reaction, leans against the counter and takes away the glass from his grasp. The feeling of her finger brushing over his own finally makes something inside him snap.
"So, Lady Charlotte Prentice, uh?" He draws out every syllable deliberately.
He doesn't miss the way her eyes widen slightly. "Nate." His name falls from her lips, like a warning, or a plea, he couldn't tell.
He moves the glass closer to him, intentionally filling it fully while watching her intensely. "You know, Sophie, I can't help but wonder, every time you take my drink away, is it because of your guilt, you are afraid that I might drink myself to an early death, just like William."
She inhales sharply, anger flaming in her eyes. For a split second, he thinks she is going to slap him.
Her lips tremble a little when she pushes the words out with force. "Your drinking constantly puts us in danger, Nate, I have to do it for the team. And, I do care about you, you know it."
But he doesn't know, not for sure. The thing about Sophie, is she always is an enigma, a mystery, there will always be a part of her that was hidden from everyone, him included. Every time he thinks he gets closer, thinks he may see the real her, something turns up and hits him unprepared, and he is again back to unsure.
For all these years he has known her, the doubt has always been there. It's part of the reason they're still where they're now. He can say for certain now he has become an important part in Sophie's life, but what about Charlotte, Jenny, Katherine, Annie, and what about the real her? Does Jenny, Katherine, Annie, or whoever her other alias are, also has a Nate or a William in her life? He knows her, knows be it Sophie, Charlotte, or Jenny, she bats her lashes and men fall under her charm. He sees it happens every day. So he can't help but wonder, in some moments like this, if he is just one of them.
"You know what's so funny?" Nate knocks down his drink in one gulp, winces at the burning feel. "We talk a lot now, but you never said a thing about yourself, and yet...yet you're the one who always accuse me for not opening up."
Her gaze drops, fixing on a non-exited point somewhere between them. For a while, their breaths are the only sound in the room.
She wants to blame him for that, because, it has been about him all along, him mourning over his son, his father issue, his drinking problem, him him him and there is no her in their relationship. He never asks and she couldn't bring herself to burden him with her own past when he already has so much (too much) on his shoulders. But it's not entirely fair, she knows, to blame him for everything when she is the one who wants to shut away her past, who pretends changing character is no different from changing clothes, who tries so hard to convince herself that her cons are just like plays, when the show ends and the curtain closes, what has happened on stage will soon become nothing but a fictional story.
Except it's not. It always comes back and haunts her.
"That was a life time ago." She sighs. When Sophie finally looks up, the regret and sadness in her eyes are so plain that Nate almost wants to reach for her.
He clenches his hands around the glass to keep them from reaching out, but his tone is so much softer. "What happened?"
"Oh you know, just a con went wrong." She shakes her head slightly, her gaze miles away. "I wanted to run a long con to get myself a royal persona, everything seemed easier when you have a royal title, so I picked a mark, took my time and went through everything you needed to marry a Duke. But I was so young then, hadn't fully realized the danger of a long con."
"It fires back at you." He speaks understandingly.
She nods and continues, sounding almost wistful. "Despite all the lies, we actually had a good time. Eighteen months into the marriage, I was still in the family. Then I suddenly realized I got too comfortable with that life and I fell..."
She glances at him fleetingly. He takes a long sip of his drink, pretending not to notice the tiny crack in her voice and the unspoken words hanging heavily in the air.
"I was really scared. Worrying what would happen if he found out the real me, doubting if that normal life would be enough for me ten years, twenty years later. So I found some excuses, picked a fight with him and ran off. Three years later, I heard rumors about he drowning himself in bottles ever since."
"You could go back to him, you know, if you..." The word tastes much more bitter than he thought, "if you really loved him." He wonders, if she came back for him, because she didn't go back then.
"I was planning to. But I was in a job, and then you shot me in Paris, and then I had to stay away from Europe for a while just in case, and... I don't know, things just kept coming up...When I finally went back, I was only in time for his funeral." He can hear her voice cracks all over the place. "William was a good man, gentle, caring, madly in love with Charlotte. But I ruined him."
She is openly crying now. Nate offers her his handkerchief, she dabs it around her eyes, trying not to mess up her makeup, but soon gives up and wipes her cheeks furiously wanting the tears to stop.
She curses something under her breath, and inhales deeply when tears finally slow down. "Grifters' rule no.1, never fall in love in a con." She flashes him a wan smile through watery breaths (his heart shatters at the sight). "See what it always gets me into."
He gives up his glass at last. Reaching for her, his finger brushes over her cheeks gently and catches the last drop of her tear.
He wonders then even if he knows this is nothing but another con of hers, he is no more than just another man in her another persona, could he simply stop falling?
Probably not, he muses.
He can only pray it will be a life-long con, or he may have to seek consolation in drink, and die a broken heart.
xx
A/N: I don't normally ask for reviews, but I'd really like to hear what you think of this, or at least let me know someone is still reading.
