Two and a half Hours Before the Incident…

Sophie had just finished her portion of the job. She was walking out of a very fine and expensive restaurant when she put her hands in her pockets. She felt around for the tiny piece of paper she felt in it before the meeting began. She pulled it out and read.

Meet you tonight in the kitchen.

It was signed with a heart and Sophie smiled at it. She caught herself before she twirled. Bubbles were filling her chest at the note's six little words. Then her brown eyes rose and met a field of blue. Nate was waiting for her across the street looking like a sick puppy.

Her smile faded.

The bubbles disbursed.

Present…

Nate stared at the metal cuffs around his wrists. The high from before was gone. Now he was sitting in the police interrogation room in the middle of the police station with nothing to do but think and wait. Both were his worst enemy right now as he thought of all the ways he could have imagined the miracle of two hours ago.

Of course the detectives made him wait for two hours. They had forced him to take a swab sample then they just left him cuffed to the table so he could process everything. They were trying to make him sweat, make him speak. They obviously had evidence or a strong reason to think he was the one who stabbed the grifter. And why not? He did run but only to buy himself some time. They wouldn't believe that though. No, they were under the theory that he ran because of a guilty conscience. They would ignore his track record and question his every motive. He was stuck.

Thankfully Rizzoli and Frost decided to pick that very moment as their entrance. They both smiled at him and sat down in the chairs. Well, Frost was smiling while Rizzoli seemed to be playing bad cop for this round.

"Why did you do it?" Rizzoli demanded immediately.

"If you did it," Frost added still smiling.

Nate just stared at them. He was still trying to process the likelihood of Sophie waking up. He didn't have time for trivial things like alibies. He didn't even have enough sleep to think. He was still wearing the same clothes from when this whole nightmare began. He hadn't showered and he was cuffed to a table.

"Not talking," Rizzoli rolled her eyes, "That's rich. I suppose you want your lawyer too."

"Because that is your right," Frost supplied.

"I didn't stab her," Nate growled at the detectives. He shook his head and scowled at the suggestion. "I couldn't."

"Right," Rizzoli laughed. She stood to her full height and walked around the room like she had something better to do. It was as if she had the whole case figured out. She was strutting around like she knew he was the attacker. "Let me guess. You love her."

Nate nodded. She rolled her eyes at him again.

"Because we've never heard that one before," she said, "Do us all a favor and admit it. I would like to go home and sleep. Frost has a date. We would all benefit from this."

"I didn't stab Sophie!" Nate glared at the detectives. There was venom in his voice and he knew that only made him look guilty. He just didn't care. They were keeping him away from her. Every second spent in this interview was time wasted on finding her real attacker. They were wasting Sophie's time, time that was barely on their side.

"We have evidence of you having an argument with her several hours before the incident," Frost replied. "If you didn't stab her, why were you fighting?"

"I don't remember," Nate lied.

Rizzoli was suddenly in his face, hot and angry. Her eyes were glaring daggers into his and she looked ready to plug him right there.

"Just like you didn't know about her affair?" She asked.

Nate's face fell at the indication. He felt the blood leaving his face as his heart stopped. His fingers grew numb with cold. His chest hurt and fear crept into his soul.

"What?" He asked, his breath shaking from the implication.

Rizzoli and Frost shared a curious look.

"You didn't know about the affair?" Frost questioned softly. His eyebrows were cast downwards as he tried to decide if the mastermind was lying.

Nate shook his head and returned his gaze to his cuffs. His blue eyes dimmed with thoughts and memories of the past few days. Things that were confusing before were suddenly starting to click. He was going down a road he had been denying for months. He shook his head again and tried to stop the voices of doubt.

"She wouldn't," he explained, "not after Maggie."

"We already know you knew," Rizzoli growled once again rolling her eyes, "We traced the bugs we found in the house back to you. Would you like us to refresh your memory?"

She motioned towards the two-way mirror. Maura took that as her cue and pressed the button. A strange noise filled the room. Two voices were there and they sounded like they believed they were completely alone. They were in bed together in the literal sense, both voices painfully familiar. One was the delightful Sophie Devereaux while the other belonged to one Eliot Spencer.

Nate tried his hardest to tune the noise out, but he couldn't. He struggled against his cuffs and begged the detectives to turn it off. Betrayal and jealousy were coursing through his veins. His heart was burning and he felt sick to his stomach. The world was spinning around him.

"You confronted her about it with Spencer," Frost explained softly, "She denied it. You grew angry and you had a fight. You told her you loved her and that you needed her and she just kept throwing your heart back in your face like it didn't matter."

"So you waited for the perfect opportunity and stabbed her," Jane finished, "and you just kept stabbing her until you were certain she would survive."

"No," Nate shook his head. His voice sounded like it did whenever he thought or talked about Sam. Prickles were attacking his eyes and his hands were vibrating in their cuffs. He shook his head again.

"No," he said, "You're wrong. She wouldn't. She couldn't."

"You're a very convincing actor, Ford," Rizzoli hissed at him, "but we all know you did it. Admit it and save your friends the trouble."

"You made a mistake," Frost supplied, "It was in the heat of the moment. You were emotionally unstable. It was completely out of your hands."

"Don't you dare say that!" Nate screamed at the young man, "Don't you ever suggest stabbing Sophie was a crime of passion!"

He internally groaned at the rise to bait but he couldn't help it. He felt so useless. He felt duped. No, they were wrong. He knew Eliot and he knew Sophie. They would never betray him like this. They had gone through too much.

"She would never cheat on me!" He yelled at them forcing eye contact so they could see they were wrong. "Never! Not after Sam! Not after Maggie! She wouldn't do that! She couldn't."

Frost and Rizzoli exchanged another worried look. Then the female detective nodded her head. A new set of noises blared through the speakers. It was the same voices but clearly a different time. Their tempo was different and they seemed in perfect sync.

Nate shook his head and closed his eyes against the sound. He tried to place his hands over his ears but they were still cuffed. He howled in pain and begged them to make it stop. He banged his head against the table until they made it stop. He couldn't stand that sound. He couldn't stand the betrayal. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't. The noises blessedly stopped and he almost sighed in relief.

"They sound pretty convincing to me," Frost said.

Nate glared at the young man. He turned a hateful eye on his partner and shook his head. He felt nothing but rage at what they were doing. They were calling his grifter a-

"Would you like to hear the recording of them telling each other how in love they are?" Jane snapped towards him with venom.

"NO!" Nate snapped back as expected, "She didn't- You're making this up! This is all your way of getting rid of this case because you don't want to waste time on thieves! You're actually manipulating evidence so you can get me in prison on a murder charge. Yeah, you're trying to get me in there longer and you know a simple heist charge wouldn't do it. Do you even want to catch her killer?"

Jane stared at the mastermind in complete and utter shock. She shook her head and turned towards the mirror in disbelief. She was having a silent conversation with whoever was behind the glass. Then she turned back around and shook her head.

"You really didn't know," she said, "did you?"

Nate stared at the detective and finally understood. He looked down at his cuffs and swallowed his reply. All he could do was shake his head and try not to wallow in self-pity. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have not seen it from the very beginning?

He watched as Frost kindly and carefully removed each cuff from his wrist. He observed Rizzoli poking and prodding at his fingers. They made certain no damage had been done to his arms. They asked him simple yes or no questions, questions he only had to nod or shake to. They gave him water and tried to console him however they could.

"Why?" He finally asked.

"Why what?" Frost demanded back. He looked towards his partner in confusion. She merely shrugged in reply. They both had no idea what was going on.

"Why did they do this to me?" The mastermind whimpered.

%

Jane stared at the man in complete confusion. Her gut was telling her that his reactions were genuine. He actually had tears glistening in his eyes. Nobody was that good. She would bet even Sophie Devereaux couldn't fake up that kind of emotion. But he was a professional con artist. It was his job to scam people out of everything, to believe whatever he wanted them to. She couldn't be sure.

She had just opened her mouth to give him a reply when Maura burst through the door.

"Jane," she said.

"What?" Rizzoli sobbed.

"You better come listen to this," the doctor beckoned.

"Watch him," Jane replied as she rushed to the doctor's call.

They were in the observation room when Maura clicked on a file and plugged in her headphones.

"Listen," she ordered. Then she pressed play.

"I can't do this anymore," a soft, British accent called through the air.

"I choose Nate."

Then the line went dead.

%

Eliot stared at the broken grifter. He swept the hair from her forehead and tried to think of something to say. His hands shook with the force of his guilt. Nate had been arrested. Parker disappeared. Hardison was tucked away in Lucille trying to find a way to clear the mastermind.

"I'm so sorry, Soph," Eliot whimpered.

He tried to make himself squeeze her hand and failed. Then he tried to sweep more stray strands out of her hair. Everything he tried to do failed because of the great guilt falling from his chest. He couldn't function anymore. Nobody knew what he had done. Nobody knew just how far this went. He was alone.

"I'm sorry," he cried. He stumbled out of the hospital door and fought against the horrified emotions wanting to escape him.