I consider myself an expert on many things, but the geography of Central Asia is not one of them, and so when I set out to write a chapter based on Sophie and Tara's discussion about Tashkent and "that thing that happened near the Russian border," I assumed those two things were close together. They are not. Do you know what is between Tashkent and the Russian border? Kazakhstan. Do you know how big Kazakhstan is? As a comparison, BIGGER THAN ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE. So, this is my longest chapter yet, and it's hard to make a trip through Kazakhstan interesting, so possibly the boringest, but there you have it.

Chapter 10- Tashkent to Moscow

As a seasoned traveler, there were very few places Sophie wouldn't go, because they were too dangerous- Tehran, Kinshasa, Pyongyang- and there had been a time she'd felt that way about central Asia. Then she'd ended up in Uzbekistan entirely by accident and discovered that Tashkent was a lovely city. She'd also discovered the Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan had a large collection of paintings from the Hermitage, and an outdated security system.

Since then, she'd visited frequently. The thing about former Soviet Republics was that, while their transition to capitalism could hardly be called a resounding success, there were always some people who'd made staggering amounts of money very quickly, and the newly rich were usually very bad at hanging on to their money.

Yuri Ovcharenko was such a man. He'd made the better part of his fortune legitimately, investing in some sort of new oil pipeline technology, but he also dabbled in various criminal enterprises, including black market art. If the rumors were true, some of the world's most famous stolen paintings were in his possession, including Vermeer's "The Concert", stolen in 1990 from a Boston museum. Sophie never had any qualms about stealing from the rich, but so much the better if the paintings were already stolen. She thought she might even return the Vermeer- there was a 5 million dollar reward for it.

Ovcharenko liked gambling and drinking, and he liked to do both with beautiful women, so all it took was showing up at a nightclub he frequented to get his attention. An invitation to dinner, then an offer to show her around Tashkent, and then an invitation to a small dinner party he was giving for "only very good friends, and I do hope we will be very good friends, Natalia."

That was when her plan hit a snag she couldn't have forseen. Also among Ovcharenko's "very good friends" was a Russian named Igor Tolzin. Sophie had met him several years before in St. Petersburg. And by "met" she meant conned him out of several million dollars. He recognized her, and though he might not know her real name, he knew it wasn't Natalia Alkaeva.

And that was how she ended up in prison in Tashkent.

She didn't panic. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd been arrested, and she always managed to disappear before the paperwork was even filed. Besides, this small police station in Tashkent was hardly Scotland Yard- they seemed rather at a loss as to what to do with her. They didn't want to put her in the station's one holding cell, currently home to a few local drunks (she appreciated this show of chivalry) but no one was in charge and they seemed to be waiting from word from higher-ups. Finally, they left her handcuffed to a chair in one of the drab little offices, with a young officer guarding her, while they took a statement from Tolzin and called around trying to wake someone who actually knew what to do.

The guard was all of twenty, fresh out of training, and she guessed it would take about fifteen minutes to have him unlocking the handcuffs for her.

He was staring directly ahead at the wall, standing straight, serious about the task he'd been given.

She looked at him until he could feel her gaze, and then when he couldn't help but look at her, she met his eyes for a split second before looking down. He went back to staring determinedly at the wall, but a moment later his eyes slid back to her. She crossed her legs- very effective in the dress she had worn for the party- and he looked away quickly. He swallowed visibly and a blush started to creep up his neck.

She was distracted by a commotion from the hallway- raised voices, one voice in particular, strangely familiar, barking orders in angry, strident Russian. She wondered briefly what was going on; after putting up with it for centuries, the Uzbeks were not fond of Russians coming in and throwing their weight around. The noise stopped directly outside the office she was in, the Russian voice demanding, "Well, unlock it! Isn't anyone in charge around here? You! Where is the officer in charge?"

The voice actually sounded very familiar, though not speaking Russian…and then Nate burst into the room.

"You! Boy! What's your name?" he barked at the young officer guarding her.

"Zarovsky, Sir. Ilya Zarovsky, but...what…who…?"

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr Bezukhov, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs." He flashed some sort of ID, too quickly for anyone to get a clear look at. It definitely wasn't a Russian Militsiya badge- she actually thought it might have been a British Airways frequent flyer card- but her guard, and the two officers who had come into the room with him, were too flustered to demand to look at it properly.

"But, why-"

"Why? WHY? Do you know who you've got here?" he gestured at Sophie, caught her eyes for the slightest second and she saw amusement sparkling under the fake outrage. "Are you insane son? Why isn't she locked up?"

"Well, it didn't seem necessary-" he stammered.

"Necessary? Didn't seem necessary? We've been chasing her for ten years! You listen to me, son, five more minutes in here alone and she'd be out of those cuffs and have your gun and your car keys. You idiots would have let her walk out of here if I hadn't gotten here in time. Give me the goddamn key!"

There was a comical moment where they all ran into each other trying to scramble for the key to the handcuffs. Finally it was located and handed to Nate. He unlocked her from the chair, but then cuffed her hands in front of her.

"Sir, you can't just leave with-" young Zarovsky began, and Nate irritably withdrew a folded sheaf of official looking documents from his breast pocket and tossed them down on the desk.

"Oh, I can leave with her, that right there is signed by the Minister himself!" he said, with a little jerk on her arm. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but she played it up. "The authorities in Moscow are going to be pretty happy to talk to you," he added, pulling her along with him out of the office. The young officers followed, trying to protest, while Nate ranted about their incompetency and how every single person there was going to be sacked.

One of the young officers had apparently gotten up the nerve to stop them, or at least get between them and the door, when the phone rang. The kid nearest the desk answered it and before he even spoke Sophie could hear the caller shouting even from where she stood ten feet away. She couldn't make out the tirade, but she could hear the young officer's answers, a string of "Yes Sir" and "Sorry Sir." He hung up and motioned for his colleague to get out of their way. "That was the chief Sir- he says you can go, you just have to sign-"

He timidly held out a form, which Nate signed with an illegible scrawl, and then dragged her out with him, muttering about incompetents and people in Moscow were going to hear about this and goddamn middle of the night until they were safely to what she assumed was his car, a Lada that had seen its better days around about 1983. In case the cops were still watching, he pushed her rather roughly into the backseat before getting in the driver's side.

As he started the car, there were a thousand questions going through her head.

"What are you doing here?" was the first one she got out.

He pulled out into sparse, late-night traffic, not speeding or giving any indication they were making an escape.

"No," he said thoughtfully, in response to her question, which wasn't any kind of answer to what she'd asked.

"What?"

"No, I don't think that's what you meant to say first. I think you meant to begin with "thank you, Nate, for breaking me out of an Uzbek prison." That would be a good way to start."

"Thank you, Nate, for breaking me out of an Uzbek prison," she said dutifully, but meant it nonetheless. Yes, she'd had a vague escape plan, but his had been faster, and probably involved less of her getting shot at.

"Better," he approved. "Now I think you should follow that up with "Oh Nate, you're my hero! I'm so lucky to have a big, strong man like you to rescue me, and you're so handsome too! What can I ever do to repay you?" he caught her expression in the rearview mirror. "Too far?"

"Oh yeah."

He gave a shrug that she read as "can't blame me for trying."

"You didn't happen to keep the keys to these handcuffs?" she asked.

He chuckled. "They really make you nervous, hm?"

"Let's just say I prefer handcuffs when used…recreationally," she said, because she liked to watch him squirm as he tried not to picture it. Judging by the blush creeping up his neck, he was unsuccessful, but he passed the keys back to her without further comment. She took off the handcuffs, and then climbed into the front seat, elbowing him in the side of the head (mostly accidentally). "So, I mean this in the most grateful possible way, but…where are we going?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly the brain trust back there, but it's not going to take them long to figure out I wasn't militsiya and you escaped…I'm hoping we can get across the border into Kazakhstan before they sound the alarm. We might make it, it's close. Do you have an Uzbek passport?"

She'd grabbed her handbag as they left the police station, and she was never without several passports, but she always made a point of having one for the country she was traveling to.

"Good," he said, "let's keep it simple- dirty weekend."

She could see the border crossing up ahead, simply a small guard post alongside the road. They were stopping people, but there didn't appear to be any particular alarm, just business as usual. And so far there were no lights and sirens behind them. At the late hour, there was only one car ahead of them, and Sophie tried not to hold her breath as they pulled up and a young border guard shined a flashlight into the car. Nate handed over her passport, and a Russian one.

"Where are you headed, Sir?" the guard asked.

"Borovoe," he responded easily, naming a popular resort spot.

"Baby, this is taking forever," Sophie whined, stroking Nate's thigh with her left hand. She felt him flinch ever so slightly at the touch, though he didn't give anything away to the guard, he knew what she was doing. "You said we were going to leave early…"

"I told you sweetheart, I had to work late."

She snorted. "You wouldn't tell your wife you had to work late."

Just as she had meant him to, the guard noticed Nate's wedding ring and her lack of one, and assumed exactly what they'd intended- a wealthy expat taking his mistress for a weekend out-of-town. The guard smirked and handed their passports back. "You enjoy yourself, Sir," he said, with an unmistakable leer at her and a "well done" wink to Nate, and only gave the trunk a cursory look before waving them on.

She breathed a sigh of relief as they drove on, but they weren't anywhere near out of trouble yet.

"We need a different car," Nate said. "And you need some clothes," he glanced at her dress. "And I need to think." He pinched the bridge of his nose, like he had a headache coming on. "Jesus Soph, what have you gotten us into?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you! What the hell were you thinking, trying to con Tolzin? You're too reckless sometimes, but you're not stupid Sophie, and that was stupid."

"I didn't even know Tolzin was going to be there, Ovcharenko was my mark. And Tolzin is a lightweight."

He shook his head. "No, he might have been when you played him, but that was…what…five or six years ago? He's playing with the big boys now, he's got some nasty mafiya connections, and he owns the Uzbek police," he was speaking too quickly for her to say anything, words spilling over each other. "He's paid off enough people to make your time in prison pretty rough."

"As opposed to the pleasant stays in an Uzbek prison?" she said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Damn it Sophie, this isn't a joke!" he snapped, voice rising, and even in the darkened car she could see he was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. "You wouldn't have survived more than a few days in prison before you'd have some sort of "accident."

She reached out to touch his arm, but before she could his hand flashed out and closed around her wrist.

"Don't, Sophie," he said, warning in his voice. "Don't try to manipulate me right now."

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. "What the hell is wrong with you? I didn't ask you to rescue me! I can look after myself Nate, I've done it for a long time. You know what I do, you always have, why are you angry at me now?"

"Because you messed up this time. If they'd gotten you to the main police station, Tolzin could have had them do whatever he wanted, and…Jesus, Soph. You don't even think…what if you hadn't been able to get out, and I hadn't shown up. What if Tolzin got his way and you died in a prison in Uzbekistan? They'd look to inform your next of kin, but they'd be looking for Natalia, or Alexandra, or Michelle, or whoever you choose to be at any given time. When they didn't find anyone, they wouldn't bother to look any further. You would just disappear, and I'd never know what happened, no one would. You'd just completely disappear from my life, and…I don't think I can handle that," he broke off, breathing hard, and from pushing her hand away a moment before, he reached for her, and laced his fingers through hers. "I can't have you disappear on me. I can't. Sophie, I-"

He didn't say it, not then and not for many years after that, but it hung unsaid in the sudden silence between them. She knew she should say something, the silence was like a weight, but she was struggling with the truth in his words. She'd made a career out of disappearing from people's lives, usually with very few regrets. She knew she'd broken hearts, and a few times broken her own heart, but she always disappeared, because…what was the alternative? If she stayed, they would always find out eventually that she wasn't who she said she was.

She thought back to Damascus-

"I'm Sophie Devereaux."

"Your real name?"

"As much as anything is."

-and he'd never asked for more than that. For a strange moment, she wanted to do what she hadn't done in almost 20 years- tell him her real name- but it seemed so foreign after such a long time.

She took a deep breath and tried to come back to the present. Some day they were going to have to have it out, but on the run from the police in Kazakhstan headed to God-only-knows-where was not the ideal time or place. She could actually feel the tension coming off Nate, and so she cast around for something to say to break the brittle silence.

"Did I hear you wrong, or did you tell the police your name was Pyotr Bezukhov?"

Relief showed on his face, some of the tense lines relaxing. "Give me a break, I was making it up as I went along. It was the first Russian name that popped into my head."

"What if one of them had read War and Peace?"

He shrugged. "Well, I guess we're lucky they hadn't."

The usual tone of their conversation restored, at least a little and at least for the moment, she chanced asking again what had been her first question.

"What are you doing here? Uzbekistan? That's a little off the beaten path even for you."

"Security update for the Navoi Literary Museum," he said easily. On the one hand, it was a reasonable, work-related answer. On the other hand, Uzbekistan was the back of beyond even for someone who traveled as much as he did, and she was surprised they would send him. IYS had offices in Russia, she was certain they had one in Moscow, and maybe even somewhere nearer like Volgograd. It would have made more sense to send someone from there. The Navoi Literary Museum, while lovely, was hardly the kind of high-profile target Nate was usually sent to deal with. She wasn't entirely sure she believed him, but it was a sufficient answer for the moment, and they still felt on shaky ground with each other.

He went on, "I think our best bet, at this point, is to try to get to Moscow."

She blinked at him. "Nate, do you realize how big Russia is? It will take us two weeks to drive all the way to Moscow."

"A few days, actually, if we drive straight through. My plan was to get to Russia and take a train. We can't fly out of Tashkent or Astana, airport security is too tight, even here. If we get past the Russian border, and take a train from one of the larger cities, say Orenburg, we might be able to get to Moscow without attracting unwanted attention."

As a spur-of-the-moment plan, it was logical. Getting around, and getting out of, a major city like Moscow was easier than trying to remain unnoticed in sparsely populated Uzbekistan. In Moscow, she could call in favors to get out of the country. Getting across the Russian border was probably easier said than done, but not impossible.

"That might work," she allowed.

"Well, I hope so." He said grimly. "Because explaining to Maggie why she has to find a lawyer who speaks Uzbek is going to be a damned awkward conversation," he tapped the steering wheel nervously for a moment, and then added. "There is another complication."

"Oh good, because it was too simple," she deadpanned. "What's the complication?"

"Can you reach my suitcase?"

It required some struggling and climbing around, which was rather more difficult to manage considering the dress she was wearing was not made for crawling over seats. Nate, to his credit, kept his eyes on the road as she managed to haul his suitcase over into the front seat, and then turned on the dome light to see better.

"It's got a false bottom, you should be able to pop it out there," he went on casually, while she raised a curious eyebrow at him, figuring out the mechanism. It finally popped open, and she withdrew a rolled up canvas. "Be careful," he added, somewhat unnecessarily, since she probably had more experience than most museum curators when it came to handling paintings out of their frames. She unrolled it delicately, only halfway in the small space of the car, but that was enough to recognize it immediately.

"Nate," she said, and it came out about an octave higher than she normally spoke. "Nate, this is a Vermeer. I…what…how…how?"

"You helped actually," he said, looking quite pleased with himself, and she could tell he was dying to tell her how he'd pulled this off. "A few months ago we caught up with a fence named Grigori Savasin. You've probably never heard of him, he's too small time for the things you usually move. But in exchange for the authorities going easy on him, he talked, and I mean talked. Every rumor he'd ever heard. One of those rumors was that this painting had found its way into Ovcharenko's very private collection. Nobody paid much attention, that painting has been missing for twenty years and there's never been a whisper of it, and at that point Savasin would have said anything. I wouldn't have given the rumor any more thought, except that Natalia Alkaeva's passport was flagged by customs in Istanbul, heading to Tashkent. I realized if you were going to Uzbekistan, there might be some truth to the rumor. And…I was right."

"Nate, you stole a painting!"

"Wait, no, I didn't. I am returning it to the owners."

"After stealing it from Ovcharenko."

"Who bought it on the black market, from the people who stole it from a museum."

"I'm so proud."

"Soph, I didn't steal it-"

"You are so hot right now."

He fell silent, shaking his head, but he was smiling.

"So that's why you're driving to Moscow instead of flying out!"

"Well, partly, yes. I can't exactly sneak that through customs without attracting some questions. Once we get to Moscow I can hand it over to IYS and they can handle the legalities, and the security, of getting it back to the museum."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Or-"

"No, Sophie."

"But-"

"No."

"Nate. Three. Hundred. Million. Dollars. That's how much you could get for that painting."

"Well, good thing I'm not a thief."

As it started to get light, he knew they had to stop eventually. They had been switching off driving, but as adrenaline ebbed, exhaustion from the night and lethargy from the long drive set in, and they weren't going to avoid law enforcement if they put the car in a ditch. There had been no sign of anyone following them, but that didn't mean they'd given up, and it seemed wisest, at least for the first day, to lie low during the daylight. They decided to stop in Kyzylorda, which was large enough to have a hotel and a few shops where they could buy her some less remarkable clothes. They parked the car in the lot of an apartment block at least a mile from the hotel, and by the time they got checked in, Nate didn't care about anything but collapsing into the bed.

He woke up confused by where (and when) he was. Slowly, the previous night came back to him, and he realized that as far as locations "somewhere in Kazakhstan" was not appreciably more specific. Guessing by the light coming through the gap in the curtains and angling sharply across the floor, it was late afternoon.

He started to sit up, and was stopped by the fact that Sophie had an arm thrown across his chest. On the one hand, he figured that was good, because she hadn't made off with the Vermeer while he slept. On the other hand, it disconcerted him a little, how comfortable and familiar it felt. Considering the way he had very nearly crossed a line with her the day before…no, he had crossed it. He had been so far over the line he couldn't even see the line anymore. Considering that, perhaps they should have gotten separate rooms, but after all the times he'd spent the night with her, it had seemed ridiculous to worry about it in their exhaustion. Now, waking up with her wrapped around him, he was realizing it wasn't a good idea. It was only by imagining the phone call to Maggie, telling her he'd been arrested in Kazakhstan, that he forced himself to move away from her.

By the time it was dark they were back on the road, and that began one of the longest nights Nate could remember. Had he been traveling with anyone else, it would have been miserable. Even taking turns driving, it was exhausting. He and Sophie had always had the strange quality of being comfortable with silence, but this time they had to talk, simply to keep each other awake. She told him about purely "hypothetical" crimes and cons, he told her about old cases, those he had worked and those that were just IYS legend. They speculated about where the Vermeer had been since its disappearance and the fate of various other high-profile stolen art (including a Renoir that he hadn't known was her work, but she got very shifty when he mentioned it.)

They finally stopped in Aktobe, partly because Sophie claimed she was going to die ("Yes, absolutely die Nate, I am not exaggerating!") if they had to drive one more mile, and partly because they were nearing the Russian border and they needed to come up with a plan.

The hotel in Aktobe was even more basic than the one in Kyzylorda, but it had a restaurant, and they ate there in order to plan in the few stolen moments that the waitress wasn't lingering nearby to make sure they didn't need anything (or more specifically, to make sure Nate didn't need anything.) He'd have been lying if he said he didn't rather enjoy the way Sophie edged a little closer to him and dealt the woman a vicious glare, and she shrank back at least for a few minutes.

"I know you wanted to drive across the border, but I think we should take a train from here," she began. He started to argue, but she cut him off. "Think about it, maybe the Uzbek police haven't followed us this far, but they've definitely at least sent out on APB on the car and a description of us. I say we ditch the car and take a train. They'll still check our passports, but if they're going through the entire train, they won't waste too much time on us."

She had a point. When he'd first come up with a plan, he'd been intending to get the painting to Moscow safely. Now, he was trying to get the painting and an escaped fugitive across the border. He certainly had to admit she had more experience avoiding the authorities than he did, and this was one area where he should probably defer to her.

There was a train that went all the way from Aktobe to Moscow, but they bought tickets only as far as Orenburg, figuring once they were that far across the border they could regroup and take the time to plan the best way of getting to Moscow. There was no time to rest in Aktobe, the train was leaving in about two hours.

Aktobe was the regional capital, so while the train station was small, it was large enough and busy enough that they didn't attract any undue attention. Enough Russians traveled to and from Aktobe that their Russian passports didn't phase the young customs official who examined them, and when she asked the reason for their visit to Kazakhstan, Sophie said it had been a cousin's wedding, and they would certainly not be returning, and then proceeded to insult the food, the hotel, and the service. She was getting started on what a bitch the groom's mother was when the guard handed back their passports and waved them onto the train, only too glad to get rid of them.

It was only about two hours to the Russian border, and they spent the majority of that time playing chess on his laptop, which she was spectacularly bad at. He would have expected someone who could plan cons that lasted months would be able to out-strategize him, but as always her need for instant gratification got her in trouble. She couldn't resist taking a piece even if she could see it would get her in trouble five moves later.

There was no fanfare as they crossed the Russian border, not even a fence, just endless flat land in all directions.

"Not exactly checkpoint Charlie, is it?" he said, as they looked out the window.

"No, but there is a small station at the border, they'll stop briefly."

A few moments later the train did draw to a stop at a "station" that was little more than a wooden platform with a small wooden building leaning against it. But as they approached, they could see several official cars parked around the building in the dirt, and though they couldn't see the platform from their compartment, they could hear people boarding the train. Finally he opened the door and looked down the hallway, and then closed it and turned back to her.

"Too many guards for it to be routine. I think they're looking for us."

Adrenaline replaced the exhaustion that had been creeping over them. The train began moving again, and Sophie glanced out the window again, wondering if they should have gotten off while it was stopped, but decided that maybe stranded God-knows-how-far from civilization was not the best idea either.

She stepped out into the hallway again, looking down the length of the train.

"It looks like they're coming down the train, checking in each compartment as they go. So if we can slip into one of the places they've already checked, they probably won't bother to backtrack. It looks like they're being thorough, but not overly so, so they probably don't have confirmation we're on the train, they're just making sure."

He nodded, even as she spoke taking the painting from its hiding place. That might stand up to a cursory look by a flunkie border guard, but not to a genuine search by the police. She leaned out the door again, listening to the Russian voices in the hallway.

"They're definitely looking for someone specific," she said, and he nodded.

"Did they process you at all at the station in Tashkent? Do they have a photo?"

"No. There was no camera in the room I was in. There was one in front, over the door, but I made sure it never got a clear shot of me."

He smiled at her in a way that, any other time, would have made her knees weak. "That's my girl."

She grinned back. "I sense a "distract the guards" coming my way."

"You keep them busy, I'll take this," he indicated the painting, "and find an empty compartment they've already checked. Hopefully, when they've looked everywhere and didn't find us, they'll assume we kept driving or waited for another train."

"As good a plan as any," she agreed, taking her hair down and unbuttoning the top two buttons on her blouse, and then on further consideration, a third. "Distracting enough?"

He cleared his throat. "Er…it works on me."

They could hear guards searching the compartment next to them, asking to see passports and demanding suitcases be opened, and as she could hear them finishing up, apologizing for any inconvenience, she grabbed a copy of the timetable they'd grabbed from the station, and headed off two police officers in the corridor.

"Oh, excuse me, perhaps you can help me," she said, with a clear Moscow accent. "You see, I am trying to get to Saratov, so we thought the fastest way would be to go to Orenburg, and then take this train, but you see it doesn't leave until Thursday, and I thought perhaps-"

"I'm sorry Ma'am," one of the guards managed to interrupt her, the other just looked dazed by the whirlwhind of questions, and possibly the amount of cleavage on display. "I'm not really familiar with the train schedule."

"Oh, but don't you work for them?" she said innocently. "I mean, a man in uniform, I supposed you must know what is going on, hm?"

"No Ma'am, we work for the police," he said, puffing out his chest importantly.

"Oh? The police? I do hope nothing is wrong!"

Behind them, she saw Nate slip out of the compartment and pass unnoticed even in the tight space in the hallway. They were entirely focused on her, one assuring her that everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about, and the other squinting at the train timetable, trying to oblige her with answers even though he didn't know any more about it then she did. Nate didn't even glance her way, looking like he was going to the bathroom or to get a drink. There were two other guards searching the compartment across from theirs, but they didn't notice him either, and she breathed a sigh of relief as he slipped through the door into the next car.

"I'm so glad you're on the train," she said, squeezing the officer's arm. "With all the crime these days, it's such a comfort to know that there are people looking out for us…"

Another officer appeared, apparently a superior because he demanded to know what was taking so long, and her officer placed a solicitous hand on her lower back (a little too low, truth be told), and said they were only helping the lady with the train schedule, and they would help her find a porter to answer her questions.

They left her with a porter, and she waited only until they had moved on before thanking the confused young man and slipping away in the direction Nate had gone. She was nearly to the end of the passenger cars where the search had started when he popped out of a compartment and said "in here!"

He closed and locked the door behind her, and they grinned at each other a bit ridiculously. "That was good."

"Let's just hope they finish their search and get off the damned train," he said, running a hand through his hair. She was about to relax, suggest they try to get some sleep before they got to Orenburg, when there was a knock at the door. They both froze, and a voice outside said, "Open the door! Militsiya!"

Thinking fast, she turned off the light, hissed "Lay down!" to him, and then waited another moment before opening the door just a crack.

"Yes Sir? Shh, my husband, he is asleep," she whispered. The guard was young- looked as though he had barely started shaving- but huge, and not one of the ones she had already encountered.

"I saw you come in here. This compartment, it was empty, we searched it," he said, but a little uncertainly.

"Oh you certainly did search it," she said, and was about to launch into a blistering lecture on the militsiya's lack of manners, hoping that would distract him, but he shook his head determinedly.

"We searched it, and it was empty. You're supposed to stay in your own compartment," he glanced at her, eyes narrowing, and then at Nate's "sleeping" form, and she could see him put it together, and she sighed, there was no choice for it. She took a few steps back into the compartment, and to make sure he followed, made a vulgar suggestion about his mother. His face turned bright red, and he stepped toward her, anger getting the better of thought, which got him close enough for her to slam a fist into his stomach and when he doubled over, a knee to the groin. He dropped to the ground wheezing, and Nate had moved to finish what she'd started with a surprisingly vicious right hook. Quickly, she closed the door, and turned on the light, and they both stared at the unconscious form.

"Well…"

"This complicates matters…"

"Where did you learn to do that?" Nate said, looking as though he couldn't decide if he was terrified, impressed, or turned on.

She shook out her hand- just because she could throw a punch didn't mean she did it often- and shrugged. "Three older brothers. They taught me to do that if any boys every tried to get too handsy with me."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"See that you do. We need to get off this train before they come looking for him."

Luck was in their favor, as about five minutes later the train began to slow, and then creaked to a stop. They were on the side facing away from the platform, so they couldn't even see where they had stopped, just a dusty, sleepy small town in the distance. But the train wasn't going to stop there for long, and so they wrenched open a window and dropped the few feet to the ground easily, and then ducked into an unlocked shed until the train started to move again, pulling away from the little station. Once it had disappeared into the horizon, they emerged and looked around.

"Well, welcome to…" she squinted at the sign on the platform. "Novotroitsk."

In the end, they boosted a car, because they couldn't risk another train. This went against Nate's moral code, because it wasn't a part of the world where anyone could afford to lose a car. But he'd forgotten she always traveled with outrageous amounts of cash, and to soothe his conscience left enough in their victims' mailbox to purchase a comparable car.

The drive to Moscow was far worse than the trip through Kazakhstan had been. Exhaustion that not even adrenaline could cut through had settled over them both, the adventure had worn off, and she wanted nothing more than a nice hotel and the longest hot shower of her life and room service and to sleep for days on end.

They took turns driving and sleeping, and talked only occasionally. It was not until they were driving through the outskirts of Moscow that he said, somewhat abruptly, "Sam's first round of treatment is over."

She looked at him, so he knew he had her attention, but didn't interrupt.

"The doctors said he responded well to it. I don't really know what that means. He's not cured, but he "responded well." It was awful. I mean, I know that's what it does and I thought I was prepared that it would make him sick and he'd be weak, but…I wasn't prepared for it really."

She didn't really have anything to say to that, but she took the hand that wasn't on the steering wheel, and he held on so hard it was painful.

"Once the first round was over, he seemed to get better. He's had more energy, he even went back to school…not always for full days, but..." he trailed off. "But it's not over."

"Well, that's the thing," she said gently. "It's not over."

He nodded, shortly. "I know. I just…that's why I can't have you disappear on me now, Sophie. I'm not sure I can do this without…"

She just held onto his hand.

Once they were in Moscow properly, he didn't even ask, just drive directly to IYS's office in a busy business district.

"I just want this damned painting out of my hands," he said simply, pulling into a parking space. "God knows how many international laws I've broken to get it here."

She nodded, and then, "Or…"

"No, Sophie."

She smiled. "Okay, go be a hero."

"Where are you going?"

"Shopping, so I can return these clothes to 1985 where they belong, and then…home. I know people in Moscow, I can get the papers."

He nodded, and then, "But…be careful."

She caught his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. "Nate, I'm not going to disappear from your life. I will always be here if you need me. You know how to get find me. Okay? I'm not going to disappear. After all, if shooting me didn't get rid of me, I think you're stuck with me."

She kissed him, briefly, and then got out of the car.

p.s. Vermeer's "The Concert" was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 and is still missing, but I figured if the Leverage writers get to recover "Painter on the Road to Tarascon" then I get the license to recover a famous lost painting too.

p.p.s. I may not update for awhile, since I signed up for the Leverage Gift Exchange on LJ. I need to get cracking on that fic, because with the idea I have it will be pretty long (though potentially awesome) but don't let that make you think I've abandoned this.