A/N This is a short fic wrote for a leverageland challenge. The prompt was Sophie Devereaux (max 750 words)
Sophie Devereaux saw a box with her name on it that someone had placed on the floor by the door. She carefully picked it up and carried it up the stair. She opened it and gasped at its contents, she almost forgot packing it in the rush of clearing her apartment in Boston.
Gently she took the first passport laying on the top. Alice Boats, her fist professional alias. She can still remember the con. Young and still inexperienced, she stole a diamond necklace from her mark's safe. It had been an easy con, he really didn't know what had hit me . That day she gave her fist kiss as Alice Boats, dull and unemotional, way different from the thrill of stealing that precious object she laid her eyes on.
The Second passport had the name Karen Walker on it. Karen had worked in a small café in a Irish town. From there, she studied her mark's habits. A young and naïve university student who happened to have a Renoir painting. Karen's parents worked as foreign dignitaries and were always away, and by a strange coincidence so did Tom Collins' parents. He was more than happy to talk about them over dinner and coffee. The morning after the painting was gone!
Sophie continued looking through the documents; Michelle Roger, Elizabeth Young… she smiled when her eyes fell on Lady Charlotte Prentice Royal Title Certificate. She had been one of her best aliases, still is. Charlotte Prentice had actually managed to build a family around her, make friends, live a life. And it was also in that period that Sophie realized how the dangerous the life of a grifter could be. Gone was the thrill of coning people, and as soon as she realized how attached she became to her Lady persona, she left the country never looking back.
Tears filled her eyes as she delicately touched Katherine Clive death certificate. Her death (and maybe also her stupid boyfriend dumping her ) made her realize that something needed to change in her life. It took her months to discovered that this was her. All those names and lives in the box were all part of her. Strange how her real birth certificate was missing from there. She had left that life and name the day she ran from home without having regrets.
"Hey, have you finished unpacking?" Nate's voice behind her startled her, but she kept staring ahead. "Sophie?" he called her, his soft hand on her shoulder.
"Everything is fine!" she exclaimed smiling getting up from where she had been kneeling by their bed.
"Okay?" he raised his eyebrow in question, but his doubts were gone when he felt her lips on his.
"So, let's finish unpacking!"
Maybe being Sophie Devereaux wasn't so bad after all.