The Two Live Crew Job

She was dead. For one brief moment, Sophie Devereaux was dead. Nate couldn't help that one slight moment of true emotion as he stared at her.

"Whatever you do, don't look at me when you go to close the casket."

She warned him that very morning, before all of this damn funeral business started. She knew he would immediately think of Sam. It was his default as far as emotional distress went. She knew he would see little Sam in his tiny casket.

Only he didn't.

All he saw were the missed opportunities. He only saw the hurried glances and quick touches. The small smiles that always hinted at an invitation for more. He saw the way the sunlight shimmered in her hair and made her brown eyes sparkle like amber. He saw her mysterious laughter and the way she mothered each member of the team completely unaware she was doing it. He only saw the times they spent together, chasing each other around the world and working together as a team.

He saw the way Parker brightened under the grifter's tutelage. The girl was discovering all of the wonders of human beings far too late in life. Sophie made it possible for her to understand them. She was the thief's gateway into the human world. And Parker finally had a female companion to look up to.

Hardison was equally improving under the grifter's guidance. He always found a way to ask her about how to approach his delicate "thing" with Parker. He sought Sophie for advice when Eliot was probably a better fit. It wasn't because the hitter couldn't help him. It was because Sophie knew how to help Parker. The hacker wasn't looking to fix her and the grifter knew how to help him deal with it. Plus, he really needed to learn how to hide his emotions.

Eliot needed Sophie as well. The hitter didn't say it, but he liked having somebody who could help protect them. The grifter didn't do much, but what she did made an impact. She knew how to read his moods and quickly bossed the others into acting accordingly. She would check in on his emotional levels and give him exactly what he needed to relax. She was his entry into feeling human again and he had absolutely no idea she was doing it.

Then there was him, Nathan Ford. He lost his son, his baby boy, the most precious thing in the world. There was no surviving that. There was only existence. Until Sophie Devereaux came into the picture.

They hadn't seen each other in two years. He sought her out. She betrayed them, betrayed him. Yet, she still knew how to keep him breathing. She badgered him about his drinking, berated him for taking his anger out on the others, and somehow managed to give him something to hold onto and live for. She didn't even have the decency to realize she was doing either.

No, that woman was completely unaware that she was becoming an angel. She was the one pushing him to fight for the clients nowadays. She was the one who made certain each member of their team was okay at the end of the day. She worried and fretted over every tiny detail of the con. She always pestered him about the possible dangers, the plans he didn't like to talk about. She was the one who came up with an escape route for Eliot during that MMA job in Nebraska. Hell, she even figured out how to make Parker more comfortable when she didn't know how to deal with her emotions. Hardison never stayed up into the wee hours of the morning when she was there. He went to bed at eleven and started work at seven, taking the couch for the night.

She was confused about who she was. He knew what she was becoming. He just wished she would have figured it out long before this.

They were supposed to be partners in crime and for a moment; she left him all alone.

It was the worst feeling in the world.

He never wanted to feel that again.

So he closed the casket and thanked the god he had abandoned when Sam died. That very God had granted him a blessing. The sunglasses could hide away his tears. His fingers didn't falter as they gently knocked on the casket's top. His feet didn't give any sign that he was almost completely undone by the image of Sophie Devereaux in a coffin.

It was all just a con.

And he was going to make certain it stayed that way.