A/N: Hey hi hello this goddamn idea showed up and would not leave. So if you're here from CFG, I'M SO SORRY. I know, I know, but think of this - if I didn't get it out, I would take even longer to get an update out. If you're not here from CFG, welcome to HMBC Studios, please enjoy the picture.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and I still own half of my soul.

The air smelled of creosote after rain and the sun beat mercilessly down across the desert and inched toward the small shelter of shade she was hiding in. She watched as it illuminated her toes, then her ankles, then her calves. She was hoping that maybe she'd get a tan out of this, and hiked her stupidly expensive leggings up her legs as the sun began to set.

She couldn't remember how to tell time by the sun, but she had to have been sitting here for two hours at least, and she'd left around one in the afternoon. Shouldn't he be here by now? They had a contingency, and she was prepared to lay in this godforsaken cactus patch all day, but the longer she was here, the less likely it would be that they could leave without suspicion following them. The sun reached over her knees. She was beginning to think he wasn't going to show. Might as well get comfortable if she was going to be sleeping in this hellhole.

California was a fucking joke. She'd hated every minute she'd spent working this latest job, especially the ridiculous fucking nose she'd been wearing since she had walked off the plane. She ripped it off now, throwing it behind her into the boulders. The rubber made a strange noise as it hit the rock, and she wondered again how that idiot had never noticed it was fake. She was good at prosthetic work by now, but at some point, a man paying very special attention to a woman ought to notice her nose isn't real. Maybe he just thought she was sensitive about her appearance, or that she'd had work done. Maybe he was just being polite. She actually audibly snorted at that, before slapping her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. No one was around, but she couldn't be too careful.

Her hand wandered over the places where the adhesive had attached the odious olfactory organ, scrubbing lightly with her nails to rid her skin of the annoying substance. Her own nose was probably red, a similar shade to her hair at the moment. She suspected that she bore a striking resemblance to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and it just made her scrub at her real nose more viciously. She had always hated it when she was forced to use fake features for these jobs, but she understood it was important to be unrecognizable. However, the material of the prosthetic was irritating, and every time she'd been allowed to remove the damn thing, she'd seen how rosy it made her real nose, giving her some flaming hair and face.

That was another dumb thing that California had brought about. Her red hair. She couldn't wait to get on the road and get this wig off. She'd take it off here but last time she'd gotten out of her disguise entirely before he showed up he'd given her shit for an hour about breaking the fantasy and how if she'd pulled that shit at Disneyland they'd have murdered her and he should do the same. He didn't mean it, of course, and he was far less likely to kill her than she was to kill him, but he got pretty annoying pretty quickly, so she decided against ridding herself of her equally odious hair. Besides that, her hair was always fucking gross after taking the wig off. It was too goddamn hot in California to be wearing a full lace-front and wig cap secured with enough Spirit Gum to permanently attach it to her scalp, because God forbid it ever came off unintentionally, during her… aerobics, or in a pool, or a hot tub, or even the fucking shower she shared with the idiot who never noticed her nose wasn't real.

She was allowed to keep her natural hair and hide with the wigs so that she could always hide in plain sight if needed. Sure, the glue left marks, but removing the signature bug shades, wig, and prosthetic nose or occasional mole took about ten seconds tops if she was willing to lose a layer of skin at her scalp, and she always was. An anonymous look was necessary in this line of work, and she preferred that her own actual look be anonymous, so it all worked out. Her partner, on the other hand, used a fucking moustache and somehow never once was spotted. He was huge, and it made zero sense that he had never been made, but he hadn't. She suspected he was actually just really good at hiding. The thought of him tucking down under a table or behind a curtain made her smile.

Annoying? Yes. Goofball? Yes. Ready to die for him? Always.

Just as she was getting ready to give up on him entirely, the sun reaching up to her hips, she spotted a speck on the horizon, seemingly getting larger as it headed toward her. She knew it was him well before he arrived, watching as the dust trailed behind the truck he was driving.

The sun was up to her elbows now, and she was quickly becoming uncomfortable from the heat, but she couldn't move, couldn't stand; not until he arrived, whole and unharmed, with the code word.

The truck pulled to a stop about fifty feet away from her secluded hiding spot, and she watched as he hopped out, glanced around, and spotted her leg sticking out ever so slightly from the cactus patch she was behind. She'd left it out purposefully, so only he'd notice. Anyone else would have to know she was there to see it.

He popped his sunglasses on his head.

"Way!" he shouted, just loudly enough for her to hear.

She grinned. "No way!"

He squinted to see her face through the cacti. "Did you take off your fucking nose?" he asked.

She slapped her hand over her face, obscuring her rosy nose. "No."

He shook his head and shoved his shades up onto his head, pushing his curly hair back from his face. "Come on, Pinocchio, let's get the hell out of here. I wanna be in Arizona by the time The Good Place comes on."

"Because she's-"

"An Arizona trash bag, yes, now let's go." He started to head back to the truck, while she scrambled up and dusted the desert off her legs.

"You have my shit in the truck, right?" she asked.

He threw his hands up, not bothering to turn back to her. "What is this? Amateur hour? Yeah, your shit's in the truck."

"Remember the time you left my jeans back at home?"

"One time! One time that happened!"

"And I wore Danica James' outfit all the way to Arizona from Pittsburgh. She was way too into tulle for a day and a half of driving."

She jumped up into the backseat of the truck and immediately began undressing. The designer shit she always had to wear with her marks was uncomfortable as fuck. He'd packed her favorite jeans, a pair of Vans high tops, and an old men's Pretenders t-shirt. Another bag had a hairbrush, dry shampoo, and hair ties along with a package of makeup remover wipes.

"God bless you," she said. "Emmett McCarty is definitely in contention for the Good Place for this." She performed the awkward shuffle into her clothes as he laughed and began driving out of the desert. After a cloud of dry shampoo, six makeup wipes, her real hair brushed into a high ponytail, and her shirt secured in a knot at the waist with another hair tie, she climbed over the console and plopped into the passenger seat.

"Hello, Bella," Emmett said, grinning over at her. "Nice to see you again."

"Hey, Emmett," she said, before reaching back to hide her old hair and clothes in the picnic basket in the back, along with the toiletries. She could see the police blockade up ahead, and she readjusted her ponytail and got into character.

Emmett pulled up to the blockade, and an officer stepped up to the window. Emmett rolled it down, nonplussed. He leaned out of the car and grinned.

"Afternoon, Officer," he said. Bella held in a giggle. He was way too good at this.

The officer just stared at Emmett for a solid thirty seconds before he removed his sunglasses and spoke. "Sir, when did you arrive at Joshua Tree National Park?"

"About three hours ago," Emmett said. "The little lady and I were on a picnic." He gestured to the basket in the backseat.

"Did you see this woman while in the park? She's missing." He held up a photo of Ginny Delworth and James Trace, her red hair flowing in the wind and sunglasses perched on her downturned nose. James was steering the speedboat as she took the photo, both of them grinning cockily at the camera.

Bella schooled her face into one of shock, but inside, she was proud. She made sure that all of their photos were out in the sun, meaning that she could keep her sunglasses on. James didn't have a more distinct picture of her, which served him right for being so terrible at sex. Of course, they'd eventually find Ginny's real information, her Social Security number, her school transcripts, the photos of her. These were hard for Bella to fabricate, but not impossible. It helped that she started with real information, making it easy to change the appearance in photos and the grades on the transcripts. Young girls died every day, and Bella's contacts got her the names of the ones who wouldn't be looked for. She'd be looked for now, but Virginia Delworth was actually dead, so there was no danger here. Maybe James would find the real Ginny. Didn't matter to Bella. She'd be someone else by then.

"No sir, we drove right out to one of the ridges and set up, then came right back. That's awful though. What's her name? Maybe we can ask around in town?" Emmett was laying it on a bit thick, but Bella knew the cop wasn't suspicious. Emmett had always had a way with law enforcement.

The officer smiled and shook his head. "That's alright son. You two just give us a call if you see her. Have a nice day." He handed Emmett a business card and waved them on, and Bella waved back to him, her face perfectly concerned for poor Ginny Delworth.

"Thanks Officer," Emmett said, before he leaned back into the truck, covertly shot Bella a wink, and drove away from the barricade, toward the open stretch of highway to the East, away from Bella's West Coast nightmare.

Bella turned the radio up, leaning her head out of the window to catch the breeze created by Emmett's speeding.

"Hey, Lassie, get back in here! Time for debrief." Emmett's hand closed around the back of her shirt, tugging her back down to her seat. She cranked the AC and rolled up their windows. One she was comfortably cool in the truck's cabin, she sighed.

Tightening her ponytail, she started rattling off details. "Ginny actually disappeared seven months ago, at which point I got to work."

"Do we know what happened to her?"

"Emmett, you know we don't. This debriefing shit is ridiculous, you were fucking there."

Emmett spared her a quick sardonic look. "Amuse me, please. It makes me feel a bit more legit."

"Did you feel legit when we were marking Laurent Farcel?" Bella cocked an eyebrow.

Emmett shrugged. "He wasn't the worst I've had. And I felt legitimately exhausted."

Bella burst out laughing. Sex was part of the deal. A man didn't give you access to his bank account because you were nice. He gave it to you because the chase had been good, you were exactly what he wanted, and you were the best lay he'd ever had once he caught you. All it took at that point was some bat-shit idea that he was more than happy to help you with, and small amounts withdrawn over time. And when Bella and Emmett disappeared, most of them never even thought of the money, except to say "Oh, she was so close to opening that little bakery she always dreamed of!"

They were so heartbroken over losing the love of their life that they never ever bothered to check that their money had actually been spent on the things they'd claimed it was spent on.

If they did the job right, the case stayed with local cops and away from anyone with the real chops to figure out Emmett and Bella's game. As long as the locals were on the job, Bella's intel and fake credentials were picture perfect, and she (or Emmett) ended up as just another missing persons' cold case. She even saw herself on those conspiracy shows sometimes. She'd been doing this long enough that she'd run through quite a few identities. At twenty-six she'd been at least eight people. Some cons took longer than others.

"No one knows what happened to her. Kate got me the intel and I did the rest. You did the research on James's type. Once we had it, I altered all of Ginny's photos and grades, giving her a few more credentials to make her legit."

"Cause a crackhead from Queens isn't exactly Mr. Trace's type."

"No." Bella's hand twitched. She should smack him for that comment, but he was driving, and she didn't want him to drive them into a ditch. "We met at James's favorite bar, and he immediately began the hunt. He literally called it that, by the way." She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to go back and shoot that bastard.

"Once we were secure, I told him about the gun range I wanted to start up. As a card-carrying member of the NRA, James was ecstatic. He gave me account access and helped me oversee a ton of building crap, but I insisting of dealing with the numbers myself, by virtue of Ginny having an Accounting degree from Harvard. So, while he did spend a ton on a top-of-the-line gun range, he also spent a ton on us. We got half a mil."

"Extraction?"

"The one you planned?!"

"Amuse me, Bells." Emmett waved his hand in a go-on gesture.

"Fine. I suggested camping and rock climbing in Joshua Tree." She remembered his excitement at the prospect of sharing a tent and smiled because he'd never get the satisfaction. They'd arrived this morning, and it was late afternoon. Grinning, she continued her mandatory dog and pony show. "When he got tired after a long climb, I told him I was going on another hike, and that I'd meet him back at camp in a few hours. I climbed the ridge in my fuckin Lulu Lemon, which is not at all comfortable, despite the advertising, dropped my burner down between the rocks, and then moved on to the rendezvous."

"Where I picked you up right before he called the cops." Emmett extended his fist toward Bella, and she bumped his knuckles.

"Job done."

"Let's go home," Emmett said, before proceeding to hit the gas so hard that Bella shrieked.

"Jesus Christ! Are you trying to get us arrested?" Bella clung to the "oh shit" bar with both hands. Emmett laughed and levelled off the speed at ten miles over the limit. "How long do we get to be home this time?"

Emmett went silent. Too silent. Bella groaned.

"How soon?" she asked.

"Bella, you have to understand-"

She didn't let him finish. "How. Soon?"

"Two weeks." He said on an exhale, defeated.

Bella slumped into her seat, kicking her feet up onto the truck's dashboard. "Bella, come on," Emmet said, reaching over and poking her in the side. Bella just squirmed a bit at the sensation of being tickled, but stayed silent. "Bella, this is it. This is the last one. Once we finish this, we never have to go out again." He smiled. "We can retire to Arizona and live the rest of our lives out on the river, drinking craft IPAs and floating along with the current."

Bella huffed. He was hauling out the big guns. Charlie's dream life, laid out for them to enjoy. "Two weeks, Em? What is this guy? Eighty-five with a bad heart?!"

"Actually, he just got engaged." He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous gesture he'd picked up from their father. Not Emmett's biological father, but the one he'd grown up with. From the father they shared: Charlie.

She ignored her reaction to anything Charlie related. "What?!" She was shrieking in an incredibly unattractive manner, but she couldn't help it. Two weeks at home after five months away, and she was bound to be stressed and grumpy.

Emmett sighed. "This is not the first time we've done this, Bells. The dude in Tampa was fuckin married. Plus, you can tell the dude's unhappy. This chick is nuts."

"How nuts?"

"Fuckin Planters Baby nuts. They got engaged and she immediately went out and started humping the leg of every media person in the damn nation. Dude is very private, always has been, so this bitch is probably grinding his gears, and probably several other guys while she's at it. Seems the type." Emmett made the crazy sign with his eyebrows up toward his hairline.

Bella listened with growing dread. There was no fucking way he meant…

"Edward Cullen isn't too bad to look at either, Bells."

Fuck.

"There is no fucking way we're going to be able to fucking con the Cullens. The very idea is fucking ridiculous. They probably fucking background check every fucking person they fucking talk to." Bella was gesturing wildly with her hands.

Emmett burst out laughing. "Calm down. You're doing that thing you do when you're upset where every other word is 'fuck'."

Bella took a deep breath in. "Emmett, this is impossible."

Emmett shook his head. "This is the perfect time to go for it. This one and done. I know you can figure out a way to get us in with them." He gave her the goddamned puppy-dog eyes and then said the one thing that always made Bella say yes. "You're so smart."

Bella knew she was smart. Bella was probably the smartest person she knew, and that included all those douchebags they'd robbed blind. She was pretty humble about it too, in her own opinion, at least to other people. She had three degrees in total: a Bachelor's in Biology from Northwestern, a Bachelor's in Literature from Yale, and a Master's in Computer Science from Duke. Before Charlie was in the accident, she'd already been accepted at Northwestern, and after he'd passed, when she and Emmett had come up with their first con, she used her old computer club skills (and her amateur, purely experimental, hacking) to list herself as a distance education student, allowing her to take her classes from anywhere. Once she'd realized this was possible, she got to work on any field she'd enjoyed, gathering degrees while her professors never even saw her face.

Then, when she honed her computer skills, and became a professional, practical hacker, the schools never stood a chance. She was able to fabricate degrees, records, and whatever else she wanted from them for her fake identities. Elite schools were shockingly easy to get access to.

Schools: not very secure.

Cullen Pharmaceuticals: the most secure goddamn place she could think of.

It was no secret that the Cullens were insanely wealthy. Almost every drug in the entirety of the nation was produced, researched, or tested there, and the drug business was almost as lucrative as it was sleazy. Price racketeering sick people made Bella's stomach turn, and she was a fucking honeypot, for Christ sakes. The thought of some poor lady like Emmett's mom being unable to pay for her cancer meds because some assholes in a penthouse want to charge her the sum of her life savings for it made her blood boil. Of course, their security would be tight, and access of all kinds restricted. It would be damn near impossible to get in.

Then again, "damn near" wasn't "entirely", and Bella sure did love a challenge.

"What's your idea?" she asked, after the silence became unbearable.

Emmett just grinned. "Same as always, Sis. Get in, get paid, get out."

"You gonna find out what kind of girl he actually likes?" Bella inspected her nail beds as she spoke, trying to hide her excitement. Emmett was right, after all. Edward Cullen wasn't disappointing to look at in the slightest. She hoped he stacked up, performance-wise.

"Yeah. I have an idea, but I need you to get into the paps' wire."

Bella nodded. "Easy enough. Their intel is almost common knowledge."

"Then I have a plan to get me in. Then you." He followed a sign directing them farther East, and Bella smiled at the prospect of being home. She knew they were at least a few hours out, but she could practically feel the AC blasting in her room and smell her candles and plants. She hoped Mr. Black had taken good care of them.

"We need to know what kind of chick he likes first. Start researching as soon as we get home?" Bella preferred to be in disguise from the beginning.

Emmett went that ridiculous level of silence again and Bella got a bad feeling deep in her gut. "Well…" he said, trailing off into that same uncomfortable silence.

"What?" Bella's voice was deadpan, unamused. Whatever he was planning, she already knew she would hate it.

Emmett sighed deeply. "Fine. I've been thinking, and… well, I think their security's gonna be too tight to get in as… well… other… people."

"Yeah, and?" Bella shrugged. "Let's not go then."

"No, I just mean… let's go in… as not other people."

There was silence in the truck.

Then-

"What in the fuck are you talking about?!"

"Let's go in as ourselves?" Emmett's voice picked up in speed and pitch.

Bella was shocked into silence. There was absolutely zero chance he was suggesting she forfeit her actual identity, the one she'd worked the hardest on and had been building up her entire life, just to pull off a con.

"You okay?"

She said nothing. She was still reeling. He wanted her to live out her days as someone else and let Bella Swan disappear into the night. After she'd done all that damn schooling and used all the disguises to protect herself.

"Bella?"

Nothing. She was supposed to just let herself die? She'd rather do this stupid job for ten more years than do that. Hell, she'd rather try and find a real job, and she absolutely could with her credentials. But she wouldn't be able to take Emmett, and she needed him. It's not like he was going to give up this life. He'd worked too hard at it for too long. Kind of like how she'd built up her actual identity.

"Sister dearest?"

Nothing. Nothing for five entire minutes. Just the radio and the air conditioning and the endless road ahead. And Bella, breathing evenly and thinking long and hard about exactly what her stepbrother was asking of her. And finally, she knew exactly what she wanted to ask of him.

"Are you fucking insane?!"

Her outburst happened so loudly and suddenly that Emmett accidentally swerved. Not enough to draw attention, but enough for Bella to jolt in her seat.

"Jesus Christ!" he shouted, righting the truck and taking great gulps of air. "Don't do that!"

Bella didn't bother addressing his shock. "You want me to give up my name, Charlie's name, so that we can rob an un-rob-able family that are probably heavily involved in tax fraud and organized crime anyway?" Oh yeah, she'd heard the same rumors as everyone else. Rich people weren't rich because they were nice and clean. Bella and Emmett, for example, were pretty damn close to bumping up a tax bracket themselves, and they were certified con artists. (No really, one year for her birthday Emmett had business cards made for them. He'd designed and printed them himself with a fancy cardstock printer.)

"Bells, you're always gonna be Bella Swan. Whatever your future paperwork says doesn't change that." Emmett glanced over at her with a sad smile.

She slumped. "Emmett, when we're done with this… I want to be normal. I want to find a guy I actually love, and settle down, and have a family someday. And when I do that, I want to be me. I want to tell my kids stories about their grandfather."

Emmett heaved a deep sigh. "You still can Bells. We only need to change last names. There are a billion Isabellas and Emmetts in the world. And a billion Charlies. We can do this for several more years, or we can do this one and get you started on that family." He cocked his head to the side. "Personally I'd want to be an uncle sooner rather than later."

"Emmett, I-"

"Just think about it Bells, okay? Think about how fucking easy this will be. Rich people are suckers, and these people are richer than Midas. And you are way better looking than that bimbo he's gonna marry. Really, you're saving him from a life of unhappiness. We get in, we get the money, we get out. They'll cover it up so no one else gets any funny ideas, he'll be ruined, and they won't even try to find us, because then it would get out that the heir to their empire got conned by an Arizona trash-bag and his sister." He was gesturing wildly with the hand that wasn't on the wheel, and Bella recognized that look in his eye. Emmett had that manic planning look, which meant he had thought and overthought about this for way too long, and he wouldn't stop until they at least tried to pull it off.

But Bella could handle that. They could try. When they inevitably failed, she'd reign Emmett in and they'd go back to Arizona to plan something different. If it took them a few more years to retire that was fine. It was way better than getting arrested, at any rate, which is what would happen to them if they fucked with the Cullens. She'd play along with whatever asinine crazy plans Emmett wanted her to, and when it all fell apart and Edward Cullen decided he wanted his pumped-up plastic fiancé and not her, they'd go home and she'd console Emmett's bruised ego.

It was this absolute confidence in their upcoming demise that bid her to say:

"Alright Emmett, let's do it."

Emmett's grin grew as wide as his entire face and he let out a triumphant whooping noise, punching the roof of the car excitedly. "Knew you'd see it my way, Bellsy. Cause you're Ballsy Bellsy." He smacked her arm jovially, his mood infinitely more cheerful than anyone Bella had ever seen. Bella shook her head, suppressing a giggle at his antics, which now included shaking his ass all over the seat in a simulated victory dance.

She was going to regret this so much.

A/N: Do you want me to shut up and finish CFG? Let me know! Do you want more? Let me know! Are you having trouble remembering that this is supposed to be fun and you should suspend your disbelief in the name of fiction? Let me... Wait. That one's me.