Disclaimer: I only own this plot, though I would love to own Tangled.

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Chapter Seven

It had been five years since his first night in prison, and in that time Eugene Fitzherbert had really begun to make a name for himself in the criminal world of the Kingdom of Corona. Not alone, of course. Without Meira, he'd probably still be swallowing down the laughter of older thieves when he boasted about his skills and told them his pseudonym. Even now there were still a few people who would chuckle when he introduced himself as Flynn Rider. Meira didn't laugh anymore, thankfully, though for the first few weeks of their interesting partnership she would tease him about the false name, asking if he'd saved any beautiful ladies lately or if he'd scaled the highest tower to save his Lady love. It had gotten annoying very fast, and after a few scuffles that ended with more than one bloody lip for the both of them, Meira had agreed to stop taunting him about his name.

That didn't mean that Meira didn't still find his name amusing. There were times when Eugene would look at her and see a secretive smile on her face, as though she was laughing at a private joke. Those moments always drove him crazy, but he and Meira had come to a point in their…odd relationship where he could accept her silent jabs at his pride and she could accept that he simply wouldn't tell her everything about his past. After all, she hadn't explained how she had ended up in prison—multiple times if she was to be believed—by the age of eight.

Still, the last five years had been kind to them both; far kinder than they had expected. Eugene had sprouted up like a weed, standing at almost six feet tall already and starting to grow facial hair, though Meira pointed out with a laugh that at this point it was only fuzz. Meira, on the other hand, hadn't grown very much, remaining remarkably petite, despite her wiry frame. She still hadn't grown into her potential beauty, but her face was far less gaunt than it had looked when she and Eugene first met, and her mouth no longer looked too big for her face. Both of them managed to keep themselves well-fed through their combined thieving skills, so they weren't as thin as they would have been had they not been skilled pickpockets. They even managed to keep their clothes in relatively good repair, all things considered.

On this particular day, fourteen-year-old Eugene was looking through the windows of a well-stocked jeweler's store, his eyes fixed on one or two of the larger jewels. Meira, her dark hair still in that single long braid, stood beside him, her arms crossed over her chest, which was still as flat as the day they first met. Her pale eyes also scanned the jewels, but she didn't look at any one object for too long, simply taking in the wealth of options before them.

"Which one did he say he wanted?" she asked after a moment's silence.

"That one," Eugene answered, pointing at a large diamond, uncut and perfect. "Though why the guy wants us to steal it for him when he's rich enough to buy it is beyond me."

"A lot of things are beyond you, Rider," Meira said without malice, grinning toothily up at her companion. "But we're not supposed to ask questions of the customer. We just get them what they want and go along on our merry way."

Eugene arched an eyebrow at the girl beside him, but didn't say anything in response. That was just how they worked together. Eugene was what Meira termed the "doubting Thomas" while she made little jokes and simply pushed him along until the job was done. It was a comfortable situation that had developed over the last two years. Not only did it prevent the two of them from constantly being at each other's throats, but it helped their "customers" take them more seriously. Meira was a talented actress, Eugene had discovered, and she could easily make anyone believe that they were actually far older than they looked and far more talented than they actually were. Even when Eugene was twelve and she eleven, she had been convincing various individuals who wanted items stolen for them that she and Eugene were the best thieves money could buy. Sometimes Eugene actually almost believed Meira's tall tales himself.

Smirking a little at the girl beside him, Eugene sighed and looked around them at the gathering crowd. This wasn't as big as the capitol city, but it was much bigger than the village Eugene had grown up in, so there were dozens of people in the town square. Now wouldn't be the ideal time to rob the store. Glancing at Meira, Eugene saw that she had reached the same conclusion. They nodded to one another and started making their way back through the crowd. The best time to go through with their job would be at night, when there were fewer people around to potentially spot them.

That night, the two teenagers were crouched on the roof of the shop, Meira working away at the tiles of the roof in an attempt to create a whole that was large enough for Eugene to slip through. It took them what felt like forever, but finally there was a whole that Eugene could go through with a rope tied around his middle. Checking the knot to ensure it was secure, the boy saluted sarcastically at Meira and started sliding through the whole in the roof. Meira braced herself against the chimney and, holding the rope tight in hand, began slowly lowering her partner down to the floor of the shop.

Inside, Eugene held onto the rope with one hand while the other worked at pulling out his satchel to put the diamond in it once he retrieved it. Smirking a little to himself as he was slowly lowered to the ground, Eugene crouched down once there was enough slack in the rope to do so, ensuring that no one was outside the shop windows before he stood up. This job was going to be almost too easy, he thought to himself as he slowly lifted the enormous diamond from its resting place on top of a large cushion. For a moment, he simply stood admiring the jewel before wrapping it up in a rag and stuffing it into his satchel. He was just about to lift a few other pieces of jewelry when he heard footsteps approaching from the back of the shop. Cursing softly, Eugene tugged urgently at the rope to let Meira know that he needed to be pulled up.

He heard a soft curse from Meira and gathered that she had also heard the approaching person. Wrapping the rope around his arm and gripping it tightly above his head, Eugene hastily placed the satchel's strap over his head as Meira began pulling him up, the sound of footsteps drawing closer.

"Damn…damn, damn, damn…" Eugene swore as the man who had been approaching appeared in the shop.

For a moment, the old shop owner looked too stunned by the sight of a fourteen-year-old boy rising up through his roof to notice that his largest diamond was missing. Then he started shouting.

"Thief! Thief! Someone call the guards!"

"Oh, damn it," Meira hissed when Eugene's head appeared above the roof, rushing over and pulling him up by his arms. "We have to get out of here."

"No kidding," Eugene muttered sarcastically, clambering up onto the roof and adjusting his satchel before untying the rope around his middle. "Come on!"

They grabbed one another's hands without really thinking about it, running along the roof top until they were looking down at the alley way beneath them. Releasing Meira's hand, Eugene threw his legs over the edge and began climbing down the wall, his thin fingers finding small handholds as he moved. After a moment's hesitation, Meira followed after him, gritting her teeth and swearing fluently under her breath.

"Come on," Eugene urged once his feet had touched the ground.

Looking down at him over her shoulder, Meira seemed to decide the hell with it and pushed away from the wall, falling the last few feet to the ground. She landed lightly on her feet and only took a moment to regain her breath as the sounds of armored men running towards them grew louder.

"Time to go," she declared.

Once more gripping one another's hands, they broke into a run, dodging through alleys and back streets, only pausing every now and then to let the soldiers that had been called for rush past them. Finally, they found themselves at the edge of town, moving in the general direction of where their client had told them to meet him. With one last glance at the town to ensure that they weren't being followed, Meira and Eugene broke into a run again, making for the forest surrounding the town. There at least, they could hide from the soldiers until the next day when they would make their way to the meeting with their latest customer.

Inside the trees, they released each other's hands and leaned back against the trunk of a particularly large oak, gasping for air. Meira was the first to recover and grinned at Eugene.

"Told you we could do it," she said smugly, reaching over to playfully punch him in the arm.

"You did not," Eugene said with a roll of his eyes, pulling his satchel up to get a look inside of it. "But you're right…we got it." He pulled out the diamond wrapped in fabric and held it up for Meira to see, grinning like a fool. "Wanna look at it?"

Without answering, Meira grabbed it out of his hand and unwrapped the fabric surrounding it. She gasped in awe at the sight of the diamond. While she might behave like a boy at times, Meira was still a girl who was susceptible to beautiful things. Grinning back at Eugene, she re-wrapped the diamond and handed it back to him.

"He better give us the promised price for that thing," she said firmly.

"Yeah," Eugene agreed. "Let's get some sleep."

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"Who was the man you stole the diamond for?" Rapunzel asked curiously.

"We never found out his name," Eugene said with a shrug. "But he did give us the promised money. I barely spent any of my share…I was still saving it to get that island of mine for me and Edith. After that, we had a lot of different jobs…"

Rapunzel looked interested by this statement and snuggled closer to him. "Like what?" Then something else seemed to occur to her. "Did you and Meira…were you ever in love with her?"

Eugene winced at this question and sighed. "I thought I was," he admitted sheepishly. "But then I met you." Smiling in what he hoped was a charming fashion, he held Rapunzel close tot him. "But I don't want to talk about that right now…I think we should stop the story—"

"Oh, no!" Rapunzel insisted. "I want to hear more."

"…Why?" Eugene asked in confusion. "It's not that interesting anymore…"

"I think it is," Rapunzel said firmly. "Because it's about you!"

"So you want to know about my old girlfriends?" Eugene demanded. "It's not exactly something I enjoy talking about, Blondie."

"Please?" Rapunzel pleaded, giving him her most winning look.

…He'd been a bad influence on Blondie, Eugene decided. She'd gotten that act from him, after all. Rolling his eyes a little, Eugene sighed huffily. "Really? Why?"

"Because I said so?" Rapunzel tried, doing her best to still look charming.

…She was pulling the Princess card. Great. Now he had to do it. Sighing with the air of a martyr, Eugene rolled his eyes. "Fine," he murmured. "What do you want to hear next?"

He dreaded the answer the minute he asked the question, and once she answered, he realized he had been right to dread it.

"Tell me about how you and Meira became a couple."

Really? What was it about this girl that she needed to know all about his past? And what was it about him that he was agreeing to tell her everything? Sighing heavily, Eugene muttered darkly under his breath before he started the story up again.

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It was two years since the diamond heist, as Meira liked to call it. Eugene thought it was stupid to call a job anything like that, but she kept insisting on calling it that. Stupid girls, he thought. He really didn't understand anything about girls and why they kept naming things.

At the moment, Eugene was leaning against a tall tree watching as Meira finished giving her hair a trim. Not a very good one, as she was using her knife and not allowing him to get the back, but still a long-needed one. She'd been complaining about her hair for weeks, and finally Eugene had told her to just hack it all off already. Well…she'd taken him quite literally, it seemed.

Her long braid was gone, and Eugene had to admit that she looked very different without her hair. Not in a bad way, though. She'd really grown into her beauty in the last two years, going from scrawny to slender and with her face filling out nicely, along with other parts of her. Her eyes no longer looked too large for her face and her grin was no longer too wide. All in all, she had grown up rather nicely, even though she was still a good foot shorter than Eugene.

He had thought he had stopped growing when he was fifteen, but apparently not. Now he stood at over six feet, and a part of him was sure that he wasn't done growing yet. And the "fuzz" that Meira insisted was still all his facial hair was had started to fill out a little. Eugene liked to think that he had also become quite ruggedly handsome, but he couldn't exactly depend on Meira to give him a dependable answer about whether or not he actually was. All she did was tease him whenever he did ask her anything about his appearance. Oh, well. There were plenty of girls in the various villages and towns that they passed through who were very impressed with him.

Eugene's thoughts were interrupted as Meira stood up, shaking out her now shoulder-length hair to see if she had missed any of it. She hadn't, though it was still very lopsided, particularly in the back. "How do I look?" she asked, once more flashing him her toothy grin.

She looked rather nice, actually. The shorter hair wouldn't be in the way as much and it did frame her face nicely enough. Still, Eugene wasn't about to admit that to her. "You look like someone tried to gnaw your hair off," he said with his own lopsided grin.

Meira only rolled her eyes in response, but Eugene could swear he saw a look of disappointment on her face. Why was beyond him, of course. He would never understand girls. Not even if he lived to be a million years old.

"Come on," he added, looking over his shoulder to ensure that they hadn't been discovered. "We have a new customer to meet, remember?"

"I always remember when we have work," Meira said rather flippantly. "It means we get a decent meal. We'd have more of those if you weren't always hording your share."

Eugene rolled his eyes. This was a common argument between the two of them. She always wanted to spend all their money and Eugene continued putting aside a small amount here and there for when they would either really need it or for when he could finally buy that secluded island for him and Edith. "Well we'd have more money for food if you didn't spend all your share right away."

Meira only responded by wrinkling her nose at him slightly as she walked past him. As she did so, Eugene couldn't help noticing that Meira really had developed quite well in the last two years…

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Eugene paused again, this time from embarrassment. He really didn't want to be the one who had to tell Rapunzel about his first real…well girlfriend, really, as he was now fairly sure he'd never been in love with Meira. Then there was the whole issue of trying to downplay just how…intimate his relationship with Meira had become in the two years they had together. For one thing, he was worried that Rapunzel would get jealous, which was the last thing he wanted for her, and for another, he blushed to just think about those months spent with Meira.

Rapunzel looked up at him questioningly and Eugene cleared his throat self-consciously. "Right…" he muttered under his breath. "Uh…so…we went and did that job, and then Meira and I got drinks to celebrate. We had a few too many and…well…we sort of kissed…"

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It was not just a kiss, Eugene decided. This was way too passionate to be just a kiss, as Meira pressed herself firmly against him, one hand tugging at his vest and the other on the table to steady them both. For a moment, Eugene's sluggish mind couldn't quite put together what he was supposed to do. Then he finally seemed to comprehend and returned the kiss firmly, not entirely sure what he was doing.

Neither of them knew what they were doing, really, but that didn't stop them from stumbling back to the room they had rented for the night and falling onto Eugene's bed in a tangle of gangly limbs. The rest of the night was a haze to Eugene—partly the alcohol's fault and partly the fault of Meira—but when he woke up to find Meira' wrapped in his arms, he wasn't too surprised by it. After all, he could definitely remember the kiss that started it all.

Turning over lazily, Meira met Eugene's gaze with a slight twitch of her lips. "So," she said with a teasing light in her eyes. "I guess the great Flynn Rider's found one way to live up to the name."

Eugene rolled his eyes and scoffed. Even now, when they were both undressed and curled up together, she couldn't be entirely serious. Not that he had expected anything less. She wasn't the sort to take much of anything seriously. He'd thought he'd gotten used to it, but apparently he hadn't.

"Let's not have that talk again," he mumbled under his breath, still too tired to care much at this point.

"If you say so, Rider," Meira replied with a shrug, moving to lie flat on her back so that she could look up at the ceiling above her. "What's our next move?"

Ever-impatient, Eugene thought with a sigh. "I dunno," he admitted. "We can always line up another job while we're here. They seem to have plenty of people willing to pay to get something, even if it's not in the most law-abiding way."

Meira nodded. "Sounds like a plan. After breakfast."

And with that, she rolled over and went right back to sleep, leaving Eugene with his own thoughts for company.

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Author's Note: Whoo! Longest chapter so far! Next we'll find out how Flynn met the Stabbingtons. I won't be getting rid of Meira for another couple of chapters, so bear with me. I know that at least some of my readers aren't fond of her, and while I'll admit that she's not my favorite of my OCs, I just ask you hold on a little longer. She'll be gone long before Flynn steals the crown.