And then there were four. This one's a bit short, and a bit boring too, and I apologize for that. Still, this chapter is kind of important. Why? Because this is just about where things start to go wrong. :)

Well, I went back and read over chapter three once again, and I realized something. I don't really like how it turned out. I think the end of it is good, but everything before the dinner scene is kind of, eh. It just doesn't seem like it's written well. Oh well.

From here on out, expect at least one chapter every three days. This one took a little longer than I expected. School has already hit me hard, and it's taking longer than I thought to pump these out. Plus, I've found that it's starting to get hard thinking out how I want the story to progress. Don't worry, I've got the general idea of the whole story figured out, I'm just having a tiny bit of trouble thinking of a way to present it.

Now that that's out of the way, I present to you chapter four!

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Chapter 4: The Chief's Wedding Gift

"So what made you finally decide to tell me the truth?" Carmelita watched as Sly headed towards the living room. They had gotten home a little before ten. The walk home was pretty uneventful, as the restaurant was fairly close to their apartment complex. Sly sat down on the couch next to Carmelita. He knew what he had to tell her, but he was a little nervous as to how she would react. Hopefully she wouldn't be too pissed at him for it. Sly scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, I kind of went out to visit Bentley last night. He convinced me to tell you. Said it was better to tell you before you found out the hard way." Sly looked over at Carmelita to see her reaction. He was surprised to see her smirking at him.

"Figures. I guess that's why you woke up at nearly twelve?"

"Well, yeah," Sly said. "Are you mad?"

"Surprisingly, no. How did you find him though?" she asked.

"He sent the GPS coordinates to my binocucom by mistake," Sly explained.

"I thought he was the smart one. That kind of mistake could have gotten him arrested. I mean, what if another cop had your binocucom?"

"That's what Penelope said."

"Who?"

"Oh yeah, I don't think you met her," Sly explained to Carmelita. "We recruited her for the Cooper Vault job. She's Bentley's girlfriend."

"He got himself a girlfriend?" Carmelita asked. She chuckled to herself. "Didn't see that coming."

Sly looked nervously at Carmelita. "Erm, well they invited me to their house on Sunday. They said they were going to get Murray to stop by and I was wondering if..."

"Of course I'm going to let you see your old friends again," Carmelita interrupted. "I am, after all, the reason you haven't seen them for over a year."

"Well, I was kind of hoping you would come with me. I think the guys would appreciate it."

"What?" Carmelita said, surprised. "You really think your old gang would appreciate it if a cop, who had been tracking them for years, came to their house and visited?"

"You'd be surprised," Sly replied. "Nobody really has bad feelings towards you. Sure, you tried to jail us all, but it wasn't anything personal. You were just doing their job."

"Maybe, but wouldn't that be awkward? For all of us? Well, except for you maybe."

"Don't worry," Sly reassured her. "Just don't arrest anyone and you'll be fine." Carmelita laughed.

"Alright ringtail, I'll go with you."

"Excellent." Sly looked over the clock and yawned. "Well, I guess I'm going to bed. We do have work tomorrow after all. Good night, my sweet." He kissed Carmelita and started heading towards his room. But before he could reach the door...

"Where are you going?"

Sly looked over at Carmelita, wearing confusion on his face. "Erm, to my room?"

Carmelita grinned at him. "Why? I have a double bed you know. We're going to be married, we might as well act like it."

Sly smiled. "Whatever you say beautiful." He headed into the room.

-

The announcement of their engagement got mixed reactions from their co-workers at Interpol. Some of them were happy for them, while others felt that they had missed out on something great. The guys groaned at the fact that Carmelita was no longer available to anyone. The women sighed at their missed chance with the suave ladies man. Throughout his day, Sly was bombarded with comments ranging from "congratulations" to "you lucky bastard!" Sly merely shrugged the tension off and ignored all the attention from his fellow officers. He couldn't deal with it now. He and Carmelita were assigned to the case of a local illegal arms dealer known as Phillip Marakov a few weeks ago. He was one of the largest arms dealers in all of France, and he was on the Interpol's most wanted list. They were having trouble tracking him. While searching through the case file, he heard a knock on his open door. He looked up to see Carmelita standing in his office. He smiled at the vixen.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Chief wants to see us." She waited until he was almost out the door to head to the Chief's office. Hopefully the Chief wasn't going to chew them out for not getting anything on Marakov. They knocked on the door leading into Chief Barkley's office.

"Come in," a low raspy voice called from within the room. Sly and Carmelita walked through the door.

"You wanted to see us sir?" Carmelita questioned.

"Ah, yes. Please sit down you two." They did as they were told. Sly tried to read the Chief's face. Sly couldn't tell what emotions were going through the Chief. Was it anger? Disappointment? Happiness? It was impossible to tell. He had the perfect poker face. Barkley looked at the two officers in front of him. "Well, first off, I guess congratulations are in order. Finally took the plunge eh Cooper?" Sly smiled.

"Yep. Best decision of my life." The Chief chuckled silently to himself.

"Never thought that would ever happen. Carmelita Fox is marrying Sly Cooper. Quite unheard of." Carmelita tensed up. Something was wrong. The Chief shouldn't be acting like this in front of Sly. He's hinting too much towards his past. He doesn't know the truth about Sly's amnesia, does he? Sly decided to play it cool and act dumb.

"Why's that sir? I mean we have been together for almost a year." Sly could feel something was wrong just as much as Carmelita would. Why was the Chief smirking like that?

"Why, because of your past as a thief of course."

Carmelita's jaw dropped. Was the Chief really this dumb? No, no he wasn't. He knew. He knew Sly didn't really have amnesia. There was no denying it. But, how? Sly suddenly felt a lump in his throat.

"Erm, what are you talking about sir?" The Chief merely smiled at him.

"Come on now Sly, there's no need to play dumb with me anymore. I know the truth. I know all about your little lie to Carmelita. I know you faked your amnesia." Sly and Carmelita had no idea what to say. They were left speechless. The Chief continued. "I gotta say, I've heard of tons of crazy stories of what guys do to try to win a lady over, but your story takes the cake Sly. A complete 180 in your life, from thief to cop. Do you think it was worth it?"

Sly was in complete shock. Not sure of what to say, he simply nodded.

"How did you find out?" Carmelita asked.

"You weren't the only officers eating at that restaurant you two were at last night," the Chief explained. "I got a call from Constable Richardson late last night. He told me all about Sly's little confession to you. He was sitting only a few tables away and could hear what you two were talking about." He pulled out a cigar from his desk drawer and lit it. "I gotta say Sly, that must have taken some real guts to tell her that you were lying to her for over a year."

Sly looked down and frowned. "What happens now then? Am I kicked off the force? Are you going to arrest me?" The Chief smiled at the raccoon. He took a puff of his cigar before continuing.

"It's what I should do. Once word gets out that Interpol hired a known criminal, we'll never hear the end of it. People will probably be demanding your arrest." He looked at the dismayed ex-master thief. "But..."

Sly's ears perked up. "But...?"

"I'm not going to do that." Sly was confused. Why? Why was he letting him go, knowing that he lied about his amnesia? After all, the only reason he was on the force at all was because of his amnesia. As if he read Sly's mind, the Chief explained his reasoning. "I know what a year can do to a man Sly. It can change him in crazy ways. It can change his personality, the way he acts, and it can also change his morals. I know that you willingly gave up thieving to become a cop. I know that you're smart enough to stay out of trouble if I let this pass by. I also know that you two have become the two best cops in this department. On top of that, I do believe that Carmelita here would get slightly pissed off if I arrested her future husband." He looked at Carmelita and smiled. "But hear me now Sly. I'll be watching you closely. One mishap and you're out of here. Got it?" Sly nodded. The Chief brought the cigar up to his mouth and took another puff. "Think of this as my wedding gift to you." A thought suddenly crossed Sly's mind.

"Sir, this isn't going to go public is it?" The Chief shook his head.

"I'm sorry Sly, but it must. I'll get hell for it for sure, but it must be done. I can't keep something like this from the public, or I'll get fired if anyone finds out about this." Sly looked down and sighed.

"I understand."

"And Carmelita, you're still responsible for him. Got it?"

"Yes sir," she replied.

"Is that all sir?" Sly asked.

The Chief shook his head.

"No, there's one more thing." The Chief took another puff of his cigar. "Sly, I'm promoting you to Inspector."

-

Later that night...

A shady figure stood near an alleyway in front of a closed convenience store. He brought a lit cigarette up to his mouth and took a drag. He then threw the butt on the ground and stomped it with his boot. He stood there in silence, occasionally glancing at the large duffel bag sitting next to him. He was waiting for them. The deal was about to go down. Any minute now. They should be here soon. Suddenly, his cell phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He brought the device out and looked at the screen. He frowned. Not him. He knew better than to call him before a deal. This had better be good. He opened up the phone and brought it to his ear.

"What is it?" he growled, dangerously. "I'm busy. You know that the deal is going down soon."

"I assume that you didn't catch the news tonight?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Why the hell should I care about the news?" the figured replied. "It's nothing but a bunch of boring crap. Why should I bother when I've got bigger things to worry about? Like our little business?" A muffled laugh came from the other end.

"Oh, I'm sure you would have been interested on the story they had on Constable Cooper tonight. Or should I say, Inspector Cooper."

"So the bloody raccoon was promoted. Big deal! Why the hell should I care? It's not like he can get to me anyways. If he could have, he would have arrested me while he was a Constable. Just because his rank changed doesn't mean he'll have an easier time trying to track me. I'm not worried."

"Oh, that's not the interesting part. See, it seems Cooper has been faking amnesia since before he joined Interpol."

The figure's jaw dropped.

"You're not bull-shitting me right?"

"You really think I'd be dumb enough to screw around with you? I know what happened to your last partner. I'm not that foolish." The figure nodded to himself.

"Was there any mention of his cane during the story?"

"Unfortunately no, but I'm willing to bet that he knows where it is."

The figure looked down on the concrete and thought. "So we need to get to him then. You realize what this means Carson?" Carson laughed.

"Of course. With luck, we'll be filthy rich in no time!" The figure smiled.

"When I get back from this deal, we'll start planning out how we're going to do this." He looked down the street to see a car coming down the road, gradually going slower as it approached the figure. He picked up the duffel bag with his free hand. "I need to go. I'll call you later. Goodbye Carson."

"Goodbye Marakov."

--

Uh oh! What's going to happen? What are Carson and Marakov after? It should be obvious to all of you, hopefully. If not, then you need to play Sly 3 again. :P

Well, school is upon us once more! As you can see, it took me three days to get this chapter out. I've been rather busy since chapter 3. Luckily, it's the weekend soon, and chapter 5 shouldn't be too far off! Remember, I'm aiming for one chapter every three days from now on. With some luck, I'll be able to get them out faster. I'm not making any promises though!

This chapter has gotten me to pass the 10,000 word mark on this story! Joy!

Reviews are always appreciated! :)

Until next chapter folks!

-eaglefan101