A/N: Lawdy, I had no idea the cats would be so popular. Just gonna tuck that knowledge away for future reference. So much gratitude to the lovely Alice of Scots, the awe-inspiring LeeMarieJack, the iconic floralisette, the crème de la crème LyleRay, and the cookie on the top of the cookie jar Loonyloops. Thanks also to casual readers and people who have followed or favorited! Now let's check up on Nate, shall we? I should warn you that I made up the painting, but it's based on the very real relationship (or lack there of) between two very real artists (Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot).
At first glance, the museum was nothing more than a little hole-in-the-wall Indie gallery whose main attendees dressed in black and performed slam poetry in low-lit coffee shops. It was squeezed between a secondhand book shop and a run-down sports bar. Its front door was wide-open, attracting visitors as much as a dog whistle lures cats. Which is to say, it didn't. In fact, apart from a bored-looking girl at the front desk and an elderly couple arguing about the artist's true meaning behind one painting, the museum was empty. Only three people in the immediate vicinity knew the real worth of what hung on its walls.
Nathan Ford was one of them.
He stood, hands in pockets, across the street from the gallery. With a calculating eye, he watched the few pedestrians that ventured down this street. A bicyclist who made a wrong turn, the single mother who lived above the bar, a couple avid readers looking to score at the book shop. None of them concerned him.
He was there to see a woman.
"If it isn't the White Knight," an amused voice said to his right. "Love the hair, by the way. The slick look was just not you."
Nate didn't bother turning, but the corners of his lips twitched. "Hello, Sophie."
The grifter smiled softly at the sound of her alias. The alias, rather. The name that fellow con men and thieves admired, cursed, and gossiped about over drinks.
"What brings you to my neck of the woods, Mr. Ford?"
"The art," Nate said simply. He tried to hide his nerves. After two years of working closely with Sophie, he knew her tricks and her tells, but the woman standing next to him wasn't his Sophie. Maggie was one thing, hell, she wasn't too different in this dream world. Sam, on the other hand, had thrown him. But not even the resurrection of his son prepared him for this.
Sophie Devereaux: pre-Leverage Consulting and Associates. If that wasn't terrifying enough, he now had to pretend she and the team weren't the closest thing he had to family. Of course, here that wasn't exactly true. The team didn't exist and his real family was still intact.
Sophie laughed and Nate tried to keep his heart from clenching at the sound. "You know, most people go inside galleries for that, they don't loiter across the street from them."
"We aren't most people," Nate said, the old banter coming back to him like no time had passed. If he was honest with himself, he had missed it. He looked at Sophie for the first time. Her dark eyes were hauntingly out of place in this universe. She belonged with Eliot, Hardison, and Parker: with him. Even if she was God-knows-where looking for herself or whatever it was she was trying to accomplish, her home was an Irish pub in Boston, Massachusetts. The feeling of wrongness he got from the whole situation drove a sharp wedge through the joy he had felt with Sam.
"No," she replied, sighing at the museum front. "I suppose we aren't. It's been a while since we've run into each other, Nate. Since Tuscany, I believe."
"Sounds right," Nate said warily, vaguely remembering Tuscany... or maybe that was Paris? "I heard you went honest."
"That's right," Sophie didn't sound too happy about it. "I play outfield for the angels now."
"It's not so bad," Nate smiled. The (ex) grifter gave him a look.
"I always thought you'd make a marvelous thief," she said thoughtfully.
"Please, Sophie," Nate chuckled knowingly. "I'd be the best." Sophie joined in, shaking her head at his arrogance. Nate held out his arm. "What do you say, should we be most people for an afternoon?"
"Why, Mr. Ford," Sophie said coyly, batting her lashes and taking his arm, "if I didn't know any better I'd say you were trying to woo me."
"You'd be wrong, Ms. Devereaux," Nate replied. Sophie didn't know just how wrong, exactly, she was.
But she would.
The girl at the desk glanced up from her cell phone long enough to tell them not to touch anything, then purposefully ignored them. Nate nearly rolled his eyes. No wonder Sophie had targeted the gallery. They stood in front of a smallish frame furthest from the door. It depicted a woman in black, her head angled sharply, nearly to profile, and her eyes stared out confidently- Sophie would insist "teasingly"- from hooded lids.
"Beautiful isn't she?" Sophie breathed. "I love all Manet's work, but this," she paused, "this is my favorite: Berthe Morisot at Midafternoon." Nate couldn't see anything incredibly special that set this work apart from any other Manet so he figured there was a story behind it. "The woman in the painting was his sister-in-law, and a fellow impressionist. Berthe Morisot, the woman in black. He painted this in secret, never showing it to anyone. You see how the strokes are hurried yet still meticulous? Almost as if he was doing it as she sat there, hoping she wouldn't move before he finished."
Nate tried to look at it through her eyes. His gaze flickered over the brushstrokes, and for a brief second he thought he understood. But his mind was soon distracted by clocking the security around the painting, which of course was insured by IYS.
"Some call it the missing Manet," he said, noticing the pressure-sensitive glass the canvas was mounted beneath. Sophie nodded, still entranced by the painting.
"It was discovered in Morisot's possession after her death, and then it went missing for over fifty years before resurfacing again in New York. It's been lost, stolen, and bought many times before coming here," she explained. "But it's the woman that draws me to it. The muse and her painter."
A love story, Nate realized with a smile. When everything was said and done, Sophie Devereaux was just a hopeless romantic.
"So," he whispered, leaning closer to her, "how would you steal it?"
"Oh, Nate," Sophie sighed wistfully. "Don't tease me like that. You know I'm not that person anymore." There was longing in her eyes. She wanted- no, she coveted- this painting.
Nate knew her, better than anyone else did, possibly even better than herself (no matter how much soul-searching she did) and immediately recognized the voice she reserved for marks. Her longing was calculated and he only saw it because she wanted him too. She was right, she wasn't that person anymore, but she was still Sophie Devereaux. She wasn't going to steal this painting.
But only because she already had.
"You want to know how I'd do it?" Nate asked, hating himself for what he was about to do. He could always stop, just walk away, but one thought of Sam and he steeled himself. I'm not doing this for Sterling, he told himself, I'm doing this for Sam.
Sophie was uneasy for a moment, but let herself relax. "The White Knight playing my side? Now that's something I'd like to see."
And that was all it took to get the Great Sophie Devereaux on the hook. Nate wasn't surprised; thieves don't expect a con from an honest man.
It had been a while since he thought of himself as honest.
"Now, my father would go for a simple Smash 'n' Grab, but something like this takes... finesse," Nate gestured to the painting. "The gallery's small but the painting is better protected than the president. Twenty-four hour surveillance, pressure-sensitive casing, lasers, the whole nine-yards. I know of only one thief skilled enough to steal it from the wall. No, what I'd do, is make the curator doubt its authenticity, then sell them a fake. I get the painting, and some spending money to sweeten the deal." Sophie paled, her mouth a thin line. Nate wished he could stop the words coming from his mouth, but it was too late. "And hide the real painting in a storage facility on the other side of town. By the docks, maybe."
Four years ago, this would have meant victory.
"You'd better head over to that little museum home to the missing Manet or you'll miss all the fun."
Nate glanced down. "Are those new shoes, Sophie?" She glared at him, all the friendliness she had displayed was gone now. He had to remind himself again that this wasn't his Sophie. He kept his sight locked on (the fake) Berthe Morisot at Midafternoon. The painted woman's eyes glared accusingly.
"You wanker," she hissed and turned on her heel. She stopped next to the front desk. A stocky man leaned in the doorway, blocking her exit.
"Nice to see you again, Jenny," Jim Sterling smiled. "I see you've met my good friend Nate Ford."
"Nate," Sophie said sharply, ignoring Sterling. "Nate."
He slowly turned around. The grifter's eyes mirrored Morisot's.
"Is this true?"
"Meh," Nate shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets. Avoidance was his fall-back response."We're colleagues."
Sophie's expression turned desperate. "Nate, please. I'm honest now, I swear this was my last con. The fake's just as good as the original so no harm done, really. Nate? Look at me, damn you!" She shouted at him. Nate couldn't meet her eyes. Sophie stared at him, quivering with rage and betrayal. When he didn't move, she sagged. Behind her, several police officers and a detective entered the gallery behind Sterling. The girl behind the front desk leaned forward excitedly. It wasn't everyday she got to witness the arrest of an art thief.
"Connie White," the detective strapped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists, "alias Jenny Winslow, alias Annie Croy, alias Felicity Shaw, alias Sophie Devereaux, alias-"
"You can stop there," Sterling winced. "Save it for the paperwork, boys."
"Right, well, who ever you are, you're under the arrest for art fraud, theft, impersonating an officer of the law..." the detective went on, listing a handful of Sophie's many crimes. She never stopped watching Nate.
"You did this," she said without inflection as they led her out. "This is your fault, Nate, and I will never forgive you."
Sterling sauntered triumphantly over to Nate. "You finally did it," he grinned. "This is cause for celebration."
"Yes it is."
"Then how come you look like I just shot your puppy?" Sterling asked softly, almost as if he was concerned. Though occupational rivalry had eventually made them into little more than professional colleagues, Nate could still remember a time, long, long ago, when he considered Sterling a friend. Maybe they still were, in this universe. "Nate?"
"I need a drink," Nate groaned, rubbing the back of his neck.
Sterling frowned. "You're not drinking again, are you?"
Nate froze. "Ah." He had stopped? "I need to pick up Sam from his soccer game." He escaped the gallery and Sterling's disturbing companionship. What kind of nightmare had him betray Sophie and celebrate with Sterling? A treacherous little voice in his head asked him if this was worth Sam's life.
Yes, was the answer. Sam meant more than anything else. He would watch the whole world burn if it meant that Sam would be happy.
Thankfully, the game was still going on when Nate parked next to the navy mini-van for a second time. He jogged over to the woman Sam had talked to.
"I'm looking for Sam?" he asked.
Coach Mathers smiled amiably. "You must be Mr. Ford. He's playing right now, actually. You're just in time."
Nate followed her pointed finger until he saw the scrawny boy with an eight on his back. His worries disappeared the moment his son caught sight of him and waved, a grin lighting up his young face.
The world didn't seem so terrible any more.
The Djinn caressed and petted Nate's head until the man relaxed and a wave of euphoria rushed through him. The Djinn tasted the happiness the man felt, and his eyes flashed blue. He sighed at the emotions in the man's blood.
This man felt emotions more deeply than the other two. The Djinn glanced at the pale scarecrows in the other corner. No matter, they wouldn't last much longer.
The Djinn tenderly brushed back the man's hair from his forehead. Blue flames kissed the man's pallid skin. A second tattooed hand, this one smaller than the first, reached out to Nathan Ford's wrists and gently massaged the raw flesh.