Disclaimer: See chapter 1.

Author's note: I've never had more fun with a story, ever. Thanks to readers & reviewers!

XXXXXX

Never let it be said that either Nate or Parker didn't excel at avoidance.

As it happened, the first thing they did upon getting home was not to find another judge, but rather to get caught up in another job. And then another half dozen after that. By the time they got around to making an appointment with another judge, they had been married for over four months.

Along the way, despite Eliot and Hardison's constant teasing, they both happily pretended the marriage had never happened (except for Parker's occasional taunts to Nate about the rings he'd bought). But otherwise, they never thought about that day – or at least that's what they'd claim if they were asked.

Except some things were quite different after that trip to Las Vegas. For one, the rest of the team noticed that Nate and Parker seemed much more comfortable with each other. As for Sophie and Eliot – who the hell knew what was going on with them? Half the time Nate thought they were really together, the other half he thought they were only putting on a show to screw with Hardison. Knowing them, the truth was probably a mixture of both.

Nate wasn't thinking of Eliot or Sophie while he and Parker sat in a courtroom, awaiting the entrance of the judge. He leaned back in his chair and watched as Parker (his wife, a voice in his head whispered) spun restlessly in hers. He'd never get used to that fact: that they were married. Then he shook himself and remembered he wouldn't have to, because soon they wouldn't be married anymore.

Parker spun her ring over and over again on the table in front of them.

"Why do you have that?" Nate asked. He'd seen her playing with it restlessly at various times since they came back from Vegas, but he'd never asked her about it. Now seemed as good a time as any.

Parker froze momentarily before recovering and shrugging in a way she hoped he interpreted as nonchalant. "I don't know. Still, I don't think you could have gotten me a cheaper ring if you tried, Nate."

He had found his own wedding band on the bureau in his hotel room the day they left Las Vegas. He'd meant to throw it away, but for some reason, it had found its way onto his nightstand at home. In fact, it was the last thing he saw every night before he went to bed.

"I probably put a lot of thought into that," he defended himself as he watched her stop the ring right before it was going to fall off the table.

"It's aluminum with cubic zirconia diamonds," she told him, as if he didn't already know. They'd had this argument before. "If you really loved me you'd have gotten the real thing."

"Guess I don't really love you then," he smiled at her and was saved from her no doubt scathing reply by the judge entering.

Nate explained their situation, summarizing what they'd put in their court papers, and as he talked he could tell by the way the judge looked at them that things weren't promising.

"Am I to believe," Judge Galen began, "that you accidentally got married over four months ago, in a night which you both claim you can't remember, and yet you are only now seeking an annulment?"

"We tried, Your Honor. However, at the time, the judge in Las Vegas refused to grant our petition. Since then, we've gotten caught up in…" he glanced at Parker as the thought of all the illegal things their team had done since then crossed his mind, "...other things."

"That's true," Parker agreed. "We've had more important things to do."

"More important than annulling your marriage, I'm sure."

Parker figured that probably wasn't a question, but she decided to treat it as one. "If you knew what I had to deal with," she said, "you'd grant our request without any arguments."

"Why don't you tell me exactly what you've had to deal with, then?" The judge propped her head on her hand and Nate got the feeling she'd been having a particularly boring day and hoped this session would spice things up.

"Well…uh…" Parker had been sure that when the time came, she'd be able to come up with a long list of grievances against Nate. Only now, she couldn't think of any. Except for the obvious. "I'm married!"

"Let me get this straight," Judge Galen said. "Your main complaint about being married is that…you're married."

"Finally," Parker glanced at Nate. "Someone gets it!"

"Do you two currently reside with each other?"

"No," Nate said.

"Sometimes," Parker answered at the exact same time.

Nate gave her a look to ask what the hell she was doing.

"I can't lie, Nate," Parker leaned over to whisper to him. "She's a judge, what if she finds out. I'm not going to jail for you!"

"Which is it?" Judge Galen asked.

"She stays over sometimes," Nate said, "but only if we're working late. We each have our own residences."

"Right, we don't sleep together that much," Parker added.

The judge raised her eyebrows at that as Nate jumped in. "In the same apartment! She means we sleep together but not," he sighed, looking at the ceiling, "together."

"Sounds like my marriage," the judge muttered.

"Maybe if you considered doing something with your hair then your husband might –"

Nate yanked her chair closer to his. "Please stop talking."

"I must say," the judge watched them closely, "that I've read both of your statements and it does not seem to me like you two want an annulment all that much."

"Then maybe you have a reading comprehension prob –"

"Parker!" Nate yelled, then tried to sound disarming for the judge. "She has a bad sense of humor. Ignore everything she says from now on."

"See? He doesn't listen to me!" Parker lamented.

Nate thought physically dragging her out of the courtroom would probably be frowned upon, so he kept himself in check. Barely.

The judge seemed unhappier as the minutes passed, and Parker, as usual, didn't listen to Nate.

"It's practically an emergency, you have to grant this," Parker tried again.

Nate was relieved that she hadn't included an insult in her statement, but as soon as the anger passed over Judge Galen's face, he knew it had been the wrong thing to say.

"First of all," the judge said briskly, "if you truly felt that way, you would have tried to seek an annulment long before now. Second, I doubt you understand the nature of the word 'emergency,' because this case does not qualify. You know what would merit immediate action? An abusive relationship. Discovering that your spouse is married to someone else. Or perhaps finding out that they're a serial killer."

Parker turned to Nate at that, assessing him. He met her gaze head on and willed her, with all his might, to not say anything.

"I don't see anything about your situation that's an emergency," the judge continued to lecture.

"Would it help the process along if I told you that Nate could very well be a serial killer?" Parker asked.

"I'm not a serial killer," Nate reassured the judge, before turning to Parker. "Though you never know about the future."

Parker shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

The judge only stared at her for a moment before glancing back down at the paperwork they'd had to submit to the court. "You've known each other for years. You work at the same consulting firm. You're obviously friends, you got married accidentally – you say – but then waited four months to seek an annulment? This is not like the vast majority of cases. Everything I'm seeing tells me that you are trying to seek an annulment to avoid the greater expense associated with a divorce."

"That is not true," Parker argued. "And if you're looking at our petition, you would see that we did try to seek an annulment before, except the judge we saw was completely irrational – and much too sensitive," she added, remembering how worked up he'd gotten at her comments about his intellect. "He wouldn't listen to reason and he allowed his own personal bias to interfere with what should have been a professional decision." She spun her ring again.

"Mmhmm," Judge Galen was less than impressed. "That would be Judge Nelson Caffrey, who I just spoke to last week?"

Parker slammed her hand down onto her ring in surprise, and Nate knew they weren't getting out of this.

"I don't need to hear anymore," the judge said. "I would have granted your request if not for this long time lapse. And coupled with the phone call I received from Judge Caffrey, I'm inclined to believe that you two are taking advantage of the system. It seems obvious to me that the two of you got married based upon a legitimate desire on both your parts, and that only now, after seeing a few months later it wouldn't work, you're seeking an annulment in order to avoid the cost of a divorce."

Nate was almost positive that they were on some sort of hidden camera show, because this did not really happen to people. And why had Judge Caffrey tracked them down only to contact their current judge? Had Parker aggravated the man that much? It seemed above and beyond what a normal person might do.

Either way, they were at an impasse. And still married.

Parker felt as if the floor were giving way beneath her feet. This judge could not force her to stay married to Nate. He would hate her more than he already did. Maybe forever. "You have to do this," she told the judge.

"I do not have to do anything," she informed Parker. "But you two do. I'm denying your petition for an annulment but I will grant you a divorce – on one condition."

Nate was almost afraid to ask. "That being?"

"That you both complete couple's counseling."

Parker gripped the ring in her hand so tightly that she knew it would leave a mark. "That's a funny joke, Your Honor."

"No joke," the judge told them sternly. "Mr. and Mrs. Ford, believe me when I say I am not in the habit of forcing couples who hate each other to stay married. However, everything I've read in these forms and everything I've seen in the courtroom today leads me to believe that you have been lying either to the court or to each other. It's clear that you two once had some genuine affection for each other. In fact, it's my personal opinion that you married each other because you both wanted to. I cannot in good conscience allow you to subvert the system to obtain an annulment on illegal grounds. You may have a divorce, if you complete the course which I am legally allowed to assign. Or you can try and find another judge more sympathetic to your obviously fake excuses. By the way, I know every judge in this system. It's your choice."

"Relationship counseling sounds excellent, Your Honor," Nate said reluctantly. He took the papers the judge held out for him. "Let's go," he ordered Parker. He could tell she wanted to argue, but for once she kept her mouth shut until they were out of the judge's earshot. He decided to be grateful for small miracles.

"Why can't we find someone else?" She complained as soon as they'd left the courthouse.

"Didn't you hear her? She pretty much implied she'd make sure no one else would grant us an annulment or divorce. I don't know what it is with us and judges lately. We're not having any luck."

"Maybe we can get Hardison to bribe one of them, or blackmail somebody. That'd be a lot easier."

"I know you're always looking for the illegal solution to a problem –" at her accusing look he sighed. "Alright, so am I. But in this case it's going to be much easier and quicker to simply sit down with a counselor for a session and then get Judge Galen to grant the divorce. Don't you think?"

"I hate counselors, and psychiatrists, and all mental health professionals, actually."

"A counselor is not necessarily a psychiatrist," he pointed out. "All she'll do is ask about our relationship. We'll tell her the truth. She'll agree we should get a divorce and sign off on it, and that will be it. It will be simple, I swear."

Parker heaved a sigh, but he knew he'd convinced her. "You owe me, Nathan Ford. I'm taking half of everything you own."

"Whatever it takes to buy back my freedom," he said, perhaps more bitterly than he'd intended.

She was glad he wasn't looking at her, which meant he missed the hurt that flashed across her face. She'd had plenty of people in her life try to get away from her; it shouldn't still be such a surprise.

They didn't talk the rest of the way home.

XXXXXX

"Congratulations on your annulment!" Sophie cried the second they entered Nate's apartment. "It took over four months but we knew you'd get it done eventually."

Hardison held out the cake he had baked them, complete with a gravestone decoration that had the beginning and (what he thought was) the end date of their marriage.

Parker exaggeratedly collapsed into a seat at the kitchen table. "You might want to save that, Hardison. See, what my husband here failed to tell me is that the longer we waited to get an annulment, the less likely a judge would be to believe that we hadn't willingly gotten married in the first place."

"How was I supposed to know that a sadistic Las Vegas judge would contact this one and convince her we were trying to play the system?" Nate said in frustration.

"You're still married!" Eliot guessed with too much evil glee.

"Not only that," Nate threw the papers the judge had given them onto the table, "but we have to complete a relationship counseling course before she'll grant us a divorce."

"This is why women shouldn't be allowed to be judges," Parker sulked.

"It's a set-back," Sophie acknowledged, considering herself the only rationally-minded person in the room. "But let's be realistic, nothing really changes. Neither of you were planning on getting married for real any time soon, were you?"

"I'd like to point out that they are already married for real," Hardison chimed in.

"You never know," Parker said defensively. "Things happen! What if I did want to marry someone else?"

"And just who were you planning to marry any time in the near future?" Hardison challenged.

"I don't know," she got up and stepped nearer to him. "Maybe you."

"Wh-what?" Hardison's smile vanished. "You're playing with me, right?" He looked almost scared.

Parker only shrugged, and then laughed to herself when he fled to the living room.

"All you have to do," Sophie wisely ignored them, "is go through the motions and then you'll get your divorce. It sounds easy."

"Easy?" Nate objected, "With her?" He gestured toward Parker in amazement.

"You're the one who just convinced me on the way home it'd be simple!" She cried.

"I've been rethinking it since then," he informed her.

"There are other options here, Nate," Parker said, in a voice that was far too nice for her. "If I kill you I don't have to get an annulment or a divorce."

"You two really do need counseling," Hardison called over to them, though when Nate and Parker both turned toward him, he quickly 'remembered' somewhere he had to be and left the apartment in a hurry. It was in that moment that he decided he could never reveal he'd impersonated Judge Nelson Caffrey in a call to their current judge. He thought it'd be a hilarious joke. Now he thought it might just ensure him a shallow grave.

XXXXXX

"This place is depressing," Nate told her as they sat in the waiting room of Dr. Katherine Foster, certified marriage counselor. Parker didn't respond, but she privately agreed. They watched in silence as a couple stiffly left Dr. Foster's office, obviously trying to hide their desire to scream at each other.

Parker had seen many sad things in her life, most of which she didn't care to remember, but sitting in Dr. Foster's waiting room (which she shared with several other counselors) amounted to witnessing the last desperations of people who had nowhere else to go.

She surreptitiously watched a couple across from them bicker while trying not to attract too much attention. They hated each other. She felt like a fraud sitting there with Nate, because it seemed that their non-marriage was more of a marriage than the variety of feuding couples they'd been witness to for the past twenty minutes. At least she didn't want to murder the man sitting next to her, which appeared to be a step up from most of the other people she'd seen.

In fact, of the three other couples on the plush waiting room couches, they were actually sitting the closest together. Two other couples had at least two feet between them and the third couple had taken up positions at opposite ends of the room. She definitely didn't give that one much hope.

Nate flipped through a golfing magazine, and she could tell by the way he didn't stop for long on any page that he was beyond bored. As for her, she could barely concentrate on anything. She was too hyper-aware of the tension and unhappiness in the room. She knew that kind of misery and she had spent her whole life swearing she would avoid it as much as possible. She would never get married and put herself in that kind of position. Yet, somehow, she hadn't avoided that, had she?

They only had five minutes until their appointment was due to begin and that seemed like far too long to wait. When the man across from them suddenly stood and yelled at his wife that he was sick of her ordering him to 'these pointless excuses for a sham doctor to make money off of other people's suffering,' Parker involuntarily flinched and shifted closer to Nate.

He glanced down at where she was practically leaning on him. "Are you alright?"

"I hate fighting," she muttered, crossing her arms and watching as the man who'd had an outburst strode off to the bank of elevators. His wife waited until he was gone before she stood up to leave as well, flashing a short, apologetic smile at Parker – the only person in the waiting room who wasn't politely looking away from the scene they'd just witnessed.

Honestly, why did anyone want to subject themselves to the miseries of marriage? It seemed like such a waste, an excuse to violently hate the person you, at one point in time, truly cared about.

She let her gaze linger over Nate for a moment before concluding she would never understand how people could come to despise those they had once loved above anyone else.

XXXXXX

TBC – To all following - this is my favorite story so far for a reason. How much fun can I have with court-mandated counseling sessions? Probably too much.

I love all thoughts.