Hardison and Parker were sitting in the black van monitoring the rest of the team as they infiltrated a party that Ian Blackpool was hosting that night. They'd been working on this con for a few weeks, and finally tonight it was going down. Blackpool was Nate's old boss at I.Y.S., and they were helping Nate take revenge on him, for causing the death of his son.

So far, things seemed to be going smoothly. It was a pretty straight forward job. Blackpool had the First David, a statue that Michelangelo created as a practice for his masterpiece, and they were going to attempt to sell him the fake Second David, to expose him as a fraud. Sophie and Eliot were already in with Blackpool. Sophie was negotiating art from the Vatican for the collection, and Eliot was an art appraiser. He would certify the statue and the deal would be done.

Hardison had spent days lovingly creating the fake Second David, and he'd done a fine job if he did say so himself. The rest of the team didn't quite appreciate the craftsmanship that he put into it, but he liked to consider himself an artist just as much as he was a hacker. It wasn't perfect, but good enough to fool Blackpool.

Parker was playing with the 'Little Naked Man' as he liked to call the statue. "Hello little naked man!" she said, as she made him say hello back.

"Parker, please be careful with that. It took me a long time to make it, and I'm not real excited about having to do it again.

She held the statue up to him like it was talking to him and said in a low voice, "Don't worry! I won't get hurt! Parker will take good care of me."

Sometimes Hardison marveled at how childlike Parker could be. From the moment he met her on a rooftop in Boston, he liked her. She was crazy, for sure, but she seemed to see the world in a way that no one else did or probably even could, and he thought that was nice. The fact that he found her to be cute didn't hurt either, but he was sure that she didn't see him as anything more than one of her teammates.

Their well thought out plan began to unravel pretty quickly. Eliot had been flirting with a woman all night, and she turned out to be Nate's ex-wife, Maggie. Blackpool agreed to the sale under the condition that Maggie certified that the statue was authentic.

"Now, Nate, is Maggie a very good Art Inspector?" Hardison asked, already expecting the answer.

"Yeah, she's the best."

Parker grabbed the statue. "No, no, no, we can't let your ex-wife anywhere near our little naked man."

Sophie sighed. "We have to show her the real thing. We have to steal the first David right now so we can show it to Maggie tomorrow as the second David."

"That's too risky." Nate replied.

"Blackpool knows our faces. We're never gonna get him on the hook like this again. You honestly think that we can fool Maggie with a fake?" Sophie asked.

Nate thought for a moment. "No. She's too smart and too experienced. When we worked together, there was nobody better. All right. Well, one crisis at a time. Parker, get in here."

"Oh hell." Hardison sighed. "Why does everything have to be this hard?"

"How much trouble is Eliot going to be in, when Nate gets ahold of him?" Parker made the statue say in that silly low voice.

"Well, that is at least something to look forward to." He reached over and took the statue from her. "You need to put that statue down before something happens to it! We might still need it." Parker pouted.

They came up with a plan B. Hardison thought that Parker was way too excited about breaking into the vault with no plan, but her ability to break into anywhere was pretty amazing. She was going to put on a dress and join the party. His job was to go in as wait staff to help.

Parker went to a bag and grabbed one of Sophie's stashed dresses. Before he had time to react, she was changing right there in the middle of the van. He really didn't object to it, but his Nana had taught him enough manners that he turned around to give her privacy, also turning the statue around with him. When she asked him to help her zip the dress up, he did it while trying very hard to keep his eyes anywhere but on her bare skin. She re-did her hair as he got into his white shirt and tie, and after a few minutes, they were both ready to join the party. He took a long look at her and said "Damn girl. I thought you needed to blend in at this party. Looking like that, everyone is going to notice you."

She snorted at him. "Uh huh. People don't notice me. That is part of my whole thing." She reached over and adjusted his crooked tie.

"Oh trust me," he replied with a smile. "Some people notice." He knew he was flirting with her, and he knew that the flirting was completely going over her head, but he did it anyway. He couldn't really help himself.

He walked into the party from the back entrance, and blended in with the other waiters. He tried to look like he belonged there, while listening to the various conversations going on in his earbud. With all of them in play, there was no one to keep an eye on everyone, so they were all a little tense. He laughed to himself when he thought of Eliot and Nate, and how that tension had taken on a whole different level. He heard Parker ask for aluminum foil, and he found a guy carrying some near the buffet. Cracking a joke about taking some shrimp for breakfast jambalaya the next day, he took it from him, and hurried down to meet Parker.

He and Sophie reached Parker at the same time. Before either of them could say anything, Parker began barking orders. "The door's got a silent alarm. You should hide," she said to Sophie, who immediately walked away from them. She turned to Hardison. "You and I should pretend to make out!"

"Say what?" was all he could manage to say before she put her arm around his neck and pulled him closer, planting her lips on his.

He was a little bit too shocked to respond to her at first, but after a few seconds, he remembered how his lips worked and he returned her awkwardly frantic kisses, putting both of his hands around her back. He pushed one hand against the door, and heard a click that let him know that the door had opened. He knew the guards would be on their way. She kept groping at him and kissing him, making the cutest little moaning noises, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing. "Hey can we talk about this?" he said through the kisses. She didn't answer and just kept kissing him. For a brief moment, he forgot where they were or what they were doing. It was just them in the hallway, and he was enjoying the moment. It was broken up though, by the arrival of the guards.

One of them cleared his throat. "You, uh, bumped the door there. Sets the alarm off."

Hardison looked around awkwardly. "You know what? We, you know how it is.""

"Oh. Sorry" Parker added.

The guards just looked at them, and walked away. Hardison followed Parker through the door. He was glad to be standing behind her, so she couldn't see the big grin on his face. "Can we talk about the pretending? That was nice." She wasn't interested in talking though. She was completely focused on the work. "Later," he thought to himself. "Maybe we can talk about it later."