Nate?" Abby asked cautiously as the mastermind sat at the bench researching a client. She walked up from behind him and leant on forward on the counter.

"Oh, I know that tone," he replied, "That's the 'I want something tone'."

"You're very perceptive," Abby smiled.

"And flattery will get you nowhere," he added.

"Because your job has nothing to do with flattery," she noted, pushing her hair back behind her ears.

"Fair point," he agreed, then closed the file with a flick of his wrist and turned to face her. "What can I do for you kiddo?"

"Well, we have this group project for school and we need somewhere to put it all together and we can't use our apartment 'cause Eliot's well," she paused momentarily, then continued, "Eliot. So I was wondering if we could maybe use yours? Just for a few hours on the weekend." She added the last part quickly, trying to make it seem a little of a deal as possible.

"Well, can't you use someone else's place?" he enquired.

"Well, everyone else is either having renovations, lives too far away or their parents are having an affair so I was kinda the only option left," she explained, shrugging her shoulders.

"Parent's having an affair huh?" he asked, slightly intrigued.

"Yup, with two different women, but I don't think my friend knows that particular detai," she described. "If you need the apartment for a job, we can just move to the poker room," she added quickly, again, trying to make it as nonchalant as possible. "We won't impose or anything."

"Ha ha, no way I'm letting a bunch of school kids into the poker room where there is alcohol and goodness knows what else," he laughed, then lent back in his chair and stretched his hands out above his head. "You may use the apartment," he informed her and she grinned but, before she could get ahead of herself, he held up his index finger and she settled down. "If you are responsible," he added.

"Yes sir," she agreed as she nodded, a serious, but cheeky look on her face.

Nate smiled back briefly as he returned to his work but was swiftly interrupted by his phone ringing.

He looked at the clock and then checked the caller ID. He immediately tensed upon recognising the number, a notion not missed by Abigail who watched intently.

"What do you want?" His question was straight to the point and his voice hoarse.

"We need to talk," came Latimer's voice then an abrupt beeping followed.

There was a solemn look on Nate's face as the phone lingered at his ear before, coughing, he placed it down.

"Everything okay?" Abby asked cautiously.

Nate, more or less, had stopped drinking (excessively) since he'd started seeing Sophie so Abby hadn't really seen the less savoury side of Nate. She'd heard about it, part of the reason she was a little concerned for him now.

Nate coughed again. "Mhm," he murmured, shutting his file once again and swung on his jacket.

"You're meant to be meeting Sophie," she reminded him as he headed for the door, taking an educated guess that he was not headed where he was supposed to.

He ignored her and shut the door behind him. And, in a brief moment, she began to understand why the team was so happy that Nate had decreased his intake of alcohol.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Eliot rapped softly on his niece's door, very early Sunday morning. "Abby?" he asked and she moaned. "Abby?" he asked again, this time walking into her room and she moaned again, this time something along the lines of 'sleeping'.

"I gotta go to work," he said as he stood next to her bed; she rolled over to face him, eyes straining from the light being let in from the hall.

"What's going on?" she asked, a hint of panic in her voice as she tiredly but quickly sat up.

"Nate's getting himself into trouble."

"Again?" She rubbed the sleep from her eye but wasn't surprised.

"Again. Everythin'll be fine though, go back to sleep," he ushered and the teen settled back down under the covers. "I should be back late tonight okay? Keep your comms on you and don't do anything stupid."

"I know DyaDya. You say it every time you go on a job," she replied and he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Be safe okay?"

"I know Abs. You say that every time I go on a job," he toyed back.

"I love you," she said softly.

"I love you too," he said back as he quietly closed the door behind him, allowing his angel to fall back asleep in the mountain of pillows.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several hours after Eliot and the rest of the team left, Abby sat with two of her school friends in Nate's apartment, preparing for their school project.

"This is a wicked apartment," the boy, Julian declared as he admired the set of plasmas on the wall and touch screen desktop on the bench. "So your uncle's boss lives here?"

"Yeah," Abby nodded, standing up from the dining table and making her way over to the bench. "But it doubles as an office. I spend most of my time here, rather than at home."

"What does your uncle do again?" the other, Mikaela, enquired, as she stared curiously at Old Nate.

"He investigates insurance fraud," she said without hesitation, automatically spitting out their well-rehearsed cover story.

"Sounds kinda boring," Micky replied and Abby stifled a chuckle.

"It's actually more interesting than you'd think," she replied, then rolled her eyes at Julian's incessant button mashing on the screen.

"How do you work this thing?" he finally complained.

Abby picked up the keyboard, typed in the password and brought up the desktop. "It's like a computer, only 100 times more powerful," she explained, repeating the words almost exactly the way that Hardison had used to explain it to her when she had once asked the very same question.

Her friend reached for the keyboard but she pulled it away, staring straight into his eyes.

"You can look, but you cannot touch," she stated, firmly, but still with friendliness in her voice. She turned her attention back to the main screens. "I can bring up the internet, television, Facebook, YouTube and pretty much whatever I want," she said as she opened up each of the programs as she listed them off. "Now," she continued, as she placed down the keyboard. "Can we please get this project done?"

"Kyle's not here yet," Micky pointed out meekly. She was aware of the tension between the two but still, he was part of their group and kind of necessary.

"Yeah, I know," Abby sighed, just as there was a knock on the door. She walked over, checked through the peephole and, upon recognising the face, opened the door.

"You're late," Abby stated bluntly, avoiding making any sort of eye contact with the boy.

"Yeah, sorry," he apologised, he body language showing even more awkwardness than Abby's.

"Shall we get started?" Micky jumped in, diffusing the tension and gesturing towards the dining table.

Apologies for the brevity and lack of eventfullness in this chapter; just setting some groundwork.

P.S Many thanks to Inkhands96 for your reading and sparking the idea for the coming chapters; I hope you enjoy them