Archive of Our Own

one

p. 55

Morning briefing

Jury duty at 9 → Parker

• Allow for travel time

Meet with mark – court? Lunch? Afternoons → late afternoons

Persuasion Coaching – morning? May conflict with briefing. Reschedule morning briefing? Ask Nate. (done)

• Yes morning briefings

• Remind Nate that working outside the law means working outside a 9-5 framework

• Persuasion work in evenings

• Snacks

• Dinner

Research? After, late → change of clothes

“Research what?” asks Parker.

From her place at the conference table, Sophie doesn’t look up from her notebook or the bowl of gummy worms she has been steadily eating. “Parker, we’ve discussed reading my notes.”

“We talked about not stealing them,” says Parker plaintively. “But your notes are just open, and you’re just staring at them. And I’m just standing here.”

Sophie takes another bite out of a gummy worm and pointedly flicks her gaze up to Parker, who is inexplicably perched on the chair adjacent, curved over the table.

“You didn’t say anything.” Sophie blinks, and Parker slides off the chair arm. “And I just want to know how you do stuff, and sometimes asking isn’t the best way to talk to you.”

Sophie furrows her brow at that, but Parker provides no further explanation. However, Parker has stepped back, and so Sophie pushes her notebook over towards Parker. “It’s a schedule. It’s good to keep track of all of the moving parts of the con. So here’s when you’re in court, which means that Quint may or may not be available. So, here’s where I need to be open to meet with him, even though we’re going to try to steer him towards a convenient window. That’s when I need these costumes available, hair, makeup, etc.”

“And then you train me in persuasion.” Parker makes little paw motions with her hands.

“It’s not like that,” says Sophie, with a very small smile. “You already know how to persuade people. It’s just a matter of calling it forward. That’s what we’re going to work on.”

“That’s going to take a long time. And you have stuff after that?”

“Well, we have the evening debrief, provided nothing goes awry, and something will always go awry – you know that – so you can assume that’ll be pushed back. And then after, you know, research on my own time for the next day.” When Parker blinks, Sophie shrugs. “It’s always better to go in researched than unresearched. So based on what we hear at the debriefing, I may look into a few hunches or techniques that I can use on the mark, as well as catching up on the news for anything else that can help out for the rest of the con. I’m sure you do the same thing, work a little bit on your own after the briefing?” she asks.

Parker considers. “Yeah. I may get up earlier and stretch if I know that we’re going to be doing a lot of laser work the next day.” Sophie watches her consider that for a moment. “So when do you sleep?”

“After the con.”

“But there’s like seventeen hours of work a day on here.”

Sophie grins. “I’m motivated by a job well done. How many hours a day do you put in? In and out of jobs??”

Sophie watches that land for Parker too. “You’re always writing stuff. Very old school.” Sophie’s face remains motionless. “I like it.”

Sophie’s lips turn up ever so slightly, and she pushes her bowl of gummy worms towards Parker. They’re sour, which aren’t Parker’s favorite, but Sophie knows that she’ll eat them all the same. “Everything okay, Parker?”

“Yup.” Parker goes to town on the gummy worms, which makes Sophie very happy that she’s already added them to the shopping list for later today. “Well.” Sophie’s face remains immovable. “I’m not good with uh, people.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re going to have sessions. It’s okay, Parker. It sounds like a big feat, but once you’re in it, it’ll look more manageable. It’s about perspective.”

“Okay.” Parker continues eating the gummy worms, her face still in concentration. “Hey, remember that time when you said that you’d help me get into character?”

“Mhm, we’ve picked out your clothes and gotten you some shoes and…” And just like that, Sophie can feel it, the small risk presenting itself and the instinct to follow. “And I can help you get ready for that, if you want? Since we all need to be here early tomorrow for the meeting anyway?”

When Parker looks up from the gummy worms, her face is still tense, but the relief apparent on her face turns Sophie’s chest in a way that genuinely surprises her. It’s new. “Yeah, okay.”

It’s still dark outside when Sophie arrives at the office to find Parker already inside in sweats that look suspiciously like pajamas. Had she slept there? Something tells Sophie no, but Sophie also wouldn’t put it past her.

“Do you have a sensitive head?” asks Sophie, and when Parker shakes her head, she combs through a bit of Parker’s hair with her fingers, watching Parker’s face micro-react to the unfamiliar pressure. “I won’t burn you, I promise. Just try not to make any sudden movements, okay?”

“I don’t have a curling thing,” says Parker, sitting in front of Sophie in the larger of the office bathrooms. “I sleep with my hair in braids or buns sometimes. It gives me waves.”

“And you like the waves,” prompts Sophie. Parker’s hair curls easily, so it’s really a five to 10 minute job, and Sophie turns down the heat on the iron. But Sophie takes her time. Parker had gotten here much earlier than necessary, and Sophie knows that this isn’t about hair, not really.

“Mhm, feels good.”

“Did you ever get worried it would get loose while you were stealing something and–” With her free hand, Sophie makes a little circle. “–set stuff off?”

“Uh, no. When I feel good, I steal good.” 

“Well, that’s a bit like acting, isn’t it?” asks Sophie. “You perform best when you feel best. And in acting, that means that you don’t just have your lines and blocking memorized. You also get lighting, sound, a crew.”

“A team,” says Parker, and that gives Sophie just a fraction of a pause, because she hadn’t ever really thought about it on those terms before. “It’s like us.”

“Well…yes, exactly. So, um, yeah, you trust in the character and in the plan. But–” Sophie swivels the conference room chair they’d appropriated for a salon seat in the bathroom. “–you can also trust in the costume.”

A ghost of a smile flickers across Parker’s face, and there’s something so genuine about it that Sophie almost wants to look away. She’s known about Parker for years. She’d be daft not to – Parker’s just that good. So good that she can risk doing what she does with long hair.

So good that she can hang on to pieces of herself, in the middle of a world that makes it so much easier if you lose yourself, little by little.

“What do you think, Parker?” asks Sophie. She leans down and separates a few loose curls with her hands. Parker beams more, so Sophie separates out a few more, until the silhouette looks really nice. “Imagine yourself walking into that room full of jurors looking like this.”

“It feels like me, but also…not me?”

“So more or less confident?”

Parker turns away from the mirror to look at Sophie directly, and gives her a wide smirk.

Sophie gets in early every morning that week, which is normal for her. She doesn’t like to take her work home as much as possible.

(She doesn’t like Nate holding everyone to a 9 to 5 kind of structure. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t get up early and stay at work late. That’s what works best for her. She just doesn’t make it anyone else’s problem.)

Anyway, she’s usually alone. One time, Hardison is there, but he and Sophie give each other their space. Sophie has noticed that Hardison is definitely a person who doesn’t mind taking his work home, which is less a function of him being a workaholic and more a function of him wanting to move around as little as possible.

Well, he’s young. That’s to be expected.

What surprises Sophie is that Parker arrives a few hours earlier than usual, carrying the usual clipboards and notebooks she usually does. But she’s also wearing a large button-down and is carrying–

“You nicked a curling iron?” asks Sophie, eyebrows raised.

“Teach me how to use it,” says Parker. “The curling. And um–” She shifts her things into the crook of her arm so that her hands and fingers are free to do a separating motion.

Hardison meets her eyes as she follows Parker, carrying the conference room chair, into the bathroom. The whole thing feels oddly warm, despite the very early morning chill that’s permeated the office.

“You know,” says Sophie, “if you learn to use a curler, then you may also want to learn–”

Parker produces a straightener from seemingly nowhere (if Sophie didn’t know any better). “This? I think Alice may like straight hair better, anyway.”

Sophie grins.

Parker’s a quick study, and Sophie can tell that she doesn’t need to be shown anything more than twice – and that’s being generous. Still, every day for the rest of the trial, in addition to the persuasion techniques, Parker practices the curler and the straightener, and Sophie separates out the loose curls at the end. It’s about learning, sure, but it’s also about reassurance.

Sophie tries not to call too much attention to it. She knows this kind of thing can be supremely uncomfortable.

While she and Nate pack Parker’s lunch for the final day of jury duty, Sophie turns over in her mind how something about being all together helps them – all of them.

Why else would Sophie have been on the edge of telling Parker that Sophie wasn’t her real name?

two

The first time Sophie had voluntarily been hit by a car – little tourist scam outside of London – she’d been scared.

She hadn’t shown it, and she’d practiced for it, of course. But there’s theory and there’s practice.

The point is that that day, she’d quickly learned that she does way better with practice than she does with the theory, which is good because that’s really the only thing that matters in the real world.

There’s always a point right before, though, when Sophie’s not sure it’s going to work or not, and that’s terrifying, especially when there are other people involved.

Parker leaps into her arms, they spin off the building, and Sophie immediately knows three things:

1. This is going to work.
2. She’s not the kind of person who should ever be jumping off of buildings.
3. With Parker, she is that kind of person.

She won’t think about it until later, because she’s too busy screaming, but Parker’s making her own noises of delight all the way down.

For a moment, they’re suspended in a moment of pure promise, two heavenly beings in a Michaelangelo witnessing the moment of creation, weightless and powerful and defiant.

Sophie had checked her measurements three times. They stop right before the ground, and Sophie’s trying to bring her mind back to her body so that she can quickly disconnect them from the cable, when Parker reaches around and does it for her.

And then, pupils blown wide by adrenaline, Parker grabs Sophie’s upper arms, pushes her a little bit into the shadow of the building, and lays a firm, tight kiss on her lips for a moment that seems impossibly long.

Except Sophie knows that it’s not impossibly long, because her chest is heaving, from leaping off a building and from this , and she only counts two breaths before Parker pulls away, looking strangely hungry, the way that she tends to look when she takes a flying leap off of something.

Still, Sophie doesn’t miss the way that Parker’s eyes flick over to her lips.

“Thank you,” says Parker.

On the look on Sophie’s face, Parker’s expression falls a little bit. A kiss wasn’t the right gesture, and she knows it. Now, anyway.

But it wasn’t the wrong gesture, either. Sophie reaches out and takes Parker’s hand. It’s warm and calloused, the way one would expect a climber’s hands to be. And Sophie smiles.

“We have to go,” she says.

They sprint for Sophie's car, hand in hand.

Holed up on the opposite coast (all of the LA sun probably wasn’t good for her anyway – that sun is hell on the skin) with a new haircut, a facial, and black painted nails, Sophie does consider going back to the game, after the team splits. The work she’d done with the team felt true in a way that – well, really nothing had for a while. Going back to theater had helped a little. Grifting had helped a little more than she’d hoped. But the team had helped most, and Sophie had helped to build them up.

Then she’d gone and broken them down.

But none of that really matters now.

Nate had told all of them that they’d made a difference, and he’d meant in the lives of the people that they’d helped, in all of the would-be Sams of the world. Sophie feels good about that. She really does. More than she’d like to admit.

But she’s also not the same as she was before Nate Ford had come and found her at the stage door, with that car full of crime. And because of that, nothing really seems to fit the way it does before, including her clothes.

She drives herself out to the ice cold Atlantic, takes off her shoes, and lets the tide shock sensation into her toes. It’s grounding, in a way, how at this latitude, the unforgiving chill of the water never really changes, on one side of this ocean or the other.

She makes plans: to look up all of the local acting jobs and then to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes, do something about how her skin seems to sit so differently on her.

She’ll track down the others, naturally. Keep in touch. It’s only polite.

For now, she looks down at her bare feet in the surf and thinks about how Sophie Devereaux wouldn’t be caught dead at a non-tropical beach alone, especially not with some kind of boat involved. Especially in sweats rolled up to her knees. And she feels the slow rush of defiance with an undercurrent of danger.

Danger for whom? She’s not sure.

She can’t resist shopping a little on the way back to her new place, a cozy yet reasonably posh flat that’s centrally located. She’s staying in a low-committal rental while she figures out the shape that her life is going to take now. By the time she walks through her front door, she’s already partially dressed in what she thinks her new style is – a dress and leggings and a light twill coat with some booties.

It still doesn’t feel quite right yet, but it takes time to build these kinds of things.

But something’s wrong. While nothing is particularly loud , the energy in the room is too loud, too dynamic somehow.

“Parker, I would have appreciated it if you’d called,” says Sophie. She dumps her bag on the chair nearest the door and rests her hand on her hip.

She spots her open kitchen cabinets right after that, and then Parker strolls into the light, bowl of cereal in her hands.

Sophie’s eyes narrow.

“I brought my own,” says Parker. “I wasn’t going to eat any of your food.”

“No, you were just going to break in and make yourself at home. For…what reason?” asks Sophie, sliding easily into theatricality while she tries to figure out why Parker’s done this. It’s not like Sophie’s taken any kind of measures to hide her phone number.

“I’m a thief.”

“Everyone here is a thief, Parker. Doesn’t make you special.”

Parker shrugs, like she’s provided enough explanation for everything. “It’s been boring,” she says. “Without you all.”

“So you’re popping round, breaking into all of our places, catching up?”

“I wouldn’t break into the team’s places while they were in them,” says Parker.

Sophie exhales a sound of mock exasperation. “Oh, that’s even better,” she says. “So it’s just me, is it?”

Parker slides up onto Sophie’s kitchen counter, one hip at a time, somehow looking both sheepish and resigned. “Yup.”

“I haven’t spoken to Nate. I think everything needs some time to settle.”

“But you’re still…you? Like before.”

“Us?” asks Sophie. Her chest aches a little, in a deep place. “I mean, he’s a friend, a good one. But no, not like before.”

“Maybe it's better this way. More real,” says Parker, between crunches of cereal. “You gonna call him?”

“Not yet.”

“How about me?”

Sophie breathes a soft laugh. “Not yet, but I guess you’ve fixed that, haven’t you?”

Sophie makes tea and orders takeout, like she would for any impromptu guest, even if that guest is Parker with a bowl of cereal, because Parker loves to eat. That’s practically a guarantee.

As she rustles through her cupboards for all of the utensils, Sophie genuinely can’t remember the last time she had a house guest as Sophie.

“I’ve been stealing things,” says Parker, over a container of char kway teow . Sophie finds herself smiling, in spite of herself. “And then I’ve been putting them back.”

“Not challenging enough?” asks Sophie, squeezing lemon into her second cup of tea.

“Yeah, actually. Is that why you retired the first time? Was it all getting too boring and easy for you, until Nate?”

Sophie holds Parker’s gaze steadily, for just a moment, then looks down into her tea. “I knew Nate before, just like you,” she says lightly. Parker absorbs that and then keeps eating.

“Are you going to retire again?” Sophie just shrugs. “How do you just walk away from it?”

It’s a complicated question that somehow only requires a single-sentence answer. “You do something else that you like more.”

Parker doesn’t talk about something that she wants to do more than stealing, and Sophie does not expect her to. “Like acting?” Sophie nods. “Will you do that again?”

Sophie squints. “You’re not upset about what happened?’

“Oh, about the Davids?” Parker shakes her head. “That all added up. I mean, not at first, but right after, it made sense.” With her finger, she lays out her variables into the air in front of her. “You and Nate. Sterling. IYS. And stealing.”

“So why are you here?”

Parker shrugs a shoulder. It’s her turn to look down into her food. “I just missed you.”

“I told Hardison to find me because I know he can,” says Parker. “And I want him to look.”

A slow smile plays across Sophie’s face. “For you.”

“Yeah, exactly. Why do you look like that?"

"Why do I look like what, Parker? That's just my face."

"Uh-huh."

Parker doesn’t really look ready to leave, and judging from how she brought her own food as well as a bag of essentials – albeit very light – Sophie figures Parker may stay a while. It’s the kind of thing that should bother Sophie, but she doesn’t feel it, especially since she’s still settling in. It hasn’t been long enough in this city.

And she’d been getting used to it, the hum and flurry of activity that accompanied the crew, how she’d always had something to do on the weekends, even if she hadn’t planned anything beforehand. How even activities she hadn’t preferred in her previous lives suddenly became worth attending with the crew.

It reminds her of the bond that develops among a cast during the run of a show, except more lasting.

That’s how they end up on Sophie’s couch sitting in front of whatever show is on TV, while Sophie works on Parker’s hair.

“A braid is the most versatile hairstyle,” says Sophie. “It also keeps all of your hair out of your face, which you may find useful. I know you sleep in braids sometimes, but–” Sophie begins to fasten the braid that she’s woven across the top of Parker’s head, headband-style. “–you can use them on jobs too. You’re dextrous. You’ll be quick at them that way. Maybe you’ll like them.”

“You don’t wear braids.”

“Well, I usually like having my hair loose on a job,” says Sophie. “Look.” Parker turns around, and Sophie tilts her head, letting her hair fall forward. Then, she shakes it out of her face. “It’s mysterious. It's good for a lot of my characters.”

Parker’s brow furrows. “But not mine.”

“With time, you’ll figure out what works for you. I’m just giving you a tool. You can see if you like it. Or you can use it on someone else.”

Parker frowns. “But I’m not grifting anymore because we’re not working together anymore.”

“Always worth having an extra tool in your belt,” says Sophie. “You slip in as wait staff and cleaning crew all the time. And who knows? Maybe the winds of fate will blow kindly upon us.”

Parker makes an excited noise and swivels around on the couch so quickly that Sophie has to duck to keep from colliding with Parker’s head. “I knew it! You’re going to get us back together.”

“It’s only been a couple of months,” says Sophie. “We split. And hey, maybe the rest of us are doing better than you and I are.”

She catches Parker’s eye as she says that, and at the same time, they say, “No.”

“Tell you what,” says Sophie, “you pick a painting, and we’ll steal it, you and me.” Parker beams. “It won’t be the same, but maybe it’ll be more fun than working alone.”

“Like tomorrow?” asks Parker, and for a moment, Sophie actually considers it, splitting the prep time between two instead of doing it by herself, how she still has con clothing in Parker’s size sitting in the quick storage unit she’d nabbed herself in this city.

Actually, she has clothes for everyone. She can’t seem to stop shopping for them, even now. “Next few days?” she replies. “It’s late.”

Even as she says it, she can feel herself waking up to the possibility of a con. But also, it’s nearly midnight, and they’ve been talking for hours.

“Where are you staying these days, anyway?”

Parker shrugs. “Around.”

Well, that’s fair. Still, Sophie has already seen Parker’s bag. “Okay, I don’t really have a guest room, but the bed’s a king, and the couch folds out. Have you ever had a sleepover, Parker?”

Parker helps Sophie set up the foldout couch, and Sophie lends Parker some sleeping clothes. And then, because it just feels like the right thing to do, Sophie joins Parker on the foldout couch. Her bed feels too formal for some reason.

They’ve shared hotel rooms before, on jobs when it was absolutely necessary – sometimes in towns so small that there was only one bed in the hotel rooms. Parker’s probably the easiest to share a room with out of the whole crew, because as a roommate, she sleeps much like the way she is when she’s awake: small and quiet.

“So what do we do?” asks Parker.

Sophie smiles. She actually hasn’t had that many sleepovers in her time. Unless one counts squatting, and squatting’s not going to count, not here.

“Whatever we want,” she says. “Usually eating, makeovers, telling each other secrets.”

“But we did all of that stuff without even trying. So does that mean we’re supposed to sleep now?”

Sophie’s gaze sparkles. “I’m very sure that sleeping is the last thing that’s supposed to happen at a sleepover. Very little of it happens, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because usually this happens when you’re a little younger, and it’s exciting being with your friends without your parents telling you what to do.”

“I didn’t have parents. Or friends.”

“Well then,” says Sophie, “let’s make up for lost time, shall we?”

“Truth or dare?” asks Parker as she weaves Sophie’s hair into two fishtails, parted right down the middle.

“Dare.”

“You never say truth.”

“Well, one option is significantly more fun than the other. You haven’t picked truth either.”

Parker thinks for a moment. “Okay. I dare you to tell me why you didn’t get mad that I kissed you.”

Sophie tilts her head chidingly, even as she smiles. Then, she reaches for the bottle of cereal milk between them.

“Oh, come on.”

“We made the rules together, Parker.” Sophie takes a sip from the bottle, shuddering as the sugar aches in her mouth. She and Parker do not share an appetite for sugar.

Parker pouts, and Sophie places the bottle back down.

“And it’s because I knew what you meant by it.”

“What did I mean?”

“If it had been easy enough to say, you would have said it,” says Sophie. “But you didn’t. So I figured you were just trying to say something a little bigger.”

Parker’s face is blank.

“Um, you know, in musical theater, characters don’t sing all the time. When a character breaks into song during a musical, they do it because words – the spoken word – aren't enough anymore. And so they have to sing.” Off Parker’s slightly horrified expression, she continues. “For better or worse.”

“I don’t like musicals.”

Sophie personally thinks that anyone who doesn't like musicals perhaps hasn't seen the right musical, but there's no way communicating that is going to be helpful right now. "But you get the idea?”

“So you’re saying instead of singing, I kissed you.”

“You tell me.” Parker looks thoughtful and then nods. “It was a high emotion situation,” says Sophie. “I understood. It’s fine. Now, come on, truth or dare.”

“Truth.”

Sophie holds Parker’s gaze, confused at the choice as well as what she’s pretty sure she needs to ask next. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Did you like kissing me, Parker?” Parker nods. “Why?”

“Felt safe.”

“And people who kiss tend to like each other,” prompts Sophie. “But you don’t like me the way they tend to.”

“Yeah,” says Parker. “I mean, I like you more than I like most people–”

“Thank you, Parker.”

“–but no, not like that.”

“Well, I’m flattered.”

“So you’re definitely not mad?”

“That’s not the question you should be asking.”

“Oh! Right. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” says Sophie, and for the second time that evening, Parker gets this strange look on her face. Confidence laced with hunger. And plain joy.

“I dare you to kiss me again.”

Surprisingly, kissing Parker is one of the easiest things Sophie has done in a while. There’s no danger or mystery, and Parker is pretty upfront about what she wants. She guides Sophie backward until Sophie’s sitting at the head of the bed, her back braced against the back cushions of the couch. Then, Parker kneels next to her and kisses her enthusiastically, her tongue light and quick inside of Sophie’s mouth. She guides one of Sophie’s hands to her waist and the other to her hip, and Sophie squeezes, flexing her fingers.

It’s delightful and surprising, the kind of thing that wouldn’t make sense to anyone looking at this from the outside. But there isn’t anyone else here but them.

“You’re so pretty,” muses Parker, eyes closed and happy, and she tugs a little bit at one of Sophie’s braids.

That interaction raises several questions in Sophie’s mind, but now is not the relevant time. Gently, Sophie guides Parker’s hand away from her hair and to her jaw instead. “Remember how you said you didn’t have a sensitive head?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, I do.”

Parker pulls away, flushed, and smiles as she carefully smooths all of Sophie’s hair back into place (as much as she can anyway, with the braids). “Okay, sorry. Better?”

“Mhm.” Parker leans back in again, and against her mouth, Sophie keeps the game going. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Is this why you came over here tonight?”

They haven't actually stopped kissing. “Mm-mm," hums Parker. "No.”

And because they seem to be playing the discount version of Truth or Dare, where one gets two questions instead of one, Sophie follows up: “What made you want this then?”

“You said sleepovers were about doing whatever you wanted.”

Sophie can’t help it. She lets out a giggle that sounds a little foreign to herself, even. It’s an older laugh, a relic from a time that Sophie hasn’t thought about in a while. “I did, didn’t I? Just so you know, Parker, normally people aren’t kissing their friends during sleepovers.” She pauses. “Though many people do like to think so.”

Parker pulls away. “So we should stop?”

The proper thing to do right now would be to stop. There’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, of course. It’s just a little messy. Out of the question if they were still on the same crew, of course.

Proper has never been an expectation of Parker’s, though, and Sophie doesn’t feel the need to be very proper right now.

“I didn’t say that.” Sophie leans in this time to kiss Parker, and Parker pushes her back into the back of the couch.

“I knew you weren’t that normal,” says Parker, and it’s the kind of statement that would come off badly from anyone else, but from Parker, it’s just endearing. Sophie lets her need for variety take over, and trails her down to Parker’s jaw. Parker’s skin is hot against hers, and Sophie can tell that she herself is a little flushed.

Sophie’s hoodie has slid down to her elbows, and Parker is picking at the tank top strap at Sophie’s shoulder, like she’s trying to figure out what she’s supposed to do next.

Sophie reaches up and stills Parker’s hand with her own.

They pull away, inhaling deeply.

“Do you have a question for me?” asks Sophie.

Parker’s eyes go wide. Then, she grins. “Truth or dare?”

They do not, in fact, end up sleeping. They do stay fully clothed.

As the sun begins to stream through Sophie’s windows, Parker hangs off the bed, head resting on the floor, and Sophie lies on her stomach, peering at Parker over the edge of the bed. Sophie considers casting aside her hoodie. The sleeping clothes that Sophie lent Parker are maybe a little warm, and maybe she’s wearing clothes a little warm too.

Maybe she’s a little too used to sleeping alone.

“My first kiss was a dare,” says Parker. "The people I was hanging out with at the time said that I couldn’t do it, so I did. I wanted to prove them wrong.”

Sophie makes a face. “Ew. Well, was it at least someone you would have wanted to have kissed without the dare?”

Parker considers and shrugs. “Maybe. I just wanted to know what it felt like. Maybe at some point I would have kissed someone like them to know.”

“Did you like it?”

With conviction, Parker shakes her head. “I may have bitten him.”

Sophie laughs. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, a lot of people don’t like their first kisses. The better stuff tends to come later.”

“What about you?”

“My first kiss?” asks Sophie. And maybe it’s because of Parker or that Sophie’s feeling a little giddy with the rising sun coming on the heels of an evening that has been unexpected in many delightful ways, but she’s mostly truthful. “It was for a con.”

“For a con? Well, how’d you know that you were going to do it right?”

“I trusted the character completely.”

“Was it good?”

“Of course not. But that wasn’t my fault.”

“Okay, but who’s the first person you kissed as yourself?”

Sophie ever so slightly shifts so that she’s facing away from Parker, just a little bit. “Girl in Belfast. Or was it Derry?”

“Was it for a con?”

“A con was involved, but no.”

“Was it good?”

“It was.”

“I didn’t know that you grew up in Ireland.”

Sophie smiles down at Parker, curling her arms under her head. “I didn’t.”

Parker grins and stretches her arms out, resting her hands on the floor, inverted angel-style. “I really like sleepovers.”

three

Parker shifts under Sophie’s hands as Sophie lets the second-to-last curl go. They actually hadn’t spoken about Sophie helping Parker get ready this time around. Given all of the upheaval going on on this job to get Monica Hunter, they just fall back on it, a piece of familiarity in the middle of it all.

“Does grifting feel like dating?” asks Parker, her gaze on Sophie through the mirror.

Sophie takes time to separate the last few strands of hair, because she knows Parker likes that. She runs her fingers through Parker’s hair, and Sophie has to admit that it’s more comforting than she thought it would be. The texture of it has become familiar to her, somehow. “What?”

“Nate thinks you’re masterminding because of your breakup. But he also let you do it.”

Sophie focuses on Parker’s hair. “ Let is a word we’re defining super loosely here, aren’t we?” she asks, under her breath.

“So he trusts you to do it,” says Parker, “even though it’s not your specialty. He knows what all of us can do. So he knows you can do this, even though you’re bummed.”

She tries to turn around and look at Sophie, but Sophie decides, with a flourish, to take her time with the final curl and keeps the chair from swiveling. She holds Parker’s gaze in the mirror. “His faith is inspiring, Parker,” she says dryly.

“ I’m saying , when did you run a job with a crew?”

“I’ve never done a job like this, Parker,” says Sophie. She lightly teases the front of Parker’s hair so that it rises just a little, into a look that whispers my parents paid my rent for my first three jobs . “A con’s just an improvisation exercise that happens with an unaware audience. It makes enough sense to me. You’d make sense of it in a way that made sense to you. It’s all about context.”

“Will you run more of them?”

Sophie chuckles and fans Parker’s hair over her shoulders. She can’t take much more time on this. There are so many other things to prepare for, and she’d rather focus on that instead of how she feels like a cat missing a whisker. “Let’s just focus on the task at hand.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if you did.”

This time, when Parker tries to swivel around, Sophie steps back. “Thank you, Parker.”

four

The day after Sophie’s helicopter rescue, she walks into the living room to find the other three sitting on the couch like they’re waiting for a briefing, except it looks like Eliot’s made do with the safehouse’s sparse groceries. He pushes a plate in front of her.

When she meets his eyes, there’s a smouldering warmth there she can’t remember seeing there before, honor renewed. Or maybe just patched up with duct tape.

She takes her place among them, because she’s not sure what else to do. Eliot looks at her imploringly.

She’s not hungry.

He somehow manages to stare at her harder.

She picks up a fork and watches how Parker, Hardison, and Eliot all share a look between them. They’ve had to grow together in her absence, Sophie realizes. They’ve had to become stronger in their broken places.

“It’s your call,” says Eliot. “You came and got us. Whatever you decide to do, we’ll do.”

“We’ll decide together,” says Sophie, but she knows as she says it that she needs to get up from the couch. A few strides put her in front of the room. “We’ll decide together,” she repeats. “We’re going to recover and take our time. Nate bought us that.”

“In the worst possible way,” mutters Hardison, and well, Sophie can’t really respond to that. Hardison’s too right.

The others had given Sophie first choice of rooms, which makes sense because it’s her safehouse. She perches in bed now with her skincare routine, too wired to sleep but somehow too exhausted to stand in front of a mirror.

It’s better if she does something with her hands.

Upon the smallest of rustling noises behind her, she puts down her cream jar. “I have a door, Parker. You could knock on it.”

“Well, if I used the door, everyone would want to come in here, and that’s too many people. Anyway, you heard me coming in. You could have said no.”

Sophie sighs and turns around. It’s not like she’s particularly busy, and she has missed all of them. She just needed a break from the low morale. She knows it’s on her to raise it, but she can barely raise her own.

She just needs time.

“You’re the second person to try and talk to me alone today,” says Sophie. “I suppose I’ll be expecting the third sometime after you leave?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” shrugs Parker, who closes the window and leaps to the floor, all without a sound. She juts her chin out towards all of the jars on Sophie’s bed. “What’s that?”

“Skincare.” But that’s not going to tell Parker anything. She tries again. “It feels nice on my hands.”

“You’re always moving your hands,” says Parker in agreement. “Playing invisible strings.”

“I’m nearly finished, if you want to try.”

Parker ends up choosing a single jar and trying it. She doesn’t immediately wash her face after, which must mean she at the very least doesn’t mind it.

“What do you do after skincare?”

Sophie shrugs. “There’s no one thing. Most people go to bed.”

“Can you sleep?”

Sophie shrugs again, and Parker eyes the large space beside Sophie.

“Can I stay?” asks Parker, at the same time Sophie asks, “Do you want to stay?” Parker freezes.

Sophie breathes a laugh and reaches for Parker’s wrist, pulling her to the bed. “Come on,” she says. “It’s been so long.”

They talk for a long time.

They’d caught up as a group of course when they got here, and that had also taken a long time. Eliot’s voice still sounds hoarse, and Sophie gives it about six more hours before Hardison adopts the kind of sleep schedule where he sleeps all day and stays up all night. Since they started working together, they haven’t really had a lot of time off, except for very defined breaks where the team broke up, and Sophie supposes this is one of those times.

Except it’s not, right? Because most of them are together.

But the kind of things they’d discuss as a group are not the kind of things that Parker and Sophie would discuss alone.

They end up sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, cross-legged, propped up on pillows, and because rhythms are soothing and easy to fall into, Sophie finds herself reaching for the ends of Parker’s hair, twirling them between her fingers even though none of this is for a con.

Right now, this is just them.

“Eliot said you were finding yourself,” says Parker. “Is this you now? With the super long hair?”

Sophie smiles and shakes her head a little, making the ends of her hair shake too. “Well, it was me the last time I carried this name,” she says. “I’ll see if I like it.”

“Did you like your trip?” asked Parker.

“Parts,” says Sophie.

“Did you find what you needed?”

“Parts.”

“Was it enough?”

Sophie looks at Parker’s hair between her fingers, reveling in the texture. Parker tilts her head just a little bit into Sophie’s hands, and Sophie thinks for not the first time that there’s a whole day’s worth of stories in Parker’s relationship to touch now.

She’s missed so much.

Maybe they’ll have time. With Nate in prison, time seems to stand still in a sickening way.

“It was,” says Sophie.

“Are you all better now?”

“What about you?” asks Sophie. “I heard you and Tara hit it off. Um, until that bit at the end.”

Parker turns sideways, and her hair pools in Sophie’s hand. Sophie opens her palm and combs through it with her other hand. “Tara’s the best,” she says. “Also, I think I like girls.”

Sophie freezes.

“I mean, I don’t like most people. But there’s maybe a few I do, and some of them are girls.”

Sophie drops her hands, and Parker pulls them back. “You’re not a girl. You’re, uh, you.”

Sophie’s gaze flicks to their hands. “And Tara…inspired that discovery?”

“No,” says Parker, then pauses. “Well.” She shakes her head. “No. Mostly.”

“Okay, how’s that going?”

“Fine,” says Parker. “We were just doing updates, and that’s one of the last ones of mine.” On Sophie’s smile, Parker hugs her again. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

They end up sleeping next to each other, Parker holding onto Sophie in a way that reminds Sophie vaguely of a koala, her grip somehow tight even in her sleep.

Sophie wakes up to it well into morning hours, fights every single instinct in herself to run until she reaches for her shoulder and finds the ends of Parker’s hair there.

For just a moment, she wonders if Parker’s in here like this because she’s afraid Sophie’s going to slip away again.

Parker’s hand rests somewhere around her waist. She finds Parker’s hand with her own and squeezes it, just a little.

five

Sophie would never admit it, but Boston was starting to become more familiar to her than she usually allowed. She actively misses being there the way she misses London. Except unlike London, Boston isn’t packed full of ghosts.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t ghosts. Just Boston also had breathing room. A breeze. Windows.

So yeah, she’s going to sit in the brewpub some nights and brood over a glass of wine, because it provides a defiant edge of satisfaction and is also her right.

She can feel someone behind her.

“I’m a big girl. I’ve told you before that I don’t always need you to make me feel better. Just let me pout my way through it. I’ll feel better eventually,” sighs Sophie.

But it’s Parker who slides into the seat next to her. “We haven’t hung out much since we moved,” she says. “Finish your drink. Let’s go do something fun.”

They’ve done this kind of thing before – blow into a city for one night, steal a forgery hanging in a museum in a way that exposes the owner for insurance fraud. The owner is always a person with very few redeeming qualities. They help the law catch up with that person as they outrun it themselves.

It's their thing.

Often, one of them already has the original piece themselves, stolen as part of their previous lives.

Sophie clears out on schedule and pulls the car around, and Parker tumbles into the front seat.

“Agents?” asks Parker.

“On their way,” says Sophie. “Let’s get out of here.”

They speed off into the early sunrise.

“I know what you’re doing,” says Sophie.

They’ve already switched cars once, are taking the scenic route back to Portland just in case. “Is it working?”

“Stealing isn’t the answer to all of life’s problems.”

“But my, doesn’t it help?” replies Parker, in a terrible Lorelei Lee impression.

Sophie smiles in spite of herself. One hand on the steering wheel, she reaches across for Parker’s shoulder first, then twirls some of her hair between her fingers.

Immediately, she knows that Parker was right. It has been a long time since they’ve hung out together, just the two of them, because the gesture feels outdated somehow, like buying a toy for a young family member that just misses the mark somehow.

A gesture that betrays the space growing in interpersonal understanding.

She thinks about the past two years and how there somehow just hasn’t been enough time .

“We’re always going to be moving,” says Parker. “I’m pretty sure that’s not even a thief thing. That’s a life thing. But no matter where we go, we’re going to be there for each other.”

“We’re a family, I know,” says Sophie.

“Yeah, but also I’m going to be here for you too.”

Sophie looks over at Parker for just a moment, then pulls the car off to the side of the road. The opportunity has presented itself – it’s a lovely coastal road, the kind with generous room for sightseers to take pictures with West Coast landscapes in the background.

It’s against that backdrop that Sophie kisses Parker, long and lush and thorough.

When she pulls away, Parker’s just motionless but for a soft grin on her face.

“What was that for?”

Sophie starts the car back up and puts it into drive. “Just felt like singing,” she replies, and hits the gas.

+1

It’s not about the actual wedding, or even really about the two of them. Sophie and Nate have both been married before.

No, this day is about something else, about the family and the community they’ve managed to build around them, largely while in a line of work that tends to be more destructive than creative.

Maybe that’s what makes all of it so special – that which they’ve managed to walk out of the ashes.

“No peeking,” says Parker, as she pokes around in Sophie’s hair. Sophie rolls her eyes, because even if she’d wanted to peek, Parker’s blindfolded her so tightly that Sophie’s seeing some stars.

“It’s uncomfortable, you know.” There are sharp things poking her head in the head that are absolutely not Parker’s fingers, but it’s hard to tell what anything is with the floral arrangements that Eliot and Hardison have set up everywhere – including in Sophie’s ready room. The air is thick with the smell of roses and baby's breath.

“Tara said you’d be a whiny baby.”

Sophie is sixty percent sure that Tara isn’t actually standing in the room with them right now, sniggering at Sophie’s momentary misfortune. “Tara’s just cross about the last time we got married. It rained, and it completely messed with the lighting. I fixed everything on the fly for her, and you know what we got out of it? Nice pictures.”

There’s a snigger from behind Sophie, confirming her suspicions. “Soph, that wedding was fake.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. Now, if you're not going to say anything helpful, go stand outside.”

Tara’s eye rolling habit is so out of control that Sophie can practically hear her do it. “You’re just going to call me back in again,” says Tara, and Sophie hears the sound of a door closing. Seventy-thirty on whether Tara’s actually walked through it.

“Beauty takes a little pain!” says Parker. “You taught me that.”

Okay, perhaps Sophie should not have been so heavy-handed with that lesson. “Where’s Eliot?”

“With the harder client,” says Parker. “You know how Nate is about his hair.”

“He’s nothing about his hair.”

“Yeah. That's why guy needs help. Incoming,” says Parker, and Sophie closes her eyes for real this time, in time for her vision to be flooded with light. “Ready? Open.”

Sophie opens her eyes and takes in a sharp breath.

Parker’s woven a single braid in a circlet of sorts around Sophie’s hair, which otherwise hangs loose. Parker combs through it with her fingers. In the braid, she’s woven tiny white roses. "Fit for a princess," she says.

"I'm not a princess."

"Yeah, you are."

Sophie can't help but smile at that. She looks between the mirror and her bouquet, which lies ready on the counter. The flowers match. “How did you–”

“I learned from the best a long time ago.”

Sophie breathes a laugh. “So, Eliot.”

“Yeah, totally,” says Parker. “Eliot. Yeah.” She leans forward and hugs Sophie, who catches Parker's arms in hers. Parker rests her cheek on Sophie’s shoulder. “Do you like it?”

“I love it.” They squeeze for a moment, and then Parker pulls away. Sophie swivels the chair around. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Really?” asks Parker. “I always knew this was going to happen.” Sophie’s brow furrows, and Parker shrugs. “Or I had faith that it would. Someone taught me about that a long time ago.”

They share a smile, and then Sophie reaches for her bouquet. “Tara!”

Tara steps back in, a shit-eating grin on her face. “This is how it starts,” she says. “Marriage makes people predictable.”

“And how many times have we gotten married?” asks Sophie, eyebrow raised. “Is that why you’re like this?”

“So,” says Tara, hands on her hips, “this is what the real deal looks like, isn’t it? You with the wedding dress and flowers. Your ex-wife and Parker as your bridesmaids.”

“At least one of those marriages is still valid,” says Sophie in a stage whisper. “Nate had Hardison check.” Tara raises an eyebrow, and Sophie waves her concern away.

“Wait, really? I really do lose track.”

Parker clears her throat, and the other two look at her. “We good to go?” she asks. She confirms everything with a glance between the two. “Yeah?”

She reaches beside her and picks up one of the two smaller bouquets, tossing it to Tara with precision. With her other hand, she picks up her own and lowers a free hand to Sophie’s shoulder.

“Let’s get you married.”