Catch me if you can
Providence, 1997
She watched him from an alcove, the dim lighting of the restaurant glinting off her hair. It wasn't the first time they'd met that year, but she anticipated that it would be the last. He looked right over her like she wanted, scanning the room for Sophie's brunette, not Jennifer's red. He moved right toward the bar, his walk confident that this time he'd catch her, that he knew she was here. He didn't know quite how right he was, and she smiled, lips curling up as he caught the bartender's attention, and Bobby fed him exactly what he was supposed to.
She watched Nathan Ford, I.Y.S. Investigator, flash a picture of Sophie, and watched Bobby sit back on his haunches and think about it. Bobby was her favorite - he had just the right flash, just the right panache to be a believable liar. He was wasted as a bartender.
“Oh, her? Yeah, yeah. She was here the otha' day, said that if anybody's came lookin' for her to say...”
“What?” She could hear Nate's impatience from several feet away, as she moved toward the door.
“To say, you knows, 'catch me if you can.'”
She shot Bobby a grin and gestured toward the table, where she'd left him a hefty tip. She hit the door, which jangled its little bell cheerfully, just as Nate turned to look toward her. She gave him a jaunty wave, and hit the early November New England streets.
When Nate came bursting through the doors to find her, she was already gone.
---
Venice, 1998
Sophie hadn't planned on Nathan Ford in Venice. She imagined him like a bloodhound - now that he'd caught her scent, he couldn't let it go. So, she let him chase. She led him on a gondola chase through the waterways, she led him across rooftops, through crowds of tourists. She led him up and down the streets of Venice until she turned a corner and there he was, dangling a pair of handcuffs off one finger, leaning against the wall casually, like he hadn't been running after her for days.
“Sophie Devereaux,” He said, and she ignored the shiver at the rolling way he said her name.
“Nathan Ford,” She returned. “Did you enjoy your swim, yesterday?”
A frown marred his handsome features, and for a moment he looked much younger than he was. They were both in their thirties, barely, and Sophie knew that if their situations were different, those cuffs would see a much kinder use than they might tonight.
“I didn't appreciate Providence, you know.”
She laughed, bell like in the alley. “You weren't supposed to.”
He pushed off the wall and approached her, prowling like a big cat. She tried to ignore how her heart picked up speed and took a step back, glancing toward her only exit. “You can't run forever.”
She grinned at him, wild and reckless. “Watch me.”
---
Damascus, 1999
It was becoming a trend. Once a year, he would track her down, and once a year, she would narrowly evade him. She was sure it had to be frustrating for him, but it was no less frustrating for her. At least the first two times she'd finished the bloody job already. This time he had her red handed, and she wasn't really sure how she was supposed to get out of it.
With no other way out readily available, Sophie discovered how little she liked the cold ring of handcuffs around her wrists.
“You could have at least padded them first,” She said, following a step behind him on the way to the car. She could tell it was unnerving him that she wasn't putting up a fight or trying to run, and that was perfect. It was exactly where she wanted him.
“You could just appreciate art like everyone else, and I wouldn't have to put them on you in the first place.”
She laughed, “Did they teach you that in training at IYS? All you insurance types sound the same,” she winked at him when he turned to look at her, and let him guide her into the back of his car.
As it turned out, they weren't going straight to jail. Apparently she was being extradited, and they would fly out together in the morning. It gave them all night to talk, which Sophie took full advantage of. She convinced him to cuff her to the bedside table, so she could at least rest before she went to prison. She learned that he was married (mores the pity), and that his son had just turned one. He didn't show her a picture, but if she'd pushed a little more, he probably would have.
She convinced him that sleeping in a chair would do terrible things to his back, and let him convince himself that for proprieties sake, he should sleep in his clothes. She waited til he was well and truly out cold, which required more patience than she'd thought she had, before she began to fish lightly through his pockets.
She didn't come up with the keys immediately, but did find the spare key to the cuffs in his wallet, tucked into a leather fold. Before she put the key and the wallet back, she let her curiosity win and flipped to his tiny family picture and looked at an image of normalcy she couldn't imagine in her own life.
Sophie left his wallet on the bed, along with a note in careful handwriting that said, 'Maybe next time.' She took his suit jacket and slipped out the door.
---
Paris, 2000
She didn't see him in again 1999, but she made up for it by shooting him in 2000. In her defense, he hadn't even let her finish getting the painting out of the frame.
“You wanker!” She hadn't expected him to shoot her back, and he's damn lucky that he was a bad shot. It just barely grazed her arm, but she'd liked that coat and getting shot was no joke! It hurt! If it scarred, she'd kill him. “'Freeze!'? Is that really the best you could come up with?”
“What was I supposed to say?” He was leaning against the wall, probably dragging his blood garishly across the wallpaper. “'Stop your thieving ways!' has too much of a religious ring to it.”
She wasn't sure how he was managing humor when his voice was so brittle with pain it sounded like it would break, but she appreciated the gesture anyway. “Fine. You just... you stand there and bleed while I finish this, and then we'll get you to a hospital.”
He stared at her, and barely managed, “Seriously?” before she was back at the painting,
She rode in the back of the ambulance with him, feeding the paramedics a story about their honeymoon and how she couldn't believe that they'd been mugged in Paris! (She lifted his wallet, to sell the bit.) She kept calling him Tom, and he retaliated by referring to her as Sarah Jane. (Just for that, she took his credit card out of the wallet before she left it at the front desk of the ER. She had no intention of using it, but really, Sarah Jane?)
On her way out, she made sure to call his real wife, Maggie. She pretended to be a French nurse, and neglected to mention that she was the one who had shot him. Sophie only hung up the phone when she was sure that both Maggie and her son, Sam, were on the plane to France.
---
New York, 2001
She'd expected him when she had her hands on the Second David, and she could admit to herself that she was disappointed when it was Jim Sterling to chase her. On the other hand, it was probably only because Nathan Ford hadn't been on her tail that she'd gotten the statue out at all. She wasn't sure she could count it as a win, since the challenger hadn't exactly sent her their A game. Sterling was still too green to get as close as Ford had. She wasn't sure why, three years later, it still bothered her.
For once, he found her when she wasn't breaking any laws. She was standing in the middle of the Guggenheim, admiring a painting, when suddenly, he was standing next to her. She glanced up at him, but didn't say anything, letting him fill the silence with whatever he wanted.
“I'm surprised to see you on this side of the rope,” he finally said, making no effort to hide that he was looking at her and not the painting.
“Someone told me once that I should try to appreciate art the way others see it.” She turned to him as she said it and took him in. He looked more welcoming in his jeans and soft button down shirt. His hair was loose, not plastered against his skull, and she had to admit that she liked it better.
Not that what she liked or didn't like mattered when it came to Nate Ford.
“It sounds like someone gave you some good advice.” His smile nearly took her breath away, but Sophie hadn't built her career on a lack of talent. She smiled right back at him, all charm and grace.
“So far it's the only good thing he's given me,” she made sure her tone took all the sting out of the words, and she let him buy her lunch.
She didn't tell him that she'd already taken what she'd wanted from the Met. She didn't return to America for months after the events in September.
---
Tuscany, 2002
His hands were hot through her dress, and she regretted the choice of garment immensely. The dance she had conned him into was a mistake, and she kept bringing up his family to remind them both that his hands were going no further up or down than they presently were.
She led him on another chase that night that reminded both of them of Venice. This time, when he caught her in another alley, she let him press her up against the cold stone wall, and seconds before his lips touched hers, they both balked, and she reminded him that she hadn't stolen anything yet, and disappeared in the second of his hesitation.
She tried to stay clear of him for the rest of the con, and was only marginally successful.
---
Madrid, 2003
Word had reached her that his son was sick. Sophie didn't understand the urge to fly to Boston to be with him, and so she ignored it, charming the pants off (almost literally - she stopped him just in time, thank god), the mark in fluent Spanish.
---
London, 2004
It was less fun with Sterling chasing her.
---
Boston, 2005
She hadn't been back to the States since the terrorist attacks, and she was still steering clear of New York, but the fact that Boston was his home territory, and the closest they had been in years, was not lost on Sophie. She wasn't sure if it had anything to do with why she pulled a long con, and she didn't think about it. This was her best yet, and he wasn't going to ruin this for her.
He didn't, and she tried not to be disappointed with that.
She was severely disappointed when the dagger wasn't delivered as she'd planned. She tried not to think about either one.
---
Philadelphia, 2006
He looked tired. She knew without asking that Sam was getting worse. She could see it in his face, in the slump to his shoulders and the wrinkles in his otherwise smart suit. For the first time since they'd met in Prague, they weren't in the same city because he was chasing her (even in New York, five years before, he'd caught her scent). He was chasing someone else, some new light fingered thief, and hearing him talk about it made her feel old.
She ignored it, and the little spark of jealousy, and took his hand, slipping her fingers between his. She gave his hand a tight squeeze, which he returned half heartedly, like it was habit rather than desire, and let her lead him to a coffee shop, where she pushed him full of house blend and tried to get him to talk about anything else.
She followed him to his hotel, and shared his bed. It was the first time that Sophie could remember that she had really just slept in the same bed as someone else. She'd held him the whole night, and when he woke up crying at three in the morning, she was still there.
When she left two hours later, she left no note, just the lingering smell of her shampoo on his rented pillows.
---
Sierra Leone, 2006
Jim Sterling was nothing compared to Nathan Ford. Sophie knew that as soon as she saw him. He'd chased her before, but she hadn't given him the time of day then, and wouldn't now. She slapped him after he told her Nate's son had died, then kicked him in the balls for good measure. Jim Sterling was a rat, and if he was going to chase her across the world, then she was done.
---
Chicago, 2007
When he approached her in the alley behind the theater, she resisted every instinct in her body to touch him. The Nathan Ford in front of her was not the same man she had shot in Paris, or nearly drowned in Venice. He was part of that man, and she was gratified to see that he was at least happy to see her, but there was a shadow over his head now that hadn't hung there when she knew him.
The game was different now, nothing could hide that, but she enjoyed their back and forth more now then she had back then. Maybe now, things would be different. He was a free man, and she was an honest citizen, something she secretly suspected he had always wanted her to be.
Maybe now, with things the way they were, they could cease their game of cat and mouse and just be.
She watched him from an alcove, the dim lighting of the restaurant glinting off her hair. It wasn't the first time they'd met that year, but she anticipated that it would be the last. He looked right over her like she wanted, scanning the room for Sophie's brunette, not Jennifer's red. He moved right toward the bar, his walk confident that this time he'd catch her, that he knew she was here. He didn't know quite how right he was, and she smiled, lips curling up as he caught the bartender's attention, and Bobby fed him exactly what he was supposed to.
She watched Nathan Ford, I.Y.S. Investigator, flash a picture of Sophie, and watched Bobby sit back on his haunches and think about it. Bobby was her favorite - he had just the right flash, just the right panache to be a believable liar. He was wasted as a bartender.
“Oh, her? Yeah, yeah. She was here the otha' day, said that if anybody's came lookin' for her to say...”
“What?” She could hear Nate's impatience from several feet away, as she moved toward the door.
“To say, you knows, 'catch me if you can.'”
She shot Bobby a grin and gestured toward the table, where she'd left him a hefty tip. She hit the door, which jangled its little bell cheerfully, just as Nate turned to look toward her. She gave him a jaunty wave, and hit the early November New England streets.
When Nate came bursting through the doors to find her, she was already gone.
---
Venice, 1998
Sophie hadn't planned on Nathan Ford in Venice. She imagined him like a bloodhound - now that he'd caught her scent, he couldn't let it go. So, she let him chase. She led him on a gondola chase through the waterways, she led him across rooftops, through crowds of tourists. She led him up and down the streets of Venice until she turned a corner and there he was, dangling a pair of handcuffs off one finger, leaning against the wall casually, like he hadn't been running after her for days.
“Sophie Devereaux,” He said, and she ignored the shiver at the rolling way he said her name.
“Nathan Ford,” She returned. “Did you enjoy your swim, yesterday?”
A frown marred his handsome features, and for a moment he looked much younger than he was. They were both in their thirties, barely, and Sophie knew that if their situations were different, those cuffs would see a much kinder use than they might tonight.
“I didn't appreciate Providence, you know.”
She laughed, bell like in the alley. “You weren't supposed to.”
He pushed off the wall and approached her, prowling like a big cat. She tried to ignore how her heart picked up speed and took a step back, glancing toward her only exit. “You can't run forever.”
She grinned at him, wild and reckless. “Watch me.”
---
Damascus, 1999
It was becoming a trend. Once a year, he would track her down, and once a year, she would narrowly evade him. She was sure it had to be frustrating for him, but it was no less frustrating for her. At least the first two times she'd finished the bloody job already. This time he had her red handed, and she wasn't really sure how she was supposed to get out of it.
With no other way out readily available, Sophie discovered how little she liked the cold ring of handcuffs around her wrists.
“You could have at least padded them first,” She said, following a step behind him on the way to the car. She could tell it was unnerving him that she wasn't putting up a fight or trying to run, and that was perfect. It was exactly where she wanted him.
“You could just appreciate art like everyone else, and I wouldn't have to put them on you in the first place.”
She laughed, “Did they teach you that in training at IYS? All you insurance types sound the same,” she winked at him when he turned to look at her, and let him guide her into the back of his car.
As it turned out, they weren't going straight to jail. Apparently she was being extradited, and they would fly out together in the morning. It gave them all night to talk, which Sophie took full advantage of. She convinced him to cuff her to the bedside table, so she could at least rest before she went to prison. She learned that he was married (mores the pity), and that his son had just turned one. He didn't show her a picture, but if she'd pushed a little more, he probably would have.
She convinced him that sleeping in a chair would do terrible things to his back, and let him convince himself that for proprieties sake, he should sleep in his clothes. She waited til he was well and truly out cold, which required more patience than she'd thought she had, before she began to fish lightly through his pockets.
She didn't come up with the keys immediately, but did find the spare key to the cuffs in his wallet, tucked into a leather fold. Before she put the key and the wallet back, she let her curiosity win and flipped to his tiny family picture and looked at an image of normalcy she couldn't imagine in her own life.
Sophie left his wallet on the bed, along with a note in careful handwriting that said, 'Maybe next time.' She took his suit jacket and slipped out the door.
---
Paris, 2000
She didn't see him in again 1999, but she made up for it by shooting him in 2000. In her defense, he hadn't even let her finish getting the painting out of the frame.
“You wanker!” She hadn't expected him to shoot her back, and he's damn lucky that he was a bad shot. It just barely grazed her arm, but she'd liked that coat and getting shot was no joke! It hurt! If it scarred, she'd kill him. “'Freeze!'? Is that really the best you could come up with?”
“What was I supposed to say?” He was leaning against the wall, probably dragging his blood garishly across the wallpaper. “'Stop your thieving ways!' has too much of a religious ring to it.”
She wasn't sure how he was managing humor when his voice was so brittle with pain it sounded like it would break, but she appreciated the gesture anyway. “Fine. You just... you stand there and bleed while I finish this, and then we'll get you to a hospital.”
He stared at her, and barely managed, “Seriously?” before she was back at the painting,
She rode in the back of the ambulance with him, feeding the paramedics a story about their honeymoon and how she couldn't believe that they'd been mugged in Paris! (She lifted his wallet, to sell the bit.) She kept calling him Tom, and he retaliated by referring to her as Sarah Jane. (Just for that, she took his credit card out of the wallet before she left it at the front desk of the ER. She had no intention of using it, but really, Sarah Jane?)
On her way out, she made sure to call his real wife, Maggie. She pretended to be a French nurse, and neglected to mention that she was the one who had shot him. Sophie only hung up the phone when she was sure that both Maggie and her son, Sam, were on the plane to France.
---
New York, 2001
She'd expected him when she had her hands on the Second David, and she could admit to herself that she was disappointed when it was Jim Sterling to chase her. On the other hand, it was probably only because Nathan Ford hadn't been on her tail that she'd gotten the statue out at all. She wasn't sure she could count it as a win, since the challenger hadn't exactly sent her their A game. Sterling was still too green to get as close as Ford had. She wasn't sure why, three years later, it still bothered her.
For once, he found her when she wasn't breaking any laws. She was standing in the middle of the Guggenheim, admiring a painting, when suddenly, he was standing next to her. She glanced up at him, but didn't say anything, letting him fill the silence with whatever he wanted.
“I'm surprised to see you on this side of the rope,” he finally said, making no effort to hide that he was looking at her and not the painting.
“Someone told me once that I should try to appreciate art the way others see it.” She turned to him as she said it and took him in. He looked more welcoming in his jeans and soft button down shirt. His hair was loose, not plastered against his skull, and she had to admit that she liked it better.
Not that what she liked or didn't like mattered when it came to Nate Ford.
“It sounds like someone gave you some good advice.” His smile nearly took her breath away, but Sophie hadn't built her career on a lack of talent. She smiled right back at him, all charm and grace.
“So far it's the only good thing he's given me,” she made sure her tone took all the sting out of the words, and she let him buy her lunch.
She didn't tell him that she'd already taken what she'd wanted from the Met. She didn't return to America for months after the events in September.
---
Tuscany, 2002
His hands were hot through her dress, and she regretted the choice of garment immensely. The dance she had conned him into was a mistake, and she kept bringing up his family to remind them both that his hands were going no further up or down than they presently were.
She led him on another chase that night that reminded both of them of Venice. This time, when he caught her in another alley, she let him press her up against the cold stone wall, and seconds before his lips touched hers, they both balked, and she reminded him that she hadn't stolen anything yet, and disappeared in the second of his hesitation.
She tried to stay clear of him for the rest of the con, and was only marginally successful.
---
Madrid, 2003
Word had reached her that his son was sick. Sophie didn't understand the urge to fly to Boston to be with him, and so she ignored it, charming the pants off (almost literally - she stopped him just in time, thank god), the mark in fluent Spanish.
---
London, 2004
It was less fun with Sterling chasing her.
---
Boston, 2005
She hadn't been back to the States since the terrorist attacks, and she was still steering clear of New York, but the fact that Boston was his home territory, and the closest they had been in years, was not lost on Sophie. She wasn't sure if it had anything to do with why she pulled a long con, and she didn't think about it. This was her best yet, and he wasn't going to ruin this for her.
He didn't, and she tried not to be disappointed with that.
She was severely disappointed when the dagger wasn't delivered as she'd planned. She tried not to think about either one.
---
Philadelphia, 2006
He looked tired. She knew without asking that Sam was getting worse. She could see it in his face, in the slump to his shoulders and the wrinkles in his otherwise smart suit. For the first time since they'd met in Prague, they weren't in the same city because he was chasing her (even in New York, five years before, he'd caught her scent). He was chasing someone else, some new light fingered thief, and hearing him talk about it made her feel old.
She ignored it, and the little spark of jealousy, and took his hand, slipping her fingers between his. She gave his hand a tight squeeze, which he returned half heartedly, like it was habit rather than desire, and let her lead him to a coffee shop, where she pushed him full of house blend and tried to get him to talk about anything else.
She followed him to his hotel, and shared his bed. It was the first time that Sophie could remember that she had really just slept in the same bed as someone else. She'd held him the whole night, and when he woke up crying at three in the morning, she was still there.
When she left two hours later, she left no note, just the lingering smell of her shampoo on his rented pillows.
---
Sierra Leone, 2006
Jim Sterling was nothing compared to Nathan Ford. Sophie knew that as soon as she saw him. He'd chased her before, but she hadn't given him the time of day then, and wouldn't now. She slapped him after he told her Nate's son had died, then kicked him in the balls for good measure. Jim Sterling was a rat, and if he was going to chase her across the world, then she was done.
---
Chicago, 2007
When he approached her in the alley behind the theater, she resisted every instinct in her body to touch him. The Nathan Ford in front of her was not the same man she had shot in Paris, or nearly drowned in Venice. He was part of that man, and she was gratified to see that he was at least happy to see her, but there was a shadow over his head now that hadn't hung there when she knew him.
The game was different now, nothing could hide that, but she enjoyed their back and forth more now then she had back then. Maybe now, things would be different. He was a free man, and she was an honest citizen, something she secretly suspected he had always wanted her to be.
Maybe now, with things the way they were, they could cease their game of cat and mouse and just be.