Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Just don't get into trouble while we're gone," Nate said.
 
"I'm sorry, did you somehow miss the thirty-odd years where I carried on my existence as a perfectly capable, nay, let us say, extraordinary individual, without your assistance, and without getting into trouble?" Hardison asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. He'd found the instant waffles and he was pretty happy about it. If he could find some maple syrup, life would be just about perfect right now. A nice big plastic bottle of sugary goopy goodness, and none of that organic natural stuff that actually contained maple, either. That crap made him break out in hives. He opened another cabinet drawer and started poking through it.
 
Nate gave him an irritated look, but he'd given up on bitching about them eating his food without asking months ago. "Yeah, well, during those previous supposedly perfect and unparallelled years of success, you weren't in a position to bring me down with you if you screwed something up. So if you're going to use the computer systems in any way that could tie back to me—"
 
"Please do not be lecturing me on computer security, man, I was at your computer the other day, and you have an AOL account over there. An AOL account. Do you know how '90s that is? Who even, in this day and age, does not know, I don't even know where to begin—"
 
"Please," Sophie said, interrupting them both. "Hardison, obviously you're very capable of... all of the technological things that you do. I'm sure. Just, please, keep an eye out for things, and you know, people, I'm not naming any names, except for Parker, obviously, while we're gone." She smiled, eyes a little too bright, and tucked her arm around Nate's. "We'll be just a few days, checking things out. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a very lucrative and rewarding job for all of us, and we'll have you join us shortly."
 
"Uh huh." Hardison ignored Nate's glare, found the syrup, and continued to go along with the story about the "job" at the "ski lodge" that oh so conveniently had come up in time for the holiday season. He'd checked the weather report. What did Sophie take him for? There'd be no checking out potential real estate building sites and scams in two feet of powder and white-out conditions. Nothing but warm fires, fur rugs, and some good old-fashioned face-sucking spit exchanging. And good for her, too. It was clear that the only way to get Nate to go along with such a concept, short of bashing him over the head with a baseball bat, was an actual act of nature.
 
"Stop screwing around with my computer while I'm gone, Hardison," Nate gritted out. "I mean it. I'm holding you responsible for everything that happens while we're gone. Don't blow anything up, don't get arrested, don't get that damn syrup on my keyboard."
 
Hardison smiled toothily; Sophie saw the situation falling apart and went full on grifter-face, hustling Nate and their luggage out the door with ever increasingly frantic cries about missing their flight, and the waffles popped out of the toaster.
 
Hardison sighed happily and drowned them both in delicious, wonderful, liquid brown sugar.
 
Of course, that was when Parker arrived by kicking out a pane of the living room window. "I've found us the most amazing job," she cried. "Where's Eliot? I stole him a great suit to wear!"
 

"It's not that I'm against a good job," Hardison said, looking Eliot over critically. "It's just, you know. We sorta got out of that line of business, and into this one. The Robin Hood type dealio. Plus, I'm pretty sure if Nate and Sophie were here? They'd be voting with some kind of bloc veto powers against this whole idea. Also, and finally, and I'm just saying this because it needs to be said, but I'd look a whole hell of a lot better in that suit than he does. Sorry man, you just don't have the build for it."
 
"I'm built like a linebacker compared to you, Hardison," Eliot replied, trying to tug his tie away from Parker as she tightened it, nooselike, around his neck.
 
"Exactly my point," Hardison agreed. "These people are expecting a man of the mind, not some thug."
 
"Thugs have money," Parker said, tugging Eliot's tie into place. "Pays really well, in the right circles. I dated a thug once."
 
Eliot's eyes swiveled back from glaring lasers at Hardison to focus on Parker, and Hardison joined him.
 
Parker continued, oblivious to their reaction. "And this is a Robin Hood type deal. This guy is sleaze. He steals from everyone. Museums, charities, the rich, the poor, he doesn't care. If they have something he wants, he finds a way to take it off their hands. You know he stole a Rembrandt being auctioned off to support a hospital, once? And we've nerded Eliot up before. Maybe the glasses, a little product, Hardison can lend you one of those PDA's with the wireless and keyboards. Anyway, Eliot's just there to be a distraction and open a few key entry points for us." She paused, and Hardison noted to himself this clearly mattered to her. That was practically a dictionary's worth of words when delivered from Parker.
 
"So you can do your ninja thing and make off with the loot he's auctioning off? I dunno, Parker, and ow, are you trying to kill me here, stop that," Eliot took a step back, hands to his neck. "We're sort of rushing into this without a game plan, aren't we? Doesn't seem very sensible."
 
"We don't want the stuff he's auctioning off," Parker said firmly. "That's garbage."
 
Eliot raised an eyebrow. "Pretty damn pricey garbage, if we have to pay this loser fifty grand just for the privilege of attending his little art fair."
 
"Deposit. It's a deposit. And we're getting that money back, even if we have to bail on the operation early," Hardison interjected. "No," he held up a hand as Parker started to talk, "I do not want to hear about how the goods we're gonna garner from this little transaction will be worth fifty times the price of admission, even if we have to haul our posteriors out of there before they are lit on fire by forces of evil, any more than I want to have to explain to Nate that Parker knows where his hidden safe is and has been helping herself to whatever she needs whenever the whim takes her."
 
"Just that one other time," Parker objected. "I put it back before he even knew."
 
"Exactly my point. Ignorance is bliss."
 
"That's not the point at all. What are we getting out of this, exactly, if we're not after the stuff he's auctioning?" Eliot placed himself behind the safety of the coffee table.
 
"The stuff up for auction isn't what he cares about," Parker repeated, firmly. "Knick knacks. Trinkets. A few lesser known impressionists' works, some Roman jewelry, some Greek coins and vases. Guy is such a poser, he showed some of his collection off to the wrong person, the Feds got wind of it, and now he's decided to 'clear some space on his shelves for newer interests'". Parker snorted in that way that made both Eliot and Hardison flinch. "The point is, he doesn't show the stuff he really cares about to the wrong person. He barely shows that stuff to himself. He's got it locked away in a vault built into the wall on the fourth floor, massive metal panels they put in place, had to have entirely new supporting walls put into the basement and the support structure shored up just to deal with the weight from that thing. It's like a giant walk-in closet."
 
Eliot and Hardison looked at her, and then one another. Parker began piling her ropes into neat bundles.
 
Hardison cleared his throat. Parker fished a black backpack out from under the sofa.
 
"Parker!" barked Elliot
 
"What!"
 
"You know this HOW, exactly?"
 
"Well, duh, he hired me for a job once. Few years ago. A totally rare and ridiculously expensive set of Egyptian artifacts." She set the bag down. "Only I was three countries away and my flight got canceled and I had to sleep for two days in the airport because of weather, and all the hotels were full, and when I got there, he'd already had someone else pull the job off. He didn't even compensate me for the travel time, that jerk."
 
"So, this is revenge." Eliot seemed happy to be able to encapsulate the situation neatly.
 
"Yeah, revenge. Also, he's got tons of untagged cut diamonds in his vault. Totally untraceable." Parker's expression became rapturous.
 
"Oooo." Hardison couldn't stop the admittedly feminine sounding expression of delight from escaping.
 
Eliot let it pass. One corner of his lip almost twitched upwards. "Diamonds are good. Really good." He nodded. "They were on my list to Santa this year."
 
They all paused.
 
"It's totally the right thing for us to do, of course." Hardison said. "This guy is a total sleaze. It's Robin Hood all the way."
 
Parker nodded fiercely. "And we just won't mention it to Sophie and Nate when they get back."
 
"Hell no," Eliot and Hardison chorused.
 

Hardison was yammering away in his earpiece like a fool whose mother had never taught him that if he didn't have anything useful to say, he might want to close his trap occasionally. Somewhere else on the same line, Eliot could hear Parker giggling to herself, very softly. It was disturbing.
 
The host of this completely illegal little shindig looked like a second-rate actor putting on a very poor show at a dinner theatre, and he could hear Sophie's voice running a disapproving editorial somewhere in the back of his consciousness. Lucky for him he's just a thief, and not a grifter, or he'd have been jailed years ago. The snacks were pretty good, though. And there were plenty of interesting types here, who they might want to make note of for future reference. As their host himself stated when introducing himself to them, they all loved money. Possibly, he hadn't used those exact words, but Eliot could only listen to so much blah blah blah fakery before he tuned it out.
 
"I'm in through the skylight on the top floor," Parker reported, voice suddenly serious and also happy. "Bedroom, upper right corner. Silk sheets!"
 
"I've got the blueprints up." Hardison had clearly snapped to attention, usual. "Shouldn't be any electronic surveillance this early on, other than the cameras on the roof, and you're past those already."
 
"Getting in is the easy part," Parker agreed. "Eliot's in charge of getting me out."
 
Eliot sighed and hoped it was loud enough that they could both hear him. In the background, Hardison began to drone coordinates of where he felt there might be pressure sensitive flooring, and Eliot continued to circle the room he had been escorted to, trying to look interested in the dusty artifacts, blurry paintings, and so-called modern art they were all here to buy. He studied a sculpture in front of him and tried to determine what the hell it was.
 
"Not quite your thing, then?" asked an amused voice. "It's a Pietro Moretti. They go for about a quarter million these days."
 
"That?" Eliot couldn't stop himself. "Seriously, that? I could do that with a bunch of scrap wood, three pounds of silly putty, a chain saw, and my lunch hour."
 
"It's pretty hideous," his uninvited companion agreed. "And all the rage right now. Won't last long though, more of a fad thing. Not something I'd invest in, to tell you the truth."
 
Elliot cast a sidelong look at the man who had come to stand next to him. White haired, nice suit, sharp look. He'd entered the sale at the last minute with two others, but didn't seem to be attached to their contingent. What the hell was he up to, making small talk like this? Either he was here to buy this overly expensive crap, or he was also looking to play some other game. And as far as he was concerned, anything that fell into the second category was a potential threat.
 
"I'm Devereaux... Nate Devereaux," he introduced himself, deciding to make the first move.
 
"Really? Devereaux? Not what I expected, but then, are any of us? I'm Walter Allerton." He inspected his drink, and then the statue again. "Not your style, I agree, and I hope you don't mind my leaping to such conclusions."
 
Eliot grunted. "Nah, it's not. That looks pretty. How much?" He pointed at a painting with a sticker placed slightly below.
 
Allerton looked scandalized. "It's a Van Lint. You don't know anything about art at all, do you."
 
"Nah, not really." Eliot shrugged.
 
"Then what are you doing here? This isn't the sort of place you go to on a whim." Allerton looked pained. Eliot suspected that whatever prospects he had seen in him were fading fast, and that was fine by him.
 
"Are you kidding me? This is exactly that sort of place. It's Christmas Eve. I promised my girl something special. I don't care what it is, long as it's pretty and expensive, and if I tell her I had to deal with the criminal underworld or engage in shady dealings to get it? So much the better. She'll get to giggle and whisper about it with her girlfriends at one of their hen gatherings for months and then she can stash it under her bed again, or whatever." He scratched his neck. "The price on the receipt is what matters."
 
"Well, it is a Van Lint, so you'll have met the price requirement. But since it's a painting, by definition there's only one of it in the world, unless you choose to claim it is a replica, which would seem to defeat the purpose. If one of your girlfriend's girlfriends slips up..."
 
Eliot grunted again, acknowledging the problem. "Okay, so no painting then. How about that vase? Very shiny. You can't tell one famous vase from another, right?"
 
There was a pause, and then Allerton gave him another extremely pained look, slugged back his drink, and said, "Indeed."
 

Parker loved breaking and entering. She loved big shiny vaults, with the promise of their shiny, bright treasures, all of which could be converted into various international currencies and stashed in multiple bank accounts, in various countries, under numbers rather than names, all with simple codes that brought to her the promise of beautiful, lovely cash any time she wanted it. That this job held just a little bit of challenge only made it all the better, and she dangled upside-down suspended by ropes above the pressure-sensitive floor panel as she listened to the last of the combination snick perfectly into place.
 
"Door's ready to be opened, Hardison, you got the floor yet?" she asked impatiently.
 
"Just a second, darling, seriously, this isn't quite the same as typing in your PIN at an ATM... we're just lucky that we had the right specs to do this one and have info ready for this particularly unit... mmmm.... Oh yeah... right there, baby..."
 
Parker sighed. "Luck had nothing to do with it. I've been waiting for an opportunity to jack this place for over a year, and we're never going to get a better chance than this, so hurry it up."
 
"Now now, if you'll just..." There was an audible click below her, and Parker looked down to see the diode at the tip of the metallic strip she had planted there earlier light up. She grinned, released a clamp, and flipped onto her feet.
 
"All clear, darling!"
 
"Yeah, whatever," she said and pushed the door open. And stopped, and gazed, giving herself just one moment to take it all in, to bask, but not to squeal, because that was a bad habit that had almost blown jobs in her early days.
 
"Oh Hardison, it's so beautiful!"
 
"Really? Is it that good? You sound like you're tearing up in there!" Hardison said suspiciously.
 
"Beauty makes me cry," she sniffled, just a little. "Okay, I'm over it now. Time for operation French Maid!"
 

Hardison hated the possibility that something might go wrong on a job. Hated it more when he felt he might be partly responsible, hated that he'd let the lure of sweet, beautiful diamonds win the argument, despite the lack of time to check things out for himself first. Not that Parker wasn't good at what she did, hell no, she was the best. But Parker didn't do what he did. And what he did (among so very many other things) was surveillance. And right now, cursory surveillance was beginning to lead him to believe there might be more going on here than a simple completely illegal auction of stolen goods attended by many wealthy and somewhat nefarious individuals.
 
There were three, no seriously, three different sets of covert radio signals in the vicinity, not counting their own high-tech van of beauty, decked out by his own loving hand. And at least one of them was operating on wavelengths usually reserved for government agencies. That one he could trace back to the battered but mostly nondescript brown van sitting at the corner of the block. Great. Cops. Probably feds. But at least those were just cops. You could depend on cops to be cop-like. They followed a certain set of rules. They did not, for example, barge into buildings full of civilians and massacre the lot of them just to get their hands on the goods. Cops, in other words, were not a deal breaker.
 
More worrying were the radio signals from just around the corner. He'd managed to intercept a flicker of the voices, passed back and forth, probably to someone inside the brownstone, but he couldn't understand a damn word. None of it was in English. Not Russian either. He'd recognize Russian, and tell Eliot and Parker to bail and run like hell the second they might be about to get involved. But this was not a language he could patch together through the static, and that was troubling. As troubling as the fact that the third set of signals had a high enough level of encryption that he wasn't going to be able to break though it without pulling his attention away from their own operation.
 
What he hated most of all was the possibility of having to explain of this to Nate if it all went to hell.
 
It was time to investigate further. Time to make sure of their Plans B, C, D, and E (equals get the Hell out of here and forget all the other plans), and time to move the van to a location that was not the dead center of a triangulation of unknown radio signals. He started the engine.
 
And that, of course, was when he discovered just how deep the snow had become in the last forty-five minutes.
 

Eliot waited until Allerton was desperate to escape him. Small talk about sports helped immensely, as it turned out. Then he executed a sharp right turn at the exact moment Allerton was trying to dive past him, and successfully managed to end up with sherry all down the front of his shirt. The ensuing scene brought a few muttered comments of fake solicitude from those around them who really didn't want to get involved, their host's irritated attention, and several scantily clad waitresses with seltzer and lace handkerchiefs.
 
He flapped them away, arms wide: "Just point me to the damn little boy's room already!" The perfect pitch, just a little too loud for such polite company, and his host was only too anxious to have him escorted out into the hallway.
 
"I'll take it from here, Linda," said Parker, and Eliot turned sharply again, to find his escort being handed off from the waitress who had led him to the hallway, and who apparently was not even surprised to see Parker there, to Parker. In a very tight waitress outfit.
 
"Seriously Parker, how long have you been planning this?" he demanded.
 
"A loooong time," she drawled. "I couldn't take everything, too many large pieces, but I took enough to make him cry himself to sleep at night for the next year. Help me get this down the stairs." She gestured at a waiter's trolley, a white tablecloth carefully covering what looked to be a pile of dirty dishes. They each took an end, and carefully lowered it backwards down the stairs. Halfway down, they had to stop on a landing while Eliot took care of a very surprised security guard, and Parker disabled a camera.
 
"What do I do with him?" Elliot asked.
 
Parker shrugged. "Leave him outside? The door will auto-lock once I go out, he won't be able to get back in that way."
 
"He's unconscious, Parker. You know what leaving someone outside in the snow unconscious leads to?" Parker just looked at him. "I'm not killing a man just for doing his job."
 
"There's a laundry room in the basement. There should be a place down there."
 
"You can make it on your own once I get you down?" Eliot glanced down the hallway. "Even with this many people here, won't be long before they notice that much money missing."
 
"As long as Hardison is where he's supposed to be, we're golden," Parker said. "We're in the home stretch now. Just go back to the party and pretend to buy some pretty pictures." She paused. "Oh, and get Nate's money back, so Hardison doesn't have another hissy fit."
 

Hardison shivered and muttered and backed a little further away from the illumination of the streetlights. He had scoped the entire perimeter by foot, no high-tech surveillance, just good old fashioned legwork and a lot of slinking and dashing and panicking that he'd been seen. And he'd hated every second of it, and they'd damn well better pull this job off, because his shoes were absolutely ruined. God had not meant men like him to live without surveillance cameras.
 
Still, he now knew that there was an FBI truck at the corner, another in the back alley, a car full of thugs, there were no other words for them, absolute thugs in a dark blue sedan just around the other corner, and a mystifying Toyota Matrix full of Arabic looking men around the corner from that. Terrorists! had been his first wild guess, but that was pretty un-pc, and also pretty stupid, actually. Foreign mafia had been his next guess, followed by money lenders, but actually, it seemed unlikely that terrorists, mafia, or money lenders would be caught dead in a Toyota Matrix.
 
Then one of them had broken out a walkie talkie, and as they were, ridiculously, parked right under a streetlight, Hardison had no problem determining that the reason he hadn't been able to get a good radio signal from them was because they were using children's walkie-talkies with RadioShack stamped on them. Shortly after that they had broken out the travel Parcheesi and he'd given up trying to find a box to fit them in at all, and decided to place them firmly in the "Very weird, not a threat to anyone, and probably in need of assistance themselves," category.
 
The blue sedan though, that was another matter. Those guys were trouble.
 
He shivered harder. He eyed the brownstone, the van parked at the corner, and his own pathetic shoes, and wondered if it was time to call this operation off. It seemed entirely too populated around here for any of this.
 
Down the street, the back of the van popped open, and a tallish man in a suit and shoes even more unsuitable than his own hopped out, and landed squarely in a snowbank.
 

"I am gonna die, I am gonna die, I am gonna get arrested, and thrown in jail, and then my pretty boy looks will get me in trouble, and all my brain power will be wasted, and it'll be a loss to this world as we know it," Hardison chanted miserably to himself as he shuffled through the snow. "And oh my god, even if Eliot and Parker ever get the hell out of that brownstone, we're still doomed, we're never getting out of here through this snow. This is ridiculous. They said six inches. This is not six inches, this is The Day After Tomorrow. Any minute now we're all gonna freeze solid in our tracks like the mammoths." Despite the relative darkness, he felt way too exposed.
 
He shuffled a few feet closer to his destination, and took a deep breath. Do or die, right?
 
"HEY! Anyone in there! Hello! Can you help a brother out!" He struck the van doors with his balled up fist, and it echoed through the body of the vehicle BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM, so loudly that Hardison flinched and wondered if they could hear him inside the damn brownstone. Do or Die! "Helloooooo!"
 
"WHAT!" One door flew open so quickly it nearly hit him in the face, and he backpedaled into a snowbank. Two angry faces, one female and white, one male and black, peered out at him. Behind them was a bank of computer equipment advanced enough to tell him that one, these were not just the cops, and two, he really really needed to go to the Tech Fair next month and buy that pretty little camera array he could see over the man's shoulder, it was utterly sweet.
 
"Uh, hey, sorry to bother you guys, but I saw your friend over there," Hardison gestured vaguely into the night, "hop out of your van earlier."
 
The woman sighed audibly. "Yeah, great. What about him?"
 
"Well, nothing, but see, I'm around the corner, and I'm stuck, and my cell phone, it's not like I didn't power it up before I left, but the girlfriend called, and you know how it is, she got to chatting and chatting and I could not stop her, and then the car just dies, and I'd charge it up to call a tow truck with, only I think the battery must be dead, the car that is, not the phone, that's probably why it won't start," he coughed into his hands to warm them up. "So anyway-"
 
"Buddy, are you seriously asking us to call you a cab or a tow truck, or what?" asked the black agent in disbelief. "We're not exactly out here as part of a citizen's patrol."
 
"Well, duh, yeah, I guessed as much, but as I was saying, I saw your friend jump out in the snow before, up to his knees in this crap in that suit, that looked ugly, is what it looked, his legs must've frozen before it made it to the curb-"  Both agents winced. "Anyway, I was trying to find a pay phone, but, really? Ain't no such thing anymore. Not in this city, anyway. So I followed your friend round the side of the block, thought I could ask him if I could borrow his phone, cause a Fed's gotta have a phone, right? Anyway, I'm following him around the side there, and there's a car pulled over, fulla guys, and I'm thinking, hey, they must have a phone, and I don't have to walk as far in this crap, so I'm pounding on the window there-"
 
"Is this going anywhere?" demanded the woman, wearily. "Ever?"
 
"Easy, easy." Hardison grinned internally. The FBI could be so much fun. "Anyway, I'm all 'Lend a brother a phone!' and they're all 'Get the hell out of here or we'll BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!' and waving guns around and—"
 
The female agent leaned out of the van, face inches from him, huge flakes sticking to her bangs and eyelashes within seconds as she shouted, "There are men with guns sitting in a car around the corner? And you're only now just getting around to telling us this?"
 
The door was abruptly slammed in his face and he could hear the thumping and shouting of a pair of agents gearing up, calling for backup, and generally looking for their snowboots.
 
Hardison grinned happily to himself. "Sophie Devereaux, eat your heart out, 'cause I am just that good."
 

The van was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere. And Hardison was not answering his com unit. Parker rolled the trolley as far as she could in the snow, gritted her teeth, and planned the many terribly painful ways the man would meet his end.
 

Eliot winced, and ran back down the stairs to the side door. He'd been heading back to the auction, but every warning bell and radar system he possessed was going off now. Also, Parker was screaming in his ear.
 
"I will have your skin, Hardison," she shouted. "I will make it into a coat, which I will wear, so that I don't freeze to death, do you hear me?"
 
"It would be hard not to, do you think you could tone it down just a little bit, please, I'm in the middle of something a little tricky here," came Hardison's staticky reply. Eliot picked up his pace. No way was there that much background noise in the safe comfort of the van.
 
"You know that scene in Star Wars, Hardison?" Parker asked.
 
"Uh... very probably?" Hardison offered.
 
"The one in the blizzard, where they cut the animal open, and rip its guts out, and sleep inside it for the warmth?"
 
"Uh..."
 
"Money," Eliot mouthed to himself. "Gotta get the money before we blow outta this pop stand." He reversed course, and headed to the lobby. He was braced for, and expected, at least some resistance, but when he arrived, the area was completely deserted, and the money, quite the amazing stash, completely unattended.
 

"Guess what I got!" Eliot told Parker gleefully, as he joined her by the trash cans.
 
"I do not give a damn what you got." Parker told him. He looked her over. She was still in the waitress outfit, he couldn't determine which parts of her skin were naturally white and which were snow, and she was looking very, very... perky. He looked away hastily in case she went for him with a fork or something.
 
"Hardison, are you there yet? Say yes. This is your last chance. I mean it."
 
"I'm around the corner. You guys are gonna have to come to me, okay?" Hardison sounded muffled now. "But it's not far. Just, uh-"
 
"What, Hardison, what!" snapped Eliot.
 
"There might be a few police cars between you and here, okay? Try to avoid those, if you can."

The back doors of the van swung open, and Eliot and Parker lifted a white-tablecloth-covered tray into the vehicle, followed by two promising black linen bags, and then themselves.
 
"We're in! Go!" Eliot flapped his hands at him in a way that made Hardison want to explain to him just how very un-macho that looked. "What the hell is happening, this place is swarming with cops!"
 
"Feds," Hardison corrected calmly, from the driver's seat. He had found a bag of Cheetos in the emergency first-aid kit, and was chowing down. All he really wanted now was to figure out where the package of wet naps had gone.
 
"Feds! What'd you do, Hardison!" Parker seemed to be wearing a very form fitting waitress outfit, and Hardison took a moment to give it the respect it was due.
 
"Hey, I did what had to be done, Parker. Never let it be said I don't step up to my civic duty when it's presented to me." Hardison leaned back a bit.
 
"What?" chorused both of his passengers together.
 
"Relax. They're not after us. Apparently there was a whole train load of people looking to crash this particular little happy event tonight, but I handled it. 'Cause that's the kind of thing I do."
 
"Well gee, Hardison, that's just great. Let's say you drive us the hell out of here and tell us all about it at home?" Eliot suggested, through his teeth.
 
Hardison grinned wider. "Can't. Van's stuck in the snow. Ah ah ah!" He held up a hand in the face of the imminent explosion from the two very hot looking individuals who were threatening to come right over the back of the seat at him. "I might not be Nate Ford, but I think I can handle this little venture of ours." As if he'd timed it himself, another set of flashing lights appeared. Eliot cursed and jerked away from the front window, and Parker somehow vanished beneath the floor of the van.
 
"Here's our ride now," Hardison said, regretfully crumpling the bag and tossing it to one side.
 
"What?" came a muffled voice from somewhere below.
 
"I called us a tow truck, duh. We can't sit out here in the snow with stolen goods in our van until Saint Nick himself shows up with us on his downright absolutely naughty list."
 
Eliot cursed him again and then grudgingly heaved himself back out of the van to help their rescuer hook them up. Hardison took this as the tribute he was rightfully due and located the wet naps under the passenger seat. Parker emerged from nowhere, having mysteriously managed to change back into jeans and turtleneck. Hardison tried not to think about that too closely.
 
Five minutes later, and they were being hauled out of the frozen tundra that had tried to claim their lives, liberty, and their hopefully very profitable evening's work, and past a short red-faced FBI agent who was covered with snow and who had a howling, enraged thug plastered to the side of the car and was holding him there with a very determined armlock. Hardison rolled the window down.
 
"I see you got your man! Men!" He waved cheerfully. She glared daggers at him through the still thick storm and shouted back, "Yeah, whatever, thanks for the help, just keep moving and don't block the damn street! We've got more people coming."
 
"Will do! Good luck, officer!" He waved again.
 
"They hate it when you call them officer," Eliot noted, from his seat, a small smile on his lips.
 
"Yeah, don't I just know it," Hardison grinned back, and watched in the rearview mirror as flashing lights, feds, and unknown mysterious competitors all vanished from view, hidden by the lovely, perfect snow.
 

Diamonds were beautiful. Shiny, perfect, glittery, untraceable beauty. Cash wasn't so bad either. Parker cackled and cradled a double handful of it to her chest. Eliot had already made his diamonds vanish somewhere into his purloined suit, without so much as a ripple or bulge to show for their presence, and he was counting the stacks of cash into careful equal piles. His usually stoic, put-upon expression was ramped all the way up to smug. It was the Eliot version of running through the streets naked and screaming while waving a banner. Hardison was arranging the small stone vases and other assorted antiquities she had snagged all around Nate's apartment, like some kind of deranged Christmas elf, but she didn't even care. Diamonds and cash were much better.

"The best Christmas EVER," Parker crooned.
 
"We should celebrate," Eliot agreed.
 
Hardison waited for the world to end, then tentatively suggested, "Nate's fridge is FULL of eggnog. I think he's using it like smokers use chewing gum."
 
"I'll bring rum." Parker grinned.
 
"I'll bring hot wings," Elliot said.
 
"We can watch the big ball thingy drop!" Parker cried, rubbing a diamond across her cheek.
 
"That's New Year's, not Christmas," Hardison said, trying not to stare. "We could watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special."
 
Eliot and Parker both stared at him.
 
"Okay, fine. The Alien movies. But not that crappy one," Hardison conceded.
 
"Deal!" said Eliot, and slapped Hardison on the shoulder so hard he knocked him across the coffee table.