Neal/Sara AU - he's the insurance investigator and she's the clever art thief who slipped through his fingers.

Yes yes yes! I may have to do this!

I would TOTALLY read this.

I was actually wondering if I could change this prompt just a little so that it fits in my "Air Becoming Glass" verse (the one I wrote most of my sentence fest fills in, they're collected here http://attackfish.livejournal.com/74549.html ). Neal would be an FBI agent, not an insurance investigator, but the dynamic would be similar.

Sure. I look at these as prompts (which, in my definition, means they're meant to inspire anything, and not just what I, the prompter, have in mind), not requests. Unless someone wants to specifically tailor a fic to my tastes.

This is a companion to the fic a "Air Becoming Glass" (http://attackfish.livejournal.com/74549.html) that I wrote as part of elrhiarhodan's sentence fest a few months back. As such, Neal is an FBI agent, not an insurance investigator, and it kind of ended up being more UST than pairing.



Halls of Justice

Sara sat with her lawyer, back straight, cataloging the bumps and marks on the wall in front of her. Every few minutes, she wondered again if it was taking too long, if her lawyer was wrong and the long deliberation was a bad sign, not a good one, and that when they finished, the forewoman would read out a guilty verdict.

She was out on bail. She could run.

She stood up so fast she wobbled on her high heeled shoes, and her eyes darted up and down the hallway to make sure nobody noticed. Her lawyer looked up. “What are you doing?”

“Just going to the bathroom. No, you can't follow me in.” She straightened up and smiled at him, trying to make it into a joke. The man's own smile was resigned as she walked down the hall.

~*~

When she stepped out of the bathroom, drying her hands on her skirt, Agent Caffrey, the bastard who arrested her, was leaning against the wall in the little alcove that kept the bathroom doors hidden from the rest of the hallway. “You know, you could be in a lot of trouble if my lawyer saw you.”

“Just making sure I know where you are.” He shook his head. “I still can't believe the judge gave you bail.”

“Awwww.” She patted him on the cheek. He blinked and jerked back, but it was too late. She had already pulled away with the shock of actually having broken through the almost tangible bubbles of space between them, even if it was just for a second.

“You know,” he said, forcing himself to regain his composure, grin bright. She was almost fooled. “It's not too late to plead guilty, if you tell us who you sold the Raphael to before the jury get's back, I'm sure you can work out some kind of deal.”

“Let me guess, you'll talk to the prosecutor for me.” She shoved past him, into the hall. “Getting nervous?”

“Are you?”

“No,” she lied. “I don't think anybody trusts an FBI agent in a suit that nice.”

He stayed in the alcove, the walls tighter around him, throwing his face into shadow. He laughed and doffed his hat. “You like it?”

“Neal,” she told him, startling herself as much as him with the name, “Shut up.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, smiling wider. “Shutting up.”

~*~

Sara's stomach felt like it had climbed into her throat as she shuffled back into the courtroom beside her lawyer. The judge told her to rise, and as soon as she was on her feet, they burned with the need to run and the certainty that it was over, and she would spend the rest of her life running. For a moment, the word “not” didn't register, and all she heard was the forewoman reading the word guilty, then suddenly it clicked, and the breath rushed out of her chest, and her legs buckled beneath her.

She caught herself, somehow managing not to fall, or cling to the table, or burst out laughing, She just listened to the judge telling her she was free to go and let herself smile.

In the back row on the prosecution side, Caffrey sat stiffly, staring at the back of his hands, but she caught his eye anyway. He grimaced, but hid it well, and her smile turned into a smirk.

He picked his hat up from the bench and set it crookedly on his head before following her out of the courtroom, out of the building and down to the sidewalk. She narrowed her eyes. “You want something?” she asked darkly.

“You mind coming down and answering some questions?”

“No thanks, I'm busy.” She had an escape to call off and ill gotten gains to launder. Very busy.

He put his hands in his pockets. “Plans already, that's fast.”

“Yeah, I was pretty confidant,” she mocked. “I didn't really think you would be this sore a loser, though.”

“For now.” He stopped smiling. “Loser for now.”

She snorted, waving goodbye and vanishing into the crowd.

When she looked back, he had vanished too.

Edited 2011-07-23 07:50 pm (UTC)

I just noticed this was filled! I love it :D

It was just such a cool prompt. I'm glad you liked what I did with it.