theliar | transition into the future (for not_a

Neal was very much out of his element in the future but after he'd managed to wipe the astounded expression from his face, most wouldn't have known the difference. Already a calm and charismatic smile was in his features, replacing the childlike excitement that Neal reluctantly buried for a later time when he could privately reel from the space age reality. Coming up behind Vala, he was close. He did his best to appear as though he was just looking closely but giving the appearance of being with the confident woman was a part of his con.

"Well... they all look amazing," he said, not having to fake the tone of wonderment as Vala's long fingers flipped through the holoscreens quickly.

Though he really wanted to touch the futuristic display, Neal just managed to keep his hands to himself. Knowing his luck he'd end up calling the police if he tapped the wrong way. Moreover, Vala was scrolling through at a speed he couldn't have come close to.

"You seem like you know this a bit better than I do, I'll default to your expertise."

Lay on the compliment, seem helpless, let her do the work. Neal's con was going well so far.

Vala's mouth curved into a smile as she pursued the ships. She was more than pleased with the idea of choosing the ship on her own, and luckily Neal's nervousness with this strange world was working to her advantage. She was in her element, and she was showing off. It was the best of both worlds for a girl like her.

She mused softly as she looked at the ships, trying to decide what her preferences might be. "We should try to find something with a hyperdrive... If those even exist in this time period. It would also be helpful if it had some kind of transporter. That's not completely necessary, of course, but it certainly makes thing easier." She kept flipping through, not quite happy with the specs she was seeing yet. "Plus, let's admit it, we need something flashy. No point in, erm, test driving anything less than the best."

She shot him a grin and flipped to a new image. Taking a look, she titled her head and nodded. "Well. No transporter but it does have hyperdrive. And it's pretty." And it was. A sleek ship, a little on the smaller side, but it's silver chrome shone nicely even in the hologram, and Vala was practically drooling at the idea of calling it her own.

The only capacity in which Neal knew what any of those mechanical terms were was from the few times he'd let Mozzie force him into watching some of the science fiction shows that the younger man was pretty sure helped make Moz as paranoid as he was. Neal didn't have to hide his ignorance from Vala on that front, if only because she already knew he was from earth in 2011. When she settled on one, he nodded his agreement. Once his eyes settled on the ship, even he knew that the vessel was pretty. It might be the future but Neal still had an appraiser's eye.

"Pretty is nice. You know guys like me..." Neal said, knowing Vala didn't know anything at all about the kind of guy he actually was. "Hopefully it doesn't need maintenance every other trip like Audis."

Hating his broken arm, Neal really wanted to lay on that extra touch and subtly touch Vala. Women loved when an attract man was proximal and the manipulation you could use once a woman was attracted to you was a whole nother level. A level Neal Caffrey excelled at. Instead, he had to settle for that dashing smile. There was something less than sexy about clumsily banging your injuries into people.

"Want to lead the way to the test drive?"

It took everything Neal had to not verbalize the quotation marks around "test drive" he was hearing in his head. Hopefully Vala wouldn't hate him if she ever realized he'd intended to steal the ship and get her to pilot it from the start. Once they were away from the castle's otherworldly reaches, maybe he could get on figuring out where the hell his future was going to go.

Turning away from the holo screen, Vala's eyes snapped up to Neal's and took a step towards him. The tilted her head flirtatiously; part of showing off was flirting, and Vala hadn't done nearly enough with that yet. Besides, it was the best way to prime him to be distracted, just in case things didn't go quite the way she'd planned.

Looking up at him, Vala reached out with a seductive swagger and straightened his shirt collar with her fingers. "I'm going to give you a ride you won't forget."

She winked and reached around him, pressing herself lightly against him so she could reach the console and push a button. And within seconds, the very ship they were looking at materialized on the landing pad in front of them. The screen turned to a display, with a short driver's manual. Vala brushed up against Neal to read it.

"It looks like we have a 15 minutes drive before the homing device will activate and bring us back here automatically. Hmmm." What a shame it would be if that malfunctioned.

Neal was incredibly impressed with his own prowess when Vala turned on him with those glittering dark eyes. He was used to living cons with so much authenticity that sometimes the cons did the work for him. This time was turning out to be one of those. Soon Vala's hands were on his collar, straightening that train wreck of a tie he'd done one-armed earlier and Neal knew that clearly enamored smile Vala was wearing was his victory flag.

The extra comment about an unforgettable ride didn't phase Neal on the outside, though on the inside he had just a bit of pause. Vala was incredibly attractive and he wouldn't be lying when he would say she could raise other flags of his easily. He felt a little guilty that she seemed to already like him so much and he'd been lying, but that guilt was gone when she put her arms around him to reach for the console. She might have been 'innocent' in his con but Neal was familiar with women who weren't innocent and naive and he was starting to think Vala might have fallen more into that category than the sweet airhead category he'd been putting her in before.

"Fifteen minutes seems like a cheap ride for my first space ship," he complained, layering on a bit of a spoiled whine.

Rich men had expectations and Neal would be no exception. He had to find a way to get them away from the magical hell hold for a lot longer than fifteen minutes.

It was a good thing he didn't have more to contribute verbally, because as the ship materialized Neal was staring again and having a hard time controlling his awe.

There was something about the look on his face that tickled her. Even if he was a vehicle in what was turning into a rather easy con, he seemed like a nice enough guy, and Vala had no problem in letting him have a little fun, too. Grabbing his hand, Vala tugged Neal towards the ship.

It was a nice ship, too. The door opened as they approached, and Vala led the way up the ramp and through the door, straight into the cockpit. It wasn't a huge ship, but roomy enough for two, with the cockpit in front and a smaller room in the back.

She settled into the pilots seat with a grin, taking a precursory look at the controls before she started the engine. It looked straightforward enough; Vala really could fly anything, so it was just a matter of deactivating the homing beacon within the first 15 minutes of the flight.

The ship lit up, and Vala settled into the seat, flipping a few switches. She looked over at Neal. "You might want to have a seat. Lift-off might be a bit rocky."

The bridge of the ship had one chair besides Vala's, presumably for back up weapons support or piloting though Neal wouldn't have made that connection immediately. He was happy to let Vala tug him along. For starters, it helped give the air that she was the one helping a simple bachelor pick a ship. Every good con needed someone to take the fall and Neal was glad it would likely default to Vala if he continued playing up his lie.

"That's a lot of switches..." he observed of the central consoles. Like an airplane, it was a lot to keep track of and Neal was still sure he liked automobiles the most. "You sure you know how to do this?"

If Vala blew them up, well he'd rather have no con at all than that!

Taking her advice with a nod, he dropped down into the chair. There was no seat belt, though if sci-fi had been true apparently gravity wouldn't matter soon after take off. As Vala began to engage the engines, Neal couldn't help but look out the front of the ship with anticipation. Once they took off, the con was back on, but for five seconds he was going to be a little boy playing astronaut.

Vala rolled her eyes. "I can fly anything, don't worry," she assured him. She reached up and flipped a switch, and an ear-piercing alarm started pulsating through the ship.

She jumped and shot Neal a wide-eyed look before scrambling to flip the switch, but the alarm was still blaring. She dove under the console, taking a moment to look at a few things before she figured out what wires to pull to shut it off.

Coming back up, Vala laughed nervously. "Whoops."

Before Neal had a chance to respond, she programmed in the liftoff pattern and then settle back into her chair. "Okay. Now we're ready." With a grin, she hit a few buttons and the ship began to lift off.

Those rolling eyes told Neal so much more about Vala than nearly anything else had. She was a confident woman, smart, and clearly very much knew these things about herself. He was going to have to be careful as this con played out or she might grow suspicious. Part of him was disappointed the con wouldn't be as easy without her being a witless ditz, but the other part was oddly fascinated with the challenge.

Neal sort of had a weak spot for strong and intelligent women.

As he was repressing that thought, his subconscious cheered at the blaring distraction. Outwardly though, Neal began to panic. Alarms were bad. They meant authorities were coming. Neal didn't know what kind of authorities the future had in space but he figured they were even worse than Peter and Peter was pretty much Neal's worst nightmare when he was actively conning.

"Vala..." he said nervously, as if she couldn't hear the alarms.

Before he could get the rest of his thought out, it looked like she was under the dash console hot wiring the space ship. That seemed highly suspect but for some reason that thought was starting to swirl in his head. His body wasn't feeling right and at first he wasn't sure if that was a normal part of the take-off process.

As the creeping spins flooded his nerves, Neal knew exactly what was happening. He wanted to curse loudly but the edges of his vision were starting to go black, just like they had when he was playing jail break back at the castle. Fuck. As the spaceship pulled up out of the upper mesosphere, Neal felt his body slipping to the floor and shutting down.

"Vala..." was about the last thing he said, deathly quiet, before collapsing into a heap on the floor when they shifted out of the ionosphere.

Having been wrapped up in the excitement of being on a ship again, Vala didn't notice the new emergency until Neal was a unconscious lump on the floor of the cockpit.

Her grin melted away. This was bad. She wasn't even sure what was wrong, and she made sure the ship was on autopilot before she jumped down next to him, running her hands over his face and shaking him gently.

"Neal. Neal." She checked to make sure he was still breathing, and assured that he was probably just unconscious, she dragged him to the back room and laid him out on the floor.

Once he was in a somewhat comfortable position, Vala pulled off her jacket and balled it up, shoving it under his head and patting his arm gently. "It's okay. We'll get out of here and get you help."

Glancing at her watch, Vala realized she was down to just a few minutes to deactivate the homing device. She might be able to delay any tampering alarms built into it, but probably not for long, which meant she needed to get them to hyperspace, deactivate any tracking devices that might be in the ship, and then get them somewhere safe. Preferably before Neal died.

Focusing on one goal at a time, Vala got up and moved back to the console. She was starting to feel a little dizzy herself, but she fought through it. It took a few minutes to deactivate the homing device, but it was easier than she thought it would be, which made her worry. Things that were easy always just became more complicated later down the line.

With that done, she worked on locating tracking devices. The ship was full of them, of course, but she was sure she could shut them down. However, it would require a full reboot of the ships operating systems, which would put them floating in space, unprotected, for however long it took the systems to come back online.

Vala quickly decided the best bet would be to jump to hyperspace, pull out far enough away for no one to have any suspicions, and then do a system-wide reset. It wasn't foolproof, but it would work.

And then she'd deal with Neal.

Vala slammed the ship into hyperspace, just long enough to get them out of the planet's solar system. As soon as she dropped the ship out of hyperspace, she shut off the power, hoping it was quick enough that no one on the planet could track the ship.

The cockpit fell into darkness for just a moment before the ships systems started up again. Knowing she couldn't do anything about how long it would take for the hyperdrive to come online, Vala took a deep breath and stood up, her knees almost buckling under her.

She practically crawled back to where Neal was, checking his breathing again and trying to fight back a foggy wave of nausea that had overcome her. She sat down next to him. "Just a few more minutes, Neal."

It was only a few seconds before the hyperdrive was back online. Vala stared at Neal helplessly, knowing that her comforting words, however well intentioned, were just empty lies. Even with the ship's power back up and the, well, relatively good chance they couldn't be tracked, Vala still didn't know what to do about Neal. She wasn't exactly a medical professional.

The only thing she could figure is that he was reacting from leaving the planet's barrier, much in the way he'd passed out when he got too far from the castle. She didn't know why it wasn't effecting her, though, and what kind of long term damage it could do to him.

Vala got up and rushed back to the cockpit. She paused over the controls, trying to figure out what her next move should be, and she took a minute to pause, take a deep breath, and look out the cockpit window.

And that was when she saw the space station.

Her mouth dropped open. It seemed just too perfect, out here in the middle of nowhere, and ending up right in front of what looked like a perfectly good space station. On the one hand, she was going to run a huge risk by exposing themselves and asking for help. On the other hand, Vala didn't exactly like when people died during one of her crackpot plans. It never left her with a good feeling.

Making up her mind quickly, Vala put the ship into manual drive and navigated it towards the space station. She sent an automated distress call, so she wasn't surprised when she docked, a member of the security team was there to greet them.

With some difficulty, Neal was moved from the ship to the sick bay. Vala explained patiently that they had been on their honeymoon, in a new ship having been a gift from a distant, wealthy relative, and Neal's collapse was both sudden and completely unexpected. No one seemed to bothered by her story, however, and the nurse in the med bay busiest herself with Neal, taking a few readings and finally giving him a shot.

Coming down from her adrenaline rush, Vala sat by the bed and watched over him, hoping silently that he was going to be okay. That, and also hoping there wasn't any chance anyone was looking into her flimsy lie.

The crew on the space station was minimal and seemed to be generally there on assignment from some other place. It was an unaffiliated space station, but all appearances, though there really was a hint of 'too good to be true' about the place. Vala, having been familiar with space travel for most of her life, was not wrong in her gut instincts.

The station was big, capable of its own flight, but likely not the biggest Vala had seen in her time. The design was very futuristic, some of the most advanced technology available in the known universe. Most of the coloring was clean whites, sterile chromes, and the occasional blue. Most of the place seemed automated, with the personnel to a minimum, though that wasn't unusual on robotically manned stations.

Once they'd docked on an incredibly spacious landing pad, security met the new arrivals quickly, ushering them immediately and directly to sick bay. The rooms were private, so once the staff was certain Neal wasn't either dead or too far gone, the pair were given a smoothly walled room with ergonomic seating. If Vala were to touch the wall in any space, a display would soon illuminate on the seamless wall.

When the injection was shot into Neal's neck there was a low hiss and a moment of blue digital writing in a circle on his neck. Once they'd finished, he was put on life monitoring devices, simple wireless electronics affixed to his forehead and over his heart, his broken arm was cheked for additional damage, and the nurses took their leave of the "newlyweds."

It wasn't long before whatever the medical staff had done ran its course and Neal was on the mend. In about an hour, Neal's fingertips twitched some. He slowly came to life with a groan, though it didn't sound like much pain was in his voice. Mostly, Neal was feeling a little floaty. The injection agents he'd been given were engineered to bring him out slowly, without panic, so he was, in effected, drugged when he first awoke.

Rolling his head to take in his surroundings, Neal was relieved to see Vala. If they were in prison at least she could tell him what he needed to be looking out for. That and it was a relief to wake up besides your accomplice, whether or not they were knowing, to know you weren't alone.

"Vala..." Neal mumbled. "I feel real strange... but not like last time..."

He didn't bother to explain what 'last time' was, he was a little too out of it for that and was unaware that Vala knew what had happened.

When Neal woke up, Vala allowed herself a rather large sigh of relief. She'd been holding it all in - somewhere in between worried sick for how he would recover, and annoyed with herself for being stupid enough to let this all happen in the first place.

But things had gone smoothly. No one was asking questions, and they had left them alone, apparently taking her stupid story at face value. But playing the attentive and devoted wife was a role she had some experience in, so it flattered her in a strange way to think she played it well.

Leaning forward, Vala grabbed his hand and gave it a small squeeze. "That's because we have actual doctors here, Neal." She paused, trying to make sure she got her story straight before she moved on. "There was some kind of malfunction on the ship... I don't really know what happened. But I was just so worried and I didn't even think to turn back. But we're safe now and you're going to be just fine, like I said." She punctuated the news with a proud smile, even though she knew he didn't have any recollection of her comforting words on the ship.

Neal smiled just a little, a tired shadow of his dashing grin though this time the drugs had it being more Neal's smile and less the con's. Looking around the room, despite the cloudy haze in his head, those blue eyes got a little wider. He could tell that wherever they were was very much not something he'd ever experienced.

"Where... are we...?" he wondered a little absently.

Once he'd panned over the room, he brought his gaze back to Vala with that same dopey smile and squeezed her hand.

"You look... like you were worried."

"Heh. Me? Worried? Never." She denied it playfully, but it was pretty obvious she had been.

"We're on a space station. It actually showed up... rather conveniently. And good thing, too, I wasn't sure you were going to make it." She smiled and then lowered her voice, leaning into him. "Also... there was a tiny misunderstanding I should probably... warn you about."

Neal didn't believe her and his face said as much but he was too disoriented to bother arguing. Giving her hand a brief squeeze, he was quick to try and dissolve any lingering worries.

"It takes a lot more than car crashes and evil... force fields...? ...to stop me."

That much had (mostly, barring that four year stint in prision) been the case. Even during his time in prison, Neal like to think he was staying there because he wanted to, not because they could hold him. Looking back up at the ceiling he squinted to try and determine the direct source of light, but there wasn't one.

"Space station... of course..." Neal said. He hesitated at the last part. "...We're in prison aren't we?"

Vala tried to cover up a shudder. She didn't even want to think about being in prison (again). Not that she thought Neal knew anything about that - he seemed far too straight-laced to ever have had to deal with prison - and a compassionate part of her decided it would be unkind to let him think that was where they were.

"No, no, we are definitely not in prison. It's a space station, that I know for sure." She frowned. "Also, they might think we are married."

The look of relief on Neal's face was genuine. What Vala didn't know was that he was relieved to not be going back to prison in some far away galaxy where he could never escape. The chemicals in his blood hadn't diffused yet, so he wasn't doing a great job acting. Fortunately, he was have the appropriate reactions even if the motivation wasn't what Vala perceived.

"Oh thank... What??" Neal was confused by this turn of events. He gave Vala time to explain it but somewhere in his fuzzy brain a warning bell was trying to go off. "...Why...?"

Laughing nervously, Vala brushed back some of his hair from his face and bit her lip nervously. She wasn't exactly excited about having to explain this, but it would seem less strange than him hearing anything from the nurses.

"They were asking all kinds of questions and I just panicked," she lied. "I wasn't sure what they would do if they found out I practically..." she paused for effect. She was enjoying lying again, to her surprise. "If they found I practically stole that ship, I didn't know how they would react. There's all kinds of cultures with rather outrageous punishments and I didn't want anything to happen to us."

She thought she felt a few tears welling up. This was good.

Something wasn't quite right there but Neal was far too gone to even notice and he waved his good hand dismissively. The one thing that could help push Neal's sincere buttons was someone looking that unhappy because of him. In his medicated state, he didn't think too much about what she said, just that he'd gotten them both in so he might as well play along.

"Hey, I don't want to be... alien food... or find out what they do with... dead people... in space... So it's okay."

Shaking his head a little, Neal tried to clear his thoughts. It wasn't working well, but at least he could string sentences coherently. This time around, it would appear if he had been concussed it was cured by the extraterrestrial shot.

"What... else did you tell them??"

Neal really hoped she hadn't made it sound like they'd been doing anything suspicious. He'd take her out to dinner that night if it kept them from being put in prison. Flowers, dancing, all of it. Neal wasn't about to take any chances in a futuristic world, no universe, that he'd been in for less than a day.

Happy with his response, Vala reeled in the tears a little bit and tone up the compassion a bit. "Just that we were on our honeymoon when you passed out and I didn't know what happened. That was all, I swear."

Settling back into the chair she had pulled up next to the bed, she shrugged and tried to brush off the whole ordeal. "Don't worry, I think they were much more concerned with making sure you didn't die than my story. Besides, being married to be is hardly the worst thing that could happen."

Neal wasn't going to argue with her version of events. He knew that once a lie had been told you had to keep it going or that's where everything fell apart. He'd just play the helpless guy angle, it was mostly true with that damned arm break anyways, and hope that they could pull off getting away if things went south.

"Certainly managed to get a very nice wife... for not trying and being... a cripple." Neal yawned a little. "Where were we going to honey moon?"

It was routine, to make sure all the details of the con would be perfectly planned. Any number of questions could be asked casually and Neal wanted to make sure that he and Vala were in 100% agreement on the facts. He tried to make the question sound like a joke, rather than an information dig and hoped that her already taking him for what he'd said he was and knowing he wasn't "himself" at the moment were enough to keep her from wondering too much.

A little thankful he has asked, Vala thought about the answer. She hadn't got as far as being concerned that their answers would line up, being she was too distracted in hoping he wasn't catching up. But whatever wondrous drugs they had given Neal were obviously effecting his judgement, and for that Vala was incredibly thankful.

"I hadn't got that far," she finally admitted. "I'm not familiar with the planets in this sector, and no one asked. I suppose we could just tell them we were out for a private jaunt in our brand new spaceship..." She grimaced. "Which, by the way, you inherited from your recently deceased and mostly estranged Great Uncle Darrell."

Neal was glad she seemed to be willing to fill in the blanks. He was too looped to try and come up with something believable that didn't sound like a plan conceived by an idiot. The details were simple and Neal like simple. Good cons left no room for extraneous questions unless absolutely necessary and if that was necessary, a very good rehearsal was needed. Relieved it was going so easily, though that was a very medication induced sense of relief, he patted her hand.

"Great Uncle Darrell and Dad hadn't talked in years. Something about a fishing trip..." he joked. Neal hoped he just seemed like he was trying to keep them out of trouble with creativity.

"Too bad Great Uncle Darrell was also... entirely repulsive so he never managed to find a lady... much less reproduce. Lucky me."

transition into the future (for not_a_conartist)

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