Title: Wedding Presents
Author: Flora
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Elizabeth, Neal, Diana/Christie
Word Count: 900
Warnings/Spoilers: Through 2.02
Summary: Like so many of Neal’s ideas, it had seemed harmless at first.
A/N: Written for embroiderama for fandom_stocking.



“Neal.”

Elizabeth folds her arms, with an apprehensive glance at the door to the suite. Neal only makes a distracted “hmm?” around the paintbrushes in his mouth.

“You said we were here to hide Diana’s wedding present.”

Like so many of Neal’s ideas, it had seemed harmless at first.

He drags an olive brocade ottoman across the sitting room and slips his shoes off before standing on it, bringing his eyes (and the lockpick in his hands) level with the top of the picture frame hanging on the wall.

It’ll be a surprise, he’d said, with that delighted-little-boy grin that meant he was about to make someone else happy while breaking half a dozen rules in the process.

The armchair and matching ottoman clash terribly with the walls, which are painted an unfortunate shade of mauve. In the bedroom, the giant four-poster bed is covered with silk sheets and a ruffled bed skirt and lace curtains. The bathroom has tiny bottles of vanilla-scented bubble bath and hand soaps shaped like delicate seashells.

Christie is out of vacation days for the year, so she and Diana are going to take a longer honeymoon next summer. But Diana’s father had somehow arranged for them to have a luxurious hotel suite for New Year’s weekend, right here in Manhattan.

Neal had somehow, against her better judgment, convinced Elizabeth to help him sneak into the suite the day before the wedding to hide a present.

(He said he only wanted to surprise Diana, and they wouldn’t be doing anything illegal.)

The round table in the dining nook holds a potted poinsettia, dark green and deep red in front of the balcony doors. Outside tiny white Christmas lights still wrap around the railing. The view, Elizabeth thinks, more than makes up for any shortcomings in the decor; as the last sunlight fades to a strip of red at the horizon she can see glittering lights spread out below.

(Actually, what he said was they wouldn’t steal anything, and that Diana would love it, and she’s belatedly realizing that’s not precisely the same thing.)

She’d told the desk clerk she’s considering holding a wedding reception here next year. It’s the truth - she had been eying the place for a wedding in April - or she never, ever would have gone along with this.

“Please tell me we’re not stealing that painting.”

“We are not stealing this painting,” Neal responds agreeably as he continues working on the screws holding it in place.

Surely he wouldn’t pull anything that obvious right in front of her. And besides -

“Honestly, Neal, I thought you had better taste.”

The painting he’s expertly detaching from the wall mount is a thoroughly banal oceanscape, flat turquoise water tracing a shallow curve along a spotless beige shoreline, with an improbably symmetrical palm in the foreground and a tiny dot of a sailboat hull-down at the horizon.

“Got it!”

Elizabeth isn’t sure what to expect - a safe set into the wall, maybe, or a lost sketch of Monet’s tucked into the back of the frame. But he lays the frame face-down on the table and there’s only plain cardboard backing; the wall underneath shows only a rectangle of slightly darker paint unfaded by the sunlight.

“Tell me I’m not going to have to call my husband to come bail us both out of jail before this is over.”

Neal looks up with a sparkling grin. “I’m about to let you in on a secret.”

Which isn’t any kind of assurance at all, but despite herself she’s curious.

He’s pulling a book out of his bag, now, opening it to a page marked with a torn scrap of paper. Beside it, on the table, he opens a tube of black paint.

“We’re not defacing hotel property, are we?” She’s not at all sure she likes where this is going.

“No one’ll know it’s here.” He grins at her again. “Except Diana and Christie. And they’ll love it.” He turns the book toward her, now, and says, “You were there, remember, when she told the story about -?”

And suddenly she does remember, looking down at the page - it’s a library book, something on modern art and there’s a picture of a painting on the left side of the page.

It was a holiday party at the Bureau last week, and Diana talked about visiting a gallery with Christie for their second date, describing a painting they’d bonded over. We looked for prints in the gift shop, Christie had said, but they were sold out.

The gallery was a small one, and closed down not long after, and neither one of them could remember the name of the painting, Diana had told them. But apparently Neal had recognized it from her description.

It’s a black-and-white silhouette, a dancer caught in mid-pirouette, one arm in a graceful curve above her head, captured in broad brushstrokes that convey movement and energy more than detail. Neal turns the book again, glancing at the picture before dipping his paintbrush; he works quickly, his hands moving with a fluid grace matching that of the dancer spinning to life on the blank wall.

It’s beautiful, and completely invisible once Neal screws the original painting into place, after allowing the paint to at least partially dry.

“How is she going to know it’s here?” Elizabeth asks, as Neal stows the book and paintbrushes in his bag and moves the ottoman back to its original place with the armchair.

Neal only smiles. “She’ll know.”