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[conning]

"It's Caffrey. Remember the value of plausible deniability. I'll get back to you."

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[cactusy]

"Does that still bother you?" she asks, resting her hand carefully along to back of his shoulder to keep him in place.

[conning]

He weighs that question carefully before he answers. "I think it's always going to bother me. It hurts, it feels like failing. But I don't think it can break me the way it used to. I trust myself enough these days that I don't need it as much from anyone else."

[cactusy]

"I don't trust anyone implicitly in every situation," she says. "It's bad pragmatics. Everyone has their... blind spots."

She won't say weaknesses: that's only a skip and a jump from calling Neal weak, which isn't what she means or how she thinks about him.

[conning]

"Yes," he says. "Everyone does."

There's a small tease in there, but it's an itty bitty one. Neal gives Shaw an extra little hug. "Shall we go ambush our brother? I made cookies."

Whiskey-Bacon cookies with pecans and maple sugar, but why ruin the surprise.

[cactusy]

"You've been up for five seconds, and you already made cookies?"

N e a l.

[conning]

"...There's plenty of time to bake one batch of cookies while I'm in the shower."

Come on now.

[cactusy]

"So your priorities were cookies, shower."

She counts off each item on her fingers.

"Unless you already had the batter made. We're not working with month-and-a-half-old cookie batter, are we, Caffrey?"

[conning]

He leans away from her, faking offense. Mostly. "No, we are not. I'm trying to give Eiffel a pick-me-up not kill him."

[cactusy]

"Please; his system could handle bad batter. I've got faith."

Shaw pauses, gives his shoulder another pat, and then pushes away from him, hauling herself to her feet and offering him a hand up.

"Are we gonna ambush him, then?"

[conning]

He grabs her hand and pulls himself to his feet and into another hug.

"Sounds good to me. Let me get a plate I don't mind never seeing again and we'll go."

[cactusy]

"And are you gonna let me go before you do that, or are you dragging me into the kitchen?"

You big sap, Neal.