*text*

"I know." She's a tough woman, this Princess. "So you and he talked this over? This whole," and he gestures to nothing at all but hopes that encompasses everything, "thing? Now? And he's all right?" So sue him; these two were good kids and good together and deserved good things.

Vanessa shrugged. "He really didn't say anything. I just told him that I had to drop him off and I was going to fix it." She sighed. "I don't know how to fix it. I mean, is the damage already done? Is there any fixing this?"

"This isn't the sort of thing you can take duct tape to," he admits.  "But maybe you could make it look a little prettier.  Spin is everything.  Cast him as the boy who did things that a man had to?  Or something to that effect?" He shrugs. "I think as long as you don't leave him out to hang, Nate will still think you walk on water."

"I was thinking that if we made it look like he was helping me with an expose and nothing actually happened." She said more to herself than Andy. "And if we can get Catherine to cooperate, then we can get her to back up our story. It makes Nate look like the good guy and makes his mother look like the heinous bitch that she is. You know that she actually asked me if I could convince Nate to talk to her?"

"I'm guessing he said 'no'."

"He did and I dropped the matter. I sent her an email saying that I talked to him and neither one of us want contact with her." Vanessa told him with a shrug.

"And then she went to the presses," he grumbles, following the line of logic and greed. "If this whole thing doesn't work, can I shoot her? I'll make it look like an accident. It's part of the training."

Vanessa nodded. "I don't think Nate would feel any loss there. I can't believe someone would do that to her own son."

He can. But then again, most of his job is to expect the very worst of people; very rarely is he disappointed and for a few, horrifying moments, he's been utterly surprised. So he can see this scenario and he sees what the woman's intent and intended end for her son was. "This woman, Catherine, will be willing to help?" Vanessa though, he knows, will fix things come hell or high water.

"If she doesn't want to go to jail, she will." Vanessa said grimly. "I'll tell her that if she doesn't go along with us, I'll give her name as the one who slept with him for money."

"Statutory," he hums. It was a good plan. "You want to play good cop or bad cop?"

"Bad cop." Vanessa said sweetly. "You have no idea how angry I am about this whole ordeal. I can't imagine what Nate's going through right now. He must be so humiliated."

"Probably." There's no point in sugarcoating what they both knew. "But he knows that he did what he did for the right reasons. And as much as it pains him now, there is some pride in that at least."

Vanessa nodded. "I suppose you're right. I just hope that Mom doesn't talk to him. She's only going to make him feel worse."

"Your father knows enough to keep the two of them apart, I'd hope. He's a smart man."

Vanessa sighed and nodded. "I know that. I'm just worried that something will happen. I don't want him feeling any worse than he already does."

"Don't spread yourself too thin," he warns. "Then we'll have to pick up your pieces too."

Vanessa nodded as she sighed and looked out the window. "I could seriously kill her rigt now. How could someone do that to their child? I don't get it."

He shrugs. "Sometimes, people just do hateful shit, Vanessa. You can't stop them," he says neutrally. "You just have to do what you can to make the damage not so difficult to deal with."

Vanessa nodded. "I know. "She paused before grinning. "Is it true that heads of state get the free kills? "

"A very well-spread rumor," he laughs. "Diplomatic immunity doesn't spread that far. But you do have someone working for you that knows how to make things look like accidents. Just saying."

Vanessa laughed slightly. "I'm not that bad, am I?"

"I wouldn't call it 'bad'," he admits, shifting in the seat a little to look out of the plane's window. "It's useful. And your father helped, letting you go over to New York." Cultivated a talent, from what he's heard about her before she went stateside. "You see things differently from most people, Vanessa. And it gives you a distinct advantage. You'll make it so Nate comes out of this smelling like roses and all people will see is a woman standing by her boyfriend in a time when things weren't in his favor; when the both of them were painfully human. And in the same vein, you could make it so that this woman, if she disagrees with you, never has another happy day in her life. And no one will know you had a part in that at all."

Vanessa blushed slightly. It was probably the nicest thing he had ever said about her. "Andy, I doo bellieve that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.. And here I was thinking that you didn't like me." She nudged him with a grin.

"Yeah, well, don't tell anyone. I'm the guy with the gun and the government connections, remember? If her body does need hiding, I'm going to have to be the one to do it."