Chapter Text
Sophie hates the blazer and the cardigan and the pond scum colored shirt and hideous brown bow tie. She hates that Nate has transformed himself into a fumbling old man, squinting through the huge lenses of his gold framed glasses and leaning with a bent back on a cane, as if the weight of his own body is too heavy for him to bare.
She hates it all because it makes her consider Nate’s mortality, because despite the dangers of the mob and the justice system, what she really fears is old age. And it’s as if Nate has aged a decade in front of her very eyes.
The urge to divest him of those hideous clothes surprises her.
The demands of the parents overwhelm her, making her shrink into herself at the memory of her own parents' impossible demands. Her protests are small and meek, her confidence shrunken by the kinship she feels with young Widmark. But Nate shoos the crowd of parents out of the office and closes the door firmly.
When he removes his glasses, Sophie feels a wave of relief. Her Nate is still there, just carefully hidden behind the facade of Dr. Melcher.
They both see a bit of themselves in young Widmark and they talk around it: Nate saying that no child should be judged by the sins of his father; herself saying that all that child wants is to be loved.
She rises off the sofa, not knowing why, but Nate touches her wrist and she sits down again, this time with her thigh pressed against his.
Nate cocks his head, studying her, and then reaches out and bats at one of her pigtails with his finger.
She clutches at his cardigan. Nate blinks at her in surprise.
“Liebchen?”
“Dr. Melcher,” she breathes.
And then Nate is touching her cheek, tilting her head to a comfortable angle and his mouth is coming closer.
“Miss Donovan,” he says, his breath minty from the gum he’s been chewing.
Sophie gasps a little bit. They’ve never been this close together before.
Nate kisses her.
For a first kiss, it’s miles beyond what either of them expected.
Nate’s mouth molds around hers, and his hand comes up to cup her chin, holding her head while he kisses her with everything he’s got.
Sophie has dreamed about this moment for the better part of a decade, but all of the sudden that realization makes her angry instead of euphoric.
Sophie is furious that it’s happened like this, with Nate in those hideous clothes and his hair plastered down against his forehead because it’s horribly, horribly wrong.
It hurts her to see Nate like this, in the guise of a doddering hold man with a cane and thick glasses and a terrible German accent.
She pushes at the lapels of his jacket and Nate shrugs it off, one shoulder at a time in a way that does something to her. She grasps at his cardigan, puling it up. She wants to see him bare. She needs him to be Nate.
Nate laughs and lets her pull it over his head, and then she swings her leg over so she’s straddling his lap. Nate lets out a surprised grunt, but his hand slides up under the skirt of her dress.
Sophie jerks at the sudden contact but nods when Nate asks her with his eyes if what he’s doing is okay. Nate’s hand stills on her thigh.
“Oh, Miss Donovan,” Nate sighs. Another cloud of warm minty breath.
Sophie closes her eyes and moans. This whole time he’s been imagining they’re getting it on as their aliases? She opens her eyes again.
Nate smiles at her. He runs the first two fingers of his right hand along her throat. “Have you been naughty, liebchen?”