Story [White Collar] Down, but not out (one shot)

Type: Story
Author: Obi Anne
Summary: They had been so close to the music box.
Author's note: A bit of background for those of you who doesn't follow White Collar. Throughout much of season 1 and 2 the centre piece of the plot is a music box, from the Amber room. The piece is not only valuable, but it's also a key to finding a big treasure of Nazi loot. This story is set a couple of years before the series, when Neal Caffrey, thief and art forger, tried to steal the box together with Alex Hunter, thief and fence.

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It had happened so quickly. One little misjudgment and now she was down on the ground, different parts of her body screaming out in pain and trying to get her attention.
?Damn you, Neal Caffrey,? Alex wanted to shout, maybe in a vain hope that it would drown out the pain from her body. She tried to compose herself, the jump, or rather fall, from the second floor of the Christian VIIIs palace at Amalienborg had been pretty high, and with no conveniently placed shrubbery she had absorbed the force of the landing all on herself. She tried to make mental contact with her hurting limbs. Move fingers: check. Move the toes: check. It only took her a few moments to realize that most of the pain came from her left side. With the help of her hands she managed to pull herself up towards the wall, but when she tried to stand up she was forced to accept that something was seriously wrong with her leg. She patted down her thighs and calves, but thankfully couldn?t feel any broken bones. No, the pain seemed to originate from her knee.

She probably didn?t have much time. Even if she hadn?t noticed an alarm signal, the guard that had stumbled upon them must have alerted the rest of the security forces, and probably the police as well. This was after all a royal palace that they had broken into. Neal had disappeared and she was sure that he had been able to get his hands on the music box. It was all so typical. It was her grandfather that had told her about the special amber music box, it was her who had suggested going after it, and it was her who had traced it to Copenhagen. Now she was the one sitting on the ground in the darkness, while Neal was probably already on his way out of the country. She tried again to rise, and managed to stand up. Good, even if the pain radiating out from her knee almost knocked her down again. If she could stand on the leg she would probably be able to limp away from the scene. Slowly she managed to move away from the site of her ? not so graceful ? landing. Every time she put the left leg down she felt a fresh jolt of pain. Still, she tried to convince herself, that as long as the leg didn?t collapse under her it couldn?t be so. At least that was what she told herself while she tried to reach the street outside the palace properties.

She was still astonished that she hadn?t heard an alarm. Maybe, she thought glumly, they were looking for the thief that had run the other way; after all he was now the one with the music box. She leaned towards one of the trees surrounding the small patch of grass outside the palace. A royal guard in his signature bearskin cap turned around a corner and walked in her direction. She hoped that he wouldn?t notice the state of her clothes, and instead tried to look like any young woman, fiddling with her phone, maybe trying to send a message to a friend or a lover. Alex also knew from experience that most people were reluctant to suspect a young woman for any kind of serious crimes. Throughout the years she had used that to her advantage more than a few times.

The guard passed her, and she made small sigh of relief. The odds of getting away grew better by the minute. Thankfully Amalienborg was situated in the centre of the city; if she could only get to the traffic-packed street close to the waterfront she could take a taxi to the train station. It wasn?t too late to catch the night train to Berlin, and from Berlin she could