Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.
Author's Note: Thank you to Linda for letting me play in her universe. And no, this isn't betaed either.
"Mom?" Penny Standish hesitantly knocked on her mother's office door.
Julia Standish looked up with pleasure. "Hello, darling! I thought you and Sam would be at the gym by now?"
Penny smiled tremulously. "I needed to talk to you."
Something in her daughter's voice alerted Julia to the seriousness behind her visit. "Close the door, love, and have a seat."
Penny closed the door but didn't sit down. Instead, she slid a newspaper article onto Julia's desk.
Julia's green eyes scanned it.
"It is true?" Penny was ready for any response ... except the one her mother gave her.
Julia simply smiled, leaned back into her chair, and said, "Yes, darling, it is. The likeness isn't too great, but that's me."
Penny dropped like a lead weight into a chair. "You're the Crimson Fox? You're an internationally wanted thief?" When she first saw the article, she nearly dismissed it, until she saw the drawing. It was a crude, rather inaccurate drawing, but Penny had recognized something in the eyes.
"Please, darling, I prefer 'cat burgular'. And I was one, yes." Julia smiled in memory. "But it was a long time ago."
Penelope inhaled sharply at the admission. "Does Daddy know?"
Julia nodded. "He was the reason I stopped." She laughed. "It was all so clichÈ ... the criminal falling for the law officer trying to catch her and then turning over a new leaf to be with him."
Penny shook her head ... leave it to her mother to simplify it so easily. "Does Uncle Chris know? Or the others?"
"All of Team Seven knows, dear, they were there when your father tried to capture me." Julia laughed. "You should have heard the jokes!"
Penny stared in disbelief. Not because her mother had physically kick her father's butt ... Penny knew her mother could fight and Julia always wiped the floor with Ezra during training sessions. But to have her law enforcement father and uncles let a thief go free? "And they didn't arrest you?"
Julia stood and walked to the pictures lining her wall. She first traced the smiling face of her husband before smiling at those of his six closest friends. "No, Penny, they didn't."
"But," Penny shook her head. "They're the law! It's their job!"
Julia sighed. "Penny, you know how protective they are, right?"
Penny nodded, remembering the times Uncle Chris, Vin, Buck, JD, Nathan and Josiah had gone above and beyond normal means to ensure the safety of their eclectic family.
"Well, at that time, all the seven had were each other." She traced each of their faces. "And they did whatever it took to keep the others happy. In this case, it was letting a known ... but relatively harmless ... " Penny snorted, Julia's mischievous grin surfaced again. "Criminal go free. It was easy for them, Penny. I was never recognized and Mary vouched for me. After all, as Mary Travis Larabee's long time best friend, how could I possibly be a thief?"
Penny sat silently, digesting everything. Her mother had been an international cat burglar ... a "miscreant" in her father's words ... someone her father had sworn to incarcerate. Instead, Ezra Standish had married her and together they had two children. And no one had said a word ... no resentment, no anger, no guilt ... to her or her twin brother. The seven ATF agents had willingly let a criminal into their midst ... just because Ezra had loved her.
And as she thought about it, Penny realized that she didn't care and that the past didn't matter. Her mother loved her and Peter and had given up that life long before either of them had been born. When it was all said and done, Julia Pemberton Standish was her mother. The smile she gifted to her mother was brilliant. "There's a lot of history to our family, isn't there, mom?"
"Yes, Pen, there is." Julia smiled mischievously and with relief. "Did I ever tell you about the time I bought your father?"
"What?"
The End
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