A/N So this is my first fic, and it would be much appreciated if I could get some feedback. I hope to be updating this every other week, but being a University student, my free time is limited. As usual don't like it, don't read it. Reviews appreciated. Have a nice day!X-)

School trip today. The art class was headed to the Museum of Modern Art for the day to get inspiration for their final projects. But the only thing on Ruby's mind was how painfully slow the busses were. They had just arrived and it was already noon. She stood with the rest of the students, hitched her backpack higher on her shoulders and readjusted her skirt.

God, I hate these uniforms.

She danced up the steps to the tune of the midday traffic along Fifty Third Street, skirting around a gaggle of girls giggling like thirteen year olds, to the front of the group right in front of her teacher.

"Now students," Mr. Porter began, "The exhibition we'll be visiting today comes from the Vatican itself, on loan from the-"

"Mr. Porter!" Ruby jumped excitedly.

"Yes?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

"Back in the lobby, but don't take too long the tour is already starting."

"Yes sir, I'll be quick!"

Ruby headed toward the front of the building, looking over her shoulder to see if the older teacher was watching her movements. She almost felt bad for lying to such a nice old man.

Almost.

Back in the front lobby, Ruby proceeded to buy out the entire row of cookies in one of the vending machines. Though it pained her to do so, she waited until no one was watching, and dumped them into a trashcan, migrating back toward the gallery proper. Her head periscoped about, and Ruby darted down a hallway on her immediate left, having swiped a keycard from the creepy old security guard leering at the her skirted classmates as they entered the building. Even with the teacher right there, Ruby caught his gaze sinking just below the waists of her classmates as they filed in.

Pathetic.

When this whole thing was done, and they searched whose card it was, she hoped they blamed him.

Hope they fire him. Pervert.

She jimmied the lock to the second broom closet and stripped, exchanging the pleated, calf-length skirt and itchy vest for a grey, high-waisted pencil skirt and white button-up blouse. She popped the top two buttons open at her cleavage and tore her fingers through her braid, raking and smoothing her jet black hair into a polished bun. She pulled a few bits of hair around her face to conceal her features, added a pair of square-framed glasses, black pumps, and an I.D. badge she'd forged after some early reconnaissance of the gallery five weeks ago.

The whole process took her thirty-six seconds.

Dammit.

She was getting slower.

She shoved the uniform into a yellow mop bucket and went back to the service entrance, hitching a right and finding the elevator leading down to the restoration room.

"Hey!"

Ruby's lips twitched in excitement.

Show time.

"Hello there," Ruby said, smiling brightly.

A rumpled man with more hair on his lip than his head was coming her way. "Who are you?"

"Elizabeth Woodhouse, Mr. Phillips. The intern from London's National?" Her seamless slip into some amalgamated Oxbridge accent was as natural as breathing. "I'm quite pleased to meet you, since you missed the meeting earlier."

"Meeting? What meeting?"

"Didn't your assistant tell you?" Ruby asked. "That my supervisor and I were coming by to oversee the Caravaggio transfer?"

"We had the meeting Tuesday. You weren't there."

"Of course not! We only flew in yesterday. You must give a lady proper time to recover from jetlag."

Mr. Phillips did not seem to know how to take this comment.

"Now, you must hurry, Mr. Phillips. Dr. Penny is waiting for you in your office."

"Dr. Penny?! Dr. Nikolaus Penny?!"

"Yes," Ruby said softly, feigning confusion. "Mr. Phillips, you did receive our itinerary, did you not?"

"Well, yes! Of course I did! The shipment we received—"

"And you did notify the director of Dr. Penny's arrival?"

Mr. Phillips's face shattered.

"Mr. Phillips!" Ruby shrieked. "You mean to tell me the Director of the National Gallery of London is simply sitting in your office with no one to receive him?"

"I—I—I—"

"Please, Mr. Phillips, that is quite enough. You Americans…" Ruby waved a hand to her brow, pressing fingers into her temple as if she were deeply upset. "I don't know why you're still standing here talking to me! Please take Dr. Penny down to the collections preparatory room as soon as possible! We're going to be delayed for hours at this rate."

Mr. Phillips stormed off into the labyrinthine hallways in a huff, the assistant director so obviously out of his element it made Ruby grin. Out of sight, she swept the security keycard into the elevator that went underground, down to the cool, dark restoration rooms, where hidden treasures just waited to be acquired.

The elevator slowed and the heavy steel doors parted. Ruby removed some latex gloves and loose foundation powder from her bag. Ducking around a corner she waited patiently.

12:04, right on time.

A short man with an outrageously obvious toupee approached the door to the restoration room and entered a four-digit pass code.

Ruby played the sounds over in her head, E, C, G, High G. Removing some loose face powder from her backpack, Ruby applied the miniscule granules to the thumb pad with a makeup brush, letting the powder absorb the natural oils of the man's finger. She got a decent impression from the attempt.

She then mashed 3-5-1-#, and used a latex gloved thumb to press into the thumb pad. The powder and latex registered the previous man's fingerprint, and the door popped open with nary an alarm or flashing light. Phase two, complete.

"Germany, England, Denmark, Italy, Russia, ah—" Ruby sighed, grin overtaking her face. "France. Vous m'avez manqué?"

The current items on loan from several galleries in France were mostly locked away in moisture-resistant, temperature controlled storage lockers.

But not The Sleeping Gypsy. She was up for preemptory restorations before beginning her three week tour, on loan from the Centre Historique des Archives Nationales in Paris.

Poor girl. You were meant to be free!

The motion sensor alarms along the floor were armed. Ruby could see the blinking red light at the entrance to the restoration lab, knowing the laser beams lay invisible somewhere in front of her.

She checked her watch again: 12:08. The curator meetings dismissed at 12:15, occasionally earlier. Security came back to the monitors after their rounds at 12:13, but she had planned for that.

Work to be done.

Ruby removed a container of travel size aerosol hairspray. The sticky curtain of pressurized hair glue revealed horizontal green laser beams about two inches off the ground. They led all the way up to the table with her Gypsy.

In and out of her bag of tricks once more, and Ruby retrieved a large roll of aluminum foil. Setting to work with the practiced hand of an origami master, Ruby fashioned two long, standing panels out of aluminum foil, inverted capital T's of silver that ran out about three feet in length. She placed them gently on the ground beside one another. She pushed them forward into the beams of the security lasers, and then, spread the standing foil pieces apart.

Like parting the Red Sea.

The green security beams buzzed casually, but as if nothing had changed. They were being reflected back along themselves, so neither movement nor heat could trigger the alarms. They did not betray her sure step, heels clacking on linoleum as she extracted gloves and a collapsible tubing mechanism.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle. Long time, no see."

She meticulously curled the aging vellum, taking extreme care not to crease or fold any section. The integrity would be compromised, and all for naught.

Ruby quickly placed the century-old work into the tube and sealed it, stepping back through the beams, and dragging the foil barriers along with her. The place looked untouched, except for the massive blank workspace that once housed a one-hundred and seventeen year old painting.

Ruby turned her head at the sound of chairs scraping floorboards.

12:11.

Shit. They're early.

She exited the room just as the curator emerged. Back on the elevator and she had moments, mere seconds before the painting was discovered missing. It dinged her arrival back to the first floor, and she stepped out into the secure hallway. Feigning nonchalance, she stuck her small chest out as she bypassed men with coffee, women with clip boards. They all smiled and snuck an occasional glance at her I.D. badge.

People are too damn trusting.

Rounding the corner back to her broom closet, she saw two security guards ambling back into the front room where all of the security monitors were housed.

"Jimmy, what took you so long?"

"Sorry Fred, all the good snacks were gone, and it took me longer than usual to pick something out."

"Aren't you on a diet?"

The middle-aged men disappeared, just as Ruby reemerged from the broom closet, now an eighteen year old school girl again.

She rushed up to Mr. Porter five minutes later as the students filed out onto the front steps. Her braid was coming loose, and her cheeks were flushed.

"Oh Mr. Porter, there you are!" Ruby said.

"Miss Hoolihan! You missed the entire tour!"

"It was only fifteen minutes. We needed much more time in that gallery, it's massive! I couldn't find the group…" she trailed off, tilting her chin down. "I didn't mean to mess up my first week here, Mr. Porter, honest I didn't!" Ruby started to bite her fingernail. "No, I'm not supposed to do that anymore," she said, pulling her hand down.

Two days prior, Mr. Porter had chastised her for nail-biting.

Ruby did not bite her nails.

Maggie Hoolihan did.

"I… I got a brochure, so I can take notes," Ruby said weakly.

The old man was looking softer than butter.

"And, I'm trying to talk to the other girls, I am. It's just sort of hard, transferring in your senior year—"

"No worries, my dear," He said. "I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends to help you along in the year."

Mr. Porter squeezed her arm, and Ruby forced her eyes to water.

She knew then she had him.

"Thank you, Mr. Porter."

"Back on the bus with you. I can tell you the details you need to know about the exhibit for the quiz on Friday."

"Thank you. I— I stopped by the gift shop, when I couldn't find the class. I got this poster of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 'The Creation of Adam', I think. I could show you, once we get back to school?" she motioned to the tube at her back.

"That will do, Miss Hoolihan. Now on the bus."

Ruby rolled her eyes, unable to hide the smirk spreading across her face.

As the bus turned at a stop light on Fifty Third Street, Ruby could hear the faint sound of sirens approaching the MoMA.

And when the bus rolled back into the parking drop at St. Agatha's, Mr. Porter despaired to find that they were one girl short.

In the nondescript warehouse along the Hudson that she called home, Ruby removed the painting from its casing and began her own restoration procedures. Satisfied with the preservation and framing materials many hours later, Ruby collapsed on her bed in the middle of her makeshift flat. Eyes from stolen portraits watched over her silently, while computers hummed the soft lullaby of spinning fans promising another day of excitement.