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"Where would you go?" Peter asked him, three weeks into their working partnership. "If the anklet came off tomorrow, legally, if you were free. Where would you go first?"
Neal would have redirected the question, played some mind game with Peter (they were so fun to play with Peter, because sometimes Peter won), but they were in the van and he was very bored.
"Why would I go anywhere?" Neal said, shrugging. "My best chance of -- you have more resources to offer me than I would have on my own. I have nowhere to go, Peter. If you think I'm planning to run, I'm not."
"So you'd stay here," Peter asked, disbelieving. Neal tipped his head and smiled.
---
"Which do you love more?" Peter asked him. They were in the van again, but everything was different now. Kate was dead. Neal wasn't. The music box was out there, somewhere. "The art or the con?"
Neal opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated. Peter gave him a knowing look.
"Why can't I love both?" Neal asked.
"That wasn't what I asked."
"But I do. I like a clean heist, allegedly. And I understand art, I appreciate it. Haven't you ever seen something that just took your breath away?"
"Sure. The new Jag, have you seen it?" Peter grinned.
"Peter, be serious."
Peter frowned, thoughtfully. "There's this sculpture."
"Very specific, Peter."
"I've never seen it in person. I'd like to. I was thinking of taking Elizabeth to Europe, someday. Not to see the statue, just because I think she'd like Europe. It's in Berlin."
Neal cocked his head. "The Gemäldegalerie? Alte Nationalgalerie?"
"I don't know. She has these wings," Peter said wistfully.
"Oh! Seated Victoria," Neal said.
"Maybe."
"Holding a wreath?" Neal pulled a piece of paper towards him, executing a quick sketch. "Like this?"
Peter nodded. "That's the one."
"You can go there," Neal said, his own voice wistful now. "I can't."
"When you get the anklet off, you can."
"Maybe, if they let me in the country."
"Is that what you'd do? If you got it off today?"
Neal shook his head. Kate wasn't avenged yet; and he wasn't safe. "I still need you more than you need me."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Jones put in from behind them. "I don't think we'll get this guy without your undercover chops."
Neal noticed, as he stood to join Jones at the surveillance screen, that Peter folded the sketch into his pocket, keeping it safe.
---
"If you could lose that right now, what would you do first?" Peter asked. Neal had all but forgotten the first time, and couldn't tell Peter that he was bare steps from the hypothetical Peter put forth.
"I'd go after Fowler," Neal said, because there was no point in lying, anyway.
Peter gave him a level stare. "Guess it's good it's on for another year or two."
---
"If you could take that off, here, tonight, what would you do?" Peter asked.
It was really more "this morning" than "tonight"; they'd spent the night drinking and talking, Neal telling Peter the story of Vincent Adler. It was bitter, but it felt cleansing. Good to be able to share it. Or maybe that was the wine talking.
"Kiss you," Neal answered without thinking.
"What?" Peter asked. Really that was the point at which alarm bells should have gone off, but Neal was still a little fuzzy from the wine. He just glanced over at Peter, who was sitting on the sofa, and gave him the thousand-watt smile.
"Kiss you," he repeated. "That's what I'd do."
Peter seemed startled, but not shocked; his eyes darted down to Neal's ankle. "That's what's stopping you?" he asked, tipping a mostly-empty beer bottle at it.
"Part of it." Neal turned back to the window. "I'd kiss Elizabeth too, if you're worried about that."
It was rare to see Peter dumbfounded. Little warnings were starting to creep through Neal's brain, warnings about what he'd said and how he was actually in the middle of screwing up his working partnership, but he went on recklessly.
"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" Neal said, pulling the door the last few inches to close it, pressing a hand to the cool glass. "It's not about revenge anymore, or Kate. Maybe it never was. That day, the day you caught me, I hadn't seen her in a year and a half. Four years later we hadn't touched since I went to prison. She was the reason I did it all, is the reason, but I barely even remember what she was like."
"Neal -- "
"Meanwhile, I fell in love with you," Neal said. "It's -- " he laughed, self-deprecating. "It's pretty messed up, having a crush on the guy who threw you in prison and forgot about you for four years, but I never claimed sanity."
He turned to look at Peter again and saw -- well, at least it wasn't pity.
"I didn't forget about you," Peter said.
"Birthday cards. Knew they'd do the trick," Neal murmured.
"Your case was closed. I had to move on. I didn't forget," Peter insisted.
Neal looked up at him. "So? What should I do?"
Peter tipped his head. "Forget you told me. I'm going to."
Neal nodded. "Yeah. I thought you'd say that."
---
"So," Peter said, stretched out in a chair in the outdoor seating of Neal's favorite cafe in midtown. "Adler's dead."
Neal nodded, relaxing, drinking in the sunlight.
"You okay with it all?"
"Better now," Neal told him.
"Now that he's dead?"
"Now that you're not pissed at me anymore."
Peter took a sip of his beer. "I'm not asking about you and me. I'm talking about you and Kate and Adler. He's dead. You have your revenge."
"In the justice," Neal reminded him. "He wouldn't be, if he hadn't tried to kill me first."
"True enough."
"You don't feel bad you shot him?"
Peter shook his head. "I always feel bad when I shoot someone. Adler didn't have many redeeming qualities to make me feel worse, though."
Neal nodded, sipping his wine.
"So now it's all different," Peter said. "You don't need the FBI more than we need you anymore. Don't need our resources, the things we can get you. Must be different for you now."
"The old question?" Neal asked.
"If that anklet came off today, what would you do?" Peter obliged.
"Testing my loyalty?" Neal said, giving him a dry look.
"Curious," Peter replied.
"My answer's the same," Neal said quietly. "But I might go lay flowers on Kate's grave, first."
"I could take you -- "
"No. The last time I see her I want to be a free man."
Peter nodded.
"Your answer still the same too?" Neal asked.
Peter turned his face back to the sunlight. "Nice weather out. Good for grilling. June got a grill?"
Neal frowned. "Sure. We cook out on my terrace sometimes in the summer."
"Saturday night. I'll bring the steaks, you buy the wine," Peter said.
---
"Peter said he asked you what you'd do if you got your ankle off legally," Elizabeth said, late on Saturday night. Neal was slouched in a chair on the terrace, full of food, a little drunk, pretty satisfied with life. He leaned his head back and groaned.
"It's like a game with him," he remarked. "He can't stop asking. He knows what the answer is."
"I don't," she said. Neal glanced at her.
"Venice," he said. "By way of Paris. Then on to Goa, maybe Cairo. Macau. Tokyo -- "
"You said you didn't lie to me," Peter interrupted. "Don't start now."
They were both watching him. Neal felt as if he were being put to some kind of test.
"I told him I'd kiss him," he said to her, finally. "And then I'd kiss you."
"Why wait until the anklet's off?" she asked.
"Why do it at all? Peter told me to forget it. Apparently he hasn't," Neal said.
"Because you had a bigger chain around your ankle," Elizabeth pointed out. Neal frowned. "Kate."
"Kate's dead."
"So is Adler," Peter said. "So why is that thing stopping you?"
---
It was dark, and warm, and quiet; Elizabeth was asleep, curled around Neal's arm and hip, possessive, but Neal could feel Peter shifting, knew he was still awake.
"You can have the couch if you're feeling crowded," he said sleepily. He turned to watch as Peter propped himself on an elbow, looking down at both of them. "You're about to ask again, aren't you?"
"Helps me keep a read on you," Peter said with a smile. He'd never struck Neal as the tender sort, exactly, but he brushed some hair off El's cheek, and then rubbed Neal's jaw with a thumb, possessive and affectionate. "If the anklet came off today, what would you do?"
Neal adjusted his head on the pillow a little. Peter's eyes, dark in the dimness, watched him move. Neal had never felt more naked -- even when he'd been naked, pressed under Peter's weight, begging for Elizabeth to kiss him.
"Go to your place," Neal said. "Stay all day. Stay all night. Make you eggs in the morning. You're a sunny-side-up guy, right?"
Peter smiled. "That sounds like afterglow talking."
"Maybe," Neal allowed. "Who cares? I'm here now."
"So you want me to stop asking?"
"Doesn't matter," Neal said, as Peter lowered himself back down into the blankets. "Answer's going to be the same."