Chapter Text
Peter sat at his desk at the office, fiddling with the key to the storage container.
He couldn’t completely believe what he discovered today.
Neal was alive.
In the back of his mind, he tinkered with the fact that Neal faked his death. But the facts laid out in front of him contradicted it.
The container added another side to the event and blew it all away.
Jones hadn’t asked anything when Peter got in the car. He didn’t see the storage container. He didn’t see what was inside. The treasure, the bullet. The painstakingly clear evidence that Neal was alive.
It was almost like he wanted Peter to find it. Almost like he was saying Find me.
You are my best friend.
Those words cycled through his head. It was almost like Neal said those words to get Peter on his case. To pull at his heartstrings.
The Bureau can’t find out that Neal is alive. If they do, they have to find him and bring him back. And imprison him. With no chance of getting out.
Peter looked out the office window, onto the floor below. Diana’s desk was empty, she left for DC a week ago. He missed her, missed her fiery personality, the sass that went wherever she went.
Jones sat at his desk, working on the current case. He was flipping through files, entering data into the computer, connecting lines that many wouldn’t connect.
Peter debated whether or not telling Jones that Neal was alive. The agent loved Neal like a brother, the entire New York White Collar Division did. Peter remembered what Jones said at Neal’s commutation four years ago, “You need space, he keeps to himself. You need to talk, he listens. You need a beer, he'll pour. Although he'll let you know he's slumming it.”
Jones admired the man, so did Peter. Neal brought out the best in them.
Peter huffed and hung his head. He got up and walked to the balcony. “Jones,” he called, doing the two-finger point-and-wave. Neal assumed that the point-and-wave was a skill taught at Quantico, all the higher-ups did it. And once Peter became ASEC, he started doing it. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He missed the con man.
“Sir?” Jones asks when he meets Peter at his door. Peter motions for him to come inside and sit, following the man and shut the door.
Jones sits down and waits for Peter. Peter rounds the desk and takes a deep breath. He leans forward on his desk and stares at Jones. Jones just merely stares back, unquestioning.
“Jones, I found something. Something amazing and surprising. But it is something the Bureau can’t know. They absolutely, definitely, cannot find this out. If they do… we and someone else we know are in deep trouble.”
“You know I can keep a secret, sir.”
“I know you can, Jones. That’s why I am going to tell you this.” Peter has no doubt that Jones can keep this a secret. They did things behind the back of the FBI for years with Neal, mainly to keep him from going to jail for some stupid thing he did.
Peter takes a deep breath. “Neal is not dead. He’s alive. And in Paris. With Mozzie.”
Jones stills and blinks at Peter. “Damn. He faked his death?”
Peter nods. “The shipping container reveals it all. The drug he took, the people he hired, the gun… Even the stolen paintings from the Nazi sub.” Peter holds out the key. “It was found on his person. The med-tech gave it to me. It was almost like…”
“...he wanted you to find it,” Jones finishes. Peter nods again. Jones sits up straighter in his seat. “Why? Why would he fake his death? Why this way? With Keller?”
“To the world, Keller committed murder. Which legally allowed me to shoot him because he was dangerous. And the government would never let Neal go, he was- is- too valuable of an asset. They would find a way to hold on to him. He would never be free.”
Peter thought back to the hospital hallway, holding Neal’s tracking anklet. “You’re free,” he muttered to the anklet. Then, he thought Neal was free because he was dead. Now…
“He decided to be free in his own way,” Jones adds in, leaning forward to match Peter’s pose.
“Yeah,” Peter replies.
“So what are you going to do?” Jones asks. “I don’t think you told me all this just because you found it out. You want to do something.”
Peter laughs. His friend knows him too well. “I want to find him.”
“You know he can’t come back to the States. And the government can’t know. He’s a fugitive,” Jones states very matter-of-factly.
Peter sighs. “I have no desire to bring him back. I just want to find him and-” Slap him? Hug him? Return the words he told me a year ago? Yell at him for leaving us that way?
By the look on Peter’s face, Jones knew what he was going to say. “You want to find him and give him the shit he put you through?”
Peter blinks. “Uh, basically.”
Jones grins. “I want to give him shit for all the things he put us through too.”
Peter hangs his head to hide his smile. Jones was certainly a character. He liked the man for that.
“Does Elizabeth know?” Jones asks.
“No,” Peter answers. “You’re the only other one that knows. I’m... scared of how she’ll react. I mean, what do you say? ‘Our dead friend isn’t so dead anymore, honey, and I want to find him’?”
“You could put it that way,” Jones suggests. “Or you can do it the way you told me. Lean into it until BAM! Neal’s alive.”
A chuckle from Peter. “Jones,” he huffs. “Why…? How…?”
“Don’t question it, Peter. I’ve known you for so long that I know what you need.” He gets up and shakes his hand. “Go home. Talk to Elizabeth. She might want to know about this before you go skipping around the world looking for someone who is supposed to be dead.” With that he left, leaving Peter with his own thoughts.
He looks at his clock. 5:30. The day ends at six, but this is important. He gathers up his coat and briefcase. “I’m taking off early. I have… pressing matters to attend to,” he announces to the group below. They all waved goodbye as he walked through the office, and Jones winked and gave him a thumbs up. He walked out the door and stepped into the elevator.
Peter walks in the door, shrugging off his coat and hanging his umbrella. He was glad he brought it today, for the last-minute rain the weatherman predicted came, for once.
“El?” he calls into the seemingly empty house, looking around the corner into the kitchen. No response. He walks into the living room and calls again, “El?”
“Up here!” he hears from upstairs. He turns around and trudges up, huffing and puffing. I need to get back into shape, he thinks. Days spent at a desk have taken its toll.
He gets up and hears a noise coming from Neal’s room. He peeps his head in and sees his wife putting their son down for a nap, the baby already asleep. He was barely four months old, and already showing some personality traits of his namesake. Like stealing. Neal loves to steal his baby food and shove his face into it. It makes Peter laugh every time, even though it makes El grumble because she is the one to pick it up.
Elizabeth tucks the blankets around the baby and quietly rushes Peter out of the room. He steps out and she gathers a bottle and cloth to wash and follows him out. She closes the door softly and turns to Peter. “Hey honey,” she greets, kissing him. “You’re home early. How was work? Did you miss me so much you had to get off half an hour early?” She turns and walks down the stairs to the kitchen, Peter following.
Peter tries to look for an adequate word to describe his day and comes up short. “It was… interesting,” he went with. El spins around to face him, eyes glimmering with happiness. He grins at his wife, kissing her again. “And of course I missed you.”
Elizabeth beams back. “Interesting? Never heard you say that before,” she says, rinsing out the bottle in the sink. She hands Peter the cloth, motioning for him to put it in the laundry basket they keep right outside the kitchen.
“That word is not good enough to describe my day,” he admits. He sighs. El pauses washing Neal’s bottle and looks at Peter.
“Why?” she asks.
“El.” Peter walks over to the sink and grabs her by the shoulders. “What I am about to tell you cannot be told to anyone. Jones knows, and that is it. If the FBI finds out what we know, we and someone we care deeply about will be in massive trouble that cannot be reversed.” El nods and Peter lets go of her shoulder. He took a deep breath. “Neal is alive. He faked his death.”
Elizabeth’s face went pale and her knees buckled. She caught herself on the counter before she hurt herself and Peter rushed to her side, holding a hand out to steady her. “How?” she asks.
Peter told her everything. The drugs he took, the people he hired. “Mozzie joined him,” he mentioned as he held out the playing card.
Elizabeth sat down at the dining table, unable to stand with the weight of the information on her shoulders. “Why?”
“To make sure Keller was gone for good, either dead or locked behind bars forever. And to protect us. And to get the freedom he deserves,” he answers.
“But why not keep us in the loop? Why lie to us, the only ones who believed in him?”
“Too many ways something could go wrong. One person messes up, those who are in face charges of treason. What he did was not ideal, but the way he did it is.” Peter ran his hand down his face. “It’s also more believable if our reactions are genuine.”
Elizabeth put her hands up to her face, rubbing her eyes in frustration. Peter pulls a chair out to sit across from her, pulling her hands from her face and holding them. He saw that her eyes were red and on the verge of tears. “I miss him. I miss him so much, Peter,” she chokes out. “He was like a brother. To both of us. I saw how much fun you had together. Yeah, he was such a pain in the ass, but he was so worth it. I saw the spark in your eyes whenever he came around. You were his best friend. And he was yours.” She wiped an eye. “When you told me that he… that he had… died, I saw how much it hurt you. How much you missed him.
“Yeah, he deserves his freedom. He worked so damn hard and those in charge were idiots to not let him go, especially how hard he worked. He would have worked full time for the FBI, I know it. He would have. He loved it there so much. But to fake his death, give us these cryptic goodbyes we did not even realize were goodbyes, was selfish. Maybe he felt so bad that he laid out a trail for us to follow later. Like that key. But going through it all, the funeral, the service…”
“It was too much, I know,” Peter finishes. He takes a deep breath. “That’s why I’m going to find him.”
El meets his eyes for the first time. They were full of hope and longing. She wanted to see him again. “The FBI will?”
Peter shakes his head. “No, they can’t even know. If they know he was still alive… he’s a fugitive of the law. He escaped before his sentence was over. If they knew he was alive, they would find him and bring him back to prison. And there is no deal that can take him out.”
“So you are going out and finding him- alone," Elizabeth says, giving him a steady stare.
"I'll have Jones help me. He'll monitor things back here, make sure my absence is justified,” Peter assures, giving his wife’s hands a gentle squeeze.
Elizabeth eyeballs him. Her eyes were still filled with tears, although none had fallen yet. “Please, Peter,” she begs. “Bring him home. Or at least know that he is safe and well.” Tears start falling down her face. “And take care of yourself. Please.” She bows her head and stops holding back her tears.
“Do you need me to stay around? For Neal?” Peter asks. He doesn’t want to leave his wife with their infant son, alone to deal with the boy for who knows how long alone.
“I’ll be fine, Peter,” she reassures. “I’ll call my parents down. They can babysit Neal while I am working.” She gets up from her chair, not letting go of his hands, and sits on his lap. She puts her nose to his and gazes deeply into his eyes. They share a breath for a moment. “Neal means a lot to you- to me too. What he did was fair, yes, but how he did it was mean. I want him back, Peter. He was like a son to me too.”
Peter smiles. He lets go of El’s hands and wraps his around her waist, pulling her closer. He kisses her deeply. “Then I’m gonna go find our kid.”
Peter can feel El’s smile against his lips and he smiles back.
Pretty soon, Special Agent Peter Burke will be 4-and-O.