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Burke had let him get away and he had run. Back to Kate, of course, until an error in judgement caused him to run into the agent again— this time with many others present. She escaped, but he… he did not.
He counted the days down on the wall of his cell and part of him couldn’t help but think maybe he was tired of running all the time. He had to laugh to himself. Of course he wasn’t tired of running. He really was.
With four months left to go on his prison sentence, he sat, back against a pillar in what used to be her place. All that was left was an empty bottle and her ghost. The ghost of what once was.
He anticipated the footsteps before he heard them, breathing a sigh of relief at Peter’s presence. The two had shared countless messages written in code during Neal’s time in prison and he knew, if things went sideways with Kate, Burke would find him and fix it.
He turned the bottle over in his hand again and again, wondering what it could possibly mean. He knew Peter was disappointed in him, he knew that breaking out was stupid, but… he couldn’t lose Kate— he just couldn’t.
And there it was. A tiny fiber that escaped the detective. But Neal knew what it was, and now that he had leverage, he was going to use it.
He finally got the meeting with Peter that he’d been denying him for almost four years. The initial plan that he had would no longer work, so he had a week to think of a new one. He didn’t get a letter from Peter that week, but it didn’t matter because when he walked into that room, he couldn’t help but smile, even if it was a small hint of one.
After Mozzie left, Neal returned to his cell with a grin on his face. He knew Peter would make it happen. And he owed it all to seeing him person once more. The tension was there— the same tension from that night in the alley. He could still feel Peter’s lips against his, the five o’clock shadow gently scraping Neal’s lips as he whispered that this was indeed a secret something that never happened.
But it had happened and the memory of it had haunted him every day for over four years now.
Finally released into society once more, Neal smiled as he walked towards Burke. How this would go, he really wasn’t sure. He only knew one thing. He was (literally) attached to Peter now, for the next four years.
And Neal was okay with that.