Chapter Text
Mike’s P.O.V.
It was the 6th time he visited the exhibition. The first time was two weeks ago, when Romanticism - from the USA to the Netherlands first opened. He went the very first day together with Alex who visited because of the Kate desaster. "Somebody has to look after you, after all" she had said and gave him an encouraging wink. It was sweet of her to come even if it didn't help his sorrow. Since Neal was in prison, Kate had been the only real constant in his life.
The museum wasn’t far from Pearson Hardman. Due to the huge workload Harvey was putting on him, he was only ever able to spend an hour in the museum which is probably why he’d already gone so often. He didn’t tell Harvey where he was going, though.
“The only art I know is how to close impossible cases,” his boss had once said with a smug grin on his face when he found a brochure for some exhibition in Queens in Mike’s Cubicle. Mike had just rolled his eyes, he didn’t want to put up a discussion.
His eyes scanned the room while he was standing in front of his favourite painting “Fisherman at Sea”. It was an old habit but it was burnt into him. He heard Neal's voice in his mind, ”Always be aware of your surroundings”. Immediately, his heart started to ache. Four years ago was the last time he had seen his brother and no day since then passed without Mike missing him.
Mike had only been 10 when they had ran away and even before that he cared for him as their mother couldn't . After Neal got into more and more serious business he more and more tried to keep Mike out of it. Nevertheless, some of Neal’s talents had to rub off on Mike. One of them came in handy for Mike’s frequent museum visits. Of course, he didn’t pay for every entry, museums were hella expensive. To be fair, the money he made from being an associate could pay for it since he didn’t have the free time to spend it on something else, but it was more fun not to do that. His forged annual pass and some flirting with the lady at the entry made it possible to go whenever he wanted.
The blond lawyer tried to suppress all the pictures of his older brother passing through his mind. It just hurt too much to think about him. Instead, he studied the painting in front of him. The fascinating play of light and the moon reflecting on the unsettled waves.
He moved on to another painting when his gaze fell on a middle-aged woman a few feet away from him. He knew her. Well, he didn't know her but she was familiar. He had seen her at least twice during this exhibition. The frown on his face deepened as he looked her up and down. He came to notice that she was quite beautiful with her straight blonde hair and sporty figure. And she was wearing mirrored sunglasses, quite unusual for the inside but quite useful when you didn’t want people to know what you are looking at. She was tapping her foot on the ground in a steady rhythm. Mike followed her estimated gaze. She was staring at one of the guards in a corner. Mike had spent too much time around con artists not to know what she was doing: she was counting the time for shift change. What the hell was going on here?
Suddenly his phone started to vibrate and all concerns seemed to vanish from his mind. Neal taught him too many manners for him to take the call inside which is why he hurried to the restroom to pick up.
“Harvey?” Mike didn’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Only his boss or Kate would call him on a Sunday night and he hadn’t heard of her in weeks now.
“Have you finished the files for the Pollocks case?”, Harvey asked without further conversation. He sounded a little pissed off.
Does this guy never stop working?
“You said you wanted them on your desk Monday evening!” Mike tried to keep his voice low but he just couldn’t suppress his frustration.
“Is that a yes?”, the older man asked, Mike could hear one of his vinyls softly playing in the background.
“No it isn’t,” Mike sighed, knowing what would be coming.
“Well, I need them now, Hotshot. Meet me at the office, bring the files and finish them as fast as possible, we have an emergency.” Harvey hung up without waiting for an answer.
"Okay," Mike muttered anyway. He sighed again, loudly and rubbed his eyes. The last time he had a full 24 hours outside of the office was...actually he couldn't remember. He gathered the rest of his energy and made his way out of the museum.
However, he didn’t go to the office right away. Instead, he tried to call the prison Neal has been held in since his sentence. It was only six weeks till he would be released, but since Kate had disappeared, he had no way to reach his brother and he missed him so fucking much. When Neal had been arrested, he had to promise him to never call nor visit him and to send messages through Kate instead. Neal didn’t want the prison, the FBI nor anyone else to know about his brother because he feared he would be used by his enemies to hurt him. Mike understood why they made the deal, but that didn’t make it better.
“Hello, what is your name and which inmate do you want to talk to?” The woman on the other side of the cable sounded monotone and bored. No wonder if this is your job, Mike thought.
“Hey, my name is Jimmy Burger”, the lie easily slipped over his tongue, “I want to talk to Neal Caffrey, Inmate number 54623”
“I am sorry but the Inmate is not able to take your call, the privilege was taken from him because of an incident”, the monotone voice hung up immediately after that statement and left Mike in wonder what the hell Neal had gotten himself into.
Neal’s P.O.V.
“Let me see it,” Peter’s voice echoed over the bare parking spot in front of the prison. Neal slightly lifted the leg of his pants to reveal the tracker. It was the same pants he wore when he got arrested four years ago. They have been a present from Mike and had fitted perfectly. Now, they were a little loose around the waist, everyone loses a bit of weight in prison.
“You understand how it works?” Peter pointed at Neal's leg as he let the pants cover his accessoire again.
“I’ll be released into the custody of the FBI under your supervision. And this thing shaved my leg. Anything I’m missing?”, Neal's attempt to crack a joke failed to lighten the look on Peter's grim face.
“Yeah, if you try to run and I catch you, which you know I will, you are not back here for four years, you are back here for good,” Peter spoke with his usual serious voice, looking him up and down, “You’re gonna be tempted to go look for Kate...don’t.”
The last remark made his heart ache. Thinking of Kate and wondering where she might be and if he would ever be able to find her made him sick. However, the thought of not finding his brother again made him wanna die. Peter didn’t know that he had a brother and he was absolutely oblivious that he had been looking for Kate and Mike the day he escaped. Of course, he planned on searching for the love of his life, but his priority was finding his baby brother.
“I won’t”, he simply said and he could tell by Peter’s look that he didn’t believe him.
After he had settled into his new apartment, he started looking for his brother. He had no luck. He checked Mike’s old phone numbers first but he apparently got rid of them. Then he looked at his old apartment which was now inhabited by some old lady who didn’t know Mike. Mike’s old workplace was also a dead end. It wasn’t until Mozzie appeared at June’s place that he got some hint at Mike's location.
“What should I do? Not come?”, Mozzie said as they sat in the dark of June’s living room. Neal was grateful for Mozzie. He was the first familiar face he had seen that wasn’t some cop or fed. Yeah, Peter was good company but he was also his supervisor and an FBI agent - nothing Neal would call one of his people or a friend. Mozzie was different. Mozzie was one of the best con artists he knew and he was his friend.
“Where’s Kate, Moz? Where did she go? And did she take Mike?” Neal was able to hide his desperation completely and studied Mozzie's facial expressions closely.
“She’s a ghost, man.” Mozzie leaned back in the chair, not taking his eyes off Neal, “Mike on the other hand isn’t.”
“Where is he, Mozzie?”, the veil over his emotions slowly started to fade.
“Do you have any idea what Mike has been up to for the last 4 years? Didn’t he write to you?”
“He did write me, but just code, man. No real long personal letter. You know that the prison checked every mail I received. You know that we had a deal. I basically forbade him to do so...to protect him”, the decision had hurt but he was still convinced that it had been the right choice. If Peter found out about Mike, he would turn every stone concerning his brother. Mike has never been directly involved into a con, but it hadn't been possible to leave him out of everything entirely. Not to talk about what would happen if Keller or some other gangster would find about his little brother.
“He was only 20 when I got arrested. What happened? Where is he?”
“Well it’s not my story to tell what happened in between but I can tell you where he works nowadays...”
Peter's P.O.V.
His head was pounding and his eyes burned. Peter sat at his desk, in the tall FBI building, a cup of awful coffee in front of him. He looked a the picture of him and El from some anniversary years ago. Next to the picture stood one of the Birthday Cards Neal Caffrey had sent him from prison. Click, click, click, he played with the pen in his hand. He had put up the card after Neal escaped prison a few weeks ago, though he didn't really know why. If somebody had told him then, that he would help Caffrey be released from prison to work with the FBI, he would have declared that person insane. And now, he sat there, in his chair after he had picked up said fellow just an hour ago.
"Here it is, boss," Diana came through the door, holding a file in his hand. "That's all activity and information that was documented about Caffrey while he was in prison."
Curious, Peter leaned back in his chair and hold a hand out to take the file. "Something interesting?"
"Well, remember when you identified Kate as the trigger of his escape when we were contacted?"
"Of course," Peter confirmed and opened the file with Neals mugshot pinned to it.
"Well, remember that she was the only one that visited or who's call Neal took?" Diana smiled as if she found a puzzle piece that had gone missing.
Peter raised his eyebrow and looked up from the file. "I remember, what are you playing at, Diana?"
"Well, we should have looked into the calls he didn't take as well," She walked around his desk to flip through the file herself and to show him one document, "He received several calls a week by a person named Jimmy Burger, but he did refuse to talk to that person."
Peter looked at the record. The week Kate said goodbye to Neal in prison the guy called every day. After that he called at least two times a week.
"This Jimmy guy only called? He didn't visit?"
"No, sir."
"Any mail he received from him?"
"Neither. It's nothing, just these calls," Diana said determined.
"Mhhh," Peter looked through the documents in front of him. After the record of calls out of or into prison there were transcripts of the calls, copies of mail Neal had received and photos of stuff he kept in his cell.
"What are you thinking, boss?"
"Why would you refuse to talk to someone when you are in prison?" Peter wondered aloud without looking at Diana.
"I don't know, sir. Maybe this...Jimmy isn't one of his friends," Diana put up for suggestion, though she didn't sound convinced herself.
"Whatever the reasoning, we should look more into this guy. Please check if he appears in Neals old case file. The name does not ring a bell but it could be an anagramm or code for someone we know."
Diana nodded, "on it, boss," and left the room.