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Neal fluffed the pillow behind his head and sat back, looking over at Peter Burke. The man seemed trustworthy, and he'd been here when Neal had woken up, so Neal was willing to take whatever he said at face value.
“So,” Peter Burke started, looking a curious mix of devastated and relieved. “Your name these days is Neal Caffrey, you’re thirty-four, and you live here in New York.”
There was a generic styrofoam cup of coffee in Peter's hands and Neal stared at it idly, soaking in the information. “These days? I used to be someone else?”
“You were born Neal Bennett. But your dad was a cop and some things went down and you were put in Witness Protection under the name Danny Brooks.”
Neal thought about this. He didn't feel like a Danny. But he didn't really feel like a Neal either. He didn't feel like anyone, that was the problem.
“When you left WitSec, you were upset with your father and didn’t want to go back to having his last name, so you took your mother’s maiden name instead, Caffrey.”
Neal turned the name over in his head. “I like it." He smiled wistfully. "I must’ve loved my mom a lot.”
Peter’s smile was soft, a little pained. “I think you did.”
Neal pushed the hair back from his eyes, eager. “Tell me more.”
He saw Peter hesitate before starting again. “I think your anger at your father is partly why you ended up doing the things you did when you got to New York. You met some people, and you… started running cons. Tricking people. You were really good at it. It got you anything you wanted, so you never looked back. You got so good no one could catch you.”
Neal frowned at this. “I’m a criminal?”
Peter snorted. “That you are.”
“Did I hurt people?” Neal asked, because if he had, if he'd hurt anyone, he wouldn’t want to be awake. He'd want back into whatever coma wiped him into a blank slate.
But Peter Burke was shaking his head vehemently. “Never. No violence. Everybody likes you, even the people you con. You were one hell of a social engineer, Neal.”
“Were?”
Peter hesitated again, then smiled, a little more real. “You’re mostly reformed now.”
Neal's brow quirked up, intrigued. “Define ‘mostly’.”
“Well, you're still a giant pain in my ass?” Peter Burke said with a purse of his lips. Neal found he took strange pride in putting that look on Peter's face.
He grinned. “I bet you deserve it.”
Peter laughed, eyes a little shiny, but didn't answer.
“More,” Neal prompted.
Peter sat back, seemed to be trying to choose what to reveal next. “You’re an amazing artist. You excel at forgeries, and very few people in the world can tell the difference between the original and a Caffrey.”
“Except you,” Neal surmised.
“Except me,” Peter nodded, then amended: “Actually, not even me most of the time. But I learned to know you, and I caught you. Twice.”
“You must be very good at your job,” Neal murmured.
“I am,” Peter said, and he looked at Neal hard. But his eyes softened almost immediately. “But so are you. You were in jail for a while, but now you’re in a work-release program, working as a criminal informant for me and my team. You’re really good at it, and I think once your sentence is done you should stick around.”
“With you.”
“With me.”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Peter’s eyes had taken on that crushed but hopeful look again. Something in Neal’s chest flipped.
“I think you should start over again. Details, this time.”
“This could take a while,” Peter said, sitting back in his vinyl hospital armchair.
“I have time,” Neal said.
That’s all he had, really. Time, a name, a story. And a partner.