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They have a routine.
Elizabeth is the first one up on Saturdays. Peter doesn’t get up till nine, nine-thirty, and by the time he gets downstairs, Elizabeth is halfway through a second pot of coffee. She offers him a mug and the New York Times in exchange for a good morning kiss. Neal trails downstairs after Peter, smiling at Elizabeth and adjusting his tie and cufflinks. These days he doesn’t dress down much anymore. Every day is a big deal.
They settle in with their breakfast and Peter opens the case file he’s been working on and starts thinking out loud at everyone and no one as he digs absently into his pancakes.
Around lunchtime, Elizabeth goes to walk Satchmo and Neal goes with her so he doesn’t hover around Peter making lunch. Peter rarely messes it up, even without Neal at his elbow, and besides Neal believes in teaching a man to fish, despite his deep distrust in Peter’s cooking skills.
Elizabeth usually works at the dining room table in the afternoon, and Peter catches up on some TiVo’ed game. Neal sits with him but his mind always drifts back to the case file, going over it again and again until Peter turns off the TV and grabs the file from his briefcase to go over it with Neal again. Neal preens. Peter sighs.
Peter’s sighs are deep, sorrowful things now. They used to just be irritated, which was part of the game for Neal: a fun way to needle Peter until he doled out some ultimatum that would make Neal get the job done.
But Neal takes no pleasure in hearing these sighs, whether Peter heaves them over a case or gasps them out wetly at night, when Elizabeth will roll over and hold Peter until he stops crying. On those nights Neal sleeps in the armchair, crippled with guilt. He wants, more than anything else in the world, those old sighs back, the kind that would end with a smile for him. Back then, there was nothing Neal could do that couldn’t be undone.
They used to go out on Saturday nights, the three of them. Restaurants, plays, exhibits. They’d stumble home, tipsy or just plain happy, and kissed and touched and fucked till sunrise. But things are cold in the Burkes’ bed these days and Neal doesn’t miss the worried glances Elizabeth throws at her husband when she knows he’s not looking.
Tonight Elizabeth has an event to attend and Neal and Peter are left at home in the gaping silence that’s been stretching out for months. They sit with the file, the one Peter’s been dragging home every night, every weekend, for weeks. Months? Neal has trouble keeping track of time anymore.
“I can’t figure this out,” Peter says, frustrated and sounding way too close to giving up.
“We’ll figure it out,” Neal says, itching to reach out for Peter’s hand. He doesn’t.
“It might as well be gibberish. I can’t... think.” Peter pushes both hands through his hair, mouth in an unhappy rictus.
“It’ll pass,” Neal says, confidently.
Peter takes a too-long swig from his beer and sets it down hard, grip unsteady. It’s his fifth. Neal’s been counting.
“I can’t do this, Neal,” he says quietly.
Neal startles.
They haven’t talked in months. Neal can’t remember the last time Peter said his name. It sounds wrong, soaked in sadness and imbued with the kind of despair Neal used to feel whenever he thought of Kate.
Neal does reach for Peter’s hand then. Peter’s breath catches. They don’t touch much anymore either. “You listen to me, Peter Burke. You will do this. You have to. You promised me, Peter.”
“Everything’s wrong now,” Peter says, voice breaking the way it does at night in the dark, when he doesn’t have to look anyone in the eye. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Neal is stunned into silence for a second. Peter’s hand feels warm, so warm. He leans in closer.
“Don’t you let that part of you die. Don’t you quit on your marriage because it’s the easiest thing to do. Nothing’s changed. It was always you and Elizabeth. I don’t matter, okay? I was around for a while and now I’m not. Nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’s wrong,” Peter repeats, and Neal wants to imagine Peter is squeezing his hand back, but he’s not.
“You promised,” Neal says again, heart breaking, tears prickling at his eyes too. He wants to know where that invincible, unshakable Peter Burke went. He’s nowhere to be found in these weak, trembling shoulders.
“I know I promised,” Peter murmurs shakily. Beaten.
“Promise me,” Neal smiled, beautiful even with dark circles under his eyes and his skin two shades paler than it should be against the white of hospital sheets.
Peter smiled too, tried to be strong for all three of them. But it was Neal bolstering them, peaceful even as the beeping of the machines around him slowed, diminished, like the guy in the bed still trying to charm the whole room even with a gutful of inoperable GSWs.
Elizabeth squeezed Peter’s shoulder. Maybe Peter was the weakest one of the three after all.
“I promise,” he said nonetheless. If he fell apart once Neal was gone, Neal would never know.
“Okay,” Neal said, cracked lips smiling. He closed his eyes. “Okay.”
The beeping slowed, then stopped.
Peter was distantly aware of the hospital personnel pushing past him with the crash cart, but all he could do is stare at his partner on the bed, too still and lifeless, and feel his world abruptly crumble to nothing.
Elizabeth crawls into bed late that night, and they both hold Peter as he cries, wracking sobs like Neal has never heard. Neal curls up closer to feel every pulse and shudder and heaving breath Peter takes.
He knows he’ll be the first one up tomorrow morning. He’ll adjust his tie and cufflinks and walk out of the door, because there are promises he knows can only be kept if you’re left alone to grieve.