Chapter Text
Peter went directly home even though it was still the middle of the morning. Just as he arrived, El was carrying Neal downstairs, having just changed a diaper, and they met him on the landing.
“Oh, here's Daddy!” she said. “Say hi to Daddy!”
Neal reached for him – little Neal, Peter realized with new emphasis – and Peter took the baby. “Hi, Tiger,” he grinned, holding the baby up high in the air, and then settling him snugly into the crook of his right arm. “How's your morning?” he asked El.
El nodded. “What are you doing home?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, in fact, it's really good,” Peter said. He saw no reason to beat around the bush. “El, I don't think Neal is dead.”
“Oh, hon,” El began, taking him by the arm.
“No, hon, I'm serious,” Peter interrupted. “Look at this!” He shuffled Neal onto his left side and pulled the container key out of his right-hand pocket. He held it up so El could see the number on it.
She frowned at it, trying to figure what it might be. “What is that?” she finally asked.
“It's the key to Neal's storage container. I guessed it last night while you were checking on Neal – you know, while we were drinking that wine. I think Neal sent it, by the way. Anyway, I went there just now and opened it, and, El, there's so much there. There's a dummy wearing a suit of Neal's and a gunshot in the chest, right where he was hit. There's notes and stuff about how to look like you're dead when you're not. Looked like some kind of strange combination of pufferfish venom and Chinese acupuncture. And there's a French newspaper with an article about the Louvre's new security system!”
“Peter, there's no way that someone could fool a hospital into thinking they'd died.”
“Unless they had help – someone in on it.”
“From the hospital?”
“I'm thinking the paramedic, actually.”
“So you think...”
Peter grinned. “I think he's going to rob the Louvre,” he said. “I can't believe that makes me so happy but it does.” He set Neal on the floor, shrugged off his coat, and sat on the couch, reaching for his phone. “But hopefully I can stop him before he does it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to call the Louvre – just let me look up their number here...”
“Honey, Neal is dead,” Elizabeth said gently, sitting next to him.
Peter was already dialing. He just shook his head, still grinning. “No, he's not,” he said. “Hey, do you still have a number for Mozzie? I think he'll want to know about this too – I think losing Neal might have been even harder on him than it was on me.”
“What do you mean, 'still have'?” El asked innocently.
Peter raised an eyebrow, but the person on the other end of the line answered, interrupting what he was going to say.
“Hello – oh, bonjour,” Peter answered. “Parlez vous Anglais?” He waited a moment for the reply. “Oh, good,” he said. “I've already close to reached the limit of my French vocabulary. Am I speaking with the head of security at the Louvre Museum in Paris?”
Elizabeth was watching carefully.
“Well, could you go get him? Or her? I'm with the FBI here in New York, and I have reason to believe someone's going to try to rob you. And it's kind of serious because this person, who I think it is, is pretty good at getting around security. Thanks.” Peter looked at El. “I hope the boss speaks English too.”
“Honey?” El asked. “What was the date of that newspaper?”
“Oh, I didn't think of that!” Peter exclaimed in a whisper. “I was just so excited! He left that paper in there a year ago. He's probably already been and gone!”
“Can you get out of this phone call?” El asked.
“Hello?” Peter said into the phone, and El cringed on his behalf as he scrambled to reply. “Well, I'm – my name is...”
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Neal was happy to hear that the New York office of the FBI was calling – he was pretty confident that he could keep his voice disguised even from, say, Jones. (He knew that Diana had moved on to D. C., and was not sorry that he didn't have to try to get a new voice past her). Peter was the only one he wanted knowing about his new identity – but Peter would have given his name. Which one of the Feds, he thought to himself with a smirk, thought that they had more information about his own space than he did? He answered the phone in his newly French-accented normal English speaking voice.
“This is M. Benet, head of security at the Louvre Museum. To whom am I speaking?”
“Well,” said the very unsure and distinctly un-official-sounding voice on the line, “I'm – my name is...”
“Peter?” Neal cut in, happily surprised, his accent dropping away significantly. “Well, finally!”
“Neal?” Peter said after a moment, incredulously.
“Yeah!” Neal said. “I thought I was going to have to hurry to get in here before you followed me – not that I thought you would mess things up for me, but, well, I just wanted to be settled before you got here. But, wow, it's been more than a year. I really thought you'd be on to me before this. So I asked Mozzie to go back and check on you. I know there's the kid and all that.”
Peter was still several steps behind. A quaver in his voice, he asked again: “Neal? It's really you?”
“Yeah! That's why you called, though, right?”
Neal heard El in the background, and then Peter said, “Yes, it is – here, listen for yourself.”
“Hello?” El's voice replaced Peter's.
“Hi, El,” Neal said. “It's good to hear from you.” He left off the 'finally'; he was beginning to realize that their year-long silence might not have been intentional. “How's little Neal?”
“He's fine, Neal – Neal, how are you alive? We went to your memorial. We cried our eyes out – both of us.”
“El, I'm sorry – I left the key in my pocket; I knew they'd give it to Peter and I thought he'd know what it was.”
“Neal, you were dead. He saw your dead body. What is a key compared to that?”
“Well, when you put it that way...”
He heard Peter in the background, asking for the phone back. “Sure,” El said. “Goodbye, Neal. It's really good to hear your voice again, sweetie. I hope you're not in trouble.” She handed the phone off.
“I'm not in trouble, Peter,” Neal said.
“Neal!” Peter said. “Neal, I can hardly believe it – if I didn't know you as well as I do I wouldn't believe it. I didn't go through your things very carefully, so I don't know exactly how...”
“It wasn't easy,” Neal said. “Lots of planning – and I didn't like doing it. I had to – you know that, right?”
“Yeah, don't worry about that,” Peter said. “I should have listened to Mozzie. I can't believe I just said that. But it was his first thought, after you died, that it was a con.”
“Good old Mozzie,” Neal said fondly.
“Neal,” Peter said next, in a completely different tone, “are you planning to, or have you already, robbed the Louvre?”
Neal was a little annoyed, but played it off with a laugh. “No,” he said. “I've taken it as a matter of personal interest to see that no one does. It is my job.”
“Oh,” Peter said. “Well, that's a relief. I'd hate to see you back in prison now that you're free.”
“So would I,” Neal said wryly.
Peter laughed. “Glad to hear it,” He sighed. “So... Neal. Are you alright? Do you have everything you need?”
“Apart from someone to watch my every move, question every motive, and leave me no true privacy to speak of, I have it all,” Neal laughed. “Oh, and no one ever says the word 'radius' to me. I'm doing great!”
“Mozzie's there with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a message for him when you see him. You tell him I said to take his fourth stage and stuff it.”
“Peter!” Neal heard El exclaim in the background. Neal laughed again.
“He's not back yet, but I'll tell him. I think he'll appreciate it, coming from you.”
“But you're alright?” Peter asked again.
“Yeah, Peter, I'm fine.”
“What are you doing at the Louvre?”
“You know the answer to that. You called me here, after all. I'm the chief of security.”
“A bit like the fox guarding the henhouse, isn't it?”
“Come on, Peter, that hurts. I was able to come in and show them how someone could exploit the weaknesses in their system – yeah, the new system – just like we did together for that bank, you remember. Anyway, I did such a good job that they asked me to run security for them. The only con I needed was a couple of fake references that Mozzie was able to provide. But I had to do that because of course M. Benet has no life before last year. And it's not going to hurt them, Peter. I really am the best person to do this. I've kept this museum completely safe, and you can check up on that.”
“I will. But I believe you.”
“Trust but verify,” Neal said wryly.
“More like trust and revel in the details,” Peter said. “I'm really glad to hear it, Neal.”
Neal didn't say anything right away – there was suddenly a catch in his throat.
Peter sighed. “Well, it's time to be getting along because I don't have the day off. It is good to hear your voice, Neal,” he said, a getting a little misty-eyed suddenly. “Really, really good.”
“Come and see it, Peter!” Neal said suddenly.
“What?”
“Come to Paris. Bring El and the kid if you want to. Come and see me here at the museum, and I'll give you a guided tour of everything I've done here. Please?”
“That's an interesting idea,” Peter said. “Paris isn't the sort of place I'd think of taking Neal until he's a lot older... but maybe it'll work out to take a long layover there on our way to somewhere else. I'll talk to El about it.”
“Please, Peter. I can't come to New York anymore, obviously, or at least not for a long time, but... I'd really like to see you again. It would mean a lot.”
“I'll talk to El,” Peter repeated. “We'll try to make it happen somehow. And, hey, you'll probably come to the States sometime, right, just not New York? If you do, let me know and I can try to get to where you are.”
“I will,” Neal said.
“Alright, I really have to be going now. I'll get back to you about that – I don't suppose, though, that you want to give me your personal phone number?”
“I'd rather the FBI couldn't find it if they started poking into things, no.”
“What if I got a phone just for calling you?”
“Peter Burke, you're offering to own and operate an untraceable burner phone? For me?”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Peter grinned.
“Alright, when you have the phone I'll give you my number.”
“Okay. Bye, Neal. Really good talking to you.”
“Same, Peter.”
Neal hung up slowly. He missed New York, still, and, if he was being honest with himself, he'd have to say that it was Peter more than anything else that he missed about New York. Paris had enough other equivalents to be compelling in its own right, after all. But Peter hadn't exactly been willing to jump on a plane immediately; Neal wasn't sure whether to expect a visit or not. It was the kid. Neal sighed out loud, shrugged his eyebrows, and turned back to the work on his desk.