Because this is never going to happen in the actual series and I have always wanted to write a on-the-run fic for them. Except this one is not quite on-the-run as more like Neal's last disappearance trick. Warning for major spoilers of the S4's ending!
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we're in the wind
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Danny Brooks had a dad, a hero cop who died in the lines of duty.
Neal Bennett had one too, a dirty cop who worked for the mob.
But Neal Caffrey is neither of these boys. He is neither foolish nor sentimental, and this is neither a con nor the truth. He is floating halfway, still imagining that there's going to be an escape route he hasn't figured out. A perfect getaway that leaves no one scathed.
He is drawing up a blank, all aside that Neal Caffrey never had a father.
He isn't about to gain one now.
000
He drops down in the chair, his head rubbed blank. But this is not a new slab of marble or a brand new canvas beneath his fingertips. There are no tools or even a paintbrush in his hands. In fact, there is nothing at all.
And that is just as worst. He couldn't make him stay. (He let him go, watched him walk out on him once more.) Only this time, Neal can damn well see the lies cascading off of that man's back.
Neal doesn't blink, he holds dreadfully still so the tears don't fall.
000
Neal's dad is not a decent man. He is just another Pratt who got the short end of the stick all those years back. Maybe with a bit of his son's luck, things could have ended up differently. But nothing can change, this far into their end game, and Neal's dad is a bad man.
He should not have come back at all.
Because Neal's past is not worth Peter behind bars or the FBI badge they have dragged through mud.
Neal doesn't know what he can do.
That doesn't matter though because El does.
000
The door opens and she is shaking in her skin.
Her eyes fall on him and he is ready to fall apart. But Elizabeth is not his exception, he can lie to her, he just never had to. She doesn't walk in, she stands by the door with her mascara smeared and lipstick smudged.
He sucks in a breath, ready to breathe lies and knows them as the truth.
He breathes, and that is a surprise all on its own.
"I didn't make him stay, El."
He doesn't dare think it, Peter has trained that much into him at the very least. So it is El's idea when it finally comes. He doesn't need to say it, doesn't need to ask her to say the word. He is her knight to protect her King.
He is the pawn (first to die).
Her eyes are wet with conviction.
"Do what you have to, I don't care. I want him back."
Neal breathes a sigh of relief, finally feeling anchored and tells her.
"Okay."
Their voices don't shake.
000
They keep him in holding, and it's a desolate place.
There is no anklet on him, though at this point, he'll rather have one. What he doesn't admit is that he'll rather have one last connection to Neal than none at all. He sits back, lets the afternoon play out all over again.
And he is scared, painfully so.
Not for himself but for El (and Neal). Because it won't be long now, the end is due to come. El will say the word. Neal will take off. And Peter won't have any regrets if it means he can keep them both.
They don't allow him to make any phone calls but somehow, Diana manages to get pass the detaining officers outside his holding cell. She tells him they can't find Neal and Elizabeth is missing too. She doesn't need to tell him that neither Jones nor she is trying all that hard.
"Thank you."
"Everything will be okay, boss."
He doesn't doubt her for a second.
000
They are standing in the middle of Wednesday when he hands over the uniforms and says. "This is a terrible idea, you know."
Neal glances over at Moz, the epitome of all the bad ideas the world has to offer with a side of paranoia.
"The suit, I mean. That was spoken on his behalf. Personally, I think you guys should have done this a long time ago."
"Moz, I don't—They're not." He runs a hand through his hair, looks back over to the bed with Elizabeth sleeping restlessly in it. He is her safeguard, he can't afford to think too hard on what's to come. "We're not like that."
"Justice is a fickle thing, love is too."
"Moz."
"I know," he puts a hand up in defense, "none of my business."
Only Moz catches Elizabeth shifting beneath the sheets.
000
As hard as it is to put trust in a man who lies for a living, Neal Caffrey is her contingency plan.
And maybe that is foolish as fools come but her bet is placed and the wheel is sent to spin. The Roulette ball is rolling, black and red, black and red, and back again. She believes him when he tells her he will get Peter back. She believes him when he promises that they will have a life out of here.
She doesn't believe him when he says he doesn't love Peter like that, not when he already loves them both so much.
000
It is a quiet-in-the-night kind of operation.
It takes all of 15 minutes to clear out of the FBI building, they lose their disguise right by the door, just beneath the blind spot of the camera no one ever knew existed until now.
He sees his face for a whole of three seconds before he has his head lowered, eyes cast to the ground. They are alone, and breathing hard. There is no one running after them but this is only the start of a lifelong chase.
Peter's heart is hammering in his chest and he is afraid for so many reasons.
"It's true." His voice is whisper soft, almost admitting defeat in the face of a battle hard won. "You were right, Peter."
"What?"
"If you were ever on the run," Neal looks over to smile at him and it is a version of an apology he has never got off of the flat of his tongue, "it would be my fault."
The FBI building he breaks him out of will have no idea how Peter Burke's holding cell will be empty come morning. That the security tape will be switched out, the codes tampered with, alongside of red herrings placed all over the globe.
Come morning, they may not even be in the country.
"Neal."
"Come on," he doesn't let Peter guilt him into submission, doesn't let him force his hand for that one last trick he has been hiding for life, he is here for a job. He won't be swayed into pulling Peter in for a goodbye kiss. "Let's get you back to El."
000
She has two hands on his face, dragging him down for a kiss, when she sees him again.
She doesn't hold back the tears, now that he is back to catch them all. El laughingly cries into her husband's shoulder when Neal gets him home (as in a safe house neither of them will ever return to). There is a car waiting outside, and they will need to move fast to get out of the city before the world knows they are gone.
But they know just how manhunts, on the right side of the law, work. It's kind of silly at this point, really, when the two of them have practically rewrote the entire book of tricks. Neal hands over an envelope and there is enough cash and cards, with no paper trails, and IDs authentic enough to get pass anything.
"These contacts are for you, if you ever need them. I have a place set up, the address is in here. And I know you like your name, Peter, so I kept it for you."
His hand brushes his in the exchange and when he turns to go, El doesn't quite let go. Peter doesn't ask him but he knows it before he can even confirm it.
"I can't." Neal says with a soft smile.
He doesn't know who he is fooling. And maybe the answer is a horrific none. But Neal is good, and if he couldn't convince the world he would convince himself at the very least.
They let him go.
It shouldn't feel like goodbye.
000
Peter thinks Neal is a gentleman thief.
Elizabeth is convinced he is someone honourable.
They aren't wrong. But neither are they entirely right.
000
The FBI finds James Bennett four months later. He is sentenced to life imprisonment on the account of second degree murder and his past criminal records. No one asks about the anonymous tip or the neat trail of cookie crumbs leading right to the man's next safe house.
Diana cuffs him and Jones reads him his rights. A week later, Diana transfers back to DC and Jones is promoted to head up the White Collar division in New York.
They never do find Peter. Or Elizabeth for that matter.
(And Neal Caffrey becomes something of a myth.)
000
There is a house at the edge of a small suburban town in Missouri with a bed just a size too big. And in it lived a nice couple, Liz with her roses and Peter with his tools. They have a dog called Satch and Peter has a brother called Nick.
They are inseparable and that's just it.
There is no mystery to them.
000
Neal knocks on the Brooks' door one night with a small duffel bag in hand.
They don't ask him any questions, just pulls him into their house. Holds him in their arms, right over their hearts.
XXX Kuro
Because 3.15 has me convinced that Neal is from St. Louis, Missouri. And Brooks is the name he associated with good things before everything went awry. Okay, I am just a sentimental mush.