Hello everyone! :) I am (finally) back with a new story for a totally new fandom :) I haven't been writing for quite some time... so it took me a little bit to get used to it again, but I think I finally got into it again :) I hope you guys like this first chapter and will stay tuned for the rest :)

Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar. Everything belongs to USA Network and Jeff Eastin, except this story idea and events about to come AND any characters that are not from the orginal series. Barry Maloney aka Allan Little is mine.

Quotes from the show: I did use moments from the show for this chapter. I'll list them here as they appear in the story: First and second quote taken from "Judgment Day" (3.16), third from "Out of the Box" (1.14)

Now go ahead and ENJOY this story!


I want to dedicate this story to a few friends of mine. Andorian Ice Princess-AIP for her support on this one and because I keep her waiting for reviews waaaaay too long :( I'm sorry for that and I haven't forgotten about those amazing stories I still have to finish. To my friend Sabby (AngelwithHorn17) who's been an amazing support for just about everything lately and to my friend Evita who is just as much a White Collar and Neal Caffrey fan as I am :) If it wasn't for her, I may have missed an amazing show ;)


Chapter 01: Just Another Day at Work?

The door slowly opened, but because the room was only lit by a bit of sunlight shining through the small dirty window of the basement room, whoever entered, wouldn't be able to see the person pointing a gun at the door. In fact, even he was barely able to make out a silhouette of the gunman. But he could see the door slowly opening and he could almost hear the gunman slowly pulling the trigger. A ray of light from the now lit hallway shone into the room and now he could see it. The gunman was pulling the trigger.
He jumped, from his side of the wall, across the door at the same time the bullet left it's chamber, slamming the door shut and then crashing down onto the cold, hard concrete. Before the door was slammed open again, the gunman disappeared through a second door, leading to the outer stairwell that led him right to freedom. He was gone. For now. A bunch of FBI Agents stormed into the room, quickly scanning it, before pursuing through the now open door that lead outside, only one stayed behind.

"Neal!"

xXxXxXxXx

Four days earlier...

It was quite a beautiful Monday morning. The sun was shining onto the patio, making the world outside look warm and friendly. It looked like a summer morning although it was late Autumn and it wasn't warm outside anymore. In fact, it got quite freezing lately. Winter was on it's way to New York City. Neal stood at the door to his patio, the door opened to let some of the cool morning air into his apartment. He leaned against the door frame and admired the view he got, like he did so many times, a small, but content smile on his face.

"Regardless of what the committee decides, this is my home now." he had said to Mozzie, after his first hearing before the board, when they wanted to decide whether or not to reduce his sentence. He had been working for Peter and FBI for two years already, half of his sentence was done.

Neal let out a small sigh, taking a sip of his warm coffee. He had been standing in this very spot many times before, letting his mind drift off to another place and time, dwelling on memories, or even trying to figure out a plan if he needed one. Today his mind took him back to the day that changed his life. The day he had to do, what he didn't want to do: run.

Neal was on his way back from his second hearing when he met Peter outside the building, about to walk inside and give his statement to the board.

"How'd it go?" Peter had asked him.

"As well as it could. I think. You know what the nice thing is? It doesn't matter."

"What do you mean?"

"Hm. You gonna go in there say your piece and the board's gonna make their decision. But with or without my anklet, come Monday morning I'm gonna step of that elevator on the 21st floor to go to work." he had told Peter. And he meant it. There were things of his life in New York, he didn't want to give up. It was his home now and he had people who cared about him. And yet again... things never work out as planned...

But he was back in New York now. And he was happy to be. He got his old deal back and hopefully Kramer off his back, although Neal feared that Kramer would try again, given the opportunity. But for now he was staying in New York working with Peter, still having his anklet. And he was thankful for that, because he was given a chance that only a few people got. A chance to make a difference, which he did, according to Peter. And maybe he really did. Neal knew that he had changed in the two years that he worked with the FBI. He had learned to trust Peter, the only one in his life he trusted. And no matter how many times he screwed up, or almost screwed up, Peter would always try to help him. Although, in the beginning he didn't seem too happy to have Neal with him, working on cases. He had been careful with his trust, kept him on a rather short leash until he slowly learned to trust him, too. As the time passed, they actually became a pretty good team. And at times, Neal even liked working on the other side of the law, using his knowledge and skills to put other white collar criminals away. Although he once was one himself and didn't want to end up in prison, but he did – twice. Yet working with Peter and having that anklet was the best thing that happened to him. He had people in his life who cared for him. He had someone in his life who was able to either, always find him wherever he went, or to keep him from doing something really stupid, like shooting Fowler. Someone, the only one, who could make him change his mind, as he once admitted.

"You said goodbye to everyone but me. Why?" Peter had asked him at the hangar, as he was about to get into the plane with Kate.

"I dunno." Neal had replied, looking at Peter.

"Yeah. You do. Tell me."

"I don't know. Okay?"

"Why?"

"You know why."

"Tell me!" Peter had demanded a third time, not backing down.

"'Cause you're the only one who could change my mind." Neal replied and took a few more steps toward the plane. Then turned around, wanting to say something, but the plane exploded, killing Kate.

The knock on the door made Neal jump. His mind had taken him into a stupor, totally lost in time and space. It had been just him and his flashback of that fateful day when Kate died. The one person he wanted to have in his life. Forever. He took a deep breath to calm his heartbeat down and turned around to walk up to the door.

"Neal?" he heard Peter's voice as he knocked again. He must have knocked before, because his voice sounded impatient and a little bit worried, too.

"Hey." Neal greeted Peter, as he pulled the door open and looked at the Agent standing in front of him. He must have still looked a little rattled from the flashback and the knock which had pulled him back to reality.

"You okay?" Peter asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

"Yeah... uh, was just lost in thoughts before you knocked..." he replied honestly, even trying a small, but sheepish grin. "Lemme get my hat and we can go."

Peter playfully rolled his eyes. Neal and his hat. The first time he had seen Neal in that suit with the hat he had called him a cartoon, but he came to accept Neal's taste of clothes and even the hat, although the hat-thing he did, was a little annoying sometimes. Neal did love the Classics. He watched the younger man come walking back from his walk-in closet, now wearing his hat. Together they left Neal's apartment and headed downstairs to Peter's car. At the door they met June, the nice woman who had rented her guest "room" to Neal when they first met, while Neal was looking for clothes. He had been lucky to meet June. Not only did he get amazing classic rat pack clothes, but also an amazing home. The older woman greeted the two men with a friendly and warm smile.

"Morning June." Neal said, gently hugging her.

"Good Morning you two." June replied. "You had a good night?" she asked Neal.

"Yeah, I did. Thanks." Neal replied, giving June one of his charming smiles. "Thanks again for the dinner invite."

"Aw, you're welcome. Now you two have a good day." June told them and let them leave. Her and Neal have had dinner the night before and it had been really nice. They were actually talking a lot. June enjoyed dwelling on memories of her late husband and Neal was such a good listener. Not to mention that he was interested when she told him about their adventures. She really enjoyed his company. It was almost like she finally had a son.

"Thanks June. You, too."

Most of the ride to the bureau was spend in silence, neither of them saying much. Both were basically hanging onto their own thoughts for a while until Peter couldn't take it anymore. He was more curious than he thought he would be and he was still wondering what thoughts had Neal overhear his previous two knocks until he finally opened the door for him. He glanced over at Neal, who was looking out of the window right now, obviously lost in thoughts once again.

"What were you thinking about?" he finally asked, pulling Neal from his silence.

"What?"
"When I picked you up, before you opened the door, what were thinking about?" he repeated his question.

"Nothing really."

"C'mon, you overheard two knocks and a call of your name... had to be something."

Neal looked at Peter and then sighed. Sometimes he just wasn't sure if he wanted to share his thoughts with the agent. True, they had become friends over the years they worked together, but they also did have their trust issues between them and it wasn't like Neal ran around the world sharing his thoughts. But then again, those were memories they both had, so why not just share them and satisfy Peter's curiosity. It wasn't like Peter didn't care. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't. "You really wanna know?"

"Wouldn't ask if I didn't." Peter told him, but noticed the sound of Neal's voice. It had a somewhat sad tone to it as he asked, so Peter glanced over to him.

"Okay... I was dwelling on memories."

"Kate?"

"Yeah, Kate, too." he replied.

Peter gave a small nod as he pulled the car into the FBI's parking lot, going for his usual spot. He slowly pulled into the parking space and then shut the engine down, before he looked at Neal. He wondered if it was just a memory that came back, or if perhaps it was a flashback. But he seemed to be okay, no shaking nothing that suggested otherwise. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yep. Just some memories, nothing to worry about." was Neal's answer before the young man got out of the car and then waited for Peter to catch up so they could get up to the 21st floor and go to work.

xXxXxXxXx

The first two hours of the morning had been filled with boring paperwork for Neal. Writing the report for the latest case they closed, since Peter was going through files of possible new cases. Since Peter knew that Neal was a little behind with his latest report he had put him on desk duty until he was needed to work on another case, or he was done with his report. There was time when Neal handed that task off to someone else, since paperwork wasn't really his favorite task of the job, but after Peter caught on to him and told him that he had to write his reports on his own, Neal actually did that now. At least most of the time. The young man glanced up to Peter's office, seeing him busily studying case files, but obviously he hadn't found one that he found interesting enough to pursue. Neal sighed, setting his pen down and stared into the space in front of his desk for a few minutes before he tiredly rubbed his face and got up, grabbing his empty mug to get some more coffee. He was almost done with his report, only a few more details needed to be sorted out so he could hand it to Hughes, who was already waiting for it. Neal set his mug down and grabbed the pot of coffee. Thankfully it was still hot. He poured some of it into his mug and then put it back, grabbing a bag of sugar and added it to his black coffee.

He looked up from his cup of coffee just in time to see Diana quickly walking across the room and up the stairs to Peter's office, a case file in her hand. Peter looked up at the younger female Agent, just a second after she knocked onto the glass wall next to the open door. Diana entered his office and handed the file to Peter, talking to him. Although the door was left open, Neal wasn't close enough to understand what was being said, but from watching the two agents, he could tell that Diana must have found the new case for the team. Peter was looking through the case file while he listened to Diana, occasionally nodding in reply, before he looked up at her. And Neal knew the look on Peter's face. He was interested and it seemed to be an important case, too. The two agents walked out of Peter's office and stopped at the railing, looking into the big office room. He was about to call his team into the conference room for a briefing.

"Team to the conference room. We have a new case." Peter called out to the agents in the office room, three of them instantly getting up to walk up to the conference room, including Agent Clinton Jones. There were also two other agents who would work on this case, but the main team was mostly Jones, Diana, Peter and Neal. The latter picked up his cup of coffee and walked up to the conference room as well, taking his time, as the way up wasn't too long anyway. Everyone took a seat at the table, except for Peter who was standing at one end of the table, facing his team. Diana had gone to get some more copies of the case file, so everyone would have his own file to look at.

"So, Diana found our new case." Peter started, turning the electric white board on, which was now showing a picture of a blond male in his late forties, whose bright green eyes had a somewhat evil glare to them. "Barry Maloney, 48. He's back in New York after he was off our radar for a couple of years. He's a suspect in many Mortgage Fraud cases and on the most wanted list of the Bureau for years. But so far we couldn't prove any of our suspicions."

Neal looked at the picture of the Irish male. He didn't know much about him. All he knew was he indeed was a White Collar Criminal, but he hid his traces very well. He hadn't dealt with him personally though. But he heard that Barry Maloney wasn't known for showing mercy to betrayers, or those who stuck their noses where they didn't belong. They had to proceed carefully. Very carefully. When noticed the silence around him and felt everyone looking at him, he looked away from the picture and around the room, then up at Peter, who looked at him with raised eyebrows. It happened again. He hadn't heard his question. Neal cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

"I don't know much about him. Never dealt with him in person. But I know that he's known for his temper and he shows no mercy on betrayers or those who are too curious for his liking." he said. "If... when we investigate him, we need to be careful. He's got more Blue Collar written over him than we know."

"And you just know that?" Jones asked him, raising one of his brows at Caffrey.

"Hearsay, yeah. And I may have... seen his temper once or twice, but not intentionally and never as one of his men." Neal replied honestly, holding his hands up in front of him.

"Alright, that's not our topic. Neal..." Peter said, looking at his younger partner.

"Try to find out what he's planning. I'm on it." Neal finished his sentence. They have been working together long enough for him to know what he was supposed to do and what Peter would ask him to do. Sometimes he could read the older agent's mind.

At the same time Diana returned with the case files and handed one to each person at the table, before she sat down on a chair, too. Neal opened the case file and peeked inside. There was a long list of things Barry Maloney was suspected of, yet again, there was never enough proof to pin any of it on him. That Maloney fellow was just good at covering his tracks, but something made Neal wanting to uncover those tracks and nail him. Yes, sometimes he really liked his new job as a consultant.


THANKS everyone for reading! Please be kind and leave a review for me and let me know how you guys liked this. I'm dying for your opinion! (And I'm eager to learn, although I do my homework ;))

STAY TUNED FOR MORE! :)

blackrose538