Disclaimer: White Collar belongs to Jeff Eastin, USA Network et al. This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.
On Guard
Jones has seen some pretty weird things over the years working for the FBI. Done too, and not only since Caffrey came along. Peter asking him to get a lie detector off record and set it up in an abandoned warehouse in one of the seedier parts of town is a new one, though. It is not … quite unexpected, however, that it is their somewhat unpredictable criminal consultant he ends up hooking up to the device while keeping his own face carefully neutral. He has no idea what caused this abrupt falling-out between his boss and Neal right after Adler's warehouse blew up – Peter wouldn't tell and Neal seemed genuinely angry and insulted when he dropped him off at June's earlier – but is willing to follow Peter's lead for the time being.
And almost right from the start it is clear to him that the con man is hiding something. It is written in the blue ice of his eyes, screams out of the controlled mask of his face, and when he answers the careful impassivity of his voice holds a defiant challenge that starts alarm bells ringing in Jones's head.
Now though, as the night wears on and Peter prowls restlessly around the rickety table, snapping the same and always the same questions at Caffrey, crowding him, invading his personal space with thinly veiled aggression … he seriously wonders if he should put a stop to it before things go too far.
In the end he doesn't.
Because, while he has witnessed this kind of reckless behavior in men crazed with fury he has seen it also in men maddened with grief. And the longer he watches the more he can see hidden anguish bleeding through in each of Peter's angry gestures, the rigid set of his shoulders, the unhappy twist of his mouth.
And the simple truth is that no matter how much he might like Caffrey – and he does like him, he honestly does – when it comes down to a choice he knows he will always side with Peter.