For the first time in recent memory, Peter Burke felt pity for Neal Caffrey. And considering the situation, how could he not? The usually suave man was sitting in the office chair across from him, his eyes welling up with tears. To see such a thing on the face of a man usually so composed was utterly unnerving. This man was renowned for his neutrality, even in the face of death, but some of Peter's words were enough to bring him to tears on this dark occasion.
"Peter, please tell me there's another way" Neal rasped, and it was painfully obvious that he was fighting back the onslaught of emotion ravaging him inside. Swallowing heavily, Peter shook his head, eyeing the manila folder on the desk as though it were some sort of loathsome beast. It took a moment for him to find the words, and when they left his mouth, they were frighteningly detached.
"This is a non-negotiable. It's this, or going back to prison. I know you don't want that" Peter encouraged, knowing that the attempt to brighten the situation was weak. In fact, it was naught but a painful failure, as Neal lowered his head into his hands, shielding his eyes from the agent as he blinked back the tears that had been threatening to spill. Through the barrier his hands had created, Neal gave another soft response, this one tainted with confusion and anger.
"It's not about what I want. It's that I can't. I can't go back to prison. I'll die in there. But if this happens, the world is going to be my prison. They're…" he trailed off there, unable to finish the sentence. Instead of finishing it for him, Peter let the silence hang in the air like a heavy fog, the weight sinking down on his shoulders while Neal pressed his forehead into his palms.
"They're going to take away any last freedom I have" Neal suddenly cut in quietly, raising his head to look Peter in the eyes. At the sight, Peter was tempted to flinch back. The creases below Neal's eyes were stained with moisture, and the whites of his eyes were laced with bright red streaks. There it was again, burning in Peter's gut with undying persistence: pity, an unbearable amount of pity.
"You won't even feel it" Peter attempted to soothe, knowing that his voice sounded like a mother comforting an ailing child. This pathetic phrase was easily identifiable as bullshit, and the agent knew it. It was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot. Perhaps it would be the emotional burden that was the most painful at all. Grinding his teeth together, Neal shook his head, another wave of denial obviously washing over him.
"I don't want to be some guinea pig for the federal government. I'm already your little bitch, running around like a dog on a leash. I'm not a lab animal" growled the con man, scratching the nails of one hand against the back of the other, as though he were trying to distract himself from the impending reality. Peter's stomach flip-flopped, and he realized that it was just as agonizing to watch this man be faced with the change of a lifetime. A man that he had grown so begrudgingly close to was suffering, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it.
"I'll be there with you the whole time" he tried to comfort again, to which Neal just scoffed, running another hand under his eye, wicking away the remnants of a single tear.
"Of course you will. You're the one holding the rope tied around my neck. I don't have a choice in whether you're there or not. They said that I'm the dog, they also said that you're my master. They said nothing about friends, Peter. That was never part of the deal."
"You know that's not what I meant" Peter hastily tried to remedy, but the damage was done. Neal stood up, turning his back on the agent, taking a step towards the door.
"Whatever you have or haven't meant" Neal hissed, putting a hand on the doorknob and turning it, "you can't make this one better. You can't straighten your tie and say 'sorry Neal, messed this one up.' You can't call someone and ask for a favor. You're out of favors, and so am I. Call me once you have the date, sir. Until then, I'm going to be taking sick leave."
He walked out the door then, slamming it behind him as he went. The venomous words that Caffrey had left hanging in the air were dripping with acidic malice, enough to sting at Peter's heart. Although the first thought that came to his mind was the urge to tell Neal that he didn't have such a thing as sick leave, he realized that it was the last thing that he really wanted to say. What he wanted to do more than anything was to apologize, to try and explain that it was far beyond his control, that he really did care. He wanted to cry out to the man that had just left, tell Neal that he was more than a dog, more than just a CI; he was a valuable, complex person, one that Peter genuinely cared about.
Instead of voicing this, he just watched his most valuable asset, and one of his closest friends, storm out of his office without so much as a goodbye. Perhaps it was because adequate words were lost in the face of a brewing tragedy. Perhaps it was because just like Neal, he was suffering a terrible shock at the fate that awaited them both.
Now, given the privacy of his solitude, Peter grabbed the folder again, and flipped it open in his lap. The first page was a contract of some sort of political bullshit, signed in a thick blue gel pen by someone so far above Peter's paygrade he couldn't recognize the name. His own name was somewhere in the mess of words that some lawyer had orchestrated with their poisonous touch, written plainly alongside Neal's own identification.
This order declared a new measure to be taken, one that extended beyond the tracking anklet that Neal still sported on a nearly daily basis. This executive decision would reduce the need to take the anklet off for more sensitive operations, and reduce the need to gain some sort of approval for every action that extended beyond Neal's assigned radius. It would also serve to reduce the trivial things, such as the chaffing that Neal never ceased to whine about, it would cease the questioning metal detectors, and the gazes from onlookers who managed to catch a glimpse of it.
The solution was a simple one; a state of the art implant that would work as a tracking and identification device, similar to a digital chip implanted in a cat or dog. This one was slightly different; it was larger, and sported some of the first GPS capabilities that were able to reach through human skin. This model had gone through trials, and had recently gained approval for the use in human candidates.
Due to the size, there would be a surgery, one that included the use of general anesthesia. The procedure was simple enough; a deep incision in Neal's side, placement of the device, and then a closure of the area. It would be active immediately, and would power itself for a number of years without failure or interruption to other bodily functions. Just plugging the ID number into the proper server would give Neal's immediate location, accessible from either a phone or computer.
It was the perfect solution. It was also perfectly despicable.
There was an ultimatum attached; Neal undergoes the surgery, or goes back to prison for the rest of the foreseeable future, even beyond his original sentencing. Peter had read the papers a hundred times, trying to figure out whether or not it was legal to force such a thing on a human being, regardless of being a felon or not. Yet those same damned lawyers had even figured a few laws into their handiwork, ones that stated why it was clearly admissible to treat Neal like nothing more than a piece of property.
Before he had even shown it to Neal, Peter had argued with anyone that would give him half of a minute, he had made phone calls, and each time he had been shut down. Hearing it in such repetition had grown harder and harder, but in the end, he knew that he wasn't the one that had to live with the reality of the situation. He wouldn't be the one face down on an operating table, having a foreign device implanted into his body. He wouldn't be the one with that itching beneath his skin, knowing that Big Brother wasn't just watching him, it was within him every step of the way.
He couldn't even work his way one page into the packet this time without putting it down. All that he could see when he closed his eyes were Neal's red-rimmed eyes, the inexplicable amount of pain in the visage of a man famed for his cheerful grin and game-changing poker face. Neal had openly shown his agony, for the first time in an unbearably long amount of time, and to the very man that he felt was holding him prisoner.
Peter could hardly blame him; he was about to be put in a different sort of prison, and the key was going to be embedded within his flesh. It was a sick twist of fate, and one that was approaching at the speed of a flying bullet. There was a deadline stuck amidst the rest of the bureaucratic disaster on paper; by the end of the month, Caffrey was going to be tagged like an animal, or he would be put behind bars once more.
Also buried amongst the papers was a number to call to schedule the surgery, and the location of the nearest hospital. It was sickeningly sweet, the way that one of the more personal papers had urged Peter to address the situation with urgency, but that it should be approached on a timeline that best suited the bureau's needs. There was no lack of clarity; this was going to be done, and it was going to be done soon, if Neal treasured any last sliver of his freedom.
The bitter irony arose once more; there was no option that actually allowed for freedom. He was going to be put behind some sort of bars or another, one option had the bars made of steel, and the other made of flesh. If Peter himself was given the same decision, he didn't know what he would choose. In fact, for a moment, he toyed with the thought of death being a more preferable option. Biting down on his lip, he hoped that Neal wouldn't feel the same.
With some degree of hesitance, Peter opened that folder carrying the death sentence once more, and flipped through the pages for the number. The current case was close to a wrap, but Peter knew what would happen; Neal was about to close in on himself, and become no more productive than any other agent, possibly even less so. It would be most efficient, and be less painful, for this turn of events to occur sooner rather than later.
With bile rising in his throat, Peter dialed the number, closing his eyes in the face of it all. He was about to make the call that would change a man's life forever, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
For reference, this story is set at some point in time in the middle of Season 2. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this story; I hope that you enjoyed. If you have any comments, concerns, questions, or critique, feel free to drop a review or shoot me a PM. Thank you all again, enjoy the rest of your day!