Neal Caffrey certainly didn't provide a good first impression.

Not to his new handler, Agent David Siegel, anyway. David had conscientiously arrived early on his first day at the New York White Collar office and been met by his new boss, Peter Burke. Agent Burke also seemed to have made a point of being in the office earlier than usual in order to give his new agent a tour and introduce him to the confidential informant that he was now to be in charge of.

The only hitch in the plan was that said informant did not arrive on time. At nine o'clock, when everybody else was present, Burke called a meeting to brief the staff on the high-profile arrest Agent Jones and his team had made the night before. Burke excused himself from the meeting, citing other urgent issues.

"I'm sorry, I wanted to introduce you to Caffrey first thing, but this briefing needs to be done with so we can get down to business," he said to David, apologetically. "Caffrey seems to be late – in truth, I haven't really pushed him to be punctual on normal days, since the first half hour of the workday usually is pretty lax around here anyway. He should be here by now, though. Why don't you join the others in the conference room – I'll send him in when he arrives."

"No problem, sir."

David was cordially greeted and introduced to the rest of the staff in the conference room by Agent Jones, and then took up position in the back of the room. The situation actually suited him. From what he knew about Caffrey – and even though they had yet to meet, he knew him better than most, from studying the CI's file and discussing him at length with Agent Burke – David realized he would need every advantage he could get. This was a good advantage. Caffrey knew his new handler was arriving today but he had no idea who he was or what he looked like. In the crowded room, with a number of fairly unknown agents from various other departments present, he wouldn't know whom to impress. David, while listening with one ear to the briefing (he was a good multi-tasker) would have a good chance to study his behavior and interaction with others.

In fact, he got to study him from the moment the CI walked in through the office doors. Caffrey stopped to talk to Burke, who was waiting for him there. According to what Burke had told David, their relationship was a bit tense at the moment – the consultant was naturally not happy to be given a new handler on apparently short notice, and maybe there was something else bothering him as well. But at least from this distance, nothing much seemed amiss between them. The way Caffrey looked at his boss and followed at his heels told David that the younger man still had plenty of respect for him, although in a quite relaxed manner.

Just outside the conference room they stopped, and David didn't have to be a lip-reader to guess that Caffrey was at that moment asking about him. (Burke later confirmed that he was right, and that the consultant had seemed uncharacteristically nervous about meeting his new handler.) Peter Burke didn't appear to give him much of an answer apart from a rather smug smile before he walked off to his own office.

And then Caffrey was in the conference room, slipping in surreptitiously with a mouthed "sorry" to Agent Barrigan (she wasn't the one in charge but was apparently scarier than Agent Jones). He looked around the room, raising questioning eyebrows at unfamiliar agents. David had to suppress his amusement at this, and chose to turn his back under the pretext of studying the wall screen and the file in his hands.

He didn't have to wait long before Caffrey spoke up, interrupting Agent Jones more or less mid-sentence to ask what the meeting was about. When chided for being late, he answered rather insolently and within a minute was interrupting again. This got him a well-deserved eruption of anger from Agent Barrigan (David had guessed right about her being the scary one). All in all, he seemed childish but not without a certain charm – his behavior that of a twelve-year-old with attention deficit disorder.

From what David had heard and read about Caffrey, this could be part of his normal, annoying but good-hearted attempts to liven things up. Or it might be a test of his new, unknown handler's reaction.

David smiled to himself and turned his focus on the case. This was what he and his charge were going to be working as their first case together, and he needed to be well informed about the details.

An interesting case, certainly. The question was how to bring in as many as the criminally involved as possible. When Caffrey interrupted again – this time, typically, by raising his hand like an impatient schoolboy with a fantastic idea – David sympathized entirely with Jones' barely contained fury. But when the CI started to present this idea, even though he wasn't allowed to finish, Agent David Siegel suddenly understood. It was a fantastic idea. And Neal Caffrey was much more than an annoyingly childish criminal.

"We can't concede the sale of illegal goods even in the short term." Barrigan and Jones, fed up with the interruptions, tried to squash the idea without even hearing the consultant out. David decided it was time to step in.

"We don't necessarily have to concede anything."

"Really?" Jones said. "We're all ears."

David had everybody's attention now, but he was mostly interested in the pair of bright blue eyes suddenly staring at him from the middle of the room. He waited a second, to make sure he had their full attention, before meeting that curious stare.

"Do you want to explain?" David wasn't going to claim somebody else's idea as his own, not even a criminal consultant's. He also wanted to see Caffrey's reaction to being confronted like this.

"No, please." Caffrey was either being polite, or suddenly more interested in the new agent than in explaining his suggestion. David suspected the latter.

The idea was outlined and received a tentative approval by the lead agents, who went straight into a discussion on the details. Caffrey, however, had definitely refocused his interest on something else.

"Thanks for the assist."

David nodded shortly. He wasn't going to reveal anything to his new consultant just yet, but it was obvious that that quick, mercurial mind had already figured out who he was. A guarded look came over Caffrey's face. He muttered something, not quite loud enough to be heard. An insult? David thought it best to call him on it straight away. Give him an inch and he would most certainly take a mile, forge it and sell both originals and copies.

He stepped into Caffrey's personal space with a politely questioning look. The CI tried to deflect, realized he couldn't, backed down and broke into a bright, fake smile.

"Oh, doesn't matter. Neal Caffrey," he introduced himself and offered his hand. "You must be my new handler."

David almost managed to suppress his smile this time and rearranged his face to something between neutral and stern. He already knew this task, keeping Neal Caffrey on track, was going to be the biggest challenge in his career so far. In fact, it would most likely either break it or make it.

He needed every advantage he could get. He needed Caffrey to keep this look in his blue eyes, the one he was trying rather unsuccessfully to hide – unsure, a bit confused, almost nervous. He needed Caffrey off balance.

He shook the consultant's hand with a firm grip.

"Must be."