Triggers: death, fire, death by fire
Word Count: 100-1000
Summary: Sometimes it's the little horrors that get to you the worst.
Disclaimer: White Collar and its characters are the property of Jeff Eastin and the USA Network. I intend no copyright infringement.
Ashes
Kate was The One.
Neal had said so many times, to Mozzie, to Peter, to June, and to himself.
The Neal Caffrey whom Peter found discarded on the dusty floor of Kate's apartment stared at the wine bottle as if it personified the loss of his soul's eternal hope. His eyes were reddened, bloodshot, and so full of pain that Peter found he really needed to look somewhere else. Neal's face was drawn, and the agent guessed that he had had nothing to eat or drink since he walked out of prison wearing a mail-order uniform and an expression of wired determination.
If this Neal was certain of anything in his random life, it was that there would never be another love for him. They had promised, he and Kate, drunk on larceny and love: they would be each other's all, then and forever. He promised her. She promised him—his Kate, the good, the true.
The Kate who willingly said goodbye to him on the other side of the visiting-room Plexiglas, the Kate who threw him aside—that Kate did not exist. It was unthinkable that she could abandon him of her own volition, leaving him nothing but her "Adios" to build upon. Someone was forcing her, controlling her actions against her will. That was the way it was. Did not the sun rise in the east?
Neal had to save her. That was obvious.
Kate hadn't left, she'd been taken. Someone was holding her by force. He knew that; he hadn't needed the picture Mozzie brought him to prove it. She needed him to save her. She was so beautiful, so vital to him. Of course he would save her. Did not the sun set in the west?
The first time Peter had tried to convince Neal that Kate had the soul of a liar and that she had never loved him, Neal had thrown him a lost look and used his long, Devore-clad legs to get himself out of June's house and away just as fast as he could.
The second time Neal had balled his perfectly-formed hands into fists and leaned, pale and shaking with fury, into Peter's face. Peter was sure Neal had no idea how much damage he would do to his hands if he hit someone in the face bare-fisted, and Peter liked the fact that those hands were not lumpy and scarred like his own, that they were able to create innumerable kinds of beauty with exactness and speed, able to purloin the skills of long-dead artists for a week or an afternoon. Peter had backed off.
After that, innumerable times, he presented the dutiful argument and Neal answered him or did not, and life went on.
Then there they were after all these weeks, there Neal was in the misting snow, and there Kate was on the plane, and they could have each other somewhere far away from plots and intrigues and secrets and betrayals, and the law couldn't touch them for going.
Later Neal would tell himself again that all he had ever wanted was Kate and that he would never be happy without her. Later on he would tell himself that he had changed his mind there on the tarmac, that leaving Peter and El and Mozzie and the first stable life he had ever had was just too much to pay for a ticket to run again with Kate Moreau, that he had changed his mind, and lovely Kate could go or not, but Neal Caffrey would stay.
Peter knew the detectives who showed up with the first fire trucks and ambulances. They let him take Neal to a hospital in his car. All the way Neal sat doubled over, gasping for breath in his sobs, which had grown no less deep, no more automatic.
Peter, his mind tumultuous, trod back and forth in the emergency waiting room, drawing the glare of an old woman in a frayed green cap. This would kill Neal. Neal was better off. Fowler had done it. El and Moz, where could they be? Fowler's boss had done it. It had been a freak accident. A bomb. A gas leak. God, dear God above, this would kill Neal.
Peter brushed at his arm in frustration and couldn't understand at first what was happening when a small powdery cloud rose from his sleeve. Then he stared at it, horrified. Those were ashes. Some of them were Kate's. They had to be.
He removed the coat, taking care not to shake it, folded it inside out, and laid it in a chair next to the old woman. Hours later, when El pointed to it on their way out, he shook his head and left it there.