A/N: This is the same story I published a long time ago, but I've been revamping my old stories lately and I've made some changes. So, the tense has changed and some of the wording, but other wise it's the same story.
Disclaimer: White Collar and its characters are not mine, but the poem is.
Death came knocking one morning in November,
But no one heard
Her shouts and her screams,
As she pounded at the door,
Giving warning,
Reaching out with her gray fingers
To beckon her claim:
"Come near."
He should have asked.
Just once.
He should have asked, and maybe then it wouldn't have happened.
"He's asking for me?"
Peter nods, "Yep, he only wants to talk to the great Neal Caffrey." Glancing at his partner's smirk, he adds, "His words not mine."
Neal chuckles as they turn the corner on the wharf and head for the pier to the warehouse where old bills retired from the circuit are stored. He may be laughing at his partner's discomfort, but he knows the situation is anything but funny.
A man turning desperate with a gun in his hand is never funny.
The first time he wasn't there.
He didn't know Neal's plan, and he was so excited that they'd finally caught the Dutchman that he didn't care that Neal was locked in the office with half a dozen guns aimed at him.
Because he'd gotten his man and that was all that mattered.
So he didn't ask; he just sat beside Neal on the desk and took the cigar.
It was their first case together and far from their last.
It was the first time he bit his tongue and didn't ask, but it wouldn't be the last.
Al Turner, a long time accountant for a firm in the city, was laid off without warning and without severance pay. He turned to crime and foolishly tried to steal the money the government housed on the wharf.
But he'd become desperate and tripped the silent alarm. When the police started showing up, he locked himself in the warehouse with an innocent bystander as a hostage, a twelve year old girl visiting her father on his lunch break.
And now Al only wanted to talk with Neal.
Peachy.
"Who's in charge?" Peter demands as he gets out of the car.
"Here," a man calls, "Special Agent Howe. You must be Burke."
"Special Agent," Peter says and hooks a thumb over his shoulder, "that's Neal Caffrey."
Howe nods and turns to Neal, "He's asking for you."
The second time was hardly his fault.
How was he supposed to know Neal would run off half-cocked? Besides, he'd been a little busy trying to get the explosive belt off of Tara's waist. He'd had other problems on his plate, and Neal was a big boy; he could take care of himself.
But it was different than the first time. Something wriggled in the back of his mind as Neal ran across the courtyard. Something close to worry.
But he just shrugged it off, pushed it away when Neal came jogging back, that cocky smile plastered on his face. And when Neal mentioned nearly being shot for the second time, he didn't pay much attention. Maybe because of Neal's flippant attitude.
Or maybe because he just didn't want to ask.
"No."
"Peter-"
"No, Neal. No way. You are not going in there, alone, unarmed, and without a vest."
Neal rolls his eyes at Howe, "He never lets me do anything. I'm lucky he lets me out of the house."
Howe shakes his head and looks at Peter, "It's the only way, Agent Burke."
Peter grinds his teeth, "No. This guy is unstable. Anything could set him off. What if Neal says something wrong and the guy shoots them all?"
"I never say any thing wrong," Neal says, "I'm going in."
"It's not your call."
"It's my life."
"I own your life."
"No, technically, the FBI owns my life," Neal looks at Howe, "and he's part of said FBI."
Howe smiles, chuckling dryly though there is no humor in this situation, "You're going in."
Death came knocking that autumn day,
But their lives were too busy
To be bothered, to be disturbed,
And no one answered the door
To curse her away,
To fend her off as her scythe dropped down
On her claim:
"Die here."
The third time scared him to death.
Though he wasn't about to admit that to anyone.
Especially Neal.
He remembered hearing the shot, the way it echoed forever and ever. He remembered jumping out of the truck, aiming his gun, and shouting at the blasted woman. But mostly he remembered catching sight of Neal, lying unmoving on the ground, and the jolt that struck like lightning through his heart.
But even though he was scared out of his mind, he didn't ask because Neal was fine and talking, no holes or blood to speak of.
So he didn't say anything.
Again.
It seems like forever, but in reality it's only three minutes.
Three freaking minutes.
The police arrived on scene an hour ago, the FBI not long after. They'd argued and bribed and pressured Al Turner to let the girl go for sixty minutes.
Neal convinces him to do it in three.
She comes running out, her cheeks red and swollen, her pig tails flinging side to side as she runs and stumbles towards the line of cars. He hears her terrified screams for her mom, hears the heart wrenching sobs that will echo with him for several months, and then she is engulfed by SWAT members and whisked away.
No one follows her.
Neal doesn't appear, grinning at his victory with Turner in tow.
One minute passes.
Five minutes.
Seven.
And then the crack of a gun fills the air.
"Shots fired! Shots fired!"
"Burke, wait! Turner's still at large!"
But Peter doesn't wait. He won't. Neal is in there, alone, unarmed and without a vest.
Peter runs for the warehouse and just as he tosses open the door, the sniper on the roof across the way takes his shot. He hears the all clear on the radio clipped to his belt and runs faster.
But he's already too late.
The fourth time he didn't worry because Lauren was with Neal, and so he chose to chase after the bad guy instead. But it was okay because everything turned out fine in the end.
Until he listened to the play back in the van. He couldn't believe Lauren would gamble with Neal's life like that, and nearly had her in tears from the lecture he'd given her.
After it was all said and done, he could hear the disappointment in Neal's voice, the hurt that was laced through his words.
But did he ask?
Of course not.
He sees Turner first and knows it's one of those scenes he will dream about for years. His head is blown apart. The left side, from his cheek bone to his nose to the forehead to the ear, is missing. Blood and brain and bits of bone are splattered across the floor.
Peter gags, turns away, and then he sees Neal.
Peter knows it's bad before he kneels beside him. He knows it before he feels for the thin pulse and closes his hands over the gaping wound on Neal's left side just beside his heart. He knows because of the puddle of blood spreading out from underneath him.
Neal's eyes are half closed and his breath comes in short gasps. Peter lifts him, hoping the elevation will help him breathe. If only for a few more moments.
Words fail him. He knows they will be meaningless. The shot is so close to his heart; the damage has already been done. He knows it, but he can't admit it.
Neal gasps and reaches out, latching onto his wrist. His glazed eyes focus for one moment and lock with Peter's, the look speaking volumes, but Neal seems to want to say more. He opens his mouth and Peter sees the blood tinted teeth, sees the black crimson bubble over his tongue, filling the back of his throat, sees it trail down past his lips and his chin, and knows there is no coming back from this.
Neal chokes on his own blood, gags and fights the pain and blood and breathlessness to utter one word.
"P-P'tr."
The word steals his breath. His last breath. His body goes limp, his head falling back and exposing his silent throat. His hand falls away from Peter's wrist and onto the blood stained concrete, palm upturned.
Death came knocking and he heard.
He opened the door,
Answered the call,
And invited Death to his parlor:
"Lie here."
The fifth time, he was blinded by his own anger. He was angry that they'd been made and that the freaking jerk had gotten away.
He didn't know Neal had looked down the barrel of a gun again. He didn't know it was pressed to the side of his head, one squeeze away from blowing his brains to Kingdom come.
He didn't know.
He swears he didn't.
But he should have asked.
Because weren't they partners now? True, they didn't trust each other completely, but they had each other's backs. When it came to the big stuff, he knew he could count on Neal.
Because hadn't Neal shown him his true colors? With Tara, the way he'd risked his life to save hers. Or with June, how he connected with the older woman and cared for her. With that stupid Bible and how he'd risked Borelli's wrath so some homeless man he didn't know could keep his dog. Neal had shown over and over again what sort of man he was.
But he'd ignored it. Because Neal was a con man and like leopards, he couldn't change his spots. Because he was an agent, the good guy, the one with all of the answers and the law on his side. And because he didn't want to see.
He didn't want to ask.
Howe pulls him away.
Peter sits on the floor, staring at Neal's ashen face as his blood drains out of him. SWAT tries prying him off. The medics and medical examiners do their best, but they all fail. Howe, who has known him all of ten minutes, is the one to finally get through to him.
"Let him go, Burke," he says, kneeling next to the man, his hand gentle on his shoulder, "It's time to say goodbye."
He won't cry for three days.
Not in the hospital corridor when Elizabeth comes in a torrent of tears and clings to him, not when she nearly passes out from the blood covering his suit, the blood staining his hands. Not when Jones claps him solemnly on the shoulder, or when Lauren comes to him, fighting back tears.
Not when the priest gives the final words to offer peace and solace and comfort to the huddled masses in Borelli's church. Not when they carry the polished coffin to the hearse, then to the grave to lay flowers of a dozen varieties in the black hole; he will watch as it is lowered into the cold ground, dry eyed and somber.
Not at the wake, when people filter in and out of his house, muttering their apologies, never daring to look him in the eyes. Not when June, stoic and vulnerable all at once, comes to him the following day and places the hat in his hands. Not when he finds the wine bottle on his front porch in the morning.
But on the third day, after the funeral and the papers and the wake, he will be sitting on the couch, exhausted and weary, asking to go back to work, to have some sort of semblance of normal return to his life. As he reads the morning paper, he will reach for his coffee and freeze when he recognizes the mug.
"Paul is the cup, Steve is the coffee cup, and Maria is the mug."
"Make Maria the salt shaker."
"Maria is the mug, Peter."
The memory, so simple, so insignificant will hit him hard and sudden. And then he will cry. Silently, at first, the tears slipping down his face like hot beads of glass, but then the the sobs will over take him and he will be left shaking and weak.
That will be how Elizabeth finds him, reaching out for something he can't touch and crying at its loss. She will curl up next to him on the couch and pull him close, and together they will cry for Neal and mourn his death, but Elizabeth won't know how badly he hurts, how much he blames himself.
Because it's too late to tell Neal that he does trust him, that he's glad to have him as a partner. For however short it lasted.
It's too late to say he's proud of the decisions Neal made to protect all of those people, to save all of those lives, to put all of those criminals away, and of the person Neal had become.
And it's far too late to ask Neal if he's alright after he'd stared down the gun and faced his own mortality for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth time.
It's too late for Peter to say goodbye.
Death came knocking and they heard her echo,
But they were too late.
And Death took her claim
To his final resting place:
"Cry here."
A/N:The italicized instances are within the first five episodes, I believe. I wrote this early on after the show had just started, and it's still one of my favorite pieces. I hope you enjoyed it, whether if it's the first or second time you've read it. Feel free to review! :)