Windstar: This is just a cute little fic that popped in my head when I was going to sleep last night. Hope you all enjoy! Some parts of this are also seen in my other story Casper Breathes. Other then that there is no relation, you don't need to read it to understand this - in fact, reading it or not reading it gives no further insight on this story.

Disclaimer: I do not own white collar, its characters, or its affiliates.

The Warning

Neal was late. It was unusual for him, but she supposed that there had to be a good reason. She could almost imagine what the excuse was this time. A really important case, a new under cover job, there were countless things that he was sure to come up with. Still, it was bothersome all the same.

She felt awkward as she waited in the kindly woman's living room, waiting for him to come. She glanced towards the clock that was ticking with an admirable amount of determination considering how old it was. It a rather fashionable looking clock. She valued its worth to be several thousand dollars, and even she had to admit that it wouldn't be a terrible piece for someone to try to steal.

"Alex, dear, he's still not back yet?" June was standing in the doorway, looking at her with knowing glance that made her face heat slightly from embarrassment.

"Not yet." She replied awkwardly.

"Would you like a glass of wine while you wait?"

"Sure, that sounds great." She nodded to the woman and made to stand up from where she'd been sitting, but the woman steadied her with a raised hand.

"I have a glass just over here. I take it you, like Mr. Haversham and dear Neal prefer red?" She smiled at the insight, touched that her preference was being taken into account.

"Yes, ma'am." She nodded, and June laughed in an almost brilliant show of delight. She moved back towards her houseguest and passed the crystal towards her.

"I hope that you don't find me to be too forward in saying this, but would you mind if I asked you a personal question of sorts?" Alex frowned slightly, not sure if she was willing to allow such a question to be asked. Still, she knew that worst comes to worst she could always lie or misdirect if she had to. She motioned for her to give the go ahead, and June smiled once more. "You care, certainly, for Neal do you not?" She frowned slightly.

"Yes, of course." She said, not quite sure just what the woman was getting at. If that was the extent of her questions, then she was perfectly at ease. She had nothing to fear from that answer. Neal knew full well how much she cared for him.

"Neal is a good person." June said quietly, and Alex sipped at her wine – rather uncomfortable with how this conversation was going. "But he is also a felon."

"June-"

"He's a felon who has a heart of gold, and he would never do anything to harm you, but he is a felon." Thoroughly uncomfortable with how this conversation was going, Alex glanced at the clock once more. She desperately wished that Neal would just arrive so that they could leave and not have to worry about this any longer. "I understand that you are as well." At that, she glanced towards the elderly woman warily. "That's fine too, and please don't think that I mind about anything as silly as titles when it comes to two. What I do worry about is if you understand what it means to care for a felon…and as we are talking about Neal here…what it means to care for a felon who's decided to work for the FBI."

"June-"

"Byron was a felon." That was news to Alex, and she frowned at the thought.

"Your late husband?"

"Yes. He was wonderful in so many ways, and I don't believe that there is another man out there that I could possibly love as much as him. Unlike so many people, I did not consider his potential. I simply saw him for exactly as he was, and I loved him because of who he was." June took a long taste of wine and her face was overcome with a misty expression. She was deep in memories, and Alex found herself going with the woman. She tried to envision the man, and she glanced over to the portrait that was present on the far wall. He looked almost like Morgan Freeman. "He was such a wonderful person, kind and caring. I knew what he did and it didn't matter because I saw exactly the man that he was. There was no potential to be seen, just pure and simple Byron."

"I'm not sure I really understand what you're getting at, ma'am." Alex said slowly, trying to see the point in this conversation.

"There were times," June continued. "That I would wait up through all hours of the night, waiting and hoping that Byron would come home. The children would already be in bed, and I would just pace the halls of this empty house, and wait for him. When he turned state's evidence, it was even worse. Every day we would fear for his life…I would fear for his life." Alex fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, a swift wave of uncomfortability overcoming her.

June stood up, graceful as always, and she walked briskly and without pause towards a desk that sat under Byron's painting. She withdrew a photograph from the inside, and it was aged. It appeared to have collected dust over the years, and Alex tilted her head slightly as she tried to guess what the picture was of.

When June returned, she passed the photograph to her, and Alex's hands took it up. Her eyes widened as she looked at it though, because despite the drastic age difference – she recognized the little boy that was laughing and swinging carelessly off one of the arms of the clearly understood man known as Byron.

Neal Caffrey, age….twelve? He was smiling happily and it was a look that could charm anyone and anything. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. He always had been, and there was no denying it. He just had a glow about him.

"It was taken the day after his cast came off…he broke his arm in a fight in the park. We found him, Byron and I." Alex looked up, not understanding at all. "That was before Byron turned state's evidence and worked to help catch criminals. I'll admit freely, that unlike you and our dear friend, Byron was not the White Collar kind. He was a violent man, but he had a heart of gold. We took care of him for a little while – not very long mind you, but for a small while. He had no where else to go you see. Back then, his name was Jaimie."

"You knew Neal when he was a kid?" Alex asked, stupefied at the thought.

"You didn't really think I'd let some unknown man into this house with nothing more then a smile and the charisma of a natural flirt did you?" June laughed beautifully, and Alex found herself smiling right along with her. She had actually considered the thought more then once. "Oh, Jaimie was our little one. All the children had grown up and left and the house was so quiet without them. After we found him in the park it seemed only natural to have him be apart of the family."

"What happened?" She leaned forward, truly interested in how the story played out. She only knew the ending; she never knew the beginning.

"There was a break in one night, about six months or so after he moved in. A man with a gun shot both Byron and I. When we woke up in the hospital, Jaimie was gone. For the longest time we thought that he had been taken. We looked endlessly for him, but we never found him again." A melancholy expression crossed June's face, and then she looked at Alex sadly. "That is, until six years ago."

"Six years?" That put the time at just before Neal went to prison.

"Byron was working a job, undercover for the FBI – much like Neal does now I suppose. Bond forgery…" Alex felt her heart skip a beat.

"He turned Neal in?" She asked slowly, but June shook her head.

"No, he didn't. He never reported that that particular deal was happening that night. He never told the FBI when the drop was going to take place."

"So what happened?" June looked at the photo of the carefree twelve year old she'd known long ago, and her dear husband.

"The mob came to collect on an old debt. They knew Byron had turned state's evidence, and they wanted revenge. They went down to the warehouse, and they killed everyone they could. Neal told me later, that Peter had been following him for some time now, and that he just happened to be there to stop the firefight. It was too late though, Byron had been killed." Her voice cracked, and she looked down to collect herself. Alex felt her heart going out to the poor woman. She hardly found any of this fair. "Neal was given four years…and it just so happened that he found his way into that thrift store the same day that I maintained the courage to finally give away Byron's old things."

"Why are you telling me all of this, June?" Alex asked slowly, her heart pounding in her chest. The elderly woman looked up at her with a knowing glance though, and Alex felt her breath leave her.

"Because you love a felon, a felon who has decided, voluntarily or not, to work for the FBI. That comes with risks. That comes with heartaches and pain. That comes with nights like tonight, where you worry if they're going to come home. That comes with the hope that everything's going to work out okay." June reached over and touched Alex's hand. "Because I know how you feel, and I know what a dangerous road it is to cross. Because whenever Neal is late in coming back, I worry too that someone else that I love is going to disappear and instead I'll have an apologetic officer of the law coming to tell me that I have to arrange a funeral service for a member of my family. Because, I want you to understand what it means to love a felon…and more importantly…what it means to love a felon who is working on the other side."

Tears filled Alex's eyes, and she glanced down at the photo again. Byron was dead, Neal had been put in jail, and now he was working for the FBI just like his foster father before him. A sudden feeling of pain coursed through her body, as she tried to imagine what it would be like to learn of Neal's death.

She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to hear that news. Tears slipped faster down her cheeks, and suddenly for reasons unknown – she was sobbing uncontrollably and June was holding her head to her chest. She had never broken down in front of a stranger before, and despite the fact that she had spoken to June a few times in the past – that still was exactly what she was.

She'd never experienced this complete lack of poise. She had never been so off kilter. Still though, the thoughts kept rolling around in her head; he thoughts of Neal dying, the thoughts of having to arrange his funeral, the thoughts of everything falling apart after they finally worked so hard to put it together, with that there was just complete and utter pain. She wept long and hard, and she missed the sound of the front door opening.

June turned her head though, and saw a completely stunned Neal standing there with his eyes wide and his expression one of complete surprise. Peter was just behind him, but that didn't seem to matter. The young conartist moved forward faster then June had ever seen him move, and he crouched before Alex with a worried look dancing on his features.

He put a hand on her shoulder and tried to turn her to look at him. June slowly slipped away from the younger woman who was weeping so openly, and Alex's brown eyes finally looked up to see Neal's concerned blues. "Hey, what's wrong? Are you alright?" He asked gently, and suddenly her arms were around his neck and she was sobbing even harder. He glanced to June for some clarity, but she said nothing. She simply slipped out of the room and told Peter that everything was fine.

"Is she alright?" He asked, though it was clear he was uncomfortable with a woman crying – he still felt it his duty to ask.

"She'll be fine. We were just having a talk about the past. There's a decision she needs to make and it isn't an easy one I'm afraid." Peter shifted slightly.

"She's not pregnant, is she?" He asked, looking back at the two who were now sitting on the floor. Alex was clinging to Neal as if he were her only life line, and he just ran circles on her back whispering sweetly in her ear. He must have said something funny, because she suddenly broke from a sob into a laugh, and she pulled back to look at him.

"No, she's not pregnant. There isn't anything more that you can do here Peter, this is something between them." It was as much of a shove out the door as June's manners would allow her to give, and he understood it. He said a soft goodbye and left without another word.

June locked the doors behind him, looked back towards the young couple, and wished them all the luck in the world. She knew from experience how hard it was to love a felon…but she also knew from experience just how wonderful those years had been. She had never had a more grand time then when she was with Byron. She knew that she would have rather had the pain and the suffering after his death, then to have never loved him at all. She also knew, from looking at the couple where they sat, that Alex would make the same decision.

It would hurt, and it would feel as though fire was burning away at her for the rest of her life, but June knew that they were the same. Alex and Neal would tempt fate, and they'd see how far they could go. It was just their nature, but at least Alex knew exactly what she was getting in to; and that was something that June had never had the chance to have.