Title: Living in the Clouds
Author: Global Conquest-er
Words: 648
Warnings: Spoilers up to Season 3, Episode 16: "Judgment Day"
Disclaimer: Not mine. White Collar belongs to Jeff Eastin and co, and I worship them. See, Mr. Eastin? I'm even bowing.
Notes: Un-betaed, so any feedback is appreciated.
It wasn't that Neal wanted to be gone, because he didn't. He loved New York, the city, its buildings, its history, its art, its people, and there was something keeping him there that wasn't the heavy tracking anklet. It was however, because despite everything that kept him there, everything that kept him wishing that he wasn't on that plane, he wanted to get out.
Oh, he'd said that after his commutation he'd keep coming back, get off the elevator on the 21st floor, go back to catching the baddies, but it would have been different. They'd have cake, the first one that El had made for him, celebrate, and then life would go back to normal, except this time, Peter would stop making jokes about sending him back to prison. He'd plan a fantastic, thoughtful and expensive, bachelorette party and then go to Diana and Christie's wedding; he'd set up a poker night with some of the guys from the office; and he'd take June to some of the black tie events that used to have been out of his radius.
None of that could have happened, though, had Kramer gotten hold of him. He knew it, Peter knew it, and he knew that Peter knew it. If there was one thing that Neal was good at, it was reading people, and reading Peter had become second nature to him. He knew, just by looking at Peter, that all of his plans had just been pulled right out from underneath him. He knew, just by looking at Peter, that he didn't have a chance. Not if he lived like the rest of them, the respectable, law-abiding way.
So he'd had to run. It wasn't a matter of wanting to go, because he didn't want to go, but it was a matter of freedom. If he'd stayed, there was no doubt that Kramer would have him shackled for the rest of his life, smother him in rules and regulations, and suffocate him with respectability. If he had to run, which wasn't an option, not anymore, he had to do it before his spirit was drained from him slowly, like sand through an hourglass.
Neal had a family he was leaving behind. He didn't kid himself on that. He just weighed the options, and leaving behind a family through force was any different than leaving behind a family through what seemed like a choice, he didn't see it. It was still leaving them. And, this way, he had something familiar. Someone familiar. Someone who had been by his side, through thick and thin, ever since they had met. Someone who, even when they were on the outs with each other, had thought about him and taken care of him. He owed a lot to Moz, and if running with him was the best chance he had of maintaining anything that he had worked so hard to put back together, it was worth it.
Staring out the window, watching the skyline of New York City with a bird's eye view, Neal said goodbye to his family, like he had said goodbye to another family, a long time ago. He said it without words, without action, leaving behind faint traces that he had been there. Then he turned away and, with a bare hint of bitterness, tucked all of that away. He turned his mind towards the good things, mainly, that he was free. Neal Caffrey, the boy who had grown up under the stifling-but-not-strong-enough weight of the Witness Protection program, was under no rules. He had left his cage, flying away towards whatever adventure came to him next. And, shucking his cares away, leaving all of his worries and fears in the clouds behind him, Neal smiled.
Back in the city, a cake decorated with the phrase "Hang in There" had never seemed more apropos to the people he left behind.