Flux
The sun rises. The sun sets. Peter Burke likes consistency. That's why he likes Neal Caffrey. It's the conman's patterns that finally do him in. They're complicated, artistic webs of deceit, but Peter finally figures them out.
That's what doesn't jive the second time. It's not like Neal to escape three months before his sentence ends, and Neal Caffrey is nothing if not utterly and completely consistent. That's what leads Peter to a garage and a pillar and a young man who looks like he's just lived through the end of the world.
Peter is surprised at the feelings that fill him. He's never seen Neal Caffrey in flux. The day of his arrest, he was quietly confident. In court and during interrogations, he never lost his soft defiance. Peter has come to respect his cordial unwillingness to break, but that is all gone, and the agent feels a surge of something that's a little like pity and a lot more like compassion for a friend than he would have expected.
For long weeks after, Peter mulls over Neal's offer. His final acceptance has nothing whatsoever to do with what Caffrey can do for the bureau, even though he can list about a hundred reasons in defense of the idea. No, when he finally puts his paperwork away and relaxes on the sofa with El in his arms, it's the memory of the look on Neal Caffrey's lost-boy face that seals the deal.