AN: this is my first story so please be kind!

I would like to give a huge thank you to XXAlmostInsaneXX for beta-ing my story to help make a lot better!

Also I would love feedback. Thank you for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar, I'm just borrowing them.

It was eleven pm on a Friday and Neal just turned in for the night. He had had a long week at the office and just wanted to sleep.

He was just about to fall asleep when he heard knocking – no, pounding on the door, and if he could hear it from his room, then it was really loud.

June was at her granddaughter's house for the weekend and the staff was off as well, so he knew the non stop-pounding on the front door would go unanswered if he didn't get up and see who it was. He was just about to get up and answer it but it suddenly stopped, so he thought they just left.

Then out of nowhere there was a huge bang and he bolted upright in his bed. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs to his apartment, a lot of them – and wow, these people were loud. He got out of bed and thought about running for a second then he thought, 'why would anyone bother knocking on the door if they wanted to kill or kidnap me? Maybe they were cops?'

That thought made him want to run even more, but hadn't done anything wrong… at least not recently – nothing that they could prove anyway. So he decided to stand his ground, in nothing but his maroon pyjama bottoms. Neal suddenly felt vulnerable.

Neal walked over by the door, far enough away to not get hit by the door if they knocked it down. And then, just like he thought, the door was busted down and five SWAT team members came rushing in. "NYPD! Hands in the air! Don't move!" they seemed to yell all at once.

Neal had his hands in the air before they Finished there first sentence – he had done this before, once or maybe twice. There was five very large guns pointed at him and he knew to listen to the people that were holding them.

A sixth man walked through the door, or where the door should have been. He was wearing a cheap suit and Neal knew he was in charged by the way he looked and walked - there was just an air about him that seemed to say that he got his way. He addressed Neal, "Neal Caffrey?"

"Yes?" Neal replied hesitantly.

"My name is Detective Brooks, you're under arrest," he said. He looked angry.

"What? On what charges?" Neal said.

"For the murder of Officer Frank Downs," Brooks said, like Neal should have known. He got out his handcuffs and started walking towards Neal.

"Murder!? I didn't kill anyone!" Neal cried, confused. He would never kill anyone. Steal priceless paintings? Yeah – that might be something he could get arrested for, if anything. But murder? Never.

"Yeah, that's what they all say." And wasn't that the most cliché thing the police officer could have said.

"Wait! Can I at least put a shirt on?" Neal asked. He would get this figured out at the station, but right now he wanted a shirt.

"You gave up that right when you killed one of our own!" Brooks growled and punched Neal in the stomach. Neal fell to his knees and coughed, trying to get his breath back and control the pain. Then Brooks grabbed Neal's hair and pulled so he was looking at him. "We take it personally when someone kills one of our own," he hissed at him.

"I-I can see that, but I'm afraid you have the wrong guy. I didn't-" Neal tried to explain but was cut off by a blow to the face. Brooks let him go and he fell backwards onto his back. Then he was kicked in the side. Neal couldn't help the whimper that escaped and he curled around himself. One more kick in the stomach knocked all the breath out of him and a kick in the back was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

"You little bastard! You're not worth the air you breathe!" the detective yelled.

He then turned Neal so he was facing the floor and pulled his hands behind his back, cuffing his wrists and tightened them till they dug into his skin. Neal sucked in a sharp breath.

Since the last time Neal talked he was attacked, he chose not to comment or plead his case anymore. He had a feeling they wouldn't listen.

Neal has had his fair share of arrests, but he was never attacked like this. 'I think this is police brutality,' Neal thought as he was dragged to his feet and pushed out of the door and taken to the waiting police cruiser. Brooks slammed Neal's head against the car while leading him in.

"Oops," he said. Neal didn't think he meant it.

Neal was dazed for a few moments, swallowing a few times to help the sudden nausea. He heard the door close and the two front ones open and close, then they were off to the station, where he hoped more reasonable cops were.

Most of the ride Neal was laying on his side trying not to think of the pain and the danger he was in and trying to come up with a plan. 'I can't go to jail for something I didn't do, right?' Neal thought.

In the end, his worst plan was to pick the cuffs and jump out of the car – not very fun and very painful, especially given his state – and his best was to ask, very nicely, for a phone call, to call Peter and ask him, also very nicely, to get his butt out of jail, please. Yeah, that sounded more like a plan.

After many sharp turns - either this guy doesn't know how to drive or he was doing it on purpose- they made it to... somewhere. Neal wasn't sure, he was still lying on his side.

The cars engine turned off and the two officers got out. Neal was struggling to sit up, but the pain in his ribs didn't help and neither did the nausea or handcuffs. The 'boys in blue' opened the back door and 'helped' Neal out, none too gently. Still in just pyjama bottoms, Neal really felt the cold November wind bite his skin.

The lovely gentlemen who helped him out of the car shoved him into the back door of the station. 'The back door? Why the back door? And why did no one read me my rights?' Neal thought. They proceeded to haul Neal to a small room in the basement. It was not big, maybe ten feet by ten feet. It had a metal table and two metal chairs, but it did not look like a normal interrogation room. This did not look good.

The two nice escorts sat him in the chair at the table that was facing the door, secured the handcuffs to the chair, and started to leave, but Neal stopped them. "Can I get my phone call now?" The bigger, and scarier looking one, did not like that Neal had spoken, so he punched him in the face. Neal's head snapped to the side and he saw stars for a second.

"No," Mr. Big and scary said, and left.

So that left Neal alone and confused. 'Why do they think I killed someone? Why am I not in a real interrogation room? And why do they have to hit me every time I talked?'

He had a lot of questions, and no answers.

In the quiet room Neal heard a faint beeping sound, and he look around. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from him – no, from his anklet. The anklet! He was out of range. Why had he not thought of that before? He must have hit his head harder than he thought. Peter should be here any minute now. All Neal had to do was wait.

Neal did wait, and then waited some more. He didn't know how much time went by, but Peter should have been there by then, right?

The room was cold - colder than it had seemed to be a few minutes ago. His head really hurt, and his abdomen, and his wrists. He was not having a good day.

After what seemed like forever, the door opened only for Brooks to walk in again. Great.

He came up to the table and pulled out the other chair, it dragged along the floor and Neal winced, the harsh sound like daggers to his head.

He sat down and opened up the file he had brought with him. He took out some pictures and put them in front of Neal.

They were of a dead body, a bullet hole in his head and blood going down the side of his face. It looked like it was done execution style. They made Neal's stomach roll and he swallowed convulsively and looked away.

Brooks was just starting at him with dead eyes. It really creeped Neal out.

Then Neal did something he regretted. He opened his mouth.

"I didn't kill him. I didn't kill anyone."

"Bullshit!" Brooks said, and Neal could feel the spit on his face. "We have your fingerprints on the murder weapon and at the crime scene."

Damn. That's not good. "I didn't kill him. I don't even know who he is!"

And Neal guessed that was the wrong thing to say, because Brooks grabbed Neal's hair – again – and made him look at the pictures. Neal tried to pull away, but Brooks was too strong and Neal couldn't use his hands. Another glance at the pictures sent Neal over the edge, that and the pounding in his head. He threw up, but not before Brooks moved Neal so he threw up on the floor. Man, he wished he could have thrown up on Brooks.

Brooks was cursing and yelling as Neal emptied his stomach. He went to the door and open it up. "Dammit! Riggs, get in here and clean this up!" Brooks said, then left.

Neal had stopped puking and was just breathing through his mouth so he didn't have to smell the mess. Someone opened the door and came in. He was dressed in a police officer uniform and looked like he was just out of the academy. He was holding a bucket and a rag. He refused to look at Neal and went to work on the mess.

Neal thought that maybe he could reason with him. "Hey, do you think you could get me a shirt or something? Maybe turn up the heat? It's kind of cold in here."

Riggs just looked up at him for a second, then finished cleaning up the mess. He was just about to get up when he heard the beeping of the anklet. He looked surprised that it was there. "What is this?" Riggs asked.

"It's a tracking anklet." Duh.

Riggs got up, picked up the bucket and left. He was probably planning on telling on him.

About five minutes later, give or take, the door opened and Brooks came in again. He sat at the table and asked, "Why do you have a tracking anklet?" in an even voice.

Neal knew he shouldn't have, but he did. "It's a fashion accessory of course. It's all the rage right now," he said, with a big smile on his face that he did not feel. Not a good idea.

Brooks came around to Neal faster than he thought he could and slammed his face on the table, hard. The pain in Neal's head doubled, the movement pulling at the handcuffs, and they dug into his wrists. Neal hung his head and tried to control his pain, anger and nausea. He was getting really sick of dumb cops beating him up.

He saw blood dripping onto the pictures on the table. His nose is bleeding. Great. His vision was wavering so he closed his eyes to combat the returning nausea.

"You're a little smartass, aren't you?"

'Smarter than you.' The retort was on the tip of Neal's tongue, but he did not want to get 'punished' again. 'I guess he forgot about his first question,' Neal thought.

Neal opened his eyes and saw the damage that was done to his chest and stomach. The left side of his stomach was red and turning purple-ish, so was his chest. He did not want to see what his back, wrists and face looked like.

"So now you're not talking to me?" Brooks sneered. "Got nothing to say now, smart mouth?"

Neal was confused, was his ass smart or was it his mouth? Or both? He did not think Brooks would understand the humor in that, so he instead said, "Can I just call someone, please? He will sort this all out."

Apparently Brooks did not care if Neal said please or not. Still looming over Neal, Brooks punched him in the chest, then again. Neal could have sworn that he felt something snap. He doubled over as much as he could with the restraints, and coughed. "You don't get it, do you? You will not get a phone call, you will not get a shirt, and you will only get to talk if you are confessing to the murder you committed," Brooks snarled.

Neal thought he would try one more time, so he looked Brooks straight in the eyes and said, "I did not kill anyone," slow enough that maybe he would understand. Judging by the fist that hit Neal in the face, he did not.

"When you're ready to confess, let me know," Brooks said. Then he walked to the door and Neal caught a glimpse of his watch, 1:38. Peter had to have been here by now if he had been informed that Neal was out of range. Right? Maybe he was here, but they weren't letting him see Neal.

After a few minutes of thinking, Neal got bored. And with nothing to distract him, his thoughts went to his injures. His head, chest, stomach, wrists, and back all seem to throb with every heartbeat. And the more he thought of them the more they hurt. At least his nose had stopped bleeding.

Trying to stop thinking about the pain, he let his mind drift, and after a while he passed out, thinking, 'Peter, please find me.'

WCWCWCWC

Peter arrived at June's mansion at 9:26 am. Since Neal had worked so hard all week, Peter thought that he deserved a reward. So today Peter was going to take him to the MET. And since June was gone for the weekend he thought Neal might be a little lonely in that big house all alone.

He got out of his Taurus and made his way to the front door. Once he was a few feet from the door, he saw that it was slightly ajar. His hand automatically going to his gun, Peter approached the entrance.

He saw that the lock was broken. He drew his weapon and quietly pushed the door open. He went through each room systematically, even though he wanted to run up the stairs to Neal's room and just make sure he was okay. But the FBI agent in him knew that he couldn't.

So after the first two floors, Peter made it up to Neal's room. He saw the door on the floor and walked over it and into the apartment. "Neal?" Peter called out. There was no answer. He looked around and saw blood on the floor. Damn. He finished clearing the room and came back to the blood on the floor. It was only a few drops, but it was blood and it was dry.

Peter pulled out his phone and called Neal's cell. After a few seconds he could hear ringing in the apartment and he looked to see Neal's phone on his nightstand.

Peter ended the call, then pulled up his tracking data on his phone. It said he was in the apartment.

"Neal?" He tried again. Nothing.

After a few more minutes of looking around, Peter gave up and called Diana. She was working today and he knew she would help figure this out.