Disclaimer: White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews! Here's chapter 2 :) Just so you all know, I've got a vacation, prom, graduation, dance rehearsals, recital and a baseball pre-game show with my studio all fast approaching, so I might not be able to update as fast as I want to, but if you want to keep up with how story's progressing you can follow me on Twitter at xdivinerose. Thank you all again for your support! Please read and review.
"So, do you want to do anything tonight?" Severen asked, draping his arm over Lily's shoulders as they crossed the street together. She pushed her dark bangs, tinted lightly with pink, out of her face.
"Maybe," she said.
"Movie?" Severen asked. "Or maybe just dinner? We could go to that little Italian place you like. You know, the one that plays the same Dean Martin songs over and over again?"
"Yeah," Lily replied. Severen frowned.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"What?" Lily glanced up at him for the first time since they'd left the shop. "Oh. I'm fine."
"You seem a little distracted."
"I guess," she shrugged. Lily fished in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out what looked like a Polaroid picture, a strip of loose-leaf paper wrapped around it to block out the image.
"What's that?"
"This guy came into the shop today," she explained. "Asked me about getting a tattoo, and then this other guy wanted to talk to him. The two of them hurried out, but the first one slipped these onto the counter before he left."
Lily unfolded the loose-leaf and scanned it quickly before allowing Severen to have a look. He narrowed his dark eyes at it, his brows furrowing together. 'DSVIV SZEV CLF YVVM?' was written in tidy handwriting in heavy black ink across the paper. He attempted to sound out the words but when he failed he looked to Lily for an explanation.
"It's in code," she replied, and then she handed him the Polaroid. It was photo of herself when she was only thirteen. She was not looking at the camera for she was much too engrossed in the mess of sheet music spread on the floor in front of her. Her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail and her fingers were playing across the fret board of a rather battered-looking acoustic guitar.
"Is this supposed to explain it?" Severen asked as the two opened the doors of their apartment building and headed for the stairs. Lily shook her head.
"It's an old picture," she said. "Before…everything."
"Oh," Severen replied. On the sixth floor, they exited the stairwell. He handed her back the code, but kept examining the photograph. "So what's the note all about?"
"It's an old code that me and my brother made up when we were kids," she explained as Severen dug a key out of his pocket and opened the door of their apartment. A little black blur streaked towards them and Lily scooped it up and settled it in the crook of her arm as she glided into the room, dropping the note on the counter before beginning to dig in one of the drawers. Impatient meows drifted from the black lump she was carrying. "Oh, come off it, Ludwig," Lily muttered, stroking the cat's head quickly before producing a pen from the drawer and dropping the now-purring animal on the counter. She slid the note closer to herself, scribbled something down, and then slipped it across the counter to Severen.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
"Neal?" Peter pressed. The younger man had been sitting in silence for the past five minutes, his eyes wide and trained on the papers scattered about the agent's desk. "Who is Lily?"
Neal swallowed, slowly turning his eyes up to meet Peter's. "How do you know about her?"
"I met her today," Peter replied.
"At…?" Peter nodded. "So that's where you went."
"Yes." They were both quiet for a few moments and then Peter repeated, "Who is Lily?"
Neal sighed heavily. "She's my sister."
"Sister," Peter repeated and Neal nodded. "I've been through stacks and stacks of documents all about you and I've never seen any mention of a sister."
"You also didn't see anything about my father, too, if you recall," Neal replied. "That big block before I turned 18? She's in there."
"Why's that?" Neal shook his head.
"We stopped talking. She was around fourteen and she got mixed up in some bad stuff."
"What kind of stuff? Robbing art museums? Forging important bonds?"
"None of that," Neal replied, waving his hand. "She's not like that."
"Then what?" Peter continued. "Did she rob anything?"
"Lily's not a thief," Neal said firmly.
"So what did she do?" Peter asked. Neal shook his head.
"I don't really want to talk about this right now," he said, beginning to stand. Peter stretched out his hand to stop him.
"Neal," he said, but Neal turned around and put his hand on the door.
"I really don't want to talk about it," he repeated.
"Neal, please," Peter said. "Whatever it is, it can't really be that bad, can it?"
"That bad?" Neal almost laughed. "Peter. Lily's an addict."
And then Neal Caffrey took his journey back through the bullpen, agents throwing odd glances between the former convict and the stunned agent who knew everything about him.
Almost everything.
Peter Burke normally did not spend his Saturdays looking for the long lost sisters of his close friends, but when he had found Lily Caffrey's Facebook page the previous night, he started combing it for clues about her. Lily herself kept most of her information private. The only things Peter could see were her profile picture- a photo of Lily sitting at a piano, her hair draped over one shoulder and her fingers frozen on the keys as she posed- and her basic information.
Born on April 21. Lives in New York, New York. Works at Regal Ink Tattoo Shop. In a relationship with Severen Moore.
With Elizabeth's help, Peter navigated to Severen's page. He, too, had the same basic information stamped beside a picture of himself with his arm around Lily. However, he also gave access to his pictures. Peter clicked on the profile picture and when it blew up on his screen he glanced at the background. The two were standing together outside a great brick building, a slightly blurred sign in the background. The caption Severen had put beneath read "Moving in to the new apartment!"
Beneath the photo was comment from somebody named Mitch Young, who simply said- "call when you get settled"
Underneath Mitch's comment was none other than Lily Caffrey. "Sixth floor, apartment 604. Come visit us!"
After squinting at the sign in the background of the photograph for some time, Peter scrawled down the address on a loose sheet of paper.
Lily rarely had a quiet Saturday morning, and so when the opportunity for one arose she liked to take the time to enjoy it. This was why she had spent an extra half hour in bed, reading by the slivers of light of the long-awoken sun that crept through the blinds of her bedroom. She got up and took a rather long shower and threw her hair into a messy bun that she knew wouldn't dry until that night before going into the kitchen and fixing herself a breakfast of Cheerios and chai tea.
Two of her three cats, the black one called Ludwig and the red shorthair she'd named Sebastian, danced around her feet as she moved back and forth in the kitchen and followed her to the couch. She plopped down and allowed Ludwig to settle himself in her lap while Sebastian curled around her feet. The third cat, a heavy gray one with fur that dragged along the floor when he walked, lay sprawled on the windowsill and only moved when there was a knock on the door.
"Who the hell could that be?" Lily muttered, placing her cereal beside her still-steaming cup of tea on the coffee table before following the gray mass of fur to the door. "Wolfgang, for the love of God, calm down!"
She plucked the cat off the floor and balanced him in the crook of one arm as she used the other to swing open the door.
"Lily Caffrey?" the man on the other side asked. She raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?" she said. The man fumbled in his jacket pocket and produced a badge from it. She eyed it carefully as he spoke.
"I'm Agent Peter Burke," he introduced. "Do you think we could talk for a few minutes?"
"What's this about?" Lily asked. Her blue eyes widened in the next moment. "Is it Neal? Did something happen to him?"
"I work with your brother," Peter replied calmly.
"Work with…"
"If you let me come in, I'll be able to explain."
"Um…sure," Lily replied. She opened the door wider and allowed Peter to step inside. Once she'd shut the door behind her she seemed to ease slightly. "Let me take your coat," she offered. Peter shook his head.
"I'll take care of it," he replied, slipping off his jacket and pretending he didn't notice the pinstripe fedora perched on the wooden coat rack as he hung it up.
"Can I get you anything?" Lily asked as she led him further into the apartment. "We don't have any coffee or anything, but we've got tons of teas. Pretty much any kind you can think of."
"I'm fine, thanks." Lily showed him to the living room. The two sat on the couch together in uncomfortable silence. Lily had set Wolfgang on her lap and was running her fingers along his back as Peter sat glancing all about the room. "You said you worked with my brother."
"Yes, I did," Peter replied.
"Is that why you came to the shop yesterday?" Peter nodded slowly.
"Sort of," he replied. "Neal's looking for you."
Wolfgang hopped out of Lily's lap as though on cue, padding towards the door and leaving his owner with one hand raised in the air, still attempting to stroke an animal that was no longer there. She glanced down and then quickly snapped her arm towards her body, folding it like a broken wing.
"Looking for me?"
"Yes."
"How…Um, How did he….find me?" Lily asked timidly. Peter shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm not sure. He just came in one day asking if he could check out Regal Ink. I didn't even know what it was until he asked."
"Oh," Lily replied, her voice dropping like a pebble to the ground. She shifted uncomfortably where she sat, her eyes trailing down to the couch cushions, to the floor, and then back to meet Peter's gaze. Her eyes were the same glistening blue as Neal's, and yet there was some darker quality to them that Peter could not place. It was a piercing, unsettling, and somehow jaded sort of glimmer somewhere at the back of them, a quality that Peter felt she was too young to have. She sighed, the smallest sound that blended with the breeze that whistled through the open window. "Uh…How exactly does Neal work with you?"
"It's long story," Peter said.
"But if he's working with you then that means he's out of prison, right? And…And he's doing something good now, right? It's a good thing?"
"Yes," Peter said calmly. "It's good thing. To make a long story short, he was released into the custody of the FBI for the next four years. He wears a tracking anklet so we can keep an eye on him, which keeps him on a two mile leash. That's why he couldn't just go into Regal Ink and see you himself. I'd really like to tell you the whole story, but I think Neal would rather tell you himself."
"I'm surprised he even wants to see me at all," Lily scoffed, more to herself than to Peter, but a pink blush rose to her cheeks and she apologized all the same. "Our recent history hasn't been so great," she explained.
"I understand," Peter said, even though he didn't. "If you have the time, I would like to set up a meeting between you and Neal."
"Sure," Lily said after a pause. "There's a little café across the street from the shop, The Garden Rose or something pretty and floral like that. If it's in his radius, I could meet Neal there on my break on say…Monday?"
"I'll work it out," Peter replied, and for the first time since he arrived, he saw a real smile creep across Lily's face.