Pyrophobia – fear of fire

"NEAL!" Peter calls before nearly coughing up a lung and ducking under the smoke. He had just finished leading the evacuation of the apartment complex that is currently burning around him, but when he had gotten out, it was to find that Neal was not where he had told him to wait and he wasn't following behind Peter like he assumed he would if he were to disobey. No, what he did see was Neal's suit jacket, his Devore suit jacket that he loves and cares for, and that damn hat lying on its side, both discarded onto the asphalt before the evacuated residents.

"Did anyone see my friend? The man wearing that hat and coat?" Peter had asked, pointing to the abandoned articles in question. Not even once did the words 'he ran' cross his mind. Not now, not while people's lives were in danger. Neal never would.

A woman in her mid-thirties with dark hair and brown eyes spoke up with a thick Spanish accent strained with emotion, her streaming eyes fixed on a second smoke-filled doorway that Peter hadn't noticed since then. "Mi hija. He went to get mi bebé, my Veronica!"

"Which apartment?"

"Efe uno! F1!"

That was all the information Peter needed before he was charging his way back into the building.

"Neal!" He calls again, crouching low and regaining his bearings. He glares at the door closest to him. The plaque reads 'C1', so he scuttles his way further down the hallway, passing apartments D1 and E1 without a second glance.

Bursting through the open doorway of F1, Peter nearly runs right into Neal who is bent low to avoid the billowing black clouds swirling above them while clutching a thick bundle of blankets tightly to his chest. "Neal."

"Peter! We need to get out of here! The walls are coming down and the fire is almost on top of us!"

Peter is ushered back into the hall and both men abandon their low ground to run flat out to the door they both came in. Neal is weighed down some by the load in his arms, but manages to keep up with Peter's pace. "Hurry!"

The flames lick at their heels as they both put on an extra burst of speed from the adrenaline. They fling themselves out the door just in time, as less than a second later one of the inside walls crumbles behind them.

The fire gives off a near-deafening roar as the building burns. Sirens can be heard approaching in the distance.

Peter squats on the asphalt, wheezing slightly as he tries to catch his breath and calm his racing heart.

He glances at Neal kneeling on one knee, choking back a cough as he unwraps the bundle to reveal a young girl who can't be more than five years old.

"Veronica!" her mother shouts, dropping to her knees before the girl, scooping the child into a bone-crushing embrace. "¡Mi corazón!"

"Mamá!" The girl looks to be completely unharmed, the thick blankets having protected her from both fire and smoke.

Neal looks exhausted, a mixture of sweat and ash clinging to his exposed, heat-reddened skin, hair disheveled, and the left sleeve of his white dress shirt is slightly charred and blackened, but all in all, he appears uninjured. Thank God, Peter supplies mentally, running a hand through his own mussed up hair.

The mother frees one arm from her daughter and wraps it around Neal's shoulders. He is unresisting as he's pulled into his own bone-crushing hug. "¡La salvaste! You saved her! Thank you! ¡Mi hija! ¡Mi Veronica! ¡Gracias! Thank you! How can I ever repay you?! Thank you!"

The woman alternates between praising Neal and telling her daughter how much she loves her, all the while planting kisses over both of them.

As Peter watches the display while firemen arrive to begin their attempts at taming the blaze, he can't help but agree, if only to himself, with a comment El made almost a decade ago: maybe Neal really is a hero that fell out of a romance novel.

Word Count: 681

Disclaimer: If I owned White Collar, there would be a lot more Neal whump, and a lot less Neal and Peter trust angst. Just saying. That gets annoying pretty fast.

Edited for quality (12/22/14) Thank you to Ilmare-Ilse for correcting my Spanish! I had hoped someone would! :)

Author's Notes: Okay, first thing I want to say is, no, that line was not meant to be slashy. This whole thing is slash free, simply because it isn't actually in the show. Not in the show, not in my stories, capiche? In my head, I see a rewind nine or ten years ago, Peter first describing the case of James Bonds to Elizabeth and she says something like "Hmm, he sounds like a hero out of a romance novel". Second thing I want to say is, yes, Veronica's mom is speaking Spanglish. The poor dear was worried sick. I think we can forgive her. Most of it is self-explanatory, so I'm not translating. I told you things would get more interesting soon! Hope you guys like it! Love ya!

-TheOneThatGotAway99