"Neal, where have you been?" his mother asked when he slid through the door at nearly eleven, which was way past his curfew. He had been quiet as he opened the door – he knew just how to avoid making it creak – but he was pretty certain his mother had super hearing.

"With Jim and Derek," the thirteen year old lied smoothly, toeing off his sneakers and shutting the door. "I'm sorry, mom, we lost track of time." He seemed truly genuine.

Fortunately, his mother hadn't developed super lie detecting, or Neal would have been screwed. No matter how unable he was to sneak by her, he was always good at talking his way out of trouble.

She shook her head and smiled. "Pay more attention next time," she told him. "If it happens again I'm going to have to ground you." She always said that, but she never followed through.

"It won't," Neal promised, like he always did. She kissed him on the forehead and he trotted upstairs to his room. He shut the door and listened at it for a few moments, making sure his mom wasn't coming upstairs yet. When he was sure he was safe, he dropped to his stomach and reached under the bed, pulling up a loose floorboard and extracting a small journal.

The things inside it looked like they were written in gibberish, but that was because Neal had been writing in code since he'd gotten the idea watching Ralphie use his decoder ring in A Christmas Story for the fourth year in a row. When he would look back on it years later, he'd smile and think it was a pretty terrible attempt at a code, but at the time, Neal had never felt cleverer.

He crossed out a few things from his list. Two cemeteries now and he still hadn't been able to find his dad's grave. But there were two more possibilities, so he hadn't given up just yet.

Neal wasn't sure when he started seeing the holes in his mother's story, or if he would have continued to choose to ignore them forever, if Ellen hadn't stepped in on his eighteenth birthday and told him the truth.

It wasn't just when his mom would tell him about how his dad had died and Neal found himself thinking that the story wasn't exactly the same as the last time she'd told him.

It was other things. Like how for a cop who had died saving so many people, it was odd that Neal couldn't remember a funeral. But he'd been so young, only a little older than two at the time, so he'd just told himself it wasn't surprising.

Then, once in a while, Neal found himself questioning why he and his mother never went to visit his father's grave. He'd told himself that it was because his mother couldn't handle the grief, so he'd decided to go on the quest to discover where his dad was buried on his own. He'd spent several weeks when he was thirteen wandering through headstones and gazing somberly at each name, just waiting to see his father's and wondering what the inscription would read. Died in the line of duty? Gave his life protecting others? Loving husband and father?

He never found out, because try though he did, he'd never been able to locate Daniel Caffrey's headstone.

Then, on his eighteenth birthday, Ellen, his father's old partner, took him aside and told him why.

Not only was his father no hero - he wasn't dead either.

"What are you doing here?" Neal asked his father, more than a decade since that moment.

"I wanted to see you," Daniel replied.

Neal's eyebrows arched. "At eleven at night in this area of the city?" he asked, sounding doubtful.

"Look, Ben-" he seemed to see the way Neal tensed up, and immediately corrected himself. "Neal. I know it's been a long time. I just… you're my son. I want to get to know you."

Neal said nothing.

"I thought maybe you would have visited again," Daniel continued.

Neal had only gone to see him only once after Ellen had told him where he was. It was his first time in a prison. His dad had been led out in an orange jumpsuit that Neal would eventually find himself very familiar with.

"You're so big," Daniel had said, his blue eyes, the same as Neal's, tearing up.

"Yeah, that happens, I guess," Neal had replied. He wasn't sure what else to say. He didn't cry. He had questions, things he wanted to know - things he needed to know.

He never asked.

They talked about the weather. What Neal was doing. How he'd been.

Neal left with no answers. He went home, packed up his things and took off. He hadn't seen either of his parents since.

"Yeah. I moved," Neal replied.

"And you've been busy," Daniel said. When Neal raised his eyebrows he added, "I've heard a little bit about your, well, exploits."

"Alleged exploits," Neal corrected automatically.

"Right," Daniel said. "Alleged."

"Proud?" Neal asked, feeling oddly sick as he asked the question.

"What?" his dad asked, confused.

"I followed in your footsteps," Neal replied. Just not the footsteps he'd originally intended when he was five and playing cops and robbers with the neighborhood kids. He'd always been the cop back then.

"B-Neal," his dad said. "I'm sorry. Maybe this was a bad idea."

"Why are we out here, dad?" As much as Neal would have liked to believe that this was all just about a father/son reunion, the setting was a bit too 'back alley meeting' for his tastes.

"I thought it would be better than just showing up at your place," Daniel said.

"Luring me out to an abandoned building in the middle of the night?"

"All right, it might have been a little more melodramatic than necessary, I can see that now," his dad said, giving him a weak smile.

No, not just melodramatic. It had a flair to it that reminded him of Mozzie. So not only was it melodramatic, it had a tinge of paranoia laced in.

A thought occurred to Neal. "How long have you been out?" It was one of the questions he'd wanted to ask the only time he'd visited, but never did. When he'd be free.

"About seven years," Daniel said.

"Seven years," Neal repeated, thinking of his own life the last seven years. Four of them spent serving his own prison sentence. "So you're not violating parole or something by being here?"

"No, no," Daniel assured him. "I've been through with parole for several years now."

"And now's the first time you're trying to contact me," Neal said. It wasn't a question.

"I know how that seems," Daniel said. "I just wasn't sure you wanted to see me."

"So what changed?" Neal asked. "Why are you here now?"

"Neal," his dad said with a sigh. "I've got a lot of regrets in my life. But missing out on yours is by far my biggest one."

Peter walked up next to Neal as the young man stood staring at the coffee pot, looking like he was attempting to will it to brew faster, which was saying a lot considering how much Neal despised the taste of the Bureau's coffee.

"Late night?" he asked his partner, who looked at him as if he hadn't even realized he was there. Peter figured he was either lost in thought or, more likely, as exhausted as he was. Neal hadn't made it home until five am, and Peter had stayed up with him, watching his dot wander all along his radius with no apparent destination.

"Mozzie dropped by," Neal half-lied. Peter knew it was only a half lie because Mozzie had been at Neal's when he'd called. It was this kind of thing that frustrated him so much. How Neal could so easily conceal things from him. But as Neal had once said, in his mind it wasn't really lying. It was just not telling the whole truth.

Neal finally took a good look at Peter and raised his eyebrows. "What about you?" he asked. "You look exhausted."

"Had a hard time sleeping," Peter replied. Two could play the not telling the whole truth game.

"I hear that happens as you get older," Neal said. Peter shot him a glare and the younger man offered the Neal Caffrey Smile™ and added, "Not that you're old, Peter. Just a fun fact."

The coffee finally finished brewing and Neal reached for it, but Peter grabbed it first and filled up his mug. Neal sighed, eyes rolling while he waited.

"We've got a mortgage fraud case to look into today," Peter told him as he finished pouring and handed Neal the pot.

"Sounds good," Neal said.

Peter raised his eyebrows. Sounds good? Mortgage fraud? Neal had no complaints about a case like that? Sure, the kid had been more than helpful around the office recently (which Peter attributed partly to the upcoming commutation hearing) but he still usually had a witty remark about boring cases now and then.

Now Peter was sure something was up.

Neal waited until Peter left to meet Elizabeth for lunch to slip into his office under the pretext of needing to find a file. He wished, not for the first time, that his partner didn't have a giant glass window providing anyone in the vicinity a great view of Peter's desk, but hey, Neal had had to be sneaky in worse conditions. He took a seat at Peter's computer, and, with a quick glance up to make sure no one was looking, he logged in.

What? His computer had no access to any of the Bureau's systems (it was like they didn't trust him or something) and maybe he'd seen Peter type in his password a few times when he thought Neal wasn't looking.

Of course, Neal was always looking.

He ran the search, eyes quickly skimming the file he had pulled. He frowned at what he read, then ran a search on a different name.

"If there's anything there we'll find it."

Neal yanked his attention from the screen at the sound of Diana's voice. He couldn't see her; she was probably just down the hall.

"They can't hide forever," he heard Jones agree.

Knowing he would be completely busted if either of them spotted him on Peter's computer, he quickly hit the print button for both names and escaped out of the database. He stood and slid the mortgage fraud file from the desk before grabbing the papers from Peter's printer and slipping them inside in one subtle move. He walked out of Peter's office and had to pull to a stop as Diana and Jones almost collided with him.

"Hey guys," he said, sounding perfectly pleased to see them.

"Caffrey," Diana said, her pretty face immediately turning into a scowl. "What are you doing in Peter's office?"

"Needed the case file," Neal replied, holding it up for her to see. She eyed him suspiciously, but Neal continued, "How was the birthday dinner? Did Christie like it?"

Diana hesitated, like she usually did whenever Neal tried to bring up her personal life, but eventually said, "Yeah. She did. Thanks for the recipe."

"Anytime," Neal said with a smile, tucking the file under his arm. "If you ever really want to impress, I can tell you how to make a chocolate ganache she won't be able to resist—"

"Thanks Caffrey," Diana said quickly, clearly not liking the grin on Jones's face. "I'll let you know."

"Talk to you later," Neal said, taking the hint and heading back to his own desk.

He grinned after he turned his back to them and heard Jones say, "You bake?"

"Shut up," Diana replied.

When he got home later, Neal, after making sure Mozzie wasn't hanging around the apartment, locked the door and pulled out the things he'd printed.

The night before, despite feeling unsure of his father's intentions, he had relented. His dad talked him into going for a walk, and they'd just… talked. It still had that awkward superficial feeling to it, as if both men had things they didn't want to discuss – subjects they thought better avoided. So they danced around the uncomfortable topics. Even so, Neal had to admit, it felt kind of nice.

His dad asked him questions he always imagined a dad would – are you taking care of yourself? What are you doing for a job? Neal left his answer to that one a bit vague. Then there were the more embarrassing ones. Do you have a girlfriend? What do you mean it's complicated? Was she pretty? How are you going to win her back?

Some of it reminded him a lot of Peter's well intentioned nagging, actually.

It was one of the last questions his dad had asked, however, that had caused Neal to break into Peter's computer the next day.

"You still doing your alleged exploits?" he'd asked, almost too casually, right after Neal had looked at his watch and said he should probably be getting home.

Something about it made Neal remember who he was speaking to. A dirty cop. A man he'd only seen twice since he was almost two.

"I keep my options open," Neal found himself replying, then added, "You?"

"Me?" his dad replied. "Nah. That's all behind me." He gave Neal an awkward smile.

Yet there was no lecture for Neal's response. No warning about how he could ruin his life, his potential. No, 'take it from me, son, I was there,' talk to make sure his kid kept himself out of trouble. Which is something Neal would have expected from a man who'd put it behind him.

Then again, maybe he was just expecting Daniel Caffrey to be more like Peter Burke, who, quite honestly, had been the closest thing to a father figure that Neal had ever had.

Still.

It was enough to make Neal wonder. And since he still hadn't been able to bring himself to ask his dad what exactly had happened to land him in jail (he'd heard the story, just not from him) he decided to look into it another way.

He sat at his kitchen table reading over his father's file several times. Larceny, bribes, obstructing justice, conspiracy, coercion. And that was the short list. His dad had really done the works. Though, there was a small part of him that was glad that there was no homicide on the list. There was a mug shot of him from decades ago. It made Neal grimace – he looked very much like him.

Daniel had told Neal the truth. He'd been released seven years ago, and had finished parole.

Neal wanted to believe that that was it. His dad really did just want to get to know him after all these years.

Slowly, he set down his dad's file and picked up the other one he'd printed.

He'd known from Ellen that his father had been in the pocket of organized crime. But he hadn't realized whose. The biggest crime family in St. Louis. And Neal was looking at a picture of its current boss.

"Dad…what were you thinking?" he asked the mug shot of his father.