The Thinnest Strand

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Neal, or Peter or any rights to White Collar, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: Just so you know, this chapter is longer than the previous ones. Hope you enjoy….

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Chapter 3: The 20th floor

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'Wherever you are, Mozzie, I wish I was with you,' Neal wistfully admitted as he added another folder to the meager stack of completed files on his desk. But calling his workspace a "desk", that was too generous a word. It was more a card table tucked away behind the file cabinets, somewhere that no one had to look at him. It seemed that Ruiz, the agent in charge of Organized Crime Unit, thought it was a dirty little secret to have a "pet convict" on his premises.

In the White Collar Unit, Neal's desk had been front and center. Leaving him the first person everyone saw when they entered the floor and the last person as they left. All that time he had thought Peter had put him there so he could keep an eye on him from his office. But now Neal knew that hadn't been all of it. Peter could have just as easily stuffed him in the claustrophobic area off the small kitchenette. There he would have been in Burke's line sight with the bonus that no one would have had to acknowledge his presence, visitor or team member alike. The fact that he hadn't, had instead put him somewhere very visible, Peter had sent his unit an unmistakably clear message: Caffrey is to be respected as one of our own.

Ruiz's message? It was on the opposite end of that spectrum and his team members have only been too glad to match their leader's disdain and downright dislike of him.

Accepting his fate, Neal grabbed another file from the towering stack of uncompleted reports. Since Ruiz had told him that he couldn't leave until the files were done, he knew it likely that he would have to work through the night. And Ruiz was just mean spirited enough to hang around to make sure he followed his directive. Honestly, given the choice, Neal would have rather been working on his undercover assignment, would have agreed to take another beating than face the prospect of dying of boredom.

For the thousandth time, he cursed himself for choosing the wrong path, for thinking that he had a life here worth staying for, worth giving up the biggest score he had ever seen. He had sentimentally clung to the relationship he had with Peter, had willingly and irrevocably cut his ties with Mozzie. Had thought that his friendship with Peter wouldn't turn out like all the rest of his alliances – Badly. Kate had died, Adler had tried to kill him, Mozzie had basically called him a fool for the choice he was making (and seemingly, rightfully so) and Peter…Peter hated him. And Neal wished to God that he could blame him.

Running a hand through his hair, Neal winced as it made contact with the lump on his forehead, just one of many keepsakes he had from his current assignment as a smuggler for hire. Keepsakes that were hindering his usual fashion because the tenderness and swelling high on his brow made wearing his hat a painful prospect, and the bruises marring his face put a damper on his smile's ability to charm. Of course charm hadn't worked yet with his new teammates and that was before he looked like he had lost a boxing bout.

It wasn't like he felt much like wearing his hat anyways. He was a power dresser, the sharper he dressed, the more confident he felt. But that only worked during the best of his days…and these days, they have been far from his best. Have, in fact, been some of his worst…and that might include after Kate's death and his jail term.

June had refused to take her husband's wardrobe back, though Neal had had it all dry cleaned and hanging in the closet, ready for her. And the way she had looked at him when told her he was moving out…. He hadn't been strong enough to tell her the truth, not under her heartbroken entreaty for him to stay. Instead, he had laid the blame for his departure on his new boss, said that Ruiz had ordered him to move out. In truth, Neal doubted that Ruiz even knew where his two mile radius was, let alone where he lived.

It was for the best that he go it alone from here on out. For everyone's sake.

Even the grungy Empire motel's resident flea bitten dog had steered clear of him the whole two weeks he had been there. That said a lot about how his companionship rated, even in the animal world.

He startled as his phone rang, that piece of office equipment the only concession Ruiz had willingly made of Neal's requirements for his work space. But Neal suspected that was only so the man without have to suffer through any direct contact with him, could call him up and bark out his orders from his office. Presuming that his "boss" was looking to bury him under with another coma-inducing task, he began to reach for the phone.

But the caller ID, it didn't read "Ruiz."

It read "Burke".

Neal's hand froze half way to the phone. Peter doesn't call him, Peter doesn't talk to him. He and Peter hadn't even looked at each other in the elevator that they had shared last week. Scenarios flittering through Caffrey's head, he wondered if Peter had requested that he be the one to tell him he was being carted back to prison.

Gut churning, Neal fisted his hand then hastily grabbed the phone.

"Organized Crimes," he generically greeted, hoped that, if Peter had misdialed, he could transfer him before Peter knew he had been forced to speak with the man that had nearly gotten his wife killed.

"Neal, conference room on the 20th floor. Now!" Peter Burke's voice ordered across the phone lines.

And as much as Neal had wanted Peter to just talk to him, he knew by his former partner's tone that whatever Peter had to say to him right then, it would be worse than the silence.

"Ruiz has me working on things right now Peter…" Neal began his excuse, knew that a betraying thread of fear had slipped into his words.

"Meet me there or I'm coming to you right now," Peter bit out his ultimatum in his no nonsense tone.

Neal knew that, as much as his name was mud already in his new unit, if Peter came up and aired out their dirty laundry, he would never gain the trust of anyone in this new unit. Not after they learned that his deception, his greed had gotten an FBI agent's wife kidnapped. If they found that out, he could scream a million safe words when things went south when he was undercover and his teammates wouldn't come to his rescue.

"Fine," he agreed reluctantly, after all it wasn't like he hadn't expecting this day to come, for Peter's restraint to crumble, that his former friend's quiet fury would manifest itself in more volatile ways sooner or later. And apparently it was going to be sooner.

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Peter couldn't help but pace in the deserted conference room, his eyes looking out the glass partition to the elevators, waiting. There would be no spectators to this tête-à-tête, not since the accounting department had been placed off site, leaving the 20th floor vacant. And even now, part of him protested what he was about to do, but the other part of him, the part of him that had absently abandoned his borrowed coffee, stalked back to his office and promptly dialed Neal's number, was stronger. Much stronger.

When the elevator dinged, he stilled, and as confident as he was that he was prepared to face Neal, he was still startled by the raw cuts and vivid bruises on the younger man's face. He came flying out of the conference room even before Neal had officially stepped onto the floor.

"That all happened today?" Peter demanded, his voice choked with outrage, horror.

Hiding his anxiety behind his verbal flippancy, Neal brazenly replied,"All in the line of duty," with a smile that actually hurt, pulled on abused skin and muscles. And, for a moment, he believed he saw a flash of sympathy in the eyes he once knew how to read. 'That's just what you want to see, not what's there,' he chastised himself.

"So did you come here to gloat over another Neal Caffrey loss?" Neal challenged, had to regain his balance, to prove to himself that he could survive Peter's disappointment, didn't need the older man's acceptance.

Neal's words cut across Peter's heart, make him fall silent before he could form a reply. "You really think I enjoy seeing you hurt?" He was more wounded, surprised than angry, couldn't believe that, no matter what had happened between them, Neal didn't know that he wouldn't wish anything bad to happen to him.

Trying hard to not read more into Peter's words than the other man meant, Neal slipped his hands in his pockets, stood up straighter, demanded, "Then why are we here, Peter?"

As Peter stepped closer, Neal tensed, almost retreated from him. Noting Neal's response to his closeness, Peter fought the urge to grab onto Neal's lapels so he could ensure that the younger man didn't make his escape like he did in the elevator. But then he watched Neal transform into the self-assured conman, the way his stance turned cocky and his eyes went dark as they held his, offered up a challenge for him to do his worst. But more than that, Neal expected him to do his worse.

Shaken at Neal's belief that he would hurt him, Peter let his hands fall to his side, but didn't step back, wouldn't give Neal more space, knew only too well what the kid always did whenever he gave him slack on his leash. 'Gets himself all tangled up in trouble, that's what.'

Feigning impatience where there was dread, Neal harshly prodded, "I have work to do, so if you have something to say, say it Peter."

Meeting Neal's gaze head on, Peter's words were a mix of angry urgency, "We're here so I can knock some sense into you! I heard about the crap you pulled last night, that you refused to call in your team, that you were provoking some mob muscle man to switch up using your face as his punching bag and just shoot you."

Neal paled, hadn't thought any of that would get back to Peter. Honestly, the odds that he would be alive to worry what Peter thought of him today, it had seemed pretty slim from his vantage point the prior night. And in that moment, it had seemed a relief, an escape, to not have to worry about tomorrow, to not have to continue to pay for his mistakes, to get free of the prison Mozzie claimed that he was in, a prison he hadn't seen the bars of, not until it was too late. Way too late.

Rebounding from his lapse of emotional instability, Neal gave a bawdy smile, "So you heard about Gary Rydell's performance," speaking about his alias in the third person. "I think that I earned some points with Ruiz with that. We took the guy down, you know. Maybe you didn't hear that part of the story," he stressed testily, needed Peter to know that he still knew how to do the job, close a case.

Agitatedly, Peter spun around, paced away a few steps before he turned back to face Neal, ran his hands over his mouth. He couldn't believe Neal thought the ends justified the means. "Yeah, earning some points with Ruiz, oh, that's worth your life," he sarcastically tossed back before he closed the distance he had put between he and the CI. "Neal, Ruiz doesn't care if you don't make it out of an undercover assignment!"

"He doesn't care about the paperwork generated from losing a CI like you do, huh?" Neal teased back but his voice was too tight to pull off the levity and immediately Peter's eyes flashed with anger.

"He won't have your back when you do reckless, stupid stunts like I…." Peter broke off, paled but Caffrey knew what he had almost said.

"Like you do. Oops, I mean like you did," Neal harshly spit out.

Immediately Peter retaliated, finger accusingly pointing at Caffrey. "You screwed up what we had, not me!"

Neal fell silent, knew he deserved the condemnation, but then suddenly he was angry too. "So what? You called me down here just to tell me that, tell me that you made a mistake by giving me a second chance?," he snapped. "Seems like you wasted both of our times," he undertoned as he began to brush by Peter and head for the elevator but Peter grabbed his arm, stopped his escape.

Fighting to temper his own raging emotions, Peter tightened his grip on Neal's arm, could feel the younger man's taut arm muscles under his grip, knew that Neal was close to losing control. They both were.

Being that close to Neal, Peter could also see the physical pain slipping through the conman's mask. Neal was hurt. 'And I'm only hurting him worse.' That was the last thing Peter had wanted to do.

Slowly releasing Neal's arm, Peter meet his friend's eyes, carefully said, "Neal, I called you down here to see if you were ok," man enough and worried enough to admit his true motives, well at least some of them.

Not falling for whatever game Peter was playing, Neal snapped, "I'm fine," and started again to walk away but suddenly Peter was in his path, fury in his expression.

"Yeah, you're fine," Peter sarcastically accused. "No, what you were was reckless! I've seen some of your stunts first hand, so I know …. But what you did last night…."

"I kept my cover," Neal shot back, his voice turning more stringent as he continued. "I did my job, was the good little pet convict Ruiz needed me to be!"

Standing toe to toe with Neal, Peter nearly shouted in the younger man's face. "No bust was worth your life, Neal! I thought I taught you that!"

"Wow, what a great mentor you are," Neal drawled disdainfully, knew that Peter remembered his disparaging definition of a mentor by the dark hue of his eyes. "Well, I taught myself how to survive, the streets and the maximum security prison you put me in. So save your worried, heart to heart chats for your next CI," Neal threw out as he stepped around Peter and stalked for the elevator.

"Well then start using those impressive survival skills of yours!" Peter threw at Caffrey's back. "Start acting like you care about staying alive!"

Neal didn't turn around, returned Peter's outcry with silence and then disappeared behind the elevator doors.

Cursing, Peter paced the empty floor, didn't know how his good intended pep talk had ended up doing more damage than good. Had never thought Neal would resent him for showing his worry, would find a way to be even more reckless with his life than he had been time after time under Peter's terrified watch.

Unbidden, his father's words from twenty some years ago came to Peter.

"Believe it or not, Peter, I set these rules to protect you, so you won't get hurt. So you can hate my rules, you can even hate me, but you can't stop me from making my priority keeping you safe."

"Safe," Peter hollowly whispered, that was where he was failing in leaps and bounds. He hadn't kept El safe and now Neal….Neal was merrily taunting mobsters to kill him. His father would have thought it fair payback, that his son had a charge under his care who loved to rail against every single rule that existed for his safety, that it was just desserts, that Peter have a son just like him.

'But Neal's a thousand times worse than I ever was…' Peter protested, didn't even realize the comparison he was making. Not until he was half way home that night.

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TBC

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Thanks for reading and for your encouraging reviews you gave for the last chapter!

Well, there are only a few more days until the 17th and our White Collar season continues. Whoo hoo! I'm not making any promises that this story will be wrapped up by then but with more of your wonderful supportive reviews, I'm hoping to get another update to you before Tuesday at least.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.