Neal opened the internal front door to the unmistakeable aroma of curry waffling in from the kitchen. His stomach grumbled, he was starving. Placing his satchel on the bottom stair tread he turned just in time to ready himself as Satchmo came running up for a cuddle and a scratch behind the ears. "Hey Satch, you miss me boy?" Neal hopped up and walked through the living room pausing to give his dad a kiss on the head as he walked past.

"How was MoMA son?"

"Just awesome, Dad. They've got a new show with this amazing artist who has used papier-mâché sculpture to describe the environmental landscape of NYC."

"Sounds thrilling."

"No need to feign interest, Dad." Neal shot over his shoulder as he began to shift though the mail on the sideboard. "This all of it?"

"All of what?" El came out of the kitchen carrying a steaming hot dish of curried beef. "How are you Baby?" As soon as her hands were free she reached out and kissed her son on his cheek.

"Not too bad, Mom. Where's the rest of the mail?"

"That's it Neal. I got it out of the box myself."

"But my letter isn't here."

"What letter?" El removed her apron and laid it across the back of one of the dining chairs.

"Let me see Mom." Neal's tone deteriorated into condescending with lighting speed. "It's a letter. Addressed to me. Am I making any sense? Neal let out a frustrated sigh. "No?" Well just forget it." The teenager turned on his heals ready to storm out but was stopped in his tracks when he ploughed straight into Peter who had managed to appear from nowhere.

"Neal," The agent was clearly upset. "Were you just being disrespectful to your mother?"

The boy wasn't paying any attention. "Someone took my letter, Peter."

And there it was. El always got Mam'ma whenever Neal was riding an emotional wave of sorts, and he always got… just Peter. "That's not what I asked Neal. Were you being disrespectful to your mother?"

"You're not listening, Peter. My letter isn't here!" The kid had begun to raise his voice.

"Okay Neal. We've got that. You're letter from Kate isn't here. We didn't take it. Calm down."

Neal ignored the advice and pushed past Peter.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"My room. I'm not hungry." The kid didn't even bother turning around to answer.

"Neal."

"What!" He stopped at the base of the stairs.

Peter walked up and stood firmly in his personal space. "Firstly," he held up his finger and thumb almost touching, "you're this close to having my hand make an imprint on your behind. Secondly, your mom has dinner on the table so sit your butt down now." He pointed back towards the table, waiting.

Neal stood defiantly in front of his dad, not prepared to give in, consequences be damned! Peter recognised the look, grabbed the boy by his upper arm and wacked him hard, three times across his backside. He pointed to the table again, and this time the teenager got the message. Neal stepped back towards the table, pulled out a chair, gave his butt a quick rub then sat down quickly to put it out of harms way.

El and Peter joined their boy at the table and began to serve themselves in silence, perhaps a little shell shocked from the unexpected performance they'd just witnessed.

After a moment or two, Neal broke into their thoughts. "Mam'ma?"

"Yes?"

Neal reached across and took his mom's hand. "Excusez-moi d'être impoli envers vous. Je suis désolé."

El squeezed her son's hand. "Apology accepted Baby Seal. Now just don't do it again, please."

"No Mam'ma."

El served up a small helping for Neal once she noticed he wasn't going to help himself. "You want some sauce, Baby."

"No thank you."

Peter started in on his meal and between mouthfuls he offered an explanation. "Neal, you know that sometimes the mail gets delayed. Your letter might arrive tomorrow."

Neal didn't answer and didn't bother picking up his fork. His meal remained untouched. "May I be excused?" He looked hopefully towards his dad.

"No you may not." Peter pointed his fork at the plate of food. "Eat your dinner."

"Fine." Neal picked up his fork and played with his food, only managing a couple of mouthfuls in the time his parents took to completely finish their meals. He tried again. "May I be excused?"

Peter sighed deeply before consenting with a nod.

Neal picked up his plate and took it out to the kitchen. When El heard the sounds of the dishwasher being packed and the kitchen being cleaned she reached behind to the sideboard and picked a notebook and pen off the pile of paperwork. El wrote down a message and then turned the book to face Peter. 'What's going on?'

Peter wrote back. 'Not certain but it's going to stop.'

The very next afternoon, before Peter had a chance to put a stop to it…

"Peter!"

The agent hung his jacket and placed his briefcase on the ground bracing himself for round two. "Yes, Neal."

The young boy stormed over to his dad holding a small pile of mail. "Where is it?"

"Where's what Neal?" Didn't they do this dance already? Peter took the letters off his son and flipped through them.

"You said it would come today!" The young boy's anger was far from contained. Like it had been building for…What time did school finish on a Friday?

"No, Neal." Peter continued walking through to the kitchen. "I said it may have got delayed and it MAY arrive today." Peter selected a beer from the fridge. If he hadn't felt like one earlier, for sure he did now!

"I need to ring her."

"Kate?"

"No, The First Lady!" Neal's face was red and his fists were balled. He was losing control fast.

Peter left his beer on the table and dragged the young boy into the living room by his wrist. He pushed him into a chair and sat down across from him, while at the same time, trying to rein in his own temper that was beginning to surface fast."

"Neal. You can't just call someone up in prison. It's not like she's allowed a mobile phone in her cell. To contact someone in prison, you can write letters or visit. They are the only two choices. Now you've been writing letters to Kate but in retrospect that seems like it wasn't such a good idea. You need to move on Neal. You have some good friends here. Jerry and those two girls he's always hanging around. They're your age Neal. It's what a fourteen year old is supposed to do. Plus, and I don't want to endorse this particular relationship, but Mozzie is also a very good friend. I want you to forget about Kate, please. For your own good."

Neal remained silent in his seat, while his temper continued to boil. Then, in an action that completely rocked Peter, the young kid jumped up swiping an innocent vase off the coffee table, smashing it all over the floor, sending shards of glass in every direction. Peter was slow to react, his brain desperately trying to sort out the mess unravelling before his very eyes. Neal had taken a few steps towards the back door before Peter caught up and grabbed his arm. But the teenager just yanked it back out again, accidently swiping the full bottle of beer off the dining table in the process. Glass once again shattered across the floor. Peter noticed his boy was in bare feet and made another grab for the arm. "Neal! Calm down!"

"Leave! Me! Alone!" The teenager was almost hysterical and Peter asked himself how the hell this had all happened in the short time since he'd arrived home from work. What was it with Kate? Neal began to swing his arms and legs wildly in all directions and at any moment he was going to be stamping on the broken glass.

Peter's FBI training kicked in and because, unfortunately for Neal, the agent hadn't been at the warehouse when Keller slammed the young boys head onto the table, Peter had no idea he was opening old wounds. It was a simple procedure he'd been taught at the Bureau to subdue out of control suspects. If Neal continued, he was going to end up harming himself so he grabbed a hold of one of Neal's arms and twisted it behind his back. Then he put a hand on the back of the teenager's neck and pushed gently till his head was pressed firmly on the surface of the table. He knew this manoeuvre hadn't caused Neal any additional pain and he intended to only restrain him long enough while the boy calmed down.

But Neal had been at the warehouse when it happened, and it brought back memories he'd long forgotten. Neal felt his head being pressed onto the table and he no longer remembered where he was. Was he in the warehouse with Keller? He reached up to feel the top of his head but there was no blood seeping from a wound. Why was Keller hurting him and why wasn't Kate putting a stop to it? He gave up trying to break free and relented to accepting his fate. He could hear a voice from above but had no idea what they were saying. It was taking all his strength to control the tremors that were threatened to take over his body. It was unsuccessful. The tremors turned into full on shaking and he had no choice but to let it ride its course. He no longer felt the pressure on the back of his neck and found that his arm was also free. Was he allowed to move? He wasn't sure. His body continued to tremble as he felt himself being lifted up and carried. He found himself being wrapped in someone's arms and it felt safe. The shaking slowly subsided and he buried his face into the source of the comfort before gradually drifting into unconsciousness.

Peter sat on the couch and held his young son tight. He was relieved to feel the shaking stop but became frightened again when he realised the boy had shut down. What the hell just happened? He questioned the sleeping child. "Neal, buddy, you need to tell me what's going on." Not surprisingly, the question remained unanswered.

-W-C-

"So that's when you found out Neal's 'master plan'?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. He didn't tell me anything. He slept on my lap for ages and when he finally returned to the land of the living, he was still a little shaky so I carried him up to our room, made him comfortable and then returned downstairs to clean up the mess he'd made."

"And when he finally recovered, you were …apprehensive about revisiting the issue?"

"Something like that." Peter shook his head. "After his mini-meltdown, I contacted the Moreton Centre, where Kate was residing. One of my old co-workers, Lauren Cruz accepted the position as Centre Warden about eighteen months ago. So I contacted Lauren and asked her if she could shed some light on what was happening. She told me that as far as she knew, nothing had changed with Kate. The girl was considered a model detainee and was due for release in about six months. Lauren explained that they monitored all incoming and outgoing mail. Kate did receive weekly letters from Neal but by all appearances they were considered harmless. Of course I knew better. Between the two of them, they were capable of hiding international rocket codes on a postage stamp. I asked Lauren to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary but in hindsight, I should have sent her a photo of Neal and told her to put him on the no visitor list."

"May not have stopped it."

"I think we both know that's not true."