Peter was silent, his mouth slightly agape. "What… what do you mean you've 'seen him do it before'?"

The look Neal gave Peter showed his slight irritation toward the older man.

"Sorry. Sorry, that was a stupid question," Peter added quickly. When Neal continued to stare at him, but said nothing, Peter added, "I just meant that I want to know what happened."

Neal exhaled loudly and glanced down at the floor briefly, looked back up at Peter and finally settled his focus on the windows in front of him when he realized he couldn't make eye contact with the agent while he was about to tell him one of his most sacred secrets. He knew telling Peter this secret would lead to a lot more questions, questions he knew he would not want to answer, but something inside him wanted so desperately to trust the older man, to tell him everything.

Making eye contact with Peter again, Neal said, "I don't really know how to tell you all this. I don't know where to start."

"How about you start with telling me who got killed."

"My teacher."

That stumped Peter. "Why would your father want to kill your teacher?"

Returning his gaze to the window, Neal began his story. "When I was 14-"

"A lot seemed to happen when you were 14," Peter interrupted.

Neal paused, but then nodded his head before continuing. "I had this English teacher, Mrs. Smith, and she was great. One day she asked to see me after class. I stayed after and she asked me if anything was going on at home. I told her some things… some things that I shouldn't have told her." Neal took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. "Anyway, she showed up at my house after school about two weeks later."

"I imagine your father wasn't too happy about that."

Neal nodded in agreement. "He was… a little less than thrilled t see her."

"So he killed her?"

Neal nodded his head slowly, looking down at the floor. He clasped his shaking hands together and rested his elbows on his knees, touching his hands to his mouth.

Peter waited a little while before asking his next question. "What did you tell her Neal?"

"I - I told her what was going on at home. You know, with my father."

Peter decided it was probably a good time to take a break from the topic of Neal's father. "I think it's your turn."

Neal looked up at Peter, his expression showing his confusion because he had forgotten they'd been playing a game. "Right. Did you get along with your father?"

It hadn't really been a question Peter was expecting and thus caught him slightly off guard. "Not always, but for the most part, yeah."

Neal stared at Peter quizzically for a moment. "When didn't you get along?"

Peter contemplated that question for a short time while Neal studied him carefully. " Mostly when I'd decided to go into law enforcement."

"He didn't like the idea of you being a cop?"

"I think he'd just always assumed I'd be a professor like him. Go to Harvard, you know, the whole thing."

"Was he disappointed?"

Peter thought about it before answering. "I don't think he was exactly disappointed… more so he just didn't understand my choice."

"You're lucky."

Peter raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing, waiting for Neal to continue, but he didn't.

Deciding to break the silence, Peter asked, "Would your father be disappointed in you?"

Neal laughed at that. It was a twisted sort of laugh, a laugh that made Peter uncomfortable. "Saying he's be 'disappointed' would be a huge understatement."

"That bad, huh?"

Neal turned and looked at Peter. "Worse." After a few minutes, Neal started the conversation up again. "Did he get over it?"

"Not really, no. He never understood it."

"Huh. Did that bother you?"

"At first, yeah. But I made peace with it. We weren't on bad terms, just neither of us really got the other's way of life."

Neal was quiet for a long while and Peter was trying to think of something to say, but coming up with nothing so he remained silent as well.

"Did he ever hit you?"

Peter looked at Neal who wasn't looking at him.

"No. No, my father would never hurt me."

Neal lapsed back into silence again, not giving any inclination that he'd even heard Peter's answer. Except Peter knew he had.

"Neal, did your father hit you?"

"When I did something wrong, yeah."

Peter shook his head at Neal's answer. "No child deserves to be hit as a means of punishment. What your father did to you was wrong, Neal."

Neal simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Is that what you told Mrs. Smith?"

"More or less."

"More or less?"

"Yes."

"Well, which was it? More or less?"

"More, I guess."

Peter was getting tired of this. He hated that Neal was never just straightforward, he always had to play games. "Your teacher asked if anything was going on between you and your father and you told her your father hit you?"

"Not exactly."

"What exactly was going on between you and your father, Neal?" Peter could feel in the pit of his stomach that something terrible had happened. He knew he was going to regret asking these questions, but he also knew he needed to know the answers.

"That would be a very long conversation, Peter," Neal replied dryly. "If we ever had it."

Sorry for the long update waits!

Did anyone catch my subtle 21 Jump Street reference? "That would be a very long conversation, if we ever had it" was from the episode Mean Streets and Pastel Houses when Hanson asks Brian why he sticks around with the KKK. Just a little piece of trivia for you there haha.

Anyways,

Let me know your thoughts(: