Ahhh it's been a while, I know. But it's here!

Thanks to all who have been reading, favoriting, following and/or reviewing! It really means a lot, thank you so much for sticking with me!

Hope you enjoy this next chapter :)

~cosette141


"That's Caffrey? The Caffrey?"

"I thought it was a joke when I heard he was back in here."

"What the hell happened to him?"

"Ricky and Don brought him in. Said he fell down some stairs."

"Some pretty nasty stairs."

The voices slowly broke through the fog surrounding Neal's consciousness. Thoughts felt thick and murky with exhaustion. He hardly had the curiosity to place the unfamiliar voices above him.

The pain came quickly after. And then the memories.

First Kate, and sharp, raw hurt stole his breath and jumped his heart.

Then prison, and ice crawled his veins.

And his last flash, of Avery's face and a blinding pain in his abdomen as ribs and hope broke simultaneously.

"Caffrey," said a voice above him, one of the voices he'd heard earlier. It was firm and authoritative. "Wake up."

Neal complied, but only because now he was really concerned with where he was. Fluorescent light burned his retinas and he shut his eyes against it. But the blurry view was enough to see he was in a small room; an infirmary. It was one of the only areas of the prison he hadn't actually seen yet, in all four years of imprisonment.

He wasn't exactly glad to have gotten the chance now.

He was lying on something that a caveman wouldn't even call soft and was hardly a mattress. Neal's torso burned hotly, and he could feel some sort of loose wrapping around his waist. He blinked his eyes back open and stared up at the ceiling. He almost laughed, if it wouldn't have set his ribs on fire. The wrapping was useless. Broken ribs needed pressure bandaging, if anything. This was nearly comparable to a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

A once-white ceiling stared back at him, along with the glaring light. Neal shifted his gaze away from it to the occupants in the room. Aside from a table beside the cot he was lying on, a monitor stood on a another table beside him and two people filled the space. One man with glasses and a fixed glare, who was sitting beside Neal—his "doctor," Neal supposed—and a guard, standing in the doorway.

The familiar cold touch of handcuffs suddenly met his attention and Neal pulled at them reflexively. Both wrists were cuffed to the two sides of the cot. He glanced at them, the possibilities of slipping them, however uselessly, running through his mind.

Fingers snapped in front of his face and Neal flinched. He glared at the emotionless doctor.

"You're conscious." the doctor stated needlessly. "Perfect. You can get the hell out of here now."

The guard moved forward. Neal was still as the handcuffs were released around his wrists, doing his best not to act on his sudden-blinding-urge to run, knowing that both the guard and his ribs wouldn't let him get very far.

Free from the cuffs, the guard jerked his head toward the door. "Up."

Neal's eyes twitched into a glare but he complied… or tried to. He lifted himself slowly, each movement feeding more knives into the fire. He grimaced, clenching his teeth through the pain, only halfway upright when a hand gripped his arm and pulled him sharply up the rest of the way. He cried out, hands gripping his sides and tears nearly stinging his eyes as his ribs burned. He managed to stay upright, but his eyes were screwed shut and he was breathing heavily because damn it hurt.

"Up, Caffrey," muttered the guard jerking on his arm again. Neal snapped his eyes open, biting his tongue on a smart reply and let the guard half-drag him off the bed. Now standing, he waited, slightly hunched over his midsection, until the guard took his upper arm and started leading him out of the room, rather roughly.

It wasn't until Neal was led painfully out of the room and the guard leaned over and hissed, "You took my buddy's truck when you escaped, you know that? He got fired because of that." that Neal understood why the guard seemed so mad.

Ah. Right.

"Maybe he shouldn't have left the key in the ignition," said Neal with a cocky flick of his brows.

He knew it was a mistake the words were out of his mouth and he was shoved roughly into the wall. Neal barely caught the strangled cry in his throat and he he bit his tongue hard as the pain stabbed, tasting blood. He sank against the wall, just trying to stay upright. The pain flashed some brilliant colors across his field of vision.

"What the hell's going on here?!"

Neal's eyes opened slowly.

He knew that voice.

He just couldn't quite place it...

"He's being difficult," was all the guard said from his side.

Neal glared at him from beneath strands of hair that fell over his eyes, still trying to keep himself from sliding down the wall.

"I don't care!" the new voice said with vigor. "I'll take him then."

"Whatever." the hand left his shoulder, and Neal slipped down further, not realizing how much he'd actually been relying on it. He hit his knees and blinked away the rest of the stars from his vision.

Footsteps left and a new face entered his vision… a surprisingly worried one. Neal blinked at the face, recognition sinking in. "Bobby?" he asked in surprise.

Bobby was one of the only guards Neal had liked from his original.. stay at the prison. He usually gave Neal slack when it came to curfews and Neal even taught him chess. Bobby was a stand-up guy, always telling Neal about the girlfriend Neal encouraged him to finally stop waiting for and ask out.

And Neal could hardly remember a time he was so relieved to see someone in his life.

The dark-skinned man gave him a warm, friendly smile and nodded his affirmation. "Yeah, man." His smile faded as he looked at Neal-really looked at him. Took in the disheveled hair and broken posture and the pain-raw, pure pain-in his eyes. Bobby put a hand on his shoulder. "Neal... I heard about you this morning. I was off all week, if I had known you were back, I…"

"All week?" asked Neal with a quirked brow, finally having gotten his breath back. "Honeymoon, then?"

Bobby smiled then, a smile that reached his eyes. "Yeah! It was amazing. She's amazing. I love her to death, and I have you to-" Neal's eyes clouded at his words and he sobered instantly. "Shit. I… I heard about that, too. I… I'm so sorry, Neal. I really am."

Neal blinked, tearing his gaze away. He tried to shake the thought of her from his mind. If only just for a moment. Couldn't he just have one moment without the thought of her? He leaned his head against the wall, his headache coming back with a vengeance.

"What are you even doing in this wing?"

Neal looked down at himself, thinking it should have been obvious. But he was still in the orange jumpsuit. He pursed his lips in sudden irritation. Avery injured him in one of the only places that wouldn't be visually obvious to anyone. Somewhere that was hidden beneath his clothing. No wonder he hadn't been even a little worried about a guard noticing this later.

Not that the ones Neal had met recently would care.

Save for Bobby, of course.

"Ran into an old friend," Neal bit out. "Broke some ribs."

Bobby's eyes widened. "They what? And…" He trailed off, looking back toward where the other guard disappeared. His eyes narrowed in anger. "And then he… I can't believe Tom treated you like that!"

Neal rolled his eyes. "I'm not exactly in good spirits with the guards here." He gave Bobby a look. "After I took off."

Bobby shook his head in disgust. He heaved out a sharp, emotion-filled sigh and stood. He offered a hand. "Can you stand?"

Neal shifted a few inches, pain halting his movement and he cringed. "With help," admitted Neal, and Bobby slung an arm around Neal's shoulders, helping him slowly to stand. Neal's face was pinched the entire journey and he breathed out, his entire torso radiating pain. Any normal hospital would have told him to stay of his feet for at least a week. But prison hospital was different. They did the smallest amount they could get away with, and sometimes not even that. Neal knew of dozens of inmates that hurt themselves in the prison and been treated improperly, only for their injuries to heal in wrong ways, never to be the same again. Most inmates avoided much of the physical activities just to avoid the chance of getting hurt.

Bobby helped Neal through the hallway, much gentler and slower than the previous guard-Tom-had.

"You're with the FBI now?" asked Bobby after a moment of silent walking.

Neal half-shrugged. "Sort of." He hissed as his ribs hurt sharply. "More of a… work-release."

Bobby laughed a little. "You're out there catchin' bad guys?" He shook his head. "Damn, they don't stand a chance."

Neal laughed slightly at that. And out of three days, that was perhaps the first time he so much as smiled.

"I missed not havin' you around, you know that?" said Bobby. "There was no one around to beat me at chess."

Neal laughed again at that, until it made his ribs sting rather painfully and he gasped, making Bobby stop. Neal caught his breath as the pain died down a bit. "Th-The way you were playing, your nephew could beat you at chess."

Bobby chuckled at that one, and they kept along. They reached his cell not long after that and Bobby helped him to sit on his cot. But sitting hurt worse than standing and Neal leaned himself back on the uncomfortable mattress.

"Neal…"

Neal opened his eyes at Bobby, who was still lingering in the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"If you need anything," said Bobby, "and I mean anything… just let me know."

Neal turned his head, looking curiously at the man. He shook his head a little. "Why're you…?" he trailed off, looking for words. "I couldn't have made things easy for you when I escaped."

Bobby caught the words Neal didn't say, the question he didn't ask. "Yeah, they watched me a little more closely afterward but I didn't care." He gave Neal a meaningful look, burning it into Neal's gaze. "Because you're a good guy, Neal." said Bobby matter-of-factly. "That's why."

Neal raised an eyebrow.

Bobby shrugged. "Okay, well, good for a bad guy. But you know what I mean." He raised his left hand, where a gold ring caught the light from the hallway. "And you are the one who made this happen. I'd never have gotten up the courage to ask her to go out with me if you hadn't convinced me. Conned me, more like it," he said with a grin. But the grin faded. "And I understand why you escaped. If Rachel needed me to break out of a place like this…" He shook his head to himself. "I get it. And I'm…" He hesitated. "I'm so sorry, Neal."

The pain was back, a rush of emotion breaking through a flimsy dam. He shook it back a bit, forcing a smile. A smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Bobby smiled warmly and left. Neal laid his head back on the pillow. Thoughts of her were back. Back and strong.

Because you're a good guy, Neal.

Neal closed his eyes.

"Kate," he told her on the street, after they lost everything. His hands on her shoulders, holding her steady. Or maybe it was the other way around. "There's something you need to know."

Her eyes, searching his. Such innocence in her eyes. Innocence and trust. How so very misplaced it was. "What is it, Nick?"

He swallowed. His chest tightening, wondering just what a mistake it would be to say it but saying it anyway. "I'm not… my name isn't Nick. It's… My name is Neal Caffrey."

That was the first day he convinced her to cross the line over to him. And she did. With hardly any hesitation. How he managed to convince her to trust him, to love him, how he managed to con her to, he'd never know.

And how he could be so selfish to do so, he'd never understand, either.

"I don't get it."

His words had been spoken in innocent confusion. She'd looked at him that day, over the table full of cash they'd made from a black market deal that Mozzie had yet to launder.

"Don't get what?" she'd asked him.

"Why you…" He shook his head to himself a little, staring at the aftermath of their first month-long con. Something he'd dragged her into and she'd come so willingly. Someone so pure, so innocent, and he'd turned her into… him. "Why you're doing this with me."

She just looked at him with a surprised cock of her head. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Neal gave her a puzzled look. "Kate, I'm… I just told you I lied to you for months. You… you fell in love with a man that lied to you. I don't understand-"

Her hand on his cheek stopped him. He met her gaze as she said with pure sincerity, "Because you're a good man, Neal." A kiss on his lips. "Underneath the lies and the cons, you're a good man. And that's the man I fell for."

Neal stared up at the cement ceiling, in the semi-darkness of his cell.

He'd been given so much kindness.

From Peter.

From Bobby.

From Kate.

And he didn't deserve a damned bit of it.

All he did was leave behind hurt and broken promises.

You're a good man, Neal.

The pain was both real and emotional now, burning him from the inside out.

They all believed it, too. That he was good. Somewhere.

Maybe he was a better conman than he thought.

He closed his eyes, exhaustion whiting out everything else, and he took the escape.