When Mozzie found Peter an hour later, he was nursing his right arm against his chest, as he leaned against the hospital's reception desk. It was still sore from his impromptu duel, and it was doing nothing to improve his temperament as the uppity receptionist declined to provide any useful insight on either the whereabouts or the well-being of Neal.

He grimaced, as he finally decided that against his better judgment, because so far his judgment was the less he moved his arm the better, he ought to flash his FBI badge at her. Shortly after he deposited his badge on the counter, the receptionist started making a hasty and abashed effort to find information, and Mozzie approached him warily.

"I thought you didn't like hospitals," Peter said. To his credit, Mozzie really did look like he wished he were anywhere else, but he came up the reception desk anyway. Mozzie stopped short in his reply as the receptionist, quite unhelpfully, informed him that Neal was not yet in a room.

"I don't. But Neal was very adamant that I check on you," Mozzie said as he gave Peter a thorough once over. "Take off your coat."

"What? Why?" Peter asked as he started to pull it off anyway. "It's almost as cold in here as it is outside."

"Just testing a theory," Mozzie said as he watched and waited. Peter winced as he pulled the coat down over his arm. He had thought that his opponent had grazed his shoulder, but not that he'd drawn blood. Apparently that was not the case, as a thin trail of it ran from his upper arm down to his elbow.

"Neal may be able to tell one of us 'I told you so' later.' Go have tetanus prevented or something," Mozzie commented dryly.

It didn't look like it was a particularly serious cut, but it was still bleeding. And, besides, he thought Mozzie might have a point about tetanus. Those swords were easily almost a thousand years old.

Whatever Mozzie's exact qualms about being in the hospital were, they didn't stop him from leading Peter around to the E.R. There Peter found out both where Neal was and that his arm needed a very large butterfly bandage or a very small number of stitches. Due to an advertised inability to bathe properly with the bandage, he chose the stitches.

As the doctor worked on the stitches, Mozzie started to ask him how exactly he had ended up dueling in the weapons gallery, "It just seemed more Neal-esque than Suit-esque. Duels have that romanticized quality he admires so much."

Peter gave a short laugh because the reality was, if it hadn't been for Neal, that duel never would have happened. He, Jones, and Diana had been staking out the main entrance of the museum from across the street for maybe two hours when Diana had shook his shoulder and pointed across the street at a man that was, by this point, halfway up the steps, "I don't think that's the thief we're looking for."

As the figure glanced to the side as he briefly stopped to catch his breath, Peter saw to his utter dismay, the tell-tale sign of limp, dark brown curls and two day old stubble. Neal didn't look at all like himself, between the strange lack of style suavity and the dazed expression frozen on his face before he went to work on the museum's door. But it was still definitely Neal.

"No, no it's not," Peter said as he ran out of the van and chased after Neal to the best of his abilities on the ice and snow covered sidewalk. To his surprise, when he got to the museum entrance, the door opened without the use of the FBI's specialty access. Clearly, the thief had already gotten past the museum's security system. Not wanting to know what would happen if a feverish, possibly delirious Neal found the thief first, Peter ran from gallery to gallery, clearly choosing a different path than his partner as he saw no sign of him.

As he entered a room filled with weapons from the world over, a man he dimly recognized as the one from Mr. Campbell's photograph appeared. Before he had a chance to do anything, the man had pulled two medieval swords from the display and thrust one into his hand as he shouted, "En guarde."

Now Peter had never taken a particularly keen interest in fencing, but it was soon apparent that his opponent hadn't either. Peter sparred and circled, but mostly circled for long enough that when Neal wandered into the hall, he had thought for sure Neal had gone a different route that might lead him to another member of the FBI. Although he didn't doubt for a moment that Neal could still manage get in trouble, he'd been relieved that the only threat that he knew of was the one he was sparring with.

As he took in Neal's dazed and lost expression for a moment, he thought he really needed to get Neal out of there. As he started to turn away from Neal, he saw a specter like figure looming against the wall. That couldn't be there, right?

He lost his grip on his sword as he yelled at Neal to get out of there. When he looked back over to Neal, the figure was gone, but Neal, completely ignoring his advice, proceeded to do the exact opposite and pick up the sword and head back towards him. He vaguely heard Neal say that he was worried about him in answer to some unasked question and wordlessly let Peter lead him to the wall. Peter took a deep breathe in as he took the sword from Neal. If he wasn't sure before, he was now: Neal had to be delirious.

No sooner had he started circling the thief again than Neal was crawling across the floor right beside them. Peter saw a brief glint in the eye of his opponent that suggested he was going to strike Neal, helpless and on the ground. With some hidden strength he didn't know he possessed, he barrelled forward and hit the man's forehead with the side of his blade before running over to Neal.

"And he was just so out of it, Moz. He wouldn't stop asking if iI/i was okay," Peter finished as the doctor was telling him that he hoped their friend was okay but he really needed Peter's attention to explain what to do when the stitches were to come out. Mozzie just shook his head, because he didn't know what to say or because the doctor had scolded them, he wasn't sure.

As they walked through the maze of the hospital, or at least it seemed that way to Peter, Mozzie turned to him, "Now what did this spectre-like figure look like? Was it more of, a classic bed sheet ghost, or an imprint of the man, it once was."

Peter closed his eyes, cursed under his breath, and then turned to to Mozzie. He had thought, for some reason, that this part of the story had not been voiced aloud to the resident conspiracy theorist - it's evidently difficult to keep track when one's skin is being sewn, "I'm not sure that happened. And I don't want you to read too much into it. Let's just find Neal."

Mozzie continued asking endless questions as they continued wandering the halls of the hospital - which Peter mostly ignored but didn't try to stop because they seemed to be keeping a strange, uncomfortable expression from crossing Mozzie's features. Finally, they found El sitting in a chair across from the bed that Neal was lying on. She smiled up at them and handed Peter a coffee, "Moz, if I knew you were going to still be here, I would have gotten you somthing too."

"Thanks, Mrs. Suit. But I think I'm going to take my leave," Mozzie said as he gave Neal a hesitant glance.

"Moz?" Peter asked as he sat down next to El.

"I've had a much larger dose of hospital today than I wanted, but I know Neal wouldn't- didn't -leave when I was here," Mozzie said as he stood frozen in the doorway.

"Oh Moz, we'll be here, and he won't know you aren't," El said as she went over and placed a hand on Mozzie's shoulder. "You can come back tomorrow."

"Besides, you and Sara both need to give a statement about finding the stolen statues. I'd really like to hear the whole story myself, but I think it would be best if it was told when everyone was lucid enough to understand it," Peter said with a slight nod at Neal, though the length of the day and the persistent ache of his arm was starting to catch up with him.

After Mozzie had left, Peter turned to El, "How's he doing?"

"Better," El said simply, then paused a moment to collect her thoughts. "It was... not good before. They had to drain fluid out of his lungs. Honestly, he might have needed to be here even if he hadn't followed you to the museum, though I'm sure that didn't help. And after they did that, they gave him something to help him sleep. He was really... agitated. And he just kept repeating your name."

"Huh," Peter said. "When he basically tackled me at the museum, it was like trying to get an octopus off. He seemed to just know something was wrong. Which I suppose he wasn't entirely wrong about."

"I'm sure he'll be glad to know he earned you some stitches," El teased.

"Probably more pleased than he has any right to be," Peter said as he leaned his head against the wall. The next few hours were spent dozing uncomfortably against the hospital wall, with a brief interruption of a nurse telling the pair of them that it was long past visiting hours. In all honesty, it probably had been when he and Mozzie had left the E.R. though Peter had not really thought about it. He mumbled something incoherent through El's hair as he discovered that she had fallen asleep on his shoulder before flashing the nurse his FBI badge.

The next time he woke up, it was to Neal mumbling in his sleep. Peter carefully disentangled himself from a still sleeping El and pulled his chair closer to the bed. As he did so, he realized Neal wasn't entirely asleep. His half-opened eyes fell squarely on Peter and opened wider, "Peter."

The relief in Neal's voice was almost painful. Peter took Neal's hand in his and whispered to him, "Neal, I'm fine. And I'm not going anywhere."

Neal gave Peter's hand an appreciative squeeze before his eyes fell closed once again. Peter, grateful that Neal had seemed to be lucid, leaned gratefully back against the hospital wall and watched the sun begin to rise with Neal's hand still in his, hoping that somehow it would anchor Neal. Neal and delirium were not things he liked to see mixed.