Author's Note: I wanted to say thank you again for all the amazingly kind words everyone has left. This past week I've been crazy with work and have only just managed to get a new chapter posted each night before I crash. I will get back to you all personally, but in the meantime, I just need you to know how appreciated your reviews are and what a wonderful start to the day it is for me when I wake up to read your messages over toast and milk. ;)
WITNESS
Elizabeth sighed deeply and dropped her head, leaning heavily on the kitchen counter as she watched her husband wipe down the beach top.
"You okay, hon?" Peter put down the dishcloth and wrapped both hands around his wife's neck, giving her an impromptu massage in the process.
El gave a longer, more exhausting sigh, "How much longer?"
"How much longer till what?" Peter knew what his wife was asking but stalling gave him time to formulate a response.
"How much longer till we put a man on Mars…What did you think I meant Peter!" Elizabeth snapped.
"Hey, hon, it's okay," Peter's voice was both soothing and calming.
"No Peter, it's not." El pulled out of her husband's hold and picked up the dishcloth to finish wiping the benches.
"El…" Peter took his wife's hands and pulled her away from the counter, "Come on now, I know it's not been easy-"
"You should try it Peter, you go off to work and I have a stranger in the house, all day, watching our every move. If Neal and I take Satchmo for a walk, our companion follows at a 'safe distance'. We go out the backyard to water the plants, your protection detail is staring at us from behind the curtain." El gave into her tears and leaned into her husband's chest. "I hate it Peter, I hate all of this."
Peter released his own great sigh, unable to come up with some magical solution. In the end he suggested, "How about I take some leave from work? I have a heap owing to me. I'll stay at home with you both until this case is sorted out."
"You'd do that?" El lifted her head to check Peter's eyes for sincerity.
"Of course, hon, I'd do it in a flash. I'll ring Hughes in the morning and tell him what I'm doing."
"You know something Peter Burke?"
"What's that, honey?"
"I could fly to Mars and back and not find another man half as wonderful as you."
"Well, at least in the greater Brooklyn area?" Peter smiled as he kissed his wife on the head.
"Perhaps even in the five boroughs put together….Peter," El changed her tone becoming more serious once again, "I don't want you to take leave. Neal and I need you to go back to work, do your thing, catch the bad guys and make good on your promise. Besides, I've already put my business on hold for six weeks, no need for both of us to be off work."
"And you think you can handle the encroachment of the protection detail just a little while longer?"
El shrugged, "Perhaps I'm going about it all wrong. Officer Bartlett has a cute little-"
Craaaaash!
El ducked out of instinct as the ceiling above them vibrated and felt for all the world like it was about to implode over the top of their heads. Then, a split-second after her initial concern for self-preservation, El screamed at her husband, "Neal!" But the agent had already moved into action, telling his wife to stay put as he darted for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Of no surprise to anyone, El did not stay put as she was ordered. She was following so close on Peter's heals that she ploughed right into him as he came to a sudden halt in their bedroom doorway. The scene that lay before them couldn't have looked worse if a bomb had exploded in their room. Their large clothes closet was laying flat with one end on the bed, the other on the floor, several drawers with all the contents were tossed about every which way and the photo frames, brushes and books that had been resting on top of the closet had been propelled out as far as the door.
But Peter and El didn't notice any of that. Their eyes were darting around the room for one thing and one thing only, "Neal!" El screamed, almost as loudly as she had downstairs and within seconds, she was reward with a tremendously wonderful sight. The little boy crawled out from the small alcove that had been created between the closet and the bed. The frantic parents raced over and knelt beside their youngster, dragging him out from under the disaster above and onto his feet, checking for broken bones and life-threatening wounds. Apparently, Elizabeth found one,
"Peter! He's bleeding! He's got a gash on his head!" El snatched up the closest article of clothing and pressed it against the little boy's forehead where a strip of red was beginning to form.
"It's okay, hon," Peter took the makeshift bandage from his wife and wiped the area clean. "It's only a little scrap, just calm down," you're going to scare the kid!
El took repossession of Peter's cotton tee shirt and checked for herself. The little graze had indeed stopped bleeding, but she patted the area gently a few more times for good measure.
The agent took the opportunity to sit back on the carpet in order to give his adrenaline a chance to run its course. His heart rate had gone through the roof with this little scare and if he wanted it to return to an acceptable level that wasn't going to see him having a stroke in the next five minutes, he had to take a time out.
It was during this brief lull that Peter noticed that while Neal's left hand was dangling naturally beside his leg, his right hand was twisted up behind his back. El hadn't noticed, she was still pondering whether the paper cut on Neal's forehead was going to require stitching. The agent ambled forward and took the little one's right arm and tried to pull it forward carefully for inspection but surprisingly, Neal held it secured behind his back.
"Hey partner?" Peter questioned gently, "Did you hurt your arm or your wrist?" It didn't seem likely. If the kid had broken a bone or sprained his wrist, he'd more than likely be showing at the very least some outward emotion indicating he was in pain. But the child stood unresponsive, just staring into space like he had every day since they'd first brought him home. Peter tried again, this time not so gently and easily pulled the little guy's arm from behind his back out to the front.
El shrieked, "Peter!"
Peter gasped, "Neal!"
And the little guy said nothing at all, just stared at the two adults who were unable to take their eyes off the object in the youngster's hand.
"Give me the gun, Neal." Peter used both hands to attempt to remove his gun from the child's hand but Neal had his little fingers wrapped tightly around the small metal trigger brace and didn't seem to want to let go. Peter wasn't worried about the gun going off, he never kept it loaded at home and he could see that the magazine chamber was empty, but still, seeing his boy holding a gun, even an unloaded gun, scared the crap out of him. "Neal," Peter's lenient approached changed and his voice become suddenly stern. "Let go of the gun right now." He could easily rip the gun from the child's hand but he didn't want his little fingers getting hurt.
Tears welled in the corner of the youngster's eyes and he glanced from the panicked look on Elizabeth's face to the authoritive one on Peter's before very slowly, very begrudgingly holding out the gun for the agent to take possession of. As soon as he'd relinquished control, the little boy crumbled to the ground and began to weep. Peter and El were so shocked, they were slow to react, staring at each other for a clue before moving quickly to wrap the little guy up in a loving embrace.
"Hey sweetie, it's okay. Everything's going to okay," El tried to reassure the youngster while Peter jumped up to tuck his gun away into a more secure hiding place. When he returned, Neal's weeping was still going strong so he simply sat on the floor beside his wife and wrapped his arms around them both as best as he could, not caring for an instance that he was sitting amongst the greatest mess his poor bedroom had ever seen.
###
"He still sleeping?" El asked as she put her mug down on the coffee table and shifted over so her husband could settle beside her on the couch. It had been over an hour since Neal had cried himself to sleep in her arms and Peter had carried the sleeping child back to his room. Before he had fallen asleep, they had tried to get the little guy to open up, to explain what was going on in his little head, but the child had been way too emotionally distressed to be in any way responsive.
"Totally out to it. Didn't even stir when I pulled back his blanket to cool him down a little."
"Did he feel hot?" El's immediate thoughts went to considering if the child was coming down with a fever.
"No, I think he was just a bit flushed from having worked himself into such a state."
"Sounds about right," El passed Peter his coffee as she shifted forward to retrieve her own. "If he's not awake in the next half-hour, I'll have to get him up no matter what or he's never going to get to sleep tonight."
"Yeah, and I need to make a start on the room soon or I'll never get it back to a reasonable state and we'll end up having to camp out in Neal's bedroom tonight." Before coming downstairs, they had worked out it was best to leave the disaster zone alone until after Neal took his nap and then El would bring the little boy down to the basement to help with the washing while Peter maneuvered the closet back into position, with the addition of course of some securing brackets.
"Why, Peter?" El sighed deeply as she leaned heavily against her husband's shoulder. "I've been over it and over it in my head but all I get are more and more questions."
The 'what' had been easy to work out. All evidence had pointed towards Neal clambering up the drawers to get at Peter's handgun that he always kept safely tucked into the very back of his sock drawer – the most out of reach drawer in the closet. His bullet magazine was kept in his gun holster, which he tucked inside one of his jackets on a hanger. The youngster had inadvertently untoppled the closet with all his weight centred at the top and the disastrous result was scattered all over the master bedroom. The what, the how and the where had been answered in seconds, but the why…the why was still hanging over Peter and El's head in large neon lettering.
"Why would Neal think it's okay to take your gun?"
Peter stared off into space, considering possibilities, "I guess the real question is…why would Neal think he needs a gun?"
"He must be feeling like he's still in danger…Which he is so I guess it's not hard for him to sense the seriousness of what's going on. Do you think he's heard us taking? I told him the agents that hang around here during the day are just men from your work doing some research for your department. I kept it vague but maybe he's worked out that they are here to watch over us. Maybe," El sat up so she could face her husband, "Maybe he sees the protection detail leave when you arrive home and thinks we're no longer safe?"
"Could be. Something's made him think he needs a gun."
"But surely he knows between you and I, we wouldn't let anything happen to him? And he knows you have a gun so he must have worked out that you're an officer of the law."
"I hope so. I hope he hasn't been thinking all this time I work for the bad guys. First chance I get, I'll take him down to the Bureau and show him around but in the interim, we need to sit him down and assure him that he is safe, that I'm an FBI agent and that I am trained to take care of people."
"And that he is not allowed to touch your gun," El added just in case Peter hadn't considered it mention worthy.
"Any gun," Peter affirmed with conviction. "If I get anything through to him, I want it to be that he understands he is never to touch any gun ever again."