Epilogue FBI
New York City: FBI
Walking with Peter, Neal was enjoying his morning coffee. It had been a month since the incident with Keller abducting Elizabeth so he was finally allowed to return to work on desk duty. His infection had cleared and the injuries were mostly healed. If everything went well, he would be back in the field soon.
"Happy to be back?" Peter asked from beside him as he also enjoyed his morning brew.
"It's definitely going to be interesting. This is the first time I've been in the office since my cover was blown." Neal drank another swallow of his coffee as they approached the Federal Building.
Reaching for the door, Peter held it open for his partner to walk through. "I don't think it would be any worse than your first day here as a con artist. At least people won't be guarding their purses or keeping their vacations secret."
Walking through and grabbing the next door, Neal smirked. "You'd be surprised. Some people treat me with the same level of distrust, if not worse. I'm actually more expected to be snooping and spying. Then there are those who perceive me as a rival, and that's a whole other situation."
"Huh, I guess I don't have much experience on the matter, but I'm sure I'll be finding out." Peter walked through security like they did every other morning.
Heading for the elevator lines, they were surprised to find themselves in the car with Ruiz and a few of his people.
"I still don't trust you near my crime scenes." Ruiz said evenly. "You may be a spook, but I'm not a fan of them either."
"Wouldn't expect anything less." Neal quipped with a smile at Peter. Ruiz was one of those case in point examples between one who didn't trust him, and one who saw him as competition.
Rolling his eyes in response, Peter wasn't impressed.
The other agents gave general greetings and a few made pleasant conversation. Neal greeted the agents in return and answered their questions that his health was doing fine.
When it was time to get off on their floor, the Violent Crime team left and Peter went up with Neal alone.
"Don't worry about it, Peter. Ruiz still distrusting me helps keep my cover. It would look suspicious if he was suddenly welcoming to me." Neal grinned.
Sighing, Peter still didn't like it. "I don't know how you do this."
"Easy, I've been doing it nearly all my life." Neal looked up to watch the numbers flash acrossed the screen. They were getting close to their floor.
"Wait…" Peter looked confused as he tried to think of an explanation behind the comment. When he couldn't come up with one, he asked, "Really?"
"It's called Wit-sec." Neal swung out of the car neatly as the doors opened and started walking for the office.
Pausing still inside the car, Peter didn't know what to say at first, but the doors trying to close made him move. Jumping through the gap and causing the doors to open before they fully closed, Peter hurried to catch up to Neal by the doors. "So that's why I never found anything about you pre eighteen, and the other thing is why I missed… wow, no wonder you are hard to trace!"
Laughing, Neal enjoyed the pleased look on Peter's face. "You found more about me than anyone else did."
Clapping him carefully on the shoulder with his free hand, Peter smiled proudly. "I'm glad I was digging, even before I knew how far I'd have to go."
With matching smiles of friendship, they pushed the door open to enter the office.
New York City: FBI White Collar
Neal was met with several greetings of teammates welcoming him back while Peter disappeared up to his office.
"Where is your fedora? It isn't like you to come to work without your hat." A civilian who did bookwork for the department asked.
"My friend Chuck stole it. Last I saw, he was still wearing it and trying to prove he could do more tricks than I can." Neal smiled. "He said it was something about making up for lost time."
"Well, Chuck left it on your desk the last time his team past through." Diana pointed it out before turning her finger into his chest. "And don't think I'm going to wait much longer. You have an appointment on the sparring mats as soon as you're cleared for field duty buster."
Surprised, Neal asked her why.
"For lying to me all these years… and because I want to see how I rate against you. Based on the reports, you're a tough opponent, but I think I could give you a good workout. I was trained by my body guards growing up and then I was top of my class at Quantico." She smirked playfully.
"Alright, I'll give you a round. But don't blame me if you don't win." Neal challenged her back with a smile.
"Don't get cocky…" Diana threw over her shoulder as she left with her reports.
Amused, Neal turned to his desk and flipped the fedora onto his head, an action that brought a lot of smiles to the room. Seeing an envelope on the desk beneath where the hat had been, he picked it up curiously.
The writing on the outside was by Chuck's hand, but what it contained felt oddly like a card. Opening it, he pulled the card out and frowned at the contents.
It was a basic card depicting the Manhattan skyline, but the message inside was full of code… possibly even multiple codes.
Laughing, Neal was glad to see it. He had enjoyed Chuck's presence through the early stages of his recovery, but after a while it was overwhelming to have so many people about. The Bartowski crew had returned home with the promise of remaining in contact and future visits, but to encode everything was purely Chuck.
"What's so funny?" Jones asked as he walked up with a pile of paperwork in folders.
"Chuck, he left me the contact information for his crew, but it's all encoded, in multiple codes. I guess he decided to get a little revenge for all of the trouble I put him through over the years after all." Neal explained. Even though it sounded like he could be upset, his face was relaxed and amused.
"Huh, I guess that's the spy way of messing with friends. At least it helps keep your encryption and decryption skills in practice." The agent wasn't empathetic.
"It does, and it also prevents nosy agents from reading your mail." Neal smirked up towards Peter's office even though he knew the agent had never done that since his release.
"I'd think it would only make Peter more likely to read your mail. After all, whatever you encrypt would be a fun puzzle to decrypt." Jones grinned.
"Get back to work!" Peter shouted from his office noticing their grins in his direction.
Pointing at the folders, Jones indicated he was working, while Neal just smiled and waved.
Peter shook his head; he wasn't taking that battle on.
Chuckling, Jones unloaded his pile onto Neal's desk before patting him on the shoulder and starting to walk away.
"Hey, what's all this?" Neal hollered after him and pointed to the heap he had just inherited.
"Part of it is the paperwork for your new agreement between us and your agency, there is a little bit of paperwork from the recent situations needing your input, and the rest is mortgage frauds. You know how to fill the paperwork out so I'm not doing it for you, and we've been busy with the paperwork from your international adventure so things have piled up a little bit." Jones grinned before settling into his desk and starting on a much smaller pile.
"This is your version of revenge, isn't it?" Neal pretended to be hurt with a slight hint of pout. It was a move he had often used as Caffrey the con when he was trying to get out of something.
Holding up his hand, Jones wasn't falling for it. "That doesn't work on me, Neal. And don't try those puppy eyes either. Chuck tried, so we know you probably have a similar technique."
Turning his on, Neal attempted to use the puppy dog eyes just because Jones had mentioned them. "Please? I might get carpel tunnel if I have to fill this mountain out in triplicate."
'Better you than me." Jones said hiding behind a folder. "Besides, you're on desk duty and will have more time!"
"Caffrey, my office now." Hughes stood on the landing and gave Neal the double finger point.
"I wouldn't be so sure." Neal told Jones before heading up.
Entering the boss's office, Neal took his seat while Hughes closed the door behind them.
"I have a few things to go over with you." Their meeting started with Hughes sitting with his hands folded on the open folders in front of him.
"First, as Peter has discussed with you, your anklet is to remain on even though the radius restriction has been lifted. It will retain its tracking capabilities and will send an alert if tampered with." This information was followed by the folder depicting the details being slid acrossed to him. "You are to pretend nothing has changed by remaining in the previous radius as much as possible. To keep up appearance, it will still turn red if you leave the zone and Peter will get an automated call." Hughes summarized what the folder contained.
"Second, we have an agreement with the other agencies depicting why you are undercover in our offices and how you will remain as such until that purpose has been completed." Hughes was more serious with this portion of his speech and pointed a finger onto the folder. "We know your family is in danger, so only a select few know why you are here. Per your approval, Peter, Jones, Diana, and myself are the only people in this building with your operation details. We will do our best to support your mission and find the corrupt officers associated with the ring from your father's department. Still, don't go doing anything stupid Neal, I won't tolerate it from any agent on my team, and that includes you."
Concluding their meeting, Hughes asked if Neal had any questions pertaining to his new arrangement. When there wasn't any, he dismissed him back to his work.
Returning to his seat, Neal looked at the mountain piled there. Frowning, he glanced at Jones while pointing at it questioningly.
"Don't look at me. I already dropped everything with you earlier. Maybe I'm not the only one refusing to process your papers anymore?" He smiled.
Rolling his eyes, Neal grumbled as he sat down. "You don't think I have paperwork to do for my assignment? Try working for multiple agencies, then you'll see what paperwork is."
"Then you're well practiced at working through mountains." Blake said as he dropped another folder on top.
"Very funny." Neal glared as he opened the first folder. "Hey, how many mortgage fraud files are in here?" He looked around the room to see many smiling faces.
"Welcome back, Neal. We all know how much you love mortgage fraud cases, so we've been collecting." Agent Price said as he dropped another folder on top causing an avalanche acrossed Neal's desk.
Relenting, Neal knew he had been lying to them from the beginning, and as far as revenge went, it wasn't too bad. "Is this the extent of your revenge, or can I expect the coffee to be particularly horrible?" He asked with a sigh.
"No, the coffee isn't any worse than normal." Another said as she walked past him with a smile.
Agent Franklin added two more to the mess strewn acrossed Neal's desk. "We've actually done pretty much all of the paperwork pertaining to your operation, and although we aren't mad at you, things really have kind of piled up recently."
"Fine." Neal sighed. "I appreciate you all pitching in over the last few weeks to clean the operation up, and I'm glad you aren't holding it against me… but really? Mortgage frauds are the dullest cases on record!" He whined. Sure, he was actually an agent, but he was black ops, which wasn't usually so dull.
Laughing, the entire office enjoyed the feeling of normalcy.
"Really, Caffrey. We all still have piles of mortgage fraud and cold cases of our own to do. It's not like this is the CIA where things are exciting all the time." Diana wasn't empathetic either, although she was nice enough to help him restack the mess of folders while most of the office indicated their own stacks of dull cases.
Giving up, Neal decided to get to work with the rest of them. "At least I'm lucky, I still have work for the other agencies to keep me sane."
With snickers and smirks, the rest of the office went back to work on their piles and the office quieted down.
New York City: FBI
Leaving the office at the end of the day, Neal and Peter were walking acrossed the lobby when they were hailed by Agent Rice from the Missing Person's Department.
"Caffrey, I need to know if any of your contacts can help me with a case." She hurried up to them breathlessly.
Holding up the card, Neal shrugged. "Unfortunately, I can't give you their contact information until I decode it."
"Why would you want his help anyway? He's a criminal." An agent from Cyber Crimes muttered as he walked past heading for the exit. His input was ignored by their group.
Before Rice could say anything, Peter pulled out his phone and scrolled down to Chuck. "I have their contact information. This is the leader of the team."
While taking the information down, Rice shrugged. "I'm willing to use whatever I can to close this case successfully."
"Of course you are." Neal barely heard Peter mutter. The agent still wasn't a fan of Rice's methods.
Ignoring him, Rice knew she hadn't earned his respect, especially not after she had endangered a member of his team under false pretenses. Pausing, before she left, she turned to Neal. "I didn't have the chance to say this before, but I'm glad you turned out to be… well, you know. It actually suits you to be a secret hero."
Nodding, Neal accepted her compliment before watching her hurry off while dialing Chuck.
"Chuck will do his best to help her for the victim's sake, but he won't be impressed by her either. She's too much of a ladder climber to be a really good agent." Neal commented to his friend as they walked toward the exit.
"I agree. She does the job well enough, but could do better if she focused on the work and not on the reward." Peter said as he reached for the door to hold it again.
"Not everyone can be like you, Peter." Neal smiled as he tried to distract his friend from the bitter memories.
"Or you." Peter surprised him by including him in the compliment. It was still new to have his friend know he was an agent. "Are you coming over for dinner?"
"No, June has plans, and then I have this message to decrypt." Neal waved the card.
Chuckling, Peter was amused. "Alright, I'll drop you off then on my way home. Just don't work on that puzzle too hard, you just got over exhaustion not too long ago."
Flipping the card around in his hands, Neal smiled. "I promise to call you for assistance if I need it… and maybe just for fun."
"Now that's what I'm talking about." Peter carefully clapped him on the shoulder again before they separated to enter the car for the drive home.
Thank you everyone for reading, reviewing/commenting, voting, and leaving kudos :D
Next weekend I will be posting the final parts of this story with the second epilogue. The main chapter is Neal and Peter working to decode the messages showing the codes but the decrypted messages will be posted separately. If anyone wants to try and decode them there will be a brief time to try, and for those who don't want to but want to know what they say there's only about a 12 hour difference from when I head to bed to when I'm back here in front of the computer ;)
So far we have a vote for Affairs of the Heart and two for Black Sheep of the Family. Unless we end up with a tie, I'll post what's up next, next week.