Friendly Case Work

During the dark depths of the night, a figure in a doctor's uniform slipped up to the guards. They followed their verification procedure but didn't stop him from entering the room.

Checking over the charts and giving the patient a good look over, he seemed to be as satisfied as he could be under the circumstances.

Pausing to have a brief one-sided conversation, he addressed the patient. "I told you to be careful, but then I suppose you couldn't have expected a second squad to assault you. There is also this rumor I hear about you being a spook. As much as I'm nervous to have admitted one of your kind into my inner domain, I'm also glad it turned out to be you." Wiping his glasses, the short man paused before finishing his visit. "Elizabeth and I had a lengthy chat this afternoon, so I know what has been going on. When you wake up… I'm sure you can confirm several conspiracies for me."

Slipping out of the room, he headed down the hall only to pause when the curly-haired guard addressed him. 'Have a good night Mozzie. He will be glad to know you're sticking around for him." Not admitting to his identity, as it would blow his cover, Mozzie ignored the remark and kept on walking. Bryce he was choosing to accept, but these agent friends of his wouldn't be so easy.

Walking into the office the next morning after a night of research and restless sleep, Peter was glad to see how busy it already was. It seemed like everyone had come in extra early in an effort to solve the cases as quickly as possible.

Since evidence had come in the previous afternoon, Peter had worked hard to distribute the information and make progress on his own evidence. The team had been just as diligent, sorting and working through the remainder of the day before taking briefcases home for the evening.

In an effort to get him out of the office, Jones and Diana had teamed up to persuade him to visit Bryce at the hospital with them before going home for the night. Having agreed, Peter accompanied the agents on their visit while checking in on their friend for himself.

Diana had forgiven him for not contacting her through the chaos, but she wasn't going so easy on Bryce.

Having placed her fingers on his arm, she proceeded to live up to her take-charge reputation. "I hear you have been fooling us from the beginning, Bryce. Now, we both know what I threatened you if you ever tried to pull one over on me, but I think I can forgive you this once. However, it is going to cost you. When you are better, I want a sparring match so I can kick your butt for all of the stuff you have put us through, and you are going to answer some questions for me. Now, I know you need some sleep to rest off all of the attacks, and that you may want to take some extra time to spite us for how we have been treating you lately, but you had better not take too long because the office is too quiet and depressing without you." Although she didn't outright apologize, the light threats and banter suited their typical conversation more.

Jones had followed her in his own fashion. "Now I know why you allowed us to come up with our own assumptions and wouldn't correct us with what was really going on." Standing rigidly, Jones held his ground militarily, despite how bad he felt. "Although you aren't FBI, the team has learned to generally accept you, recent circumstances excepting, and we would like to repair some of our mistreatment you have endured. From what I'm gathering, you are a good agent and have served your country well. It's an honor to have worked with you, and I hope you will be willing to come back if you can. In the meanwhile, take it easy soldier and get back on your feet." He had kind of apologized for himself but had also generally included the rest of the team.

Standing to attention, he saluted Bryce as a mark of honor. It wasn't to protocol and Bryce had never been in the military, but it was his way of showing how he felt.

After they had gone, Peter had pressed Bryce's fingers in his hand in an attempt to make his friend aware of his presence. "We got the evidence in the office this afternoon. Now, most of the team has taken files home to try and figure out what you were actually doing over the last few months. Everyone is determined to get the cases solved, and we are all sorry we didn't believe you when you said you were innocent."

Then he lifted his hand to run it through Bryce's hair again. The motion was something his parents had always done with him when he didn't feel good and Elizabeth had picked up the habit as well, so he thought it might comfort Bryce too. "Goodnight, Bryce," then with one last squeeze of the hand, he left to find Elizabeth.

Looking up from his reverie, Peter noticed Jones and Diana knocking on his office door.

"Hey boss, how is Bryce?" Jones led as he entered first.

"The same, there is still no known reason why he is in a coma and many of his stats have remained just as low." His early morning visit hadn't proved as reassuring as he would have liked.

"What about Mozzie? How is he handling the situation, does the other team know about him?" Diana was concerned about the quirky little man and how he would react to the reveal.

Smirking slightly, Peter was glad he good news to deliver on that front. "Chuck said Mozzie made one of his off-hour visits. Apparently, he is going to stick around for Bryce and hopes he will be willing to confirm a few conspiracy theories for him now that he knows about his connections. However, he doesn't seem to be so accepting of Chuck and Sarah at this point."

Relaxing, Diana was relieved to hear that the odd little fellow wasn't going to abandon his friend just because he wasn't the man he pretended to be. Although the decision would have been understandable in a way if he had, it wouldn't have felt right considering the history between the two men.

Finishing their brief conversation, the two agents left Peter to get started on his work for the day. They all needed to prepare for the morning briefing so there was plenty to do.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Peter focused on arranging everything he had to share. Sleep had eluded him much of the night, or he had been tormented by nightmares, so he had made it through a decent number of files since leaving the office the night before.

June was taking her turn to visit Bryce for the day. Taking the seat next to her young friend's hospital bed, she couldn't believe she hadn't seen him since that night her family turned him out and hadn't had a real conversation with him in months. Ashamed, she was desperate to begin righting the wrong.

Trembling as she reached out to touch his hand, she couldn't help but briefly remember when her Byron had been so weak and dying, but then she turned her thoughts to the man before her. He wasn't old and sick, but rather young and injured, so there were differences in the situations.

She didn't have much to say, so she got straight to the point. "I'm sorry, Bryce. Although I wish I could say I hadn't known better, I felt bad the whole time I lectured you and especially when I evicted you from the loft." Pulling out her tissues, she had been prepared for the tears, but she wasn't ready to let them reign. First, she had to finish saying her apology. "When I learned you were suspected of stealing that treasure, I was disappointed and couldn't help comparing you with Ford. You should have learned the lesson from him about 'last scores,' and I didn't want to see you waste your life chasing rainbows in search of pots of gold when you already had so much at your fingertips. Then with the vase… it was either you, my trusted friend or someone else I had trusted into my home, there was no winning solution." Squeezing his hand, she wanted to have that physical connect reinforced along with her words as she finished. "When you wake up, the loft and wardrobe will be waiting for you, and I hope you will forgive me enough to come back."

Crying quietly, she spent the rest of her time trying to release her emotions in the privacy of his room.

As the other agents started moving up for the meeting, Peter collected his things, locked his computer, and moved to the conference room. There he dropped his things in a stack, left to retrieve a cup of coffee, and returned to get settled into his space.

The room wasn't filled with the usual chatter, but rather a tired excitement. They had made good progress in their work and were waiting until Hughes was ready to start the meeting.

When it was time, Hughes entered the room and took his seat at the head of the table. "Okay, everybody. We have three cases pertaining to the charges against Bryce. The agents who were running the operation have already submitted the paperwork to close the theory of impersonation, so that leaves us with the treasure and June's cases. What have we got?" He first directed it to Peter.

"Actually, we also have the original James Bonds case that had to be reopened too." Peter reminded Hughes. "Since the real Neal Caffrey actually committed the crime, I have been asked to clear Bryce's name and close the case so he can be released from his anklet. In order to do so, I went back through the evidence in comparison with his boss's records. We have managed to put together proof that the bonds were originally found in the procession of the real Neal Caffrey, and that Bryce's fingerprints were added as an additional link to cement his position in the role. However, what was surprising was that I discovered why these particular bonds were allowed. Apparently, the owner behind them has personal reasons for wishing to keep witnesses safe once they have entered Wit-sec, so he agreed to allow for his bonds to be used in the operation to catch the killers. Once I called him this morning to say the case was being wrapped up, he dropped all charges as had originally been intended. When Bryce wakes up, there won't be an anklet waiting for him… which also means our deal with him as our consultant is also over." He was glad to announce the happy conclusion to Bryce's jail sentence, but he wasn't thrilled to lose his partner.

There were mixed emotions through the team, but it wasn't entirely a surprise since they knew he had been undercover the entire time.

Moving on to the next case, Jones took the lead. "I have been working to resolve June's theft. Most of Bryce's defense is based on the additional security he installed in her house… something she apparently didn't know about until this morning. Anyway, the security has cameras covering all of the main entrances into the mansion as well as a general view of the public areas and loft. The recordings have literally everything that has gone on since he installed them, which includes when the vase was switched out." He used the control to put the video clip up on the screen. "There is no way to count how many times the maid moved the vase to clean it, or how many times she took it to replace the flowers, but Bryce pinpointed the trip when she took an unusual amount of time to replace the flowers, and she went by an odd route that took her past a side doorway. Switching to the camera view of the door, it shows her exchanging the real vase for the fake with a man who was waiting outside." Shrugging, that was all that he had, but it was a lot more than they had previously collected. "I have warrants for a few security cameras that might have gotten more footage, and another for the maid to bring her in this afternoon. Hopefully, this case will be closed in forty-eight hours or so."

"What about the evidence found amongst his supplies?" Peter asked. He wanted to clear up as much as possible.

"Oh, another camera caught the maid on that one too. She met a man at the door, likely the same one, and he gave her the paint that she planted in Bryce's supplies before he packed up to move to the hotel. He probably didn't check each paint tube to see if there was any that wasn't his, so it was missed until agent Smith carried out the warrant."

Slightly irritated, Peter wished he had caught that when he checked through Bryce's things. However, on second thought, he probably wouldn't have looked at in the same light and might have arrested him on the spot.

Taking her turn to lead, Diana shared what progress she had made on the treasure case. "There are several parts to consider, with the first part being to clear Bryce's name. Now we all know we were investigating him for the crime, but what we didn't know, is that he considered us as suspects too." She smirked lightly at the expressions around the table showing their reactions to seeing his list. Peter's was probably the most amusing because he and Elizabeth had both made it, but were rejected as serious suspects.

"I don't know if I should be amused that he rejected me, or annoyed that he even considered me in the first place. Perhaps it was only fair because we were being so judgmental towards him." Peter wasn't sure what to think about seeing his name on the list. It hurt to think Bryce would even consider him for such a betrayal, but then he had spent the previous months accusing Bryce of the same action. Adding to his list of things on his mind, he chose to let it slide until he could talk about it with Bryce.

As several other team members were conversing about the list, Hughes had to step in for a moment to regain order. "Quiet everyone. What else do you have Berrigan?"

Focusing on one name from the list, she continued to share her information. "He also placed himself on the suspect list, so he probably included our names to be thorough, and went through other people who knew about the treasure being out there and stolen. The amusing part is that he went so far as to question whether or not he could have stolen the treasure in his sleep, because he was certain he hadn't done it while he was awake. Combining Peter's, Elizabeth's, and Sara's testimony with the anklet monitoring and the video recording of Bryce sleeping, it wasn't hard to prove he hadn't physically stolen the treasure. As for his alleged accomplice, Bryce has satellite information showing Mozzie at one of his safe houses on the night of the theft. Both of them are clear, which means we were really looking in the wrong direction before." She felt as ashamed as everyone else did. They had ostracized and distrusted Bryce for nothing.

Clearing his throat, Hughes had to mentally admit he had suspected Bryce just as much as everyone else had. There wasn't a person on the team who wasn't guilty of misjudging him. "Did you find any likely leads to follow?"

Returning to Bryce's evidence, Diana pointed out his primary suspect list. "Either Alex Hunter or an unknown person." Relieved that Bryce had done such a good job of installing secret surveillance, she knew it wasn't going to be as hard to solve the case. "It is fortunate Bryce is more paranoid than we thought because he also placed full surveillance on his storage unit. And although she kept her face hidden, I'm certain it was Alex Hunter who cleared out his paintings and supplies. Her theft of all of his canvases also explains how a modern painting with his signature ended up at the crime scene."

"Can you get any evidence to prove it?" Peter wasn't sure what Bryce would think about his criminal friend using him, but he was rather relieved it wasn't Bryce or Mozzie who were guilty.

"I already checked the surveillance cameras before, but I'm hoping his friends from the other agency might be able to help me find something. In the meanwhile, I have my computer scanning the borders for any means she might have tried to escape the country by, and I have asked Mozzie how he thinks the treasure might have been transported to narrow down my search." It wasn't as easy as it could be, but Bryce had prevented a great deal of footwork for her.

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