a/n: the fic is now done! there will be 28 chapters and I should be able to post 2 a day from now on. I'm just putting on the final touches. thank you to everyone who's following along!

When Richards arrived with his tray the next day, Neal was still on the floor. He'd managed to get himself up to sitting, but there was no way he could stand. Or make it over to his little window. He just sat there, even when Richards called out to him though it. He just turned his head, glanced at the guard, and then went back to staring at the wall again.

"Shit," he heard Richards mutter. The tray disappeared and his little window closed. Neal didn't have much energy to focus on anything other than his own breathing. Otherwise he might have wondered where the guard went.

He found out soon enough.

The bolts on his door were drawn back and then Richards was in the room with him a moment later. He knelt on the floor next to Neal, setting the tray down. But Neal could do little more than stare at the man through his one working eye. He thought about trying to speak, to pull in enough breath to force words out of his raw and ragged throat, only he was fairly certain Smith had broken his jaw. Or at least bruised it very, very badly. He would not be eating for at least a week. His arm was also completely useless now and had come loose from its sling slightly. He hadn't had the energy to tighten it again.

Richards reached out to touch the side of Neal's face, turning it this way and that, inspecting the damage. Neal let him, though under normal circumstances the touch would have had him flinching away, telling the guy to get his filthy hands off of him and go directly to hell. He might play it out in his mind, but there was no physical way of doing it. Neal was broken. Smith had seen to that. He'd torn Neal apart. He wouldn't stay that way for long. Neal never did. He was not the kind of person to just roll over and die. But for now… well for now he was content to just stay in his little broken pile on the floor.

"Do you need the infirmary? We do have a doctor. Delores, she's," but Neal was already shaking his head.

"Already met her, huh?"

Neal gave the guard a knowing look before turning away again. He probably did need to see her. He was pretty sure Smith had cracked at least a few of his already tender ribs and it hurt to breathe. Or at least it did when he moved too much. Sitting here quietly on the floor of his cell, the hurts were less vocal. Even Peter's hallucination had left. But Delores was Smith's girl and likely wouldn't help him even if he was taken to the prison infirmary, so...

A water bottle was placed in his hand. "Try and drink something. I'll bring you a few more before the shift change. Hide them somewhere if you can. I'm off for the next few days but Andrews is filling in for me and Smith wouldn't dare try anything with her around. But don't expect much from her and watch what you say. Smith's got something on her, too."

So that explained it. Smith was dangling something over Richards' head and it had bought his silence. He might still know more about Neal's true identity than he was letting on, but at least Neal now knew the man wasn't working with Smith willingly. Somehow that made things alright between them again in Neal's eyes. He began flexing his jaw as Richards got up to leave, trying to warm it up enough that it might let him get a few words out.

"He's planning… to get… you fired," he somehow managed, though the pain of it made his eyes water. He was only able to open his mouth a tiny bit, add that to the state of his throat and it was a wonder he could speak at all.

Richards paused.

"I heard them. Smith… Jimmy… they're planning something." It was some distant name pulled from some murky memory he had of his first day here. A conversation Smith and Delores had in front of him.

"What?" Richard's asked, turning around. "What are they planning?"

"Your cellphone… two minutes and I'll tell you." His jaw was in agony, each formed word a new lesson in torture.

"And why should I believe a word you say?"

"Because I'm not Dominic Sanchez, and you know it." The small speech had taken everything he had left and Neal let his head fall back against the wall. He could only hope it was enough as he searched Richards' face for some sign that it had been.

The guard's face was blank as he gave his answer. "I think solitary is finally starting to get to you, Sanchez."

And just like that, he was gone, taking with him all the hope Neal had managed to store up over the past few hours. The door was shut on it too, with a loud bang he felt in his teeth. He'd keep chipping away at Richards for as long as it took, but for now, it was over. Now he was staring down a few days with just Smith and some new woman he'd already been told would not be any help.

Richards' actions confused him. He was helping Neal, treating him more like a human than Smith, but he refused to let Neal make his call. Or just do it himself.

Neal started reciting Peter's number in his head, just to make sure it was still there and safely locked away in his memory. Would Peter change it some day? Do something arbitrary like switch phone providers and get a new number along with his new phone? That would be the end of it all together. His last best chance. Neal shivered at the thought. No, he'd cross that bridge once he came to it.

Neal used his sleeve to wipe at his nose and resisted the urge to cry. It would be undignified, but who was around to see? Why shouldn't he break down? In fact, why shouldn't he get angry. Richards had left his food tray on the floor by Neal's legs so he picked it up with his one good arm and threw it against the wall with all the force he could find inside. The pain was like fire licking up his body, but he welcomed it as he watched great gray globs of gelatinous mash slide down the walls as he coughed from the effort. Runny creamed corn and chicken that fell apart when you grabbed if off the tray, and not in a good way, went splattering everywhere. Neal was satisfied for approximately three seconds before realizing no one would be by to clean up the mess he'd made. There was no maid service in hell. In fact, Smith would probably be the next one to visit him, take one look at the mess he'd made, and make Neal clean it up with his toothbrush or something. The guy might even confiscate Neal's makeshift sling and make him use his broken arm to do it. He couldn't put it past the guy. It was exactly something that sadistic bastard might try to pull.

Neal glanced over at his bed, calculating the strength it might take to crawl over and pull himself up on to it. He decided it wasn't worth it and spent his energy trying to retrieve his overturned tray from the floor. He supported his ribs with a hand, trying to keep at least some of the pain at bay as he bent to retrieve it, but his broken body wasn't ready for that kind of movement quite yet. He fell back against the wall, breathing hard and trying to calm the pain. The panting only worked to aggravate his lungs and soon Neal was coughing so hard the world went away. It seemed to never end, and coupled with his broken ribs, one little part of his brain worried he might die.

Right then and there. That's how Peter would find him, dead on the floor from oxygen deprivation, the remnants of his lunch tray still sliding down the wall. Neal fell onto his side and curled protectively around his ribs and arm as the coughing eased. He tried to think of other things, like how one might escape a maximum security solitary confinement block with nothing but a lunch tray, the materials from his fish kit, and the tiny bit of hope he was still clinging too. But the pain made it impossible to focus on anything but trying to breathe normally.

But there had to be a way. Something he could do to get word to Peter. If these were normal circumstances and he had been healthy, Neal would have picked Smith or Richards' pockets by now. But down here in solitary, the guards were careful and cautious. They didn't carry anything with them except their weapons of mass destruction. Guns and fists and boots. What good were his skills against all that?

"Don't you go giving up," the Peter in his head commanded. His hallucinated form stayed away.

"Then get your ass over here and come find me," Neal said to the empty room.

While Neal was having his imagined conversation with Peter in his cell, the real Peter sat in his office a state away, staring out his office window. He'd been staring out a lot of windows over the past several days as the search for Robert Leech and Jeremiah Park crept along at a snail's pace. Neither had been seen or heard from in days and Peter was beginning to wonder again if they would ever catch a break. Ever get the chance to interrogate either man and find out what they knew about Neal's current whereabouts. If Peter could even get the information out of them.

In one desperate attempt at clarity, he'd even gone so far as to take the ferry over to Ellis Island and stand in the middle of the Hall of Records. It had been a favorite spot of his during his early days at the bureau. Something about the cavernous space and the intricate details of the ceiling calmed him down. It was a place of remembrance, like the crack in Rosa's door. So many people had come through this place, full of fear and hope of the new life they were about to create for themselves. Possibility and adversity standing hand in hand on the docks and ready to greet them as they stepped off the boats and into a new country. Yesterday when he'd visited, he hadn't gotten the clarity he was seeking, but he did get a chuckle or two thanks to a group of school children who had begun a game of tag in the middle of the room, much to the chagrin of their chaperones.

Not even Lady Liberty had helped as he stood in her shadow and peered up into her oxidized copper face. There were no pearls of wisdom to be found, though it was nice to have some quiet time to think. He was pretty much on the phone non stop these days, fielding calls from all those people who were tripping over themselves to help. Even the prison had come through and Peter had watched their surveillance footage himself on the plasma in the conference room. With Leech on the run and all but confessing his guilt by doing so, the time for discretion was over. Hughes has been brought in on everything. The entire office was working around the clock to sift through the small pieces of information that were slowly trickling in. It was their case now, DC be damned.

The footage from the prison intake area wasn't any help beyond the fact that it confirmed Neal had never set foot in Rikers. Peter had a team at the prison now, interviewing inmates, employees and watching endless hours of grainy footage trying to find some hint of where Neal might have gone after the missing Marshal supposedly took him to Intake. That Marshal was missing. Like Leech, he had cleared out his bank accounts and disappeared.

The deeper Peter and his White Collar agents dug into Leech, the weirder things seemed to get. Up until leaving White Collar to join the DOJ, he was squeaky clean. The perfect model of an ambitious politician. But then something seemed to change around the time Neal started working with Peter. Leech began making decisions that didn't fit with his personality. He was very wealthy for a government employee as well, and Peter still had Mozzie and his forensic accountants looking into that.

Peter just happened to be staring out his window and thinking about that money again when Diana popped her head into his office. "Boss, could you come into the conference room? I think we found something."

The White Collar conference room was the place to be at the moment. Elizabeth had set up a table beneath the TV and stocked it with so much food, you were full just looking at it. Rosa's pastries were in the mix, along with huge stainless steel carafes full of her coffee and tall stacks of styrofoam cups beside them for the taking. Some of his cavalry was assembled already. The only people missing were Elizabeth and Don. One was at home under heavy guard in case Park decided to make another move. And the other had informed him that he was just too busy doing real detective work to come help the FBI solve their case, but promised to be available by phone in case Peter needed any more help tracking things down. Or access to a resource he didn't necessarily want the FBI to know about. And Mozzie of course. That man wouldn't be caught dead in a government building, and had reminded Peter of that fact quite vocally when he'd last spoken to him on the phone. A burner phone that Mozzie had insisted he use from now on.

"What have we got," Peter asked as he followed Diana into the conference room.

"Mozzie found something pretty interesting," Jones explained, typing something into his laptop so that his screen was now mirrored on the conference room TV. It looked to be a police report for stolen property. But it was also a fax of a fax of a fax and hardly legible.

"Can you tell what it says?" Peter asked, putting his nose so close to the plasma in an effort to read it, he nearly went cross eyed.

"It's a police report," Jones said, stating the obvious. Peter would have turned around and given him a look had he not been so fixated on the screen. "It was filed by Leech years ago. Back when he was the director of White Collar. Someone stole several pieces of priceless art from his home. Family heirlooms, according to the report. But it's the list of suspects that's really interesting."

Peter turned around. "What do you mean?"

"Caffrey's on it."

"What?" several voices asked at once. It was so reminiscent of Leech's first day in the office that Peter nearly checked under the table to make sure the man wasn't hiding beneath it. But they'd already swept for bugs.

"How is that possible? I know Neal's jobs back to back and I would have remembered a case with Leech."

"Mozzie thinks he had it purged from the system," Jones replied.

"Why?" Peter mused.

"Embarrassment maybe?" Diana offered up. "He was the director of White Collar at the time. Maybe the shame of having Caffrey steal from him was enough to set him off."

"Agent Burke, what year were you assigned to Caffrey's case? In the very beginning?" Reed asked, peering at Peter from over her laptop.

Peter rubbed at his chin as he thought back. "10 years ago maybe? I chased him for three, he was in prison for four, and we've been working together for about 3 now. Why?"

"Check out the date on the report."

Jones did his best to zoom in on the top line of the document and all eyes turned to the screen. The date was from approximately ten years ago and something clicked in Peter's brain.

"This is right around the time I was recruited to track Neal down," he muttered half to himself before turning back around to the table full of agents. "Are you telling me that this is the case that started it all? The one that prompted them to bring me on and track Neal down?" It would make sense. A prominent FBI director with egg on his face bringing in the big guns to take care of a pesky problem.

"It's means and motive, boss," Diana said. "If Leech was embarrassed enough to alter official records and have the report of his theft purged, only for the man who stole from him to get a - what did you say he called it? A nice cushiony job with the FBI? - then maybe that's why he decided to take matters into his own hands."

"And get Neal sent back to prison," Peter finished.

"But sending out a serial killer like Park to do it?" Jones pointed out. "Seems pretty extreme to me."

"Not if Park was just along for the ride and Spencer was the one calling the shots. I mean, Detective Murphy did tell Agent Burke that the two had been teaming up on some non-serial killer type jobs lately," Reed added.

Reed had a point, but Peter was still reeling from the fact that Leech might have been the catalyst for everything, and from the very beginning. But it was all circumstantial evidence at this point. And they were still no closer to finding Neal. What they needed was Leech himself. At least the judge would have no qualms about issuing a warrant now. This was too big to be ignored. Altering FBI records was a federal offense in and of itself. Even if Peter only nailed Leech on that, it would be enough.

"Do we have any leads on where Leech might be now?"

"None," Jones answered. "He cleared out his bank accounts before we had the warrant to freeze them and has been in the wind ever since. The man's a ghost."

"And Neal?"

The wheelchair bound agent shook his head sadly. The photo that Leech had sent to Peter the other day had been combed over by FBI techs to no avail. The phone was a burner, purchased with cash by someone who was not Leech or Park. They'd wasted several man hours tracking it down, only to find it discarded in one of the Washington Square Park trash cans. It was a creative touch. Leech was letting him know he was the reason Peter and Mozzie had nearly been gunned down.

They knew from the photo that Neal was being held in some kind of cell. The techs might not have been able to figure out where the photo had come from, but they had analyzed the crap out of every pixel of it. They knew the phone that sent the picture was not the same phone that took it. The meta data had been erased thoroughly which led them to believe Leech had some technical prowess, despite the little notebook he used in lieu of a laptop. Or at least had smart people working for him. They knew the kind of phone that took the picture, when it was manufactured, but nothing of any value. The orange jumpsuit Neal was wearing had suggested some kind of prison perhaps, but how many of those were scattered across the country? Even so, Peter already had everyone redoubling their efforts at Rikers trying to find out how many transports had left that day. Unfortunately, there were hundreds.

Rikers Island was the largest prison system in the country and inmates were not housed there long term. It wasn't a jail in the truest sense of the word, more like a holding facility for prisoners who were being held over for trial or in federal custody for whatever reason. There were transport vans and busses departing for all corners of the country daily, hourly even. If Neal had been on one of those, then it was going to be a nightmare trying to find him.

But they would. Leech had warned him to consider his next move wisely. Well Peter was. He was doing everything he could to lay low, stay off the FBI mainframe and keep his movements as quiet as possible. The only reason they were in the conference room and not at Rosa's was because of all the precautions Peter had taken to secure the building. No one was allowed in or out unless they had a badge and their retinal scans were in the system. Hughes was amused by that aspect of Peter's plan but let him get away with installing the technology because it was, as Huges had put it, high time they got with the times.

In addition to all that, the entire office had been swept for bugs and everyone was on new laptops connected to a secure server with FBI level encryption. Unless Leech had Stephen Hawking working for him, no one was getting through. There had been moments when Peter was afraid Hughes might tell him it was all too much and to shut it down, but the order was never given. Hughes was as invested in finding Neal and bringing Leech down as the rest of them at this point and was willing to give Peter free reign. It was a tremendous drain on FBI resources and many of their other cases had been put on the back burner, but other agents had been brought on to pick up the slack. Peter was free to focus all his attention on Neal's case. Not even DC was putting up a fuss. Peter was pretty sure they were beginning to realize what had been done to Caffrey, what Leech's power and influence had let him get away with, and how none of this was going to look good for any of them when it was all over.

And it had to be over. Soon. Judging by Neal's state in that photo, he was running out of time.

"Alright. We know Neal's alive. Leech was kind enough to send us that proof of life photo even if he didn't realize it," Peter continued. "He also might have inadvertently given us a big clue about Neal's whereabouts with the jumpsuit he was wearing."

"I checked with the techs," Reed said. "The jumpsuit is standard issue and made by the same company that distributes to the entire midwest. It looks to be a dead end."

"But it's enough to tell us he's likely in prison somewhere," Jones reminded them.

"If he's in a prison," Peter mused, "then that means he's in the system somewhere. His name hasn't come up on any lists, so they're likely holding him under an assumed name. Don't most prisons fingerprint their inmates during the intake process?"

"Already tried that boss," came Diana's reply. "If they fingerprinted him, they did not make it into the databases."

"Another dead end," Jones grumbled, voicing what they were all thinking.

"Then maybe I can help with that."

As was the habit with people during this investigation, a new arrival pushed in through the conference room doors and drew the attention of everyone in the room. Peter stopped his pacing to turn around as he came face to face with an old friend.

"Cruz?" he all but stammered, astonished beyond measure at the sight of his former agent standing there just inside the door.

Jones was closest to her and tried to jump out of his seat to greet her before remembering his leg was broken and he was stuck in a wheelchair. His crutches were out of reach, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room where Diana had stashed them out of the way. People had been tripping over them all morning.

"Laruen," Jones greeted her, rolling away from the table.

"Hey there, Gimpy," she replied with a wink.

Besides the pixie cut Lauren Cruz now sported, Peter's former agent looked exactly like he remembered. Her eyes were still large and curious with a smile that lit up the room. She brought with her an energy that had been missing from the conference room for days.

"Cruz, what are you doing here?" Peter asked, taking a stack of files the woman was holding and setting them on the table.

"I'm here to help of course," Lauren said, returning the thousand watt smile Peter gave her. "After I got your call, I did some digging and was able to pull up a few things on Leech. I figured I would bring them by myself since I was in town on business."

Lauren spent the next few minutes regaling them with her exploits in DC and getting introduced to Reed. Lauren had transferred out of White Collar long before their newest agent had come on board. Peter listened as she talked, his pride in her increasing exponentially as she told them all of her climb up the ladder. She had gotten there all on her own. Peter had just given her a little nudge in the early days, but that didn't stop him from feeling like some proud father listening to his kid's accomplishments. Maybe that was condescending, but it's how he felt.

"I also wanted to let you know the scuttlebutt I've been hearing around Capitol Hill," Lauren finished as she pulled her coat off and draped it over the back of one of the conference room chairs. She took a seat, they all did actually, and continued her tale as Jones pulled the files she'd brought in closer and started distributing them amongst the gathered agents. They'd get through them faster that way. Peter worried briefly about Jones working so soon after his concussion and regaining his memories, but there was no talking the man out of coming in to help. A bottle of aspirin sat on the table beside his laptop and Peter was keeping a close eye on him. Even so, he was seriously considering making his agent go home. On the other hand, he'd only been there for a few hours and Peter didn't have the heart to do it.

"Leech's power is slipping. Everyone is talking about the warrant you tried to get from Judge Hayden," Lauren said.

"No wonder he ran," Diana piped in.

"With my contacts at Justice, I was able to talk to some people who knew him personally. I even tracked down his sister."

"Was she any help?" Peter asked, recalling his own attempts at finding out more about Leech's sister when he'd learned of her, but uncovering little. Leech was very good at covering his tracks. He was surprised Mozzie had been able to find the money trail at all, and it explained why nothing much had been found since.

"Not really," Lauren answered, "but I did find out that Leech has a nephew. I think his name is Franklin something. It's in one of the files."

"Franklin Smith," Reed provided. "Says here he's…" but the agent stopped talking suddenly. She squinted down at the page in her hands as if trying to decide if she'd read it correctly.

"A corrections officer, right?" Lauren provided before glancing around the room at the astonished faces staring at her, Peter's included. "Was it something I said?"

But Peter was too busy barking orders again as the room exploded in a burst of kinetic activity.

"I want details on Smith, now," he all but snapped. He would apologize for the rudeness later. Lauren sat in her chair watching everything unfold with a bewildered look on her face.

"Franklin Smith, 41, a corrections officer at the Bucks County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania. Been working there for about 6 years."

"That's it, that's got to be it," Peter said with a rush of emotion. Fear, anxiety, elation, relief all mashing themselves together in the pit of his stomach. Had Elizabeth been in the room right then, he would have kissed her.

"How far away is the Bucks County facility?"

It was Reed who found the answer first. "About an hour and forty if there's no traffic."

And there would be traffic, but finally they had the time to spare. There was no way Leech would know what they'd found.

"Laruren, we think Neal might be being held in some kind of prison. I got a proof of life photo of him the other day. The fact that Leech's nephew is a corrections officer at a prison nearby means you likely just blew this case wide open," Peter explained, talking fast. "And found Neal."

Lauren's eyes went wide. "Seriously?"

"Here's what we're going to do," Peter began, addressing the room. "Diana, I want you to come with me to Pennsylvania. I'll call Murphy on the way and see if he can pull a few strings with local law enforcement and have them coordinate a visit to the prison with us. Jones and Reed, please work on securing a warrant for the search while Diana and I are on the road. Don't use Hayden. Judging by how quickly news of my last warrant request spread, I don't trust her not to tell someone. Do it as quietly as possible."

He looked around the room, making sure every pair of eyes was still fixated on him. "I cannot even begin to tell you the necessity for secrecy here. No one can know what we're up to except the people in this room and the judge who issues the warrant. Caffrey's life may very well depend on how we handle this next part." Every head around the table nodded. "I don't want to give Smith or Leech even the slightest heads up."

When Peter was certain the severity of the situation had sunk in, he turned to Lauren.

"I don't know if you have time to stick around, but you're welcome to stay and see this thing through."

"Of course I'll stay," She answered. "I want to see Leech go down. And who knows, maybe a rep from Justice will help our judge stay impartial."

Peter put his hand over Lauren's and squeezed. "It's really good to see you."

Diana had arrived at his side with his coat by then. Peter got up out of his chair and slipped into it. "When all this is over, it's drinks on me."

"You got it, Boss," his former agent replied. It was so like the old times, Peter nearly hugged her.

"You want to tell Hughes?" Diana asked on their way out of the office.

"I'll call from the road and fill him in." He wasn't interested in wasting any more time. They were out in the vestibule already anyway and waiting for the elevator. Peter had intel now, actual actionable intel, for the first time in almost a week. He'd charter a private jet to Pensylvannia if he thought it would get him there any faster. Telling Hughes now only ran the risk of slowing them down.

The parking garage was as cold as ever when Peter and Diana exited the elevators. They headed over to Peter's car and he checked the back first before climbing in. Mozzie wasn't there, but Peter wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed.