The mourners all gathered on a Sunday. There was no particular thought given to the day. It was just some random one El picked out of a book. Excellent choice, they'd said. The ground would be thawed by then. Much easier to bury someone once the earth had been softened by the spring. She'd chosen a day in early summer, when the flowers would be in full bloom and the leaves would be back on the trees. They sang in the wind as the pallbearers walked the casket over from the hearse to the grave. There were other people who could have done this job, but it seemed important that the deceased's friends, the ones who had known him so well, were the ones to set him safely in his final resting place.
"Dearly beloved," the priest began, his melodic voice carrying on the wind. The attendants bowed their heads reverently. "We are gathered here today to witness the burial of…"
"Oh my god! Did he just move?" someone gasped loudly from the crowd. All eyes fell on a short man with a balding head and thickly rimmed glasses. He was pointing at the casket.
"Mozzie," someone else warned, elbowing him in the side.
"What? I thought I saw his hand twitch."
"It's a closed casket! What's the matter with you!"
But Elizabeth had had enough. Peter watched as she rose from her seat and stormed over to where Mozzie was sitting. "Mozzie, I swear to god, if you wake him up, I'll tell all the nurses who you really are."
"You wouldn't!" Mozzie exclaimed, a scandalized hand over his heart.
"Try me!"
Peter stirred, struggling to pull himself out of the fog of his strange dreams. His eyelids felt heavier than lead, but eventually he was able to open them.
There were two people standing beside his hospital bed, facing off with each other in some kind of one sided standoff. El had her hands on her hips while Mozzie was cowering under the shadow of her ire. Peter shifted on the bed and Mozzie noticed.
"Oh," he said with a grimace before shrinking away further. "Sorry Mrs. Suit."
Elizabeth looked over as well, her face stormy, but all that Mozzie flavored anger seemed to melt away the moment she realized Peter was awake. They locked eyes, each of them smiling in spite of themselves as Mozzie got the hell out of the way.
"Hi hun," El said as she reached out to gently touch the side of his face with her palm. A moment later she was pressing a kiss to his temple. "Welcome back."
"What are you doing here, El?" he asked, though perhaps croaked was the better descriptor. His throat felt raw and he nearly choked on the words. El held a straw up to his lips and he pulled on the cool water greedily.
"Well, someone hung up on me before I could tell them I love them the other day, so where else am I going to be?"
Peter blinked up at his wife.
"You got stabbed in the back, Peter," Elizabeth deadpanned. "That's what I'm doing here."
Peter tried to sit up in bed as the memories came flooding back to him all at once, despite the pain meds he was obviously on. A sharp pull in his back stopped him and he fell back against his pillows. He was lying on his side and when he reached around to touch his back, his fingers found thick bandages.
"What happened?"
"You got stabbed with a scalpel and the blade pierced your kidney. The surgeons were able to repair it, but you're going to be off your feet for a while," Elizabeth explained.
"And Neal? How long was I out?"
"Mozzie and Don are taking good care of him," Elizabeth explained patiently. "Relax."
Peter glanced over his shoulder but Neal's intrepid sidekick had already gone.
"He's been very worried about you," Elizabeth said when she realized who Peter was looking for. "Both of you."
Peter settled back into his pillows with a wince. "How long was I out?" he asked again.
"Not long," Elizabeth replied, setting the cup she was holding down onto a table beside Peter's bed. There was already a bouquet of flowers and a few cards set up there. "It's Tuesday. You were stabbed yesterday afternoon."
"And Neal?" Peter had to ask again.
Elizabeth's face softened as she smoothed the hair back from his forehead with her fingertips. "He's going to be okay, hun. The doctors say he finally took a turn. They're already talking about weaning him off the ventilator."
Peter nodded, fighting hard against the moisture that sat burning at the corners of his eyes. It was difficult, thanks to the drugs, but luckily there was only Elizabeth around to see him struggle with his tear ducts. She had seen him break down plenty of times, and had held him through just as many without judgement. Even when he offered her no explanation for grief that was so strong, it cut a hole in his side and bled him dry.
"I want to see him," he eventually said.
Elizabeth smiled sadly. "I knew you were going to say that. But you just got stabbed in the back, Peter. You need to rest and recover your strength. Then I promise I will do whatever it takes to convince your doctors to let you go and see him."
"You don't understand, El. He can't wake up in this place without me there," Peter said, unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. "I need to be there for him."
Peter tried once again to rise from the bed, but El pushed him back down gently with a hand. "Peter, stop. He's in good hands and you are injured, too. You've got to take care of yourself. I don't know what I would have done if…" But El couldn't finish. She didn't need to. Her face said it all. Peter grabbed for her hand and held on tight.
"Alright, hun. I promise I'll rest."
But that promise ended up being one Peter had a very difficult time keeping. With Park no longer a threat and cooling on a slab down in the hospital morgue, things seemed to start moving again. Don left for New York and Mozzie flitted in and out of rooms at random, though no one really knew where he was at any given time. But it was Diana's visit that changed everything.
Peter spent a lot of time on his side, staring at the wall. It hurt too much to lie on his back so it was really his only option. He heard rather than saw when his agent arrived on the morning of his second day in captivity. Elizabeth's face lit up and the two women shared a hug before El excused herself to go and get something to eat and Diana took over her chair. The agent took a moment to size him up with a critical eye before speaking.
"Ok?" she asked.
"Ok," Peter replied. "The doctors say I'll make a full recovery. They're already talking about discharging me."
It could have been a lot worse, but he left that part out. Diana already looked nervous enough.
"Well, I've been busy while you two have been laid up," she said.
"Oh yeah?"
She nodded. "Smith has been arrested. It turns out he's disappeared more than a few people for his uncle. I uncovered a whole list of names. They had a kind of system set up. Leech had inmates sent over to his nephew's prison when he felt their crimes were not punished enough and Franklin took care of them. We think that's how Leech met Jeremiah Park in the early days. Only he let Park go for whatever reason, and kept him on to do his dirty work when his nephew couldn't get his sadistic hands on them."
It made sense, in a way, Peter thought to himself. Though why a man like Robert Leech would get in bed with a serial killer like Park was still perplexing to him. Leech had either gotten in way over his head, or Peter had misread the man entirely. Whatever the case, Neal had been the one to pay for it. Leech's twisted price of freedom. One that could only be paid for in blood and torture and tears. Park had met his demise at the end of a gun. Peter prayed Leech would find his at the end of a hangman's noose, or in the electric chair. And if that didn't work, then dying of old age in the same prison he'd sent Neal to would. Wasting away in solitary confinement, alone and forgotten, his nephew one cell over. Those ends certainly justified the means.
...Or did those thoughts make Peter just as bad as Leech?
The realization was a sobering one. This wasn't the kind of person he was, but this case had pushed him so far past his limits, it was no wonder it had changed him. The question was, would Peter ever be able to get over it, and could he change back?
"You alright, boss?" Diana asked and Peter realized he'd gotten lost in his thoughts and stopped listening. He nodded and Diana continued.
"I was just saying, I've got Smith in a holding cell back at the sheriff's office. We've been trying to get him to give up the location of his uncle. No luck yet. But we also have his phone with forensics. He tried to wipe it, of course, but the techs are on it. They're not as good or as fast as our guys back home, but hopefully they'll find something soon.
"The warden's been falling all over himself to help. It only took one call from Hughes. I've even been in the cell where they were keeping Caffrey. Not exactly what I would call The Ritz." Diana paused to shudder. Peter had half a mind to ask her to describe it to him, but was already doing just fine imagining it all on his own.
"Neal is free and clear, by the way," she went on. "Being transferred under an alias ended up working in our favor. Neal Caffrey has officially been cleared of all charges by the Marshals. He'd be getting released from Rikers and back into our custody right now if none of this ever happened. He's a free man."
Peter couldn't have been happier to hear that news. Neal's release from prison was not a mess he was particularly looking forward to cleaning up. Thank god for Reese Hughes and good old fashioned scare tactics.
"So all that's left now," Diana finished up, "is to track down Leech. And get the two of you better and back home, of course."
"Have you been in to see him?" Peter asked. "Neal, I mean?"
"Yep, I actually just came from his room. I heard they're going to try and take him off the ventilator today."
Peter had been bribing Richards into feeding him information on Neal's condition since yesterday, but he could tell the time for pleading his case had come.
But perhaps pleading was not the right word. He was feeling much better and walking just fine on his own up and down the hallways outside his room. Hell, he'd sit in a damn wheelchair if that's what they wanted. Peter was going to put his foot down and demand to see Neal. He was going to be there at his friend's side when he woke up, damn it. Park had already stolen away his chance at keeping his promise to always stay by Neal's side. He wasn't going to take this from Peter, too. As soon as El got back, he would begin to plead his case.
Lucky for Peter, it wasn't as big of a fight as he had been expecting in the end. His nurses let him settle himself in a wheelchair, his IV was transferred from the stand near his bed to the chair, and Elizabeth was allowed to wheel him out of his room and over to the ICU where Neal was still being treated; though not for much longer if Diana and Richards' reports were correct. Now that Neal was stabilized and he was getting ready to come off the vent, they would move him over to a room on another floor. He no longer required the level of care he was receiving in the ICU and this had been music to Peter's ears. Park was dead. He'd failed in his attempts to kill Peter. Neal had been found and was on the mend. The entire nightmare was coming to an end, albeit a painful, bloody, and bittersweet one. Leech's freedom was the only thing still souring the pot. But now that Peter had Neal back and could focus on bringing that man down, the bastards days were numbered.
By the time El wheeled Peter into Neal's ICU room about 15 minutes later, a little of the excitement at the prospect for seeing his friend again had worn off. Peter was actually a little apprehensive as they neared the little corner room that had been Neal's since his arrival at the hospital. Elizabeth wheeled him into the room, and the place was just as Peter remembered it. The only addition was Mozzie who moved his chair out of the way so Peter could be wheeled up next to Neal's bed. Before he could even turn around and ask them for a moment alone with his friend, El was already walking Mozzie out of the room, one delicate arm hooked around his.
Although Peter had only been away from Neal's side for a day and a half technically, it felt more like a month. His color had improved and there seemed to be an aura of awareness around him, like he was cognizant of what was going on, and would be awake right now and pitching a fit about being in the hospital, if he wasn't still sedated. Like the old Neal. Pre-Leech Neal.
If that man had stolen even an iota of what Neal had once been, Peter really would throw him into that cell and throw away the key. His moral code and sense of justice be damned.
Peter sighed away the intrusive thoughts and reached out a hand to grab one of Neal's. The rails on the bed were down and it was so nice not to have to reach through bars to touch him this time. There were no longer any barriers between them. No space and no time. No one trying to bust down the doors or haul anyone off to prison. The only man left standing in this whole mess couldn't hurt them anymore. Peter had seen to that. Leech had nothing left to do but run. His assets had been frozen and Peter was trying to convince people that he should be added to the FBI's most wanted list.
How fitting would that have been? Leech, a wanted criminal, no better than the men and women he'd had transferred over to his nephew's prison. What was the word Park had used? Poetic? Well Peter figured that word pretty well summed up the entire situation.
His request would likely be denied, but that sure sure as hell wasn't going to stop him from trying.
So now all that was left was to get Neal well - and out of this hospital. Peter was already all over that. While he'd been laid up in his own hospital bed, he'd gotten a phone call from someone completely unexpected. And if everything went according to plan, then Neal would be back home in Manhattan in a matter of days. He wasn't letting himself think about it too much, though - lest he jinx it all and the whole plan fell apart
Peter looked up at Neal's face again, at the bruising that was only now beginning to lighten, and gently squeezed his hand.
"Neal?" he called out quietly, desperate for some kind of reaction but still terrified of hurting him further. "Can you hear me, bud?"
Peter's emotions choked him up as the hand in his squeezed back slightly and Neal's eyes began to flutter beneath their bruised lids. Peter couldn't remember the last time he'd seen those eyes open and alert. That morning in the parking garage before the op, he figured. Before Leech and Park and the prison. Back when their lives had been simpler and not some nightmare rollercoaster ride. He knew it was too much to hope that Neal would open those eyes and look over at him now, but the prospect that he might sometime soon was enough to keep Peter hopeful. Something he'd hardly let himself do ever since Neal had gone missing. And maybe even a little while after he'd been found.
But hope was infectious and Peter found himself allowing more and more of it into his heart as the hour when Neal would be taken off the ventilator drew closer.
True to their word, Neal's doctors took him off the vent later that day. Peter made sure he was there for all of it. His nurses were understanding and seemed to even enjoy the break while he was away. Elizabeth made sure he was resting and that he got back to his own room in time for shift changes and medications.
Neal wasn't alert much in the beginning, so Peter didn't mind the interruptions in his bedside vigils. He only woke sporadically, though Peter was able to catch his eye a time or two while Neal struggled to pull himself out of the haze of sickness and drugs.
And sick he still was. His recovery was not going to be an easy one, or a quick one for that matter. Probably more so than any of the gathered visitors at his bedside realized. None of them had been on that bridge with him or down in that cell. There could be ramifications to what Leech had done that stayed with Neal forever. Peter would help him of course, but there was this tiny little part inside of him that worried Neal would never be the same again. That the carefree boy with the winning smile would come out the other side of this a broken man. Maybe even broken enough to not want to come back to White Collar. Peter tried not to think about that one possible outcome too much. They would get Neal better physically first, and then tackle those other issues later. They were treating the pneumonia before the broken arm, just like his doctors. It seemed like a good plan.
For now at least.