Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go
Neal could no longer hold his racing heart. Something weird was happening and he couldn't tell exactly. His emotions were seeping into the rugs and tablecloths around the room. His fear, stabbing through his heart, was eating every strand of air away. He knew a panic attack when one was coming. This promised to be incredibly strong. Mostly it was something too much to explain. It was just the way it was. Neal suffered terrible panic attack every once in a while and often so debilitating he couldn't recover by himself.
Mostly the physical side of it. As his air intake was cut off and suffocation made threats.
Neal knew what a suffocation meant, been there done that, three times at least. Depression eating away all his happiness, a very often occurrence.
Fear so strong he'd pass out from sheer force of it, something that happened frequently enough to be scary on its own.
Mental disorders were Neal's secret fate. Not even Mozzie knew the extent of his prison stays and what Kate actually meant. When she was gone everything else was too.
When ones life gets taken apart like that they develop some thing. In his case something went wrong in the making. Or that was what he believed in after many times of it happening.
Right now once he left the room full of people that could change his fate in a flash he felt relief washing over. The weird man in the wheelchair who looked like he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and possibly have a drink to wash it all away. He'd felt some weak but present connection to him and that was scary. Like there was something he'd missed long ago and has lost capability to find it once more. It was a creepy feeling but so far less things made sense. Even their meager attempts at making Neal comfortable enough and useful were like hits with a metal rod to a heart. Sometimes. Not always.
So Neal kept trying to do the job he'd been doing for a few years now and not to fall over once the day was over. Time seemed to slow down here and days far more longer. But there was no way to tell for sure. The time telling was a hard thing Neal still had no concept about. But he did his best to grasp it so at least the job wouldn't suffer. Because that was his life now, for the rest of how long was he destined to live. And he felt the emptiness pulling the void in his chest larger and deeper until nothing would be left.
Panic was hitting hard now and he felt his way to the restroom with a shaky hand on the wall. He had no idea if was even remotely near the said room or completely opposite direction by the the time his legs faltered and he stumbled on something on the ground, again, and heavily dropped down. It wasn't as painful as he expected but close to feeling numb as his body felt these days.
For a while he struggled through his panic attack and tried to remember what was the protocol. His air intake wasn't doing good. The air leaving his lungs couldn't even out the lack of air struggling in. So Neal was crumpled on the carpeted floor among the soft glowing things and wheezing like some asthmatic person. He didn't let his thoughts going back to the vault that day when he actually had no air to breathe but somehow it still came back gripping at his chest and the panic was heightening until he couldn't see anymore.
Until suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and voice softly speaking, asking questions he couldn't hear past the ringing in his ears. He was so scared.
And in a burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of tempered grace
Falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms
Something like this wasn't exactly the first time in his life. He knew there were many things that happened to him he kept out of his tales of alleged crimes and other shenanigans. Half of that even Mozzie didn't know. But once he was very, very sick and Kate was the unlucky stuck with him while his trusted partner in crime, Mozzie, was out in the world scoping places and snagging goodies. He was too far away for Neal to call him or anything. So Kate was the one. She wasn't your typical woman. Not at all, she liked to have all goods and shines. Kate valued expensive stuff and income. Sure once in a while she joined in on their little schemes and helped with cons. Neal had met her during that Adler long con that turned around and spat in their faces as the man got through to their plan and made them all fools including everyone working for him. It was a terrible loss of more than just the money.
Neal never believed in that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow but Kate made him. She knew how to call the money but somehow with them it detoured. He couldn't lie to himself any longer now that he'd heard more about her and especially after her death in front of Neal's eyes that brought the man down to his second lowest that he still had memories of.
And he had so many losses.
It had started out as another con but ended with Neal possibly being shot and taking a swim in one of the rivers that flowed past Manhattan island. His memory failed to provide the name. But it was in the middle of the very cold winter and during a storm.
His body had been washed out on some coast line down the river where he'd spent about two whole days just being so deeply unconscious he hadn't even woken once. He did wake up but that was two weeks later and in a hospital as a no name John Doe and they'd been overwhelmed by incoming flow they had no idea he left the second his eyes were open and panicking. Surge of adrenaline got him back to the apartment he and Kate was staying and while she was gone he'd just slept some and then went out on the streets as they were getting low income. Eventually Neal reconnected with his love and said her to stay as he was able to take some money and stuff slightly better and for about three weeks before his health deteriorated to the point he was coughing up blood and was so weak he could no longer function. And it had terrified Kate to the point she'd asked the agent on their tails to help out. She couldn't take him to hospital alone and Mozzie was stranded on some island across the world. Unfortunate event but sometimes that was life. All he was eventually aware was that there was a hole in his throat and a tube going all the way into his lungs to provide air and help with his condition. He stayed as long was necessary to escape death and by that time it was spring and his alias had to be burnt. He got off the FBI agent tailing him and relocated and asked Kate to never speak of this.
By the time Mozzie was back with enough to last them a while he'd managed his still less okay body into a con of its own.
And he never had to think about that time again, or so he naïvely thought until all the consequences caught up about year later. It caught Neal in a very bad place across the world and he got injured some more. Obviously the young con simply conned his way out of the situation and by the time he was back he could actually make it. As the saying went- fake it till you make it. It's been his motto all his life.
And he faked a lot. So much, in fact, he no longer even gave it a second thought. Nightmares of things he couldn't recognize, he faked they never bothered him. Traumas he endured throughout his con life, they existed elsewhere.
For so long, and now when he had no escape from all that, he was trapped in this never ending circle of recycled moments or simply had another blackout. And those slowly managed to erase many bad things but also the good. His memory became Swiss cheese and mind a jumbled mess. Whatever mental problems hid there he wanted no business knowing. He barely acknowledged any less pitch perfect moment or whatever.
Worse thing was that here he couldn't just leave. Relocate and start anew. Here he was truly tethered. And Peter was worried. It scared Neal. Peter so far has been respectful of his privacy and for once didn't ask questions Neal had no answers to. And while Jones has shown really deep understanding and concern about his life as a person not a criminal he preferred to keep his feelings to himself. He hadn't gotten a chance to speak to El yet. She'd tell immediately that Neal was lost in this and would jump to literally smothering him with care. He'd find June, sure what not, but what besides a talk she could offer now that they had this whole weird planet to learn about. Here none of them had much of old contacts. And even if she had what he'd be able to do to keep it secret while still monitored, in a less invasive way but ever so tighter. Sure Diana has tried her chance at being there for the CI but what she could when even he couldn't really recognize any of that mess.
And he just kept pushing himself on and faked it till he made it. Until now he was there, possibly a breaking point beyond his control, slowly loosing his connection to life and entering some netherworld he'd hoped to never revisit.
Again he proved himself he couldn't really take care of himself and couldn't save his own life. And maybe he shouldn't at all. Because what life he had here now that he basically had to rebuild who he truly was and what was he among his many aliases. Among many personalities who was the man beneath all this fake layering? Who was the real Neal George Caffrey? Or was it Bennett?
And who the fuck was Danny Brooks?
What even was his life now?
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go