NaNoWriMo Day 5 and Guy Fawkes Day to those who care about that. Today's chapter comes with a warning. I am not a medical professional. All I know about hypoglycemia and anything medical mentioned in this chapter comes from Google. Do not take it as fact. With that said, today's chapter summary: Neal accidentally starving himself and fainting into Peter's arms.

It had been a blissfully quiet day in the White Collar Crime Unit. Nothing extremely disastrous had occurred and no major cases came up. So, as usual on such days, Peter had saddled Neal with all the paperwork and enough cold cases for a month. He had complained, but ultimately gave in and finished a good portion of them by the end of the day.

Neal was, obviously, very very bored. There were any number of things he would rather do than work on mortgage fraud cold cases. It was always property flipping fraud, with some random corrupt appraiser and the...hold on a minute. Neal pulled several of the cold cases he'd just finished. Six months of mortgage fraud spread across his desk. Every single time, eighteen unique cases, all the same appraiser. Finally something interesting!

Unfortunately, Neal did not get to join in on the interesting part. He had told Peter about the trend he noticed and was promptly relegated back to paperwork duty. At least I'm looking for something interesting now, he thought. Although sorting through the past five years of federal mortgage fraud seems excessive. The trend stood through three of the five years. The Unit was on to something.

Peter emerged from his office and rounded up the team, summoning them all to the conference room. Neal, of course, was summoned with a sharp whistle and a two-finger point. He rolled his eyes. The Bureau must have that patented. Copyrighted? He shook his head. Not important right now. The room seemed to be listing slightly to the right, but Neal brushed it off. Maybe it was just a night of bad sleep or something.

He stood and the room went flying. His head was reeling and he wasn't entirely sure if he was still standing straight. Somehow, Neal managed to find his balance before falling on his face. He raised his hand to his head, but stopped halfway. His hand was shaking. Not shaking a little, either, like full-on tremors. Huh. Must be low blood pressure. His head started to feel tight, like a band was squeezing his brain. And a migraine? Today is not my day. Neal went towards the conference room, determined to appear the consummate conman, perfectly poised and put together. No one noticed that he seemed to have a bit more trouble walking than usual or that he had to reach for the handrail on the stairs three times before finding it.

Once he joined the team in the conference room, the conversation went silent. All three members looked at Neal with concern in their eyes. Neal hated that. There were many expressions he was used to people looking at him with, hate, love, lust, joy, irritation. Concern wasn't one of them and he didn't like the way it made him feel, like there was something he was supposed to be doing and wasn't.

"You okay, Neal?" Jones asked. "You look pale."

Neal didn't just look pale, he looked white, like all the blood had drained out of his face. Neal looked like death warmed over. Like he could die right in front of them at that moment. Okay, not quite that bad. But Neal looked many things, and good was the last of them.

"I'm fine," Neal answered instinctively.

He took a single step towards the table before his eyes rolled back into his head. Neal's legs went out from under him and he crumpled to the ground like his strings had been cut. Diana and Jones froze. What was happening? How long had Neal been sick for this to happen? He looked bad, but not that bad. Not fall on the ground half-dead bad. Peter managed to overcome the instinctive freeze and catch Neal's body before his head could hit the ground.

"Don't worry," he murmured. "I've got you."

Peter gently laid Neal on the ground. He is actually heavy. Where does he keep all that muscle? Laying on the floor like he was, Neal almost looked like a dead body. Pale, clammy skin and shallow breathing. The only thing that made him look alive was the fact that his arms and legs were trembling. It looked, in all honesty, that Neal was about to have a seizure or already was. The team surrounded him, frozen.

"Is he okay?" Diana managed to choke out.

Peter shook his head. "Doesn't look like it."

"Why would he faint for no reason? Is he seizing?"

Peter shrugged. It was the best substitute. There were so many words he wanted to say, but couldn't manage to get any of the words out into a coherent sentence.

He finally managed a coherent thought. "I don't know."

Jones looked around them and noticed something. They were dangerously close to the table. If Peter hadn't caught Neal, he'd have a nasty gash on his head and blood on the floor. A seizure would be the least of his problems. And the table was glass. That would have been very bad.

"Lucky he didn't hit his head on the table."

Peter absently nodded. I should have noticed something earlier. He wasn't okay for a while. How long was this going on that I didn't notice?

"What do we do now?" Diana asked. She felt like she should know what was going on or what to do, but she just...didn't.

Peter knelt down next to Neal. He'd mercifully stopped shaking, but still wasn't conscious. Not. Good. Peter started to push Neal onto his right side, stretching his arm above his head and tilting his chin.

"Recovery position," he explained. "And then try to figure out what happened."

This single command was enough to snap Jones and Diana out of their frozen states of shock. Recovery position. That was a thing they remembered being taught at one point. On your side, one arm out, other holding your head, chin tilted. Legs spread. Lock the limbs to keep him stable. Make sure he still has an airway. Let out a deep breath. Diana put a hand on Neal's ribs.

"He's still breathing."

Peter nodded, relaxing slightly. "That's good."

Diana abruptly stood up and stared through the glass wall into the bullpen. She had an idea. Her eyes scanned over the agents currently working. She's here. That's good.

"Let me check something," she said and left.

Jones and Diana looked after her before turning their attention back to the still-unconscious man on the floor.

"This ever happened before?" Jones asked. He vaguely remembered something from first aid training about worrying if it's the first time someone fainted.

Peter shook his head. "Not as far as I know."

Diana made her way through the bullpen, quickly and efficiently. She had her target and the most efficient route there. One woman, a blonde agent with a small box taped to her hip and a small stash of candy in her desk drawer. Not that it was visible, Diana knew this information through other means. She wasn't the only one who would rather be wearing the hat.

"Hey, Danni," Diana said, leaning against the woman's desk.

Danni looked up from her work and brushed her hair out of her face. "Hey, Di. What's up?"

"Can I borrow your blood glucose monitor?"

That was abrupt, even for Diana. Danni looked at her in disbelief for a few seconds. She had told Diana she had a monitor, but she was pretty sure she also said that she didn't share it. And why would Diana need one? As far as Danni knew, Diana wasn't diabetic.

"I don't know," she said, her voice wavering. "Why?"

Diana gestured to the conference room above them. "I'm pretty sure Neal just passed out from low blood sugar and we need to know how low." Danni bit her lip, still conflicted. "I'll disinfect it for you and everything."

That tipped it over the edge. Danni did like Neal, in more than a 'just coworkers' way. She'd considered asking Neal to go to dinner once, but could never quite pull up the courage. And who knows? Maybe Neal was diabetic but didn't keep things at work? Who was Danni to judge without knowing him?

"That's fine," she said finally before disappearing under her desk. She pulled open a drawer, revealing a stash of hard candies as well as a few small boxes.

"Where's your insulin?" Diana asked.

Danni gestured vaguely. "It's in the work fridge. Has to be kept cold."

She found what she was looking for. One of the boxes and a small jar were deposited into Diana's hands. She looked at the jar, confused. It was labelled GlucoBurst. Diana had never heard of whatever this was.

"Just in case. It's glucose gel. Rub it on the gums and it'll probably help bring him back."

Diana nodded and gave Danni a wide smile. "Thanks so much, Danni. I'll make sure this gets back to you."

She wove back through the bullpen and up the stairs into the conference room. Jones and Peter had given Neal some space-some air, as the older people would advise-and were looking at her expectantly. She showed off what she was holding.

"Got something important."

The two gave her more space as she knelt next to Neal's arms. Okay, let's see if I remember how to use this. She opened the box and stared for a few seconds. Think. The strip goes in the monitor. Diana took out what looked like an oversized thumbtack and pressed it against Neal's fingertip. A drop of blood bubbled up from the small puncture. Diana carefully put the needle aside to get rid of later. Then, she pressed the strip to the blood drop and-the worst part-sat down on the table to wait.

"Where'd you get that?" Jones asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Diana tossed her hair and looked at Jones. "Danni. Danika. She's diabetic and let me borrow her monitor."

Jones's eyebrows shot up. "She's diabetic?"

Peter and Diana nodded in unison. Peter had to know this, he was usually more in charge of the team than Hughes. And he'd worked with Danika on a stakeout before and asked why she had candy with her.

"Yeah," Diana answered Jones. "You never noticed? She's got a pump on her hips and snacks in her desk."

Diana glanced down at the monitor. Should go off any second. But, that specific second, there was nothing on the display. Just the generic green background of a 7-segment display.

"Can't say I have." Jones took a seat in a nearby chair.

The monitor beeped. Peter and Diana looked down. 42. Peter was at a complete loss as to what that meant, what unit it was even in. Diana sucked in a sharp breath.

"Yep. Peter." He nodded at her to go on. "It's low blood sugar."

"What's he at?"

"42."

"What's normal?"

"The lower limit of normal is 70. Hold his mouth open for me." Diana knelt back by Neal's head.

"Why?" Peter asked. He was very very confused. All he knew about diabetes was what he had to learn in high school. And he was pretty sure Neal wasn't diabetic.

Diana held up the jar of GlucoBurst. "Because I'm going to bring him back to the land of the living."

Jones glanced at Peter. Peter looked at Jones. Both gave the other a small shrug. I don't know what's happening. She seems to. Better to go along with it. Peter opened Neal's mouth for her, careful not to hurt the younger man or have him choke on his own saliva.

Diana grimaced. She didn't have gloves anywhere nearby and probably not enough time to get any. That meant...oh, God. She didn't even want to think about what she was about to do. This had nothing to do with not wanting to touch Neal and more about not wanting to put her hands into the mouth of a person, regardless of their state of consciousness. Still, she volunteered so...she followed Danni's instructions. Rubbed a small amount of GlucoBurst onto Neal's gums as quickly as possible before sealing the container and leaving to go wash her hands.

"What now?" Peter asked once she returned.

She shrugged. "Wait for him to come up. Should happen soon."

'Soon,' it turned out, was a lot later than any of them were comfortable with. They sat and waited, not willing to leave the unconscious con alone. One minute became two. Two became five. Five became ten, until finally, Diana gave up waiting. This was getting boring and she cared-really-but wasn't going to sit there for no reason. She went back to give Danni her things.

As soon as she left, almost like it was on cue, Neal cracked open his eyes. His hand went straight to his head, trying to massage away the headache that was already returning. He blinked, slowly, trying to get the world to focus again. He was still dizzy and shaky, but felt a little bit better.

"Wha-what happened?" he slurred.

Peter stood up and crossed his arms. "You're going to tell us."

"Wha-" Neal cut himself off quickly. His stomach was threatening to revolt against speech. Neal gagged, loudly, before pushing himself up to sit against the wall. He took shallow, panting breaths and waited for the wave of nausea to pass. This hasn't happened in a while. What happened last time? I have to look as bad as I feel.

Peter broke his authoritative FBI agent mask to care about Neal. Neal really did look bad, worse now that he was post-fainting. He looked like he was trying to get his mind back in order and failing.

"You just passed out on us," Peter explained. He had the feeling he'd be explaining this several times by the end of the day.

Neal thought for a few seconds. Then a few seconds more. Wow, something's really wrong. Can't even think of an excuse. "I...um..." The conman's typically eloquent silver tongue had turned to useless lead. His thoughts were a disorganized jumble instead of the neat bullet-point list they usually were.

Diana reappeared in the doorway, holding a mini bottle of orange juice. She looked from Jones to Peter to the disheveled Neal leaning against the wall.

"Oh, good. You're back. Drink this."

She handed him the juice. She would have thrown it, but it didn't look like Neal was in any state to be catching things. Neal gave a tired smile back. Wait...juice. Passed out. Dizzy, shaky, headache. Oh. He looked down at his hand. And someone took my blood sugar. He opened the juice bottle and downed half of it in one swallow.

"Oh," Neal said, simply. "I thought you knew."

Peter, Diana, and Jones all shared a look over Neal's head. None of them knew what Neal thought they knew. Or had any idea what he was suggesting. A medical issue? Personal? Recent medical development?

"Knew what?" Peter asked.

Neal waved him off and took another sip of juice. "I'm getting better. I'm fine." Neal was not fine.

He carefully clambered to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. The room spun again. In. Out. In. Out. The room stopped spinning as bad and Neal was confident he could at least walk in a straight line. He glanced down at his hands. The shaking was better. The headache wasn't, but that would take a while.

"I'll be back in fifteen," Neal said before leaving.

He didn't just leave the conference room. He left the conference room, then the bullpen, then the building. Jones, Diana, and Peter shared another look.

"Where do you think he's going?" Jones asked.

Peter shrugged. "I'm hoping he's not doing something stupid." God, I hope he hasn't managed to get himself addicted to something.

"I'm pretty sure he's not diabetic," was Diana's only contribution.

"That was kinda a given. We'd know if he was."

"We would?"

"Yeah," Jones threw in. "Prison records? They'd have to know he needed insulin."

The three continued to debate the cause of Neal's sudden fainting and subsequent resurrection via glucose until Neal staggered through the doorway again, this time, holding a tray of Starbucks and with a candy bar wrapper in his back pocket.

"What is this?" Peter asked.

Neal put the tray on the table. Took a seat. Took one of the drinks out. Took a sip. "Again, I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" Peter snapped against his better judgment. He didn't want to push Neal away, but God was he frustrating.

Neal took another sip of his drink. His hands stopped shaking. At least visibly. Neal could still tell that they were trembling. Now I only look a quarter dead instead of half.

"I'm hypoglycemic," he answered. "I faint when my blood sugar gets low."

The rest of the team shared yet another look. He couldn't have told us earlier? How did we not know about this? Why has this never come up in conversation?

That explains things, Peter thought. He didn't say that. What he did say was "Are you okay now?"

Neal wavered his hand back and forth. "Getting there." He took another sip from his drink. The Starbucks made sense now. Caffeinated and highly sugared. "There's drinks for you too."

Jones and Diana found the overly sugary artificial coffee drinks marked with their names and wisely disappeared. The air in the conference room had the distinct feeling of preparing for a private conversation. As much as they wanted to eavesdrop, Neal deserved his privacy right now.

"How long has this been happening?" Peter asked, not unkindly.

Neal shrugged. "A few years."

"And you've never fainted before?"

Neal shook his head and gave Peter a look that said where'd you get that idea. "No, I've fainted before. Just not when you could see it." He took another drink. Somehow, Peter realized, Neal had managed to perk up enough to look like a human and not a reanimated corpse.

"What happened this time?" he asked. "What made it this bad?"

The room was silent. Neal thought. "That...oh. Yeah. That would be the reason," he said, almost to himself.

"What?" Peter was insistent. He needed to know if this was a thing he needed to worry about in the future.

"I didn't eat today. Or yesterday."

Peter stared at him. "Why?"

Neal shrugged casually, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to not eat for two days. "I forgot." His tone was too casual.

Normal people don't forget to eat for two days, Peter thought. But the words 'normal' and 'Neal Caffrey' didn't always go together.

"You forgot to eat?" Neal nodded. "Is that a normal thing for you?"

Neal shrugged again. "I forget to eat sometimes. Sometimes for longer than others."

"What's the last time you ate?" Peter needed to gauge the severity here. Was this a 'let Neal figure it out on his own' situation or a 'take him to Peter's house and have El force-feed him' situation?

Neal thought for a second. Then a second became many seconds. Nearly a minute passed before he formulated an answer. "Dinner on Tuesday."

"It's Friday."

"Friday morning."

"It's 3 o'clock." Peter's voice was flat.

"Early Friday afternoon. And I ate a few things in between-I wasn't starving. Just not a proper meal. Just a few things here and there, you know?" Neal tried for a conman smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes yet and didn't quite look right. He stopped after seeing Peter's twisted expression.

"Which means you didn't eat enough..." He waited for Neal to go on.

"Which meant my sugar was low and I fainted. Sorry. I'll try not to scare you again."

That wasn't the response Peter was going for. It wasn't a bad response, just not the ideal one.

"You could've told me."

Neal met Peter's eyes without shying away. "Honest, Peter, I thought you already knew. I would have told you if I thought you didn't."

Peter decided to let the subject go. "You feel okay to go back to work?"

Neal nodded, almost eager to get back to mortgage fraud. "I'll be tired, but I can do it. It's only what, two hours left?"

Peter checked his watch. "Just about. Go ahead. And don't forget to eat today. I can't deal with that again." Peter thought of one other thing. "And you owe Danika a thank you. She gave Diana some of her stuff for you."

Neal smiled honestly. "I'll thank her. And don't worry, Peter. I'll remember. Your wife won't let me forget." And with that, Neal disappeared.

No, El wouldn't let him forget. After Peter told her about this, Neal would be lucky to ever leave the Burke household without a week's worth of food in his arms. And none of them would complain about that.

As always, I hope you enjoyed it and please leave a review if you especially liked it. Those participating, you're almost done with the first week!