Chapter 4


Bryce left Sarah and Chuck back in the hotel room. Sarah was pacing while trying to wrap her head around this case. Chuck was digging around on the computer for more information. Neither of them was comfortable with the idea of going back in with the little amount of information they had.

Bryce had suggested making an appointment to see Reece Hughes and then left. He didn't care if they decided to or not, he just needed to avoid the questions about his knowledge.

He needed answers to the questions about his knowledge. As he was driven further and further away from the hotel they were staying at, the scenery became more and more familiar.

"Pull over here."

A familiar park outside one window and a large building outside the other. The gate was just as he remembered it.

He knocked on the door and held his breath as the maid answered.

"Could I speak with June?" he stated firmly. If June wasn't real and didn't live here then he could just joke that he had the wrong address. But if she was, then he needed to sound confident to be welcomed in.

The maid looked him up and down and Bryce tried to smile but knew it looked more nervous than he wanted.

After what felt like a long time, he was welcomed in. Neal waited in the parlour while the maid went to get June. Bryce had thought about the best way to approach this but June tossed his plans out the window. She took one look and recognised him.

"Neal," June breathed before inviting him in for a hug. Bryce hugged her back. "Where did you go? Mozzie has been frantically searching."

"It's a story," Bryce responded. "And I don't even believe it."

"Well, I'm all ears."

Bryce rubbed the back of his neck. He should be worried about how easy it was to slip back into Neal's life. However, it just made things easier and Bryce was glad he didn't have to explain. "To start with, my name is Bryce."

June hummed. "We thought as much."

"I had a feeling." Bryce chuckled with a pit in his stomach. He realised that someone here had tipped the CIA off as they conducted their search. "My employer isn't happy that people are looking for me."

"Too bad. What did they think would happen if you disappeared without warning?"

Bryce had to laugh at that one. "I don't think they realised what was going on. They didn't know they were taking me away from this." They were too concerned with keeping him alive.

June frowned but couldn't see any lie in what he was saying. "You're back now so I guess they're just going to have to deal. Your apartment is free, if you still want it?"

Something warm curled in Bryce's chest.

"Yes. Of course. I won't be able to stay there as much as I did as Neal as I have places to travel but I can pay you a proper rent now."

June shook her head. She wouldn't hear of it. It wouldn't do to start charging Bryce more than she did Neal. She gained much more than money from having him as a resident.

Bryce took June's hands in his. She was the best landlord a person could hope for.

"Now, I believe I owe Mozzie a phone call."

And the warm feeling vanished. "Must you?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't? He was worried when you went missing."

Bryce sighed. "He's probably part of the reason I'm back. And I don't think he'd approve of my current employment."

June seemed to understand as she didn't pry more. Neal didn't try and stop her from contacting Mozzie though.


Bryce was surprised when Mozzie turned up with Peter right behind him. Mozzie quickly tested that he was real by using their passcodes. They would have to come up with new ones now that Peter knew them.

Peter hugged him, giving him a tight squeeze.

"This is completely surreal but nothing's normal when working with you."

"I have some co-workers who would agree with you," Bryce responded with a laugh, thinking of Chuck and his team. They wouldn't get suspicious of his whereabouts for a few more hours.

"Are you going back to working with the FBI?" Mozzie said with disgust in his voice. Peter grinned at this comment.

Now, that was an option. "That might be better than where I'm currently working."

"Which is?"

Bryce grinned. "At a Buy More."

As he expected, Mozzie threw up his arms and ranted about how Neal was wasting his talents slaving away for the Man.

"A Buy More?" Peter questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"A friend I have owns this particular store and offered me a job there when I woke up."

"'Woke up'?" Peter asked. Mozzie paused mid-rant to listen to Bryce's response.

"As you might have suspected, my name isn't Neal Caffrey. I'm Bryce Larkin and technically, we've never met."

"And yet, we have?" Mozzie questioned. He had probably already analysed this situation during many sleepless nights.

Bryce nodded. "We somehow have a history."

"Then why didn't we hear from you before now?"

"Because I thought that it was all a dream. What would you think if you had woken up to find out that you'd been in a coma, even though you could have sworn you were someone else, somewhere else?"

"It is a little out there."

"If I didn't remember Neal, I wouldn't have believed you," Peter said to Mozzie.

"That's because you have no imagination."

"If someone hadn't reached out to find me, I wouldn't have believed it real either."

They both gave him confused looks. "Reached out?" Mozzie questioned.

"Someone in White Collar altered us to their search for me," Bryce explained. "My boss' boss isn't happy about it."

"Because it doesn't make sense to have the FBI on your doorstep?" Peter questioned. "Did they think that you were in some kind of trouble?"

Bryce laughed. "Kind of. Look, I'll get everything cleared with my boss and then visit White Collar." Mozzie slumped. "Trust me, Moz. This isn't the kind of meeting you want to be in. Bug it or something."

"Hughes won't like that."

"Neither will my team," Bryce responded. "But it's important that Mozzie isn't there in person."

Mozzie huffed but didn't argue. "At least I don't have to enter the den of snakes." After a pause, he added, "but I will meet this 'team' of yours."

"Technically, you've already met the man in charge." Bryce was referring the Chuck's encounter in the elevator. The last thing Bryce wanted was Mozzie and Casey in the same room. He was glad the gruff man hadn't come. In a confrontation, Casey would kill the little man. However, should Mozzie start looking into Casey on his own, Moz could make the man's life very difficult. It was best to keep them far apart and unaware of the other's existence. If only Bryce could do that for Sarah as well. She wasn't trigger happy like Casey but she was just as untrusting.

Casey and Mozzie was easy to predict. The uncertainty of how Mozzie and Sarah would interact was much more worrying.


"There's something I need to tell you all," Bryce started, heart thudding in his chest. This wasn't a con or a mission. And, even though he had already explained it once to Beckman, it wasn't getting easier to explain.

On one side of the table sat Peter, Diana and Clinton. On the other sat Sarah and Chuck. Hughes sat at the other end from Bryce; at the head of the table. In a room of agents and spies, Hughes was somehow the most intimidating man there.

Bryce gave his name and then explained that there was a different name that the FBI agents knew him by. The ones gathered here knew of him and they had also realised that the greater FBI as a whole didn't remember Neal Caffrey.

"I can't tell if this is stranger than people having computers in their heads or not," Chuck mused.

"The brain being like a computer makes sense," Diana commented, wondering what Chuck was getting at.

Bryce's and Sarah's synchronised sighs reminded Chuck that discussion of the Intersect was banned at this meeting. Those gathered had clearance to know about Bryce but weren't cleared for anything else.

Chuck nervously laughed, "yeah. I guess Bryce's situation is pretty strange, right?"

"I'm just glad that the evidence is still there when you look for it." Bryce really didn't want to imagine a world where Peter and the rest existed without knowing him. Just the thought brought shudders down his back.

"We can't arrest Bryce so what's the purpose of this meeting then?" Jones questioned.

"We went looking for Bryce," Hughes admitted. "And now he's here to get us to stop."

"I'm not going to force you," Bryce responded. "Your goal is achieved, I'm here so there's no reason to continue."

"I'm the one who will force you to stop," Sarah insisted.

Chuck audibly slapped his forehead. "Sarah, don't threaten the FBI. They're reasonable people."

Sarah looked to Bryce to back her up but he was nodding along with Chuck's words.

"If we were interested in threatening them, we would have brought Casey," Bryce pointed out, once again glad that Casey hadn't any interest in coming with them. "Because we'd need both of you to even have a chance of threatening Hughes."

Sarah recalled everything they had been told about Hughes. "Careful, Bryce. I'm still coming to terms with how you kept this second life a secret."

"In my defence, it sounds crazy."

There were agreeing nods from some of the agents gathered. Bryce was glad for their silent support.

"Where do we go from here?" Jones asked.

Hughes shifted and all eyes jumped to him. "Bryce, do you have Neal's skillset?"

"Are you asking if I'm a criminal?"

"I'm asking if you can appraise, translate and basically complete tasks we gave to Neal?"

Bryce caught the shocked little shake of Chuck's head. It wasn't an intersect shake but something else.

"I have no clue." A white lie. Some of it he could do. Some of it he hadn't attempted since waking.

"Would you be willing to complete a test?"