Author's note: Thanks for all the reviews and support. Since no one seems to think that the quality of the chapters is declining (except me) and since the story is fun to write, I will use all my ideas and make it longer :)

CHAPTER 18

Elizabeth got up from the couch as soon as she saw her husband walk back in, she could immediately see that something was wrong.
"Peter, what's going on?"
She asked in a hushed voice so that Neal wouldn't hear them. Her husband looked both worried and pissed off.
"Keller escaped"
Peter answered, he too in a hushed voice. Elizabeth felt her heart sink to her stomach and she put her arms around herself, in a comforting gesture.
She looked back at the boy, who was still completely engrossed with the cartoons and didn't notice the adults' distress.
Elizabeth didn't know much about Keller except that he was the one that had kidnapped Neal and what would stop him from coming after the child again?
"What if he comes for Neal?"
She asked, her voice breaking slightly. Peter responded by pulling her into his arms, and running a comforting hand along her back.
"He won't. I'll make sure of it."
Peter gave her a kiss before taking a step back.
"I have to go to the bureau, but don't worry Jones will be here within minutes and I arranged for an agent to sit outside the house. Your and Neal's safety is my first priority"
He gave her another kiss before disappearing to get his gun and badge upstairs and it wasn't until he came downstairs that the boy noticed that something was going on.
He gave the adults a worried look, as if he could sense that something was wrong.
"I have to go to work, bud"
Peter said, keeping his voice calm as to not worry the boy even more.
"Are you going to catch a bad guy, Peter?"
"Yeah, I am"
Neal smiled at him and wished him good luck before the agent left the house.
As soon as he left, Elizabeth felt the fear grow and she felt paranoid. It wasn't unusual for her husband to rush to the bureau to run after some criminal, but this time the criminal could go after and hurt the child in front of her.
That thought turned her protective mother instincts to a max and she wanted to wrap the boy up in her arms and never let him go, but she couldn't do that.
Elizabeth didn't want to worry the boy so she had to act normal.
"Do you want some ice cream, Neal?"
The boy nodded and Elizabeth got two bowls of ice cream and sat down next to the boy, trying to watch the cartoons.

Peter returned home in the middle of the night, after being told for the 100th time that there was nothing he could do and he should just go home.
Keller was gone, he had disappeared into thin air and no one had the slightest clue about where the man was.
No one even knew how he had managed to escape; the guards were all telling different stories which caused Peter to believe that some guards had been bribed or blackmailed into helping Keller.
Of course there were no evidence to support this theory and the criminal was still out there somewhere. He was even more scared for his family now, before he at least believed that Keller would be caught but now he didn't even have that hope.
He walked inside and saw that the TV was still on. Elizabeth was sitting up with Neal's head in her lap, both of them fast asleep.
Jones however was awake and alert, taking his security guard job seriously.
"She didn't want to go to sleep before you came back"
Jones informed while getting up, stretching and yawning.
"Thanks, Jones. You can come in later tomorrow"
"Thanks Peter, I appreciate it."
With those words Jones left the house and Peter turned off the TV and sighed as he turned towards his wife.
How was he supposed to tell her that they weren't even close to finding Keller?
Elizabeth would be worried sick and she would without a doubt go all mother hen on Neal and she would not want to let the child out of her sight for even a second.
He reached out and gently shook her awake, she looked around in confusion before her eyes landed on him.
"Did you catch him?"
She whispered, the fear evident in her voice.
"I'm sorry, hun. There's no trace of him"
Peter reached down and kissed the top of her head.
"But don't worry there'll be a guard on the house 24/7. I'm not letting anything happen to Neal or you"
Elizabeth finally nodded, seemingly calmed by the fact that they had a guard outside. Peter lifted Neal into his arms and with Elizabeth in tow, he walked up the stairs.
In his sleep Neal grabbed a fistful of Peter's t-shirt and the action was just too cute to handle.
The fact that there was a man out there who potentially wanted to hurt this warm, adorable child currently snuggled up in his arms made his blood boil. Peter swore that he was going to do everything in his power to keep the boy safe.
When Neal had been tucked into the bed, Peter called for Satchmo who, on his own accord, placed himself on the floor next to the bed, ready to guard the boy during the night.

Neal was confused, last night Elizabeth had let him watch cartoons until he fell asleep even if he knew that it was way too late for him to be up, and Jones came by claiming that he was feeling lonely but wasn't needed at work.
When he came down for breakfast both of the adults looked tired and there was a tension in the room, but when he asked what was wrong he just got fake smiles and reassurances that everything was fine.
Neal could see right through their lies but he kept quiet, knowing from experience that adults didn't like it when you called them out on their lies.
Neal started to eat his cereals but quickly realized that Peter had been reading the same page of the sports segment for minutes now and Elizabeth had been stirring her coffee since he came downstairs without taking a single sip.
He knew something was wrong and he got scared, a million reasons for their odd behaviour showed up in his head.
Did someone die? Was someone going to die? Did Peter get fired?
Did they suddenly realize that they wanted nothing to do with him and that the whole becoming foster parents thing was a huge mistake?
His stomach started to hurt and his hunger disappeared so he put down his spoon and pushed the bowl away from him.
"Neal, you should eat up"
Elizabeth remarked, her voice tired and monotone, but Neal pushed the bowl further away.
"Not hungry"
He answered before getting up and walking over to Satchmo, sitting down on the floor next to the resting dog.
He could hear the adults whispering to each other but no one told him to go back and eat up, maybe they did regret taking him in.
The previous meals Elizabeth had always been coaxing him to eat all of his food and would not let him leave the table before he was done, but now she didn't seem to care anymore.
Neal hugged the dog, surprised at how sad he felt even if he expected the Burkes to get tired of him sooner or later.

After cleaning up and getting dressed, Elizabeth told Neal to get ready to leave. This was it, he thought.
Elizabeth was going to drop him off at the social worker's office and walk away.
Something about that thought made Neal both angry and sad, normally he would be the one to leave on his own conditions but now they were leaving him, throwing him away like he was nothing but trash. Being rejected hurt so much worse than running away.
Neal just couldn't accept that, he was going to run away on his own and he was going to find Mozzie and he was going to be the one who ended it, then he wouldn't be the one being rejected.
It was clear that the adults were very tired and both of them looked like they were having headaches and if it was one thing a tired adult with a headache didn't want to deal with it was a child throwing a tantrum.
From experience he knew that if he was too annoying adults would get too tired and just leave him behind and then he would have his chance to escape.
So when Elizabeth told him to grab his jacket he ignored her, just to agitate her and he waited until she raised her voice a bit, strictly ordering him to grab his jacket. The boy got up, clenching his fists and stomped his foot, letting the adults know exactly what was coming.
"I don't want to go!"
He yelled and he could see both of the adults visibly taken aback by his behavior.
Neal had never thrown a tantrum before, he hadn't even been rude or raised his voice at them.
"Neal, change your attitude and grab your jacket"
Peter ordered, his face clearly relaying the message that he was in no mood to argue.
Neal ignored the man and instead grabbed one of Satchmo's toys and threw it at the adults, purposely not hitting any of them.
The man went from Peter to agent Burke in a second and he walked towards Neal with that stern face that probably caused all the criminals to pee their pants.
This was not part of the plan, they were supposed to get tired of him and leave him behind but now Peter looked like he wanted to hit him.
Neal whimpered and tried to run away from Peter but his strong arms grabbed him and lifted him off the ground.
"Lemme go!"
Neal yelled, his small fists hitting Peter's chest but the man clenched his jaw and walked out of the house while Elizabeth, who looked like she wanted to bang her head against a wall, grabbed Neal's jacket.
"Help! They're kidnapping me!"
Neal yelled but sadly no neighbours were around to hear it. Neal tried to break free but Peter held on tight.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
It hurt even more to know that they were so tired of him that they were willing to drag the child kicking and screaming back to the social worker.
Neal put up a fight in the car seat and Peter had to hold him down while Elizabeth buckled him up.
The door was closed behind him and he could see the adults talking to each other, but he couldn't hear them.
Then Peter disappeared to his car, to go to work, while Elizabeth sat down in the driver's seat.
Neal tried to get out of his seat but he couldn't unbuckle it, so instead he continued screaming and kicking the seat in front of him.
Elizabeth looked like she wanted to yell at him or maybe even throw him out of the car, but she did none of these things instead just ignoring the child.
"I hate you!"
Neal yelled and after the words left his mouth, it hurt. He didn't mean it.
He didn't hate Peter and Elizabeth, he was just very sad and very disappointed in them. He had actually started to believe that maybe staying with Burkes wouldn't be that bad.
He could see the pain in Elizabeth's eyes as she looked back at him in the rearview mirror.
Neal stopped his kicking and yelling but he couldn't stop the crying. Even if he had faked the temper tantrum for his failed plan, he was feeling so many feelings at once and he didn't know how to deal with them so he just cried.

When the car finally stopped, Neal's sobbing had been reduced to hiccups and the occasional sniffling.
Elizabeth took a deep sigh and he could hear her counting to ten under her breath before getting out of the car and opening his door.
Elizabeth unbuckled his car seat before firmly grabbing his hand to prevent him from running away.
Neal kept on sniffling, regretting that he hadn't even brought his Satchmo toy with him.
The sound of playing children reached his ears and when he looked up, he saw that they weren't at the social worker's office or even another foster home.
Instead he saw a big white building with a huge playground next to it and a fence surrounding the lot.
The playing children looked way too happy to be foster children.
Elizabeth opened a gate and led him inside and walked over to a middle aged woman in colourful clothes.
"I was going to see Mrs. Fisher"
Elizabeth told the woman and was given directions to a classroom. Wait, a classroom?
There was only one place you had a classroom, in school.
Elizabeth wasn't throwing him away, she was taking him to look at the school.
Neal felt really bad and he pulled at Elizabeth's pant leg to get her attention, he needed to apologize.
"Why don't you go and play with the other children?"
She said, not even waiting for an answer before adding
"Play nice and stay close to the adults"
With those words Elizabeth disappeared into the building and Neal was left alone.

Elizabeth hadn't been planning on leaving Neal outside with the other children, she hadn't even planned to let him out of her sight, but she was so tired and she needed a break from him.
No one could've expected the child's temper tantrum and since Elizabeth and Peter hadn't been able to catch more than a few hours of sleep, and with the dark cloud named Keller hanging over their heads, it had really come at the worst possible time.
Despite her worries about Keller getting Neal she felt safe leaving the child on the playground, knowing that there were several adults watching.
She walked into the classroom and sat down, talking to Mrs. Fisher, the first grade teacher.
Elizabeth gladly accepted the cup of coffee before revealing that Neal could not read yet.
Finally they decided that Neal, who otherwise seemed intelligent, would have no problem sticking with his age group as long as he got some tutoring so that he could catch up on the reading and writing part.
Elizabeth felt satisfied walking out of the building, relieved that Neal could start school and that they could soon fall into a normal everyday routine.
It was no surprise that Neal was surrounded by kids out on the playground, he appeared to be quite the charmer even with other kids.
"Neal"
She called for him and Neal said goodbye to the kids before running to her side like an obedient dog.
All signs of the temper tantrum were gone and instead the boy was smiling.
He didn't put up a fight getting strapped in and when Elizabeth looked back at the child, he was still smiling, his tiny hands clutching a white flower.
"Where did you get the flower?"
Elizabeth asked, it was just a simple flower but Neal looked at it as if it was a piece of gold.
Neal looked up at her, and he looked like the human version of sunshine.
"Kate"
He answered with a sweet voice.