Losses 2/3

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"Peter? Peter?!"

Her breath and pulse both ratcheting up suddenly, El slammed the house phone down, grabbed her keys and cell and raced out the door. As she settled into the car she made the necessary call to Peter's office, praying for a hundred different things at once, even as she and Jones connected.

"Elizabeth?"

"I need you to get a GPS fix on Peter's cell phone and tell me where they are."

"They? Who's... is Neal with him?"

"Yes and something's very wrong. Please, no more questions! Call me when you have the location." she demanded, closing her phone and tossing it onto the passenger's seat as she backed out and pulled into the road. A few minutes later, she found a safe spot and pulled over, silently screaming at her husband's absent colleague to move faster.

This couldn't happen. It couldn't possibly be as bad as Peter had made it sound and the heart-wrenching, devastated cries she'd heard couldn't possibly have come from Neal. The sun-bright, irrepressible, unrepentant spirit that had captured her heart and become such a huge part of her life simply couldn't be capable of feeling that much pain.

At last the call came. As soon as she was positive where she was going, El threw the phone aside once again and took off, praying Peter's name and status would erase the trouble she was about to get in for speeding and ignoring any cops that tried to pull her over for it.

'Not Neal...' El thought desperately as she fought her way through and around traffic on her way out of the city. Her mind kept insisting that she knew what must have happened, but she didn't want to believe it. On a normal day, her romantic streak was almost impossible to shake or discourage, but this... this might be enough to finally do it. There was only one person, one woman, whose desertion could have shattered Neal so thoroughly. Suddenly, atypically enraged, El ruefully acknowledged that if she ever came face to face with Kate, the conniving, manipulating creature might not survive the encounter. Fiercely resisting the need to curse out loud, calling Kate every name in the book and some she was sure Peter would be shocked to find out she knew, El re-focused on her driving and on a picture of Neal smiling, relaxed and happy, but the image kept distorting and fading when the cries she'd heard on the phone returned to haunt her.

The one thing, the only thing El couldn't regret was that Peter's uncertainty and indecision about Neal's place in their lives was about to come to an end. The choice was hers now and she had no doubts whatsoever. Neal needed both of them, to ground him, to uplift him and to kick him in the ass when necessary. He needed family and he was going to get it whether he liked it or not.

Screeching into the parking lot of the airfield, she left her car a few feet behind Peter's, tumbled out and sprinted toward the spot where the two men were huddled together. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped her arms around them and spent a few dazed moments watching the fireman attempt to douse the flames. When she looked down at Peter and saw the moisture tracking down his face, her shock deepened. Peter openly weeping was a sight she'd only seen once before and it was a clear sign of how bad the situation truly was. Stroking his hair and Neal's back alternately, she tightened her embrace and made a silent vow to protect and love them both.

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TBConcluded......