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A Place Called Home

Chapter 4

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"The text message came from a burner phone," Jones said.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and sighed.

"I told you," said Neal exasperatedly. The kid had been sitting quietly in the corner for a while now, which from what Peter already knew about him, didn't seem like him.

"Thanks, Jones," Peter addressed the agent without paying Neal's comment any attention. "Go home, you're tired. We'll pick this up on Monday."

"You can't just give up! You said you'd arrest him! So go arrest him!" Neal demanded angrily.

"We're not giving up," Peter tried to placate the upset teenager. "Tomorrow, you're going to tell me every little detail about Keller—aliases, places he used to go to . . . everything. And then we'll get him."

"But that will give him a few hours head start at least!" Neal protested. "Maybe we should—"

"You should have been in bed hours ago," Peter interrupted him who wasn't in the mood to get into a discussion about this with Neal. After a short pause he added, "I should have been in bed hours ago. Now, wait here, I'll go talk to Agent Andrews and see if he found some place for you to spend the night."

"What?" Neal shot him a betrayed look. "You promised you wouldn't let Keller get to me! Shouldn't I be, like, placed in witsec or . . . get a bodyguard or something?"

"You're going to be fine. I promised you I'd keep you safe and I will. Now, I'll be right back. Try not to get in trouble while I'm gone."

Unfortunately, Agent Andrews didn't have a magic solution for him. He was just about to go home, himself, leaving Peter alone at the bureau.

With a deep sigh Peter went back to his office to get Neal. When he stepped into his office, he saw the kid slumped down in his chair, his head on his arms, sound asleep. He looked innocent with his eyes closed, his hair falling into his face, breathing evenly in and out, and Peter could see how Neal could have fooled him that first day they had met. Even though he knew better now—the kid was far from innocent—Peter felt his heart constrict at the sight before him.

He was reluctant to wake the kid up—after the events of the day, it was no wonder that Neal was exhausted—, but he couldn't just leave him asleep in his office.

So he went up to him and softly shook him by the shoulder. The kid mumbled something and turned away from Peter's touch, blissfully sleeping on.

"Neal, wake up. I'm taking you home with me." He gave his shoulder another shake. "There's a perfectly comfortable bed in the guest room. I bet you'll sleep even better there."

Neal slowly blinked his eyes open and looked around confusedly for a second before his eyes settled on Peter.

"Did you catch him?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

"No. But I will.—Come on."

~ o O o ~

Neal fell asleep again in the car on the way to Peter's house and only woke up when they arrived and Peter tried to get him out of the car.

"Oh, come on! At least carry some of your own weight!" he heard Peter grumble, as he half dragged, half carried him into the house. And then he was somehow in a bed, and between one second and the next he was fast asleep again.

When he woke up, it was still pitch black outside. He couldn't have slept for more than an hour; something had woken him up. He lay very still in order to listen into the darkness, but he couldn't hear anything that might have woken him.

Neal tried to make something out in the dark, but his eyes wouldn't adjust. He then tried to grope for the nightstand to find a bedside lamp. And when he finally did and turned the light on, his heart almost stopped. Keller stood right above him, a knife in his right hand and his left index finger on his lips.

Neal frantically tried to scramble away from him, but his back was already against the wall and there was nowhere else to go.

Not knowing what else to do, he yelled as loud as he could for Peter. Keller held him down and tried to put his hand on Neal's mouth to shut him up, but Neal continued kicking and screaming in a constant stream, "Peter! Peter! Peter!"

And then the light was on, for real, and Keller was gone, had never been there, but Peter was, gun in hand, looking around the room, before he too realized that there was no danger. Neal's heart was still racing and he looked at Peter with wide open eyes, but before either of them could say anything, a woman who was wrapping a dressing gown around herself appeared behind Peter and asked, "What's going on?—Who is that?"

Peter, who in the meantime had lowered his gun, turned to her. "I'm sorry, hon. I would have told you, but it was the middle of the night and I didn't want to wake you up . . ."

"I'm Steve Tabernacle, who're you?" Neal said, smiling at her and generally trying to appear as calm and collected as possible.

"Cut it out, Neal!—Hon, this is my . . . witness. Neal Caffrey. I wanted to tell you in the morning . . ."

"Who're you?" Neal repeated, who didn't like being ignored.

"I'm Elizabeth," the woman introduced herself and then turned to Peter. "Wait, the Neal Caffrey? I thought you didn't have any idea where to even search for him."

"Well, we found him."

"I can see that."

"Nice to meet you, Elizabeth."

"You too, Neal."

In that moment, a dog came in, wagging its tail, nudging Peter's hand with its nose and then coming over to Neal. Apparently, the lab wanted to see what all the commotion was about.

"Satch, here!" Peter ordered and the dog gave Neal one last curious look before trotting over to his owner.

Elizabeth in the meantime had taken in Neal's attire and now admonished Peter, "You let him go to sleep in his street clothes?!"

"We didn't have any PJ's for kids lying around."

"'m not a kid," Neal interjected off-handedly, who was trying to get the dog to come back over to him.

"Did I mention that it was the middle of the night? It was really just a short-term solution. Tomorrow, we'll get this all sorted out."

"Actually, it already is 'tomorrow.' It's almost time to get up anyway," Elizabeth said. "Should I go turn on the coffee machine?"

"Coffee sounds great!" Neal chimed in, which got him an exasperated look from Peter.

"Neal and I only went to bed about three hours ago, we'll go back to sleep and sleep in."

"I'm up," Neal protested, having no intention of going back to sleep; he was still a bit shaken from the nightmare.

"That's why I said 'go back' to sleep.—Satch!"

Neal had finally gotten the attention of the lab and 'Satch' had trotted back over to the bedside to sniff at Neal.

"That's okay. He seems like a nice dog," Neal said, patting Satch.

"It's not you I'm concerned about," Peter said. "Maybe I don't want you to teach my dog any con tricks." But a teasing grin spread across his face that betrayed his words.

In that moment Elizabeth came back into the room—Neal hadn't even realized that she had been gone—, carrying a black T-shirt that was at least three times Neal's size, and equally large sweatpants.

"Here, sweetie, you can change into these for sleep," she said, putting the clothes on the foot of the bed.

"I'm not going back to sleep."

"But that's my favorite casual shirt!"

Neal and Peter had both spoken at the same time, but both shut up immediately at a stern look from Elizabeth.

"I'll be downstairs. You boys sleep well.—And we'll talk later," she added addressing Peter, before she left the room.

No one said anything for a few seconds. Neal was still patting Satch, who seemed to enjoy the attention, and Peter appeared indecisive about what to do or say. He finally settled on an awkward, "You okay?"

"Sure," Neal replied, scratching Satch between the ears.

"You do that a lot?"

Neal looked up to shoot Peter a questioning look.

"Scream in your sleep, I mean."

Neal felt himself blush and looked back at Satch. "Just testing to see what your response time is.—There's room for improvement, by the way."

"I was here within seconds, I'll have you know."

"Well, you do have a better response time than your guard dog, I guess . . ."

"Satchmo's not a guard dog. He likes everyone. Even juvenile felons, apparently," Peter said, shooting a meaningful look at Satchmo who had rolled onto his back to let Neal scratch his tummy.

"Alleged juvenile felons," Neal corrected automatically.

"Yeah, right." Peter rolled his eyes. "Go back to sleep, we'll talk about alleged felonies tomorrow." With that Peter turned around and was just about to leave the room, when Neal called after him, "You mean 'today'!"

Peter just shook his head and with a wave of his hand over his shoulder kept on walking, leaving the door ajar.

Neal stared after him for a long moment thoughtfully. For a fed, Peter wasn't half bad. And bantering with him and trying to push his buttons was a lot more fun than he was ready to admit.

"What do you say, Satch? Can your owner be trusted?"

Satchmo, of course, didn't have any opinion on the matter one way or another.

TBC . . .

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As always, I am incredibly grateful for your reviews and I'm very interested to hear what you thought of the new chapter. There's a long hiatus ahead of us until 5x01, so maybe fanfics can help make it seem shorter . . .