AN: Thank you once again for all the support shown to this story, your reviews are simply wonderful! Beta credit belongs to the excellent Deej1957!

Disclaimer: White Collar belongs to USA Network and Jeff Eastin.

CHAPTER 14

"When is this from?" Neal asked after a couple of seconds contemplating the photo in his hands.

"Yesterday."

"Is it reliable?"

"As reliable as you're going to get. There's nothing else, Neal. You know Adler, nobody wants to mess with him. If you have that picture in your hands it's because he wanted it."

Neal nodded and looked up at the man before him. "It's Moz, Hale. I can't just ignore it."

Hale shook his head. "It's a trap and you know it."

"It's a risk I'll have to take." Neal extended his hand and they shook. "Thanks for this."

"I hope you find Mozzie in one piece. I've always liked him." Hale straightened his suit jacket, got in his car, and drove away from the alley.

Neal shifted listlessly while looking at the photograph Hale had just given him. It showed a black van with an older man behind the wheel and Mozzie sitting in the passenger seat. Both were wearing black and both looked fine. The thing was, Mozzie was most definitely not fine.

It had taken a week of silence on Mozzie's part for Neal's worry to escalate to a point where he'd had to turn to his street contacts to find him. It had taken another three days for Hale to come up with any information. Mozzie had been seen hanging out with Adler's men. The only problem was that nobody knew what house they were operating from. Adler had several. It had taken two more days for the photograph to reach his hands.

It had been almost two weeks without contact from Mozzie and Neal was beyond restless. Something was definitely wrong. He had eavesdropped all week in the office, and Peter's team was close. They were monitoring the Guggenheim closely and whatever Moz was trying to pull, it was going to happen this week. It was likely that they were going to catch them, and Neal couldn't decide if it would be for the best, Mozzie being in jail just to escape Adler.

Neal shook his head and with slightly shaking hands he tried once again to dial the emergency phone number from the burner phone Mozzie had given him. No response. He slipped the phone into his pants pocket and grasped the USB drive inside while he made his way to the FBI offices. He walked straight to his desk and sat down to play with his rubber band ball. It was lunch hour and Peter and Diana were gone. He usually didn't come to the office this early, and always had lunch in school. Jones was still at his desk though. He looked at his watch. He had 20 minutes to get Jones out of there before everyone else got back.

He got up quickly and had a coffee cup in his hand four minutes later. He waited for a minute and saw his opening when Jones got up talking distractedly on his phone. Neal walked towards Jones' desk and pretended to trip, spilling coffee all over Jones' shirt.

Jones recoiled and hastily shouted something into his phone and turned it off. "Shit!" he exclaimed. He grabbed a few napkins from his desk and tried to wipe the coffee from his clothes. He looked up and finally noticed Neal on his knees in the floor.

"Neal, are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm sorry Agent Jones. I wasn't paying attention and I must have tripped with that trash can." Neal got up and gestured to an overturned trash can on the desk beside them. "Looks like I really did a number on you."

Jones looked down at his ruined white shirt and blue tie. "This is just perfect!" he grumbled. "I have a meeting with Hughes in an hour." He looked at the spilled coffee on the floor and then at Neal. "Hey, can you make sure this is cleaned up when I come back? I have a spare set of clothes in my locker downstairs."

"I'll make sure it's clean. Sorry again, Agent Jones."

Neal watched with a smug smile as Jones disappeared into the elevator and he found himself alone with Jones' computer before him. He turned the chair around, sat down, inserted the USB code scrambler into the computer and waited to get access. Two minutes later he was pulling all the information on the license plate from the van in the photo. He grabbed the papers from the printer, folded them and put them in his back pocket. He took out the USB, erased the search history and logged off the computer. He made his way to the utilities closet, came out with a mop, and by the time Diana and Peter came back from lunch and Jones returned with a clean suit, he was sitting quietly at his desk examining case folders.

The information he acquired was everything he needed to get to Mozzie. He recognized the name on the car registration as one of the aliases Adler used, and the address belonged to a warehouse not far from the Burke's home, a place barely outside of his radius. He conned Peter into thinking he had a terrible headache and acted grumpy and miserable all afternoon until Peter ordered him to go home.

He made his way to the address immediately and after ten minutes perusing the entrance fifty feet away, he was sure that this was the right place. It would be foolish to go in and try to grab Mozzie. Adler wasn't a man that did his own dirty work. He always had enough muscle around to make sure that intruders understood they weren't welcome. If he tried to get into that place by himself, then he'd get caught and they'd both be screwed.

He thought about just going in and getting caught. Would Peter think he was running when he stepped out of his radius? Could he risk going back to Juvie? He was sure Peter would come after him, but could he keep it together until the cavalry rescued him? He made his way home and made a decision. As much as Mozzie would probably be mortified about it, he needed Peter's help.

Neal brought it up after dinner. Neal was sitting down pretending to do homework. Peter was going through files and El was working on her laptop. Frankly, they were both relieved to see Neal finally getting back to normal. He'd been acting strange all week and he had hardly spent time with them during the evenings.

"Peter?" Neal asked.

"Yeah?" Peter didn't even look up from the files he was reading.

Neal took out the picture and the folded pages he'd printed with the information. He knew he'd get in trouble, but he had to do it.

"Adler has Mozzie."

Both Elizabeth's and Peter's heads shot up at that.

"What," Elizabeth asked a little bit shocked. "Are you sure?"

"A…umm… a friend of mine gave me this today." He passed the picture over to Peter. Be brave now, Neal, he thought. "I got this information from that license plate and I'm sure it's him. I recognize the address." Peter grabbed the papers from Neal and stared down at the printed pages. "I can't really go there by myself, but Mozzie is in danger. I know it." Neal's voice was starting to sound frantic.

Peter just stared at everything he'd handed over and asked him in a cold voice, "Neal, where did you get these?"

Neal shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. "I told you, a friend gave it to me. Look, it doesn't matter, okay? What matters is that we need to go check out that place."

"It does matter. Neal," he said with an inflexible tone, "did you hack into my computer?"

Neal had the decency to at least look ashamed when he answered. "No. Jones'."

Peter drew a hand to his forehead rubbing it. "The spilled coffee today."

Neal only nodded. He looked over to Elizabeth who was staring at both of them, ready to intervene if things got out of hand.

"Peter, can't you just ground me or something later? Mozzie's in trouble. It's been almost two weeks since he's made contact." Neal stood up from the table and started pacing. "It's wrong. It's all just wrong… he wasn't supposed to find us."

Peter watched Neal pace; it was so uncharacteristic of him. He always seemed in control of everything around him.

"No."

Neal looked up and met Peter's eyes.

"Let's for a moment forget you got this information illegally, that you've obviously been disobeying me and going around meeting who knows whom to find this." He shook the photo in the air. "Let's forget that you conned an FBI Agent and hacked into his computer in the FBI office!" Peter was practically shouting by then, and Elizabeth reached over to grab his hand. He looked at her and tried to calm down.

"Let's forget all of that," Peter continued in a calmer voice. "Neal, do you have any proof that your friend is there against his will? Do you have proof that Adler has him kidnapped?"

Neal stared back. "No," he responded, and then continued rapidly. "Youdon't get it. We would never work with Adler again." Neal paused and thought, not after Kate. "We didn't even know what we were getting into the first time around. He's got Mozzie. I'm telling you, why won't you trust me?"

"It's not matter of trust Neal. I can't get a warrant without proof. I certainly can't get a warrant to the house of a man the FBI is actively investigating without throwing away everything we've done to get him." Neal sat down defeated and looked at both of them.

"I can't just leave him there…"

Elizabeth leaned over to Neal. "Maybe it's time for you to let him go Neal. I'm sure he can take care of himself. We don't want you getting into contact with those people again. Like Peter said, maybe he's working for Adler."

Neal looked at her in disbelief. "He wouldn't, Elizabeth. You don't know him." This was all wrong. They were supposed to help him, not tell him to stay put. Peter was supposed to fix things. He could have run. He should have run and somehow he would have gotten Mozzie by himself. He turned back to Peter. "I came to you with this, doesn't that count for something?"

Peter knew what he was talking about. He knew that Neal could have ditched the anklet and would have gone after Mozzie himself. "No. We made a deal. I gave you something good here and you're about to blow it."

"I know where he is," Neal said, after another thought crossed his mind. "I just need a couple of days. I can go get him and I promise I'll come back." He looked hopefully up at Peter. "I can get him out and the FBI doesn't even have to get involved -"

"Stop it, stop it. How many times are you going to screw up your life, Neal?" Peter asked incredulously.

Then, everything just stopped. Neal got up so fast that he turned the chair over, making Satchmo run away from the noise. He didn't even look at the stunned Burkes. He just opened the door and left the house.

Everything was a blur around him and he could hardly see where he was going because of the tears in his eyes. How could he be so stupid to think that they would actually care about Mozzie? He kept running. He ran as fast as his legs could take him. He ran as he began to feel his head and chest pounding, the familiar panic attack lurking on the outskirts of his consciousness. He kept running even after his anklet started ticking in protest, not even registering the implications of being out of his radius.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. His lungs, his head… every part of his body was screaming in protest and he just let himself fall on the concrete. He sat and rested his head against the dirty wall of a basketball court. He had no idea where he was, and he just stayed there waiting for someone to come get him.

Sure enough, not even a minute later, he heard the doors of a car close and someone approaching him.

Peter knelt down in front of him. Neal raised his head still gasping loudly, trying to get some air into his lungs. They were both there. Elizabeth and Peter. They were both there and they looked worried. They were concerned about him, but they wouldn't help him.

"Neal," Peter started, in as soothing a voice as he could handle, "Neal, you understand that there's no proof that Adler has Mozzie without his consent?" Peter tried to reason with Neal once again. He needed for Neal to understand.

Neal gave him a little shake of his head. "He's not answering my messages, he hasn't contacted me. Adler's dangerous." He deliberated whether or not to disclose the next part, but he braved on. "He… he hurt some of my friends before. He's a killer."

Peter looked at El and they shared a look. They knew he was talking about Kate. Tears were falling down Neal's cheeks. His words were filled with anguish. They didn't know what to do or say. They'd never seen Neal like this.

"I just can't leave him. I can't," Neal told Elizabeth with a shaky voice. I can't choose between you and Mozzie.

Neal wiped the tears forcefully with his hand and looked at Peter in the eyes.

"Please, Peter. Please…please," Neal begged shamelessly. "Please, do this for me." He frantically wiped off the tears that kept falling.

"If you help me, I'll do whatever you want." Neal's voice cracked. "Anything, I'll do it. Just help me save Mozzie, please."

Peter looked at Neal breaking apart in front of him, startled at the pleas. He didn't even know what he had been doing, trying to take care of another human being. He looked up at El and they shared a pained understanding at everything Neal's words conveyed.

He carefully lifted up Neal's chin with his finger. "Neal, what is it you think I want from you?" he asked gently.

Neal's eyes were full of pain. His words where full of despair. "I don't know."

Peter closed his eyes and sighed. He brought his hand up to rest on top of Neal's head and then let it fall to his shoulder.

"Okay," he said. "We'll go get Mozzie."

Not one of them expected what happened next. Neal shifted underneath his hand and got to his knees as he slammed himself against Peter's chest. He buried his face in his shirt and grabbed his jacket from behind. Peter was started at the suddenness of it. He was shocked by the contact Neal had never allowed, and was now giving willingly. He put his arms around the small frame against him and hugged him back looking up to a smiling Elizabeth. She was crying as well. Crying for Neal and for Peter, for the past and for what they could hope to be in the future.

Neal held on to Peter like his life depended on it. Peter's body was warm, firm, and reassuring. Neal's brain barely had time to process the relief at Peter's words, at Peter's touch. He'd gone so long without human contact that he sometimes was afraid he'd forgotten how it felt to be human.

He had never known such safety as he did in Peter's arms. He had never wanted to belong as much as he did right then.