Disclaimer- nope.

AN- wow, this took way too long and I apologize. Completely unacceptable.

Anyways, this chapter is once again, double length to make up for it, and the truth behind Keller's injury is unveiled. Thanks for the reviews, you guys are stellar. Do you think we could make it to 52? That's 12 reviews.

"Well now, Mr. and the Mrs. Suit are out to lunch, all sweet and innocent." Juliet's singsong voice drifted through the couple's conversation. The blonde woman practically floated over to the table and plopped onto the chair across. "Hi Ellie! Miss me? What's it been now, 4 days since you saw me?"

Elizabeth froze horrified, her jaw dropping. This was just like Juliet, just like Keller. Drag Peter into this, or force her to lie to her own husband. She could feel Peter's eyes trained on her. This was so bad.

"Juliet, what are you doing here?" She ground out coldly as the brunette regained her composure. Blue eyes glared into green ones, and brown flickered between the two women and his gun. "You know my answer."

"You see Mrs. Burke," the blonde sighed, kicking her feet up onto the table. She had a maniacal glint in her eyes that, despite how malicious and violent she had been before, was giving her a deranged look. Her smile was a knowing smirk that screamed bad news. "I asked politely. Then I tried to bargain. You've pushed our patience and now we're done playing. Give me Serenity, or I'll kill you, your darling husband, the hacker you hired, and both of your precious cons."

"What is going on?" Peter interrupted before El could snarl something impolite in retaliation. At the mention of Neal and Peter, he'd tensed up and a suspicious glare had overtaken his concerned one. "Who are you, what is Serenity, and what does Neal and Mozzie and my wife have to do with a hacker?"

Both women ignored the FBI agent.

"You leave my husband out of this." Elizabeth snapped, but a malicious smile growing. "Tell me, how is Matthew Keller enjoying life on the sidelines? Is it how he imagined? Or has the injury and missing beach put a damper on the life of leisure?" She gazed meanly at the blonde woman across her. By now, Peter had given up trying to figure out what was going on, but at Keller's name his hand went to his gun.

Juliet stood up in a flurry, the confident woman façade switching instantaneously to dangerously pissed off. In the back of her mind, the brunette woman realized that bringing the blue-collar con's injury into the conversation wasn't a good idea but the vicious, catty side of her delighted in pissing off the gun-slinger. Suddenly, both Peter and Juliet yanked out their guns, but only one shot fired, clipping Peter in the shoulder and sending him to the ground.

"Peter!" Elizabeth jumped to her feet and moved around the table to his side. Besides gritting his teeth in pain from the slight wound, the FBI agent looked relatively un-injured.

"Well, ain't that just desserts now aren't it?" Juliet laughed in a voice that sounded less than sane. El whirled around, her eyes darkened in fury. Peter gripped his gun tightly in his hand next to her, raising it unsteadily. "You shot the man in my life, now I've shot yours. Except that mine's in a wheelchair. Guess I'll have to take out my annoyance at missing his heart on the little one. He's with Ray, right?" With a tilt of her head and a grin, the blonde vanished down the street.

"Hun, what is going on?" Peter asked, gripping his shoulder. His eyes held pent up confusion with a hint of anger. Elizabeth helped him to his feet, her mind whirling with Juliet saying she was going after Mozzie and the hacker he hired, Ray, and memories of Neal being shot by Juliet. "Who was she, and what does she have to do with Keller, the little guy, and Neal?"

"Peter," The brunette gasped, gripping his hand tightly and looking deep into his eyes. "Juliet is going after Mozzie and Ray. I'll explain everything after we save them." Peter gazed back at her, worry and love written through his features.

"I promise."

Mozzie frowned, glancing behind him for the fifth time in a few minutes. He knew he was paranoid, but his gut was screaming at him something was wrong. Ray was working down the hall on his laptop, trying to do something way more technologically advanced than him, and he had taken Neal's flash drive down to the work room to see if it contained some sort of unlocking strip inside. Not long after he left, Moz had thought he heard a shout from Ray's room. The paranoid voice screamed to run, but the logic, which sounded like Neal's voice, said to relax and keep quiet. He was swaying more and more towards the paranoid side as the odd noises became more frequent.

Turning around, Mozzie slid silently down the hall and into Ray's room, where he found computers smashed to bits and a blood trail.

"Ray?" the con called, tucking the Serenity drive into his pocket. "Ray, you here?"

"Sorry, Raymondo isn't in right now, but if you leave a message I'll be sure to let you pass it on to him in the afterlife." A female voice giggled from the shadows. A slender blonde woman stepped out, twirling a gun in one hand. She had an oversized pair of sunglasses covering her eyes and Ray's precious top hat on her head.

"Let me guess." Moz said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Juliet Tyler aged 25, top of the line gunslinger, and the partner of Matthew Keller. Throw in a bit of terrorizing Mrs. Suit and shooting my best friend, and I really don't like you."

She laughed again, and a chill ran down the small man's back. This woman had to either be insane or just liked to act it.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance Mozzie." Juliet smiled. She cocked her gun. "It's a shame I won't have time to get to know you better. I could have told you all the lovely things Mrs. Burke didn't tell you about that night. What happened after Neal was shot, things like that."

"What are you talking about?" Moz hissed, his eyes never leaving the gun. It suddenly dawned on him why Neal refused to carry a gun. It wasn't fun to have on pointed at you. "You took Neal, and the FBI got her."

She made a disapproving noise with her tongue.

"So cute and innocent you are of what Elizabeth did. The blood on her hands wasn't just Neal's actual blood." Juliet slid across the room, running her finger across the con's shoulders. "Mrs. Burke did something terrible."

"Terrible by your definition." The smaller man protested, feeling a swell of pride for the Suit's wife. Whatever she had done, it was causing problems for Keller and Juliet which was as good as gold in his book. "I bet whatever terrible thing she did, they had it coming."

"Thanks Mozzie." El's voice came from the doorway. The con turned to see her and the Suit, very well alive but worse for wear. The Suit was bandaged around his shoulder, but his gun was steady. She had a smile on her face, relief evident in her eyes. "Where's Ray?"

"He went into the light." Juliet sang lightly, causing Elizabeth to tense. "Just another death in this battle. It would have been prevented had you just given me what I want. Instead you don't, and more get hurt."

"How about you give us Neal back, and then let Peter arrest you and Keller?" Elizabeth hissed, stepping towards her. Peter cocked his gun and raised it to the blonde's head level.

Juliet sighed.

"Suddenly, I feel less than welcome." She raised her gun and fired three shots, one hitting each light bulb. Peter got off two, one rebounding off of the wall and nailing Juliet in the leg. She darted out the door however, and for the second time, vanished.

"El, what is going on?" Peter questioned, sitting down onto a chair in the hallway. The normally confident FBI agent looked confused, annoyed, and a little sad. Most likely that he was left out of the loop regarding what happened.

"Mrs. Suit, I wouldn't normally ask, but Juliet said there was blood on your hands other than Neal's and…" Moz drifted off, the same confusion in his eyes that was there when the brunette first told him the Neal wasn't coming back to June's any time soon.

Elizabeth nodded, letting a tremor run through her.

"I'll tell you."

Keller's men grabbed Neal's body around the torso, dragging it towards the remnants of the warehouse.

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM! NEAL!" El screamed, her hysterical voice carrying loudly. Tears of fury and anguish poured from her enraged blue eyes and her fists were clenched so tight, her nails dug through her skin and drew her blood. "YOU BASTARDS! LET HIM GO! GET AWAY FROM HIM! NEAL!"

Suddenly, the arms restraining her were gone and El whirled around to see Keller standing 10 feet away with a smug grin on his face.

"Sorry Mrs. Burke, you know I didn't want this to happen." The con shrugged, holding his hands out in a, 'what could I do' gesture. "My demands were really very simple. Your con's friend hands me the treasure, and you walk away. I was even gonna keep up my end of the bargain."

Elizabeth stood there, Neal's blood sticky on her hands and clothes. Not a coherent thought was going through her mind, all that was there was- You son of a bitch. Her blue eyes burned furiously into Keller's.

"You heartless monster." She hissed, trembling out of a mixture of terror, anguish, and fury. She no longer cared about Matthew Keller hurting her. All she cared about right now is the man who had been ripped from her arms and that fact that his blood stained her hands.

The blue collar con's grin widened.

"Alright Elizabeth Burke, we'll do this the hard way." He began to reach for his gun which was tucked in his belt loop.

"Fine." El mimicked coldly. "We'll do this the hard way."

The gun Neal had been carrying all of a sudden appeared in her hands.

"This is for Neal you son of a bitch."

A bang resounded through the air.

Keller crumpled to the ground, followed shortly by Elizabeth. She just sat there in an exhausted heap, watching Keller's men swarm him and drag him inside. Vaguely, she heard Juliet's voice call to 'ignore the Burke bitch and just get Matt to Hunt.' Darkness crept over her vision and everything slipped away to oblivion

Wow. I didn't even realize how long that was. And how actually decent.

If you didn't catch that, by the way, Elizabeth shot Keller and the bullet nicked his spine, causing lower body paralysis.

Reviews are love. Like, seriously. I live off them.

-D.A.