Chapter 8: Cheating ( as always )

Casey gave the hospital room where Larkin laid unconscious one last glance.

Walker, Burke and "Mozzie" were sitting in a corner of the room, obviously anxious – a nurse had tried to get them out, but the moleman had chased her away with surprising efficience. Jones, Berrigan and Bartowski were waiting in the corridor – the colonel suspected that the nerd didn't dare enter the hospital room, even if he really wanted to. No issue then, if anything happened, there was more than enough brawl here.

They had been told Larkin – Caffrey – should wake up shortly now, after a few hours of deserved sleep – Casey might not like the man, it didn't mean he was that obstuse as to deny him a rightful acknowledgment.

Larkin had a broken ankle – "twisted, sure, Caffrey" Berrigan had hissed under her breath – two bruised ribs, extended contusions, a bite wound on his thigh, several splinters in his right hand, a concussion – figures, with the way the floor had collapsed under him – platter dust in his lungs – because it wasn't fun if the guy didn't collect all the possible injuries, right? – and many cuts from the broken window. That seemed like a lot, but Casey had seen Daryl Riggs' escape hell, and really, Larkin was lucky to even be alive. No major wounds, at that.

It'd still hurt like a bitch, though.

The nurses and doctors had been a bit put off when the ambulance had arrived, actually. They weren't sure where to begin. But once they had heard why their new patient was literally covered in cuts and blood and various injuries, they had been able to tend to the most urgent – like, getting the glass shards out of Caffrey before he bled to death.

Casey didn't particularly care being there for Larkin's coming back to consciousness.

And there was someone he needed to see, so he left the others at the hospital, and went down to the parking area. A woman was waiting there for him, standing before a car with blackened windows.

She opened the car door for him.

Casey entered the vehicle, and found himself sitting before Diane Beckman, NSA general. His superior. Who had come all the way to New York City as soon as she could, to look into the Larkin Issue – everything about Larkin was an issue, Casey felt, but well...

"I trust you secured Agent Larkin, Colonel?"

"Two of the men you sent are keeping an eye on his hospital room."

"Good."

There was a short time of silence, General Beckman looking in the vague.

"General, what do we do about Larkin?"

The woman shook her head, as if to chase unwanted thoughts – about Graham, with whom she had worked for a time, about the two years Bryce Larkin had been working for both of them. Except for that one time when Bryce Larkin had been assumed a traitor – and it had been explained – the agent had been a model operative. His cases were airtight – or, as much as a CIA operation could be. Nothing pointed to him having ulterior motives...

And yet, here she was, wondering what to do about Bryce Larkin.

Wondering what to do about Neal Caffrey.

"The CIA will soon send someone too; no decision is to be taken meanwhile. But we can start interrogating him. Aside from his own guilt, we still need to know how he managed to trick all background checks. There is no way the CIA will be happy to find the cracks in their system, but they will want to put an end to them. We should also make sure Caffrey hasn't done more than hiding himself when he was pretending to be an agent."

"Interrogation, then."

"Of course."

"And, probably, at the end of the day, he'll be forgotten in some unofficial CIA black site, won't he? Like Daniel Shaw before him... not that it stopped him from causing trouble."

The general gave her subordinate a sharp look. Casey didn't react – they both knew what he had meant by that comment.

"Are you suggesting Neal Caffrey should better be taken care of?"

"I am not suggesting anything, General. It's not difficult to guess what his future is going to be if the CIA doesn't like his answers to their questions. And jail time, as secured as it can be, will not be it; because whether or not Neal Caffrey had a hidden agenda all along, he still proved he was trouble enough not to even be noticed."

"We'll see, I guess."

Casey was about to leave the car – Beckman still had people to see before "meeting" Neal Caffrey, like, say, relevant agents of the FBI.

"Wait a minute, Colonel."

He stopped short of pushing the car door open, and turned around slightly to face the general again.

"Yes, General?"

"Bryce Larkin could be trusted, but Larkin was only a layer of Caffrey's identities. We do not know Neal Caffrey, and so there is no way we could trust his word or his intentions. But there is someone who knows Caffrey better than most, and whom we should be able to trust. Of course, federal agents aren't always trustworthy, even if they're supposed to be..."

"You want me to take a look at Burke's file?"

"No, Colonel Casey, I'll be doing that. You, in the meantime, get Burke to speak about his partner."

Casey agreed, and left the car. He needed to get back to Caffrey's room before Walker or Bartowski realized in how much shit Larkin had gotten himself, and decided the unconscious man needed to be taken to a safer, and secret, place.

oOo

Neal opened his eyes about three minutes after he woke up.

First it had been the sounds. Hushed voices, whispering far away from his ears, but present.

Then it had been a weird taste on his tongue – medicine, his addled brain surmised, but right now he couldn't tell what kind. He was in too much pain to...

Actually, no. Neal's sense of touch was completely numb. He felt things, like the sheets upon his body, but it was more that he was aware of their presence than really feeling it. There was a sense of touch, no question – but it didn't supply any details.

He couldn't manage to move either. He hoped it wasn't because he was paralyzed...? Neal didn't remember any injury that grave, but he wasn't sure of what he remembered either, so...

No, certainly he wasn't paralyzed. He just... wasn't up to moving, and since he couldn't feel his body for now, he wasn't receiving the painful signal of injured refusal. That must be it. Yeah, definitely. He wasn't paralyzed. Positive thinking, positive, Neal. He was just so broken he couldn't move yet.

Right, because that was being positive...

The voices grew clearer.

Neal smelled the cleanliness – too clean, perhaps, aggressively clean – of a hospital, mixed with the alarmingly familiar smell of blood.

A man, and a woman, speaking low.

He forced his eyes open – not easy when he felt like his eyelids had been stitched together.

Even if Neal didn't actually blink – too tiring, too hard, and he wasn't even sure he'd blink if he tried right now – the sudden light of the room – everything had been that weirdly reddish darkness when he had been keeping his eyes closed, but it wasn't anymore – had him seeing invading lights and shadows as if he was keeping on blinking. It took him a few more minutes for his sight to focus correctly, to stop giving him a show of lights and shadows.

He had gotten his visitors' attention, too, because while everything blinked between black and white, Neal heard the shuffle of feet coming his way.

So when he actually started seeing things, it was, to his great surprise, to be greeted by the stern, and more than a bit annoyed-looking, faces of Diana Berrigan and John Casey. The two tough members of both teams. Oh joy.

Diana kind of made sense – even if she was easily annoyed by Neal's antics, she did care for him enough. Casey didn't. Of the three members of Team Castle who had come over to New York, for all Neal knew, he'd have expected either Chuck or Sarah to be there when he'd wake up, perhaps both... But certainly not Casey.

Time to speak up and defend his case, it seemed.

"Before any of you two thinks of making me pay for my secrets... Please, don't kill me."

The two naturally aggressive individuals raised both eyebrows at that – and, maybe Neal hadn't articulated the two sentences quite right, medicine and a general drowsiness of his body oblige, but he was certain it had been understandable enough. His mouth and tongue might be bordering on falling asleep without his consent, but his ears were working just fine, thank you very much.

Casey snorted and took a step back.

"You do realize how deeply in trouble you are right now, Larkin... Sorry, 'Caffrey'? I don't particularly care for your secrets, but your former employers surely do."

Because, obviously, Neal was very glad to have been found and taken to a hospital... But it also meant everyone knew about his biggest con – the most dangerously reckless one, too.

Oh, Neal was seeing his whole future scrolling past his eyes; it mostly consisted of an underground jail cell, and much boredom. He guessed that was what he got for doing whatever he wanted.

...But it had been so much fun...

"Totally worth it."

The face Diana pulled at that comment made him aware he had probably – surely – said that one out loud. Damn. He was blaming it on the morphine.

The FBI agent disappeared from his field of view for a moment – Neal was awake, alright, but there was no way he'd manage to move his head even a little bit, to follow her movements.

She came back with a piece of paper in her hands, and read him the list of his injuries, and other physical inconveniences. Neal made a point of remembering how exactly he had gotten each one of these wounds and other bruises, just in case he was forgetting something of what had happened because of Daryl Riggs – but nope, his memory worked just fine. That, at least, was a relief.

And, really, it could have been worst. Like, he could be dead. Or agonizing. Which he wasn't. So, good enough, Neal'd say. Unless that was Bryce speaking?

Diana looked back at him, eyebrows still raised and disbelieving.

"So, let me resume: on top of this rather interesting list of 'physical inconveniences', I'm quoting you on that one, you're being accused of having infiltrated the CIA and faked your death to disappear. You'll probably be taken, never to be seen again, to some unknown and ultra-secret black site by the end of this story. And you still think the adventure was worth the problems?"

Neal gave his friend a blinding smile – perhaps this one was more bruised than blinding, with what had happened, but he was a guy who thought intent mattered more than facts.

"I'll talk my way out of this, don't worry."

He'd have added "YOLO", but neither Neal nor Bryce were that kind of guys – and, really, Diana had a point, even if he wouldn't admit it. He was in very, very deep shit.

oOo

Peter came back from the hospital's cafeteria with Sarah Carmichael around three in the afternoon. They had left the others down here, except Mozzie who had fled the hospital as soon as he had been sure Neal wasn't in any grave danger. Jones was about to go back to the office, anyway, and Sarah's husband didn't seem able to decide yet whether he wanted to flee or be there for when his former friend would wake up. The NSA colonel and Diana had stayed in the room, in case Neal woke up while they were getting something to eat.

The two stopped when they arrived in the vicinity of Neal's room.

That voice... It was low, a bit raw, and it fell into an awkward silence from time to time, but it was Neal's voice. The idiot was alive – sorry, awake. Not two words to get mixed up, Peter.

Peter and Sarah Carmichael shared a glance, then looked back at the door, closely guarded by two men dressed in black – another reason why Mozzie had fled, Peter didn't doubt. The colonel had said the NSA had sent them to keep an eye on the terribly volatile Neal Caffrey, aka CIA Agent Bryce Larkin – killed in action.

Because obviously Neal had to secretly be a dead CIA agent. Which wouldn't be such an issue, truth be told, if it was actually the case, and not the other way around. Because as it was, Agent Bryce Larkin was Neal Caffey, and not the contrary. Which meant Neal was going to have to explain waaaay too many things.

And nothing'd go happily ever after.

Now that there was no Daryl Riggs pointing a death flag at his best friend, Peter was beginning to truly realize the mountain of problems Neal had buried himself under – wait, mountains, plural. And this time, there was nothing Peter could do to help him, except perhaps testifying that Neal had done what he had done without meaning ill. Which was clearly not enough.

Sarah Carmichael passed the door, and Peter followed her. He wasn't exactly sure of what to say to Neal, now. What did you say in these situations? – this situation, singular, because Peter was pretty sure no such situation had ever happened before, and it wouldn't ever happen again.

Peter saw Diana seeking his eyes; he nodded quietly, and the other agent left the room discreetly. The NSA agent, John Casey, squinted at Neal for half a second, before following Diana outside.

"Don't try anything, Larkin, I'm staying outside that door."

Neal made a face, and grumbled a reply.

"Oh, don't worry, Casey, I'm more than aware that you'll kill me again if I try to crawl out of here..."

Which only got a disapproving look from Sarah Carmichael, and a deadpan from the retreating colonel. Peter, on the other hand, was getting a bit uncomfortable; he probably had every reason to be, considering the exchange had more or less implied that Neal had actually died at some point in his life – revived, obviously, but still... – and that John Casey had been the one to kill him.

When the door closed behind the man, Peter could only get a relieved sigh out.

Sarah Carmichael, on the other hand, didn't seem ready to relax.

Not that she had any reason to, not after everything she had learned about Bryce Larkin and Neal Caffrey during the last twenty-four hours. Peter wasn't blind, and the blonde wasn't exactly bothering to hide it: Bryce and her had been close, once upon a time. Learning that he wasn't real...

Peter wasn't sure how he'd feel, if the roles had been reversed. If Neal had been the fake, and Bryce the genuine personality. If he had been the one to be fooled.

She crossed her arms, and stared Neal in the eyes.

"If you're not Bryce, then who was he?"

The injured man winced – Peter couldn't tell if it was an actual, deliberate wince, or if he had been trying to do something else and the pain had made itself known again.

"You know how it goes, Sarah. An alias isn't ever completely true, nor completely false. If it helps, I never had any objective when I used the mask of Bryce Larkin... So, even if I'm not exactly Bryce, everything I told you, not about me, but about us, about what I wanted... it was the truth. I didn't have a goal to achieve, a mission to complete, which mean I had no reason to pretend. That's the best I can offer you."

Neal stopped looking at the blond woman, his gaze turning to the window, looking at the sky.

"I... Bryce was fake, but I was there behind the mask, all the time. And I may be a conman, but I don't like lying about important things. Relationships are important. People are important. I don't lie about them, because that's what really hurt."

Sarah Carmichael didn't seem to have anything to answer to that... But Peter, him, as he wasn't directly concerned by the conversation, caught what Neal hadn't said. Unlike the blonde, the FBI agent wasn't the one who was wondering whether or not the man he knew was just a legend.

"And you, Neal? What about you?"

The conman gave him an odd look. Peter realized he hadn't taken the question the right way.

"Neal is me. I'm Neal. It's the name my mother gave me... It's who I truly am. Only, Neal puts on a mask too, to hide the pain. Which I know you already knew, Peter. But Neal isn't a mask."

Peter could have done with just this answer, even if it wasn't the right one. But he didn't.

"No, Neal. What I meant was, since you're lying about you, does it mean you aren't important?"

The conman didn't answer.