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Peter was screaming.

Neal raced to his partner's side and crouched in the snow and the slush, not caring for once that he was obviously ruining a Devore.

"Peter!" he shouted, looking anxiously down at him but afraid to touch him. He was numb with shock and cold and afraid to move the other man because he had heard that moving an injured person, without knowing the extent of their injuries first, most often did more harm than good.

Agent Burke's eyes were closed but Neal could thankfully see his chest rising and falling. He wasn't dead. Yet. Neal really didn't want it to get to that point.

The ex-con ran his hands through his hair and grimaced as he felt a slickness wet his scalp. Startled and curious he drew his hands up to his face in what little light was provided by the overhanging moon and his breath hitched painfully when he realized they were covered in blood.

"Oh no," he cursed under his breath and bent close to the ground to carefully observe the frozen pavement in front of him on which Peter was lying, half-conscious and mumbling nonsense. His heart lurched when he noticed the dark stain spreading from under the FBI agent's head.

He was on his hands and knees at that point and the slush soaking through his well-tailored suit was the least of his worries. His sharp blue eyes were fixed on Peter's head, trying to search for the cause of the blood without touching him or moving him.

Peter shifted and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to open his eyes. Neal was disappointed that he kept them closed but then the wounded man grumbled something unintelligibly and tried to move.

Quick as a flash, Neal had pressed his hands down on Peter's shoulders in panic. "No, Peter!" he shouted, a hint of panic in his voice. "Don't move!" He wasn't sure how badly his partner had hit his head but the ground was slick with ice and blood and Neal wasn't going to take any chances.

Peter grumbled something again and Neal thought he could make out the word "van".

"Forget the van, Peter!" Neal's blue eyes were wide and frightened but Peter wasn't really awake and in no position to tell him how to handle this. "What do I do?" he asked in vain. "You're bleeding!"

Peter shifted again and Neal put more pressure on his shoulders to keep him on the ground, but Peter wasn't trying to get up. Neal saw the agent's hand reaching blindly at his pocket and understood.

"Pharghh," Peter mumbled and Neal would have laughed if he wasn't absolutely terrified.

Without another moment's hesitation the ex-con snatched the phone from Peter's pocket and then stared for a moment at the screen, debating who to call. He knew 9-11 would be the obvious answer, and he knew he would call them, but he was a former criminal, after all, and when faced with a list of people to call in emergencies, the authorities didn't really top the list. He debated calling Mozzie, or even Elizabeth, but he realized he would have to call an ambulance if he wanted Peter to live. The agent's survival was best left in the care of professionals.

Wasting another precious moment in conflict, he finally dialed the 9-11, waiting for the operator.

"9-11, what is your emergency?"

He froze at the sound of the voice coming through the phone, relief and panic crashing through him so fast that for a moment he couldn't speak. The operator repeated the question and the situation crashed down on him.

"I've got a man down!" he shouted into the receiver and it was sad he couldn't fully appreciate the saying; he had always wanted to say that. "We're on –" Neal glanced around quickly to assess their location. "the corner of Seventh and Eighth." The relief he felt at finally having a chance of assistance loosened his tongue. "He was hit by a van and his head is bleeding and he isn't making any sense and-" he looked over at Peter to find the agent had stopped breathing. "Peter!" he swallowed and remained still until the bleeding man shifted again before turning back to the phone. "- hurry."

"Calm down sir," the voice on the other end of the line reassured him. "Help is on the way."

Neal breathed a sigh of relief and politely declined the operator's offer of waiting on the line with him until the ambulances arrived; he was too distressed to make polite conversation. He thanked the woman and was about to hang up, but the voice drifted through the phone again.

"Sir, wait a minute. You said that his head was bleeding?"

Neal paused. "Yes," he said uncertainly. "I think it's bad."

"Don't let him fall asleep, sir. Keep him awake until help arrives." There was the firm, reassuring command of authority in her voice and surprisingly far from unnerved, Neal was relieved for it. He thanked her again and was quick to hang up, eager to get back to his bleeding friend. He shut the phone and it tightly in his hands like a lifeline. Peter had stopped mumbling and was breathing somewhat uneasily.

Remembering the operator's advice, he jolted into action. Leaning over Peter to check his breathing and less than pleased to find it thin, the ex-con put a hand on the agent's shoulder and shook him frantically.

Peter roused grumbling and tried to escape the disturbance. Not to be deterred, Neal slapped Peter's cheek

"Hey, Peter! Peter wake up!" There was a note of frantic terror in his voice. "You can't go to sleep! C'mon, don't do this."

Agent Burke moaned and turned his face away but Neal was determined and kept on him.

"Come on, Peter," he pleaded. "Think of Elizabeth! You can't do this to her, I won't let you. And what about me? If you die I'll go back to prison and that wouldn't be beneficial to either of us!"

"Of course you would only be worried about yourself at a time like this," Peter croaked, only he wasn't very much in control of tongue right now so it sounded more like: "o'rse 'ou ouldbahworrdbutrself ahh." But Neal managed to fill in blanks and he was glad Peter was talking at all.

He flashed his partner a charming grin and said, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

The other man made a noncommittal grunt that wasn't quite a response but it was something. Neal slapped his cheek again just to be sure and Peter moved his head away with a very clear and forceful, "Knock it off!"

Neal grinned cheekily in response.

"There's the old Peter Burke," he said to himself.

Agent Burke fell quiet again and suddenly went limp.

"Peter!" he shouted in alarm. "Wake up, dammit!" He shook the agent's shoulder harshly stopping only when he realized he could be doing more damage than good. "I'll…I'll go after Kate!" he threatened. "You know I will." It wasn't exactly a lie and they both knew it. But unfortunately one of them was incapacitated and couldn't respond even if he wanted to.

"I'll leave right now, that's it, I'm getting up now…"

No response.

"Dammit," he muttered. But there was a thoughtful pause at the end of the curse, the realization dawning on him now after the words were spoken that he could, in fact, go after Kate. Of course there was still the tracker to contend with, but with Peter for all intents and purposes out of commission, he was closer to freedom now than he had ever been since being released into the FBI's custody.

His blue eyes were wide, looking between the road ahead of them - a road he could easily slip down now that he knew help was on the way, after all the medics would tend to Peter and he could be just fine - and the injured and bleeding FBI agent who had put him in jail and then gotten him out again, to whom he more or less belonged for the next four years.

The thought of cutting that sentence short, of gaining his freedom, was a shining beckoning light that took Neal everything in him to resist it. The thought of freedom, the freedom to find Kate, was tantalizing, tempting him, but - he looked over at Peter again.

Not at the expense of his friend. Neal Caffrey was a lot of things, but heartless wasn't one of them. And somewhere along the line he had come to think of Agent Peter Burke as his friend. He didn't know when it happened, but it had (and he had a sneaking suspicion that he may have been thinking it even before he was released into the agent's custody. At least, if not friend, then someone he would always be there, only now he wasn't chasing him with intent to put him behind bars, in fact, he was doing everything in his powers to keep him out. Neal appreciated the irony.)

The ex-con ran a hand through his hair, conflicting emotions pulling at him, one invisible hand dragging him inevitably towards Kate and the other… Neal sighed. A sudden absence of sound pulled him out of his reverie with a sharp, cold feeling of fear. Peter had stopped breathing.

All thoughts of Kate and great escapades to Paris or obscure but beautiful Mediterranean isles flew from his mind and the only image there now was one of Peter, pale and drawn and lifeless and oh so very wrong. Peter was supposed to be the strong one, the one always telling Neal it was time to "cowboy up" and move on, the one who had earned a respected position with the FBI in New York City and the one risking throwing it all away everyday he trusted Neal to keep to the deal and refuse to run.

He shook Peter again, frantically, shouting nonsense, anything that would get him to stir and cause him to open his eyes and give Neal that stern, almost parental, glare that he had gotten so used to seeing in the past few weeks.

"I'm still here, Peter! And I'm not leaving until you wake up and stay awake. I'll…" he was running low on threats and all in all he wasn't a very threatening person but he didn't know what else would get the man to wake up. If not threats, then maybe promises. Promises he probably wouldn't be able to keep, but promises that would be compelling enough for Peter to hold on just for a few moments more until help arrived.

The average New York City emergency response time was four and a half minutes. It had to have been at least two minutes and thirty seconds since he ended that call and it could have been more as he lost a few moments daydreaming about Kate.

Kate. Now there was a promise that would appeal to Peter.

"If you wake up, Peter, I promise I won't go after Kate." He couldn't promise that he would stop looking, nor could he promise to give up on her, but the first promise he could make; and if it came down to it, there were plenty of loopholes in that promise to find one big enough to slip through. Besides, if Peter Burke died here Neal would be sent back to prison, this much he knew without a doubt. None of the other agents in the FBI would tackle the potentially job-threatening (and now, life-threatening) hurdle that is Neal Caffrey. He would get sent back to prison and this time it would be for life. Nothing would matter then.

"I'll tell you where the caches are, Peter. All of them. I swear. Just…wake up." He was getting tired, making promises he wasn't sure he would be able to keep and hoping that the subject never arose or Hell - hoping it did, because that would mean Peter would be alive to bring it up with him and that would make everything okay.

A/N: Ohhh, those promises might come back and bite you, Caffrey.

Alright guys, here's chapter two, as promised. I've got one more chapter typed up at the moment which I'll post when I get home from the city tomorrow. The street they're on -- seventh and eighth? There's some exhibit there that I'm going to see tomorrow, I'll be sure to keep my eye out for any strange teal vans! :D

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Thanks for all the reviews, keep 'em coming! Now I'm going to go back to playing my Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days game and leave you to it.

'Till tomorrow,

Agni