"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," a voice announced, moments before Mozzie walked through the door with a stack of files in his hands, dressed in a mismatching suit that would have made Neal cringe if he wasn't already so attuned to his friend's odd sense of style.

"You know, I never really liked that saying," Neal called in response from his seat at the dining room table. He held the bottle reverently in his hands, rolling the familiar worn glass back and forth between his palms.

Mozzie shook his head in disappointment. "Your time with the feds has lessened your appreciation for the subtle grace of the American proverb."

"Actually, I've never really appreciated the proverb, Moz." Neal placed the bottle carefully back on the table and looked up to find his friend spreading the files at the other end of the table. "So what'd you find?"

The other man glanced up, hand paused on a file as though waiting on a cue. He lifted the file with an enigmatic smile in Neal's direction.

"Our friend Daring has an interesting past."

"I'm interested," Neal said, leaning forward across the table to snatch the file eagerly from Mozzie's fingers, eliciting an exasperated look from the other man.

"Don't you have any patience?"

Neal shrugged unapologetically, already flipping the folder open to peruse its contents. "I'm a criminal, Moz. We're not exactly known for our virtues."

"Ah, reformed criminal," Mozzie reminded him. "But true enough. If you read, you'll find that Daring agrees quite heartily with that assessment. He's been charged with everything from larceny to embezzlement to mortgage fraud-" Neal pulled a face, Mozzie continued rattling off the list. "Forgery, impersonation of law enforcement…this guy is all over the map. He's like a modern day Abagnale."

"Tell me something I don't know, Moz." Neal answered, trying to spur his friend along. He was as reliable as valuable – if sometimes legally questionable – sources of information got, but he had a process to go through before revealing the goods. A long process. It could be endearing at times, but this was not one of them. "I got all that from the file at the Bureau. He's been in and out of prison half a dozen times. He's good at what he does, but he's sloppy. He got cocky, and he got caught."

"Sound like anyone you know?"

Neal shot him an annoyed look. "What else have you got? Just the facts, Moz."

Mozzie shook his head sadly. "No appreciation of the climactic build-up," he mourned with a sigh. "Have it your way, but-" he added, suddenly inspired. "Did your file at the den of inequity-"

"The 'den of inequity'?" Neal quoted with a grimace. The other man shrugged unapologetically.

"It's a working title." He defended.

"It needs more work."

"-Did your fancy FBI file mention that Daring isn't even his real last name?" Mozzie shot back haughtily.

Neal's attention snapped back to him, his blue eyes wide with renewed interest.

"It's an alias?" he asked, and his incredulous tone caused Mozzie to smile in triumph. He still had one over on the feds; not that he'd been worried.

"The file never mentioned that…" Neal muttered absently to himself, blue eyes looking troubled.

"That's right!" he declared proudly, presenting the documented proof with a flourish. "You put too much faith in the system, my friend."

Neal scanned the paper and handed it back, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head.

"So, any leads on his real name?" he asked, killing Mozzie's high. The smaller man sighed and held up his hands in a sign of surrender.

"You want everything, don't you?" he continued before Neal could answer. "I've got people working on it. This guy is no amateur, Neal." He warned, tone serious. "He's been at this longer than you have."

Neal remembered Peter saying the same thing when they had gone over Daring's case file during the briefing. Only now, the warning held merit. Peter was in the hospital and Daring was responsible; Neal had seen the whole thing with his own two eyes, the warning was hardly necessary.

"He doesn't seem to have any qualms about running down FBI agents, either," Neal added coldly. His eyes darkened and his hands curled slightly around the edges of the table.

"That's what worries me," he confessed, voice tight.

Mozzie turned to look at him. "Afraid that you'll be next?"

"No" Neal shook his head, still frowning. "It just doesn't fit in with the rest of his profile. Sure, he's swindled a lot of people, but he's never been so openly aggressive. Running down a federal agent is a serious crime. Why take that kind of risk?"

"Taking up mind-hunting?" Moz asked with a hint of amusement. But the focused look in Neal's eyes told him he was still milling it over.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" he continued when Neal made no move to answer. "He was about to be caught. He was desperate." He met Neal's eyes over the rim's of his glasses in a solemn stare. "What would you have done?"

Neal shook his head. "Not this, Moz." His voice was quiet but his knuckles were white on the table and Mozzie didn't miss the shadow that fell over his friend's usually light blue eyes. "Not this."

And that was the truth. That just wasn't who Neal was. He might find the cons thrilling, might thrive on the challenge of out-witting the authorities, but there was nothing thrilling about bloodshed, about hurting another human being just because he could. He shuddered lightly.

"Maybe it was an accident?"Mozzie suggested, but it was obvious Neal wasn't listening. He had gone still in his seat, his gaze fixed blankly ahead in a glassy stare as the scene from the other day replayed in his mind.

How they had happened upon Daring's van by chance, caught in a snowdrift. How they had thought their luck had changed, and how all of that changed with a flash of red brake lights – their only warning, one that came too late because then Daring was speeding away, six months of investigating gone in a second, and Peter had crumpled to the ground.

And there was blood. So much blood, crimson and warm, on Peter's head and on Neal's hands, painting a mocking parody of Christmas cheer in the slush and the snow.

"-Neal?"

Neal snapped out of it, blinking quickly until his vision had cleared and the blood had faded, leaving only Mozzie sitting in his dining room at June's, and watching him with quiet concern on his face. Moz must have noted his confusion, because he repeated the question.

"No, it was definitely deliberate," Neal confirmed. "He knew Peter was there."

"How is the suit, by the way?"

"He's getting better," Neal answered, somewhat distracted. "He's going to be out for at least a week…" he trailed off and the room lapsed into silence.

Moz glanced at him in alarm. "And what happens to you?" he asked.

"Wait-" Neal interjected suddenly, making Mozzie jump. He looked up to meet his friend's startled eyes with renewed interest. "You said two birds."

Mozzie wasn't following. "What?"

"You said 'one bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.," the ex-con insisted, leaning forward in earnest, blue eyes sparkling. "Who's the second bird?"

Mozzie's momentarily confusion cleared, replaced by something like relief. A slow smile grew out of the corners of his mouth..

"Perhaps all hope isn't lost, after all. I feared your time with the suits had dulled your brain. You may have a chance ye-"

"-Moz."

"Right." He cleared his throat and took his time adjusting his glasses, to the point where Neal was ready to ask again, before he withdrew a single piece of paper from the folds of his coat and pushed it in front of him. It was a crumpled mess; a sheet from a small legal pad lined with Mozzie's meticulous coded scrawl.

Neal looked up at him in exasperation for the mess, but Moz just indicated the paper impatiently.

"This is where it gets interesting."

After Mozzie left, Neal found himself pacing the apartment; back and forth. He stopped only when he remembered June admonishing him for it a few weeks earlier. He could still hear her voice, kind but firm.

"You're going to wear a hole right through my floorboards if you keep that up." And what she'd said afterwards, a kindness she hadn't been required to extend, "Don't worry. Whatever is bothering you, it'll work out. You'll see."

He found her words comforting, oddly appropriate even now. He closed his eyes and let them sink in, as he tried to convince himself to believe them.

He glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. "You're not going to submit to the suits, are you?" Mozzie had questioned his plans for the day, before taking his leave at Neal's answer with a sympathetic shake of his head and a philosophical warning about a bird in a gilded cage.

Despite his promise to Elizabeth, Neal still found himself deliberating on whether or not he was going in to work.

Well, not exactly. He knew deep down, in the part of his brain that recognized when he made a pact he was planning to keep, that he was going in. Con man or reformed FBI Consultant, Neal Caffrey always kept his promises. His word was rarely given honestly enough for it to matter, but when it was, he stuck to it.

But he tried not to think about it, because Neal Caffrey was also a man who valued his choices and right now, he really didn't have a choice. He had backed himself into a corner with this one; he had promised Elizabeth, surely, and he wasn't going back on that, but more than that, he didn't want to let Peter down. Peter's approval meant a lot more to him then he'd thought it would, and he was still taking time to adjust to that.

So he was going into work.

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

When he walked through the doors into the bullpen he found Jones with the phone pressed to his ear. He glanced over at Neal as he took a seat at his desk and then spoke quickly into the phone. Neal was close enough to catch the words.

"Yeah boss, he's here." Jones glanced down at his wrist. "Eight o' clock, on the dot."

"Of course I'm here," he called to Jones, stepping up to the agent's desk as he ended the call. Of course Peter would call to check in on him when he should be resting. Neal rolled his eyes. "Did you tell Peter I said hi?" he asked with a slight quirk of the lips.

"Told him you came in," Jones nodded to him in greeting, before looking upwards. Neal followed his eyes up the ramp to find Hughes standing imposingly outside his office, pointing two fingers in his direction. The ex-con glanced at Jones in surprise but the agent just shrugged.

"Duty calls," Neal told him, feeling apprehensive but hiding it with a smile. Hughes was very intimidating for a man his age, and Neal wasn't a man very easily intimidated, but something about the section chief always set his nerves on edge. This was a man with authority who wasn't afraid to pull all the stops.

Just before he reached the stairs, he caught Jones motioning to him from the corner of his eye. Catching on, he swiftly removed his hat and mouthed a quick 'thank you'; looking up in time to see Hughes' disapproving scowl before he vanished into his office, taking it on faith in his own authority that Neal would follow.

Again Neal found himself in a sticky situation with no way out. It seemed to be happening too frequently for his taste lately. But he had no choice but to follow, so he booked it up the stairs and slipped silently through the door before it had a chance to close.

Hughes was already speaking as he walked through the door.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, Caffrey. I'm in a tough position here."

The ex-con remained quiet, wondering why Hughes always felt the need to stress that he wasn't lying, usually only when he was speaking to Neal. Neal seethed in silence at the unspoken accusation behind his words; It was his fault that Peter was in the hospital!

Hughed must have noticed the fire in Neal's eyes, because he amended: "I'm not blaming you, Peter's condition raises the question of what to do with you in the meantime. I can't spare an agent to watch you and - put your hand down, Caffrey!"

Neal obediently lowered his hand.

"You know," he started. "Peter shouldn't be out for more than a few days at most. Technically the doctors said at least a week but," he chuckled. "You know Peter. He'll be back before you know it."

Neal leaned back in the chair, arms folded leisurely behind his head, right leg folded over his left foot, his foot jiggling to an imaginary beat.

Under Huges' sharp, reproachful glare he stopped tapping and sat up, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"So I'll suffer through the paperwork all weekend and when Peter gets back we'll go back to working the Daring case," he continued casually. The request sounded reasonable, but apparently the section chief thought otherwise, because he vetoed the idea with a shake of his head.

"Sorry Caffrey," he said. "But Burke lost the Daring case. We turned the case over to Agent Ruiz yesterday."

Neal's eyes widened. "What? But-"

"No buts, Caffrey. Richard Daring is Organized Crime's problem now. Let it go."

"But what does Daring have to do with Organized Crime?" Neal argued, standing now. "No one was killed; there was no premeditated murder, it's still a white collar case!"

"Ruiz asked for the case personally and since Burke was pulled off of it, I handed it over. " Hughes frowned at him. "I don't need to waste agents chasing ghosts."

"He's not a ghost," Neal countered. "We could still be working the case! We could catch this guy, Hughes." All that earned him was a stony glare and Neal made a mental note to ask Peter how he should address the man. Hughes didn't seem like the type of man to be bothered over titles, but he acknowledged the fact that Neal was once a criminal and Neal bet it got under his skin to have a criminal addressing him like one of his own agents.

"You mean you could still be working the case," the section chief amended, earning a guilty downcast look from Neal that told him all he needed to know. Hughes shook his head again.

"I'm sorry, Caffrey. No Peter, no deal. Case closed. Let Ruiz handle Daring now. If Daring flees the country, then it's on his head, not mine." He sat back in his chair and shuffled through the papers on his desk, a clear sign of dismissal, but Neal wasn't ready to give up yet.

He stood and stepped forward impulsively placing both hands on the desk, his weight on his arms as he leaned forward.

"Hughes." There was a touch of desperation in his tone, but when the man looked up, Neal could see he was toeing a dangerous line. He wisely removed his hands from the desk, pushing away to stand with his hands in plain view; showing the section chief that he had taken nothing and was no longer touching his desk. The ex-con swallowed and decided to press his luck one more time.

"Look, I know we can crack this case. We've got this guy, just..." Neal ran a hand through his hair and turned a pleading look on the stern-faced man behind the desk. It always worked on Peter. "Just give us a little more time."

Hughes gave him a point blank stare. "Us as in you," he deadpanned.

Neal shrugged, unabashed. "Us, me, we, what's the difference?" He cracked a hopeful smile.

Hughes stared back at him, unamused and uncharmed and Neal managed a serious face.

"I'm not wasting valuable agents to cater to your whims, Caffrey. The FBI isn't your playground. You can't just do what you want, when you want. This is the real world."

"I thought the FBI left no man behind," he said, a flat-out accusation. "Don't you want to catch the guy responsible?"

Hughes frowned.

The air was thick with tension, a near-tangible battle for authority that crackled and growled while the room around them was choked with silence. Their eyes were locked, narrowed blue against stony brown as Neal silently goaded Hughes to take the challenge.

As the mental battle of will raged on, Neal's mind was whirring, covering the facts and thinking of ways to weave in and around the complications thrown his way. So, Hughed wouldn't assign any of his agents and he had already handed the case over to Ruiz this morning. Neal grimaced inwardly. Ruiz. Why in the world had Hughes handed the case over to Ruiz?

Or more to the point, why in the world had Ruiz wanted to take the case? Hughes said it himself, Daring was practically a ghost. They had happened upon him by pure chance the other day and hadn't caught wind of him since.

Wait a minute. Ruiz.

Neal's eyes lit up even as he stifled a groan. He offered the section chief his most disarming smile, managing this time to keep his elbows off the table as he leaned in close.

"Maybe you don't have to..."

A/N: hey guys, sorry for such a long wait. Life got in the way. But things are finally picking up! I actually have a bit more written out that still needs typing, but I figured you might want some kind of update. The majority of this chapter has actually been written for close to a year, but I never got around to typing it until now. Anyway, chapter 6 will be a pretty blank slate for me, so it might take a while, especially with finals coming up and all. But finals also mean winter break, so I'm hoping I'll get another chapter up before Christmas. Thanks so much for the continued interest and support, even after so long. I won't give up on this story!

Agni