A/N: I said that I wasn't going to write more for this one but all the oneshots I've thought up fit into it nicely. Next up, I'm planning something with Sara, whom I never was overly fond of, but I rewatched Season 3 and I've come to like her a lot more than I had. Still sort of in limbo on Histories, but I've got another story that I'm starting, but I won't post until I'm far enough ahead that I can post on a schedule without having to write to meet it. I'm two chapters in.
Enjoy the Angst
The bomb that was Peter's 'news' hit hard and slow. It took Neal until he was back at his loft to realize the implications of his reassignment. No more Peter meant that he'd have a new handler, but that wasn't what bother him the most. Rather, what kind of trouble Peter would be in because of him. Everything he'd ever done had gotten Peter in deeper with the Bureau, and the guilt had started to set in, eating away at him. It wasn't only hurting Peter, but also El.
And Peter would be gone from his life.
Head in his hands, Neal swallowed back shuddering breaths, the memories flooding his brain, images plastered against his vision as he remembered the last time he'd had a father. His eighteenth birthday had been the worst in his life, and still was, regardless of Kate's death.
It was the day that his father had become dead to him, and the same day he'd been told that his father was alive.
And then came Peter. And now, too, was Peter to be taken from him. The father he'd always thought had been his, once upon a time ago, the father he'd wanted his whole life over.
Peter was the very man Neal had imagined his father to be.
It was time to tell Peter the truth, or at least as much of it as he could. The rest of it he'd have to hear from Ellen. The name was still very foreign on his tongue, much the way that Neal Caffrey had used to be. He'd told Sara that it was a long story, and that had been the truth. Witness Protection was a bitch, and a new name was simply part of the package deal.
But despite it all, it was still hard to say goodbye to him. Hard to say goodbye to the person that he'd been for so, so long. The person that he was, name or no name.
The person that he'd thought he'd been before he'd run on his eighteenth had become Neal Caffrey.
He wanted to cry. He hadn't cried since that day. Not even when the plane blew up. He had promised himself that he'd never cry again.
This wasn't his life. It couldn't be. He didn't have a life of his own. He never did. First the lies had ruled him, then truth, and then, once again, the lies.
He had promised himself not to let anyone in. It hadn't worked with Kate, or Mozzie, but Peter and El…he had never expected and it felt like everything was spiraling out of control. The lies had always given him the power to determine what happened in his life. He hated to be subjected to the rule of others, but in the process of eliminating all outside control of his life, he'd lost himself along the way.
It had been a long time since Neal had known who he truly was.
His self-confidence was the biggest lie of them all. There were so many people he could be, but he was none of them.
Maybe, even Caffrey wasn't him. But he'd certainly bled through, and for a while, he had conned himself into believing that he could hold out, that he could carry on despite it all. Mozzie had let him in, but he hadn't done so in return.
No one knew anything.
He thought about Ellen, and the truth.
The truth, he pondered, hurt far more than the lie. Lies were so cruel that they numbed the pain, and he was nothing more than a hollow shell of a person, all name and no personality.
Fake, fake, fake, a scarecrow in a Potter's field, he would blow away as if he had never even been born. His insecurities were flooding the dam, breaking the walls, and he crumbled with the thoughts, so rapidly flowing from Peter to his father and his past and his own person.
Whoever that was.
He didn't know anymore. He didn't know if he had ever known at all.
His childhood had been a lie, and the foundations of his adulthood had been built on them.
As he faced the truth, his careful façade, built of a house of cards, fell apart like the fragile construction that it was.
He punched a hole through the canvas before him, blank and a harsh cruel white, starting back at him. He'd once reveled in his ability to create his person from the ground up; Neal Caffrey had been his ultimate masterpiece, and now, he was burning like his art had in the fire.
Neal Caffrey was nothing more than ash in the wind, leaving behind a man, broken and empty, without a name.