Disclaimer: White Collar belongs to Jeff Eastin, USA Network et al. This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.
Forging Bonds
Peter looks out of the window of the cab that is bringing him back to Brooklyn and watches the streets of the city glide by in the early morning light. He should be tired but instead is almost abnormally awake, this strange, brilliant state you reach after making it past your lowest point. The crash will come – rather sooner than later, now that he's older – but right now he feels more alive than ever as the talk of the long night plays through his mind again and again.
The tangled web that are the lives of Neal and Kate and Mozzie and Alex. And his own too as he has to admit if he is honest with himself. Then there is Vincent Adler and the secret of the fractal antenna … but no. He won't think about that right now. Now he will not worry about the future. Instead, he will remember the good things of the past.
Like Elizabeth and getting Satchmo and how they first moved into their house; the chaos and the happiness. Jones, standing in his new office, gunning for a place on his team. Oh, and Diana, pouring coffee for the others like a good little probie – he can just imagine her reaction if anyone expected her to do that now. She has risen so far above what she was then, has become a skilled investigator, a tough agent, built a terrific career … but sometimes he can't help it, he looks at her and still sees the nervous girl right out of the academy. She was his first probationary agent of his own, after all, the first one his sole responsibility. That stuck. Actually – if he remembers correctly – he might have even introduced her to Neal as 'his probie' on their first case together though she had of course been a seasoned agent of more than four years by then.
Peter suddenly smiles as he puts his head back against the seat and closes his eyes.
It is said that your children will always be your children no matter how old they get. Well, it seems the same goes for probies, especially your first one...