Ok, so I thought long and hard about what to do with this story, and I decided to go easy on poor Neal. He will not be poisoned, but if anyone wants a sequel or 'what could have happened' like thing, tell me and I'll put in into consideration.

I'm sorry I took so long to post this chapter. I hope the wait was worth it!

The wound required twelve painful stitches, but Peter stayed with Neal the whole time so that made it bearable. After that was done, Peter went off and started yelling at people.

First was the guard that patted Keller down, then there was another guard that tried to calm him down and stop him from his ranting, then he went to the warden. And that took a while, so Neal guessed there was a lot of yelling, but he didn't actually hear it. He just waited in the infirmary for Peter to come back and take him home.

Home. It's strange that that's what he automatically called it in his head even though it's the Burkes house and not his own. But the truth was, Neal always thought of the Burkes as one of the safest places to be, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not. It had the warm and safe feeling of a place where you'd be loved and kept safe, no matter what your criminal record says. Neal had not known a place like that for a very long time, but it's a place he really needed right then.

All of which is extremely contradictive due to the fact Neal was nearly killed there two nights ago. But Peter was there to save him, like he always was.

But with all of the threats locked away, Neal hoped he can sleep soundly tonight. It would be nice to make it through the night without waking up covered in sweat and with lingering images of his night terrors to keep him company.

Peter finally came back to the infirmary, looking quite a bit less angry, much to Neal's relief.

"You doing ok?" Peter asked, again. But Peter's concern was more...sweet, for lack of a better word, than annoying.

"Yeah. Ready to go?" Neal asked as he carefully got off the gurney he was sitting on.

"Yeah, if you are," Peter said, concerned still.

"I'm fine, Peter. Let's just go," Neal said and started toward the door knowing Peter would follow.

He had been in this very infirmary too many times while in prison to want to be there any longer. Being a charming conman on the outside doesn't mean anything to men twice the size of him on the inside, and definitely doesn't stop them from beating the crap out of him just to show him who's boss. Neal quickly fell in line and trips to the infirmary became few and far between, but the first few weeks were still very hard.

Peter caught up with no problem as Neal was still limping and had to go slowly to make every other step less painful.

"Are we homeward bound?" Neal asked.

Peter nodded. "Yeah. El should be home by the time we get there, so she'll get to mother you."

"Good, you're mothering lacks a little..." Neal paused to find the right word.

"Maybe it lacks the fact that I'm not a woman?" Peter put in.

"Finesse," Neal finished.

"Well, I guess I can agree with you on that one," Peter said. They arrived at the checkout area and Peter got his phone, handcuffs and gun back while Neal just got his phone back.

"You're making it sound like agreeing with me is a bad thing," Neal said with feigned hurt.

"Well, usually I don't agree with you because I don't want both of us to be wrong. Then where'd we be?" Peter said.

"I'm not always wrong, Peter," Neal said, then paused. "But maybe this whole thing wasn't the best idea," he said, a little meekly.

Peter barked out a slightly bitter laugh. "That's one way to put it," he said as they were let out of the front gate and into the sunshine.

Neal couldn't help but take a deep breath of fresh air. Prison, no matter how long he was in there, was always suffocating to Neal. Peter gave him an odd look, but he ignored it as he looked at the vast blue sky for a moment.

Neal turned to Peter. "Let's go home," he said.

Peter smiled and put his hand on the small of Neal's back as he steered him toward the car. If he noticed Neal's 'Freudian slip', he didn't say.

WCWCWCWC

Right when Neal and Peter walked through the front door Elizabeth was there to see them. Much to both men's surprise, Elizabeth came up and hugged Neal.

Her hug wasn't tight, but it still hurt his ribs. But he didn't pull away, it was exactly what he needed at the moment - warm, loving, caring - and he melted into her embrace. He knew Peter wouldn't be jealous - it wasn't a romantic hug at all. Neal never really thought of Elizabeth like that - more like an older sister or more accurately a mother, even though she's too young to be his mother. But she has strong mothering instincts and Neal was immediately drawn to them.

"No hug for me?" Peter asked, sounding upset, but the warm smile on his face said otherwise.

Elizabeth pulled away from their embrace and Neal tried to not look disappointed. "I knew you shouldn't have gone there!" Elizabeth said, mad now. That's never good, but hopefully she wouldn't start crying. Peter couldn't handle a woman crying; he just didn't know what to do with it.

"How could you just let him get hurt?" Elizabeth asked Peter, mad at him for some reason.

"Why are you mad at me? It was Neal's idea," Peter said, pointing at the apparent offender.

"Since when do you let him make his own stupid mistakes?" She asked, probably not actually wanting an answer.

"Peter's right, Elizabeth. It was my fault. We should have never gone, but what's done is done," Neal said.

Elizabeth turned to Neal and hugged him again. "I'm so glad you're ok," she whispered.

"I'm fine, Elizabeth. I'm ok," he said into her soft hair that smelled like lavender and home.

She broke apart again, but held him at arms length. She looked him up and down. "You need to eat - you're too skinny. I say we either order Chinese or Thai."

"We should order a pizza," Peter suggested.

Elizabeth ignored Peter. "What do you want, Neal?" She asked.

Neal thought for a moment. "How about Dominos? Peter can have a pizza and you and me can have something else."

Elizabeth smiled. "I love that idea," she said. She finally let go of Neal and went to the kitchen to get the phone and Dominos menu. She came back and gave Peter the items. "I want chicken wings, but not the spicy ones." She kissed Peter. "You know what I like." She then went to the dining room table and sat down in front of her laptop and started typing away.

Peter just looked at the items in his hands with confusion, so Neal thought he would help him out. He pointed at the phone number at the bottom of the menu. "You see these numbers here? All you have to do is press those on this item here-" he pointed at the phone, "-and someone will pick up-" Neal probably would have fully explained what to do if Peter didn't stop him.

"I know how to order something, I just don't know why I have to do it," Peter explained.

"It's because you're so good at it, Peter," Neal said, like it explained everything, smiling like an idiot.

Peter sighed. "What do you want?" He asked, sounding like a defeated man.

Neal smiled like a man that just got his way, which was exactly what he was. "Chicken carbonara, please."

Peter dialed the number and put it up to his ear. "Why someone would get pasta from a pizza place is beyond me," he said as he shook his head.

"Variety is the spice of life, Peter," Neal said, then went into the dining room to see Elizabeth.

Peter shook his head in exasperation, but couldn't quite hide a smile.

WCWCWCWC

Once the food was delivered, the three of them enjoyed their diverse meal together in the living room while watching a crime show.

"What I don't get is how the cops always catch the criminals - in every episode. That's not always how it happens," Neal said during a commercial break. He was asking for an argument from Peter and he knew it. But it could be fun to argue with Peter, at least when it's just a friendly disagreement, that is.

"Well, that's how it's supposed to happen, how it should happen; you break the law, you get caught," Peter said, then a cocky smile appeared on his face. "That's how it happened with you," he held up two fingers, "twice."

Elizabeth sighed, got up and started collecting plates. She knew those two could go at it for a while, so she decided to busy herself with the cleanup.

"You're going to hold that over me until the day I die, aren't you?" Neal said, exasperated.

Peter smiled even more. "Yup."

Neal sighed, but he was secretly happy for their usual bantering. It felt like everything was almost back to normal, well as normal as the life of Neal Caffrey, ex-conman and Peter Burke, FBI agent could get.

The show came back on and Elizabeth came back in and the trio watched the investigators solve another case within an hour.

This is the second to last chapter in this story. It's been a wonderful journey, but all journeys have to come to an end or it would start getting really boring.