Peter sat behind his desk staring at his son's back. Neal had been particularly quite since Friday night and had barely said a word since arriving at work this morning. The agent could see the slight trembling in the boy's hands as he tried to write. "Neal?" No response. "Neal?" The kid was zoning out again.

Agent Burke got up from his desk and moved over to crouch beside his young son. Removing the pen from his small fingers he asked, "What's up, Buddy? You've been slowly going downhill ever since the start of the weekend."

"I'm fine. Thank you for asking." Neal picked up the pen that Peter had removed and continued writing.

"Let me try again." Firmer this time. "Whatever happened on Friday is bothering you big time, so much so that you're letting it show. Please just tell me."

Neal put the pen down again and looked up into his father's eyes.

Peter's heart felt like it was being crushed at the fear he saw in the young boy's eyes. "What's wrong Neal? Tell me. I can help you. Whatever you've done, we'll find a way to sort it out. Trust me."

"Can you take me home?"

"Sure Buddy. Grab your jacket let's go."

-W-C-

The two men sat on the couch while Satchmo snoozed blissfully unaware at their feet. Peter had collected a couple of glasses of water and turned on the heat to warm up the room. It had all felt so cold when they first walked in.

Neal took a sip of water before beginning. "You know most of the details already." The young boy looked up to Peter for confirmation. His voice sounded very unsure and he appeared on the verge of breaking down. "I was working for Kate. Doing most of the art work for the bonds." The agent nodded and Neal continued." As well as other projects, which came to a grinding halt the minute you placed me under house arrest."

"It's not house arrest, Neal."

"That's right. I forgot I'm allowed to go to the corner store and walk the dog around the block," Neal replied sarcastically, some of the confidence had returned.

"Well… anyway…your cons have been closed down…and…?" Peter moved the confession along.

"I may have done something pretty major before you came into the picture." Neal glanced down, unable to look Peter in the eye.

"Like what?"

There was a long pause. "This is a bad idea!" Neal went to hop up off the couch but Peter grabbed his wrist before he could move away. "No Peter. Let me go! I need to work this out myself! Neal had begun to panic as the knots in his stomach twisted and turned.

"Neal." Peter's voice was calming and hypnotic. The young boy stopped struggling and he let Peter pull him back onto the couch. He wrapped a caring arm around Neal's shoulders and pulled him in close. "Neal. I want you to do something for me, please?"

The emotional teenager nodded.

"I want you to tell me a hypothetical story about a young boy, called…Nick… possibly twelve to fourteen years old. A little while back, Nick did something wrong and now he is in even more trouble, but a friend of his is trying very hard to protect him from getting in even deeper. Can you tell me Nick's story please?"

Neal pulled himself up on the couch so he was sitting facing Peter. He lifted his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them for security. "About eighteen months ago, a nice young lady named Kate came across a young boy who was practicing picking pockets outside the Rockefeller Center, just for the fun of it. Silly boy, eh?"

"Yeah."

"They got together a few times. Nick liked to hang around Kate. She was always a lot of fun and Nick enjoyed her company so he tried to find reasons to run into her as much as possible. Anyway, turns out this boy, Nick had many talents so Kate's boyfriend asked him to help him with a couple of simple cons. Nick wanted to spend time with Kate, he thought she was pretty sweet, so he happily agreed. Nick got paid, not much but it felt really good to be paid for something that was more like a game than actual work. It was a thrill for Nick, he was good at it. Maybe it was in his blood or something?"

Peter felt a shiver go up his spine.

"The cons got more serious and Nick took on a greater role in Kate's squad, eventually becoming her second. Nick was good at a lot of things. He could get into small places and into areas the bigger kids couldn't. He could go unnoticed for long periods of time. Be just about anyone Kate needed him to be, a chameleon of sorts. A missing son, a lost brother, an injured friend. It's amazing the places you can get into and the distractions you can create with a little creativity." Neal got lost in his thoughts again but Peter cleared his throat and the kid continued with his tale. "Of course, Nick needed other names, just in case the interested parties became slightly suspicious. The phony names were a good, 'let's get the hell out of here and cut our loses' plan for young Nick. Kate's boyfriend," Neal checked that Peter was paying particular attention to this, "Nick was a little frightened of Kate's boyfriend. Well, the boyfriend devised a con that involved stealing a Matisse from the Met. It was a great con, everything went according to plan, but sadly Nick chickened out at the last minute. After actually stealing the painting successfully, Nick had a moral moment of madness."

Peter leaned in close, finding the story more than a little mind-boggling. "What happened?"

Neal's mouth was completely dry so he took another long drink of water. "Nick overheard one of the Met security guards discussing with another how he was worried about his job because his little girl was sick and needed an operation and he couldn't afford to lose any more hours. Nick suspected that a stolen painting would do very little to ensure the guard's job security so he returned the painting to it's place where it hung near the fire escape before anyone noticed it missing."

"So what did Kate's boyfriend do? What was his name?"

"Keller. Matthew Keller. He was slightly annoyed."

"Slightly?"

"Yeah, I guess. "He went into a rage. When they got back to the rendezvous he threw Nick across the room and kicked him a few times before Kate intervened. Nick had to hide his injuries from his mom and friends for a week or so while his body returned to normal."

Peter's hatred of this guy went up several notches. He'd had Keller under his radar since Kate's arrest but his opinion of the scum hit an all time low.

"Keller told Nick that the Matisse was going to be his nest egg and if it took him his whole life, Nick was going to pay him back."

"So ever since, Nick has been running cons so he can pay back Keller? For eighteen months?"

"Yeah, for seventeen actually. You see about a month ago, Nick had all his operations closed down when he was put on under house arrest by an over-eager FBI Agent who ran out of real cases to tend to and began to rain down hell on a young innocent kid just making a quick buck."

"Nick's anything but innocent, my young friend!" Peter grinned happy to hear Neal gradually breaking out of his despondent frame of mind. "How much does Nick owe Keller or hasn't he put a price on his 'nest egg'."

"I don't know. It's a lot. Keller is always reminding Nick that he's still in debt and the kid doesn't have any choice but to pay up. Only now.." Neal's voice began to crack again. "Now Nick's funds have dried up, Keller is going to come after him with a vengeance. Nick's not so worried about himself though. Keller's a dangerous man Peter but he's not stupid. He won't take down Nick. He still wants to use Nick so he'll take down someone close and then make Nick do whatever he wants." Tears began to spill down Neal's cheeks.

There was a long silence and then Peter pulled Neal back in for a hug. "Do you know what today is Neal?"

"Monday?"

"Yes. But it's also the day that Nick begins to turn back into a kid." Neal raised his eyes in confusion. "You see, young Nick, somewhere along the way, forgot that he was a child. He forgot how to play in the park and ride his bike and shoot baskets with his dad because he had been playing an adult for pretty much his whole life and he couldn't remember how to get back." Peter smiled down at his young son. "But Nick was lucky because he had a new friend with very special powers and this new friend is trying awfully hard to turn Nick back into a child again. And he is going to use his special powers to send away anyone that is stopping Nick."

"That's a great story Peter, with a pretty cool ending," Neal wiped away his tears, "but it's the sort of ending that only happens in fairytales. I can't see Nick being that lucky. Besides, Nick doesn't believe in fairytales."

"Nick needs to trust his new friend, Neal. Do you think he can?"

Neal shrugged. "I think so Peter. Maybe he can." The young kid had an idea and smiled up at the agent. "I think Nick deserves to be released from house arrest… since he's buying into a certain level of trust with his new friend. He has one of those GPS tracking anklets. I'm sure you've heard of them, they're incredibly annoying…so I've heard."

"As soon as Nick completely turns back into a kid, he'll have his anklet taken off. It won't happen overnight. Nick is going to need a lot of guidance and reassurance and in a way, the tracker helps to accomplish that indirectly. So for the moment the tracker is for Nick's own good. But he should be confident that his friend is always looking out for him and will watch over him carefully while Nick learns to be a child again."

"Sounds like a good plan, Peter." Neal accepted with a little bit of hope in his voice.

"Great. In the meantime, someone should tell Nick to go watch the Star Wars Trilogy."

Wow that came out of nowhere. Neal's eyes displayed the puzzlement he felt. "Why."

Peter happily clarified. "Well, Nick has a similar problem to the main character Luke. You see, Luke is under the false assumption that he is too much like his father to be a good person. Everyone knows he's a good person, even though Aunt Beru says he has too much of his father in him and Uncle Owen agrees but they're not in it for much longer after that…anyway, everyone else…almost everyone else knows he's very special and he can help a lot of people with his special gifts…"

"Everyone except Luke?"

"Yeah, but it turns out Luke was wrong. He gets a lot of help from a small group of caring friends who battle the bad guys to rescue Luke, Luke ends up rescuing lots of people and in the end, Luke turns out to be the hero, and Neal…"

"Yeah?"

"Every story needs a hero."

-W-C-

El arrived home to Admiral Ackbar announcing, "It's a trap! Move the fleet away from the Death Star." Peter had his feet up on the coffee table and Neal was stretched out with his head resting on his dad's lap. Both were sound asleep. El walked over and switched off the TV. The suddenly lull in battle noise aroused Peter from his sleep. He carefully pulled himself out from under Neal's head and gave his wife a welcome home kiss.

"Quite a party you had here." El indicated the popcorn spread throughout the living room in almost in every corner and crevice. There was an empty pizza box sharing the coffee table with a couple of abandoned soda cans. And the discarded DVD cases of the Star Wars Trilogy were lying on the floor in front of the telly.

"Yeah. It was quite the day." Peter spoke quietly as to not wake the sleeping boy. He took his wife's hand and gave her the 'we need to talk privately' look.

Without saying a word, she took Peter's hand and led the way up to their bedroom.

Peter sat on the bed with his wife and proceeded to fill her in on the details of Keller and the hold he had over their son. "We thought we had Keller last Thursday night but maybe it was bad Intel or something because he didn't show. Since Kate, we've arrested two more of this little gang, both underage of course. They were only small fry and neither kid was prepared to rat on Keller. He's either got them too frightened to talk or the kids' think he's some untouchable champion of their cause. Each time we get close, he moves on. We've been tracking Neal's phone but Keller is very careful. Burn phones, public phones without surveillance cameras, he contacts Neal through a friend. I put a tail on Neal, that's how we caught the last guy. I think Keller got to Neal last Friday night though. Neal was with Mozzie when the two boys slipped the tail. I don't think Neal was even aware we had an agent tailing him. Anyway, somehow Keller made contact for sure. He's a slippery bastard."

"Is there any genuine threat to Neal? How dangerous is this Keller? Would he consider harming Neal?"

"Until this is over, I'm leaving an agent with Neal at all times. I'm not taking any chances. Keller is unstable, he's a loose cannon and until we bring him down," Peter took both of his wife's hands in his, "I'm not wanting to worry you El but you and Neal need to take extreme care."

"How long will this go on for Peter? It's very frightening." El had the tears which made Peter even more determined.

"It won't be long El. I'm going to go after this son-of-a-bitch with extreme prejudice." He pulled El in and they both gave each other a hug of reassurance.

Unfortunately for El and Peter, the young boy had awoken on the couch and arrived at the second floor landing in good time to hear his dad's declaration. And being just a child, without the wisdom of an adult, Neal made a vow himself, to take care of his problem, before any one in his family was put in harms way due to something he had begun. Neal thought of a plan. A very brave plan. A very stupid plan. A plan that only a child with the weight of the world on his shoulder would devise. A plan that only a child like Neal Caffrey would even consider.