Chapter 7

Neal heard his cue. He silently made it down the stairs. El, Peter, Jones and Diana were all in the kitchen when Neal reached the bottom of the stairs. He stood there for just a second before he was noticed.

Diana heard a noise. She assumed it was the boys so she volunteered to go up and check on them. She started for the stairs and then stopped in her tracks. She was speechless for just a moment.

"Nea…Oh my…!"

"Hey, Diana."

"You sorry rotten bastard." Diana said, enveloping Neal in a big hug. She stepped back. She was smiling.

Neal was very confused. He had no idea how to take her reaction.

Meanwhile, Peter, El, and Jones had joined her in the living room. Peter and El wanted to see how the agents would react.

And, Jones were just staring at this point.

"It was you I saw on the street the other day. I knew it was you." Diana said, pointing at him. She turned and looked at Peter. He knew. He had to. She would find out what exactly he knew later.

Neal nodded. "May have been. We've been back in town about a week."

Diana stood back and looked at him for a moment. Neal had gotten older. But the gray in among the dark brown hair only made him look more distinguished. It made him even more handsome, if that was possible. She smiled. He had missed him a great deal. She had not expected to think about him so much in the decade that had passed. She had thought a lot about when Theo was born. And, of course, she missed Theodore Winters, aka Mozzie, too. She was so grateful to Mozzie, and to Neal, for bringing her son into the world.

Neal didn't know what to think. He had been surprised by her reaction. And Diana's smile confused him. "What?"

Diana chuckled. "You're gotten gray. Only you can get gray hair and it make you even better looking."

Neal grinned. He did think it made him look more distinguished, older too. That was why he had chosen not to color his hair. Neal opened his mouth to speak.

"No, I haven't changed teams. But, I can recognize a handsome man when I see one." Diana stated.

"You're never told me that before." Neal replied.

"If I had told you that 10 years ago, your ego would have swelled so big…we both couldn't have fit in the office ."

Neal nodded and chuckled a bit. "You're right. It would have."

"You're different." Diana said looking at him with a critical eye. "Something is different."

"You're not surprised I'm back.?" Neal aksed.

Diana nodded. "I am. But then, like I said, just a few days ago I thought I saw you on the street. But, when I looked again, you were gone. I used to think I'd seen you at work, in with a group of agents. Or I'd think that I'd heard you laugh at our morning meetings. That was the first two years after you were gone. Then with Theo, what you and Mozzie did. It was just a constant reminder. I may not have my son had it not been for the two of you." She looked around. "Did Mozzie come back with you?"

Neal's grin got bigger. "Aww., you missed me. And Mozzie is here. He's getting his houses back in order."

Neal looked at Clinton. Jones had stayed quiet while Diana and Neal were having their reunion.

"Clinton Jones." Neal said, giving Jones his full attention.

"Neal Caffrey." Jones said, His face portraying no emotion.

"I wasn't sure about this. I didn't know how…how you guys would feel." Neal admitted.

Jones shook his head then gave Neal a hug. "Taking down the Panthers. That earned you your freedom, as far as I was concerned. I was just so sorry you weren't going to get to enjoy it. I hated it, Neal. You had done so much good for the bureau, for it to have to end that way. I am just really glad that that was not the case."

"So." Jones turned to Peter. "That means that you knew."

"Not for sure." Peter admitted. "And, not even that until about a year after. Neal left a key to the storage locker. It was in his affects that I brought home from the hospital. I just couldn't bring myself to go through the stuff then. So, I put it all in a box and put it away. Then, that incident, that one incident made me think of that key. And I went and checked things out. And I found it all out, everything I wanted to know. Every question that I had asked in the days leading up, absolutely everything."

"You couldn't have clued us in?" Clinton asked, speaking of he and Diana.

Peter shook his head. "I wasn't 100%. And I was so afraid it would get out somehow. I didn't have it in me to go chasing Neal all over the world. Elizabeth was so very pregnant by that time. I just…I didn't want to be told to drop everything and go and find him. And I figured that it would be me, you or Diana who would get that assignment. We worked the closest with him. And I knew, we all know that Neal." Peter said to Neal. "When you don't' want to be found, no one is going to find you. I didn't want to spend years away from my child. I promised El that I would be there for her and the baby. There was no way, in Hell, I was going to go back on that promise."

Neal nodded. "I was kind of thinking that too, maybe. That is part of the reason I showed you everything. I wanted to make sure you knew every step I went through to do what I did." He paused. "But Peter, I really feel bad. I thought you would go ahead and open the locker. I never dreamed you would wait a year. I took a big chance there. I didn't know, for sure, if you would come after me. But, I kind of figured that, too with the Panther takedown being so huge, you would revel in your win for a little while."

Peter agreed. "Yeah, after that, after getting over the initial shock and the grieving , I think we did celebrate, just a little. But, it wasn't' easy. The thought of a baby coming into the world is what really kept us going. It helped June a lot, too, especially after she found out we were going to name him Neal. I don't know how it would have went if we hadn't had little Neal. Thing have not showed down since he was born." He paused. "Back then though, there were a lot of good things happening. And, I think we all wondered what you would be dong. Would you have stayed, working for the FBI if we paid you? We wondered if you had even given that stuff much thought, about life after the anklet."

"I didn't think it an option. You know what they said. They had no intention of giving me my freedom. And I couldn't live under the FBI's thumb all my life. That's no way to live." Neal said. "Keller being a member of the Panthers was not something I would have ever guessed. But, he was going to be my fall guy. He needed to go back to jail anyway. That was my way out of it all the Panther case gave me what I needed to leave."

"So…the money that was missing? You don't…." Peter inquired.

"What money?" Neal asked innocently.

"Yeah." Peter grinned. "That's what I thought."

TBC