A/N: I finally got to watch Unfinished Business. I'm undecided on Sara so far. It was a good episode, I really loved it! Does anyone else feel they're sort of building up the air of invincibility, though? I dunno, my friend and I think so. But it was still amazing. So, this chapter is a bit different, and I don't know if you will like it, but I hope so! Review?
Neal Caffrey didn't want to kill anyone. He saw people who did and what it did to them and the messy, tragic aftermath of any death. He never wanted to cause that, or even be part of it.
But there was one time when he came close.
"Neal!"
"Kate! Kate, where are you?" His voice was holding back barely contained franticness as he ran.
"Back here!" Her voice held the same note of desperate, exhausted fear. He rounded the corner into an alley and found a sight he'd only seen in his nightmares. Kate was leaned against the dirty brick wall, her hand pressed against her side as blood poured out, her face deathly pale. Standing above her was a man with a gun, the one they'd been working with for the heist. The gun in his hand had a hard, unforgiving glint.
Neal reluctantly held a gun, too, that Kate had thrust hurriedly into his pocket before darting off to her meeting. She'd been there for exactly twenty minutes and thirty-one seconds before he'd gotten the phone call, saying the man was chasing her with a gun. Then the phone had cut and his heart had skipped a beat.
It had taken Neal fifteen minutes and eight seconds to find her.
And he was too late to prevent her from being hurt.
"Put down the gun," Neal said, only just resisting the urge to just run to Kate. That wouldn't help either of them.
"You first." The man's voice was slightly fearful. He kept the gun shakily trained on Neal, his stance inexperienced. Neal felt uncertainty flood through him. His eyes darted to Kate, her breathing labored as she fought to remain upright. She mouthed, Just shoot him.
His finger rested on the trigger, but he didn't squeeze it. He knew he would be able to kill the man first, everything about the way the guy was standing told him that. But he couldn't do it.
It could mean Kate's life, one side of him argued.
But you don't have the right to take his life away, the other said. In a split second Neal contemplated countless options. None of them ended well.
Just shoot him, Kate had mouthed. Just shoot him. But that wasn't him, it wasn't what he did. He created, he didn't destroy. Neal looked at the man one more time and his jaw tightened as Kate's breathless voice echoed in his ears.
He shot a half inch away from the man's head, startling him enough to drop the gun. Neal instantly grabbed the man and pulled his hands behind him, tying them with the man's necktie and pushing him down against the wall. The man stayed silent, looking half-relieved and slightly surprised. Neal shoved both of the guns away from them.
He instantly knelt down by Kate and tried to staunch the bleeding as he called Mozzie on the phone. He held onto her while they waited, his face buried in her hair.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry." He didn't know what he was sorry for. For letting her go alone, certainly, for allowing her to get shot. And for how close he'd gotten to completely leaving his moral boundaries. It had been so close. He'd almost done it. Maybe he didn't know himself as well as he thought.
Kate ended up being fine, as Mozzie was pretty good at locating non-government doctors who didn't ask questions. But Neal was shaken. He'd almost lost her.
He'd almost lost himself.
Neal Caffrey didn't want to kill anyone.
But he'd never forget the time he almost had.