Diana was in a very fortunate position. She had in her possession 3 glue sticks. One weighed 11g. Another was 22g. And the final one was a whopping size 44g, the mother of all glue sticks. On her desk, she had arranged a rubber and a biro so that they lay parallel to her photo of her girlfriend. They would form the foundations. Very, very slowly, Diana picked up the largest glue stick. She balanced it on the rubber, then carefully reached for the next. She perched the smaller stick on top of its big brother with slow, nimble fingers. Finally, she picked up the smallest tube. Come on Diana. She told herself. You can do this… Trying her absolute hardest to keep her hand steady, she gently placed the final glue stick on top of all the others. Barely breathing, she glided her hand away from the construction. Oh my God. She had done it! She had made The Leaning Tower of Glue! This achievement was so sweet it almost brushed away her bitter resentment at not catching Neal Caffrey. Almost.

The kid was infuriating. She knew that Caffrey had been in that warehouse the other day. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. But somehow, the kid had managed to slip away like some sort of god-damned kick-ass ghost, and now he was nowhere to be found. Diana took deep, calming breaths. She had made The Leaning Tower of Glue. Maybe she wasn't such a useless agent after all.

"DIANA!" With an almighty roar, Peter Burke burst through the door of Diana's office.

"Aaaaaah!" She jerked back in her chair as glue sticks tumbled to the floor all around her, like rain drops in the jungle. "You have got to be kidding me…" She muttered. Peter glanced at the fallen tower, a slow smile creeping up his face.

"Now that is revenge for you bursting into my office and scaring me earlier." He chuckled. Then his expression turned grave.

"But seriously, Diana. We know where Caffrey is. Conference room. Now." THAT got Diana's attention. Abandoning her destroyed glue construction, she followed her boss deep into the heart of the White Collar Division. Neal Caffrey was going down.

Neal Caffrey started his day by singing along to the radio whilst slipping on a white collared shirt. He wore the school uniform well – the long sleeved shirt not too tight over his lean, muscled chest, the blazer hanging nicely on his slender frame. He twirled around in front of the hallway mirror, ran his fingers through his bed head, then finished off the song with a high pitched trill.

"Neal? What are you doing?" The voice came from the kitchen.

"Err… Nothing. Just getting ready for school." Neal smiled as June, his not so legal guardian and the owner of the apartment he called home, popped her head round the door. She only came to visit him once every six months or so, to see how he was getting on in her apartment whilst she travelled the world with her daughter.

"Didn't sound like nothing to me." She announced, eyes twinkling. "You're a very talented singer, Neal. Are you sure that you don't want lessons?" Neal shrugged self-consciously. He hated singing in front of other people.

"Nah, I'm alright. But thanks anyway, June." He called. June laughed as she pottered back to the fry up that was spitting away angrily on the stove.

"Byron was just the same, sweetie. Lovely singing voice, but did he want to take lessons? Of course not. He always believed that singing was for him and him alone." Neal slowly turned back to the mirror, the echo of a smile still playing on his lips. From what he had heard of June's late husband Byron, he guessed that the two of them would have been great friends.

Peter and his team were gathered around the oak table in the conference room. Despite the early hour and the rain that was lashing the floor to ceiling windows; everyone was in extraordinarily high spirits. The news that Neal Caffrey's location had been discovered had spread like wildfire. Peter was being hailed as a White Collar hero, and he couldn't help but feel a little smug when his boss Hughes personally made him a cup of celebratory coffee. Now Peter was standing at the front of the room, with a PowerPoint rotating behind him and the table dripping with blue prints and files.

"Ok people, as I'm sure you know, earlier this morning we received some important intel. Two police officers in a patrol car reported to us that they had seen a teenager matching Caffrey's description in downtown New York. They didn't get a good look at his face, but they were 99% sure that it was him. We coupled this discovery with one made earlier: a homeless man claiming that he had seen Caffrey loitering outside a warehouse last week."

Peter looked round at his team of assembled agents. They were hanging off his every word, flicking through ring binders and making notes. Peter continued. "We came to the conclusion that Caffrey must be staying in the city, so at Diana's suggestion," Peter paused to nod approvingly at his probie, "we did a search of the local schools." He clicked a mouse and the whole room gasped in collective amazement. The screen was dominated by a yearbook photo of Neal Caffrey. He had cut his hair short and fluffy, and donned a pair of large, fashionable glasses. He was almost unrecognizable - but the agents could still pick out his signature, effervescent smile. The smile that whispered trust me, trust me. The smile of a con man.

"He's going by the name Nick Halden." Peter explained. "We did a search on the alias and found absolutely nothing. We don't know where Caffrey's staying or where he has been prior to this school, but that doesn't matter. We close in and arrest him today."

Neal padded into the kitchen, drawn by the wafting scent of frying bacon and buttered toast. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down behind the kitchen table. June slid a plate piled high with steaming food under his nose with a smile.

"Here you go, sweetie."

"Wow, June. This is amazing! Thank you." Neal grinned up at the woman who had looked out for him for so many years, and reached for the brown sauce.

"Oh, no worries." June waved her hands affably. "I woke up this morning with the urge to cook, so I thought I'd treat you." She wrapped her gentle fingers around her own coffee cup and sat down opposite Neal. The teenager was tearing into the full English breakfast vivaciously, barely pausing to breathe. "So Neal." She said. "What's wrong?"

Neal's fork stopped mid-air.

"What do you mean? I'm fine." June steepled her fingers together, leaning in towards him. When she spoke again, her voice was warm, earnest.

"Neal, you're acting weirdly. If there's one thing I learnt from living with Byron, it's that con men are, by their very nature, contradictory. When they're angry, they act calm. When they're sad, they act happy. This morning you did yoga and danced to the radio. So what are you, sweetie? Angry or sad?" Neal sighed. June knew him too well.

"Neither. Both. I'm… confused." June nodded, dark curls bouncing.

"What's the problem?" Neal took a deep breath.

"Well… yesterday, I had a little argument with Mozzie."

"But the two of you are such good friends! And Mozzie is such a kind young man. We play Cluedo together."

"I know… but, well, there was an incident yesterday. Somehow the FBI found our warehouse and we had to flee." June looked shocked.

"What? The FBI found your warehouse? Neal, why are you still here? You have to leave New York immediately!" Neal shook his head patiently.

"No, no, it's fine. Really. We erased all signs of our presence, and destroyed anything that might link us to the school or to you. We're safe, honestly. Besides, if we leave now, it will raise suspicion. It would put us in even more danger." Neal ran his hands through his hair wearily. He looked frazzled.

"Ok. So what were you arguing with Mozzie about? It must have upset you quite a bit."

"Oh, just the usual. After what happened yesterday, Mozzie wanted to up sticks and leave. He thinks that we're gonna be found out or something. It's ridiculous – we don't have to leave just because the FBI stormed our warehouse."

June cocked her head at him, and sipped her coffee delicately.

"Sweetie, maybe Mozzie has a point. It might not be safe for you here." Neal closed his bright blue eyes.

"June." He whispered. "I'm tired of running. I don't want to be frightened away from my home. I don't want to abandon my life in New York." June studied him for a moment. Then her lips cracked into a huge, white toothed grin. She reached for Neal's hand, still smiling.

"Neal, I sense that there is something more to all of this. Are you reluctant to leave because of a… girl?" Neal was suddenly very interested in his bacon and eggs. June laughed. "What's she like?"

He thought for a moment.

"She's… perfect."

Peter, Diana and ten other agents were huddled round the huge table in the conference room. The entire surface was covered with freshly photocopied blueprints of Merrinote High School, the school that Neal Caffrey was attending. The fact that this school was located not three blocks away from the FBI building wasn't lost on Peter. After realising that he could actually see the school from his office window, he had reluctantly admitted that Caffrey had guts. He was brave. But his bravery was bordering on cocky and Peter knew that the FBI had won this round. Caffrey was young and impulsive, and although he had been on the run for five years, his freedom was drawing to a close.

Peter didn't want to admit it, but he knew that if Caffrey was older the bureau would have been hard pressed to catch him. Peter reckoned that if in 20 years Caffrey was still pursuing a life of crime, he would be the greatest con man the world had ever seen.

"Boss, I checked with the school. Caffrey is in today. Here's his timetable." Diana snapped Peter away from his thoughts and handed him a printed sheet. He scanned it quickly. Art, physics, maths geography, French, Spanish. Peter glanced down at his watch, noting the time with a practiced eye. It was 10:30 in the morning. Caffrey would be halfway through physics by now.

"Ok, team. Listen up." Peter raised his voice to be heard over the general chatter swirling around the conference room, and at his request everyone fell silent. "Here's the plan. We've come to the conclusion that we need to arrest Caffrey during the school day today. If we leave it any later, he might slip through our fingers and that would be absolutely disastrous. We all know that Caffrey is good at escaping. He can talk his way out of many stressful situations and his youth and athletic ability enable him to scamper around past checkpoints and through road blocks. Need I remind you of the 2009 incident where he jumped over a police car driving towards him with his hands tied behind his back?" The assembled agents all winced. That had been a dark day for the bureau, (even if everybody had been secretly impressed). "Anyway… I propose that we strike here." Peter circled a room on the blueprint in black permanent marker. "This is Caffrey's geography room and it is on the top floor of the school, furthest away from the two flights of stairs. Escape from this room will be hard, even for someone like Caffrey." Peter glanced across at Diana and Jones. "Jones, I want you setting up road blocks. Diana – organise the SWAT team. We'll nab Caffrey in geography."

It was half eleven in the morning and Neal was walking through the corridors of Merrinote. He was skiving off maths, but he didn't really care. What he was doing now was much more important. Neal reached his locker and unlocked it using a special key and a password entered into his Blackberry. With a little help from Mozzie, he had tricked out the locker and boosted the security features by 167%. The locker was safe from school thieves and small time lock pickers, and the fact that it was a locker in a high school meant that it was also safe from anyone with professional tools. The primitive safe was beyond notice and, as Neal knew, people didn't steal things that weren't important. Smiling softly to himself, Neal reached into his backpack and drew out his forgery of the Mona Lisa. He had finished it overnight and with a few little tweaks and some help from June, the painting now met his high standards. He was confident that it could pass most tests, including those imposed by art crimes experts. Wondering if he was making a huge mistake by placing a 6 million dollar painting in a school locker, Neal slipped the canvas into the metal box. He closed the door, locking it securely. Phew.Neal turned fluidly and strolled off deeper into the school.

The next lesson was geography.

Heyy guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter! The meeting of Peter and Neal, and the subsequent touching relationship is coming soon, I promise! I would love a review :)