Peter stared down at Neal, who was shaking like a leaf. It was weird to see. He had always thought of Neal as being cool and collected, so it was a surprise to see that he was blushing furiously with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets and his head bowed. Calling the kid to stand up in front of everyone was obviously going to be traumatic, even for a confident young man like Neal. All those eyes on the back of your head, watching, judging… he shuddered.

"Nick Halden," Peter started, having to force himself to address Neal by his fake name. A slip here, saying the real one instead of the alias, would have catastrophic effects. Neal looked up, waiting nervously for Peter to continue. He did, after moistening his suddenly dry lips.

"I want everyone here to know that Nick Halden is totally innocent. I know that there have been some foul rumours shooting around this school in the past few months. A lot of you have been saying that Nick is a murderer, a thief, a convict and worse things, terrible things. The reason I am here today," he paused, taking the opportunity to look around the room and sift out the guilty faces. There were an awful lot of them. Neal hadn't been exaggerating when he had said that the whole school hated him.

"The reason I have forsaken work today to talk to you here at Merrinote School, is to set the record straight. Nick Halden is not a criminal." It was at that moment that Neal looked away from where he had been analysing as nearby window (as though contemplating the best way to smash it) and met Peter's eyes. His lips twisted in a small smile, seemingly surprised by the blatant lie. Neal not a criminal? It was like saying Santa Claus wasn't jolly. A boy with slicked back hair raised his hand. Peter recognised him as Gordon Taylor, the kid he had heard about when he had received a phone call from Mrs Stabbers on Neal's first day back at school. He had gotten into a fight with one Gordon Taylor and had very nearly been suspended before first break, (which had to be some sort of record.)

"Sir," said Gordon Taylor in his rich and sticky English accent, "If Nick is innocent, then why was he arrested at school in November?" There was a very awkward silence. Then Peter leaned in close to the microphone and treated Gordon to the full force of his stare.

"I am fully willing to admit that the Federal Bureau of Investigations made a mistake. We were looking for a fugitive who matched Nick's height and build and tracked the fugitive as far as this street. It was here that we lost him. There was no time to deliberate, hardly any time to confirm our hypothesises. Upon receiving intelligence that a boy who matched the description of our missing fugitive was attending Merrinote School, we decided, rather rashly, to storm the school and ask questions later. Unfortunately, that boy who looked somewhat like the fugitive was Nick Halden, who as it turned out, wasn't the fugitive and is completely innocent."

Peter folded his hands together. Every word he had said was a lie – as if the FBI would have stormed a building unless they were utterly, completely sure that the target was guilty, but he didn't care. If feeding lies to teenagers would get Neal out of the bullying situation that was crushing the life out of him, then Peter was willing to do it. He was willing to do almost anything for Neal. He was also very confident that he was going to get away with it. The teenagers were unlikely to understand police procedure – for all they knew, the scenario he had told them had actually happened. Even Gordon Taylor looked convinced.

The boy nodded and sat down, seeming satisfied. Neal, however, was still standing hesitantly in the middle of the sea of faces. Peter watched as his foster son exchanged a reassuring smile with Sara Ellis, who was sitting across the room.

"Just to reiterate," Peter said, leaning once again towards the microphone, "Nick Halden is innocent. He was mistakenly arrested because the agents under my command mistook his identity. He is not a criminal." The room erupted into whispering and Peter saw Neal grin. It was working. The school was starting to believe that he wasn't a crook. "Any more questions?"

"Yes." It was Gordon Taylor again. "If Nick is innocent and you arrested him under the misguided belief that he was someone else, then why did he run? Why didn't he just explain that he was innocent?" Peter opened his mouth to answer, but Neal stepped out into the aisle. The whispering died down as he made his slow and regal way up to the podium. He cupped the microphone in both hands, like it was a small, priceless artefact he wanted to preserve.

"I ran," he said, voice echoing throughout the now silent assembly hall, "because I knew it was pointless to try and plead my innocence. Have you seen Agent Burke? Imagine arguing with that face!" There was a gentle wave of laughter. That was when Peter knew it was working. The crowd was accepting Neal. They were accepting his fictional innocence. "But in all seriousness," Neal murmured, voice low and mesmerising. The teenagers quieted down, hanging off his every word, "I ran because… well, running is what I do best. I have a complicated – and very legal! - past," he added, seeing the look on everyone's face, "and if there's one thing I've learnt how to do, it's how to run. I ran because I was scared." Peter clapped a hand on his shoulder. They were both delivering Oscar-worthy performances – it was time to deliver the final, concluding lines.

"But you don't have to be scared anymore." Together, with Peter's arm still slung protectively around his shoulders, they turned to face the packed hall. "Because Nick has found a new home. A home where he doesn't have to run because there is nothing to fear-" he drew in a deep, dramatic breath, knowing the audience was captivated – "I have adopted Nick as my foster son. He lives under my roof with my wife and Labrador." And with that, the crowd erupted into raucous applause.

Peter saying that he had adopted Neal was the final push to blow away all traces of doubt. "After all," the students said, "How could he be a criminal if a federal agent took him into his own home?" The bullying disappeared almost overnight. And Neal became very popular indeed.

"Hey Nick, I'm having a party tonight, wanna come?" So said the most popular boy in the year on the way to biology.
"Nick, I love your hair. Can I run my fingers through it?" One girl gushed, snatching a sharpie seemingly out of mid-air and printing her phone number on his forearm. "Call me." And so it went on, a sea of smiling faces and giggling girls and invites to sit with people at lunch. He ignored them all, choosing instead to sit next to Sara Ellis at a secluded table for two, where they sipped their smoothies and gazed into each other's eyes, their ankles entwined together. Neal went home that night beaming, his mind full of social events that he had to transfer to his calendar immediately lest he forget, and his phone brimming with new contacts. Even the number of friends 'Nick Halden' had on Facebook had doubled in a matter of hours.

"Here's the little troublemaker!" Peter greeted him at the door and before he even had time to put down his school bag, the agent had scooped him up in a hug. Neal went rigid, totally shocked by the gesture, but he slowly relaxed and patted Peter awkwardly on the back.

"Evening, Peter." Peter grinned and returned to the kitchen, where he was supervising a ready meal that was turning serenely in the microwave. He started bustling around, yanking out a beer from the fridge and getting Neal a glass of milk for no apparent reason.

"Tell me about your day." Peter demanded, propping his elbows up on the kitchen counter and looking as though Christmas had come early. "Did it work? Did they stop bullying you?"

"Yes." Neal did a little twirl. He couldn't help it – he had learnt how to jive when he was eight and the dance just exploded out of him when he was happy. "Everyone's being really friendly. Even Gordon believed I'm innocent!"

"YES!" Peter punched the air triumphantly. "Yes! We did it!"

"You did it." Neal corrected, feeling suddenly bad about all the times he had doubted Peter in the build up to the assembly. He had to come to terms with the fact that Peter Burke would never let him down.

"Yeah, maybe I did." Peter smiled roguishly. "But that's not important. What's important is that you're happy at school."

"Cheers to that." Neal raised his glass of milk and clinked it against Peter's beer. The microwave started to beep aggressively and Peter skidded over to it, muttering something about "infernal beeping machines." Neal saw that the ready meal in the microwave was in fact a tub of baked beans. Peter tipped half the beans onto one plate and the rest onto another, then did something spectacular – he caught the toast as it sprung out of the toaster.

"Oh hell yeah!" Peter crowed, buttering it with a cheerful amount of energy and sliding the steaming beans on toast towards Neal. "Eat up."

"Your culinary skills will never cease to amaze me." Neal smirked, picking up a fork and digging in.

"Just be thankful that I made you anything for dinner," said Peter, sitting next to Neal at the breakfast bar and spooning his beans onto his three slices of toast. "El's out and I can't cook to save my life."

"I could have cooked." Neal started, but Peter held up his hands.
"No, no, tonight's a night for celebration."

"But I enjoy cooking-"

"I said tonight's a night for celebration." Peter snarled and Neal shrank back, surprised. The way Peter's mood had swung from joyous to deadly was downright terrifying. Neal realised that this wasn't the first time he had noticed Peter acting oddly recently. The night before, when he had been cramming for a history test, Neal had thought that Peter was unusually quiet. In fact, in the past few days or so Peter hadn't been himself at all. In Neal's experience, there were only two things that would cause a man to behave strangely. A lover or a secret. Peter and Elizabeth were in a very stable relationship, so it couldn't be a lover. That only left a secret. A secret lover was out of the question, so what was Peter hiding?

They ate their beans on toast in silence for a while. Neal was still bubbling with the day's successes, but the thought that Peter was keeping something from him was a nagging splinter in his mind. If it was really important, Neal reassured himself, Peter would tell me. Because Peter Burke would never let him down.

That night, long after Neal had gone to sleep safe in his bed with the blankets drawn up to his chin, and long after El had come home after a wild night out with the girls, Peter sat alone at the kitchen table. He toyed with his phone for a moment, then spat out a curse.

"Damn it." He called Hughes.

"What is it, Burke?" His boss did not sound happy to be awoken at such a late hour. Peter didn't waste time with the standard small talk.

"Any leads on Keller?"

"For God's sake, Burke, if there were any leads I would tell you!"

"So there are no leads?" He hung up before Hughes' disappointed sigh could reach him. Of course there were no leads. When Keller escaped from prison, he damn well escaped from prison. Peter knew that he wouldn't resurface until he needed to – and the thought of the man who had held Neal prisoner walking around the streets of New York free made him feel physically sick. He couldn't bring himself to tell Neal about the danger. Couldn't bring himself to look Neal in the eye and tell him that the man who had kept him in a cage was on the loose. So he had kept it hidden. But a secret that big was not without costs and Peter could feel himself slipping, snapping at his family when there was no need to snap and sinking into a brooding, unresponsive silence as he deliberated whether or not to tell Neal about the freedom of his nemesis. Sighing, Peter snapped off the light and began the slow climb up to bed. Everyone was entitled to their secrets.

If Neal could hide the microchip Datum 815, then Peter could hide the fact that Keller was out to destroy them all.

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter! Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions :)