Neal Caffrey held a conical flask up to the light and examined the contents critically. He didn't seem to notice that his corded, wiry arms on display were attracting a lot of female attention. He had eyes for one girl and one girl only.
"Sara, could you please pass me the phenolphthalein?"
"The what now?"
Neal chuckled softly, the noise going almost unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of the lab. "Phenolphthalein? It's an indicator… yep, no… to the left… there you go, that's the one." She handed him the chemical in a small, tinted bottle and smiled.
"Cooking me up a love potion?"
"Just calculating a titre." He gazed into his girlfriend's eyes, ignoring the mess of chemicals and pipettes all around them. "But if you ask nicely, maybe I could throw in some potassium, iodine, sulphur and sulphur…"
"Mr Halden, may ask why you are spelling the word 'kiss' using elements from the periodic table instead of focusing on your titration?" Neal jumped guilty, almost knocking over the long glass burette on the table beside him. His chemistry teacher, a usually docile thirty-something with sleek hair wrapped into a bun, was right behind him. She raised an eyebrow.
"Um, I was, ah, that is to say…"
"Just get back to work, Nick. You too, Miss Ellis. Remember – this practical goes towards your final grade." She walked away, leaving Neal feeling somewhat shaken. It was weird to be reminded about exams and final scores when his personal life was in such turmoil.
"God, what is her problem?" Sara asked mildly, examining their titration with forced interest. She glanced at him coyly. "Have I ever told you that I don't know what a titration is?" He had to laugh at that. For someone so clever, Sara was hopeless when it came to chemistry. Her inability to understand the simplest of this branch of science was enough to take his mind away from his troubles.
"Ok, here's how titrations work…" he started to explain, standing on the tips of his toes so as to reach the top of the long, glass tube that stretched up towards the ceiling. There were gasps from all around the room. It was only then that he realised his mistake.
When he had stretched to pour sodium hydroxide down the gullet of the burette, the hem of his trousers lifted up slightly, revealing the tracking anklet that snaked around his leg. With its glowing green light and sleek black design, it stood out horribly in the dull greys and pastel blues of the classroom. He had avoided anyone seeing it so far – making sure to change for PE in the corner of the changing rooms and wearing long trousers at every oppprtunity. But now?
"What the heck is that?" Gordon Taylor – why was it always Gordon Taylor? – was pointing at the anklet. "Why you wearing that thing, Halden? What does it do?" Neal angrily scuffed his feet together, even though the anklet was already hidden from sight.
"It stops me getting lost," he said, as coolly as possible.
"Damned if it does. You know what, Halden? I don't believe you."
"Shut up, Gordon." Sara had stepped into the fray. She stood between Nick and the other boy, as if to stop them talking. Unfortunately for her, both boys were rather tall and the conversation continued right over her head.
"I think that that is a tracking anklet." Gordon said loudly, "I saw something about it on CSI, yeah? It's for the cops to track you. Like, if you get an ASBO or something. Or if you're a criminal."
"I'm not a criminal." Neal glanced around the room. Everyone was staring at them, watching the scene unfold like spectators at the football. The teacher was nowhere to be seen and Neal realised, with a jolt of something close to terror, that she must have left the room.
"Really? Then why do you live with an FBI agent, eh?"
"We've been through this. Don't you remember the assembly? Peter adopted me, you muppet." There were scattered 'oooohhhss' from around the room.
"What did you call me?" Gordon's voice was dangerously quiet.
"I called you a muppet."
"That's it!" Gordon swung a heavy fist right at Neal's head. He ducked under the blow and swiped at the other boy's stomach. The strike hit home and Gordon flew backwards against a table, sending acid, conical flasks and burettes flying everywhere. The glass tubes smashed against the floor with an explosion of phenolphthalein and students dived for cover, hands over heads, screaming in panic. Hydrochloric acid ran in rivulets down the tables. Gordon Taylor howled. Some of the acid had pooled onto his fingers and they were going an alarming shade of magenta.
"WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON IN HERE?" The chemistry teacher was back. She dropped the stack of textbooks she had been holding, letting them cascade onto the floor, and ran over to Gordon and Neal.
"He pushed me!" Gordon wailed, staggering towards the sink and recoiling when Neal tried to turn the tap on for him.
"I didn't," Neal said hotly, and the entire class fell silent.
"Um, actually, you kinda did." It was Jeannie Collins, the girl who sat next to Neal in lessons and assemblies.
"Yeah, we all saw it."
"It's not true Miss! Gordon punched Nea… I mean, Nick!" Sara choked out, gazing around at the mess of chemicals and broken glass.
"He provoked me." Gordon gasped. He was hunched besides the sink, face screwed up in pain as water gushed over his fingers. "So I tried to defend myself… and he hit me and I got acid… ow!"
"Right." The chemistry teacher looked like she was about to spontaneously combust, so potent was her anger. "Jeannie, take Gordon to the medical room. Nick, come with me."
"You can't be serious, Miss-"
"I AM VERY SERIOUS!" the teacher roared, spittle flying out from between her teeth. "This is a very serious situation – something you don't seem to understand. How dare you? How dare you come to this school and do something like this?"
And finally, there it was. The teacher knew his history. And she was throwing it back in his face.
"We're going to see the headmistress." This time, Neal didn't try to argue. Still fuming with anger, he ducked his head and followed the teacher out of the room.
"Here you go, boss." Jones plonked a cup of coffee on Peter's desk with a smile. "You look like you could use a caffeine boost."
"Damn right I do. Thanks, Jones."
"Anytime." The agent ambled away, leaving Peter sipping coffee in one hand and sifting through files with the other. He was knee deep in work at the moment. The cases kept on coming in, the files kept on stacking up, and with Neal moping around at home… In the past, before Neal had entered his life, if he had been snowed over with work he would do it at home, sprawled out on the kitchen table with El pitching in every now and again when something caught her interest. But work was too sensitive to bring home at the moment. With Keller on the loose, he had to do everything he could to protect Neal from the horrible truth. And if that meant staying late at the office and working through his lunch breaks to catch up, then so be it. Neal didn't need the stress and fear that came with knowing Keller was on the run. Not when he was just settling in at school.
He worked steadily for about ten minutes, not letting his thoughts stray to Neal, his wife or what the rest of the division were doing. He kept up the solid pace for longer than he had thought possible, and was just about to stop and have another coffee break when the phone rang.
"Y'ello?" Peter said, through a mouthful of shortbread.
"Is this Peter Burke?"
"Speaking." There was a moment's silence on the other end of the line. Then the voice, female and stern, wavered back into existence.
"My name is Mrs Stabbers. We've met. I'm calling from Merrinote High School, where I reside as Principle…" Peter felt like his stomach had turned to water. A call from the school in the middle of the day? This wasn't going to be good.
"Is there something wrong, Mrs Stabbers?"
"I'm calling about your foster son, Nick Halden. Or should I say Neal Caffrey?"
"Neal Caffrey would do just fine," said Peter through gritted teeth, wondering what on earth the kid had managed to do this time. Diana looked up from the desk opposite, drawn by the name 'Neal Caffrey'. He wasn't the only one in the office who associated those words with trouble.
"Well," sighed Mrs Stabbers, "I'm sorry to say that Neal has been in a fight with another student. The student, whose name I will not disclose, is currently in the medical office getting treated for acid burns to the hand. I would greatly appreciate it if you could come down to the school to talk this over." Peter sat there, the phone dangling from one hand, utterly speechless. Acid burns? Fights? Neal was a good kid. He wouldn't do this. Not unless something was seriously wrong.
"Now look here, Mrs Stabbers. I know that Neal has had a complicated past, but he is, or was, a white collar criminal. Do you understand what I mean by the term? He specialised in non-violent crime. Fighting another student is definitely not something that he would do." Half the office was listening in on his phone call by now. Peter caught a sympathetic glance from Diana, who seemed to understand exactly what was going on.
"Sir," said Mrs Stabbers frostily, "I don't appreciate being spoken to like that. The fact is that Neal was involved in a very serious incident and I would like you to please come down to the school as soon as you can." Peter rolled his eyes.
"And I'm telling you, Mrs Stabbers, Neal wouldn't do that. I know him. He's a good kid. And he's reformed. He hasn't committed a crime in the four months that he's been in my home. He is part of a loving family who support him and care about him. I don't believe that Neal would have it in his heart to spill acid on anybody."
"Just come into the school now. Please. Sir." Peter shook his head, even though he knew full well that Mrs Stabbers couldn't see him.
"Sorry, Mrs Stabbers, but I'm a bit busy with work at the moment. I'll come into school at a time that is appropriate for me. How's tomorrow at two?"
"Fine." Mrs Stabbers almost growled, and the conversation ended on a bit of a down note.
Neal sat outside the headmistress's office, feeling so angry he could barely breathe. The injustice of it all burned within him. He was facing an extremely stressful time at home, what with Mozzie and Alex and the death threats – and getting into trouble was quite literally the last thing he needed. It didn't help that this was the second time he had gotten into a fight with Gordon Taylor. Peter wasn't going to be pleased.
But then again, why should he care if the agent was angry? Peter had lied to him. When Keller had broken out of prison a week ago, Peter hadn't thought it necessary to tell him. No, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he didn't give a damn about Peter Burke.
He brushed down his shirt, watching broken glass rain down onto the floor with disinterest. The world was crumbling to dust all around him. He had spent four happy months with the Burkes and hadn't really broken the law once, but then he had discovered that the parents who had been so kind to him were actually lying to his face. Keller was on the loose. His friends were being threatened. He would have to steal a painting and break the law in order to save Mozzie. And then he would have to give the microchip he had promised Peter to Alex and save her life too.
It was so unfair. For some reason, everybody around him was beginning to think he was reformed. Peter, Elizabeth, Sara and her parents… All the positive energy was making even him believe that he was reformed, too. But then Keller broke out and forced him to break the law. Keller didn't care if he was reformed. Keller didn't care if he got into trouble at school because he was so stressed planning a robbery, he got into fights with other students.
"You can come in now." The secretary jabbed her walking stick in his direction. "Go through those doors and knock before you enter the head's office."
"OK-"
"And wipe that smile off your face!" Neal glared at the woman's wrinkled knees, not wanting to lift his gaze high enough to meet her crooked lipstick and wonky eyeliner.
"Sure thing," he muttered.
"And drop the attitude, will you? You're giving me a headache." Neal pulled a face but decided to ignore her. Rubbing his arm, which had been cut by the broken glass at some point during the fight, he tottered past the secretary and knocked twice on the head teacher's painted door. This was going to be fun with a capital F.
Neal didn't go home that night. It was probably just as well, considering that he had heard a rumour that Peter had been informed about the fight. Mrs Stabbers had been extremely miffed about the whole affair. Neal had sat in her office for about ten minutes, listening to her sigh about how Peter had refused to come into school until the next day and wincing as she berated him about the dangers of pushing other students. The fact that Gordon had started it didn't seem to matter much when it came to Mrs Stabbers. As far as she knew, the evidence was clear. Neal was a criminal, so of course he would be the one to go around picking fights and pouring acid over innocent people.
Neal left the office feeling grumpier than he had in a long time – which was saying something because he had been pretty angry when Mozzie had broken his toy dinosaur, and angrier still when Peter had arrested him the first time at school. He refused to go back to class, instead opting to mope about the corridors and hope that Peter wasn't tracking his anklet. When the final bell finally rang, Neal rattled off a quick text to Peter about how he was going to Sara's house after school, then linked arms with his girlfriend and marched out of the school gates.
"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Sara demanded once they had said hi to her mum and were safely in her bedroom. Neal ran his hands through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I'm just stressed out. The robbery…" It was something that had been playing on both their minds, and it was about time that they addressed it. They had six days to plan the theft of Raphael's 'Saint George and the Dragon' before Keller went through with his threat to kill Mozzie. They also had six days to deliver the microchip to Alex before Keller killed her too.
Neal wasn't too worried about the Alex deadline. All he had to do was track her down and hand the thing over. He couldn't deny that it was the right thing to do, but it still pained him to get rid of Datum 815. It was the one thing that stood between him and prison, not to mention the one thing that stood between Peter's job and unemployment. Perhaps it was these two facts that prevented him from giving her the microchip earlier. She could wait until deadline day.
"So how exactly are we going to rob a museum, again?" Sara asked, breaking Neal free from his reverie. He put his arms around her.
"I don't think I ever thanked you, Sara Ellis."
"For what?" They sat down together on the side of her bed, hands entwined.
"For helping Mozzie and I steal the painting. You don't need to be involved in this." She shrugged nonchalantly, but he could tell that she was scared.
"I want to save Mozzie."
"Still, thank you."
"You're welcome." They sat together for a while, soaking up the warmth of the bedroom. The myriad posters lining the walls stared down at Neal, following him with their inscrutable eyes. Sara was the first to break the silence.
"So like I was saying. How are we going to rob the museum?" Neal sighed and sat up on one elbow.
"Now that's where things get a little complicated. Usually a job like this would be easy. Moz and I would scout the place out, get to grips with the security and find out the entrance codes. I would do a forgery of the painting that we were going to steal, and Moz would tell one of our fences to line up a buyer." He grimaced. "Guess that step is unnecessary this time. Keller is the 'buyer'."
"But why can't you just do that now?" Sara asked, eyes wide at Neal's sudden anger. He supposed that she wasn't used to hatred.
"This is why," Neal snarled, yanking up his trouser leg and revealing the tracking anklet. "I can't do any of the preliminary work for the robbery. No scouting or anything. I'll be going in blind – assuming I can even get in. With the feds tracking my movements, I don't think I'll be able to walk into an art museum. Not with all my priors."
Sara stared at him.
"You're forgetting something."
"What?" he asked, scratching his head.
"The school trip." She sat up on the bed, excited now. "We're going on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art next Monday!" Neal leapt to his feet.
"But that's where 'Saint George and the Dragon' is displayed!"
"It's perfect…" Sara started, but then she lay back down on her pillows.
"Too perfect," they said together.
"But that's ok," mused Neal. He was pacing the room by this point, too caught up in his thoughts to notice what he was doing. "The trip to the art museum is next Monday. That's the day before the deadline for the painting. I can enter the museum with Mozzie and you… and Peter won't mind that I'm in an art museum because we'll be on a school trip! I'll break off from the main group and swap the paintings, then return to the school party. Even that will work to our advantage, because the security guards won't suspect the thief to be a teenager. That's assuming they even discover that there was a theft in the first place…" he trailed off, lost in the complex world of his plan. "It all fits. Every last detail. This school trip is the perfect way to steal the painting."
"And that's where it gets weird." Sara said, slowly. "Because why would the school organise a trip that brings a known art thief in contact with the exact painting he wants to steal?"
"No." Neal rubbed his eyes, "I don't think that the school is responsible. I think that the question is, why would Keller request that specific painting, at that specific point in time? Why would he want a painting that's in the museum we're visiting on a school trip?"
"You're right!" Sara said, stretching out across her duvet like a cat. Neal continued energetically.
"You know what I think? I don't think that Keller is the one who wants the painting. I think that there's a third party… someone who has something that Keller wants. Keller gets the painting from me, and he swaps it with the third member. But this third member… they want the painting a lot. So they made it easy for me. They arranged the deal with Keller so that it coincides with the school trip…" He turned to look at Sara excitedly. The two pieces of the puzzle spun through his mind. Two death threats: Mozzie and Alex. Two items: the chip and the painting. Were they somehow connected?
"One thing is clear," he went on feverishly, "Whoever wants the painting knows a lot about me. They know what's going on in the school. They know about the school trip. I think that there's a spy in our midst."
"You know what I think?" Sara asked, chewing the side of her cheek undecidedly, "I think that that is the craziest thing I've ever heard."
"Whatever," Neal shrugged. "I guess we can figure it out later. Although it is such a coincidence! A school trip to the one place we want to go, but I can't enter…" He saw the look on Sara's face and waved his hand idly, "But you're right. We can work it out when we're not so pressed for time."
Sara stood up and walked over to him, draping her arms around his shoulders.
"Right now," she said, "I think we can treat this coincidence as a blessing. Let's just make a plan to steal the painting during the school trip."
"Way ahead of you." Neal smiled, swaggering over to his school bag and tugging out a small canvas. "Mozzie found one exactly the same size as 'Saint George and the Dragon'. We'll age it later." Sara grinned at the canvas, but looked a little nervous.
"I've never seen a forgery before."
"And I've never been watched doing a forgery before. Well, actually…" he paused, his mind going back to the time before his arrest, when he had forged paintings with Mozzie in their secret, tricked-out warehouse. He shook his head. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
He set up the canvas in one corner and started mixing paints on his fold up easel. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and was just about to touch brush to cloth when he remembered something. Something important. "Sorry about this," he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed, "But I can't go home covered in paint. Or any paint, for that matter. Not when I live with a fed." Sara started to giggle, obviously understanding what he was about to do. Neal smiled apologetically, then peeled off his school shirt and kicked it into her wardrobe. His trousers went into a corner, leaving him standing in his underwear and socks.
"I'm sorry-"
"I'm not complaining," Sara grinned.
There was a crash from downstairs as the front door slammed.
"Honey!" A voice called, "I'm home."
"Oh God." Sara whispered. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and across the landing. The colour drained out of Sara's face.
"Neal-"
He understood a split second after she did. With a blur of movement, he yanked the canvas away from the wall and hid it under his school bag. The door burst open. There was no time to hide, no time to prepare. Neal seized a blanket off Sara's bed, wrapping it around his shoulders like a wizard's cloak to conceal his bare chest.
"Um, hey Mr Ellis. This isn't what it looks like…"
Hey guys, sorry I haven't updated for so long! Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter (and sorry about the weird formatting). I would love to hear what you thought about it so please drop a review! :D Also, hope you had a happy Easter!