A/N: sorry for the long wait for this, I am going to try to get a couple more chapters out before the new year - the last few weeks have been hectic! Anyway this is set at the beginning of point blank and a few weeks after the last chapter. P.S. I still don't own White Collar

Chapter 6:

"Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin"

Dwight D Eisenhower

Recently Peter noticed Neal had been acting weird. Not weird in a about to steal some fancy painting from a museum way but just…weird. He had been looking off into the distance as he often did nowadays and instead of his hands shaking a small smile had played across his face. And it had seemed genuine; a small, genuine and almost shy smile. At first he thought that maybe Neal was starting to look back on Kate with happiness but he still seemed angry and sad like before just with an extra layer of happiness in there. In one occurrence this wouldn't have been concerning but after almost three weeks of strangely happy smiles something had to be going on. The FBI agent had also noticed Neal seemed to be getting quite ill; this also wouldn't appear to be a big concern but in all of the years Peter had chased, arrested and worked with Neal he had never seen so much as a cold from him.

One day Neal seemed especially happy but also pale and tired. Peter hadn't mentioned anything but he was concerned, Was Neal ill? Was he depressed? and the unbidden thought that came next Was he hurting himself? That would explain the happiness paired with the sadness and the itching Neal seemed to doing on his arms. Wary not to jump to the wrong conclusions about something he had kept quiet and gone to El, she was so much better at the whole caregiver, emotions thing anyway.

"So, you're concerned about Neal because he's happy?" She had asked skeptically once he relayed the puzzling events minus his own worried ideas on Neal's mental and physical health.

"No…well, yes. I don't know." Neal had seemed sad, upset, angry - borderline depressed - since Kate's death but now for him to be so abruptly and quietly happy it was confusing.

He attempted to explain himself as he ran his hands through his hair, "El, I don't understand it the guy's been downright depressed since Kate died but he's been hiding it behind this dazzling conman grin. And now he seems like he is genuinely happy about something – I know Neal, hon and that wasn't a con"

"Ok…but I still don't get why this is worrying you – wait is it worrying you?" El had this cute little line between her eyebrows when she was puzzled by something.

"I'm not sure" he admitted with a sigh, sitting from where he had been pacing, "I just don't understand where Neal's head is right now, he could do anything at the minute he's so pissed off about Kate's death. And he seems ill honey, he's pale and tired. He looks pained when you know his tells and the other day Jones caught him throwing up in the toilets. I doubt he's taking proper care of himself - sleeping, eating." He stopped his hurried babbling as disbelieving realization dawned on him, "Oh my god El, I've turned into his father"

In reply to this El comfortingly placed her hand over his own, concealed a chuckle and gave him one of her patented Honey I love you but sometimes you can be such an idiot looks and said as though it were obvious, "Why don't you just ask him?"

"Honey, you are a genius!"

"I know" she said not even looking up from the blueprints for her latest gallery opening.

So this was how Peter was left awkwardly standing outside Neal's apartment a few days later debating over how to phrase, "Why are you happy?" without sounding like a jackass.

Christ, Burke just knock already! He quickly banged on the door before he lost his nerve; he knew it may look a little odd considering he usually just waited for Neal in the car when he picked him up but it wasn't that unusual an occurrence for him to come up to Neal's apartment, if only for June's coffee.

"One second!" he heard Neal yell through the door.

He didn't want to invade Neal's privacy even if he was technically allowed to and he didn't particularly want to walk in if Neal wasn't decent but he couldn't help if he just happened to lean into the door a fraction and overhear some things. Like fast and whispered things.

"Where are my pants?"

"Here"

"Thanks"

"Are these my socks?"

Well that explained why Neal had seemed so happy at least. He couldn't distinguish anything about the voices through the door and low tones but that was quite self-explanatory. He was so glad he hadn't just walked in.

"Can you um go in the bathroom for one minute?"

The shuffling abruptly stopped.

"What, why?" that voice sounded annoyed even with the distorted edge to it.

"No, it's not that – really. He just, he doesn't know."

There was a pause.

"Please"

Peter's eyebrows shot up, it wasn't often that Neal Caffrey resorted to manners to get what he wanted.

"Fine, I don't particularly want to meet the guy that ruined my morning anyway"

"Thank you"

"You owe me"

"I will make it up to you, I promise"

30 seconds later the door opened to a bedraggled Neal with tufts of hair sticking up all across his head and slightly kiss-swollen lips clad only in pants – the same he was wearing yesterday Peter noted. He had to fight hard to stop himself from showing just how amused by this he was and from the glare Neal shot him he wasn't entirely sure he succeeded.

"Morning Neal" he opened cheerily.

"Peter, you're early" Neal dead panned back to him, "I'll be down in a minute"

"Oh it's fine I can wait up here" He said breezily as he sauntered straight past Neal and into the apartment. He was enjoying the rare opportunity he had to make Neal uncomfortable.

"No, really it will only take one minute" Neal assured shooting quick glances at the bathroom door and his messy sheets.

"Ok, ok I'll get out of your hair" Peter gave in easily but didn't want to ruin Neal's morning now he knew the cause of it but just before he left, "Neal?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm happy for you"

Neal appeared to take pause at that and with that same gentle and genuine smile he said, "Thanks Peter" and with that he quickly slammed the door in his face.

Quietly chuckling under his breath as he descended the stairs he texted El – All's fine. In fact I think Neal might have a girlfriend P.

A couple of minutes later his phone buzzed in reply – Good for him, you should invite them over for dinner next week xx

Peter faithfully waited in the car for Neal to come down with a weird sense of pride in his stomach that Neal had found someone - Christ he really was turning into Neal's father. He managed to hold back his curiosity for a whole ten minutes before he could no longer help himself, "So uh you have a girlfriend now?"

"Something like that" Neal replied in that vague way of his.

"What's her name?"

"Why you going to run a background check?" Neal joked but when Peter just half-sheepishly looked away he said, disbelieving, "You were going to run background check." and proceeded to sulk and look out in the window in true Caffrey style when they had one of their little tiffs.

Peter hastily tried to justify himself, it honestly wasn't judgement just protective instincts, "I just wanted to check she wasn't some criminal like K- " Oh, God, Burke what have you done?! Do you want to choke on your own foot?!

Neal's head snapped back to Peter and his brilliant eyes shone with such intense rage Peter actually flinched away, "Don't You Even Dare." each word was enunciated in shockingly calm coldness completely uncharacteristic to the usually jovial conman and Peter was admittedly quite scared of Neal in that moment.

"I...Neal...I" Peter spluttered trying to find the words to get himself out of this hole.

"No. Just, stop." Neal stopped him with a hand up. He took a couple of deep breaths and was suddenly back to his normal self, it was quite scary seeing the machinations of his conman mask being put into place. "Don't worry Sam is not a felon or a fence or anything like that. Hell, I doubt he even knows what the difference between a blue-collar and a white-collar crime is. And I'm not going to convert the good doctor over to the dark side so don't worry about that either. In fact why don't you just let me life my life and you can live yours and we can pretend you didn't just degrade my recently deceased girlfriend of ten years to 'just some criminal'"

This was all spoken in a scary-calm voice and a blank expression speeding up as he went along and the barely contained rage began to leak out and as soon as Neal had finished his piece he returned to staring dejectedly out of the window, Peter could see his hands shaking out of the corner of his eye but chose to just keep quiet. The rest of the car journey was completed in awkward silence. Just before they got out of the car Peter heard Neal take a deep breath, exit and then he turned to say as he would any day, "So, what's the case today Butch?" with his usual sunny disposition.

Peter decided it would be best for his continued good health to let the matter of Neal's girlfriend both old and new drop not to mention the yet to be attempted topic of Neal's health. He was still undecided on whether he should tell Neal about his and Diana's work on drawing out Fowler through his wife's life insurance especially after seeing his partner's reaction to his accidental badmouthing of Kate, what would he be like if he actually came face to face with the man he held responsible for his lost love's untimely death. So for now Peter decided it would be best to pretend everything was normal and explain his interest in a new case of stolen Spanish Silver across the city. Sometimes he wondered how many conmen were really in this partnership.