I hate this thing. Seriously. Sometimes there are a few OSs I think I really, really shouldn't write, but I still do, because hell, it's interesting. Broke-my-heart interesting, but interesting.

In other words, that's kind of what I feel each time I read a Neal-really-is-Bryce story where the author is all "no but Neal is no more than a cover, you know". I particularly hate the idea of an intersected Neal who disappears completely, which is totally why I ended up writing this. Yes, I'm logical.

Neal Caffrey never was. Bryce Larkin simply forgot he was for three years.

Team Chuck found him again in NYC, alive but thinking he's someone else.

Neal wasn't meant to last.

Rescue and murder

It all happened very discreetly, or at least it seemed that way at first glance. The FBI agents at the office were doing their job, Peter continued working his cases though mostly alone, Diana and Jones never mentioned what had happened. In fact, it was as if Neal Caffrey had never existed; or, as some would still have to speak about him from time to time, about an old case for example, it was as if Neal Caffrey, CI, had simply finished his time and gone on with his life.

As if he hadn't been friends with half the White Collar office, and friendly with the other half.

In truth, if the silence was here, if no one said a word about what had happened, it was only a front.

Because, really, to everyone involved it looked like these silenced explosions in movies, when the sound is cut to add to the drama instead of going down into an action scene. The days went on, and they couldn't hear a thing, but everyone, Peter Burke, Diana Barrigan and Clinton Jones especially, were still shaking from the explosion. The spectator may not have heard the explosion, but the characters in the story had.

It still rang in their ears.

One day four strangers had come into the office, and asked to speak with Hughes and Burke. It was about Caffrey, they said. They were from the CIA, with one NSA exception, they said. It was confidential, they said.

Neal arrived into the office about ten minutes later, and everyone came to him, to ask if he had ever done something as foolishly reckless as stealing from the CIA. The CI looked at them as if they were crazy at first, then he frowned and stole a glance towards Reese Hughes' office.

"Not knowingly, at least."

Neal couldn't distinguish the features of the people in Hughes' office, except Peter and the ASAC himself. He squinted, recognized a woman's frame, a bulk of a man, a shortish guy, and a lanky individual. No, he had no idea who they were.

Still, because people didn't usually ask him if he had been stupid enough to steal from an intelligence agency, Neal had no doubt the questioning hadn't been random, and the strangers were, somehow, here for him.

Which he didn't like. At all.

He knew he hadn't ever stolen anything of interest to the CIA. He knew that.

It didn't mean they knew that.

What if, once again, his reputation had gone a bit overboard? What if someone had used his name to commit a crime, once more?

It wouldn't be the first time.

Suddenly the door to Hughes' office gaped open, and Peter was out, pointing two fingers at him, as if to call him in. An instant later, the agent had disappeared back into the ASAC's office. He had looked very upset, and it frightened Neal a bit. It wasn't the kind of upset he was used to see on Peter's face. It was another thing altogether.

And it wasn't good, Neal could just say it.

He shared a disturbed look with the rest of the office, and walked up the stairs to Hughes'.

When he passed the door, all Neal saw was awkwardness on the visitors' faces, except for the military man's, of course, and angered disbelief for the two FBI agents.

"Can I... do something for you, perhaps?"

The lanky guy tried to say something, apparently, but no words went past his lips, only a strangled mess of consonants and vowels. The military man next to him rolled his eyes, and the blond woman glared in answer, before her eyes fell back on Neal, hesitant.

Hughes was the one to speak up, though.

"Caffrey, these are Charles and Michael Carmicheal, Sarah Walker and John Casey. Apparently they are here on the behalf of the CIA, though they work privately. It would seem... It seems you became a person of interest when your name appeared in one of their latest... investigations."

Tall-and-lanky squirmed at that, and the shortest man in the group crushed the man's right feet with no discretion whatsoever. It was obvious to Neal that their words had been hugely edited by Hughes, and that "Charles Carmichael" was a terrible liar. The stranger did a great deal of efforts, Neal had to give him that, but even so the lie was visible to someone who knew what to look for.

This, he decided, was the kind of guy who could only lie well enough by writing the fiction over the truth, never by starting blank. He'd use an emotion he couldn't keep inside and turn it into something else, but he'd never be able to fake that emotion in the first place.

This was the kind of person Neal could wriggle anything out of.

Logically he should be the one Neal would interrogate now.

The only thing being, Neal didn't feel like wriggling anything out of that guy. If he did, he was almost certain it'd end badly for him. He did not want to hear what these strangers had to say.

Maybe he should just walk out, and pretend nothing had happened, and there wasn't a bunch of CIA-approved people in Reese Hughes' office who wanted something from him.

The glare the military man gave him smothered any hope.

"A person of interest?"

Neal made sure none of his newly found unease could be heard in his voice, and surely enough, it fooled everyone in the room. The irritated look Peter threw at him was enough of a clue to that. Maybe they guessed he was hiding his true reaction, because hell, who wouldn't be anxious at the news that they were a "person of interest" to the CIA? - but there were no proof of his lie.

Wasn't it all that mattered with justice these days? That even if everyone is convinced you did it, it doesn't stand a chance as long as there is no evidence?

Which, Neal realized, wasn't all that reassuring when he considered these guys were with the CIA. Mozzie might be paranoid, and surely the CIA wasn't looking to control everyone's brains with chocolate chips, but they still were very able of making someone disappear without a trace if they wanted. Moreover, Neal doubted they cared all that much about evidences.

If they thought he had done something...

The blond woman, Sarah Walker, supposing it was truly her name, which Neal doubted just a little more than his own name, took a step to stand before her colleagues.

"Your actual name is Neal Bennett, is it not? Switched with 'Danny Brooks' by your years in WITSEC, and definitely changed into 'Neal Caffrey' at your eighteenth birthday, in between assumptions of a few dozens of aliases, which you do not consider real unlike Caffrey?"

If Neal wasn't so used to masking everything, the corner of his mouth sure would have twitched.

That's exactly what he meant by doubting his own name; while "Neal Caffrey" was who he thought himself to be, he was well aware that as far as the law was concerned, he was Neal Bennett. Not that anyone was supposed to know that, not since he had ran out of St. Louis to never be seen again.

How had these people even made the connection?

"Possibly."

Neal saw Peter's and Hughes' frowns when they heard the woman talk of WITSEC, but apparently what they had heard beforehand, when he hadn't been in the room, surpassed any revelation about his past, because they kept their questions to themselves.

He turned back to the blond woman.

"So, which of my aliases do you have a grudge against?"

There the little guy of the group seemed about to say something, probably something for what Neal would have punched him if he had been violent, which he was not, but that's not the point. For some reason the CI could just say he'd have wanted to punch "Michael Carmichael". Luckily for Neal's reputation as a non-violent confidence artist, he didn't get to making a choice about an appropriate reaction; instead, he watched as the other "Carmichael" walked on his "brother"'s foot, in a reminescent but inversed scene. The two might behave like brothers or best friends, but they surely didn't share even half a drop of blood. Their respective heights were obvious enough about that.

The military guy was, surprisingly, the one to grunt an answer.

"Bryce Larkin."

Neal frowned, racking his brain for an alias he knew not to be there.

Sarah Walker glared at the man.

"Not exactly, no. But we believe you might have been in... contact with Bryce Larkin at some point, and truth be said, we are still looking for him. Depending on what you'll be able to tell us... We might know if he's still alive."

Eh... That wasn't what Neal had expected. Not that he had been expecting anything in particular.

"I'm sorry to say that, but I don't think I've ever met someone named Bryce Larkin."

The woman's upper lip twitched. Neal didn't like it. He didn't know why exactly, but he didn't like that twitch. It foretold something bad. Sarah Walker forced a smile upon her lips. He could see its falseness, but he wasn't sure anyone else in the room could tell. She was good.

"He... He was a CIA agent. If you... met... him, it's probably not under his real name. We just want to show you a few pictures. Maybe you'll recognize him."

Neal saw the way the lanky guy's gaze immediately left his face, and went to look at nothing in particular, as long as it wasn't the CI. There was something, in this "recognize", that wasn't all it seemed. Neal could hear it. He knew a lie when it was told.

What frightened him now wasn't the lie. He was used to those. What got to him was that he didn't know what laid behind the lie. And in such cases, what laid behind was everything that mattered.

But did he really have a choice? Was there a valid reason for him to refuse to look at a few pictures? Could he really pass the door and hope they'd just forget about him? What did it matter, to them, to these strangers, if Neal Caffrey felt like he'd die the moment he'd agree to look at these pictures?

Neal pushed these questions back, deep into the recesses of his mind.

They were unrealistic.

Looking at a few pictures of a man he may or may not have ever seen wasn't going to kill him.

Neal gave the strangers a smile which he felt to be faulty inside, even if he knew it to be perfectly calm on the outside. He was too good a master of deception to let his irrational fears out.

"Of course. If I can help you, I will. If not..."

"Charles Carmichael" handed him a small tablet of unknown design, which Neal suspected to be CIA-produced or something. The CI took it warily, eyeing the strangers at the same time. Two of them, Carmichael n°1 and Walker, had a guilty look mixed with hope, that did nothing to comfort his fears. Carmichael n°2 looked more curious than anything else, and from the dark look the bulky man, "John Casey", was giving him, Neal guessed he wasn't totally aware of the seriousness of the situation.

Which Neal himself knew nothing about.

Hadn't he already said how much he didn't like not knowing?

"Just wait a moment, I'll get the right... Oh, there."

The lanky guy started an app instead of opening an images folder, Neal noticed it right away. For half a second, he wondered if the stranger had simply gotten it wrong. It could happen, especially when you were trying to use a tablet in someone else's hands.

The wonder lasted no more than an instant, though.

Because the next moment, the CI's eyes were stuck on the multitude of images that appeared on the screen, going at an inhuman pace. The pictures felt familiar, in a way that wasn't of any comfort. Under the load of info, Neal felt crushed, folded, destroyed.

Certainly, when the app ended, Neal Caffrey was no more, and Bryce Larkin was the one to blink back at Chuck Bartowski.

The first thing he said since 2009 was not a sentence, and wasn't said at all.

It was a weak laugh, as Bryce took in the view of his former best friend, of his former girlfriend, very obviously married to each other, of his former killer in the person of John Casey, and of someone he'd never thought he'd see in spy-related situations, Morgan Grimes.

His laugh died on his lips, though. His eyes had just fallen onto the two FBI agents further in the room. And Neal Caffrey's memories hadn't disappeared as Bryce Larkin had come back to the surface. It was more a matter of him suddenly being aware that Neal, as his other aliases, hadn't ever been more than a legend.

Which the conman hadn't been to Peter Burke.

But Bryce wasn't Neal. Neal didn't even exist.

Bryce forced himself to look back at Chuck and Sarah.

"You found me."

There was a hint of disbelief in his voice, not without reason.

Neal had been a legend created by Fulcrum, years ago, when he hadn't yet understood that all his orders didn't come from the CIA, even when they were given by his superior. Neal had been an alias he used for non-violent missions, thefts that he had later found out were used to fund part of Fulcrum activities. In other words, the clean part of the CIA had no idea Neal even existed.

He wasn't sure how he had fallen back into Neal's personality, so deep this time, that he wasn't himself anymore.

Chuck glanced at Sarah, as if asking for permission, which, now that Bryce thought about it, was probably the case. The blonde spy nodded in agreement, and Chuck sighed.

"We... We found a Fulcrum survivor a few weeks ago. He had files about 'Neal Caffrey', and how the Ring had revived you again. Only, this time, they had gone so far as to trap you in an intersected personality, based on your Fulcrum alias."

Bryce frowned a bit, unsure of what it all meant.

"And that's supposed to mean what, exactly? I certainly haven't been contacted by anyone with shady goals during the last three years..."

That is, except Adler, Keller, and a few others, but these guys were just regular criminals, not traitorous spies. Pains in the ass, sure, difficult to deal with, well-connected sometimes, and all that, but no agents of the Ring.

"I doubt they revived me only because I'm pretty."

Or at least, he sure hoped there was another reason than that. Mad people did mad things all the time, yes, but he didn't need that idea in his mind. It'd make him sick just to think about it.

Casey may or may not have snorted at that.

Bryce may or may not have inched away from the NSA - ex-NSA? - agent at the unexpected reaction.

Sarah certainly did look at both of them sternly before answering.

"No idea. Our only source is in no shape to answer anymore. My best guesses are, their plans for you went south, or they never got to start them as we destroyed the Ring one year later."

Bryce was about to ask more questions, but was interrupted by the hard voice of Reese Hughes.

"If you are done here, I'll ask you to leave these offices. You've confirmed that Bryce Larkin is the true identity of Neal Caffrey, you got him back, he is obviously not a criminal which means he has no business working as a convicted CI for us, and this anklet can come down. I'll send the paperwork your way, though, Mr Carmichael."

Bryce stared dumbly at Hughes, as he actually remembered what he had spent the last three years doing while thinking he was Neal Caffrey. Peter Burke's face was closed as he walked to Bryce, and undid the tracking anklet. Bryce suddenly realized something.

Chuck tried to speak first.

"Wait, don't you want more explan..."

Burke's voice was hard as he interrupted him. The FBI agent returned to his boss' side, but kept his back turned, as if he didn't want to see the others. Burke didn't want to see Bryce Larkin.

"Please understand, Mr Carmichael, that you may have given back his life to Agent Larkin, but that you also killed Neal in the process. To us, it doesn't matter if Neal wasn't real to begin with. Neal himself thought he existed. If he doesn't anymore, it's because you murdered him. I appreciate that Bryce Larkin had more rights to exist than Neal Caffrey, I trully do. But you still killed my friend. And I want you out of here. All of you. Now."

Bryce had nothing to say to that. He had Neal's memories, true, he knew how much Neal cared about the FBI agent, he knew what Burke had done for the CI... But it wasn't as if he was Neal.

When Bryce Larkin walked out of the White Collar division, Neal Caffrey disappeared forever.

Truthfully, it was as if the FBI agents were all living Kate Moreau's death again, only this time, with them being in Neal's place. One of their friends had died in a terrible explosion, and everyone expected them to go on with their lives because that's what their contracts said.

All this had never happened. Neal Caffrey wasn't dead; he never was. The contracts said so.

Only, they still heard his non-existent death ringing in their heads. And no amount of confidential paperwork would ever manage to get that exploding sound out of their head.