Eric opened his eyes and blinked several times while he battled a wave of disorientation. From the ache in his upper body to the persistent rumble of car engines assaulting his ears, nothing seemed familiar. Even the odour of stale air was a far cry from the pleasantly comforting smell of his bedroom that he shared with Scottie. Something was off and as his inner warning system sent an alarm signal to his brain, he sat bolt upright and called out, "Mom?"

"Morning, sleepyhead," Alex twisted her body around and glanced over into the back seat. "I was just about to wake you. We're here."

Eric squinted his eyes and started out the car window but there wasn't anything to give him a clue of their location. "Where's here?"

"Our motel, but stay down. I've just got to go and check in. I pre-booked for one guest, so don't go poking your head out the window in case they look out."

"I know what to do, Mom!" Eric snapped. "Friggen Hell! For some stupid reason you think I've gone and forgotten everything you ever taught me!"

"No, I haven't, Eric," Alex placated. "It's just…just give me a little bit to get used to it all again."

"You mean, 'being with your son again?'"

"I…" Alex shook her head. "I've gotta go and check in."

# # #

Eric dumped his jacket and hat onto the double bed and regarded the room with obvious disdain. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"

Alex placed her belongings on the tiny out-dated table squeezed into the corner of the room then looked around to see what was of a concern. "What?"

"This room," Eric stated as though it couldn't possibly be more apparent. "It's the pits! This bedspread pre-dates the invention of the sewing machine and do you even want to imagine what's taken place on it to cause those stains. I'm sure the last time it was washed was when they applied that repugnant wallpaper. This place needs to be condemned and burnt to the ground, and preferably after we drive over to that far superior motel I spotted across the road."

"Settle down, Eric! We're not sleeping here so take a chill pill and take it easy…Besides, if either one of has the right to be irritable it's me. I just drove ten and half hours without the luxury of the back seat to slumber on so if any one gets to be cantankerous, it's me!"

"Whatever," Eric grumbled as he pulled out the only chair in the room and flopped his butt into it. "So if we aren't sleeping here, what do we need a motel room for anyways?"

"Since I wasn't sure what time I'd be able to get you, I couldn't risk being late for our charter boat so I arranged it for half past one this afternoon."

"Oh, man!" Eric studied his watch. "That's nearly eight and a half hours away!"

"Better for us to be early than be standing on the shore watching our ride sailing off into the sunset."

"Great." Eric kicked at the leg of the desk but soon retracted his foot when some of the varnish came off onto his shoe. "I'm bored shitless already! What am I supposed to do for the next eight hours?"

Alex couldn't help herself, "You could lie down and have a nap?"

"Very funny," Eric smiled, despite himself and he stood up and picked up one of the near flat pillows, which swung it at his mom.

Alex easily blocked the strike and snatched up the second pillow, which she proceeded to slam down over her son's head with much more success.

"Hey!" Eric yelled excitedly as he tried to wrench his pillow free while another whack landed on the back of his shoulder. "No fair!"

"And why's that," Alex laughed as she brought her pillow up into Eric's chest.

"Cause you're bigger than me."

"But you started it."

"Okay!" Eric chuckled as another whack pounded his arm. "You win."

"I don't believe my ears. You're conceding?"

"For now, but only because I don't want to even think what microscopic vermin from these pillows are now crawling all over my body."

Alex laughed and she tossed both pillows back onto the bed. "You've gone and got all soft on me, my handsome prince."

"Have not."

"Okay, you haven't, now enough fooling around." Alex lowered her voice, "I have something very special to show you."

Eric's playful expression dissolved as he took on the same seriousness as his mom's. "What?"

"Have a seat," she directed while going about carefully retrieving a dark blue padded box from her overnight bag.

"Is that them?"

"Yep," Alex's smile lit up the room as she placed the box onto her son's lap.

"Can I open it?"

"Yes, but be ever so careful."

Eric glared at his mom, "No shit."

"Eric…" his mom warned. "Just…remember you have in your lap something that is worth over nine million dollars."

Eric's fingers froze on the latch as moisture appeared from nowhere on his palms and the insecurity of holding the box without dropping it became too overwhelming. "Uh, I can't." He tried to pass the box back but Alex blocked it.

"Of course you can. This here is as much for you as it is for me. I want you to feel it between your fingers," she explained as she unlatched the lock and lifted the lid.

"Gee…" Eric stared at the three delicately sculptured jades that were each about the size of his hands.

"Gee?" Alex scoffed. Between you and me, we've traversed three continents, been blackmailed, held hostage, shot and played happy families for six months in order to see these three pieces in the one place and all you can say is, 'Gee?'"

"Gee…aren't they great?"

Alex laughed as she patted her son's hand. "That's okay, I know you're impressed on the inside…but seriously, you know what this all means don't you?"

"Of course I do. Now you can finally give up your seriously deranged obsession with accumulating all three pieces of the Spindle Neuron Collection."

"Eric," Alex placed her hands on the boy's upper arms and twisted him so they were facing more. "It goes far beyond that. With the collection complete, I have all I need as a bargaining chip – I can go back to Lorekovic, tie off any loose ends there, get the money we need to pay for our villa, and-"

"Mom!" Eric scowled in disbelieving shock. "No way! You are not going back to Dubrovnik to give this to that crazed maniac. He'll kill you, and then he'll kill me!"

"Oh, my darling boy, that's not going to happen, Eri. Trust me. I've been in touch with Sir Marc and he is negotiating the trade," Alex tapped the box on the boy's lap. "We hand this over and Lorekovic will agree to wipe the slate clean, and pay a considerable sum for our troubles. This collection is all he ever wanted to begin with. Once he gets it, we'll have no more connection to him."

"And you really believe that?"

"I do. Sir Marc has guaranteed to negotiate a water-tight hand-over."

"I didn't think there was such a thing?"

"There's going to be this time, my prince," Alex patted her son's hand once more before pushing up from the bed. "Now how about I go out and get you some breakfast and a couple of shots of espresso for me?"

"Yeah," Eric responded absently as he ran his fingers softly over the intricately carved gorilla. "Mom…"

"Yeah?" Alex shouldered her handbag and turned back around.

"The night that you got this…how did you get it out, I mean, both you and Neal were caught."

"Neal wasn't there helping, he came to talk me out of it."

"Yeah…that's what he told me."

"I wanted Neal to be my second but I went with a guy I found through another contact."

"I didn't know there was someone else. I think the FBI thought it was just you and Neal."

"It was supposed to be us, but…the long and the short of it is that Neal said no."

"Was that the reason you got…you know," Eric pointed to his shoulder where the bullet would have entered his mom.

Alex shrugged, "Who knows? It was blundered from the beginning. I shouldn't have tried it without Neal or at least someone with his expertise, but in the end, my man made it out with the Jade without being caught and he left it at the rendezvous and collected his payment…" She shook her head while recalling, "thankfully he was totally clueless as to its value."

Eric studied the carvings resting on his lap instead of looking at his mom, "You know, Neal is in prison because they think he had a part in stealing this?"

Alex looked somewhere else also, "I know."

"I was just thinking what Peter said that until someone else claims responsibility for taking the gorilla or it is returned to the owner, Neal has to stay in prison. He's got to be there for at least another six months, maybe even a year more."

Alex came over and sat back down on the bed, "I know that, Eri, but," she shrugged, "it's out of our hands."

"Mom…I think that…" Eric didn't want to think the name let alone say it out loud, "… he tracked down the connection and sent some men to find out from Neal where his Whale Jade was."

Alex thought a moment. "Is that what Neal said?"

"He said that the guys who jumped him thought he had something, or knew where something was and he said it was something to do with you so it had to be the jade…He was beat up pretty bad."

"I'm afraid in our line of work, things like that happen. But Eri, Neal knows that as well as anyone, and I also know that Neal Caffrey could walk out of that prison any day he wanted to."

Eric considered telling his mom that Neal had made a choice not to do that because it was something he felt was the right thing to do and…because now that he had a son, he was going to do everything he could to make things right…but what would have been the point. "Can I have a large chocolate malt shake if you can find a place that sells them?"

"Of course, my prince," Alex smiled then kissed her boy on the forehead. "I'll be back in a tick."

"You know," Eric called after his mother's retreating back, "that's what you said to me the night you left me in our hotel while you went to get the jade."

Alex looked back over her shoulder. "I'm just going to the corner to get some food. If you flick the TV on, I'll be back before you find anything decent to watch," she assured before disappearing out the door.

# # #

Eric pulled back the shades just a fraction and stole yet another glance out the window, looking in each direction up and down the street, but there was still no sign of their small white coupe. He checked his watch once more and told himself that his mom had been gone, not even fifteen minutes and knowing her, she had probably driven around a bit, trying to spot a shop that was likely to sell malted shakes. He should never have asked and it wasn't like he even felt like one but Elizabeth had mostly insisted he have juice or sometimes a banana smoothie, or something 'reasonably healthy' for breakfast so maybe he just felt like he needed to see if he had his old life back again. Not that life with the Burkes was really that terrible but there were an awful lot of rules and even more expectations and well, he just wasn't a conformist kind of guy. He had too much free will and liked to walk to the beat of his own drum – not someone else's. Still, he had to admit, it hadn't been the worse thing in the world living in the one place for such a long time and even though school was a thorn in his side, it did have some perks – such as having a cool friend like Carl who enjoyed getting up to no good and stirring up the establishment as much as he did. Eric checked his watch and realised it was way too early in the morning for Carl to suspect he wasn't coming back – the poor guy was no doubt deep in the land of nod, hoping his alarm wouldn't go off anytime soon. Eric hoped his friend would find someone else to hang out with in the cafeteria and, do the history project with, but…it probably wouldn't be the same. Eric guessed that Carl would still be forced to go to the school dance, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing – if he wanted, he could see if Rose Adintay was interested in meeting him there.

Eric wandered over to the dresser and found himself removing the padded box from his mom's overnight bag. It was hard to believe the contents were worth so much to so many but at the same time, over the years he had watched his mom take possession of or make deals over artefacts or artwork that appeared far less impressive. His mom had explained to him, many times, the origins of the stone that these jades were carved from and the subsequent history of being passed from hand to hand until finally, they were purposely separated. At one time, it had been a fascinating bedtime story but now, it was all he could do not to think of them as his worse nightmare.

Eric held the box in his hand and couldn't help wonder what Peter would say if he called him now and said, 'Guess what I'm holding.'" Knowing the FBI agent, he probably would guess on his first go and then he'd start in on some lecture about doing the right thing by the people who love you…and by the law. Eric thought about the man who'd been his surrogate parent for more than half a year and had to admit, even though he was an overbearing tyrant most of the time, his intentions were mostly kind. Peter had tried his best under what were no doubt new and difficult experiences. From the outside looking in, being a parent to the squirt seemed so much simpler and straightforward than being in charge of a grown up, independent kid who didn't want to be there in the first place. Maybe after everything settled down, his mom would let him write a note to Peter and Elizabeth saying he was doing well and could they say hello to Scottie for him.

Eric started placing the box back into the bag when he heard the rattling of the doorknob. His mom was back…except, why was she having trouble getting in? Instantly, his well-honed survival instincts kicked in and he darted into the bathroom and ducked behind the door. He turned his feet out and pulled the door flat against his body so it would appear from the other side that nothing could be behind, just as he heard the external door open. He stopped breathing as he listened to footsteps approach, pause, then continue to move closer. Adrenaline flooded his body and he lost the control of holding his breath, just as a hand hooked around the side of the door and began to lever it away from his hiding spot.

# # #