NOTE: I hope everyone had a good holiday. I needed a short break from writing myself, partly for a rest and partly to figure out the mechanics of how I'm going to proceed with this story. I had to make some tough decisions, and rewrote the chapter twice...but in the end I think I have things where they need to be for a variety of reasons.

Chapter Forty-three

"Stay away from me, both of you!"

"Elizabeth, wait, please…"

Neal swore under his breath as Elizabeth hurried away. At first she had stepped closer as though she was going to confront them, but seemingly losing her composure rather than her nerve she had decided against it. This was not how he had wanted his first meeting with Peter's former Mistress to go, and he was fairly certain Peter was going to try and kill him again when he found out. Sighing in resignation Neal started down the marble stairs to follow her.

"Neal, maybe you should let her go." Mozzie suggested sheepishly.

"How did you even know about her?"

"Peter's computer." Mozzie admitted. "He was looking through an email account, looks like for the first time in years. Elizabeth has emailed him every day despite never getting a response. I didn't get details about what happened but the way she referred to their separation I got the feeling that it was a violent event."

"He told me he still loved her and no one could take that, even though someone must have taken him away from her."

"Neal, she thinks Peter is dead, and if he hasn't told her otherwise then maybe he's not ready for her to know yet."

"Imagine that." Neal snarled. "Did that thought occur to you at all *before* you hunted her down?"

"No." Mozzie admitted. "She's in a lot of pain and I deeply regret that I've made it worse, but I still think you should give her some space. Talk to Peter about her first."

"Thanks to you I don't have that option." Neal spat angrily. "I can't risk her deciding to bring the authorities here. If we're discovered I will go to prison and Peter will back to the Market or rather he'll force them to kill him before allowing himself to be dragged back there!"

"I'm sorry…"

"Just go home, Mozzie, I'll think of something." Neal sighed. "What name did you use with her?"

"Dante."

"Good. At least we don't have to worry about her emailing Peter using your name."

"Neal…"

Neal didn't have time to deal with or argue with Mozzie further as he went after Elizabeth. He hoped that he would be able to talk Elizabeth into coming back to the house and if he did he felt it would easier for her if Mozzie wasn't there. From what little Mozzie had told him Neal assumed that he had conned his way into her apartment, and having already been lied to once gaining her trust again wasn't going to be easy. At the same time he wasn't sure what he was going to say to her, he couldn't just spring the fact that Peter was alive on her in the middle of the street.

Clearly distraught Elizabeth was making her way quickly down the sidewalk. It was mid afternoon and the bright sunny day almost seemed like it was being disrespectful of her dark mood. Neal jogged to catch up with her and without thinking reached out to touch her shoulder to get her attention. Jerking away from him Elizabeth spun around and glared angrily at him with her eyes still red from tears.

"Don't touch me!" Elizabeth hissed. "Don't you dare touch me!"

"I'm sorry." Neal apologized sincerely as he took a step back and put his hands up to show he hadn't meant any harm. "Please don't go, let me explain."

"I don't want an explanation, I want you to leave me alone."

"Elizabeth…"

"You think I haven't met your type before?" Elizabeth demanded. "I will admit this is the first time one of you has conned your way into my home. I stupidly let my guard down for one minute, it's been two years I thought you sharks would have lost the scent of blood on me by now. Let me save us both some trouble: you can't blackmail me. I don't have anything to give, anything to hide or even anything left to lose."

"I'm not looking to blackma…"

"If you think you've found a story to sell I can promise you no one cares, but fine, go ahead and write this down: I love an Animula and I'm not letting anyone take that away from me even if they managed to take him! I'm not ashamed of loving him, and I will never deny it or believe that I'm in anyway mentally ill because of it!" Elizabeth said passionately. "A good man was murdered and no one saw justice for it. The idea that Animula are soulless natural born slaves is disgusting lie and the fact that they live in fear and pain is an atrocity!"

"I agree."

Elizabeth was startled into silence by Neal's simple reply. Although she lost some of her initial anger she was still regarding him with deep suspicion. Neal couldn't blame her, she had probably been marginalized or considered plain crazy by everyone around her for years. So far Neal had only met one other person who believed in Animula as human, and he had to admit that he didn't fully trust Taylor or felt like the vet was exactly firing on all cylinders. So even if Elizabeth believed that he held her same beliefs about Animula, that still wasn't the same as someone she could trust.

"Elizabeth, please, we need to talk."

Torn with indecision Elizabeth had become almost motionless. Neal wouldn't be surprised if she refused to even hear him out, she probably couldn't see much to be gained by risking trusting him. However she hadn't bolted yet, and that spoke volumes as to how alone she'd been. Neal doubted that she'd had anyone to really talk to about Peter over the past two years, and apparently she had been approached in the past about the scandal by profit seekers. Neal's heart sank when she took a step away from him, he hated to think of her leaving still feeling betrayed.

"You said you had nothing to lose, so there can't be any harm in talking to me. Please, come inside."

Neal took a step back to both give Elizabeth a little more space and to encourage her to follow him back to the house. Neal couldn't help but notice how Elizabeth reacted to being given more physical space in much the same way that Peter did as she relaxed slightly. She had probably learned much of her wariness of humans from being with Peter. When they had fallen in love Peter would have brought her to his side of the social rift rather than the other way around. Elizabeth glanced around nervously before nodding in what looked more like defeat than agreement.

"Thank you." Neal smiled and lead her back towards the house. "I don't think I actually introduced myself, James Maine."

"Elizabeth." She replied unnecessarily.

The fact that Elizabeth didn't give him a last name didn't escape Neal's attention. However he wasn't sure if she was keeping that to herself because of trust issues or in protest over the fact that Peter didn't have a last name. Neal had seen the wedding ring she was wearing, tradition would have dictated that she take his last name and perhaps she had taken to introducing herself without a surname as a way to further identify with her Animula husband.

With Elizabeth following a few feet behind Neal went to climb the small set of marble stairs where he had found Peter a few nights earlier struggling with what he had thought at the time was a desire to escape versus having no where to go, but now what he realized had been an internal battle on whether or not to reach out to Elizabeth. The fact that he had chosen to ask to participate on the con gave Neal the impression that perhaps he was looking to be in a better finical position before risking putting himself back in her life. Placing head over heart sounded like something Peter would do, even if it made him unhappy to do so.

Neal invited Elizabeth into the main parlor downstairs confident that Peter was going to remained locked in sleep for at least the next several hours considering the rough morning they'd had and how hard that half a beer had hit his system. Elizabeth accepted an offer to sit on one of the antique couches, but she perched on the edge of it so she could get to her feet quickly if need be. Neal sat in one of the high back chairs on the opposite side of the coffee table to her right so that she had clear line of sight to the front door in an effort to make her feel more comfortable with the awkward situation. Neal took a breath to speak but suddenly realized he didn't have any idea what he should say.

"I shouldn't have come here." Elizabeth sighed as she started to get to her feet.

"Wait, I'm sorry, I'm just not really sure what to say."

"The truth would be nice."

"I recently met my first Animula." Neal replied truthfully. "He wasn't what I was expecting. Honestly I never really gave Animula much thought before, I just assumed that what little I had heard about them was true."

"Which is one of the greatest problem that they face." Elizabeth replied sadly. "With so few of them in the city they are very much 'out of sight, out of mind' for most."

"I want to change that. I'm just not sure where a good place to start is." Neal answered, continuing with truth without giving her the whole story. "I have a feeling the Market comes down pretty hard on anyone who tries to change public opinion."

"So you sent your friend to what exactly? Scope me out?"

"No." Neal assured. "Dante found you on his own, his own views of Animula have been challenged lately as well. He's not the best at standard social interactions, but he didn't mean any harm and neither do I. We've both had our world view turned upside down lately."

"Meeting the right Animula can do that to you." Elizabeth smiled sadly. "It's life changing."

"Certainly changed mine." Neal agreed.

Elizabeth studied Neal for a moment. He flashed her his warmest smile, but she still looked like she was still expecting him to try and use her in some way. Neal had a powerful urge to just tell her the full truth, but it wasn't his truth to share. If he was going to respect Peter as his own person he also needed to respect his decisions and he'd already made this one clear.

Staying quiet Elizabeth waited for Neal to continue, probably just waiting to hear what the 'catch' was so that she could label him as one more in a long line of untrustworthy humans and move on. He hated having her see him as some sort of enemy, but understood that she most likely saw all humans as the enemy on some level. Neal was surprised when the fight in her light blue eyes was suddenly replaced by a look of defeat. She must have been quick to talk to Mozzie, meaning the years of keeping the truth of her story to herself was taking its toll. He already knew she wasn't ashamed to admit loving Peter, but defiantly defending her love against a system that had labeled her a criminal wasn't the same as having a sympathetic ear to listen to her story and validate her grief. Elizabeth sighed heavily, sounding tired of the battle that she'd been fighting alone for so long.

"Elizabeth?" Neal asked in concern.

"How much do you know about me?" Elizabeth asked sounding miserable.

"I know you loved an Animula and I'm willing to bet he loved you in return."

"His name is Peter…or rather I suppose it 'was'." Elizabeth reached up and brushed away a stray tear. "I watched him die and I still haven't been able to refer to him in the past tense."

Neal was surprised to hear that Elizabeth believed that she had seen him killed, he had assumed that she had come to the conclusion that he hadn't survived being dragged back to the Market after not hearing from him in two years. Elizabeth stared down at her hands as though there was blood on them. She had reached a point where she was beyond tears as the pain of the past became so overwhelming that she had almost become numb to it. Neal leaned forward to show her that he was willing to listen if she was wiling to talk.

"I couldn't afford him," Elizabeth started quietly "I couldn't afford him from the start…"

Neal remained silent while Elizabeth slowly unfolded her story, from how she had first met Peter through her company to the moment where she realized that she was going to have to steal to keep him. Learning that she hadn't gone out looking to personally own an Animula helped Neal understand how their relationship had been allowed to develop and also how she ended up losing him. Neal listened in horror as Elizabeth described her last day with Peter as he himself discovered the embezzling and the cruel passcode change that Renner had installed on the collar that the company demanded Peter still wear during the day despite being privately owned.

"I was angry with him at first for setting off his collar for a third time, knowing it would kill him, just to tell me something I already knew." Elizabeth admitted heavily. "However, I realized later he wasn't just telling me he loved me, he was taking control of his life in the only way he could at the time."

"He found a way to win the battle in his own way."

Elizabeth looked up at Neal for the first time since she started telling him her and Peter's story. Neal cringed internally knowing instantly that he shouldn't have used Peter's words to try and comfort her. Mozzie must have already said something that made her suspect that they had some connection to Peter in order to make her follow him and now he had just added to her suspicions. Neal decided that he wasn't going to insult her intelligence by denying that Peter was the Animula that had changed his life if she asked him directly. Elizabeth looked around at the richly decorated mansion before she turned her attention to the well tailored suit that Neal was still wearing from his trip out this morning.

"The Animula you met…" Elizabeth hesitated "…do you...do you own him?"

"It's complicated."

Elizabeth furrowed her brow at the elusive answer before she glanced up at the ceiling. Looking back at Neal with her eyes widened in shock she took a breath to say something but stopped herself. Elizabeth suddenly got to her feet and Neal automatically did the same. She flashed him a fearful look but he put his hands up slightly to show that he wasn't going to stop her if she decided to go upstairs. Still visibly torn with indecision on if she wanted confirmation on if Peter was here or not Elizabeth shifted her weight. Neal's blood ran cold as he got a glimpse of the tracking anklet that she wore, she hadn't gotten to the part in her story about how her embezzling had been handled but he had a good guess now. Depending on how closely she was tracked she might actually lead the Market directly here. Noticing the look of apprehension on Neal's face Elizabeth looked down at her ankle in horror as if having the exact same thought.

"I should go." Elizabeth said quickly. "If anyone asks you why I was here tell them I was consulting with you for an event, that's my job, Yvonne Premier Events, remember that."

"Eliabeth…"

"Tell Dante he still needs to teach me how to make green tea."

"I'll be sure to tell him." Neal smiled. "Are you sur…"

"If you really want to help Animula you can start by saving one." Elizabeth interrupted. "Just be patient…Animula are notoriously stubborn."

"I've noticed."