Bryce placed some files on Peter's desk. Peter opened them with a frown.

"The agents aren't going to like this." The files needed to be edited.

"It's frustrating, I know. But their standard has been slipping now that I'm not down there to help. I'm thinking of running a session focused around paperwork in the hopes of improving ours."

"Put together the proposal. I won't complain. I keep having to look over them before they go to you."

Bryce sighed. "I hate paperwork."

"Everyone hates it. Now imagine how much I had while you were Neal and get me less of it in return."

Bryce chuckled. "Nope. You can suffer right where you are. Keep the worst of it off me, same as always."

Peter shook his head fondly and commented that Bryce better get that session approved quickly. "So, how's the key search going?"

"Mozzie's not having any luck so far. I gave him a list of places that had meaning to Ellen and he's checking them one by one."

"You'll figure it out."

Bryce ran a hand through his hair. It was nice to hear someone say it.

The White Collar office was on edge. Bryce was sitting at Neal's old desk, going through paperwork while waiting for something.

The agents gave the desk a wide berth, in case Bryce was waiting for one of them. Diana and Jones also managed to stay away, for about 30 minutes.

"Okay Larkin, what's going on?" Diana asked.

Bryce looked up from his paperwork, same tilt to his head and air-headed expression Neal would give when startled from paperwork.

"There's no rules that say I can't sit here."

"Missed your old desk, huh?" Jones mused.

Bryce nodded. "And I'm waiting for Chuck to arrive so I thought I would wait down here. This desk hasn't been reassigned so no one is using it." Although he had noticed the increase of random stuff that had just been dumped on his old desk.

The broken pens had been the worst of it. And there was the broken computer that had been sitting there for long enough that no one knew where it had come from. Bryce had walked that one down to IT himself in order to get out of his office for a while.

"A big office doesn't always compare to my old desk."

"You could just say you missed us, you know," Diana said with a grin. Bryce grinned back.

"You know what? Maybe I am here to keep you out of trouble."

"Oh please no," Diana said teasingly. "Bryce Larkin is going to keep us out of trouble? Even putting aside the antics of Neal Caffrey, Bryce Larkin himself doesn't have a spotless record."

"More like the CIA doesn't have a spotless record."

"You can say that again," Chuck said from the door. "I'm considered one of their top agents and I've gone against so many CIA agents."

"Like who?" Jones asked.

Chuck's smile disappeared. "Don't ask."

"Me?" Bryce questioned sadly.

Chuck actually smiled at that. "You and I have never fought as agents. As friends, we have."

"That's fair."

"I was thinking more of Shaw."

Bryce made a disgusted expression and a few of the agents did a double take because Neal rarely made expressions like that. Agent Fowler had been one of the only people to get that kind of reaction.

"I read the files. He was an idiot." Who believed the organisation you were trying to stop just because they told you your group killed your wife? "I can't believe he kept going as an agent without thinking something like that would happen eventually." She had been an agent too. It was asking for trouble.

"Don't say that. I'd like to make it-" Chuck stopped as the door opened behind him and another agent almost barrelled into him. "Uh, hi?"

"Agent Ruiz, can we help you?" Jones asked respectfully.

Ruiz ran a hand through his hair, also wiping the sweat off his forehead, and looked at Neal's desk. "I heard a crazy rumour that the new head of White Collar was Neal Caffrey."

"Who's Neal Caffrey?" Bryce responded with a grin. He stood up. "I'm Special Agent Bryce Larkin and I run White Collar, at Hughes' request."

Ruiz's eyes dropped down to see the badge hanging around Bryce's neck. He looked around, face going light pink at the agents who were nodding.

"Agent Larkin is a hard taskmaster," Agent Blake sighed.

"Do your paperwork the way Neal taught you and you'd be fine," Diana reminded him.

"You also over-explain. We also do not need to know the colour of the tablecloth unless you think it is relevant to the case. There are pictures included. You have expertise, you don't need us in the office to be your third set of eyes."

Ruiz' expression smoothed out. "Well, I could almost believe you are who everyone now says you are."

"But?" Bryce questioned with a raised eyebrow. "Just check with Bancroft. We know you're not going to believe everything White Collar says."

"Bancroft loves a good prank. No, I will figure out what's going on here." Ruiz backed out of the room.

"Glad to see he's feeling better," Diana mused.

Chuck held the key up outside the FBI building.

"Really?"

"It could fit."

"And?"

Chuck shook his head and lowered it. Bryce sighed. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Why would Ellen make this key?" Chuck mused as they walked towards their lunch destination.

"To show where she left the evidence."

"But why? She knew where the evidence was."

Bryce nodded. "She didn't tell anyone. The key was in case something happened to her." Something had happened to her.

"Then how would she make it so that the right people found the evidence? And not someone like your father or Pratt."

"It could have been intended for James."

Chuck laughed. "Then it probably wouldn't have been this well encoded. James feels like the kind of guy who gets frustrated by puzzles." Like Casey.

Bryce did really know James well enough to guess that. He was surprised Chuck could. But Chuck was a good judge of character, even if he didn't judge intentions well.

"Okay, then who would she have made it for?"

Chuck frowned and then stopped as he realised something. He stared at Bryce.

"What?"

"You. She would have made it for you. How did you get this key again?"

"Ellen willed it to Neal Caffrey."

"Why not Bryce Larkin?"

"Maybe she was worried about it not getting to me?" Since he had been living as Neal Caffrey at the time.

"But there was always the chance of the FBI confiscating the box before then."

Bryce gave him a flat look. He didn't doubt that the FBI went through the box when it was willed to him. "Fine. Let's entertain the theory that it was willed to Neal Caffrey for a reason. What happens then?"

"Has Mozzie found anything in the spots connected to Ellen?"

"Not yet."

"What about checking spots important to Neal Caffrey? Or even to both Neal and Ellen?"

Bryce was about to say he had held it up to the view outside of June's place, because he was the kind of person who would try anything, when he realised something.

"There... might be a place." Chuck nodded and silently encouraged him to go on. "A pier in queens. I used to have this routine when running as Neal Caffrey that I did to let her know I was okay." And that Neal Caffrey himself had been a con in case she had been concerned.

Bryce stepped out and hailed a taxi.