Pictures

Standing in a group with the team, Neal was glad to feel Peter's arm across his shoulders while Jones and Diana stood to his other side and behind him. The photographer told them all to smile before he took the team photo.

Then Neal woke up from the strangely vivid dream.

As he got dressed for the day, Neal knew there were very few photos of him in existence.

First, he'd grown up in Wit-Sec so he didn't get school pictures. There were no pictures to hand out to his classmates and just the standardized absent photo placed in any official school yearbooks.

Second, working in the CIA had increased his training in how to deliberately evade cameras. This included security cameras so that there were no recordings or photos of him.

Finally, this had become an ingrained habit so he naturally made sure he wasn't recognizable even when someone attempted to take his picture. The team secretary thought he was handsome and tried once in a while, but he always frustrated her efforts without even trying.

Still, despite all of this, there were a few pictures of him.

Once, Chuck had been with him and some other fraternity brothers when a friend had taken their picture. Bryce had been so comfortable with Chuck that he'd allowed the picture and had even asked for a copy.

Another, Sarah had taken pictures of them together on the beach when they'd been dating. She'd sent him the best one and he'd printed it before adding it to his collection.

June had been experimenting with a new camera when she'd taken a picture of him playing chess with Mozzie so he'd added a print of that photo. It was just their profiles, but it still reminded him of his friends.

Otherwise, the Marshals had his picture for his file, the CIA for his employee record, and the FBI had a collection as a part of his criminal record through the prison and their chase to keep his character on their radar. He knew Peter had placed at least one of these photos in his Caffrey box, but it was just a grainy security photo from the bank on the day they first met.

Reminded of the photos he'd hidden away for himself, Neal noticed that he didn't have time, but he thought he might take a look at them later.

Instead, he needed to meet Peter for work.

After the treasure fiasco, Neal made his next addition to his picture collection.

Peter had originally called Kramer in to help him investigate Neal for his association with the missing treasure, but his former mentor had returned with the pretense that he wanted to prevent Peter from arresting his friend. Instead, the older agent had used the theft of the Raphael in an effort to entrap Neal into a life of servitude in Washington. To prevent it, Peter helped Neal by extending his radius and allowing him to meet Ellen.

During their conversation, Ellen had given him a picture of him wearing his father's hat. It looked like she'd taken it over his father's shoulder with a little of his mother visible as she crouched down by him. The picture only showed him, but it represented his family so it went into his collection.

Forced to flee not long after, thanks to Kramer's persistence, Neal wasn't leaving his pictures behind.

Packing a few things to go, Neal made sure to grab the one book that he had taken with him through life. It was a copy of a book his mother had read to him growing up so it was a memory of simpler times. Then he'd lifted the back cover, cut into the hardcover, and created a place where he could stash his precious pictures. Although Mozzie and Peter had both looked at it, neither had discovered his secret.

Time passed and Neal eventually found himself working an undercover operation with Peter pretending to be his father.

It evoked painful memories of missing his father growing up, learning the truth at eighteen, the long undercover operation performing as a criminal, and James' betrayal when he had left Peter to hang for his crimes.

But, Neal had to admit that he enjoyed the idea of Peter taking on a pseudo role as his father figure. After all, he'd acted more like a big brother/father figure than James had.

When Elizabeth took the 'prom' picture of Neal with Peter in tuxes, Neal felt the need to get a copy.

This one commemorated his chosen family and his other best friend.

It had been a year since Neal's death.

Peter sat down on his couch after Elizabeth had gone to put Neal back to bed when their son had woken up crying.

Alone, he felt the need to grab the book Neal had left him. Oddly enough, Neal had told him that he wanted him to have his favorite book the day he died.

Flipping through the pages, Peter had read the story several times trying to see if he could discern the importance to his friend. Nothing had ever revealed the secret, but it was a comfort to use it as a connection to his friend.

Spacing out as he thought, Peter didn't realize that his finger was rubbing the back cover while he thought about old memories.

Hearing a rip brought his attention back to the book and he noticed that he'd ripped the page from the cover.

Closer inspection showed that there was a gap, Neal had carved out a crevice in the cover! Completely focused on his task, Peter carefully peeled the page away from the cover until he'd opened the secret compartment.

There was a small collection of pictures and each showed Neal with someone!

Flipping through them, Peter fingered the picture of him with his friend as he missed him again. Then there was the picture of a little Neal wearing his father's hat followed by one of Neal playing Mozzie chess at the loft.

Although he'd get a copy for himself, Peter thought Mozzie might appreciate a copy too, at least, if he didn't already have one.

Setting Mozzie's picture aside revealed one of Neal with an unknown blonde on a beach somewhere. It was a younger Neal and a woman who had never been on Peter's radar before, but she seemed to be special enough to make the secret stash of photos.

Curious, Peter set that picture at the start of a new pile, a pile of photos to run facial recognition on.

This left him with one picture, and it was of Neal and several other boys wearing fraternity t-shirts. Was this something from one of his college scams?

Adding the last picture to the pile for further research, Peter wondered who these people had been to Neal. The woman seemed to be a romantic interest, and the guys must have been friends, but why didn't Neal ever mention any of them?

Knowing he had the dishes to do, Peter put the two images that he needed to research into his briefcase and left the others in the book.

Doing his chores for the evening, he no longer felt as sad. Neal had left him one more mystery to solve!

Unable to wait too long, Peter went into the office early and loaded the images for his search. He knew he could ask a junior agent, or even Jones, to do the task and bring him the results, but Neal had entrusted the book to him. He had almost always entrusted his biggest secrets to him.

Poking around other research, Peter wiled away the time and tried not to check on the search progress too often.

Finally, he had a series of hits: pictures and information about the people from the pictures.

Most of them had Standford University in common, so Peter set up a check to look at the student population of Standford during the years the other boys had attended. He got a very interesting result, one Bryce Larkin!

Doing another search, Peter found that Bryce Larkin had genuinely attended Stanford in the years before he'd hit the FBI's radar. Then he'd gone to work as an accountant in DC after graduation.

What was disturbing was how Bryce was allegedly killed while Neal was in prison. Neal hadn't escaped, Peter did another run through the prison logs to confirm, so that left two options. Either someone else in the government had pulled him out, or Neal had something else going on to fake Bryce's death.

On a whim, Peter ran Bryce Larkin through the government employee databases that he had access to. Then he went to lunch and forgot about it.

Returning from his lunch break, Peter found the results and curiously took a peek. There was a file with Neal's face on it!

Pulling up the file and looking at it more closely, Peter found that Neal did have an agency record, but not what he expected. Bryce Larkin was a Black Ops agent for the CIA!

Continuing to read what he could, Peter learned that Bryce had quite a heroic reputation along with a lot of highly classified reports that indicated a legendary reputation for getting the job done.

Following the chain of information, Peter put the other two people into the government search engine. He hadn't identified the blonde, but looking at the body language of the college photo, Bryce had been friends with Charles Bartowski.

While the information ran, Peter turned to look out the window and reflect. Who was Neal/Bryce, really?

Starting at the beginning, he went off of the photo of Neal in his father's hat and the details of his childhood as Daniel Brooks in Wit-Sec. Based on the evidence, he was pretty sure this was Neal's real history up to his eighteenth birthday.

Things had obviously changed after that. It looked like Neal had gotten a legendary identity as Bryce Larkin who went to University at Stanford before ending up in the CIA, which probably meant that Neal Caffrey had been some kind of an undercover operation.

Getting an idea, Peter scrambled to pull Neal's file up again. Searching through it, he dropped his arms and sagged into his chair as he read the status. Bryce was an active agent!

He had no way to contact his friend, but knowing he was alive out there somewhere was a huge relief and he had hope to see him again someday.

When the results came up on the other two, Peter wasn't surprised to see two agents. Sarah Walker and Charles Carmichael. They connected to Bryce through the CIA with Charles connecting back to school and Sarah being a romantic interest.

With as much information as he could get, Peter worked through the rest of his day before going home, putting the pictures back in the book, and putting the book back on the shelf.

"Did you read the story again?" Elizabeth asked as she bounced baby Neal playfully.

Smiling, Peter answered, "No, I read the hidden story of a boy named Neal who grew up to be a devious task force agent. Neal left a hidden cache of pictures in the back of the book showing him with his family before Wit-Sec, he and Mozzie, the photo you took of us that you call the prom pictures, and two with two CIA counterparts. Doing some research today, I found that he's active. So, maybe someday, we'll get to introduce our little Neal to big Neal." He took his son and kissed his little cheek before hugging and kissing his wife. Peter was glad to have his family about him while knowing his friend could return someday.

Closing the alert, Neal breathed a sigh of relief. Peter had finally found his message and researched his information. His friend had triggered the alert when he accessed Bryce Larkin's file so he knew the truth now.

Continuing with his mission, Neal knew the work would be easier now. He had someone who knew about him to keep him alive in their memory, he had someone to live for who cared that he came back someday.

He didn't know when or how, but he'd see his friends again. And, if anything should happen to him, he'd make sure their son was taken care of by inheriting everything that he had to financially give. It was the best he could do for Peter.

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