Nightmares


Waking up with a start, Peter's heart was racing and he was sweating.

He'd had a nightmare where he'd found Neal, but he had been too late. Neal's body was intermingled with corpses that he'd seen in the past as they took him off of the wall, assessed his injuries, and failed to accomplish anything with CPR but to break his sternum again. Peter wasn't sure if it was the real cracking of Neal's bone under his hand, or the vivid imagery of him lying there dead that had gotten to him.

Unable to sleep any further, he gave up and got up.

At least Neal was sleeping downstairs and not a prisoner, dead, or in the hospital so it was easy to freshen up slightly and go back down.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward the living room and saw that Neal was awake and lying across the couch quietly watching a random movie on television. His arm was still dangling off as he absentmindedly scratched Satchmo's head.

It was a nice picture, one that Peter would much rather have playing through his mind in his sleep, but so far, nothing had replaced the nightmares.

"Need anything?" He decided to announce his presence as he entered the room and noticed that the movie Neal was watching was some kind of Sci-Fi thing, not something he was familiar with, but one he'd vaguely heard of.

"I'm good, and Satchmo seems to be happy where he is as well. Have a good sleep?"

So, Neal was checking up on him? "Yeah," he tried to bypass the question without admitting to what had happened. "What are you watching?" There was an available seat in one of the chairs so he settled in to watch from the other side.

"Peter," Neal's tone carried the same underlying message he typically used when he wasn't accepting Neal's attempt at deflection.

However, much like Neal, Peter wasn't going to give in easily. "What?"

"Nightmares?" Neal's insight was easy, it was an obvious repercussion of what had happened, but wasn't it his job to keep an eye on Neal since he was the one tortured?

Caught, there wasn't a way to escape answering that without lying. "Yeah," but he didn't have to go into details and share what was keeping him awake at night.

"Me dying?" Clearly, the subject was going to be pushed.

"No," It was never fun to drag things out of a friend, but Peter was reluctant to go into details on this one.

Sighing, Neal turned off the volume of the movie and sat up slowly to look at him. After he'd gauged him, he chose his response with care. "So, you keep dreaming where you're too late and I'm already dead. There is also the possibility of the crack of my sternum playing into your dreams since that's seemed to bother you."

"Neal," he wasn't sure what he was going to say, but Neal wouldn't allow it.

Clearing his throat, Neal frowned at him before going into his own lecture mode. "Peter, I see that I need to finish my point from our earlier conversation. It wouldn't have mattered if you had been looking for me; you probably wouldn't have found me any sooner than you already did. So, as I said, it isn't your fault that this happened. At best, you might have been able to take away some of the power of their live feed to hurt me, but that's about it."

"Oh, come on! I should have been able to find you sooner if I'd been looking. It's not like they hid you away completely. Someone had to have seen something, there had to have been something I could use to pick up the trail!" He didn't know what, but he wasn't willing to let go of the assumption that he would've found his friend if he'd tried.

Rolling his eyes, Neal didn't appreciate it. "Let's be real, Peter. Mozzie is a leading agent of the NSA with as much experience as you have in the field, he has a long-standing connection in the criminal world, and he had the combined power of four agencies to search for me. With all of that, he didn't even find me, you did. When did you pick up the trail that led you back to the warehouse?"

He hadn't thought of that, he'd been so focused on his lack of effort that he hadn't considered the obstacles he would have faced. "Uh, we didn't pick up that trail until we back-traced the sale of the Degas."

"What did you have to go off of to know that I'd been kidnapped? Was there a witness statement? Were there any random cameras that happened to show a taxi gassing their passenger in a random alley? How would you have guessed that was what you needed to look for, how could you have narrowed it down to that particular alley? I didn't know there was a way to know what agent used a key to deactivate my anklet. The Marshals must have done some huge upgrades without me being told. That's not to mention how easy it is to retrieve fingerprints off of items that have been burnt beyond the melting point. If none of these had given you the chance to find me, I'm sure sheer willpower would have manifested hints and clues for you to follow." Neal might have gone on, but to what Peter had no idea.

Holding up his hand, Peter stopped him. "Okay, okay, I get your point. There wasn't a particular way I could have found you before that point. The evidence didn't show up until the sale of the Degas. However, it doesn't mean that I couldn't have missed something there. If they'd have covered their tracks better, I might not have found you in time. Even just a few more minutes would have made the difference between us rescuing you and burying you."

He had to close his eyes as a shiver ran up his spine. That was new material for his nightmares. What if he hadn't picked up the information as quickly, what if the judge took longer to clear the warrant, or what if they'd gotten stuck in traffic? There were several possible ways that he could have been too late.

A hand on his shoulder showed him that he'd been lost in his thoughts for too long because Neal had been able to get up and make his way across the space between them. "I said stop blaming yourself. You don't seem to be listening to me."

Standing up, Peter gently put his arms around Neal. He couldn't hold the man in a hug because of the damage to his sternum, but he also wanted the reassurance that his friend was okay, at least alive and recovering. Leaning his head forward, he rested it near his friend's shoulder since nothing was broken there. "And I said I can't."

Wrapping his arms around him, Neal leaned his head into his shoulder which was easier for him due to the gap between them, the height difference, and the lack of injuries to be avoided. "I know the feeling, Peter, and it will get better. Eventually, the guilt will lessen since logic will slowly override your emotions."

"I hope not. This has been a lesson for me to get back to digging deeper than the evidence, to seek the actual truth instead of being so easily led." He confessed some of the thoughts that were rolling around in his head.

Rocking his head against his shoulder, Neal didn't seem to agree. "That's just the guilt talking. You always dig deeper than the obvious surface that the evidence might indicate. That's why your solve rate is so high and your recovery rate the highest in the agency. It'll take time to get your mind to stop going back into this cycle, but you need to work on it, okay? If you don't want to talk to me, tell Elizabeth these thoughts and she can help talk some sense into you."

"I'm always happy to help talk some sense into him, but what sense is it this time?" Elizabeth asked as she made her presence known.

Stepping back from Neal to see her, Peter saw the concern on her face as she joined them to kiss him on the lips and Neal on the cheek in greeting.

"He keeps trying to take too much credit for failing to figure out what was really going on and rescuing me any sooner than he already did. It's not like anyone else figured it out other than Mozzie, but he had more information than anyone else too, and as I already pointed out, Peter was still the one to find me, not Mozz." Neal was looking tired from standing for so long while dealing with the emotional conversation.

"Come on, let's get you upstairs to the bathroom and then you can settle back on the couch until dinner." Peter offered since it had been a while and the man shouldn't wait until he needed to go too badly since it would take him time to hobble upstairs.

Agreeing, Neal let him accompany him upstairs.

When they made it without incident, Peter left Neal to his business while he waited leaning against the wall a few feet away to give him some privacy.

After a few minutes, they took another trip down and back to the couch.

With Neal drifting off in another nap, Peter went to the kitchen to help Elizabeth get dinner ready for the evening.

"So, he picked up on your nightmares did he?" Elizabeth asked as she started planning her course of action.

"I don't think it was that hard for him, even in his condition. It's also a natural reaction to what happened. I'm sure Neal's also been having his own nightmares, but he insists that he's okay, that he's working through them. He's probably been talking to Mozzie and he has training for how to handle what happened… and sadly, also experienced going through this. I'm going to keep an eye on him, but there isn't much that I can do for him if he won't let me in." That was another point that kept bothering him. He wanted to be there for Neal, to help his friend and partner, but Neal kept holding him at arm's distance putting more focus on his reaction than his own.

Moving to kiss him, his wife supported him which was something he needed. "I know you'll keep doing what you can, and it might be helping him to help you. Open up to him; let him know what's running through your mind. It gives him something productive to do and it helps you deal with it. Then as you open up, you might be able to get him to in return."

Feeling better, he hoped it would work; at least Neal had been able to talk him through some of his guilt. It had felt good to get that off of his chest and hug his friend.

The rest of the evening passed quickly and then they got ready for bed before settling in for the night.


Things were fairly restful for the first half of the night, but then Peter woke up from one of his typical nightmares.

Getting up and going across the hall to the guest room, he decided to peek in and noticed that Neal was also tossing lightly and moaning in his sleep. Apparently, it was the hour of nightmares.

Gently moving to wake him up, he was surprised to hear tears in Neal's voice when he asked what was going on.

"I just woke up from my nightmare and checked on you to find you trapped in your own. If I tell you what mine was about, will you tell me about yours?" He thought it was worth trying Elizabeth's idea.

"What was yours about?" Neal didn't agree, but at least he was willing to listen which might lead to him sharing.

"The usual. We arrive at the warehouse and find the room they kept you in, but you're already dead, like beyond repair. However, I try CPR because I can't be too late, I can't have failed, I need to at least try to do something to save you! There are loud cracks as your sternum breaks, perhaps some of your ribs because nightmares tend to over-dramatize the issue. Then I wake up in a total panic that you're dead and that's not right!" He felt his own tears mist his eyes as he recounted the dream and the images played out in his mind again.

"I'm usually hanging on the wall after they left me for dead. The feed is playing you and the team hanging out around the office, and you're talking about me. Not that I'm guilty and you feel betrayed…" He stopped, he was managing to keep his tears at bay, but Peter could see them by the light of the moon as they glistened down his cheek.

Reaching out to gently pull him up and put his arm around Neal's shoulders, he did what Neal had done to him earlier. "I'm going to guess what the rest is. We believe that you're gone, perhaps we think you died in the explosion and your remains were burnt beyond recognition, or maybe we think you ran with the treasure, but either way, we're just glad that you're gone? You're a con, always were, and always will be?"

Neal stiffened and stopped breathing.

"Breathe," Peter ordered and waited to hear him resume breathing before he continued. "That would never happen, Neal! We weren't happy that you were gone, we felt betrayed that you might have left with the treasure, and we missed you which made it even worse. It wasn't the same without you around. Do you think that me staying home to work my cases is all because I'm willing to play nurse to you? It's also so that I can work with my partner and friend again. Whether you feel up to helping or not is up to you, I just like being able to ask you questions when I need another opinion. You might not be a real con, but you're fantastic at getting into the role."

Leaning his head into his shoulder, Neal relaxed. "Thanks, Peter. I needed to hear that."

"And I'll repeat it as often as you'd like. Just, just remind me that you're alive and okay when I need it too. This scared me more than anything else ever has." Peter continued the gentle sideways hug since Neal was still too injured for a real hug.

"Will do," Neal's voice was getting softer.

Waiting, it wasn't long before he started to slide off of his shoulder so Peter caught him, gently lowered him back onto the bed, and tucked him in. Ruffling his hair, Peter then rested his hand on Neal's head. It was relaxing for him to watch and listen to him sleep.

The soft and even breathing and the feeling of his warmth radiating off of his head were reassuring of him being alive and recovering.

One last ruffle, and he went back to his own bed. Maybe he'd be able to get back to sleep for the first time?


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