WC: Three Months - Chapter 1
White Collar -- Fanfiction
Disclaimer:
All recognizable characters are property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network.
No copyright infringement intended.
Title: Three Months -- Chapter 1/3
- Rating: PG-13
- Category: Drama, H/C, missing scenes
- Spoilers: Out of the Box, Withdrawal
A collection of missing scenes of what may have happened to Neal Caffrey in the three months between watching a plane explode and robbing a bank.
Chapter 1
“We’re taking him in now, Peter.” Reese Hughes touches his top agent’s elbow, drawing Peter’s watchful eye away from the young man sitting on the tarmac some twenty yards away. It takes the distracted man a moment to process his superior’s words.
“You can’t be serious, Reese? The kid just got a lungful of his girlfriend’s ashes. Cut him some slack,” Peter says with an incredulous frown.
“The kid just robbed a foreign consulate, Agent Burke.” Hughes promptly points out.
“Are the Italians pressing charges?” Peter asks.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Peter retorts. He knows his tone is bordering insubordination. “Just put him back in the anklet and send him home.”
“The anklet?” Hughes’ voice remains calm as his eyes narrow. “You mean the same anklet Caffrey has been tampering with for the past few days?”
Peter’s lips tighten for a moment.
“You know that was Garrett Fowler’s doing.”
“Ah, Garrett Fowler. Remind me, Agent Burke, is that the OPR agent you shot earlier today? Using an FBI weapon, in spite of being currently relieved of your duties?” Hughes inches closer to Peter, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper. “If Caffrey had no part in manipulating the tracker, then why didn’t he come to you the second the damn thing went offline?”
“He did.” Peter acquiesces, stretching the truth by shrinking the time frame of Neal’s confession of the nonfunctional tracker.
“Then you better stop talking now and save your explanations for the DOJ.” Hughes rebukes the younger man. “You’re knee-deep in it, Peter, and it ain’t chocolate!”
“What about Neal?”
“Caffrey’s neck-deep in it.” Hughes replies. “Look Peter, if it’s not us taking him in, it’s going to be the marshals.”
“Then tell them to back the hell off, Reese,” Peter urges. “It wouldn’t be the first time they are stepping on our toes. Neal is our problem, not theirs.”
“No, Peter, Caffrey is your problem,” Hughes states dryly. “When you came to me with your-with Caffrey’s-idea to tether the two of you together for four years, I told you quite frankly that there was a good chance that this little project would end up costing you everything you have worked for since acing those SATs in high school. Now take a long, hard look at what may very well be the smoldering remains of your career over there and remember that image. And in the future, when you feel charitable, go to the pound and get another dog.”
Hughes doesn’t fail to notice that when the man in front of him follows his prompt to turn his head and look at the burning wreckage of the plane, his eyes never make it past the hunched figure on the tarmac. The white-haired man can only shake his head.
“You can’t do that to him, Reese! I’m asking you as a friend,” Peter begs with quiet restraint, his gaze remaining fixed on his partner a good distance away.
“We go back a long way, Peter,” Reese concedes, his tone warming by a degree. “And that is the only reason you are still tolerated at this crime scene. You’re a civilian, if I may remind you.”
Peter’s breath leaves him in a long, deflating sigh as he passes his hands through his hair. He knows his efforts are futile, but the owes the broken man on the tarmac one last push.
“Reduce his radius, put him under house arrest. Or lock him up at the Bureau. My office is empty.” Peter wonders if he sounds as desperate as he feels, if he is rambling away whatever little respect Reese Hughes has managed to retain for him through all of this. “Temporarily assign Neal a new case agent. I’m positive Jones would volunteer if I asked him.”
Hughes holds up a hand to silence him.
“I’m a DOJ hearing away from losing my best agent,” he states solemnly. “I am not going to let a young agent risk his career out of loyalty to you and your inexplicable desire to make a felon’s life more cushy than he deserves. We need to look out for our own, Peter, first and foremost.”
“Neal has been one of our own for the past few months, Reese!” Peter’s jaw is set, his chest heaving as he looks his superior straight in the eye.
“No, Agent Burke, he hasn’t. And you should have known better than to let those lines blur. Caffrey is a criminal who deceives people for personal enrichment and-I strongly suspect-purely for kicks. You can’t trust him and, apparently, you can’t trust yourself.”
“Reese, I will stand here and eat crow all day long if that’s what you want, but this isn’t about me.” Peter ignores the exasperated eye roll of his superior. “Caffrey-Neal-has put his life on the line for us over and over again. Maybe I’m delusional for it, but I think of him as my partner. We don’t treat our partners this way.”
“And that’s why we are taking him in, not the marshals.” Hughes cuts him off. “I’m sorry, Peter. That’s the best I can offer. Discussion over.”
Peter hangs his head in defeat.
“Would it be a waste of my breath to ask permission to ride along?” He asks, his fight trickling out of him.
Hughes just shakes his head in disbelief and awe of his agent’s tenacity.
“Go home to Elizabeth, Peter.”
“I’d like ten minutes with my partner,” Peter announces as he stretches to his full 6 feet 2, his gaze trained on the older man. He isn’t asking.
“You have five.” Hughes pulls a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket and hands them to Peter. He turns around, leaving his agent to stare at the metal in his hands.
==
With his bag strap still tightly slung across his chest and the tails of his tailored overcoat splayed out across the asphalt around him, Neal sits cross-legged on the bare tarmac, his hands resting limply in his lap. A coarse, gray blanket, provided by the EMTs and wrapped around the con man’s shoulders by Peter some thirty minutes ago, threatens to slip to the ground. Even from far away Peter can see his body shake.
Slipping the handcuffs into his coat pocket, Peter takes a deep breath and starts out towards his friend. Jones quietly materializes in his path.
“Boss.” He holds out a paper cup of coffee, steam rising from the sip hole.
“Thank you, Jones.” Peter accepts with a grateful nod at the junior agent.
“Sure. Let me know if you need anything.” Jones backs away as quickly as he appeared.
Peter watches Jones’ return to the host of FBI agents, NYPD officers and FAA officials that are collecting evidence and taking down witness statements. Hughes is right, he admits. Jones is a decent man and a loyal friend who deserves better than to have his promising career jeopardized by his unfaltering dedication to his superior.
His focus back on Neal, Peter travels the distance between them, trying to ignore the unsettling sight of the smoking remains of the plane that hover at the edge of his field of vision. The smell of burning kerosene and smoldering synthetics makes his stomach turn. He takes a quick sip of the scalding hot and acrid coffee, hoping to wash away the offensive taste of ash and chemical fire extinguisher that has collected on his tongue.
When Peter reaches Neal, his presence at the young man’s side provokes no noticeable response. He sets the coffee cup onto the ground, freeing both hands to grasp the slipping blanket and readjust its position around the trembling frame. Keeping a hand on Neal’s shoulder for balance and to reassure himself that the young man is still here and alive, Peter lowers himself to the ground next to his friend. The cold seeps immediately through the bottom of his pants, and he questions the wisdom of his earlier decision to send the EMTs packing when they insisted on relocating Neal to the warmth of the ambulance.
Peter mimics Neal’s cross-legged position, his right knee and shoulder touching Neal’s left. For a moment he considers the odd image the two of them must present to the throng of firemen, agents and bureaucrats milling around them. He looks over at the profile of Neal’s face as the young man stares straight ahead into the smoldering wreckage of the jet. His lips are slightly parted and tinged blue, his skin waxen and bloodless in the frosty breeze.
“Neal. Buddy.” Peter wraps his arm around his friend’s shoulder. He pulls him in, his hand rubbing Neal’s upper arm through the blanket. “You’re freezing.”
Up ahead, a frizzle is followed by a loud pop as yet another small building block of the jet disintegrates. At the startling noise Neal shrinks with a sudden flinch, a strangled sound, more of a whimper than a gasp, escaping his tight throat.
“It’s okay, Neal.” Peter soothes, drawing the distraught man close. Almost unnoticeably Neal shakes his head because absolutely nothing is okay. Peter pulls his friend tighter against his shoulder, hoping that this gesture will offer greater comfort than his words. He wishes he were better at situations like this; he really wishes it had never come to a situation like this. He knows he will have to make his next words count, and he lays them out carefully before he continues.
“Neal, I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for what happened here,” Peter speaks quietly, his voice unsteady with emotion. “I know that you and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye about Kate, but I know how much you loved her and what losing her means to you. I am very, very sorry and if there was anything I could have done to prevent this, I-“ He stops for fear that his voice will break. “Neal, you will-we will-get through this. I promise. Elizabeth and I are here for you. You know that, right?”
Neal turns his head to look at him, his eyes wide and haunted, moisture brimming under bloodshot white and blue. Peter doesn’t know if it is the gravity of his words or simply gravity that sends a sudden surge of tears down the young man’s cheeks. The quiet sobs that follow carry into the shoulders under Peter’s arm, adding a discordant rhythm of rattling convulsions to the incessant tremble already in place.
Peter’s hand leaves the other man’s shoulder to cup the back of his head instead. Neal puts up no resistance when his face is pulled against the warm support of his friend’s neck. Twisting at the waist, he sags further against Peter’s chest, his sobbing unrestrained and no longer silent. Neal’s fist comes up to desperately bury into the lapel of the suit that has been the target of his constant ridicule, but now turns out to be the only thing offering him anchorage as the world around him plummets into an abyss of sorrow.
“It’s-“ Peter scrambles for the right thing to say while feeling utterly powerless. “It’s going to be okay, Neal.” He fears his words aren’t spoken with enough conviction to convince the man in his arms-or to convince himself. He fears that nothing is going to be okay again for Neal, whose world revolved around the woman lost today. But maybe ‘okay’ was too much to ask. Maybe an approximation of ‘okay’ would be enough to keep Neal afloat. Maybe Peter could do something to help restore that approximation. His thumb brushes the nape of Neal’s neck. “I’m here, buddy. It’ll be alright.”
It takes long, uncounted minutes for the sobbing against his chest to slowly lessen in intensity and frequency. Peter knows his permitted time with his partner has long passed. He twists his head as far as possible while still holding on to Neal. He locates Hughes from the corner of his eye, the senior agent watching them intently. Peter catches a brief hand signal that clearly indicates to take all the time he needs. It’s not the first time that Peter wonders how Hughes managed to retain his humanity through his many years spent in a job dictated by politics, protocol and procedures.
There’s a long shaky exhalation against Peter’s chest before Neal pushes away, returning to his previous cross-legged sitting position with a string of sniffles. His face is flushed and stained with tears and he shoots Peter a sideways glance that may be aimed to communicate gratitude or embarrassment or a confused combination of both.
Peter digs through his pockets, producing a wrinkly recycled-paper napkin from the coffee shop outside the Bureau. There is a coffee stain on it but it will do the job. He hands the napkin to Neal who promptly wipes his face and politely turns his head to blow his nose.
“Thank you,” He says with a raw voice that is barely above a whisper. Peter offers up the cup of coffee in lieu of a reply.
Neal opens his mouth to turn it down but Peter cuts him off.
“Just take it already, Neal. To warm your hands if nothing else.” The young man complies and is suddenly glad that his shaking fingers have something to hold on to. He takes a sip because that action is almost a reflex when a cup of coffee is placed in his hands.
“What now?” Neal asks, his gaze back on the wreckage in front of him. Peter sighs. His mind races, trying to work up the courage to break the news to his friend that he is going back to jail. It turns out to be easier than expected.
“Am I back in?” The con man asks blankly.
“Yeah. For now,” Peter replies.
“How long do you think?” Neal turns to look at him, and Peter seeks to detect hints of anger or accusation in his friend’s eyes and fails to find any.
“I’m not sure,” Peter answers honestly. “A few weeks at least. The DOJ has launched an investigation. There’ll eventually be a hearing that determines my employment status. If-as soon as-I get my badge back I can start pulling some strings for you. Get our deal reinstated, if you still want it.”
“Burke, Caffrey.” Hughes materializes in front of the sitting pair. Peter wonders if this is the last time he’ll hear these names so closely linked together out of the older man’s mouth. “We need to get going.”
“Come on, kiddo, it’s time.” Peter sighs. He reclaims the coffee cup and sets it aside. Standing up, he hooks his fingers under Neal’s shoulder and pulls the con man to his unsteady legs as the blanket slides to the ground at their feet. Peter grabs the strap of Neal’s shoulder bag and lifts it over the other man’s head, hanging it over his own shoulder instead.
“I’ve got him from here, Agent Burke,” Hughes states. Peter pulls the handcuffs from his pocket and hands them to Hughes. The senior agent slips them into his coat, and Peter thanks him with a nod that he hopes will convey his gratitude for sparing his friend the humiliation of being led away in restraints.
“You’re not coming, Peter?” A trace of panic creeps into Neal’s voice, his gaze darting between the two agents. Peter only shakes his head.
“I’m a civilian, remember?” He puts his hand on Neal’s back. “Listen, Neal, I may not be able to see you. But your lawyer will. You might want to tell me how to get a hold of him.” Peter stops short of miming quotations marks around the word lawyer.
“Elizabeth knows how.” Peter’s brow furrows as he is trying to gauge the validity of that claim. He rolls his eyes when he realizes that Neal is being honest. Neal offers a small shrug that gives Peter an inkling of hope that not all of Neal was broken today. He follows a few steps behind as Hughes takes Neal by the arm and leads him to the waiting car. Hughes opens the passenger door and Neal climbs inside without protest.
“Reese?” Peter approaches the senior agent as he walks around to the driver’s side. “I wanted to thank you for taking him personally.”
Hughes takes in the concern spelled out so plainly across his friend’s face.
“Look, Peter, I know you worry about him. But Caffrey was supposed to be on this plane, too. Maybe the Supermax is the safest place for him right now.”
“I want him under suicide watch, Reese.” Peter urges quietly. “He may look like he’s handling this, but what happened today was-” he searches for an appropriate word and comes up empty. “It was Kate.”
Proceed to chapter 2