Fic: Remain Faithful, part six, [White Collar]
Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 /
"You're sleeping with him!" Mozzie accuses when Neal slips and it's definitely out there, it's more than a one night stand, it's been three, almost four weeks since Neal turned to Burke for help. Mozzie knows his face is a caricature of disbelief and shock in broad strokes, but he never anticipated this. Doesn't Burke have a wife? He blurts that out because he's in shock. "He's a married man."
Neal flinches hard and Mozzie wants to kick himself. Seeing Neal in agony over Kate cut him to the quick; anything, anyone, who can bring Neal any kind of happiness is a good. But... but a Suit!? For that matter, Mozzie wishes he'd known Neal swung both ways before this. He would have hooked Neal up with Taylor, let him steal the kid from Kate. She never deserved him.
"He's divorced," Neal whispers.
"Yeah and you told me about the ex-Mrs. Burke, who he is still hung up on, not to mention - " Mozzie stops himself. Neal doesn't need the reminder; Neal's the one who told him Burke still wears his wedding ring. "Damn it." It's too soon. Neal's going to get hurt. Again. He asks, "How long?"
"Three weeks."
Mozzie scrubs his hands over his face and gets himself under control, wiping away the visible signs of his distress over this development.
Instead of saying anything more, he begins poking through the bottles of wine on Neal's counter. They're all very good, better than Neal's ever been able to afford regularly. "Where'd these come from?"
"June's wine cellar."
"I think I'm in love."
Neal smiles slightly. "Yeah, me too."
The subject of Peter Burke and Neal's potentially disastrous thing for him is tabled for the moment. Mozzie picks out a bottle of red and Neal provides a corkscrew and two wine glasses. Before he can call for some kind of take-out, they discover June's staff have stocked Neal's refrigerator and freezer with several meals that only need heating. That's in addition to the loft's fantastic view and the incredible coffee June provides. It's time Neal had some good luck, but Mozzie still feels a little envious. Just a little. He knows the nice place doesn't make up for misery Neal's going through.
Mozzie commandeers the couch for himself after they eat, pouring himself and Neal each another glass of the very fine red. Neal curls in a chair with his ever-present sketchbook. They sit quietly for some time, before the silence gets to Mozzie and he starts talking at random. He riffs on the Knights Templar for a while, then disparages Dan Brown with venomous contempt as a shill for the Man. "That tripe was misdirection. Inoculating the masses against the truth."
"And the truth is?" Neal asks curiously. Neal always sounds curious and, well, interested when Mozzie lays out the conspiracies that surround them. Mozzie knows it's more curiosity over what he'll claim next than belief, because Neal has mocked several of his theories, albeit gently, over the years, but only ever to Mozzie's face. He defends Mozzie to anyone else, even Kate once. Neal's not a doormat, even if he is inclined to try to make everyone around him happy.
"Out there," Mozzie answers promptly. "But only if you take off your blinders and look."
"Funny, you don't look like Fox Mulder."
"Funny, haha. That's just another example of Big Media playing patsy to the secret cabal that really controls the world's governments. Global misinformation is no joke, my friend. Say it's fiction and then anyone who claims, rightly, that these things are real is labeled as a whacko."
Neal nods in apparent agreement. Mozzie finishes his wine, well aware Neal is watching him now, and that he's getting twitchy enough to set off Neal's alarms.
"So what is it?" Neal sets the sketchpad and his pencil on the coffee table and picks up his wine.
Mozzie blinks twice. He wishes he'd worn tinted glasses. They always make him feel a little armored, like no one can see into his eyes and his head through them. Not that anyone can, except Neal who sometimes seems to be able to read Mozzie without effort. It's really a crying shame Neal isn't interested in a life of crime. He'd be brilliant.
"Well."
"Mozzie."
"There are certain rumors."
"Rumors."
"That you may need to know about. Perhaps even the Suit."
Neal's eyes widen and Mozzie hurries to go on. "My many contacts report that - "
"Your many contacts?" Neal repeats in amusement.
"Yes. I cultivate mutually beneficial information sharing among a wide range of individuals."
"You pay Sally to hack people's computers."
"Among other sources," Mozzie insists.
"And?"
Neal takes a sip of his wine. Mozzie waits for him to swallow, not wanting to elicit a spit take or make him choke. "Vincent Adler is in New York, Neal."
Neal sets the wine glass down abruptly. "He's here?"
"I think so. My source says he was in Copenhagen before that." Mozzie pauses then lays out the part that really scares him, for Neal and over what Neal may do. "Alex was there too."
"They were together?" Neal's quick, but he's not ruthless. He doesn't think like a killer or really even a crook. He thinks of allies, not victims. Because of that, he doesn't draw the right conclusion this time. Mozzie's managed to instill a certain level of paranoia in him, but never enough cynicism.
"If they were, they're not now," Mozzie replies. "Neal, she's dead. Someone found her body in the water. The ID only came through a couple of days ago, but she'd been missing almost two months. She was supposed to meet Hale in Montreal and never made it."
Neal's face goes pale and blank. "He - "
"I don't know," Mozzie says. "Could he be the one?"
"The one who bought Fowler?" Neal finishes. "Yes. Of course he is." Anger seethes through his voice. His face is set and hard; eyes hot as blue flames. He jumps to his feet, picks up his sketchbook and throws it at the bookcase-covered wall. The sketchbook breaks and its pages filled with beauty crumple and tear, falling loose and fluttering to the floor. Neal stands with his hands clenched in fists at his side, breathing hard. "It's him, Moz. It's Adler. He's the one behind everything. He wants the music box."
Neal stands with his fists clenched, breathing hard, and Mozzie sees the pieces fall into place. Fowler, Adler, Alex, Kate, that damned amber music box Kate gave Neal as a 'fuck you' to Adler when Adler gave her the boot. Mozzie can guess every thought racing through Neal's head and he thinks it's going to crack Neal, because Neal will blame himself.
Neal refused to tell Kate where he hid the music box. Now he's probably thinking Kate died because he's selfish, because he knew she'd want the box back someday and made sure she couldn't find it - Mozzie helped, so he's entitled to a hefty helping of self-blame too - because that was Neal's way of getting back at her for choosing Adler over him.
Mozzie knows Neal's feeling guilty because he is as well. He can't say anything. Adler screwed them all. The wine tastes sour, but he slurps it down. Cheap or expensive, it'll get him drunk either way. He wonders if he was wrong to tell Neal about Adler. No, he had to do it. Adler always had an interest in Neal; Neal needs to be prepared.
Neal closes his eyes. Tears slip down his face. Mozzie pours them both another glass of wine and pretends he doesn't see. He doesn't ask if Neal is going to tell the Suit. Neal will make up his mind and Mozzie will go along with him, whatever he decides, and plan for the worst, just in case Burke turns out to be dirty too.
Paranoia is a skill. He keeps in practice.
~*~
Peter's read through Kate's file so many times he can recite the information in his sleep. He provided most of it. He slaps the file closed in frustration. There's still nothing there to link Kate to Fowler or anyone who would have hired the dirty agent to get to her.
Worry keeps tugging at Peter's gut, too. Neal isn't in the office and he didn't come back to Peter's apartment the night before. Something is wrong. Maybe Neal's tired of him already, though it's only been a little over two weeks. It isn't like Peter's made a commitment. He's made a point of being honest about his intentions and how he still feels about El. Neal accepts that they aren't permanent. Maybe not. Maybe he regrets giving up Kate's loot. Peter still can't read what's going on in Neal's head half the time.
None of the personal stuff matters, Peter reminds himself. Neal's still a target. Peter's sure of that and the sudden silence and separation alarms him.
Because, even if it isn't love, Peter does care, damn it, and he needs to know Neal's okay.
He picks up his phone and scrolls through to find Neal's number. It's a conscious effort not to hold his breath while the phone rings.
A silent sigh still escapes Peter as soon as Neal answers. "Peter?"
"Lunch?" Even the days when Neal doesn't come into the White Collar office with Peter to go over the inventories from the caches they've emptied and speculate on what's in the ones that lie farther afield, they've grown into a habit of meeting for lunch. He even brought Neal with him to his regular lunch date with Elizabeth last week. Neal's fit himself into Peter's life so naturally it's disturbing.
A pause follows his suggestion, alerting Peter that something's off. Neal doesn't take time to answer, he's so quick and always aware.
"Not today," Neal finally replies, "Okay?"
"Why not?" Peter knows he sounds suspicious and winces at himself. Treating someone he's sleeping with like a suspect is the kind of thing that would earn him a chewing out from El if he had the gall to mention it to her. But they already have a routine and this disruption sets off Peter's inner alarms.
"I'm painting."
"You're at the studio?"
"Yeah."
Peter considers kicking himself. Neal's not trying to come up with an excuse to avoid him, he's focused on his own work, something Peter should - and usually does - respect in other professionals.
"Look, you could come by for dinner," Neal suggests. Unspoken but clear is the invitation for Peter to stay the night. Just as clear is Neal's need to end the call and go back to his painting. Peter feels vaguely put out; just because he's always put his job first doesn't mean it's any fun to find himself run face first into the experience from the other side.
"Do you want me to bring something?" he asks.
"Italian," Neal replies promptly.
The sheer domesticity of their conversation strikes Peter after he ends the call. He finds himself staring at the phone in his hand and wondering how he ended up sleeping with Kate's boyfriend. What could Neal see in him beyond the man who locked Kate away? Why put up with Peter when he knows Peter will leave him to go back to Elizabeth given even a hint he has a chance? Peter's been up front about that, after all.
Is it really just sex for Neal?
Neal is even more of an enigma than Kate.
That insight sends Peter after a considerably thinner file, one kept on a known associate of a suspected criminal: Neal's. Other agents assembled the file, including Paulson and Berilli, who have both moved on to other units since, but Peter is the one who contributed most of it. If asked, he would claim he knows the contents as well as he knows Kate's file.
It would be true, but the truth is there are holes in Neal's file that no one bothered to fill because the Bureau wasn't interested in Neal except as a way to get to Kate.
Peter flips through the background reports, the surveillance logs, the travel timelines, information provided by Customs, the IRS, interviews with a couple of neighbors, teachers from the art school he attended before dropping out the same year he met Kate. He's zoning out when an oddity pulls his attention back to the IRS employment forms. Neal filed income tax from two different employers the year he dropped out of art school. The first few months of that year he worked at an art gallery. Peter has always assumed Neal met Kate there.
His finger pauses at the name of Neal's second employer. It's too familiar. Kate held a job with the same company. That's not why Peter knows the name, though.
While he may not have every detail memorized, Peter knows the names and major players involved in most of the New York office's white collar cases from the last ten years. It's certainly hard to forget the one that embarrassed both the Bureau and the SEC when the guilty party skipped out of the country hours ahead of an arrest warrant.
Most agents still remember Vincent Adler.
The company Neal dropped out of art school to take a very well paying job with belonged to Adler. It fronted Adler's giant Ponzi scheme and was the same one the billionaire looted before boarding his chartered jet and disappearing.
Peter scrubs his hands over his face before rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, trying to release the tension locking all his muscles tight.
Neal hasn't said anything about Vincent Adler. Okay, maybe Neal hasn't seen any reason to mention he worked for a crook, but it's still bothersome. At least, it bothers Peter. The last that the Bureau managed to track Adler, the man had gone to ground in Argentina. There's no reason to believe he isn't still there, living under an assumed name and enjoying his stolen billions; there's also no reason to think he's come back to New York or has anything to do with Kate Moreau's murder. Yet Peter's instincts all clamor that there is a connection.
Does Neal know about it, though?
Peter picks up his office phone and connects to the file room, telling them wearily, "I need the Adler files. All of them."
~*~
He needs to tell Peter about Adler. Just the thought makes Neal feel ill, though. Laying out what a fool he'd been, first for Adler and then with Kate, terrifies him for reasons he can't articulate to himself, except he trusted them both and they both betrayed him. His instincts urge him to go on trusting Peter but experience says Peter will abandon him the way they did. Telling Peter about Kate leaving him for Adler that first time promises only humiliation. Neal has a superstitious sense that revealing his past will just ensure it repeats.
Idiotic as that idea is, he can't shake it.
Kate said she loved him, but Peter's never said anything close to that. Peter's been adamant that he still loves Elizabeth and still wants to get back together with her. Even if he hadn't, Neal has eyes. At lunch with Elizabeth, Peter sees only her.
Plus, there's the damned music box Kate gave him. Neal's never even liked it, but he was determined he would hold onto it, even if Kate wanted it back. He hid it from her and part of him wants to keep holding onto it.
If he tells Peter about Adler, then he has to tell him about the music box, because it's the box Adler wants. It has to be, it's the only thing that makes sense of Kate and Alex's murders. Adler thinks the box holds some kind of prize or secret - Neal isn't sure and doesn't care anyway - that he's willing to kill to get. Once he tells Peter all of that, everything will come out, and Neal will have to turn the box over to the Bureau.
It would keep him safe, though. Once Adler knows Neal doesn't have it or any way to get it, he won't have any more interest in Neal. He proved that when he took Kate to Argentina with him and they left Neal behind.
Adler will go to ground again if he hears the FBI has the music box, though. He won't be caught. He won't pay for Kate's murder or Alex's either.
Neal adds another highlight to the detail on the cherub key he's painted Adler holding. Adler should look like a monster, but he doesn't. Only the way his hand folds around the cherub, closed on its wings, smothering it, gives away the darker side Adler always had.
If he doesn't mention Adler to Peter, then what? Set up a con, trick Adler, revenge Kate and Alex?
Kill him?
Neal jerks his hand back before he lays an angry streak of carmine across the pristine white of the shirt he's painted Adler wearing. His hand shakes as he sets the loaded brush aside. He can't. He can't even stomach the idea of killing someone, even someone who is a killer. It would stain something inside him forever.
He doesn't know what to do. Remain faithful to Kate, do what he knows she'd want him to do to take down Adler, or go on believing in Peter and trust Peter can do what's right?
Peter will arrive soon.
The painting is nearly finished. Neal's still unsure. There's Kate and the past or there's Peter and his future... but there isn't Peter in his future, not once Kate's killer is caught. He carefully cleans the carmine from his brush and begins laying in highlights on a cufflink, where a distorted image of the music box reflects in its polished surface. The delicate work, done from memory, soothes him and he pushes aside his doubts again.
~*~
The loft is dark, as dark as it can be with all the glass and New York just outside it. Peter can pick out shapes but no details, no colors. Sweat dries on Peter's chest. He should get out of bed and clean up. He should do that and go home. He does none of those things.
Neal sleeps on his stomach, head pillowed on one arm, facing away from Peter. It's not rejection, it's trust, or something that looks very like it. With the white sheets tangled low at his hips, the line of his back, the slow curve of his spine under ivory skin, invites Peter's fingers to trace it. He knows if he does, Neal will hum under his breath, smooth swimmer's muscles rippling in response, moving into his touch before he even rises out of sleep.
Peter resists. He wants to look at Neal like this and think. Once Neal opens his eyes, all Peter's ability to weigh the facts dissolves.
He has to wonder because Neal was with Kate Moreau three years and when he wasn't with her, this Mozzie guy could have have been teaching him too. How can Peter be sure Neal isn't playing some deep game? Neal has the skills.
It all comes back to Adler in the end.
Neal met Kate through Vincent Adler, Kate abandoned him for Adler and his stolen millions, and now Adler is back in New York. Adler saw Neal first, plucked a second year art student from a boring gallery job to become the youngest art acquisitions director in New York. Molded and polished, and according to at least two people Peter has re-interviewed in the last week, bedded Neal just the way he did Kate, before bringing the two of them together.
Is Neal still loyal Adler? Had it been more than a mentor and protege arrangement between Neal and Adler before Kate stole Neal's heart? Is the story just spite?
Peter wants to shake Neal awake and pull all the answers out of him while he's warm with sleep and pliant as a willow limb dipping to the water.
He gets out the bed and pads to where his shorts ended up on the polished wooden floor, puts them on, considers putting on something more, but it's at the cusp between very late and very early. Neither June nor any of her staff are likely to glimpse him through the terrace's French doors. Not that even a state of complete undress would phase June Ellington. Byron Ellington was a rogue of the first order as well as one of the most talented artists of his generation. June was the one who turned his talent into a staggering fortune, though, and she did it by playing up his rogue's reputation and her own wild ways. June's certainly wise enough to realize what Neal and Peter get up to in the loft's luxurious bed, even if they do try to stay quiet.
Neal has beer in the refrigerator for Peter. The brand Peter buys for himself by preference. It isn't surprising. Neal's seen the inside of Peter's refrigerator and he notices things like that. Peter contemplates opening a bottle but gets himself a glass of water instead.
He walks back to the bedroom and stands at the foot of the bed, just looking at Neal sleep. He's been learning Neal since finding him at Elizabeth's office; a hundred small things reports and surveillance could never reveal. Painting means more to Neal than anything, for instance, and his paintings reflect him.
If he wants to know what's in Neal's head, for instance, Peter has only to look and see what he's painting. Neal hasn't said anything about Adler, but there's a picture of him, paint still wet, in the attached studio. It's no coincidence that Neal is painting Vincent Adler now.
Can they be in league with each other?
Peter doesn't want to even think it, but it could all be a long con. Neal could have been setting up Kate since she went to jail. Even the beating could have been manufactured. But if Neal's that devious, then every emotion he's shown Peter is likely a lie too.
Kate's file is full of seductions. She never got to Peter, but he had El then.
Maybe Neal's even better than Kate was.
Is it possible to lie with your body? Of course it is, Peter thinks bitterly. But Neal didn't hide the Adler painting from him.
Neal shifts on the bed and reaches into the emptiness where Peter was lying.
Surely no one can lie in their sleep?
"Peter?" he murmurs when Peter slides back into his place in the bed, hand finding Peter's waist and curving along it, an unconscious bid for the reassurance of touch. Peter cups the ball of Neal's shoulder, bone and lean muscle fitting his hand perfectly.
"I'm here."
~*~
Thank God for Mozzie, Neal thinks as he answers his phone. Otherwise the voice on the other end would shock him into stupidity.
"Hello, Neal."
And thank God Peter slept in and called to tell Neal he is staying late at the office to make up for that and going back to his apartment afterward. He'd have to hide who he's talking to if Peter were here.
"Vincent."
"You don't sound surprised."
Neal sits down at his kitchen table because his knees feel weak. Peter would not approve. In fact, Peter will be furious when he finds out Neal hasn't told him everything. He pushes that aside, channeling Kate. It isn't about Peter, it's about Kate. He has to be faithful to her the way Peter is still faithful to Elizabeth. Neal can't let the mess of emotions he feels for Peter affect his choices. He shouldn't, and if he does, Mozzie will say he's being a fool. Peter doesn't love Neal or doesn't want Neal to love him, so Peter's feelings shouldn't matter. That's all there is to it. If he doesn't tell Peter soonthough, there will be no going back. He knows that too.
He has to play Adler's game now, however, not worry about anything else. "I figured it out. I've been waiting for your call since your goon checked out the other day."
"Poor fellow. He missed his wife so. Interesting that you know about him."
Neal sucks in a long breath and wonders if that isn't a reference to Kate too. He's going to play it cool, the way Kate would, though. "If you believe in an afterlife, maybe he's with her. Anyway, if his people couldn't take care of him, how can I trust them to look out for me?" If Adler could reach Fowler in jail, then he must know Neal's been cooperating with the FBI. Spinning it will be smarter than denial.
Vincent laughs long and deep. "Oh, Neal, I have missed how quick you are."
"Kind of ironic, the way it turned out Kate didn't know what you were threatening me to find out," Neal says, "while I did all along."
"I have to admit it is so," Vincent agrees, his voice warm and approving the way it used to be. The pleasure Neal used to get from impressing Adler stirs inside. He hates himself for feeling that way, then and now. "My man was perhaps over enthusiastic. I never wished you harm."
"I can't say the same. After you disappeared with Kate, I spent some quality time with a bottle cursing you." It's the honest truth. Without Mozzie, Neal might have landed in the gutter, a burnt-out alcoholic before twenty-five. He runs his free hand over the grain of the table before him, wishing for a shot of vodka to ease his nerves anyway. Neal knows what Adler wants, but he doesn't know what he should do. Money, justice, revenge, love and loyalty are all too tangled in his head. Past and present want to tear him apart.
The revelation doesn't ruffle Adler. "Since you've figured it out, you know what I want."
"I do."
"Are you ready to deal?"
"Not yet," Neal says. "I have to think about what I want in exchange."
"Don't push me too far."
"Just far enough or you won't respect me in the morning."
"Kate sharpened you up."
"She did," Neal agrees. "Give me a number and I'll call you tomorrow with my terms."
Neal memorizes the number Adler recites and nods as Adler finishes, "Don't try to double-cross me, Neal."
"My little finger's still in a splint."
"Until tomorrow."
Neal ends the call before Adler can, sets his phone down on the table top, and looks around the loft blankly. He hasn't been here long and he already loves it. If he goes through with a deal with Adler, he'll have to abandon it, along with New York, and Peter. Peter. He should call Peter, tell him about Adler.
If he gives Adler the music box, he'll essentially be doing to Peter what Kate did to him: choosing Adler and money over... someone he could love. Does... love.
Neal pushes back from the table and flees to the studio before he can finish that thought.
He starts the painting so he can think. He has no subject in mind and his hands move almost without conscious intention, while he weighs the possibilities, the past against the future.
There's the kind of life Kate loved and Adler and more money than he could imagine, a life lived along the unraveling edge of the line.
On the other hand, there's Peter, Elizabeth, Mozzie and June, this studio, painting...
He's loved and been loved and he knows that's what he feels now, even if Peter never returns the feeling. Neal's hand trembles briefly, but he breathes deep through the wild rush of revelation, and lets it channel into paint and canvas and inspiration. He loves Kate. Will always. He loves Peter. One isn't a betrayal of the other. He can cling to what could have been or he can let go.
Kate takes shape under his brush, first a rough sketch in sepia, then a chiaroscuro of umber shadows, the background a sienna blur that might be his old apartment. Layer after layer of brush work pulls her from his mind out onto the canvas. It's a kind of magic, a spell, Neal sometimes thinks, that takes him over when he's creating something.
He smears pure Prussian Blue into the Mars Black shadowing Kate's hair, changes brushes, vaguely appreciating the quality of the sable Byron preferred and echoes the shade in curve of a cheekbone, on her bare shoulder, where the gleam of light traces her lips and in the dark rim of an iris. He prefers natural daylight for most of his work, but for this the fierce artificial light works better. Kate could be hard and cold; the light picks that out. He isn't painting for some sunny gallery. Like Kate, this portrait belongs to the night and the false glow of halogen and neon.
His palette fills up and the rag he uses for his brushes leaves stains on his fingers that Neal wipes on his pants and his undershirt or streaked in his hair after he thoughtlessly swipes it out of his eyes.
He paints the Kate he loved, but it isn't enough, isn't her, or rather just one facet of the whole woman, and Neal knows it and goes on, working subtle detail into her expression and her stance, the angle of her head, her focus. He paints the Kate who never saw something she wanted without taking it, the one who always danced a dozen steps ahead of anyone else. Her hand lifts the heavy swathe of her hair away from her neck, an invitation to hook a necklace around the pale stretch of her throat. A smile that's half promise and half innocence shapes her mouth. Her eyes are wide, mirrors of whatever the watcher wants to see. She's everything but pure; she's the woman who admired Vincent Adler more after discovering he was a crook than when he was her mark, she's the Kate who stole from Matthew Keller the night after he killed a man in their Barcelona apartment, who double-crossed Mozzie and who refused to tell Neal what Fowler wanted from her.
At the same time, she's the woman who laughed with him, made love to him, escaped jail to find him and left him the key to everything she ever stole. Neal puts everything they ever shared into the painting.
He lets it all go. He lets Kate, the dream and the woman, go, consigns her to paint and canvas and memory.
Kate's gone, Kate's dead, and Neal's alive. He has this, his painting, and if he's lucky, he can have Peter. He's loved and he's hurt and he can love someone else. It isn't a betrayal.
Maybe it makes sense that he can only, finally, paint the real Kate when he's in love with someone else. It's time to face up to how he feels and stop pretending Peter's just a port in the storm.
Whatever else, Neal knows as he signs his initials to the right lower corner of the life-size canvas, it is a great portrait and probably the best thing he's ever done.
It's dawn when Neal steps away. He deliberately doesn't look at the painting now that its done. Instead, he tiredly cleans the brushes and knives and his palette at the far end of the studio, where the wall shares plumbing with the loft kitchen and bathroom on the other side. His shoulders and back ache and a headache throbs behind his left eye. He's miserably reminded that in a few years he may need glasses or contacts. He checks he's capped every tube of paint and puts them away according to Byron's system, thinking he'll rearrange them to his own preferences soon.
He knows what he's going to do next. It's still early, so Neal's got time to get over to the storage facility - not one Kate used - and retrieve the music box. He heads for the shower and stands under the hot water until it gives up, before dressing in one of Byron's most elegant suits and heading out.
~*~
Peter tells himself its worry about Neal that drags him out of bed early and halfway across town to the loft before he can even get breakfast. It isn't that he misses having Neal in his apartment or being with Neal. Of course, he misses the sex - it's pretty spectacular - but one night without isn't enough to explain the itch under his skin to see Neal.
He just has this feeling. Something's not quite right. NYPD closed Kate's case weeks ago, more than satisfied to pin it on Fowler and save the state a homicide trail, Hughes and the higher-ups are too happy over the good publicity the Bureau's receiving thanks to the stolen art works recovered thanks to Neal's bout of honesty to ask any uncomfortable questions, so Peter's doubts are his alone. His gut keeps insisting there's more and it involves Vincent Adler. He doesn't know if it's because he hasn't said anything to Neal about Adler or if his doubts and worries are warranted and Neal is running his own game. Maybe it's just he's grown used to having someone else sleeping beside him. Maybe he cares more than he's ready to admit. No maybe about that and he's still trying to figure out how he ended up involved with Kate Moreau's boyfriend.
Neal gave him a key with June's permission, so Peter lets himself in and goes up the stairs without ringing the bell. It's too early for June to be up, though he catches a snatch of voices from the staff and the rattle of cookware in one of the kitchens. A second key lets Peter into the loft.
There's no one there. It's a subtle thing, but Peter can always tell. The loft is empty.
He's already figured out that while Neal has no problem getting up in the morning, he doesn't wake obscenely early, unless it's for breakfast. With June's staff adopting him, Neal has no reason to go out for food.
Peter pokes around, noting the bed has either been already made or never slept in, before giving in and checking the studio. It's possible Neal fell asleep there.
His heart skips a beat as soon as he sees the portrait of Kate.
It hits Peter worse than finding the picture of Adler a few days ago.
It's an amazing piece, and in the course his work, Peter has seen and handled several grand masters. He's even examined a forgery of a Raphael which Kate passed in Andorra that he suspects was Neal's work. He's always been impressed by Neal's talent. He's still never seen anything as sublime as this.
It's breathtaking and heartbreaking. Looking at it has tears burning Peter's eyes.
Tears for Kate, for Neal, and for himself.
Looking at Kate's picture, Peter knows in his bones that Neal will never let go. The portrait is Neal's declaration of his love. He's chosen Kate's life. He's gone to Adler.
Peter has to brace himself against a chair back as it hits him. He's lost Neal to the past. Opening his eyes again, he stares into Kate's painted eyes.
He can't do it, Peter thinks, he can't put Neal in jail, even if it means giving up Adler.
It's never been a choice before. El never made it a choice, of course. But now that it is, the division between what he's always known as right and wrong and what he'll turn a blind eye to for Neal's sake has shrunk to nothing. The revelation rocks Peter to his core. Even if Neal is and has been in league with Adler, even if he finds the evidence to prove it, arresting Neal is not an option.
Peter hates it. He hates the realization. He can't bear to hurt Neal and he hates Neal for making him feel this way. Love... He isn't supposed to love anyone except El. Now Neal's made him betray everything, even if he never has to act on it.
"Damn it, Neal," he says into the silence of the studio.
There's no sign of where Neal has gone, but the paint is still glistening wet. Neal painted it overnight. Peter resists the sickening urge to destroy the portrait, as if he could wipe away Neal's feelings as easily as he could the image on the canvas. The urge to wreck something so beautiful rises through Peter like bile. He makes himself walk out of the studio and then the loft, before he adds vandalism to his growing list of regrets.
At the office, he calls Jones and Diana into his office and grimly tells them to add Neal's name and description to the BOLOs going out.
"You think Adler has him?" Jones asks, while Diana is quiet.
"I think Neal may be with him." Peter stops and summons an explanation that doesn't condemn Neal for them. "He doesn't know Adler's connected to Fowler."
"If you say so, boss," Diana says. She doesn't believe it. Peter can't blame her. He doesn't either.
"I want to know where they both are. Nothing more. I'm alerted first," he orders.
~*~
Neal flashes his visitor's badge and a happy grin at Joseph, one of the security guards on duty in the foyer, sets his armful of cardboard box down to be scanned and empties his pockets. He's been up to the twenty-first floor so many times in the last weeks he has it down to a routine. All the security guards know him at this point.
"Hey, has Peter come in yet?" he asks.
"Agent Burke came in an hour ago."
The second guard, Denny, opens the unsealed box after the scan and makes a face at the contents. "That thing's just ugly."
"Hey, my old girlfriend gave it to me," Neal tells him. He refills his pockets absently. The truth is, he never liked it either.
"Your old girlfriend had bad taste."
"Yeah, she dated him," Joseph chimes in.
"Keep the day jobs, guys," Neal says with a tip of his hat, before scooping up the box and heading for the elevator bank. "Your future is not in comedy."
He bumps the button for White Collar's floor with the point of his elbow and waits impatiently as the elevator rises, bouncing a little on his feet, euphoric with relief after committing to his choice.
The smile starts fading at the looks he gets from the agents in the bullpen as soon as he pushes his way through the glass doors and heads for Peter's office. It's completely gone by the time he's on the stairs. He feels like he has a bull’s-eye between his shoulder blades. Diana's closed off expression as she exits Peter's office and sees him destroys what's left of his good mood.
"I didn't think we'd see you here again," she says.
"What?"
Diana flicks her dark gaze over him dismissively. "Peter said you'd be with Adler - "
"Peter said I was what!?" Neal yells before he can stop himself.
Diana's straightening, whether to smack Neal down or apologize for assuming something that infuriates him - at least in part because for an hour or two last night it was a possibility - as Peter pushes out of his office and stares at Neal.
"You're here," Peter nearly echoes Diana, but he sounds confused and hurt, not contemptuous.
"Vincent called me last night." Neal shifts the box in his arms higher. "This is what he wanted. I couldn't get to it until this morning."
"Vincent Adler," Peter clarifies.
Neal looks at Peter and wants to curl up and die. "No, Vincent Van Gogh." He shakes his head, blinking back tears before anyone can see them. His voice nearly cracks, so he keeps going with the sarcasm. "Or maybe it was Vincent Price. I get them confused - "
"What is it?" Diana interrupts.
"It's Catherine the Great's music box," Neal explains. "Kate stole it from Vincent, he probably had someone steal it too."
"How did you get it?" Peter asks.
Neal tips his head toward the conference room. "Can I put it down in there?" The box is heavy, but more than that, he wants to get out of the open and not tell this story on the upper level where everyone can see and hear them. The conference room has glass walls like Peter's office, but it's quieter and there are blinds.
"Yeah, let's go in there," Peter agrees. He switches his gaze to Diana. "Get Jones and cancel the BOLO on Neal."
It's a cold shock to the system, hearing that come from Peter, a reminder that whatever he feels, it isn't reciprocated. Peter had a Be On Look Out issued for him? That certainly tells him how Peter really thinks about him, doesn't it? Neal hides the hurt behind an annoyed frown and marches into the conference room. He places the box on the table with his shoulders set and his jaw clenched. He buries the hurt, because after all, he deserves it: he did consider making a deal with Vincent.
"So how did you get it?" Peter asks from behind him.
Neal doesn't turn. "Kate gave it to me after she left Vincent." After Adler got tired of her and dropped her is a more accurate rendition, but he still automatically protects Kate.
"And you've had it all this time. Why'd Fowler kill Kate for it?"
Neal squeezes his eyes shut before he answers and keeps them shut. "Because she didn't know where I hid it," he whispers. "I wouldn't tell her. She gave it to me and I didn't trust her not to take it back." He lets his head hang once he's said it, feeling like he's betrayed Kate or the love he had for her by admitting he refused her anything.
"Aw, damn it, Neal," he hears Peter say before two big, warm hands settle on his shoulders. "This isn't your fault."
He should step away, keep Peter from giving away more than they've agreed to reveal - which is nothing - but he can't. Neal feels like he has to store up every touch, every instance of caring, because sooner or later, something will take it away. Elizabeth will realize how much Peter still loves her and they'll get back together.
"He expects me to call him today," he tells Peter, "I can set up a meet and you can arrest him when he comes for the music box, right?"
"I'm not using you as bait." Peter's stern declaration warms some of the cold running through Neal's bones.
"He hired Fowler."
"You're not an agent."
"No, I'm the one Vincent contacted. He won't show for anyone else." Neal slides out from under Peter's hands - regretting the loss of contact immediately - so he can turn and face Peter. "He knows me. A ringer won't fool him."
"Damn it - "
From the doorway, Hughes states, "He's right, Peter." Neal jumps nervously. Thoughts of Peter and Adler have him too distracted; Hughes let himself into the conference room without Neal even noticing. Hughes considers him and asks, "You're willing to do this?"
Neal lifts his chin a little. "Yes. I'm willing."
Hughes glances at the cardboard box. "And that's what Adler wants?"
"It is."
"It can't be worth enough to risk coming back to New York with Federal warrants out on him, can it?"
That's true, but Neal is in no mood to relay Alex's wild story of stolen Nazi loot and sunken submarines. Adler may believe in it, Alex certainly did, but he doesn't. He wouldn't want any treasure stained with the real owners' blood if it did exist. Even Kate wouldn't have touched it. So Neal keeps it short. "He thinks something's hidden in it."
"Is there?"
"No idea, I've never been able to open it."
"Hmph." Hughes gives Peter the stink-eye for a moment, then leaves the room.
"Neal," Peter says quietly, "the picture of Kate... "
"Was goodbye."
~*~
Part 7
"You're sleeping with him!" Mozzie accuses when Neal slips and it's definitely out there, it's more than a one night stand, it's been three, almost four weeks since Neal turned to Burke for help. Mozzie knows his face is a caricature of disbelief and shock in broad strokes, but he never anticipated this. Doesn't Burke have a wife? He blurts that out because he's in shock. "He's a married man."
Neal flinches hard and Mozzie wants to kick himself. Seeing Neal in agony over Kate cut him to the quick; anything, anyone, who can bring Neal any kind of happiness is a good. But... but a Suit!? For that matter, Mozzie wishes he'd known Neal swung both ways before this. He would have hooked Neal up with Taylor, let him steal the kid from Kate. She never deserved him.
"He's divorced," Neal whispers.
"Yeah and you told me about the ex-Mrs. Burke, who he is still hung up on, not to mention - " Mozzie stops himself. Neal doesn't need the reminder; Neal's the one who told him Burke still wears his wedding ring. "Damn it." It's too soon. Neal's going to get hurt. Again. He asks, "How long?"
"Three weeks."
Mozzie scrubs his hands over his face and gets himself under control, wiping away the visible signs of his distress over this development.
Instead of saying anything more, he begins poking through the bottles of wine on Neal's counter. They're all very good, better than Neal's ever been able to afford regularly. "Where'd these come from?"
"June's wine cellar."
"I think I'm in love."
Neal smiles slightly. "Yeah, me too."
The subject of Peter Burke and Neal's potentially disastrous thing for him is tabled for the moment. Mozzie picks out a bottle of red and Neal provides a corkscrew and two wine glasses. Before he can call for some kind of take-out, they discover June's staff have stocked Neal's refrigerator and freezer with several meals that only need heating. That's in addition to the loft's fantastic view and the incredible coffee June provides. It's time Neal had some good luck, but Mozzie still feels a little envious. Just a little. He knows the nice place doesn't make up for misery Neal's going through.
Mozzie commandeers the couch for himself after they eat, pouring himself and Neal each another glass of the very fine red. Neal curls in a chair with his ever-present sketchbook. They sit quietly for some time, before the silence gets to Mozzie and he starts talking at random. He riffs on the Knights Templar for a while, then disparages Dan Brown with venomous contempt as a shill for the Man. "That tripe was misdirection. Inoculating the masses against the truth."
"And the truth is?" Neal asks curiously. Neal always sounds curious and, well, interested when Mozzie lays out the conspiracies that surround them. Mozzie knows it's more curiosity over what he'll claim next than belief, because Neal has mocked several of his theories, albeit gently, over the years, but only ever to Mozzie's face. He defends Mozzie to anyone else, even Kate once. Neal's not a doormat, even if he is inclined to try to make everyone around him happy.
"Out there," Mozzie answers promptly. "But only if you take off your blinders and look."
"Funny, you don't look like Fox Mulder."
"Funny, haha. That's just another example of Big Media playing patsy to the secret cabal that really controls the world's governments. Global misinformation is no joke, my friend. Say it's fiction and then anyone who claims, rightly, that these things are real is labeled as a whacko."
Neal nods in apparent agreement. Mozzie finishes his wine, well aware Neal is watching him now, and that he's getting twitchy enough to set off Neal's alarms.
"So what is it?" Neal sets the sketchpad and his pencil on the coffee table and picks up his wine.
Mozzie blinks twice. He wishes he'd worn tinted glasses. They always make him feel a little armored, like no one can see into his eyes and his head through them. Not that anyone can, except Neal who sometimes seems to be able to read Mozzie without effort. It's really a crying shame Neal isn't interested in a life of crime. He'd be brilliant.
"Well."
"Mozzie."
"There are certain rumors."
"Rumors."
"That you may need to know about. Perhaps even the Suit."
Neal's eyes widen and Mozzie hurries to go on. "My many contacts report that - "
"Your many contacts?" Neal repeats in amusement.
"Yes. I cultivate mutually beneficial information sharing among a wide range of individuals."
"You pay Sally to hack people's computers."
"Among other sources," Mozzie insists.
"And?"
Neal takes a sip of his wine. Mozzie waits for him to swallow, not wanting to elicit a spit take or make him choke. "Vincent Adler is in New York, Neal."
Neal sets the wine glass down abruptly. "He's here?"
"I think so. My source says he was in Copenhagen before that." Mozzie pauses then lays out the part that really scares him, for Neal and over what Neal may do. "Alex was there too."
"They were together?" Neal's quick, but he's not ruthless. He doesn't think like a killer or really even a crook. He thinks of allies, not victims. Because of that, he doesn't draw the right conclusion this time. Mozzie's managed to instill a certain level of paranoia in him, but never enough cynicism.
"If they were, they're not now," Mozzie replies. "Neal, she's dead. Someone found her body in the water. The ID only came through a couple of days ago, but she'd been missing almost two months. She was supposed to meet Hale in Montreal and never made it."
Neal's face goes pale and blank. "He - "
"I don't know," Mozzie says. "Could he be the one?"
"The one who bought Fowler?" Neal finishes. "Yes. Of course he is." Anger seethes through his voice. His face is set and hard; eyes hot as blue flames. He jumps to his feet, picks up his sketchbook and throws it at the bookcase-covered wall. The sketchbook breaks and its pages filled with beauty crumple and tear, falling loose and fluttering to the floor. Neal stands with his hands clenched in fists at his side, breathing hard. "It's him, Moz. It's Adler. He's the one behind everything. He wants the music box."
Neal stands with his fists clenched, breathing hard, and Mozzie sees the pieces fall into place. Fowler, Adler, Alex, Kate, that damned amber music box Kate gave Neal as a 'fuck you' to Adler when Adler gave her the boot. Mozzie can guess every thought racing through Neal's head and he thinks it's going to crack Neal, because Neal will blame himself.
Neal refused to tell Kate where he hid the music box. Now he's probably thinking Kate died because he's selfish, because he knew she'd want the box back someday and made sure she couldn't find it - Mozzie helped, so he's entitled to a hefty helping of self-blame too - because that was Neal's way of getting back at her for choosing Adler over him.
Mozzie knows Neal's feeling guilty because he is as well. He can't say anything. Adler screwed them all. The wine tastes sour, but he slurps it down. Cheap or expensive, it'll get him drunk either way. He wonders if he was wrong to tell Neal about Adler. No, he had to do it. Adler always had an interest in Neal; Neal needs to be prepared.
Neal closes his eyes. Tears slip down his face. Mozzie pours them both another glass of wine and pretends he doesn't see. He doesn't ask if Neal is going to tell the Suit. Neal will make up his mind and Mozzie will go along with him, whatever he decides, and plan for the worst, just in case Burke turns out to be dirty too.
Paranoia is a skill. He keeps in practice.
~*~
Peter's read through Kate's file so many times he can recite the information in his sleep. He provided most of it. He slaps the file closed in frustration. There's still nothing there to link Kate to Fowler or anyone who would have hired the dirty agent to get to her.
Worry keeps tugging at Peter's gut, too. Neal isn't in the office and he didn't come back to Peter's apartment the night before. Something is wrong. Maybe Neal's tired of him already, though it's only been a little over two weeks. It isn't like Peter's made a commitment. He's made a point of being honest about his intentions and how he still feels about El. Neal accepts that they aren't permanent. Maybe not. Maybe he regrets giving up Kate's loot. Peter still can't read what's going on in Neal's head half the time.
None of the personal stuff matters, Peter reminds himself. Neal's still a target. Peter's sure of that and the sudden silence and separation alarms him.
Because, even if it isn't love, Peter does care, damn it, and he needs to know Neal's okay.
He picks up his phone and scrolls through to find Neal's number. It's a conscious effort not to hold his breath while the phone rings.
A silent sigh still escapes Peter as soon as Neal answers. "Peter?"
"Lunch?" Even the days when Neal doesn't come into the White Collar office with Peter to go over the inventories from the caches they've emptied and speculate on what's in the ones that lie farther afield, they've grown into a habit of meeting for lunch. He even brought Neal with him to his regular lunch date with Elizabeth last week. Neal's fit himself into Peter's life so naturally it's disturbing.
A pause follows his suggestion, alerting Peter that something's off. Neal doesn't take time to answer, he's so quick and always aware.
"Not today," Neal finally replies, "Okay?"
"Why not?" Peter knows he sounds suspicious and winces at himself. Treating someone he's sleeping with like a suspect is the kind of thing that would earn him a chewing out from El if he had the gall to mention it to her. But they already have a routine and this disruption sets off Peter's inner alarms.
"I'm painting."
"You're at the studio?"
"Yeah."
Peter considers kicking himself. Neal's not trying to come up with an excuse to avoid him, he's focused on his own work, something Peter should - and usually does - respect in other professionals.
"Look, you could come by for dinner," Neal suggests. Unspoken but clear is the invitation for Peter to stay the night. Just as clear is Neal's need to end the call and go back to his painting. Peter feels vaguely put out; just because he's always put his job first doesn't mean it's any fun to find himself run face first into the experience from the other side.
"Do you want me to bring something?" he asks.
"Italian," Neal replies promptly.
The sheer domesticity of their conversation strikes Peter after he ends the call. He finds himself staring at the phone in his hand and wondering how he ended up sleeping with Kate's boyfriend. What could Neal see in him beyond the man who locked Kate away? Why put up with Peter when he knows Peter will leave him to go back to Elizabeth given even a hint he has a chance? Peter's been up front about that, after all.
Is it really just sex for Neal?
Neal is even more of an enigma than Kate.
That insight sends Peter after a considerably thinner file, one kept on a known associate of a suspected criminal: Neal's. Other agents assembled the file, including Paulson and Berilli, who have both moved on to other units since, but Peter is the one who contributed most of it. If asked, he would claim he knows the contents as well as he knows Kate's file.
It would be true, but the truth is there are holes in Neal's file that no one bothered to fill because the Bureau wasn't interested in Neal except as a way to get to Kate.
Peter flips through the background reports, the surveillance logs, the travel timelines, information provided by Customs, the IRS, interviews with a couple of neighbors, teachers from the art school he attended before dropping out the same year he met Kate. He's zoning out when an oddity pulls his attention back to the IRS employment forms. Neal filed income tax from two different employers the year he dropped out of art school. The first few months of that year he worked at an art gallery. Peter has always assumed Neal met Kate there.
His finger pauses at the name of Neal's second employer. It's too familiar. Kate held a job with the same company. That's not why Peter knows the name, though.
While he may not have every detail memorized, Peter knows the names and major players involved in most of the New York office's white collar cases from the last ten years. It's certainly hard to forget the one that embarrassed both the Bureau and the SEC when the guilty party skipped out of the country hours ahead of an arrest warrant.
Most agents still remember Vincent Adler.
The company Neal dropped out of art school to take a very well paying job with belonged to Adler. It fronted Adler's giant Ponzi scheme and was the same one the billionaire looted before boarding his chartered jet and disappearing.
Peter scrubs his hands over his face before rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, trying to release the tension locking all his muscles tight.
Neal hasn't said anything about Vincent Adler. Okay, maybe Neal hasn't seen any reason to mention he worked for a crook, but it's still bothersome. At least, it bothers Peter. The last that the Bureau managed to track Adler, the man had gone to ground in Argentina. There's no reason to believe he isn't still there, living under an assumed name and enjoying his stolen billions; there's also no reason to think he's come back to New York or has anything to do with Kate Moreau's murder. Yet Peter's instincts all clamor that there is a connection.
Does Neal know about it, though?
Peter picks up his office phone and connects to the file room, telling them wearily, "I need the Adler files. All of them."
~*~
He needs to tell Peter about Adler. Just the thought makes Neal feel ill, though. Laying out what a fool he'd been, first for Adler and then with Kate, terrifies him for reasons he can't articulate to himself, except he trusted them both and they both betrayed him. His instincts urge him to go on trusting Peter but experience says Peter will abandon him the way they did. Telling Peter about Kate leaving him for Adler that first time promises only humiliation. Neal has a superstitious sense that revealing his past will just ensure it repeats.
Idiotic as that idea is, he can't shake it.
Kate said she loved him, but Peter's never said anything close to that. Peter's been adamant that he still loves Elizabeth and still wants to get back together with her. Even if he hadn't, Neal has eyes. At lunch with Elizabeth, Peter sees only her.
Plus, there's the damned music box Kate gave him. Neal's never even liked it, but he was determined he would hold onto it, even if Kate wanted it back. He hid it from her and part of him wants to keep holding onto it.
If he tells Peter about Adler, then he has to tell him about the music box, because it's the box Adler wants. It has to be, it's the only thing that makes sense of Kate and Alex's murders. Adler thinks the box holds some kind of prize or secret - Neal isn't sure and doesn't care anyway - that he's willing to kill to get. Once he tells Peter all of that, everything will come out, and Neal will have to turn the box over to the Bureau.
It would keep him safe, though. Once Adler knows Neal doesn't have it or any way to get it, he won't have any more interest in Neal. He proved that when he took Kate to Argentina with him and they left Neal behind.
Adler will go to ground again if he hears the FBI has the music box, though. He won't be caught. He won't pay for Kate's murder or Alex's either.
Neal adds another highlight to the detail on the cherub key he's painted Adler holding. Adler should look like a monster, but he doesn't. Only the way his hand folds around the cherub, closed on its wings, smothering it, gives away the darker side Adler always had.
If he doesn't mention Adler to Peter, then what? Set up a con, trick Adler, revenge Kate and Alex?
Kill him?
Neal jerks his hand back before he lays an angry streak of carmine across the pristine white of the shirt he's painted Adler wearing. His hand shakes as he sets the loaded brush aside. He can't. He can't even stomach the idea of killing someone, even someone who is a killer. It would stain something inside him forever.
He doesn't know what to do. Remain faithful to Kate, do what he knows she'd want him to do to take down Adler, or go on believing in Peter and trust Peter can do what's right?
Peter will arrive soon.
The painting is nearly finished. Neal's still unsure. There's Kate and the past or there's Peter and his future... but there isn't Peter in his future, not once Kate's killer is caught. He carefully cleans the carmine from his brush and begins laying in highlights on a cufflink, where a distorted image of the music box reflects in its polished surface. The delicate work, done from memory, soothes him and he pushes aside his doubts again.
~*~
The loft is dark, as dark as it can be with all the glass and New York just outside it. Peter can pick out shapes but no details, no colors. Sweat dries on Peter's chest. He should get out of bed and clean up. He should do that and go home. He does none of those things.
Neal sleeps on his stomach, head pillowed on one arm, facing away from Peter. It's not rejection, it's trust, or something that looks very like it. With the white sheets tangled low at his hips, the line of his back, the slow curve of his spine under ivory skin, invites Peter's fingers to trace it. He knows if he does, Neal will hum under his breath, smooth swimmer's muscles rippling in response, moving into his touch before he even rises out of sleep.
Peter resists. He wants to look at Neal like this and think. Once Neal opens his eyes, all Peter's ability to weigh the facts dissolves.
He has to wonder because Neal was with Kate Moreau three years and when he wasn't with her, this Mozzie guy could have have been teaching him too. How can Peter be sure Neal isn't playing some deep game? Neal has the skills.
It all comes back to Adler in the end.
Neal met Kate through Vincent Adler, Kate abandoned him for Adler and his stolen millions, and now Adler is back in New York. Adler saw Neal first, plucked a second year art student from a boring gallery job to become the youngest art acquisitions director in New York. Molded and polished, and according to at least two people Peter has re-interviewed in the last week, bedded Neal just the way he did Kate, before bringing the two of them together.
Is Neal still loyal Adler? Had it been more than a mentor and protege arrangement between Neal and Adler before Kate stole Neal's heart? Is the story just spite?
Peter wants to shake Neal awake and pull all the answers out of him while he's warm with sleep and pliant as a willow limb dipping to the water.
He gets out the bed and pads to where his shorts ended up on the polished wooden floor, puts them on, considers putting on something more, but it's at the cusp between very late and very early. Neither June nor any of her staff are likely to glimpse him through the terrace's French doors. Not that even a state of complete undress would phase June Ellington. Byron Ellington was a rogue of the first order as well as one of the most talented artists of his generation. June was the one who turned his talent into a staggering fortune, though, and she did it by playing up his rogue's reputation and her own wild ways. June's certainly wise enough to realize what Neal and Peter get up to in the loft's luxurious bed, even if they do try to stay quiet.
Neal has beer in the refrigerator for Peter. The brand Peter buys for himself by preference. It isn't surprising. Neal's seen the inside of Peter's refrigerator and he notices things like that. Peter contemplates opening a bottle but gets himself a glass of water instead.
He walks back to the bedroom and stands at the foot of the bed, just looking at Neal sleep. He's been learning Neal since finding him at Elizabeth's office; a hundred small things reports and surveillance could never reveal. Painting means more to Neal than anything, for instance, and his paintings reflect him.
If he wants to know what's in Neal's head, for instance, Peter has only to look and see what he's painting. Neal hasn't said anything about Adler, but there's a picture of him, paint still wet, in the attached studio. It's no coincidence that Neal is painting Vincent Adler now.
Can they be in league with each other?
Peter doesn't want to even think it, but it could all be a long con. Neal could have been setting up Kate since she went to jail. Even the beating could have been manufactured. But if Neal's that devious, then every emotion he's shown Peter is likely a lie too.
Kate's file is full of seductions. She never got to Peter, but he had El then.
Maybe Neal's even better than Kate was.
Is it possible to lie with your body? Of course it is, Peter thinks bitterly. But Neal didn't hide the Adler painting from him.
Neal shifts on the bed and reaches into the emptiness where Peter was lying.
Surely no one can lie in their sleep?
"Peter?" he murmurs when Peter slides back into his place in the bed, hand finding Peter's waist and curving along it, an unconscious bid for the reassurance of touch. Peter cups the ball of Neal's shoulder, bone and lean muscle fitting his hand perfectly.
"I'm here."
~*~
Thank God for Mozzie, Neal thinks as he answers his phone. Otherwise the voice on the other end would shock him into stupidity.
"Hello, Neal."
And thank God Peter slept in and called to tell Neal he is staying late at the office to make up for that and going back to his apartment afterward. He'd have to hide who he's talking to if Peter were here.
"Vincent."
"You don't sound surprised."
Neal sits down at his kitchen table because his knees feel weak. Peter would not approve. In fact, Peter will be furious when he finds out Neal hasn't told him everything. He pushes that aside, channeling Kate. It isn't about Peter, it's about Kate. He has to be faithful to her the way Peter is still faithful to Elizabeth. Neal can't let the mess of emotions he feels for Peter affect his choices. He shouldn't, and if he does, Mozzie will say he's being a fool. Peter doesn't love Neal or doesn't want Neal to love him, so Peter's feelings shouldn't matter. That's all there is to it. If he doesn't tell Peter soonthough, there will be no going back. He knows that too.
He has to play Adler's game now, however, not worry about anything else. "I figured it out. I've been waiting for your call since your goon checked out the other day."
"Poor fellow. He missed his wife so. Interesting that you know about him."
Neal sucks in a long breath and wonders if that isn't a reference to Kate too. He's going to play it cool, the way Kate would, though. "If you believe in an afterlife, maybe he's with her. Anyway, if his people couldn't take care of him, how can I trust them to look out for me?" If Adler could reach Fowler in jail, then he must know Neal's been cooperating with the FBI. Spinning it will be smarter than denial.
Vincent laughs long and deep. "Oh, Neal, I have missed how quick you are."
"Kind of ironic, the way it turned out Kate didn't know what you were threatening me to find out," Neal says, "while I did all along."
"I have to admit it is so," Vincent agrees, his voice warm and approving the way it used to be. The pleasure Neal used to get from impressing Adler stirs inside. He hates himself for feeling that way, then and now. "My man was perhaps over enthusiastic. I never wished you harm."
"I can't say the same. After you disappeared with Kate, I spent some quality time with a bottle cursing you." It's the honest truth. Without Mozzie, Neal might have landed in the gutter, a burnt-out alcoholic before twenty-five. He runs his free hand over the grain of the table before him, wishing for a shot of vodka to ease his nerves anyway. Neal knows what Adler wants, but he doesn't know what he should do. Money, justice, revenge, love and loyalty are all too tangled in his head. Past and present want to tear him apart.
The revelation doesn't ruffle Adler. "Since you've figured it out, you know what I want."
"I do."
"Are you ready to deal?"
"Not yet," Neal says. "I have to think about what I want in exchange."
"Don't push me too far."
"Just far enough or you won't respect me in the morning."
"Kate sharpened you up."
"She did," Neal agrees. "Give me a number and I'll call you tomorrow with my terms."
Neal memorizes the number Adler recites and nods as Adler finishes, "Don't try to double-cross me, Neal."
"My little finger's still in a splint."
"Until tomorrow."
Neal ends the call before Adler can, sets his phone down on the table top, and looks around the loft blankly. He hasn't been here long and he already loves it. If he goes through with a deal with Adler, he'll have to abandon it, along with New York, and Peter. Peter. He should call Peter, tell him about Adler.
If he gives Adler the music box, he'll essentially be doing to Peter what Kate did to him: choosing Adler and money over... someone he could love. Does... love.
Neal pushes back from the table and flees to the studio before he can finish that thought.
He starts the painting so he can think. He has no subject in mind and his hands move almost without conscious intention, while he weighs the possibilities, the past against the future.
There's the kind of life Kate loved and Adler and more money than he could imagine, a life lived along the unraveling edge of the line.
On the other hand, there's Peter, Elizabeth, Mozzie and June, this studio, painting...
He's loved and been loved and he knows that's what he feels now, even if Peter never returns the feeling. Neal's hand trembles briefly, but he breathes deep through the wild rush of revelation, and lets it channel into paint and canvas and inspiration. He loves Kate. Will always. He loves Peter. One isn't a betrayal of the other. He can cling to what could have been or he can let go.
Kate takes shape under his brush, first a rough sketch in sepia, then a chiaroscuro of umber shadows, the background a sienna blur that might be his old apartment. Layer after layer of brush work pulls her from his mind out onto the canvas. It's a kind of magic, a spell, Neal sometimes thinks, that takes him over when he's creating something.
He smears pure Prussian Blue into the Mars Black shadowing Kate's hair, changes brushes, vaguely appreciating the quality of the sable Byron preferred and echoes the shade in curve of a cheekbone, on her bare shoulder, where the gleam of light traces her lips and in the dark rim of an iris. He prefers natural daylight for most of his work, but for this the fierce artificial light works better. Kate could be hard and cold; the light picks that out. He isn't painting for some sunny gallery. Like Kate, this portrait belongs to the night and the false glow of halogen and neon.
His palette fills up and the rag he uses for his brushes leaves stains on his fingers that Neal wipes on his pants and his undershirt or streaked in his hair after he thoughtlessly swipes it out of his eyes.
He paints the Kate he loved, but it isn't enough, isn't her, or rather just one facet of the whole woman, and Neal knows it and goes on, working subtle detail into her expression and her stance, the angle of her head, her focus. He paints the Kate who never saw something she wanted without taking it, the one who always danced a dozen steps ahead of anyone else. Her hand lifts the heavy swathe of her hair away from her neck, an invitation to hook a necklace around the pale stretch of her throat. A smile that's half promise and half innocence shapes her mouth. Her eyes are wide, mirrors of whatever the watcher wants to see. She's everything but pure; she's the woman who admired Vincent Adler more after discovering he was a crook than when he was her mark, she's the Kate who stole from Matthew Keller the night after he killed a man in their Barcelona apartment, who double-crossed Mozzie and who refused to tell Neal what Fowler wanted from her.
At the same time, she's the woman who laughed with him, made love to him, escaped jail to find him and left him the key to everything she ever stole. Neal puts everything they ever shared into the painting.
He lets it all go. He lets Kate, the dream and the woman, go, consigns her to paint and canvas and memory.
Kate's gone, Kate's dead, and Neal's alive. He has this, his painting, and if he's lucky, he can have Peter. He's loved and he's hurt and he can love someone else. It isn't a betrayal.
Maybe it makes sense that he can only, finally, paint the real Kate when he's in love with someone else. It's time to face up to how he feels and stop pretending Peter's just a port in the storm.
Whatever else, Neal knows as he signs his initials to the right lower corner of the life-size canvas, it is a great portrait and probably the best thing he's ever done.
It's dawn when Neal steps away. He deliberately doesn't look at the painting now that its done. Instead, he tiredly cleans the brushes and knives and his palette at the far end of the studio, where the wall shares plumbing with the loft kitchen and bathroom on the other side. His shoulders and back ache and a headache throbs behind his left eye. He's miserably reminded that in a few years he may need glasses or contacts. He checks he's capped every tube of paint and puts them away according to Byron's system, thinking he'll rearrange them to his own preferences soon.
He knows what he's going to do next. It's still early, so Neal's got time to get over to the storage facility - not one Kate used - and retrieve the music box. He heads for the shower and stands under the hot water until it gives up, before dressing in one of Byron's most elegant suits and heading out.
~*~
Peter tells himself its worry about Neal that drags him out of bed early and halfway across town to the loft before he can even get breakfast. It isn't that he misses having Neal in his apartment or being with Neal. Of course, he misses the sex - it's pretty spectacular - but one night without isn't enough to explain the itch under his skin to see Neal.
He just has this feeling. Something's not quite right. NYPD closed Kate's case weeks ago, more than satisfied to pin it on Fowler and save the state a homicide trail, Hughes and the higher-ups are too happy over the good publicity the Bureau's receiving thanks to the stolen art works recovered thanks to Neal's bout of honesty to ask any uncomfortable questions, so Peter's doubts are his alone. His gut keeps insisting there's more and it involves Vincent Adler. He doesn't know if it's because he hasn't said anything to Neal about Adler or if his doubts and worries are warranted and Neal is running his own game. Maybe it's just he's grown used to having someone else sleeping beside him. Maybe he cares more than he's ready to admit. No maybe about that and he's still trying to figure out how he ended up involved with Kate Moreau's boyfriend.
Neal gave him a key with June's permission, so Peter lets himself in and goes up the stairs without ringing the bell. It's too early for June to be up, though he catches a snatch of voices from the staff and the rattle of cookware in one of the kitchens. A second key lets Peter into the loft.
There's no one there. It's a subtle thing, but Peter can always tell. The loft is empty.
He's already figured out that while Neal has no problem getting up in the morning, he doesn't wake obscenely early, unless it's for breakfast. With June's staff adopting him, Neal has no reason to go out for food.
Peter pokes around, noting the bed has either been already made or never slept in, before giving in and checking the studio. It's possible Neal fell asleep there.
His heart skips a beat as soon as he sees the portrait of Kate.
It hits Peter worse than finding the picture of Adler a few days ago.
It's an amazing piece, and in the course his work, Peter has seen and handled several grand masters. He's even examined a forgery of a Raphael which Kate passed in Andorra that he suspects was Neal's work. He's always been impressed by Neal's talent. He's still never seen anything as sublime as this.
It's breathtaking and heartbreaking. Looking at it has tears burning Peter's eyes.
Tears for Kate, for Neal, and for himself.
Looking at Kate's picture, Peter knows in his bones that Neal will never let go. The portrait is Neal's declaration of his love. He's chosen Kate's life. He's gone to Adler.
Peter has to brace himself against a chair back as it hits him. He's lost Neal to the past. Opening his eyes again, he stares into Kate's painted eyes.
He can't do it, Peter thinks, he can't put Neal in jail, even if it means giving up Adler.
It's never been a choice before. El never made it a choice, of course. But now that it is, the division between what he's always known as right and wrong and what he'll turn a blind eye to for Neal's sake has shrunk to nothing. The revelation rocks Peter to his core. Even if Neal is and has been in league with Adler, even if he finds the evidence to prove it, arresting Neal is not an option.
Peter hates it. He hates the realization. He can't bear to hurt Neal and he hates Neal for making him feel this way. Love... He isn't supposed to love anyone except El. Now Neal's made him betray everything, even if he never has to act on it.
"Damn it, Neal," he says into the silence of the studio.
There's no sign of where Neal has gone, but the paint is still glistening wet. Neal painted it overnight. Peter resists the sickening urge to destroy the portrait, as if he could wipe away Neal's feelings as easily as he could the image on the canvas. The urge to wreck something so beautiful rises through Peter like bile. He makes himself walk out of the studio and then the loft, before he adds vandalism to his growing list of regrets.
At the office, he calls Jones and Diana into his office and grimly tells them to add Neal's name and description to the BOLOs going out.
"You think Adler has him?" Jones asks, while Diana is quiet.
"I think Neal may be with him." Peter stops and summons an explanation that doesn't condemn Neal for them. "He doesn't know Adler's connected to Fowler."
"If you say so, boss," Diana says. She doesn't believe it. Peter can't blame her. He doesn't either.
"I want to know where they both are. Nothing more. I'm alerted first," he orders.
~*~
Neal flashes his visitor's badge and a happy grin at Joseph, one of the security guards on duty in the foyer, sets his armful of cardboard box down to be scanned and empties his pockets. He's been up to the twenty-first floor so many times in the last weeks he has it down to a routine. All the security guards know him at this point.
"Hey, has Peter come in yet?" he asks.
"Agent Burke came in an hour ago."
The second guard, Denny, opens the unsealed box after the scan and makes a face at the contents. "That thing's just ugly."
"Hey, my old girlfriend gave it to me," Neal tells him. He refills his pockets absently. The truth is, he never liked it either.
"Your old girlfriend had bad taste."
"Yeah, she dated him," Joseph chimes in.
"Keep the day jobs, guys," Neal says with a tip of his hat, before scooping up the box and heading for the elevator bank. "Your future is not in comedy."
He bumps the button for White Collar's floor with the point of his elbow and waits impatiently as the elevator rises, bouncing a little on his feet, euphoric with relief after committing to his choice.
The smile starts fading at the looks he gets from the agents in the bullpen as soon as he pushes his way through the glass doors and heads for Peter's office. It's completely gone by the time he's on the stairs. He feels like he has a bull’s-eye between his shoulder blades. Diana's closed off expression as she exits Peter's office and sees him destroys what's left of his good mood.
"I didn't think we'd see you here again," she says.
"What?"
Diana flicks her dark gaze over him dismissively. "Peter said you'd be with Adler - "
"Peter said I was what!?" Neal yells before he can stop himself.
Diana's straightening, whether to smack Neal down or apologize for assuming something that infuriates him - at least in part because for an hour or two last night it was a possibility - as Peter pushes out of his office and stares at Neal.
"You're here," Peter nearly echoes Diana, but he sounds confused and hurt, not contemptuous.
"Vincent called me last night." Neal shifts the box in his arms higher. "This is what he wanted. I couldn't get to it until this morning."
"Vincent Adler," Peter clarifies.
Neal looks at Peter and wants to curl up and die. "No, Vincent Van Gogh." He shakes his head, blinking back tears before anyone can see them. His voice nearly cracks, so he keeps going with the sarcasm. "Or maybe it was Vincent Price. I get them confused - "
"What is it?" Diana interrupts.
"It's Catherine the Great's music box," Neal explains. "Kate stole it from Vincent, he probably had someone steal it too."
"How did you get it?" Peter asks.
Neal tips his head toward the conference room. "Can I put it down in there?" The box is heavy, but more than that, he wants to get out of the open and not tell this story on the upper level where everyone can see and hear them. The conference room has glass walls like Peter's office, but it's quieter and there are blinds.
"Yeah, let's go in there," Peter agrees. He switches his gaze to Diana. "Get Jones and cancel the BOLO on Neal."
It's a cold shock to the system, hearing that come from Peter, a reminder that whatever he feels, it isn't reciprocated. Peter had a Be On Look Out issued for him? That certainly tells him how Peter really thinks about him, doesn't it? Neal hides the hurt behind an annoyed frown and marches into the conference room. He places the box on the table with his shoulders set and his jaw clenched. He buries the hurt, because after all, he deserves it: he did consider making a deal with Vincent.
"So how did you get it?" Peter asks from behind him.
Neal doesn't turn. "Kate gave it to me after she left Vincent." After Adler got tired of her and dropped her is a more accurate rendition, but he still automatically protects Kate.
"And you've had it all this time. Why'd Fowler kill Kate for it?"
Neal squeezes his eyes shut before he answers and keeps them shut. "Because she didn't know where I hid it," he whispers. "I wouldn't tell her. She gave it to me and I didn't trust her not to take it back." He lets his head hang once he's said it, feeling like he's betrayed Kate or the love he had for her by admitting he refused her anything.
"Aw, damn it, Neal," he hears Peter say before two big, warm hands settle on his shoulders. "This isn't your fault."
He should step away, keep Peter from giving away more than they've agreed to reveal - which is nothing - but he can't. Neal feels like he has to store up every touch, every instance of caring, because sooner or later, something will take it away. Elizabeth will realize how much Peter still loves her and they'll get back together.
"He expects me to call him today," he tells Peter, "I can set up a meet and you can arrest him when he comes for the music box, right?"
"I'm not using you as bait." Peter's stern declaration warms some of the cold running through Neal's bones.
"He hired Fowler."
"You're not an agent."
"No, I'm the one Vincent contacted. He won't show for anyone else." Neal slides out from under Peter's hands - regretting the loss of contact immediately - so he can turn and face Peter. "He knows me. A ringer won't fool him."
"Damn it - "
From the doorway, Hughes states, "He's right, Peter." Neal jumps nervously. Thoughts of Peter and Adler have him too distracted; Hughes let himself into the conference room without Neal even noticing. Hughes considers him and asks, "You're willing to do this?"
Neal lifts his chin a little. "Yes. I'm willing."
Hughes glances at the cardboard box. "And that's what Adler wants?"
"It is."
"It can't be worth enough to risk coming back to New York with Federal warrants out on him, can it?"
That's true, but Neal is in no mood to relay Alex's wild story of stolen Nazi loot and sunken submarines. Adler may believe in it, Alex certainly did, but he doesn't. He wouldn't want any treasure stained with the real owners' blood if it did exist. Even Kate wouldn't have touched it. So Neal keeps it short. "He thinks something's hidden in it."
"Is there?"
"No idea, I've never been able to open it."
"Hmph." Hughes gives Peter the stink-eye for a moment, then leaves the room.
"Neal," Peter says quietly, "the picture of Kate... "
"Was goodbye."
~*~
Part 7