White Collar Fic - The World Begins Again Pt. 1
Title: The World Begins Again
Author: iamhere23
Rating: PG -13
Characters: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke, Mozzie
Spoilers: post Judgement Day, 3x16
Warnings: depression, mentions of suicide, cruelty to an animal
Word Count: ~ 6,900
Summary: Mozzie and Neal are in Paradise. Neal is not okay, things are getting out of hand, and Mozzie is concerned.
A/N: This story is unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. I really wanted to post this before the Fourth Season premiere on Tuesday, because it'll most definitely be AU after that episode. This fic was written for this prompt by dmk0064 on the Freedom Fest over at whitecollarhc . Basically the prompt asked for Mozzie to be so concerned regarding Neal's behavior that he contacts Peter to come to his side and help out. The title is from "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Part 1
Neal is outside on the porch, watching the sunset like he does religiously every day. In a few minutes the sun will go down and there will be stars everywhere. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many stars. He closes his eyes and feels the light breeze blowing over his face, and when he opens them up moments later, the sight of the stars and the sound of the ocean threaten to overwhelm him.
He turns around when he hears the door of the house creaking and watches Mozzie come outside with a bunch of gadgets and an antenna that beeps once in a while. He goes down the steps to the beach and starts setting everything up.
“Hey Moz,” he calls out quietly.
“Oh, hi Neal,” he says looking back, surprised to see him. Neal controls the urge to roll his eyes. As if he doesn’t know that he’s there every single day at the same hour.
“My contacts have been wondering where I am,” Mozzie continues. “The data I’ve been recording here is amazing!”
“Looking for aliens again?” Neal asks, though he really doesn’t want to know.
“You know it’s one of the greatest cover ups of all time. There have been UFO and ET sightings all over the world. It’s no coincidence.”
He continues playing with some cables and buttons and Neal tries to ignore him. “Things have gotten heated with the recent widely reported sighting at the Chicago O'Hare airport. This just illustrates the lengths at which the government will seek to cover-up or dispel unexplained sightings of incredible aircraft.”
“Moz, you know that this particular conspiracy theory is riddled with outright hoaxes and fake footage of aliens and flying saucers, right?”
Mozzie lifts his arm and shakes a finger up in the air, not even looking back at him. “Ha! That’s exactly what they want you to believe.”
Neal just shakes his head.
Mozzie finishes whatever in the world he’s doing, takes a monitor and a radio with him, and sits beside Neal on the steps that lead to the beach. He points to a shadow under a palm tree beside their beach house.
“He’s back.”
Neal looks over to the shadow and shrugs. “Yep.”
“You know, he’s practically yours by now.”
Neal looks at the shadow move. It’s just a dog. An ugly looking, brown colored, stray dog. They’ve been on the island for over four months and the stupid dog has been following him around for just as long. He doesn’t even remember how it started. One day he noticed the damn dog following him home. He started paying attention and noticed that he was followed every day coming back from the nearest town.
The dog sits outside the beach house somewhere in the jungle around them and when it gets close to the sunset, he comes and sits quietly under a palm tree and just watches the waves and Neal. Mozzie insists that he’s watching over him, making sure he’s alright, but Mozzie’s always been the sentimental type. He’s always had a soft spot for the underprivileged and the homeless. Neal is sure the dog’s just hungry.
Neal gets up and turns to go inside. The stupid homeless dog won’t leave him alone. He suspects that they no longer spend their nights alone. That morning when he went outside for his run in the beach, he found him in a corner of the porch, sleeping.
“Don’t give him food Moz or he’ll never go away.”
Mozzie shakes his head. “I swear this is not my doing. He just seems to like you, man.”
“Yeah, well. He’s not mine, so don’t encourage him, okay?”
Neal opens the door and walks past his large living room into his enormous kitchen. They’ve been living in the island for four months. Mozzie somehow got them this secluded humongous beach house in the middle of the jungle. It’s wonderful actually. The first time he saw it he couldn’t believe it. It was everything he’d ever imagined their island getaway house to be.
It’s perfect, actually. He leans against the kitchen island and puts a hand through his hair while sighing.
It’s freaking perfect.
He grabs the open bottle of wine in front of him and pours some on his glass. It’s early and he has no idea what he’s going to do until it’s actually time to go to sleep.
He takes his wine and moves toward his bedroom. He closes the door behind him and goes directly to the secret compartment under the floorboard beside his bed. He takes out a sketch book and opens it exactly at the middle. Neal freezes when he looks at the photograph. He picks it up and lets his body rest against the bed’s headboard.
It’s not the prom picture.
It’s just a picture Mozzie took of Peter and Elizabeth during their second wedding in his apartment. June’s apartment, he reminds himself. They both look so happy. They’re not looking at the camera, but at each other’s eyes, oblivious to the world around them. Not for the first time Neal wishes he was in the photograph as well, at least to reassure himself that he was actually there, but he brushes his silly notion away after some minutes of musing. It’s okay. It’s better this way, not having anything to link him to the picture if he had to run. They’d never find anything personal inside that house, only a picture of a loving couple. No ties to New York. No Sara, no FBI Harvard team, no Kate or June or anything remotely related to Neal Caffrey.
He stays there, slowly sipping his wine and staring at the picture until he hears Mozzie come inside and he puts it away. He sits in his bed in the dark for a long time. Sleep doesn’t come easily these days. He laughs at himself. Easily? Huh, that’s the understatement of the year…
He leans back into his bed and closes his eyes.
He’s still a con, isn’t he?
He’s a con, so maybe one day he’ll finally con himself into getting some damn sleep.
------------
Neal opens his eyes when he feels the dawn approaching. The birds start chirping and the sounds of the jungle change. He gets up, changes into his swim trunks and goes outside. He stretches while the world around him starts getting clearer, faint light coming through behind the mountains on the other side of the island.
He stands in front of the ocean and closes his eyes trying to concentrate on the sounds around him. The sound of the jungle and the ocean surround him. The sound of bugs. Bugs and wild animals. Sounds of birds and monkeys and probably other wild things that he doesn’t even know about.
He’s tired. He’s so fucking tired and the sounds don’t make sense.
He tries hard to imagine the sounds of the city. He stands there every day and tries to imagine himself in his balcony at June’s, listening to the sounds of the city.
He can’t.
There are bugs and birds and the waves of the ocean, and his brain can’t reconcile these sounds to the sounds of the city. He opens his eyes and he can’t reconcile this sunrise to the sunrise over New York. It’s hard to understand how this is the same sun. It’s hard to understand how this is the same world.
Neal starts running down the beach. It’s one of the things that bring him peace. Running is something he’s always been good at. No matter how tired he is. Running is something he needs to do.
When he comes back he's drenched in sweat and he noticed about a quarter of a mile back that the stupid stray dog is running behind him. The stupid stalker stray dog with his stupid warm and smart brown eyes follow him everywhere.
Neal ignores him and goes into the house heading straight for the shower. As the scorching hot spray hits him in the chest he can’t stop the moan of pleasure escape him. He can’t deny that the shower is one of the things he does enjoy nowadays.
He didn’t want to use the treasure money at first. He didn’t, but he did. They needed money. They sold one painting that wasn’t on the manifest and saved the rest. They bought the beach house and the car, the motorcycle, the clothes, and all the nice expensive things and gadgets. Expensive furniture and comfortable appliances, TVs, books, art supplies, computers…
Mozzie had everything ready in a short time. Isla de Margarita. It was a small island situated in the Caribbean Sea, off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. It was a nice place, full of Spanish colonial forts built hundreds of years ago to fend off pirates. Their place was located in an isolated patch of land on the more undeveloped part of the island. The island was small, but their place was secluded and they had great escape routes by boat, by the ferry to the mainland, or by plane.
Ironically they were exactly two miles away from the nearest town.
------------
Neal turns off the shower, changes into shorts and a white cotton shirt, and goes to the kitchen.
“Up bright and early, Neal?”
Mozzie’s sitting in a chair in the living room, and he’s using that tone of voice again.
Neal turns his face away so he doesn’t see the pained look in Mozzie’s eyes.
Mozzie knows Neal can’t sleep. He knows that he wakes up suddenly at all hours of the night, sits straight up in bed, drenched in sweat, panting. Neal is growing rather fond of his insomnia, or so he tries to convince himself. This week he started a new approach to the problem: not trying to sleep at all. It’s working.
Mozzie gets up and comes closer to him. “I know that you didn’t go to sleep yesterday Neal.”
This time, Neal does roll his eyes and walks to the fridge.
Mozzie follows him and stands at his side. “And when exactly where you going to tell me about your near death experience?”
Neal curses under his breath.
Mozzie had obviously seen his motorcycle. He had taken it for a ride around the coast the day before. The speed and danger helped calm him down. The rush it gave him was like a drug. He had closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the feel of the wind against his face, and when he opened them again, he had to brake suddenly around a steep curve. He had managed to stop before a tree by the side of the road but had crashed the side of the bike against the tree.
Neal suddenly remembers that he had scratched the hell out of his left leg as well. He looks down at the purple bruising and horrible scabs in his leg. He’d honestly forgotten about it. He felt nothing.
“Come on Mozzie. It was just a little accident. Don’t make a big deal out of this.”
Neal grabs a glass of juice and makes his way to the library. He really isn’t in the mood for another heart to heat talk about his “self-destructive behavior” with Mozzie.
Mozzie, obviously, follows him.
“A little accident, Neal? Seriously?”
Neal shrugs and sits down on the sofa grabbing a book along the way.
“Man, your leg looks like something out of a horror story! We’ve talked about this. You’re out riding that damn motorcycle recklessly around the whole island. You don’t even wear a helmet for crying out loud!”
Neal laughs and Mozzie shudders.
It’s that hollow laugh again, and it’s mercifully short lived this time. He honestly doesn’t know what to do with his friend anymore. There’s the recklessness, the periodic bouts of depression, the insomnia…
Mozzie keeps his mouth shut and looks at Neal. There’s the change in appearance too. They’re both tanned by now, and they both sport a fashionable beard and longer hair, but those eyes… those bleary dead eyes are starting to freak him out.
“Come on man, I’m trying to help you see some sense here!”
Mozzie moves to sit beside him. “You spend the whole day painting, but you’re restless all the time. You’re going to your dark place again.”
Neal shuts the book and leaves the room. He makes his way to his art studio, turns around and shuts the door in Mozzie’s face.
“And you’re always so damn angry!” Mozzie shouts at him through the door. He waits for a reply but he can only hear the sound of the ocean. He sighs and goes back to the library.
Neal releases the breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding and leans against the door. He knows. He knows there’s something wrong with him. What the hell is wrong with him?
Mozzie thinks it’s some kind of severe depression or bipolar disorder. He can’t really think about it. His body feels strange. The whole world around him feels strange. Is Mozzie right? He doesn’t think he’s angry. He can’t seem to feel anything other than the numbness, and if he’s being honest to himself he’d rather feel numb or even angry rather than let the pain and loneliness consume him like those first days after he had run.
-------------
Neal stays inside his studio painting all morning and he goes out again that afternoon. He gets on his motorcycle and speeds the hell out of there before Mozzie can stop him.
He speeds all the way along the coastline and turns off the bike at the cliffs on the far East side of the island. The waves are crashing along the cliffs. The ocean is restless that day. Like him. He stands there for a long time watching the horizon and finally makes his way back home after some hours.
He’s making the turn to the dirt path that leads to their house when he feels a drop fall in his cheek. Startled, he slows down a bit, and looks up. There’s a loud honk on his right side and he turns to see a car coming fast down the opposite side of the road. He dismisses it, and makes the turn to the path when he looks up again and sees a brown spot in the road following him.
His heart stops.
The dog.
The stupid dog is in the middle of the road trotting after him and the car is speeding towards him! Neal’s going fast, but he still has time to do a fast turn to block the path of the car. He shouts at the dog and hits the brakes hard. The car honks again and swerves to the other side of the road to avoid him and the dog. Neal tries to control his body but he can’t control the bike and he falls to his side. He puts out his arm to support his body during the fall. He hears and feels the hard snap of his arm against the pavement. The rush of wind from the car driving speeding away makes him curse mentally. The asshole driving the car doesn’t even stop to see if he’s alive.
Neal groans and manages to push the motorcycle off his body. He gets up slowly and looks at his left arm. It’s broken. He can feel the bump of his bone against his flesh and the unbearable pain starting to spread to his shoulder and his chest. He takes a minute to steady himself and holding his arm close to his body he pulls the crashed motorcycle to the side of the road. He might be acting like a complete jerk, but he doesn’t want someone else to have an accident because of him.
Panting against a tree on the side of the road, he closes his eyes. More drops of rain are starting to fall. He looks up at the sky and notices for the first time the gray and stormy atmosphere around him. He gathers up his strength and makes his way down the path towards the house, walking slowly down the road. A crazy laugh escapes his lips when he looks back and sees the brown eyed dog following him.
Neal’s at the house in ten minutes and he finds Mozzie waiting for him at the steps of the house.
Mozzie rushes out to the beach towards him and his eyes expand comically when he sees the state Neal’s in.
“You have to stop Neal. And stop now.” He waves his hand towards Neal trying to encompass his whole body in one movement.
Neal can’t help but laugh at the situation.
Mozzie stops in his tracks when he hears that hideous laugh again. “I’m serious Neal. You’ll get yourself killed!”
Neal holds his broken arm closer to his body and tries to walk past Mozzie. The rain is really starting to fall now.
“I don’t want to stop. And frankly I don’t intend to stop,” he says back petulantly.
Mozzie grabs his shoulder and Neal cries out in pain.
“What the hell is your problem Neal? You’re hurt and you still won’t stop!”
“It was a fucking accident, Mozz! An accident because of that fucking dog that follows me around!”
They’re both yelling now. The rain is falling heavily and there’s thunder and lightning. The waves are making a horrible rattle against the beach.
“It’s not just an accident. You keep on doing this. Just tell me how to help you!”
Neal pulls his wet hair back with his good hand, turns around, and finally faces Mozzie. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t stand being here anymore!” he shouts.
Mozzie looks at him and just stands there. “Look man, we can go somewhere else…” he trails off when Neal starts shaking his head. Neal’s not talking about the island at all, he realizes with a shudder.
He steps closer and carefully steers Neal the few steps towards the porch of the house. Neal allows it and in two seconds they both stand in the porch, covered from the storm outside.
Mozzie stands beside him looking at the ocean. “Do you feel suicidal, Neal?” he asks, willing his voice to sound strong.
Neal doesn’t look back at him. “I don’t feel anything, that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?”
“Neal, please listen a moment. I know you miss New York. I do too, okay?” Neal shakes his head and Mozzie continues in a softer voice. “I know you miss them.”
Suddenly, the anger and contempt is back with a menace.
“I don’t want your sympathy, Moz. What’s happening is not really an original story. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved in my life. My parents, Kate.” He pauses to take a breath. “I never thought I’d find it again, but it happened. I was happy…”
Mozzie hears the anger and pain in his friend’s voice.
“Neal, please. Don’t do this to yourself. “
Neal looks at Mozzie and he doesn’t know what to feel. He’s numb and he’s angry at the same time. Mozzie’s right, he is angry all the time. He thought he had succeeded in hiding it. He thought he had been doing an acceptable job, but Mozzie knows him too well, and he’s ashamed and guilty at feeling so angry, and that just makes him angrier.
Neal feels his eyes welling with tears and he knows he’s dangerously close to losing it. He takes a deep breath and wills himself back to composure. He casts his eyes toward the ocean again, unable to face Mozzie.
“What do you want from me Mozzie?” he asks after some time. He tries to hide the anger behind his voice, but he can’t, not really.
“What do I want?” Mozzie looks at him in disbelief. “I want you to stop. I want you to stop trying to kill yourself. I want you to accept that this is our life now.”
Neal turns around and decides he’s had enough. He pushes past Mozzie and stops when he sees the stupid dog drenched and shivering against the door of the house.
“You know what I want Mozzie? I just want this dog to leave me the hell alone!”
Mozzie watches in horror as Neal grabs one of the empty clay flower pots against the nearest window still and throws it to the ground at the dog. He can’t even hear the crash against the sound of the storm around them. The dog immediately jumps up, his tail between his legs and still shivering, he runs down the steps of the porch, to get away from Neal, sensing the danger. He stops at the bottom of the stairs and stands under the rain on the beach, looking back at Neal.
Neal groans and picks up a piece of the broken pot from the floor and throws it viciously towards the dog. It hits him in the back and the dog finally seems to get it. He jumps back and after looking back at Neal one final time, he makes his way towards the jungle.
Mozzie just stands there, shocked.
Neal watches the dog run away with satisfaction and he doesn’t seem able to look at Mozzie any more than a few minutes ago.
He grabs another piece of the broken pot and yells as he throws it to the empty space where the dog was standing.
He laughs and he looks at Mozzie straight in the eyes. “I know I’m fucked up, okay? I’ve always been fucked up and you know it.”
Mozzie just stands there and feels helpless as Neal makes his way inside and he’s left outside trying to understand what the hell just happened.
------------
The clock moves relentlessly and it’ll soon announce midnight. Neal is in his bed with his eyes wide open. The storm outside really picked up about half an hour ago and the thunder is getting unbearably loud. Neal has the urge to laugh, or cry maybe, he doesn’t really know. There’s a freaking storm out there. An actual freaking thunderstorm is raging outside. A thunderstorm, in a place where it’s sunny three hundred and forty days of the year!
He sits up and winces at the movement. He had put ice on his arm; he’d taken pain pills, and bandaged it. It was close to impossible to try and get to the hospital under these conditions. He’d just have to wait until the next day, apologize to Mozzie, and ask him to take him to the hospital for a cast.
His room suddenly fills with eerie white light and he winces waiting for the thunder to follow. The sound comes a few seconds later and it seems to reverberate around the whole house.
He gets up and makes his way towards the living room. He looks at the light coming from under Mozzie’s door, but he doesn’t knock. He just stands there, by the living room window, looking at the storm outside, and holding his arm close to his body.
Neal looks searchingly, but he can’t see a thing. It’s too dark outside. He waits impatiently, looking out the window until lightning lights up everything outside and he immediately sees what he is searching for.
The dog is sitting shivering under the palm tree, where he sits every single day when he’s watching over him.
Neal turns around quickly and goes back to his room. He turns the light on and opens his closet door. He quickly pulls on his running shoes with his good hand and struggles to put on a rain jacket over his t-shirt. He groans in frustration when he realizes he can’t move his broken arm, and he lets the jacket drop. He’ll get drenched either way. He walks back to the living room and turns on the light. He opens the door when Mozzie comes into the room in his stripped pajamas.
“What are you doing Neal?”
Neal only gives him a one sided shrug and steps outside. The wind and the rain against his skin are so strong that they actually hurt, but he uses the light from the house to make his way down the beach to the palm tree and he falls to his knees in front of the dog.
The dog keeps shivering, but doesn’t move away. Lightning lights up the world again and Neal sees the intelligent brown eyes looking back at him cautiously.
Neal reaches out with his good arm and lets his hand fall against the dog’s wet fur. He leans toward the dog and talks into his ear.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry, buddy. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I should never have treated you like that.”
The dog moves underneath his hand and he stands up in front of him. Neal pets him once more and sighs.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, you’re right, it’s time to go.”
Neal gets up and moves towards the house. He looks back and sees that the dog is following him once more. They both run over to the house and Neal opens the door so the dog can come in. Neal follows him inside when he does. They both stand there, drenched and shaking in the middle of the living room, and when Mozzie sees them he quickly leaves and comes back seconds later with a bunch of towels. He helps Neal dry himself and then watches in amusement when Neal drops down to the floor to dry off the dog he tried to scare away not even five hours ago.
Neal dries off the dog and he walks to the kitchen shivering. The dog follows him. He puts some towels on the floor to make a bed for him and he watches contentedly when the dog walks over and lays down on the makeshift bed. He locks eyes with the dog and something in him stirs when those brown warm eyes stare back at him.
Neal stares back for a while. He might as well feed him, he thinks. He is his dog after all.
Neal fills a bowl with some water and another with some leftover meatloaf from the fridge. He smiles when the dog stands up and starts wagging his tail. He sets the bowls down and pets the dog on the head.
Neal sits down in one of the chairs in the kitchen and for the first time in four months he feels like he can breathe.
“Mozzie-“ he starts, but the other man interrupts him.
“Let me take a look at that arm.”
“Moz…” Neal insists.
“Say no more, mon frère. Don’t be wise in words, be wise in actions, right?”
Neal just shakes his head and hands over his broken arm. Mozzie proceeds to talk nervously about so many things while he applies ice and bandages his arm that Neal can’t really keep up with what’s going on. He lets a small smile reach his face and Mozzie leads him back to his room.
Neal lets Mozzie help him change into something dry, and he swallows more pain pills. He gets into his bed and Mozzie leaves him so he can rest.
Neal lays there watching the light through the half opened door of his room until his dog comes inside quietly and giving him a happy look he settles down in the floor beside his bed.
Neal closes his eyes and falls asleep.
------------
Part 2