This Sea Town or That Bruising City
Title: This Sea Town or That Bruising City
Author: Lymricks
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Gen, Friendship, sort of AU for a bit
Spoilers: To be safe: Spoilers for everything. Literally everything is fair game. From episode one to the season three summer finale.
Warnings: Some violence, some being lost, a lot of introspection.
Word Count: 3700 this part
Notes: For this prompt at collarcorner. I really like collarcorner. I am writing a whole lot.
Summary: Neal wakes up on a beach nowhere near New York City, and everything’s the same--except when it isn’t.
Now available on Archive of Our Own
“Mozzie, if you’re going to break into my apartment, you could at least close the windows once you’re done,” Neal says irritably, rubbing the sleep from his eyes without opening them up. He’s just a little cold, goosebumps rising steadily up his arms, and he knows that his stomach and chest are probably freckled with them by now. It’s noisy, too, something Neal isn’t fond of this early in the morning. “Moz!” he says, “Close the windows.”
He doesn’t get a response.
Finally, slowly, Neal opens his eyes. The sun is bright, and he’s blinded for a moment. His head hurts. Neal won’t ever admit it, but he really regrets the amount of wine he had last night. The last thing he remembers is telling someone (Mozzie, he assumes) that he’s tired of making mistakes.
As his eyes adjust to the light, Neal realizes that his ceiling is blue.
And…cloudy?
Neal blinks and rubs his eyes, then repeats the action, but every time he looks up, the result is still the same. His windows aren’t open-he’s outside. “Moz?” he says, less angry and more confused now.
It’s not like he’s on the terrace, or even sleeping in the park. There’s water nearby, he can hear the gentle roar of the waves-a beach, Neal supposes, because when he runs a hand through his hair, it comes back covered in grainy globes of sand.
He sits up slowly, his head spinning just enough that he has to lean on his arm to keep his balance. He doesn’t recognize this place, he’s wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and an old pair of socks, and he’s positive that he went to sleep in his apartment.
“Mozzie,” he says, “This isn’t funny.”
When the nausea (from what he guesses is a mild hangover) finally passes, Neal stands up. He’s determined to go and find Mozzie and then kill him. Slowly, probably painfully. Neal is experimenting mentally with the various ways he could surprise Mozzie using the banana knife, when he sees it.
His arm is mid stroke for a practice slitting of the throat (he’s being very Game of Thrones about the whole thing) when he stops. Freezes, actually, because there is black ink all up and down his arm.
After a while it comes down to a question of life choices. Not a choice between you or her, this sea town or that bruising city; but about putting one foot in front of the other and ending up somewhere that looks like home.
“The Last Generation” Neal murmurs, studying the ink on his arm. It’s mostly dry and a little smudged, he can see patches of the lettering on his stomach, where his arm must have lay while he was sleeping. Clearly, it had been on his arm for more than a few hours. The handwriting is definitely masculine, but nothing he specifically recognizes-not someone who he spends every day with, then.
The quote is one he’s heard before, because Mozzie loves quotes and Neal loves Mozzie, but its not one he’s spent a lot of time with. Neal prefers the quotes about going, not coming-about running, not staying.
Neal groans and runs a hand through his hair, sighing exasperatedly and looking around again. He’s the only one out here. The hill he’s on is covered in sea grass, and just down it he sees the smooth sandy stretch of a beach. The ocean water is more grey than blue, which at the very least suggest he’s still on the east coast.
“Of course I’m on the East coast,” he says quietly, “Where else would I be?”
He stretches and looks around again, still waiting for Mozzie to appear. Neal knows he has to be here somewhere; of course Mozzie is here somewhere.
When no one appears, Neal shrugs his shoulders and sets off down the hill. He sees a cottage in the distance. Maybe he can use the phone.
Neal has never been on this beach, and he has never seen this house, but for some reason, it looks familiar. He reaches out a hand and presses his finger to the door, feeling the thrum of life behind the tired wooden façade. The color is tasteful, the shutters match perfectly. It’s a nice place, Neal thinks, except for the lingering smell of fish in the air. He pulls his hand away from the wood and knocks politely. He tries to avoid knocking like Mozzie, but doesn’t succeed, and the iambic rhythm rolls against the sound of the waves behind him.
The door swings open, and Neal smiles his best ‘I’m sorry I’m not wearing a shirt or shoes’ smile-but then frowns.
“June?” he says, blinking at the woman who has opened her home to him since his release from prison.
“Yes?” the woman says, peering out at him. “That’s me.”
“June,” Neal says, “It’s Neal.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know any Neals, my dear,” June says.
She’s looking somewhere to the left of his shoulder, and Neal self-consciously looks behind him, trying to figure out what she’s staring at. “June-” he starts, but then stops. June isn’t staring at anything, he realizes. She’s blind.
“Did you know my late husband?” she says, still standing in the doorway.
Neal doesn’t understand what’s going on. June is looking at him (well, sort of), and she says she doesn’t know who he is, but it’s June. He’d know her face anywhere. “Byron?” he hazards a guess.
The smile that spreads over June’s face is so full of affection and sadness that Neal has the urge to look away. He feels as though he’s intruding on a private moment between an old woman and the love of her life. The thought makes him smile. His June would never stand for being called an old woman.
“Oh my Byron,” she says quietly. “Any friend of his is a friend of mine. Please, come in.”
She steps back from the door, and Neal walks through it. He isn’t sure why, because he still isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, but he trusts this woman. Neal thinks about the woman donating the classic Devore suits to a thrift store who welcomed him not just into her house, but into her life. June, who makes him Christmas dinner even though she is going off skiing in the Alps, the Tupperware stashed carefully in his fridge with reheating instructions printed on them in tidy handwriting.
The inside of the cottage is nothing like the inside of June’s house. Where her New York home is grand and elegant, this is small and shabby. Neal’s nose wrinkles involuntarily as he looks around; the fish smell is even stronger inside the house than it is outside.
The blind woman in front of him walks with steady confidence, moving around piles of things on the floor without a second of hesitation. Shabby, Neal suddenly understands, is not the right word. This beach cottage is loved and lived in-so unlike June’s New York City home that he wonders if this isn’t June after all.
“My Byron was a wonderful fisherman,” she says. “He and his friend Ford spent so many hours out in those waves. They were looking for their great white whale.” Neal can’t see her face, but her voice is soft and fond.
“Did he ever find it?” Neal asks curiously.
“No,” June says, “He gave it up for a small black fish.”
Neal is confused for a second until June turns around and beams at him. She means her. Byron caught her. “What about Ford?” he asks.
“He’s still looking,” June says, and she looks sad now. “He’s out there in a boat somewhere, waiting to hook that last big catch.”
Neal nods his head like he understands, but then realizes that she can’t see him. He’s about to say out loud that he liked her story, but she stops him, reaching out a bony hand and pressing it against his shoulder. “Oh my dear,” she says, “You must be freezing. Let me get you some clothes.”
She disappears through a curtain into another part of the house, and Neal doesn’t follow out of respect. He looks around the room again, taking in the plethora of fishing equipment and odds and ends. He likes the space-he wouldn’t live here, but he likes it anyway.
“Here we are,” June says as she walks back into the room. Neal is presented with an old pair of jeans and a white cotton button up. “Byron won these clothes from a man in the village who weaves his own cotton,” June explains. She turns her back while Neal changes, which he thinks is a sweet gesture, even though she’s blind.
“Let me guess,” Neal says, and he sort of laughs his way through it, because either this whole thing can only be a prank, “Sy Devore?”
“Did he tell you that story?” June laughs, but Neal shakes his head slowly.
“Where am I?” he asks instead of answering, still laughing. He tells himself its not hysterical laughter, but if he’s honest (Neal is almost never honest) it’s a lot closer to it than he wants to be.
June doesn’t answer.
~ ~ ~
She makes him dinner that isn’t served on china, but a beautiful set of plates that June tells him are made out of seaglass that’s been melted down. She jokes that she hopes it’s not too salty for him, and Neal can’t help but smile.
“You’re more than welcome to stay,” she says over glasses of homemade plum brandy as they sit in straw chairs, staring out over the water. “You remind me of Byron-or Ford.” She’s quiet for a little while, and Neal lets her get lost in her thoughts, thinking his own instead. “But I think you should go.”
Neal looks at her sharply, “So I’m not welcome to stay?” he teases dryly, raising an eyebrow at the older woman.
“That’s not what I said,” she laughs. “Stay if you want, but I think you should go.”
“Where should I go?” That’s a loaded question, but Neal knows he has to ask it.
“On a walk,” June says softly. “Find your great white whale.”
June is quiet for a long time after that. Neal almost thinks that she’s fallen asleep, but she speaks again.
“Or your little black fish.”
~ ~ ~
When Neal leaves June’s cottage, he leaves the beach behind. She gives him a well-loved pair of leather boots, “Good for walking,” she says firmly when he protests that he can’t possibly take anything else from her. She kisses his cheek and clasps his hands in hers, and then Neal walks off into the sunset.
As he walks along the side of the road, the sound of the waves fade off behind him. Soon, even the smell of saltwater is gone from the air, and his head is free of sand. Although Blind June (as he’s calling her in his head) was a bit of a whirlwind, Neal hasn’t forgotten the strangeness of his predicament. He isn’t anywhere he recognizes, and Neal has been almost everywhere. He wishes he had a cell-phone, a pager, hell, he’d even settle for carrier pigeons at this point. He wants to call someone to come get him. He wants someone to come pick him up on the side of the road and laugh at him for wandering off.
He wants to call Peter.
But there is no phone or home in sight, just an endless stretch of road and field. He could turn around and go back to June’s. Enough time would pass that he could get his hands on a phone, but she hadn’t had any answers when he’d asked her where he was before, so there was no reason she’d have answers now. Turning around might help, but it feels a lot like another dead end. So Neal keeps walking as morning melts into afternoon, and afternoon fades into evening.
The sun is setting behind the fields of corn, casting everything in a strange pink and purple light, when he finally sees her. Neal gets the distinct impression that Alex is riding up to him on a unicorn.
It isn’t a unicorn though, it’s a white horse, and she pulls to a stop just a hair too close for comfort. Neal reaches out a hand, stroking the horse’s muzzle to hide his flinch.
“Hello, Alex,” he says, grinning up at his old friend.
He gets a raised eyebrow and a toss of hair for his trouble. “Do I know you?”
“You’re Alex Hunter,” Neal says. He’s tired of this. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want to play games with Alex tonight. “You’re the granddaughter of the man who received the last distress call from a German U Boat filled with unbelievable treasures. You’re an old enemy and a great conman,” Neal pauses, “You’re a good friend.”
Alex laughs. “Really?” she says, “That’s quite the story, my old enemy and good friend, but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong Alex Hunter.”
Neal groans, “This can’t be happening. You’re Alex Hunter. The music box? Tell me you remember the music box.”
Alex straightens up her posture and frowns at him. “How do you know about that?” she hisses. This Alex doesn’t sound as devious as his Alex does, but she definitely sounds as dangerous.
“We looked for it together,” Neal says, “When we were both still getting started. Don’t you remember?”
She just stares at him, sitting on the top of her white horse and looking more than a little superior. Neal sighs, exasperated. “Do you have a piece of paper?” he asks. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Alex,” he says, “Do you have a piece of paper?”
Reluctantly, she pulls a square of paper out of her saddlebag and hands it to him. Neal doesn’t look up until he’s done, but he grins. It’s a real grin, the kind of smile he reserves for the people who become more than two-d passing figures in his life. Alex is one of those rarities. She’s something tangible.
Neal’s movements are deft and practiced. He’d spent hours perfecting this skill once upon a time, and now he could make the flowers in his sleep. He folds everything perfectly, and when he’s done, he holds the result out to Alex. A beautiful, white, origami flower.
She stares at it for a long time, and neither of them speak. Eventually, Alex reaches out a hand for the flower. Neal drops it into her palm and watches as her fingers curl around it. She pulls it back close, holding it near her heart as her eyes slide back to Neal.
“When I was a little girl,” she says softly. “My grandfather used to tell me stories about a music box he lost.”
Neal has heard this story before, but Alex clearly doesn’t remember telling it, so he lets it slide. “In the music box was a secret compartment. Inside that compartment was the secret to everything-happiness, wealth, you name it, the box had it. I found his music box, Neal.”
“Actually,” Neal protests, “I found it.”
Alex talks over him. “There wasn’t anything in it,” she says. “There was just…” she trails off and looks back at the flower in her hand. “One of these. I guess someone else got there first.”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Me. Alex what’s wrong with you?” he pauses, “Where am I?”
Alex laughs at him again. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Where are any of us? I’m glad you found the box first. It was a dream of mine,” she looks him up and down in a way she has before, after meeting Sara. “Dreams so rarely live up to reality.”
She shifts. “You know what, though?” Alex asks him.
“What?” Neal asks.
“I’m glad you found it first. It means I can stop looking,” she turns her horse around, starting to ride off in the other direction. Then she stops. “You mind if I keep this?” Alex asks, holding out the flower.
He shakes his head and is rewarded with a rare smile.
Neal starts walking again.
~ ~ ~
He wakes up again, this time curled on the side of the road, just out of sight behind a pair of bushes. His bones ache and his mouth is dry. Neal has never exactly ‘roughed it.’ He’s never even gone camping. If anything, the events of the past few days have convinced him that he never wants to. Clearly, he isn’t missing much.
It’s the first time in a long time he has no reason to get out of bed. But considering he doesn’t have a bed to get out of, Neal doesn’t want to lie around and contemplate the mysteries of life. Instead of the Chrystler building, he only sees more corn and more road. This isn’t his view or his scene. He stands up slowly, stretching out his aching muscles. There’s no serenity to be found in his sort-of yoga poses, just the promise of more walking. There’s only more road to travel, and no sign of anyone else.
Neal wonders why Alex didn’t offer him a ride, but wondering isn’t going to get him anywhere, and he’s tired of being nowhere.
His feet drag in the dirt, his shoulders are sore, and the back of his neck is sunburned. He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing. He wants a shower and a bed. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’d really like a hug.
And come to think of it, Neal wouldn’t mind sitting down for a beer with Peter.
He’s whining and he knows it, but there’s no one around to hear him, so he indulges.
The landscape is just as barren as before, and Neal wonders where in the Northeast he could possibly be. It looks more like the Midwest, or maybe someplace in the United Kingdom, but it’s been such a long time since he’s had to really think about where he is (or where he should go next) that Neal finds himself unable to tell for certain.
Either way, knowing where he is doesn’t help with the other dilemma. That is to say, why everyone in his life has suddenly gone nuts.
That’s probably unfair, because he hasn’t seen everyone in his life, just June and Alex. Mozzie was already nuts, so he doesn’t count, but Neal hasn’t seen him. Even if he concedes that everyone in his life is crazy, Neal still doesn’t have an answer to the mystery of June’s blindness, or the reality of Alex’s sad smile.
He looks down at his arm. He’s been lost for at least two full days now, but the black ink is still present, reminding him just how far from home he is. No amount of walking is going to bring him home. He doesn’t have a home.
He almost did, once or twice. There have been places that were warm enough, or well lit enough to cast away the shadows that follow him wherever he goes. At the heart of it all, Neal’s true talent is pleasing people. He might lie to them, or fool them, or do a magic trick for them, but when people meet with Neal, they tend to feel happy. How long that lasts always depends on what Neal wants, but it doesn’t matter. He likes the power that his words and personality lend him.
Those powers are useless out here in the middle of nowhere, with the strange people he knows but doesn’t know.
Way in front of him, maybe a mile out, Neal can see someone else coming. It’s a girl, with dark hair, and her gait is confident. She’s too far out to really make out any details, and anyways, Neal has to look into the sun to see her, so he studies the ground instead and decides to wait until their paths cross.
He doesn’t drag his feet anymore, and he straightens the white collar of the shirt June gave to him. This place never seems to end, but it doesn’t really matter. Neal is a master at figuring things out, and he figures that whoever brought him here-whoever took him out of his apartment in the middle of the night-will bring him back eventually.
Besides, he’s been gone for a while, and somewhere in New York City there is an FBI agent who wants to find him.
Suddenly, Neal stops.
He stops dead in the middle of the road and stares down at his feet.
Cautiously, he lifts the leg of his pants. What he sees makes him stare. What he sees makes it hard to breathe.
There’s no tan line, not even the slightest hint of the tracker that should still be locked around his ankle. He bends over and runs a finger over the skin where it should be, but it doesn’t appear. Neal isn’t sure why he expected it to.
This is the first time he’s thought about the anklet, but it isn’t the first time he’s thought that Peter would find him.
Maybe because these days, Peter has more reasons to find him then sending him back to jail. Neal thinks about wineglasses and beers shared, he thinks about late nights in the office, hunched over a forged painting until both of their eyes cross. He thinks about the only real friend (besides Mozzie) that he’s ever had for any length of time. It’s a friendship without a quid pro quo. (That’s a lie and Neal knows it, their friendship is an exchange of sorts, but it’s more than that, and that’s what’s important).
Neal lets the leg of his pants drop. For the first time since he woke up on the beach, he feels a flash of fear. With no anklet and no phone, how is anyone going to find him? Agitated now, he runs a hand through his hair and turns to look behind him. He could still go back to the cottage, but he’s gone this far now, and there has to be something up ahead. He scrubs at his face and turns back around.
The girl from a mile up the road is suddenly right in front of him.
And Neal can’t breathe.
He can’t even think, or move, or do anything but stare into a familiar pair of wide, warm blue eyes.
He chokes on his words, “Kate?”
“Hello Neal.”
Part Two: The One with Blue Eyes, The One with Four Eyes, and The One with Kind Eyes
Author: Lymricks
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Gen, Friendship, sort of AU for a bit
Spoilers: To be safe: Spoilers for everything. Literally everything is fair game. From episode one to the season three summer finale.
Warnings: Some violence, some being lost, a lot of introspection.
Word Count: 3700 this part
Notes: For this prompt at collarcorner. I really like collarcorner. I am writing a whole lot.
Summary: Neal wakes up on a beach nowhere near New York City, and everything’s the same--except when it isn’t.
Now available on Archive of Our Own
“Mozzie, if you’re going to break into my apartment, you could at least close the windows once you’re done,” Neal says irritably, rubbing the sleep from his eyes without opening them up. He’s just a little cold, goosebumps rising steadily up his arms, and he knows that his stomach and chest are probably freckled with them by now. It’s noisy, too, something Neal isn’t fond of this early in the morning. “Moz!” he says, “Close the windows.”
He doesn’t get a response.
Finally, slowly, Neal opens his eyes. The sun is bright, and he’s blinded for a moment. His head hurts. Neal won’t ever admit it, but he really regrets the amount of wine he had last night. The last thing he remembers is telling someone (Mozzie, he assumes) that he’s tired of making mistakes.
As his eyes adjust to the light, Neal realizes that his ceiling is blue.
And…cloudy?
Neal blinks and rubs his eyes, then repeats the action, but every time he looks up, the result is still the same. His windows aren’t open-he’s outside. “Moz?” he says, less angry and more confused now.
It’s not like he’s on the terrace, or even sleeping in the park. There’s water nearby, he can hear the gentle roar of the waves-a beach, Neal supposes, because when he runs a hand through his hair, it comes back covered in grainy globes of sand.
He sits up slowly, his head spinning just enough that he has to lean on his arm to keep his balance. He doesn’t recognize this place, he’s wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms and an old pair of socks, and he’s positive that he went to sleep in his apartment.
“Mozzie,” he says, “This isn’t funny.”
When the nausea (from what he guesses is a mild hangover) finally passes, Neal stands up. He’s determined to go and find Mozzie and then kill him. Slowly, probably painfully. Neal is experimenting mentally with the various ways he could surprise Mozzie using the banana knife, when he sees it.
His arm is mid stroke for a practice slitting of the throat (he’s being very Game of Thrones about the whole thing) when he stops. Freezes, actually, because there is black ink all up and down his arm.
After a while it comes down to a question of life choices. Not a choice between you or her, this sea town or that bruising city; but about putting one foot in front of the other and ending up somewhere that looks like home.
“The Last Generation” Neal murmurs, studying the ink on his arm. It’s mostly dry and a little smudged, he can see patches of the lettering on his stomach, where his arm must have lay while he was sleeping. Clearly, it had been on his arm for more than a few hours. The handwriting is definitely masculine, but nothing he specifically recognizes-not someone who he spends every day with, then.
The quote is one he’s heard before, because Mozzie loves quotes and Neal loves Mozzie, but its not one he’s spent a lot of time with. Neal prefers the quotes about going, not coming-about running, not staying.
Neal groans and runs a hand through his hair, sighing exasperatedly and looking around again. He’s the only one out here. The hill he’s on is covered in sea grass, and just down it he sees the smooth sandy stretch of a beach. The ocean water is more grey than blue, which at the very least suggest he’s still on the east coast.
“Of course I’m on the East coast,” he says quietly, “Where else would I be?”
He stretches and looks around again, still waiting for Mozzie to appear. Neal knows he has to be here somewhere; of course Mozzie is here somewhere.
When no one appears, Neal shrugs his shoulders and sets off down the hill. He sees a cottage in the distance. Maybe he can use the phone.
Neal has never been on this beach, and he has never seen this house, but for some reason, it looks familiar. He reaches out a hand and presses his finger to the door, feeling the thrum of life behind the tired wooden façade. The color is tasteful, the shutters match perfectly. It’s a nice place, Neal thinks, except for the lingering smell of fish in the air. He pulls his hand away from the wood and knocks politely. He tries to avoid knocking like Mozzie, but doesn’t succeed, and the iambic rhythm rolls against the sound of the waves behind him.
The door swings open, and Neal smiles his best ‘I’m sorry I’m not wearing a shirt or shoes’ smile-but then frowns.
“June?” he says, blinking at the woman who has opened her home to him since his release from prison.
“Yes?” the woman says, peering out at him. “That’s me.”
“June,” Neal says, “It’s Neal.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know any Neals, my dear,” June says.
She’s looking somewhere to the left of his shoulder, and Neal self-consciously looks behind him, trying to figure out what she’s staring at. “June-” he starts, but then stops. June isn’t staring at anything, he realizes. She’s blind.
“Did you know my late husband?” she says, still standing in the doorway.
Neal doesn’t understand what’s going on. June is looking at him (well, sort of), and she says she doesn’t know who he is, but it’s June. He’d know her face anywhere. “Byron?” he hazards a guess.
The smile that spreads over June’s face is so full of affection and sadness that Neal has the urge to look away. He feels as though he’s intruding on a private moment between an old woman and the love of her life. The thought makes him smile. His June would never stand for being called an old woman.
“Oh my Byron,” she says quietly. “Any friend of his is a friend of mine. Please, come in.”
She steps back from the door, and Neal walks through it. He isn’t sure why, because he still isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, but he trusts this woman. Neal thinks about the woman donating the classic Devore suits to a thrift store who welcomed him not just into her house, but into her life. June, who makes him Christmas dinner even though she is going off skiing in the Alps, the Tupperware stashed carefully in his fridge with reheating instructions printed on them in tidy handwriting.
The inside of the cottage is nothing like the inside of June’s house. Where her New York home is grand and elegant, this is small and shabby. Neal’s nose wrinkles involuntarily as he looks around; the fish smell is even stronger inside the house than it is outside.
The blind woman in front of him walks with steady confidence, moving around piles of things on the floor without a second of hesitation. Shabby, Neal suddenly understands, is not the right word. This beach cottage is loved and lived in-so unlike June’s New York City home that he wonders if this isn’t June after all.
“My Byron was a wonderful fisherman,” she says. “He and his friend Ford spent so many hours out in those waves. They were looking for their great white whale.” Neal can’t see her face, but her voice is soft and fond.
“Did he ever find it?” Neal asks curiously.
“No,” June says, “He gave it up for a small black fish.”
Neal is confused for a second until June turns around and beams at him. She means her. Byron caught her. “What about Ford?” he asks.
“He’s still looking,” June says, and she looks sad now. “He’s out there in a boat somewhere, waiting to hook that last big catch.”
Neal nods his head like he understands, but then realizes that she can’t see him. He’s about to say out loud that he liked her story, but she stops him, reaching out a bony hand and pressing it against his shoulder. “Oh my dear,” she says, “You must be freezing. Let me get you some clothes.”
She disappears through a curtain into another part of the house, and Neal doesn’t follow out of respect. He looks around the room again, taking in the plethora of fishing equipment and odds and ends. He likes the space-he wouldn’t live here, but he likes it anyway.
“Here we are,” June says as she walks back into the room. Neal is presented with an old pair of jeans and a white cotton button up. “Byron won these clothes from a man in the village who weaves his own cotton,” June explains. She turns her back while Neal changes, which he thinks is a sweet gesture, even though she’s blind.
“Let me guess,” Neal says, and he sort of laughs his way through it, because either this whole thing can only be a prank, “Sy Devore?”
“Did he tell you that story?” June laughs, but Neal shakes his head slowly.
“Where am I?” he asks instead of answering, still laughing. He tells himself its not hysterical laughter, but if he’s honest (Neal is almost never honest) it’s a lot closer to it than he wants to be.
June doesn’t answer.
~ ~ ~
She makes him dinner that isn’t served on china, but a beautiful set of plates that June tells him are made out of seaglass that’s been melted down. She jokes that she hopes it’s not too salty for him, and Neal can’t help but smile.
“You’re more than welcome to stay,” she says over glasses of homemade plum brandy as they sit in straw chairs, staring out over the water. “You remind me of Byron-or Ford.” She’s quiet for a little while, and Neal lets her get lost in her thoughts, thinking his own instead. “But I think you should go.”
Neal looks at her sharply, “So I’m not welcome to stay?” he teases dryly, raising an eyebrow at the older woman.
“That’s not what I said,” she laughs. “Stay if you want, but I think you should go.”
“Where should I go?” That’s a loaded question, but Neal knows he has to ask it.
“On a walk,” June says softly. “Find your great white whale.”
June is quiet for a long time after that. Neal almost thinks that she’s fallen asleep, but she speaks again.
“Or your little black fish.”
~ ~ ~
When Neal leaves June’s cottage, he leaves the beach behind. She gives him a well-loved pair of leather boots, “Good for walking,” she says firmly when he protests that he can’t possibly take anything else from her. She kisses his cheek and clasps his hands in hers, and then Neal walks off into the sunset.
As he walks along the side of the road, the sound of the waves fade off behind him. Soon, even the smell of saltwater is gone from the air, and his head is free of sand. Although Blind June (as he’s calling her in his head) was a bit of a whirlwind, Neal hasn’t forgotten the strangeness of his predicament. He isn’t anywhere he recognizes, and Neal has been almost everywhere. He wishes he had a cell-phone, a pager, hell, he’d even settle for carrier pigeons at this point. He wants to call someone to come get him. He wants someone to come pick him up on the side of the road and laugh at him for wandering off.
He wants to call Peter.
But there is no phone or home in sight, just an endless stretch of road and field. He could turn around and go back to June’s. Enough time would pass that he could get his hands on a phone, but she hadn’t had any answers when he’d asked her where he was before, so there was no reason she’d have answers now. Turning around might help, but it feels a lot like another dead end. So Neal keeps walking as morning melts into afternoon, and afternoon fades into evening.
The sun is setting behind the fields of corn, casting everything in a strange pink and purple light, when he finally sees her. Neal gets the distinct impression that Alex is riding up to him on a unicorn.
It isn’t a unicorn though, it’s a white horse, and she pulls to a stop just a hair too close for comfort. Neal reaches out a hand, stroking the horse’s muzzle to hide his flinch.
“Hello, Alex,” he says, grinning up at his old friend.
He gets a raised eyebrow and a toss of hair for his trouble. “Do I know you?”
“You’re Alex Hunter,” Neal says. He’s tired of this. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want to play games with Alex tonight. “You’re the granddaughter of the man who received the last distress call from a German U Boat filled with unbelievable treasures. You’re an old enemy and a great conman,” Neal pauses, “You’re a good friend.”
Alex laughs. “Really?” she says, “That’s quite the story, my old enemy and good friend, but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong Alex Hunter.”
Neal groans, “This can’t be happening. You’re Alex Hunter. The music box? Tell me you remember the music box.”
Alex straightens up her posture and frowns at him. “How do you know about that?” she hisses. This Alex doesn’t sound as devious as his Alex does, but she definitely sounds as dangerous.
“We looked for it together,” Neal says, “When we were both still getting started. Don’t you remember?”
She just stares at him, sitting on the top of her white horse and looking more than a little superior. Neal sighs, exasperated. “Do you have a piece of paper?” he asks. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Alex,” he says, “Do you have a piece of paper?”
Reluctantly, she pulls a square of paper out of her saddlebag and hands it to him. Neal doesn’t look up until he’s done, but he grins. It’s a real grin, the kind of smile he reserves for the people who become more than two-d passing figures in his life. Alex is one of those rarities. She’s something tangible.
Neal’s movements are deft and practiced. He’d spent hours perfecting this skill once upon a time, and now he could make the flowers in his sleep. He folds everything perfectly, and when he’s done, he holds the result out to Alex. A beautiful, white, origami flower.
She stares at it for a long time, and neither of them speak. Eventually, Alex reaches out a hand for the flower. Neal drops it into her palm and watches as her fingers curl around it. She pulls it back close, holding it near her heart as her eyes slide back to Neal.
“When I was a little girl,” she says softly. “My grandfather used to tell me stories about a music box he lost.”
Neal has heard this story before, but Alex clearly doesn’t remember telling it, so he lets it slide. “In the music box was a secret compartment. Inside that compartment was the secret to everything-happiness, wealth, you name it, the box had it. I found his music box, Neal.”
“Actually,” Neal protests, “I found it.”
Alex talks over him. “There wasn’t anything in it,” she says. “There was just…” she trails off and looks back at the flower in her hand. “One of these. I guess someone else got there first.”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Me. Alex what’s wrong with you?” he pauses, “Where am I?”
Alex laughs at him again. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Where are any of us? I’m glad you found the box first. It was a dream of mine,” she looks him up and down in a way she has before, after meeting Sara. “Dreams so rarely live up to reality.”
She shifts. “You know what, though?” Alex asks him.
“What?” Neal asks.
“I’m glad you found it first. It means I can stop looking,” she turns her horse around, starting to ride off in the other direction. Then she stops. “You mind if I keep this?” Alex asks, holding out the flower.
He shakes his head and is rewarded with a rare smile.
Neal starts walking again.
~ ~ ~
He wakes up again, this time curled on the side of the road, just out of sight behind a pair of bushes. His bones ache and his mouth is dry. Neal has never exactly ‘roughed it.’ He’s never even gone camping. If anything, the events of the past few days have convinced him that he never wants to. Clearly, he isn’t missing much.
It’s the first time in a long time he has no reason to get out of bed. But considering he doesn’t have a bed to get out of, Neal doesn’t want to lie around and contemplate the mysteries of life. Instead of the Chrystler building, he only sees more corn and more road. This isn’t his view or his scene. He stands up slowly, stretching out his aching muscles. There’s no serenity to be found in his sort-of yoga poses, just the promise of more walking. There’s only more road to travel, and no sign of anyone else.
Neal wonders why Alex didn’t offer him a ride, but wondering isn’t going to get him anywhere, and he’s tired of being nowhere.
His feet drag in the dirt, his shoulders are sore, and the back of his neck is sunburned. He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing. He wants a shower and a bed. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’d really like a hug.
And come to think of it, Neal wouldn’t mind sitting down for a beer with Peter.
He’s whining and he knows it, but there’s no one around to hear him, so he indulges.
The landscape is just as barren as before, and Neal wonders where in the Northeast he could possibly be. It looks more like the Midwest, or maybe someplace in the United Kingdom, but it’s been such a long time since he’s had to really think about where he is (or where he should go next) that Neal finds himself unable to tell for certain.
Either way, knowing where he is doesn’t help with the other dilemma. That is to say, why everyone in his life has suddenly gone nuts.
That’s probably unfair, because he hasn’t seen everyone in his life, just June and Alex. Mozzie was already nuts, so he doesn’t count, but Neal hasn’t seen him. Even if he concedes that everyone in his life is crazy, Neal still doesn’t have an answer to the mystery of June’s blindness, or the reality of Alex’s sad smile.
He looks down at his arm. He’s been lost for at least two full days now, but the black ink is still present, reminding him just how far from home he is. No amount of walking is going to bring him home. He doesn’t have a home.
He almost did, once or twice. There have been places that were warm enough, or well lit enough to cast away the shadows that follow him wherever he goes. At the heart of it all, Neal’s true talent is pleasing people. He might lie to them, or fool them, or do a magic trick for them, but when people meet with Neal, they tend to feel happy. How long that lasts always depends on what Neal wants, but it doesn’t matter. He likes the power that his words and personality lend him.
Those powers are useless out here in the middle of nowhere, with the strange people he knows but doesn’t know.
Way in front of him, maybe a mile out, Neal can see someone else coming. It’s a girl, with dark hair, and her gait is confident. She’s too far out to really make out any details, and anyways, Neal has to look into the sun to see her, so he studies the ground instead and decides to wait until their paths cross.
He doesn’t drag his feet anymore, and he straightens the white collar of the shirt June gave to him. This place never seems to end, but it doesn’t really matter. Neal is a master at figuring things out, and he figures that whoever brought him here-whoever took him out of his apartment in the middle of the night-will bring him back eventually.
Besides, he’s been gone for a while, and somewhere in New York City there is an FBI agent who wants to find him.
Suddenly, Neal stops.
He stops dead in the middle of the road and stares down at his feet.
Cautiously, he lifts the leg of his pants. What he sees makes him stare. What he sees makes it hard to breathe.
There’s no tan line, not even the slightest hint of the tracker that should still be locked around his ankle. He bends over and runs a finger over the skin where it should be, but it doesn’t appear. Neal isn’t sure why he expected it to.
This is the first time he’s thought about the anklet, but it isn’t the first time he’s thought that Peter would find him.
Maybe because these days, Peter has more reasons to find him then sending him back to jail. Neal thinks about wineglasses and beers shared, he thinks about late nights in the office, hunched over a forged painting until both of their eyes cross. He thinks about the only real friend (besides Mozzie) that he’s ever had for any length of time. It’s a friendship without a quid pro quo. (That’s a lie and Neal knows it, their friendship is an exchange of sorts, but it’s more than that, and that’s what’s important).
Neal lets the leg of his pants drop. For the first time since he woke up on the beach, he feels a flash of fear. With no anklet and no phone, how is anyone going to find him? Agitated now, he runs a hand through his hair and turns to look behind him. He could still go back to the cottage, but he’s gone this far now, and there has to be something up ahead. He scrubs at his face and turns back around.
The girl from a mile up the road is suddenly right in front of him.
And Neal can’t breathe.
He can’t even think, or move, or do anything but stare into a familiar pair of wide, warm blue eyes.
He chokes on his words, “Kate?”
“Hello Neal.”
Part Two: The One with Blue Eyes, The One with Four Eyes, and The One with Kind Eyes