Fic: Five Perspectives on One Bad Thing
Title: Five Perspectives on One Bad Thing
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Sara, Diana, Peter; gen with canon pairings
Spoilers: Pulling Strings
Word Count: ~3,400
Summary: What if McKenzie and his scary knife had connected with Neal during their tussle at the end of Pulling Strings? Cue the H/C!
----
**1**
Neal pressed the headphones against his ear, trying to be sure he could hear everything Sara and Bryan were saying as she cozied up to her former fiancé.
”Why the change of heart?” he was saying.
”I’m tired of living parallel lives, thinking that you and I are moving in the same direction,” Sara replied. ”We’re not even on the same track. I want you to let me in.”
“Wonder if she’s speaking from experience?” Diana snarked and Neal gave her a look.
“She’s lying to get a confession,” he pointed out.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
”Are you really in this with me?” McKenzie said.
”To the very end.”
“Because you love me?”
There was the unmistakable sound of the two of them kissing, and Neal tried to convince himself it meant nothing to Sara. But McKenzie’s next words sent a chill down his spine, and all jealousy was forgotten.
”Too bad I don’t believe you.”
Neal and Diana’s eyes met. “He knows she’s lying,” Neal said urgently, tossing his headphones onto the console. “Come on!” He led the way out of the van and back into the building, panic making his feet more sure as they navigated the warren of hallways back stage at the symphony hall. He and Diana rounded a corner and barreled through the door, and what he saw confirmed his worst fears.
McKenzie had pulled a knife on Sara, with a nasty, exaggerated curve to its roughly six-inch blade. He recognized it as one of the ceremonial daggers from his apartment - sharp and nasty, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought it had a barb at the end as well. It was undoubtedly the weapon that had claimed the life of Maury the instrument caretaker the day before.
“FBI! Drop your weapon!” Diana commanded, her own gun held high and steady, an expression that brooked no argument on her face.
McKenzie merely tightened his hold on Sara, pressing the sharp blade against her throat for emphasis. Sara’s face was a mask of terror, her brown eyes wide as they looked at Neal and Diana.
“Drop the weapon and we can talk,” Diana said, trying to get a good outcome.
“You first,” McKenzie said.
Sara, Neal saw, had against all reason regained her composure and was fingering the telescoping baton she had in her purse. “It’s OK,” she said.
Diana’s eyes widened, but she lowered her gun. McKenzie eased his grip on Sara enough for her to be able to spring into action. She pulled the baton out of her purse, and Neal could hear it slide open. She caught McKenzie across the forearm, forcing him to let her go, but he didn’t drop the knife. Sara jumped away from him, and Neal pulled her to safety.
McKenzie made to go after her, and Neal rushed him, tackling him up against the counter and landing a punch across the smug prick’s jaw. They grappled, Neal tried to get another blow in, but McKenzie pushed him off, a punch glancing across Neal's jaw that pushed him back, but McKenzie brought his other hand up, the one that held the knife. Neal fended the first thrust off with his forearm, but McKenzie changed his angle with the second, and Neal felt a sharp, burning sensation as the thin blade slid between his ribs to the hilt.
“Ahh!” he shouted with surprise and tried to get away, but McKenzie was on him, twisting the handle and digging the weapon in farther. The blade was like a finger of fire between Neal's ribs, and he could actually hear it as it sliced through him, rending muscle and sinew.
“Neal!” Sara shrieked as Neal fell to the floor, his legs suddenly unable to hold his weight.
POP-POP The sound of Diana’s Sig Sauer going off in the enclosed space ought to have been louder, but there was such a rushing in Neal's ears he barely noticed. He was vaguely aware of McKenzie’s body hitting the floor somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t be bothered to care if the man was badly hurt or not.
The pain was off the charts horrible. He thought he’d felt bad pain before - he’d broken his left tibia when he was 14 in a fall from the ropes in gym class, and that had hurt like hell, and then there was the time in Copenhagen with Alex and the fall from the wall at the Amalienborg Palace that had left him with two cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. But all of that paled in comparison to this.
This pain was like a live thing; it felt like it was spreading inside him, taking him over like an insidious, spreading fungus until there would be space for nothing else. It took his breath away, literally. He forgot to breathe until the pain of suffocation reminded him he must take a breath, and he did, only he suddenly couldn’t find enough air to fill his lungs. A sob escaped his lips as he gasped like a landed fish. He realized with a cold kind of logic that the knife must have pierced his lung.
He became aware of something pulling at his jacket sleeve, something insistent, clinging. He moved his head with some difficulty to get a better look, realized he was lying on his back somehow; he noticed the cobwebs along the acoustic tiles of the cheap drop ceiling of the room they were in, fluttering on a current of air from the air conditioning vent. Fluttering, but never coming free; stuck.
Something was pulling at his jacket sleeve and he finally managed to focus his eyes on the source.
“Neal!”
Sara was kneeling beside him, Diana was standing behind her, leaning over them both. Both women were pale, with shocked expressions on their faces; he wasn’t sure which of them was speaking.
“Goddammit, I can’t get a fucking signal down here,” Diana said. She cursed a lot when she was nervous, he had noticed that before.
“McKenzie?” Neal managed to say, surprising himself.
“Dead,” Diana said, glancing behind her at something on the floor - the man’s body, Neal guessed. “Fucking asshole.”
Sara made a high-pitched noise that made her sound like she’d inhaled helium, and her eyes got impossibly wider.
“I’ve gotta - I’ve got to go call for help. Stay with him, Sara, I’ll be right back.”
Sara blinked; Neal thought she seemed to be vibrating.
“Sara!” Diana barked and the redhead flinched. “Do not you lose your shit now! Neal needs you.”
Sara nodded and Diana disappeared from Neal's line of sight.
And then Sara was plucking at Neal's sleeve some more.
“Sara.” His voice was more gasp than sound; he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to power his speech. But he knew he needed help, and she was his only chance. She glanced at him, then down at the bloody mess of his shirt, then at the wall, her eyes darting around like a pinball, never settling on anything for more than half a second. “Sara,” he said, a little louder.
Her eyes on his were filled with tears. “You have to try to stop the bleeding.” She didn’t respond, but he saw that she understood him. “Sara.”
“OK.” She got to her feet and cast about the room, looking for something to use. She made more high-pitched noises when she neared McKenzie’s body, but finally returned with a roll of paper towels. She held them out mutely to Neal.
“Use them to apply pressure to the…” his words gave out from the difficulty he had breathing. She spun several feet off the roll and wadded it up, pressed it against his side. The pressure was a new agony, bright and terrible, forcing him to cry out, but he also knew it wasn’t enough. “Harder.” He slipped his hand around her wrist and pressed it down.
“Neal, I can’t,” she sobbed.
“Sara, you have to. It’ll be OK. Lean into it.”
She did, and he screamed, and she flinched and pulled away. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be,” he gasped, trying to keep his eyes open. “Harder,” he repeated, trying to tighten his grip on her wrist, but his fingers suddenly wouldn’t work.
He couldn’t see her now, his vision was fading, but she leaned into him more, increasing the pressure on the wound. He chewed his lips trying not to make another sound, and thought fleetingly that he might pass out.
“EMTs are ten minutes out,” Diana reported, coming back into the room.
Somehow, the knowledge that help was coming was all he needed to relax. Ten more minutes, he could last ten more minutes.
**2**
Diana’s thumb hovered over her cell phone. Peter Mobile the label said. She took a deep breath and tapped the number.
“Peter Burke.”
She knew it was her imagination, but his tone sounded stern, judging. Like he knew already that she’d fucked it all up. “Boss?” her own voice was shaky, high-pitched in her ears. Girly-sounding and it made her flinch.
“Diana.” I asked you not to bother me, she imagined him thinking.
“Boss, you know how you said not to call you this weekend?”
“Did Neal do something?”
Diana couldn’t answer.
“Someone else didn’t die, did they?”
Still Diana couldn’t answer.
“Diana?” Peter’s voice rose slightly, clearly picking up that something had gone horribly wrong. She imagined he was standing up now.
“McKenzie’s dead. I shot him. He stabbed Neal, so I shot him.”
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of her call, so she repeated what she’d said.
“I heard you. Where are you?”
“Lenox Hill.”
“And Neal?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Dammit, she wasn’t going to cry now, too? “They took him into surgery.”
“Di, listen to me. OPR is going to want to talk to you right away. Don’t. I will be there in thirty minutes.”
“OK, Boss.”
“And Di?”
“Yeah, Boss?”
“Did you save a life today?”
“Two.”
“That’s all that matters. See you as soon as I can.”
**3**
Neal fucking Caffrey.
McKenzie maybe should have known all along that the accursed conman would be the end of him.
In all fairness, not really. He barely knew the guy - had only just met him - but it was no secret trouble followed the guy around. Trouble for other people, that is, if the stories were to be believed.
A lot of people seemed to get dead around Caffrey, he heard. Blown up. Shot. Run over by cars. A lot of peoples’ careers were in the shitter because of him, too. The second he saw Caffrey at the symphony, he should’ve known to back off, to lay low. He could’ve gotten to the string another way, at another time.
But no, because fucking Caffrey was there, sniffing around things, sniffing around Sara, he’d gotten sloppy.
And that was it, wasn’t it? He couldn’t bear to think of her with someone else, least of all some ex-con with no job and no prospects. McKenzie was a vice president. There was a time when that meant something. Meant something to Sara.
Goddamn it, he still loved her. Had thought of nothing other than hanging on to her through all of this mess.
Well, let them have each other. He hoped they’d be happy together. If Caffrey survived the knife between the ribs McKenzie had given him. Somehow, that thought made him feel better, that maybe Caffrey couldn’t have her either, wouldn’t survive.
But then he pictured Sara grieving - for Caffrey and not for him, and it hurt him more than he’d have thought. And then he wished he’d aimed his knife lower, castrated the little fuck when he’d had the chance - see how much Sara would like him then.
You could afford to be petty when you were dead.
**4**
Peter sat on the steps between the fifth and sixth floors of Lenox Hill Hospital, taking deep, measured breaths. The last hours had been busy ones.
He’d had to see to a lot of things. First off, Diana needed to be taken care of, needed to be protected for as long as possible before OPR got their mitts on her. She was holding up remarkably well, all things considered, but still he’d gotten Christie to take her home. Diana had protested loudly - she wanted to be sure Neal was safe - and in the end, he’d had to make it an order, but she was better off away from here. He knew from experience just what she was going through, and being alone with her fiancé would be a good thing right now.
Peter had spent the rest of the intervening time fending off Hughes and the higher-ups over this whole thing. He could almost hear the questions they’d ask him the next day now. “Since when do we lend agency resources to insurance companies?” “Who authorized this operation?” “How are we going to explain this to the Chinese?”
He didn’t much care. He had a man down, and he hadn’t been there.
“Ahh!” he said aloud, a brief, frustrated sound, and ran both hands through his hair. He hadn’t been there. Neal was fighting for his life and he had been at home fretting over the Platinum Package and his annoying father-in-law, instead of being where he belonged, heading up this operation.
The door on the landing opened - it was El. “Hey, Hon.”
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
“He’s out of surgery - the doctor said they were able to repair the damage.”
A flush stole over Peter’s face, a strange warmth spread everywhere as relief flowed over him like a wave. Suddenly, the emotions he’d been keeping at bay the last few hours began to overtake him. Elizabeth joined him, sat one step above him, and pulled his head against her. “It’s OK to cry,” she said quietly, and as if that was all the leave he needed, he found himself sobbing uncontrollably into her chest.
----
“Peter,” Neal said, a drugged and sleepy smile on his face. Peter had been allowed to visit with him as soon as he’d come out of recovery, if for only a few minutes. But then Neal's face changed, and a hint of fear entered his eyes. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. Am I dying?”
“No! No!” Peter said, a hand on Neal's shoulder to reassure him.
“You have the worst poker face, Peter Burke,” Neal said and Peter tried to lighten up his own expression. He was afraid it looked more like a grimace.
“It’s not a poker face, I swear. I’m just worried about you. How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”
“I think I must be. I can’t tell.” He smiled then, and Peter noted the glassiness in his eyes. Neal's eyelids drooped as he slipped back towards unconsciousness.
“I’ll let the nurse know. Hey, I’m proud of you, you know. You did good today, kid.”
Neal smiled again, but his eyes were closed. “You mean I did well.”
“And now you’re correcting my grammar.” Peter was relieved to be able to smile. “Rest up, Neal. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I’ll always be there, from now on, he promised, and rested a hand fondly on the top of Neal's head.
**5**
Sara stood in the doorway to Neal's room, twisting the strap on her purse between her fingers. He was sleeping and she didn’t want to disturb him. Images of that horrible day in the bowels of the symphony hall had plagued her every waking - and sleeping - moment in the week since, so she’d been reluctant to visit.
He looked good - she had heard he’d make a full recovery, and that he was improving every day. But she hadn’t been able to visit, not until Peter made her feel guilty enough that she had no other choice.
”You should visit him. He’s worried about you,” he’d said.
”Worried about me? He’s the one who nearly died.”
“But you went through something traumatic, and he wants to see if you’re all right. You know how he is.”
She knew how he was, that was the problem.
“Sara!” Neal said happily, and she saw he was now awake and she had no option but to stay.
“Hi!” she said too brightly and walked stiffly into the room. “I brought you some flowers.”
“Irises, my favorite.”
“You always said they have happy faces,” she said, smiling back, but then she busied herself with finding the perfect spot for the vase, then with situating the chair properly beside the bed. She noticed he was watching her with an odd expression on his face. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Aren’t I supposed to be saying that to you? You’re the one in the hospital, after all.” Her voice sounded too high and shrill to her ears.
He watched her for a minute. “You know I’ll be OK, right? The docs said a full recovery.”
“I know,” she answered too quickly.
“Well then, what?”
“I hate hospitals.” A lame answer if ever she’d heard one.
“Uh huh,” he answered, clearly agreeing with her.
They sat in awkward silence for several minutes until she finally gave up. “Well, I should be going,” she began, but he was talking right over her, “When are you going to just give yourself a break?”
“What?”
“When are you going to ease up on yourself, Sara?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? You feel responsible for me getting hurt. That’s why you haven’t visited.”
“That’s not - OK, that’s a part of it.” She sighed and finally looked at him. With those blue conman’s eyes so piercing, she knew they saw everything, and understood even more. “If I hadn’t screwed up the meeting with Bryan, this never would have happened.”
“Sara, he’d made you. Might have even suspected you from the beginning. You shouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. It was too dangerous.”
“You almost died.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you could have. You could have, and I was just sitting there like a ninny, staring at you.”
“That’s what this is all about?”
“I froze, Neal. I froze! You were bleeding to death and I - I just sat there.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. I probably would have drowned on my own blood first.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“It’s supposed to give you perspective. You were in shock; there’s no predicting a person’s reaction when something like that happens. No one blames you.”
“I blame myself! I pride myself on being this capable, strong person, Neal. But when it really mattered, I choked.”
“Sara -“ He reached a hand out to her and she pulled away.
“No, Neal. You’re lucky you survived this. But what about the next time I’m faced with this situation?”
“It was a pretty extreme situation.”
“OK, so what if it’s something else? An accident or a bee sting? It doesn’t matter what, because I know now I won’t be able to handle it!”
“But you did, though. You got away from Bryan. He might have killed you, and you got away from him.”
“You could have died,” she said, her voice small, and she fought the tears that were coming.
He reached out and took her hand. “I didn’t. Because you were there. And maybe you didn’t have the confidence of a trauma surgeon in that situation, but who would have? You can’t obsess about what could have happened, Sara. If I did that, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.”
She sniffed, and turned her wrist so that she was holding onto his hand. “I wish I could believe that like you do.”
He smiled sadly. “It gets easier.”
“Promise?”
He nodded. “If you let it, it does.”
She smiled back at him. “I’m glad you’re OK.”
“Me too. I’m glad you came to visit. It’s easier to recover when friends are around.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
He paused, as if giving it thought. “Yes. I hope so.”
She smiled again, and this time, it was a happy one. “Me too.”
----
Thank you for your time.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Neal, Sara, Diana, Peter; gen with canon pairings
Spoilers: Pulling Strings
Word Count: ~3,400
Summary: What if McKenzie and his scary knife had connected with Neal during their tussle at the end of Pulling Strings? Cue the H/C!
----
**1**
Neal pressed the headphones against his ear, trying to be sure he could hear everything Sara and Bryan were saying as she cozied up to her former fiancé.
”Why the change of heart?” he was saying.
”I’m tired of living parallel lives, thinking that you and I are moving in the same direction,” Sara replied. ”We’re not even on the same track. I want you to let me in.”
“Wonder if she’s speaking from experience?” Diana snarked and Neal gave her a look.
“She’s lying to get a confession,” he pointed out.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
”Are you really in this with me?” McKenzie said.
”To the very end.”
“Because you love me?”
There was the unmistakable sound of the two of them kissing, and Neal tried to convince himself it meant nothing to Sara. But McKenzie’s next words sent a chill down his spine, and all jealousy was forgotten.
”Too bad I don’t believe you.”
Neal and Diana’s eyes met. “He knows she’s lying,” Neal said urgently, tossing his headphones onto the console. “Come on!” He led the way out of the van and back into the building, panic making his feet more sure as they navigated the warren of hallways back stage at the symphony hall. He and Diana rounded a corner and barreled through the door, and what he saw confirmed his worst fears.
McKenzie had pulled a knife on Sara, with a nasty, exaggerated curve to its roughly six-inch blade. He recognized it as one of the ceremonial daggers from his apartment - sharp and nasty, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought it had a barb at the end as well. It was undoubtedly the weapon that had claimed the life of Maury the instrument caretaker the day before.
“FBI! Drop your weapon!” Diana commanded, her own gun held high and steady, an expression that brooked no argument on her face.
McKenzie merely tightened his hold on Sara, pressing the sharp blade against her throat for emphasis. Sara’s face was a mask of terror, her brown eyes wide as they looked at Neal and Diana.
“Drop the weapon and we can talk,” Diana said, trying to get a good outcome.
“You first,” McKenzie said.
Sara, Neal saw, had against all reason regained her composure and was fingering the telescoping baton she had in her purse. “It’s OK,” she said.
Diana’s eyes widened, but she lowered her gun. McKenzie eased his grip on Sara enough for her to be able to spring into action. She pulled the baton out of her purse, and Neal could hear it slide open. She caught McKenzie across the forearm, forcing him to let her go, but he didn’t drop the knife. Sara jumped away from him, and Neal pulled her to safety.
McKenzie made to go after her, and Neal rushed him, tackling him up against the counter and landing a punch across the smug prick’s jaw. They grappled, Neal tried to get another blow in, but McKenzie pushed him off, a punch glancing across Neal's jaw that pushed him back, but McKenzie brought his other hand up, the one that held the knife. Neal fended the first thrust off with his forearm, but McKenzie changed his angle with the second, and Neal felt a sharp, burning sensation as the thin blade slid between his ribs to the hilt.
“Ahh!” he shouted with surprise and tried to get away, but McKenzie was on him, twisting the handle and digging the weapon in farther. The blade was like a finger of fire between Neal's ribs, and he could actually hear it as it sliced through him, rending muscle and sinew.
“Neal!” Sara shrieked as Neal fell to the floor, his legs suddenly unable to hold his weight.
POP-POP The sound of Diana’s Sig Sauer going off in the enclosed space ought to have been louder, but there was such a rushing in Neal's ears he barely noticed. He was vaguely aware of McKenzie’s body hitting the floor somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t be bothered to care if the man was badly hurt or not.
The pain was off the charts horrible. He thought he’d felt bad pain before - he’d broken his left tibia when he was 14 in a fall from the ropes in gym class, and that had hurt like hell, and then there was the time in Copenhagen with Alex and the fall from the wall at the Amalienborg Palace that had left him with two cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. But all of that paled in comparison to this.
This pain was like a live thing; it felt like it was spreading inside him, taking him over like an insidious, spreading fungus until there would be space for nothing else. It took his breath away, literally. He forgot to breathe until the pain of suffocation reminded him he must take a breath, and he did, only he suddenly couldn’t find enough air to fill his lungs. A sob escaped his lips as he gasped like a landed fish. He realized with a cold kind of logic that the knife must have pierced his lung.
He became aware of something pulling at his jacket sleeve, something insistent, clinging. He moved his head with some difficulty to get a better look, realized he was lying on his back somehow; he noticed the cobwebs along the acoustic tiles of the cheap drop ceiling of the room they were in, fluttering on a current of air from the air conditioning vent. Fluttering, but never coming free; stuck.
Something was pulling at his jacket sleeve and he finally managed to focus his eyes on the source.
“Neal!”
Sara was kneeling beside him, Diana was standing behind her, leaning over them both. Both women were pale, with shocked expressions on their faces; he wasn’t sure which of them was speaking.
“Goddammit, I can’t get a fucking signal down here,” Diana said. She cursed a lot when she was nervous, he had noticed that before.
“McKenzie?” Neal managed to say, surprising himself.
“Dead,” Diana said, glancing behind her at something on the floor - the man’s body, Neal guessed. “Fucking asshole.”
Sara made a high-pitched noise that made her sound like she’d inhaled helium, and her eyes got impossibly wider.
“I’ve gotta - I’ve got to go call for help. Stay with him, Sara, I’ll be right back.”
Sara blinked; Neal thought she seemed to be vibrating.
“Sara!” Diana barked and the redhead flinched. “Do not you lose your shit now! Neal needs you.”
Sara nodded and Diana disappeared from Neal's line of sight.
And then Sara was plucking at Neal's sleeve some more.
“Sara.” His voice was more gasp than sound; he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to power his speech. But he knew he needed help, and she was his only chance. She glanced at him, then down at the bloody mess of his shirt, then at the wall, her eyes darting around like a pinball, never settling on anything for more than half a second. “Sara,” he said, a little louder.
Her eyes on his were filled with tears. “You have to try to stop the bleeding.” She didn’t respond, but he saw that she understood him. “Sara.”
“OK.” She got to her feet and cast about the room, looking for something to use. She made more high-pitched noises when she neared McKenzie’s body, but finally returned with a roll of paper towels. She held them out mutely to Neal.
“Use them to apply pressure to the…” his words gave out from the difficulty he had breathing. She spun several feet off the roll and wadded it up, pressed it against his side. The pressure was a new agony, bright and terrible, forcing him to cry out, but he also knew it wasn’t enough. “Harder.” He slipped his hand around her wrist and pressed it down.
“Neal, I can’t,” she sobbed.
“Sara, you have to. It’ll be OK. Lean into it.”
She did, and he screamed, and she flinched and pulled away. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be,” he gasped, trying to keep his eyes open. “Harder,” he repeated, trying to tighten his grip on her wrist, but his fingers suddenly wouldn’t work.
He couldn’t see her now, his vision was fading, but she leaned into him more, increasing the pressure on the wound. He chewed his lips trying not to make another sound, and thought fleetingly that he might pass out.
“EMTs are ten minutes out,” Diana reported, coming back into the room.
Somehow, the knowledge that help was coming was all he needed to relax. Ten more minutes, he could last ten more minutes.
**2**
Diana’s thumb hovered over her cell phone. Peter Mobile the label said. She took a deep breath and tapped the number.
“Peter Burke.”
She knew it was her imagination, but his tone sounded stern, judging. Like he knew already that she’d fucked it all up. “Boss?” her own voice was shaky, high-pitched in her ears. Girly-sounding and it made her flinch.
“Diana.” I asked you not to bother me, she imagined him thinking.
“Boss, you know how you said not to call you this weekend?”
“Did Neal do something?”
Diana couldn’t answer.
“Someone else didn’t die, did they?”
Still Diana couldn’t answer.
“Diana?” Peter’s voice rose slightly, clearly picking up that something had gone horribly wrong. She imagined he was standing up now.
“McKenzie’s dead. I shot him. He stabbed Neal, so I shot him.”
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of her call, so she repeated what she’d said.
“I heard you. Where are you?”
“Lenox Hill.”
“And Neal?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Dammit, she wasn’t going to cry now, too? “They took him into surgery.”
“Di, listen to me. OPR is going to want to talk to you right away. Don’t. I will be there in thirty minutes.”
“OK, Boss.”
“And Di?”
“Yeah, Boss?”
“Did you save a life today?”
“Two.”
“That’s all that matters. See you as soon as I can.”
**3**
Neal fucking Caffrey.
McKenzie maybe should have known all along that the accursed conman would be the end of him.
In all fairness, not really. He barely knew the guy - had only just met him - but it was no secret trouble followed the guy around. Trouble for other people, that is, if the stories were to be believed.
A lot of people seemed to get dead around Caffrey, he heard. Blown up. Shot. Run over by cars. A lot of peoples’ careers were in the shitter because of him, too. The second he saw Caffrey at the symphony, he should’ve known to back off, to lay low. He could’ve gotten to the string another way, at another time.
But no, because fucking Caffrey was there, sniffing around things, sniffing around Sara, he’d gotten sloppy.
And that was it, wasn’t it? He couldn’t bear to think of her with someone else, least of all some ex-con with no job and no prospects. McKenzie was a vice president. There was a time when that meant something. Meant something to Sara.
Goddamn it, he still loved her. Had thought of nothing other than hanging on to her through all of this mess.
Well, let them have each other. He hoped they’d be happy together. If Caffrey survived the knife between the ribs McKenzie had given him. Somehow, that thought made him feel better, that maybe Caffrey couldn’t have her either, wouldn’t survive.
But then he pictured Sara grieving - for Caffrey and not for him, and it hurt him more than he’d have thought. And then he wished he’d aimed his knife lower, castrated the little fuck when he’d had the chance - see how much Sara would like him then.
You could afford to be petty when you were dead.
**4**
Peter sat on the steps between the fifth and sixth floors of Lenox Hill Hospital, taking deep, measured breaths. The last hours had been busy ones.
He’d had to see to a lot of things. First off, Diana needed to be taken care of, needed to be protected for as long as possible before OPR got their mitts on her. She was holding up remarkably well, all things considered, but still he’d gotten Christie to take her home. Diana had protested loudly - she wanted to be sure Neal was safe - and in the end, he’d had to make it an order, but she was better off away from here. He knew from experience just what she was going through, and being alone with her fiancé would be a good thing right now.
Peter had spent the rest of the intervening time fending off Hughes and the higher-ups over this whole thing. He could almost hear the questions they’d ask him the next day now. “Since when do we lend agency resources to insurance companies?” “Who authorized this operation?” “How are we going to explain this to the Chinese?”
He didn’t much care. He had a man down, and he hadn’t been there.
“Ahh!” he said aloud, a brief, frustrated sound, and ran both hands through his hair. He hadn’t been there. Neal was fighting for his life and he had been at home fretting over the Platinum Package and his annoying father-in-law, instead of being where he belonged, heading up this operation.
The door on the landing opened - it was El. “Hey, Hon.”
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
“He’s out of surgery - the doctor said they were able to repair the damage.”
A flush stole over Peter’s face, a strange warmth spread everywhere as relief flowed over him like a wave. Suddenly, the emotions he’d been keeping at bay the last few hours began to overtake him. Elizabeth joined him, sat one step above him, and pulled his head against her. “It’s OK to cry,” she said quietly, and as if that was all the leave he needed, he found himself sobbing uncontrollably into her chest.
----
“Peter,” Neal said, a drugged and sleepy smile on his face. Peter had been allowed to visit with him as soon as he’d come out of recovery, if for only a few minutes. But then Neal's face changed, and a hint of fear entered his eyes. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. Am I dying?”
“No! No!” Peter said, a hand on Neal's shoulder to reassure him.
“You have the worst poker face, Peter Burke,” Neal said and Peter tried to lighten up his own expression. He was afraid it looked more like a grimace.
“It’s not a poker face, I swear. I’m just worried about you. How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”
“I think I must be. I can’t tell.” He smiled then, and Peter noted the glassiness in his eyes. Neal's eyelids drooped as he slipped back towards unconsciousness.
“I’ll let the nurse know. Hey, I’m proud of you, you know. You did good today, kid.”
Neal smiled again, but his eyes were closed. “You mean I did well.”
“And now you’re correcting my grammar.” Peter was relieved to be able to smile. “Rest up, Neal. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I’ll always be there, from now on, he promised, and rested a hand fondly on the top of Neal's head.
**5**
Sara stood in the doorway to Neal's room, twisting the strap on her purse between her fingers. He was sleeping and she didn’t want to disturb him. Images of that horrible day in the bowels of the symphony hall had plagued her every waking - and sleeping - moment in the week since, so she’d been reluctant to visit.
He looked good - she had heard he’d make a full recovery, and that he was improving every day. But she hadn’t been able to visit, not until Peter made her feel guilty enough that she had no other choice.
”You should visit him. He’s worried about you,” he’d said.
”Worried about me? He’s the one who nearly died.”
“But you went through something traumatic, and he wants to see if you’re all right. You know how he is.”
She knew how he was, that was the problem.
“Sara!” Neal said happily, and she saw he was now awake and she had no option but to stay.
“Hi!” she said too brightly and walked stiffly into the room. “I brought you some flowers.”
“Irises, my favorite.”
“You always said they have happy faces,” she said, smiling back, but then she busied herself with finding the perfect spot for the vase, then with situating the chair properly beside the bed. She noticed he was watching her with an odd expression on his face. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Aren’t I supposed to be saying that to you? You’re the one in the hospital, after all.” Her voice sounded too high and shrill to her ears.
He watched her for a minute. “You know I’ll be OK, right? The docs said a full recovery.”
“I know,” she answered too quickly.
“Well then, what?”
“I hate hospitals.” A lame answer if ever she’d heard one.
“Uh huh,” he answered, clearly agreeing with her.
They sat in awkward silence for several minutes until she finally gave up. “Well, I should be going,” she began, but he was talking right over her, “When are you going to just give yourself a break?”
“What?”
“When are you going to ease up on yourself, Sara?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? You feel responsible for me getting hurt. That’s why you haven’t visited.”
“That’s not - OK, that’s a part of it.” She sighed and finally looked at him. With those blue conman’s eyes so piercing, she knew they saw everything, and understood even more. “If I hadn’t screwed up the meeting with Bryan, this never would have happened.”
“Sara, he’d made you. Might have even suspected you from the beginning. You shouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. It was too dangerous.”
“You almost died.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you could have. You could have, and I was just sitting there like a ninny, staring at you.”
“That’s what this is all about?”
“I froze, Neal. I froze! You were bleeding to death and I - I just sat there.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. I probably would have drowned on my own blood first.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“It’s supposed to give you perspective. You were in shock; there’s no predicting a person’s reaction when something like that happens. No one blames you.”
“I blame myself! I pride myself on being this capable, strong person, Neal. But when it really mattered, I choked.”
“Sara -“ He reached a hand out to her and she pulled away.
“No, Neal. You’re lucky you survived this. But what about the next time I’m faced with this situation?”
“It was a pretty extreme situation.”
“OK, so what if it’s something else? An accident or a bee sting? It doesn’t matter what, because I know now I won’t be able to handle it!”
“But you did, though. You got away from Bryan. He might have killed you, and you got away from him.”
“You could have died,” she said, her voice small, and she fought the tears that were coming.
He reached out and took her hand. “I didn’t. Because you were there. And maybe you didn’t have the confidence of a trauma surgeon in that situation, but who would have? You can’t obsess about what could have happened, Sara. If I did that, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.”
She sniffed, and turned her wrist so that she was holding onto his hand. “I wish I could believe that like you do.”
He smiled sadly. “It gets easier.”
“Promise?”
He nodded. “If you let it, it does.”
She smiled back at him. “I’m glad you’re OK.”
“Me too. I’m glad you came to visit. It’s easier to recover when friends are around.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
He paused, as if giving it thought. “Yes. I hope so.”
She smiled again, and this time, it was a happy one. “Me too.”
----
Thank you for your time.