Fic: No Alarms and No Surprises, Please
Title: No Alarms and No Surprises, Please
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Elizabeth, Neal, Peter gen
Spoilers: Countdown
Content Notice: Descriptions of offscreen torture
Word Count: ~8,200
Summary: Neal is kidnapped but escapes, finding his way to the Burkes’ for help. Elizabeth takes a very personal interest in his situation.
On AO3
A/N: The action of this story takes place several months after the events in “Countdown” are resolved, even though as of this writing, we don’t know what that will be. I’m assuming all turns out well, Neal and Peter’s partnership is more or less restored, and Moz has not left town.
This is a fill for the White Collar Abduct-a-Palooza commentfic meme over on whitecollarhc, and
virgo_79’s prompt for a bloody Neal left on the Burkes’ doorstep. And what the heck - it'll also fill my "surgery" square for HC Bingo!
Title is a lyric from the song “No Surprises” by Radiohead.
Elizabeth Burke put the final touches on her lipstick, double-checked her hair in the mirror and headed down the stairs. As she swept through the house gathering her notes and pc and making sure she had everything she needed in her briefcase, she tidied up after the remnants of the morning’s whirlwind when Peter had gotten ready for another day at the FBI. These were not typical days, and the state of her kitchen and dining room table showed it. Neal had gone missing, Peter was convinced he’d run, and the story of his investigation could be told by the discarded sheets of notepaper, the coffee cups piled in her dishwasher, and the general disarray of the furniture that had sat most of the team the night before.
Elizabeth sighed. She hated to see her husband upset, and Neal’s disappearance had him nearly beside himself with anger. But there was more to it, she suspected. After all that had happened over the last year, it seemed as if the two of them had regained much of the trust they’d lost, and they were once again a solid team. But this had shaken that fragile balance yet again and she suspected Peter’s reaction to the situation had more to do with his hurt and disappointment than anything else.
She sighed and said a silent prayer that it would be resolved happily - she hated what these situations did to Peter.
Convinced she had done as much to tidy up as she could and not be late for her meeting, she ran her hands down herself, doing a mental checklist…lucky earrings: check; bra that made her tits look great: check; draft contract: check. She had her briefcase slung over her shoulder and was heading through to the hall closet for her coat when a loud BANG against the inner door at the front of her house made her jump as the door rattled in its frame. Satchmo barked and headed straight for the door, his tail wagging in stiff little circles as he pressed his nose to the door and whined.
She could see through the frosted glass of the inner door that the outer door was open, and though it had happened before on more than one occasion when she or Peter failed to make sure it was closed securely, the sight filled her with alarm. She retrieved her phone from her purse, dialed 911 and had her thumb hovering over the send button as she peered through the door, Satchmo glued to her thigh.
A body lay on the floor in the vestibule, unmoving. She pulled the door open to look and shrieked, “Neal!” as she took in the sight of him. He lay on his side, clad in nothing but a pair of torn and dirty khakis, and she got the vague impression of bruises and other injuries on his ribs and back. She picked her way past his head to kneel beside him, set her phone down on the floor and ran her hands over him. He had a pulse in his neck - strong and fast - and he was definitely breathing, but his face was covered in blood and alarmingly swollen. There were a pair of wounds on his side that looked like some sort of rupture or contact injury that she couldn’t identify, and his bare feet were covered in bloody cuts and abrasions.
“Oh, Neal, honey,” she breathed, laying a hand against his cheek. She picked up her phone, hit that send button and waited for the call to go through.
“911 operator 14, what is your emergency?”
“Hello, please send an ambulance. My husband’s partner, he’s badly injured.” She gave her name and address.
“Is he conscious?”
“No. H-he’s lying in my vestibule! He just showed up here looking like this. Who would do this?”
“Please ma’am, is he breathing?”
“Yes.”
“A squad car will be there in less than five minutes. Please let the officer in and do whatever he says, OK, Mrs. Burke?”
“Yes, of course.” She rang off and got closer to Neal, her eyes filling with tears. Her hand hovered over him, trembling. She wanted to touch him, comfort him until help arrived, but she couldn’t see a single space on his body that didn’t look as if it were injured and she didn’t want to make it worse. She finally settled it along his hip and began speaking to him softly, petting him as she did, saying nothing really, but hoping her voice might help. “An ambulance is coming, Neal. They’ll be here soon. Everything is OK. You’re safe with me and everything will be all right. OK? You’re safe with me.”
She saw the reflection of the police cruiser’s lights on her door; two squad cars had arrived and were double parked in front of her house. She stood at the top of her front steps and waved them over.
“What do we have here?”
She returned to Neal’s side as she told them what had happened. “His name is Neal Caffrey, he’s my husband’s partner at the FBI. He was missing and then he showed up here, like this, just a few minutes ago.”
The first patrolman, a tall African American with the name “Dockery” on his nametag, glanced around the vestibule and then peered inside her living room. “I’ve been here before, I think. Was there a break-in? Abduction.”
El was suddenly self-conscious. “Were you? That was me, then. Last year…” her voice trailed away.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dockery said sincerely. “But, I’m happy to see you’re safe and well?”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” she told him, shaking her head. She couldn’t think of that now - it was behind her.
The second officer, Perkins - older, shorter and fatter - poked his head through the door, his hand on his weapon. “Ambulance is five minutes out. You said this man is an FBI agent?”
“He works with my husband,” she corrected. “He’s a consultant. A friend. Like I said, he was missing for two days, and now he’s here.”
“Did you see anything? Anyone suspicious hanging around?”
She answered their questions distractedly from her position beside Neal on the floor. He still hadn’t moved, hadn’t stirred, and it was all she could focus on. Eventually, the ambulance arrived and she stayed on the floor just inside her entry hall as they worked, recorded his vital signs and eased an oxygen mask over his face. She stood as they brought a backboard into the tiny, enclosed space and moved Neal gently, strapping him to it. Officer Dockery helped carry him to a waiting gurney on the sidewalk and Elizabeth followed closely behind.
The paramedics paused with Neal at the back of the ambulance, preparing to put him inside. Elizabeth rested her hand on his knees, peering into his face, wishing he would open his eyes. “Would you like to ride along?” the female paramedic asked.
“Is that OK? I don’t want to get in your the way.”
“You can sit in the front, ma’am,” the young woman told her, ignoring the glare her partner sent her way.
Elizabeth hurried to retrieve her purse and cell phone from the house, locked up and returned to the paramedics. She found it surreal to be riding in the ambulance, noticing the shorthand the two had with each other as the woman stayed in the back and saw to Neal and the man deftly maneuvered the vehicle through midday traffic.
When they arrived at the hospital, she followed behind Neal’s stretcher, unnoticed, as the paramedics gave the necessary information to the emergency room doctors. “Neal Caffrey, 33, blunt force wounds and electrical burns to the torso, possible head trauma and internal bleeding. This guy took quite a beating.”
El trailed behind them through to the trauma room, watching from just inside the doorway as the doctors and nurses assessed his condition, administering drugs and running initial tests.
“Please be OK,” she whispered over and over as they worked, clutching at her purse with both hands.
Eventually, a nurse noticed her. “Ma’am?” She looked at her with kind eyes. “You can’t stay here. He’s in good hands.”
“Oh, OK.” Elizabeth allowed herself to be led to the waiting area, where the nurse showed her a place to sit.
“What’s your name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“OK, Elizabeth. Your…husband?”
“Neal,” El corrected. “He’s my…Neal. I mean, my friend.”
The nurse smiled. “He’s in very good hands. Does he have any medical conditions we ought to know about? Is he allergic to anything?”
“No, no medical conditions that I know about. I think he said once that he was allergic to penicillin, but now I can’t remember.”
The nurse reached out and squeezed her hand, “That’s fine - better safe than sorry. I need to get back, but someone will be out soon to let you know what’s going on. Is there someone we can call for you?”
“Oh my god, my husband,” El said. In all the drama with the police and the ambulance, she hadn’t thought to alert Peter. She took out her phone. “I need to call him.”
“Will you be all right?” the nurse pressed.
El nodded, pressing her phone to her ear, and the nurse left.
“Hey, hon,” Peter answered. He sounded distracted.
“Peter, it’s Neal. He’s in the hospital.” She gave him the bullets.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Honey, are you OK?” he asked, his voice low, intense.
“Of course, Peter, I’m fine. Just get down here.” She rang off and closed her eyes, replaying the morning’s events - and everything leading up to them - in her mind. The facts, until now, were sparse. Neal’s tracker had been cut in the very late evening two days ago and left on the sidewalk outside June’s. Given who he was, the going assumption was that Neal had run. El didn’t like to believe it, given all the man had done to redeem himself over the last several months, but Peter had been nearly certain, and she figured there were extenuating circumstances he couldn’t share with her that led him to that conclusion, so she didn’t question it.
Now she wished she had. She trusted her husband implicitly, but she wished she’d let her faith in their friend play a bigger part and at least make Peter consider the alternative.
“Elizabeth?” El opened her eyes and looked up; it was the same nurse who had spoken to her before, accompanied by a tall Asian man in his 30s. “This is Dr. Lee.”
El stood and shook the man’s proffered hand. “That was quick,” she commented. “How is he?”
“He’s got internal bleeding, and will need immediate surgery. We’re going to take him up in a few minutes, but he’s awake if you’d like to be with him until then.”
“Yes, thank you.”
They took her through again, explaining his injuries and the procedures that would be necessary to treat him as they walked. Soon, she was standing next to Neal’s bed and peering into his battered face. He opened his eyes when she approached, though only one eye was visible, but he seemed to recognize her, which made her feel somewhat relieved that there might be no head injury. “Hey,” she greeted, and placed a hand lightly on his knee.
“Elizabeth,” he said and closed his eyes tightly. She noticed a tear leaking out of the side of his eye, down into the pillow.
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
He nodded. She looked over at Dr. Lee, who instructed the nurse to increase Neal’s morphine. El stepped closer, put her right hand on the top of his head. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Who did this?”
He opened his eyes as the morphine took effect and he seemed to relax.
“Who did this, Neal?” she repeated.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. They wanted access to the Federal building. Thought I’d be willing to help them, and when I didn’t they -“ he didn’t elaborate. “But I didn’t. Tell Peter I didn’t.”
“Shh, it’s OK. I’ll tell him.”
Neal closed his eyes. “It was like they enjoyed it,” he whispered.
“Don’t think about it,” she said, tears beginning to form in her own eyes. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, OK?” She realized how silly it all sounded as soon as she said the words, but they seemed to soothe him.
“They were going to kill me, but I got away. And I saw I was in Brooklyn, so I …came to your house. Did I scare you? I’m sorry if I scared you.”
He seemed agitated, so she began to run her fingers through his hair, shush him. “It’s OK, Neal. You came somewhere safe. You can always come to our house. Always.” She looked up as two more men arrived.
“We’re ready to take him to surgery now,” Dr. Lee told her. “It’s on the sixth floor. The nurse will take you to the waiting area.”
El looked down at Neal and smiled despite the tears falling down her cheeks. “I’ve got to go, let these guys take care of you, OK? I’ll be there when you wake, I promise.”
----
Elizabeth stood staring out of the windows in the surgical waiting area, left arm slung across her belly, a cup of tea dangling from her right hand. It had been over an hour since they had taken Neal to surgery, and she knew she couldn’t expect to be told every little thing that was happening, but the fact that she knew nothing, coupled with being utterly alone in the room, did nothing to alleviate her anxiety. Images of Neal lying in her vestibule kept flashing before her mind’s eye interspersed with images of that horrible day when Matthew Keller and his men had broken through that very same door and taken her away. She tried to banish the memories but couldn’t, knew they were recurring only because she did not want them, and yet that realization did nothing stop her from reliving it. Sometimes she really hated her brain.
“El!”
She turned to find that her husband had finally arrived. He looked harried, panicked as he gathered her into his arms. “There was an accident on the bridge,” he said into her hair, holding her tight. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
She tilted her head up and he kissed her. “How is he? What do the doctors say?”
She stepped away from him as she recalled what the doctor had told her. “There’s internal bleeding and they’re operating now. He’s got third degree electrical burns that will require skin grafts down the line, he might need plastic surgery to repair his -“ she gestured at her own face, “eye socket.” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “It… it’s bad, Peter.”
“Did he say where he was? What happened?”
“He said he was been kidnapped,” she said, and it came out more forcefully than she’d meant it to, like an accusation.
“Who-?”
“He doesn’t know,” she replied bluntly. “They tortured him, Peter. They tortured him for information on how to get into the Federal building.”
Peter reacted as if he’d been gut-punched. “What?!”
“Don’t worry, he didn’t tell them anything.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Jesus!”
She could see the muscles working along his jaw line as he clenched his teeth, could see his eyes brighten from a sudden influx of tears. She softened her tone as she continued, “He escaped and came to our house, and he just barely made it. He was unconscious when I found him, and then I called 911 and you know the rest.”
Peter only looked at her, speechless. “He didn’t run, Peter,” she felt it necessary to say. “You were wrong. He didn’t run.”
“He didn’t,” he echoed. “Of course he didn’t.” His voice was low, and she could see the emotions playing out over his face, or thought she did: guilt, shame, fear. He turned away from her, went to a nearby bank of chairs and sat down, heavily. He ran a hand over his jaw, leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.
Elizabeth turned back to the windows and stood with her arms crossed, watching as a bank of clouds closed in from the West, threatening rain.
----
El sat in the waiting room beside Peter, his hand cradled between hers in her lap. Her hands were slack on his, not really holding it, but she sensed he needed the contact, the comfort. She wished she could take comfort from his solid presence beside her, wished she could offer it as well because he clearly needed it, but at the moment, all she could think about was Neal and what had happened to him. The only images filling her thoughts were of his injuries; the horrific burns along his ribs, and how they might have been inflicted, his dear, friendly face battered until it was almost unrecognizable. Pictures of that face in terror, in agony, flooded her imagination until it could hold almost nothing else, certainly not thoughts of what her husband might be thinking and feeling, and not how they might be able to comfort each other.
The sudden appearance of Dr. Lee in his surgeon’s scrubs was a welcome sight. She rose and met him almost as soon as he entered the room.
“How did it go?” she asked urgently. “How is he?”
“It went very well,” he assured her. He looked up at Peter as he approached, and El introduced them to each other. “We were able to repair all the bleeding, and he should make a full recovery. I’ve asked our head of plastics to consult on repairing the facial injuries and treatment for the burns. Your friend is lucky to be alive, Mrs. Burke, but he’s got a long road ahead of him.”
“Is he awake? Can we see him?”
“He’s in recovery now, but I don’t think it will be a problem if you came to see him for just a few minutes. You can come with me.”
The doctor led them through a series of doors into a large ward where cubicles were set up for post-operative patients. Neal was to be found in the one nearest the door, where a young intern was monitoring his vital signs and making notes on a chart.
“He should be coming out of the anesthesia shortly,” Dr. Lee informed them in a low voice. “He’ll be very disoriented, so be prepared. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He left them alone and Elizabeth moved closer to the bed, Peter right behind her, and looked down at Neal. He was completely still - she couldn’t remember any time when she’d seen him this inanimate, and it was a little frightening.
“Jesus,” Peter breathed and she looked over her shoulder at him. She’d forgotten that he hadn’t yet seen Neal, and so the sight of his bruised and swollen face must have been disturbing. Peter swallowed reflexively and tightened his grip on her shoulder.
“I know, honey,” she said, covering his hand with her own. “What kind of person does such things?”
Neal stirred and she let go of Peter’s hand. They both leaned forward, calling his name. When he opened his eyes, they darted around without fixing on anything. Elizabeth put her hand on his forehead, running her thumb lightly on his brow. “Neal, hey Neal,” she said to him in a calm voice, and he looked up at her. “The doctor said you came through the surgery just fine. No complications. You’re going to be OK.”
He nodded to show he heard her. At that moment, Dr. Lee returned wearing an apologetic expression, and El understood that they were being asked to leave. “We’ve got to go.”
Suddenly, Neal clutched at her sleeve weakly. “No, don’t. Please stay,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
El gently removed his fingers from her sleeve and placed his hand back down on the bed. She leaned forward and stared into his eyes. “I have to leave this room, Neal, but I’m not leaving you. If you need me, just ask the nurse, OK? You need to get some rest. When you wake up, I’ll be here. I’ll be right here.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis.
He nodded and she told him to close his eyes and he did. With a small sigh of regret she turned to go, and noticed that Peter was staring at her. “Something wrong?” she said to him.
“Nothing,” he replied. She saw concern etched in the lines around his eyes, and a little fear, too. “Nothing.”
As the doctor ushered them back to the waiting area, Peter’s phone, which had been buzzing intermittently since he arrived, did so again, several times in quick succession. Finally he had to take a look, and paused as he read the messages there. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What is it, hon?”
“This case. Neal’s case. They’ve been monitoring chatter and talking to informants about these people, and there’s a solid lead. Maybe. Diana’s got someone in interrogation.”
“And you want to be the interrogator,” Elizabeth deduced.
“If I find the people who did this -“ He let it hang there; the flash of anger in his eyes told her enough. “But I don’t want to leave you here, either of you.”
She knew he’d be better actually doing something rather than sitting and waiting. “I’ll take care of him, Peter. It’ll be fine.”
“I’d feel better if you were at least able to get in touch with Moz.”
“I left messages on all his numbers. He’ll turn up, I’m sure. Go. Get the bastards that did this.” He gave her a grateful look and kissed her, and she watched him go with silent wishes that whoever did this to Neal might not come quietly, and that the full weight of the FBI would rain down upon their heads.
----
El felt herself nodding off over an absolutely riveting article about toilet training in the November, 2006 issue of Parents magazine. She raised her head and glanced over at Neal in his bed, where he had remained, unmoving, since they’d transferred him to a room three hours earlier. She glanced at her phone and saw there were no new messages from Peter, or from Moz. She felt she was, effectively, in limbo until Neal emerged from his anesthetized haze.
Wanting to stretch her back a bit, she got up and stood beside Neal and stared into his expressionless face. She needlessly straightened the blanket that covered him, fussed with the wires on the leads for the heart monitor, which were not running parallel to each other, then leaned heavily on the bedrail, all busywork completed and still feeling restless. “Are you in there?” she said softly to him. “Because I wouldn’t mind seeing those beautiful blue eyes right about now. I’ve missed them.”
He didn’t move or give any indication he heard her. “I’m sorry this had to happen, Neal, that everyone thought you ran and no one knew what you were going through. I can’t even imagine it. I’m sorry they lost faith - we lost faith, because you didn’t deserve it. You’ve proven what a good person you are, time and again, and now…” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t notice the tears in her eyes until one of them fell on the blanket. She straightened, turned away and leaned her hip against the bed, swiping the tears away with disgust. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, as if she didn’t deserve to be crying over him, but the tears had started, and soon she couldn’t control them.
There was a stirring behind her and then Neal’s hand was twitching on the bed. She turned to face him. “Neal?”
He opened his eyes and found hers immediately. She could see he recognized her, that he had none of the confusion that was typical with anesthesia, which was more of a relief than she expected it to be. “Hey,” she said to him, attempting a smile.
“El,” he said, his voice weak and tired-sounding. He stared at her for several moments. “Am I dying?”
“What? No.”
“Why are you crying?”
“That’s not important right now.” She grabbed some tissues from the nightstand and tried to clean herself up, smearing her eye makeup in the process. “How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”
“Thirsty,” he said, trying to wet his parched lips.
“Here, the nurse said you could have some ice chips.” She fed him a few and then used another tissue to clean up the moisture that had dripped down his face.
“What happened?”
“You had surgery. Do you remember why?”
He closed his eyes, furrowed his brow as he tried, staring at the ceiling as his memories came back to him. “I - oh. I remember, I was…I was kidnapped.”
“Yes,” she confirmed for him sadly.
“But I escaped.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted me to do something. I don’t remember what, though, I can’t remember, I can’t!”
“It’s OK, Neal, if you don’t remember,” she interrupted, but he continued as if he hadn’t heard her.
“They wanted me to, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. And th-they beat me up, they took turns at it, and I said they’d have to try harder if they were going to break Neal Caffrey.” He smiled at the memory of his defiance, but then his face clouded over as he continued to remember. “Then one of them, the short one, he brought in a lamp, and he plugged it in, and he pulled the cord out of the lamp…” His voice trailed off then and he looked at her, and his words came out in a rush. “They tortured me. They tortured me with electrical wires, Elizabeth. They tortured me.”
Tears were running out of his swollen eyes and into the pillow, and she took his hand in hers and brought it to her face and kissed it, squeezed it, shook her head. “No,” she said. “No.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he cried.
“You’re sorry for what?” Tears were again flowing freely down her face.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Who else will you tell?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. No one.” His voice was barely audible, and he was shaking.
“Tell me, Neal. You can tell me.”
“Can I?”
She leaned closer, held his hand tighter, whispered into the back of it, her lips touching his skin. “Tell me, I’m here for you, honey. Tell me.”
“OK. OK.” He took a deep breath and continued. “They laughed. I screamed and they laughed. But I wouldn’t tell them, so they said they would kill me. They’d dump me in the river to drown. But they had to wait until nightfall, so they threw me into a garden shed and locked me in. And I got out. I kicked through the corner of it - it was made of cheap sheet metal - bad soldering job, so I got out. I climbed a bunch of fences and I got away.”
“And you were in Brooklyn?”
He nodded. “I was. Isn’t that funny?”
“No.”
“Lucky then.”
“Lucky I was home,” she told him.
“Lucky,” he repeated, his eyelids suddenly drooping.
“Neal, I’m sorry you had to go through that, I am. You were so brave.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, El,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m the one. I should be sorry.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer, but closed his eyes and sighed.
“Why, Neal?”
“You’re Elizabeth.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, but he had fallen asleep.
She laid his hand gently back onto the bed, put the shoes she’d discarded earlier back on her feet and left the room. She made a beeline for the ladies’ room beyond the nurse’s station, plunged through the door and headed straight for the first stall, where she promptly vomited up whatever remained in her stomach of the tuna sandwich she had choked down for dinner. When she was done she walked on wobbly legs back to the sinks and rinsed her mouth out with cold water, then began to splash some of it onto her face. But it did no good, because the sobs she’d been holding back since Neal awoke came on with a vengeance, and she almost couldn’t catch her breath.
There was a knock at the door. “El?” It was Peter. Had he seen her run in here? She couldn’t answer, didn’t trust her voice. The door opened slightly and he poked his head in. “Honey?”
She covered her mouth with her hand, but it did nothing to hide the fact she was crying, hard. He rushed over to her and wrapped her in his arms, his right hand on the back of her neck, his left rubbing her back soothingly. He made shushing sounds until she quieted, and then led her to the bench seat along the opposite wall and sat down with her.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it Neal?”
She nodded.
“Is he worse? Did the doctor -“
She shook her head. “No. His condition’s the same. He woke up. He,” she swallowed, hard, fighting back another sob, “he told me what they did to him,” she said, her voice a whisper.
He took her face in his hands and pulled her close, their foreheads touching. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I do, Peter, it has to be said.” She stood then, shook off his hands as he tried to hold onto her. She snatched several paper towels from the dispenser and wiped at her face carelessly. “They beat him. They took him from his home, and they beat him bloody,” her voice rose as she spoke.
“El, you don’t have to-“
“Oh, I think I do, because I can’t be the only one with this in my head. Because when Neal wouldn’t give them what they wanted, they started to torture him with electrical wires, Peter. And they laughed at him when he screamed. They laughed. At our friend.” She was crying again, but so was he, and it gave her a kind of perverse satisfaction.
He stood, put his hands on her shoulders. “El, please!” he cried.
“Please what, Peter?”
“Stop.”
“Stop? Why? Because you don’t want to hear about it?”
“No, because you’re upsetting yourself.”
“You’re damn right I’m upset. Our friend - your partner - was abducted, tortured and nearly murdered! What have you done about it?”
He stepped away from her as if she’d hit him. “I - we ran down some leads and they didn’t pan out,” he admitted with a defeated air.
“So these people are still out there?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Did Neal tell you anything about who they were or what their plans were?”
“He couldn’t remember.”
“Did he say where he’d been taken? An address, anything?”
“No.”
“I need to ask him. It might lead to something.” He made as if to move past her, towards the door.
“No,” El said, her voice suddenly steely. She took a step to block him.
“Honey, I’ve got to see if he remembers anything that will help in this investigation.”
“And if he does, I will tell you. He’s sleeping now, and he shouldn’t be disturbed.”
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “It will only take a few minutes. Lives could be at stake.”
“Oh, when you put it that way - the answer is still no.”
“El, he’s a material witness.”
“Who is in no condition to be interrogated, Peter. I have told you everything he told me. What more do you need?”
She saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but he held his tongue.
“I need to watch out for him Peter, because no one else will.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means. People can’t just take other people. Someone has to protect them.”
“You mean like I couldn't protect you from Keller?” he said.
“That’s not what I said.”
“But is it what you meant?”
She had no answer for him, and the expression on his face was immediately transformed into one of sorrow and guilt, and it hurt her to see it, to know she’d put it there. He pushed past her and walked out of the rest room. She turned away and stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered who the hell the woman was looking back at her, because she didn’t recognize her.
----
The nurses told her she could stay the night in Neal’s room, and wheeled in a small cot for her to sleep on, lent her a set of scrubs and some toiletries. El suspected many of them assumed Neal was her husband, and she didn’t disavow them of that notion, if it got them to let her stay. As she lay curled up on her side, she reflected that she’d never - not once in the nearly fifteen years she’d known him - gone to bed angry at Peter. She didn’t know what was going on with her, why she found herself so angry, but something inside her, some primal, protective instinct had burst into life, and she’d be damned if she’d let anything else bad happen to Neal.
As she tried to fall asleep, she couldn’t stop the memories of that horrible night Matthew Keller and his men had broken into her home and taken her away. The fear she’d felt - for herself, for her husband and family - had been almost crippling when it happened. The men had been oddly respectful for a gang of murderous thugs and, apart from a few bruises resulting from their grabbing her and shoving her into a van, she’d sustained no other injuries. But the violation of her home, her safe place, was not something she easily got over, and she still felt antsy on the rare occasions that Peter had to leave her home alone at night. She thought she’d gotten past it, had left it behind her, but the day’s events had brought the memories back with a vengeance, and the intensity of her reaction was stunning and shocking to her. And she couldn't help it.
It was well after 2:00 AM when she finally fell into a fitful and thankfully dreamless sleep.
----
“El,” Neal said.
She got up from her chair, dropped the magazine she was reading onto the seat and moved to his side. It was the middle of the next day, and he’d been sleeping the entire time. But when she looked at him, his color was much improved, and his eyes were clear as they blinked up at her. “Hey there,” she said with a smile, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Are you in pain?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Have you been here this entire time?”
“Maybe.”
“Watching me?”
“Watching out for you.”
“Thank you. Where’s Peter?”
She should have expected the question, but she couldn't meet Neal’s eyes. The memory of her last conversation with her husband cut her like a knife, but she hadn’t reached out to him to make it right, even though she knew he’d be waiting for her to make the first move. “Catching the people who did this to you, I expect.”
“You expect, or you know?” Neal probed. She should have known she couldn’t keep a secret from him. He and Peter both often said that you can’t con a con, and now she saw how right they were.
“I haven’t talked to him since last night.”
Neal seemed to understand that something was bothering her. “What happened?”
“We had a disagreement.” Neal raised his eyebrows, expecting more of an explanation. “He wanted to question you, and I said he had to wait.”
“El -“
“Don’t ‘El’ me. You’re in no condition to withstand the third degree. I told him everything you told me, they have all the information they need, and until you remember more, there’s no reason for you to have to go over it again.”
“I don’t think Peter would do anything to hurt me.”
“I don’t think so, either. But one thing you don’t know, Neal, is that when you were missing, they all suspected you’d cut and run.” There was immediate pain in his face and she regretted telling him. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”
He blinked back sudden tears. “No, it’s…a natural assumption, I suppose.” His voice was quiet, halting, as he realized they hadn’t actually been looking for him to rescue him but to arrest him.
“Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be protected while you’re vulnerable. If Moz were here, he’d give you the same advice.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t want you going against Peter for me. He’s your husband, he needs you.”
“And you’re my friend, and right now, you need me more.”
“Thank you, but this makes me very uncomfortable.”
“The feeling will pass,” she told him imperiously.
He closed his eyes and she thought he’d fallen asleep. She slumped a little, dropped her head and sighed. She knew she was doing the right thing for him, for right now, and she knew he had a long road to recovery ahead of him - both physically and mentally, but if she could delay some of his stress for even a little while, she would. But it was still hard.
“I remember something else,” he said suddenly, and she looked back up at him, surprised. “I remember the house they took me to, the block it was on. I was down by the Navy Yards. You have to call Peter for me, Elizabeth!”
----
Elizabeth stood at the door outside Neal’s room, feet planted and arms folded across her chest. She imagined she made a pretty comical sight, barefoot and wearing borrowed scrubs, hair tied into a haphazard bun at the back of her head.
Peter arrived with Diana at his heels, leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and she let him, though she didn’t take her arms down. It was an uneasy truce, they both understood - for the moment.
“How is he?” Peter said gently, his eyes on Neal through the open door.
“Stronger, today, I think, but he’s in a lot of pain,” she said.
“Any complications from the surgery?” Diana asked. Her eyes were large, concerned; they flicked into the room nervously - she was clearly worried for her friend.
“A slight fever, but they said that’s normal, and the antibiotics are keeping it under control.”
“How are you?” Peter asked, a hand on her arm.
“The plastic surgeon just left - they’ve scheduled those surgeries for tomorrow,” she went on, ignoring his question.
Peter sighed, dropped his hand. “You said he remembered something else?”
El nodded. “He insisted I call you, said he needed to tell you himself.” Peter nodded. “Listen to me, Peter, he’s very traumatized, but he doesn’t want to admit it. You need to be careful.”
“El,” he said gently but firmly, “I know how to question a witness. I’ve done this before, you know?”
Elizabeth nodded but still looked worried for Neal. Peter led the way into the room, standing over Neal’s bed and looking down at him, a worried expression creasing his brow. Diana took up a place just inside the door while El stood on the other side of Neal’s bed.
Peter laid a hand on Neal’s knee. “Hey, buddy,” he said quietly.
Neal opened his eyes, turned his head to look up at Peter, and flashed his best Caffrey grin up at him. The sight of his partner’s bravery brought tears to Peter’s eyes that he quickly blinked away, but it didn’t go unnoticed. “Do I look that bad?” Neal kidded. “Maybe we should get the plastic surgeon back in here.”
“No, you look fine,” Peter replied gruffly, smiling. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I won’t take long, I promise. Elizabeth said you were getting some of your memory back.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything that happened, from the beginning.”
“Peter,” El warned.
He ignored her and talked instead to Neal. “You may remember another detail that might help, Neal, so if you can, I’d like you to tell me the whole story. Can you start from the beginning?”
“Sure. I was walking home from dinner Monday night when a guy approached me, asked me how to get to the Russian Tearoom. I told him he was way off and advised him to find a cab. Then he addressed me by name, he said, ‘Aren’t you Neal Caffrey?’”
“He knew you?”
Neal shrugged. “I had never seen him before. He was a white guy, short, maybe five foot six, thin. Big nose, dark hair and eyes. He had mean eyes.” Neal shuddered as he remembered. Elizabeth took his hand in hers and held it; he squeezed back.
The gesture did not escape Peter’s notice - he looked at his wife, but she was looking at Neal. “Go on,” Peter said.
“Then someone tasered me and put a pillow case over my head and shoved me in a van. They cut the tracker and threw it into the street, I remember. I wasn’t really unconscious; we drove for a while, over a bridge, I thought. Well, there had to be a bridge, right, if I ended up in Brooklyn?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They shoved me around for awhile, and when they took the case off my head, we were in a basement.”
“How many were there?”
“I only ever saw three.”
“Armed?”
“Yes.”
“Describe the others?”
“One was really big, like a linebacker. Young, maybe 23. Hispanic, spoke with an American accent, though - Texas, maybe? The other was average height, average build. Unremarkable. Older, though - maybe 50. I got the impression he was the brains of the outfit, but he didn’t really talk much.”
“What did they want?”
“They wanted -” Neal’s voice began to shake and he stopped talking, took a deep breath. “They wanted me to help them break into the Federal building. They said they knew who I was and who I worked for, and they thought that I’d be interested in helping them, because maybe I wanted to stick it to the FBI.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them no way, that I was two years from parole and if they thought I’d screw that up for a bunch of thugs who came to me without so much as a reference, they were nuts.”
Peter smirked. “Good answer,” he said and nudged Neal in the arm.
“Then they beat the crap out of me.”
Peter’s face fell. “Oh, Neal -“
“Forget it, let’s move this along.”
“You’re sure?” Elizabeth said to him, staring daggers at Peter.
Neal nodded and Peter plowed on. “What happened next?”
“It gets a little blurry then. I blacked out at some point. When I came to, they’d start all over again. At one point, they showed me blueprints of the building, specs of the security systems, really high level stuff. By the way, if what they showed me was current, there’s a gaping flaw in the service elevator control system. Bad design - a child could override it. Seriously.”
“We’ll make a note.”
“They asked me again if I would tell them about the security guards’ shifts, the setup and placement of the surveillance cameras, and if I knew how to override the system. I told them nothing. That’s when -” He stopped talking suddenly, stared down at his lap. He shook his head.
“You OK?” Peter asked.
Neal shook his head again, not looking at him.
“Is that when they tortured you?” Peter asked gently.
Neal nodded and closed his eyes, began to shake.
“Do you want to take a break, Neal?” Peter said.
“No, I think that’s it,” Elizabeth said. “Interview’s over.” All eyes in the room were suddenly on her.
“El,” Peter began.
“You’re pushing him too hard.”
“We need this information if we’re going to have any hope of catching these guys, Elizabeth. He might recall a detail that will lead to an arrest. We have to know what Neal knows.”
“He doesn’t remember,” she said, suddenly angry.
“That’s a question for him,” Peter reminded her quietly.
“He doesn’t remember! Don’t you see that if he does, it changes everything,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“El!” Peter exclaimed, reaching out for her hand.
She stepped back and away from him, holding her hand against her chest. “If he remembers, then it’s something that really happened to me, not somebody else,” she was sobbing uncontrollably now, shaking. “Something I let happen, I didn’t fight back, I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t, I -“
Neal sat up and leaned over, reached out to her. “Elizabeth,” he said, taking her hand. She looked at him, bottom lip trembling. “Listen to me, hey, come on. All of this was beyond anyone’s control, you have to understand that. Both of us had horrible things done to us, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. About the only thing we can do is decide how we deal with it. It can’t take us over, we can’t let it define us.”
She was shaking her head, but she kept her eyes on him as Neal continued, “Matthew Keller took something from you, something he had no right to. He did more than use you as a pawn against me, he took your sense of security, of safety, and I am so sorry it happened. If I could, I would give my life to undo it.”
“Don’t say that, Neal.”
“But I would. There’s no way any of this should have touched you, Elizabeth. You’re special and you make everything right. You’re my friend and the best person I have ever known, and to realize that my actions damaged you - well, it kills me a little every time I think about it.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t. You have to listen to me. What happened to you was entirely my fault, and it’s still hurting you. It’s hurting you to be here looking after me, it’s dredging everything back up.”
“Neal, stop. You’re bleeding!” she reached down and put her hand over the rapidly spreading stain of red on his abdomen.
“Oh,” he said, suddenly dizzy. He fell back on his pillows.
“Peter, call a doctor! Hurry!” Elizabeth said frantically as Neal passed out.
----
Elizabeth stood once again at the windows in the waiting room in the surgical wing, staring out over the city. She was suddenly aware of a warm presence behind her as Peter arrived and slid his arms around her. “Neal’s out of surgery,” he told her.
“And?”
“They said he popped a few internal sutures, but they repaired them and he should be OK. But he won’t be allowed visitors for a couple of days.”
She sighed, but whether it was relief at the news or worry that she couldn’t be there for Neal, she wasn’t entirely sure. The fierce need she had to look out for him was almost frightening to her, but she couldn’t really help it.
“We need to talk, hon,” Peter began.
“We do?”
“We need to understand what’s going on with you.”
“We do,” she agreed. She turned within the circle of his arms and rested her head against his chest. She could hear the strong beating of his heart, and it soothed her. She was suddenly aware of how exhausted she was.
“I left a message with Dr. Warren’s office,” Peter told her, referring to the therapist she’d seen for a brief time after the Keller incident. “I think you need to talk with someone about what you’re going through. You’ve been keeping it all bottled up inside, and it’s not good.”
“You’re right. I thought I was over it, but this whole thing with Neal just brought it all out into the open. Poor Neal! He’s got such a hard road ahead of him, honey, and I don’t just mean his physical recovery.”
“I know. He’s got you to help show him the way though, doesn’t he?” Peter bent his head and kissed the top of her head.
“Yeah,” she agreed. She wasn’t so sure she was the best candidate, but she’d help where she could. “Just like you, he’ll always have me.”
“And just like me, I don’t think he’d have it any other way.”
----
Thank you for your time.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Elizabeth, Neal, Peter gen
Spoilers: Countdown
Content Notice: Descriptions of offscreen torture
Word Count: ~8,200
Summary: Neal is kidnapped but escapes, finding his way to the Burkes’ for help. Elizabeth takes a very personal interest in his situation.
On AO3
A/N: The action of this story takes place several months after the events in “Countdown” are resolved, even though as of this writing, we don’t know what that will be. I’m assuming all turns out well, Neal and Peter’s partnership is more or less restored, and Moz has not left town.
This is a fill for the White Collar Abduct-a-Palooza commentfic meme over on whitecollarhc, and
virgo_79’s prompt for a bloody Neal left on the Burkes’ doorstep. And what the heck - it'll also fill my "surgery" square for HC Bingo!
Title is a lyric from the song “No Surprises” by Radiohead.
Elizabeth Burke put the final touches on her lipstick, double-checked her hair in the mirror and headed down the stairs. As she swept through the house gathering her notes and pc and making sure she had everything she needed in her briefcase, she tidied up after the remnants of the morning’s whirlwind when Peter had gotten ready for another day at the FBI. These were not typical days, and the state of her kitchen and dining room table showed it. Neal had gone missing, Peter was convinced he’d run, and the story of his investigation could be told by the discarded sheets of notepaper, the coffee cups piled in her dishwasher, and the general disarray of the furniture that had sat most of the team the night before.
Elizabeth sighed. She hated to see her husband upset, and Neal’s disappearance had him nearly beside himself with anger. But there was more to it, she suspected. After all that had happened over the last year, it seemed as if the two of them had regained much of the trust they’d lost, and they were once again a solid team. But this had shaken that fragile balance yet again and she suspected Peter’s reaction to the situation had more to do with his hurt and disappointment than anything else.
She sighed and said a silent prayer that it would be resolved happily - she hated what these situations did to Peter.
Convinced she had done as much to tidy up as she could and not be late for her meeting, she ran her hands down herself, doing a mental checklist…lucky earrings: check; bra that made her tits look great: check; draft contract: check. She had her briefcase slung over her shoulder and was heading through to the hall closet for her coat when a loud BANG against the inner door at the front of her house made her jump as the door rattled in its frame. Satchmo barked and headed straight for the door, his tail wagging in stiff little circles as he pressed his nose to the door and whined.
She could see through the frosted glass of the inner door that the outer door was open, and though it had happened before on more than one occasion when she or Peter failed to make sure it was closed securely, the sight filled her with alarm. She retrieved her phone from her purse, dialed 911 and had her thumb hovering over the send button as she peered through the door, Satchmo glued to her thigh.
A body lay on the floor in the vestibule, unmoving. She pulled the door open to look and shrieked, “Neal!” as she took in the sight of him. He lay on his side, clad in nothing but a pair of torn and dirty khakis, and she got the vague impression of bruises and other injuries on his ribs and back. She picked her way past his head to kneel beside him, set her phone down on the floor and ran her hands over him. He had a pulse in his neck - strong and fast - and he was definitely breathing, but his face was covered in blood and alarmingly swollen. There were a pair of wounds on his side that looked like some sort of rupture or contact injury that she couldn’t identify, and his bare feet were covered in bloody cuts and abrasions.
“Oh, Neal, honey,” she breathed, laying a hand against his cheek. She picked up her phone, hit that send button and waited for the call to go through.
“911 operator 14, what is your emergency?”
“Hello, please send an ambulance. My husband’s partner, he’s badly injured.” She gave her name and address.
“Is he conscious?”
“No. H-he’s lying in my vestibule! He just showed up here looking like this. Who would do this?”
“Please ma’am, is he breathing?”
“Yes.”
“A squad car will be there in less than five minutes. Please let the officer in and do whatever he says, OK, Mrs. Burke?”
“Yes, of course.” She rang off and got closer to Neal, her eyes filling with tears. Her hand hovered over him, trembling. She wanted to touch him, comfort him until help arrived, but she couldn’t see a single space on his body that didn’t look as if it were injured and she didn’t want to make it worse. She finally settled it along his hip and began speaking to him softly, petting him as she did, saying nothing really, but hoping her voice might help. “An ambulance is coming, Neal. They’ll be here soon. Everything is OK. You’re safe with me and everything will be all right. OK? You’re safe with me.”
She saw the reflection of the police cruiser’s lights on her door; two squad cars had arrived and were double parked in front of her house. She stood at the top of her front steps and waved them over.
“What do we have here?”
She returned to Neal’s side as she told them what had happened. “His name is Neal Caffrey, he’s my husband’s partner at the FBI. He was missing and then he showed up here, like this, just a few minutes ago.”
The first patrolman, a tall African American with the name “Dockery” on his nametag, glanced around the vestibule and then peered inside her living room. “I’ve been here before, I think. Was there a break-in? Abduction.”
El was suddenly self-conscious. “Were you? That was me, then. Last year…” her voice trailed away.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dockery said sincerely. “But, I’m happy to see you’re safe and well?”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” she told him, shaking her head. She couldn’t think of that now - it was behind her.
The second officer, Perkins - older, shorter and fatter - poked his head through the door, his hand on his weapon. “Ambulance is five minutes out. You said this man is an FBI agent?”
“He works with my husband,” she corrected. “He’s a consultant. A friend. Like I said, he was missing for two days, and now he’s here.”
“Did you see anything? Anyone suspicious hanging around?”
She answered their questions distractedly from her position beside Neal on the floor. He still hadn’t moved, hadn’t stirred, and it was all she could focus on. Eventually, the ambulance arrived and she stayed on the floor just inside her entry hall as they worked, recorded his vital signs and eased an oxygen mask over his face. She stood as they brought a backboard into the tiny, enclosed space and moved Neal gently, strapping him to it. Officer Dockery helped carry him to a waiting gurney on the sidewalk and Elizabeth followed closely behind.
The paramedics paused with Neal at the back of the ambulance, preparing to put him inside. Elizabeth rested her hand on his knees, peering into his face, wishing he would open his eyes. “Would you like to ride along?” the female paramedic asked.
“Is that OK? I don’t want to get in your the way.”
“You can sit in the front, ma’am,” the young woman told her, ignoring the glare her partner sent her way.
Elizabeth hurried to retrieve her purse and cell phone from the house, locked up and returned to the paramedics. She found it surreal to be riding in the ambulance, noticing the shorthand the two had with each other as the woman stayed in the back and saw to Neal and the man deftly maneuvered the vehicle through midday traffic.
When they arrived at the hospital, she followed behind Neal’s stretcher, unnoticed, as the paramedics gave the necessary information to the emergency room doctors. “Neal Caffrey, 33, blunt force wounds and electrical burns to the torso, possible head trauma and internal bleeding. This guy took quite a beating.”
El trailed behind them through to the trauma room, watching from just inside the doorway as the doctors and nurses assessed his condition, administering drugs and running initial tests.
“Please be OK,” she whispered over and over as they worked, clutching at her purse with both hands.
Eventually, a nurse noticed her. “Ma’am?” She looked at her with kind eyes. “You can’t stay here. He’s in good hands.”
“Oh, OK.” Elizabeth allowed herself to be led to the waiting area, where the nurse showed her a place to sit.
“What’s your name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“OK, Elizabeth. Your…husband?”
“Neal,” El corrected. “He’s my…Neal. I mean, my friend.”
The nurse smiled. “He’s in very good hands. Does he have any medical conditions we ought to know about? Is he allergic to anything?”
“No, no medical conditions that I know about. I think he said once that he was allergic to penicillin, but now I can’t remember.”
The nurse reached out and squeezed her hand, “That’s fine - better safe than sorry. I need to get back, but someone will be out soon to let you know what’s going on. Is there someone we can call for you?”
“Oh my god, my husband,” El said. In all the drama with the police and the ambulance, she hadn’t thought to alert Peter. She took out her phone. “I need to call him.”
“Will you be all right?” the nurse pressed.
El nodded, pressing her phone to her ear, and the nurse left.
“Hey, hon,” Peter answered. He sounded distracted.
“Peter, it’s Neal. He’s in the hospital.” She gave him the bullets.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Honey, are you OK?” he asked, his voice low, intense.
“Of course, Peter, I’m fine. Just get down here.” She rang off and closed her eyes, replaying the morning’s events - and everything leading up to them - in her mind. The facts, until now, were sparse. Neal’s tracker had been cut in the very late evening two days ago and left on the sidewalk outside June’s. Given who he was, the going assumption was that Neal had run. El didn’t like to believe it, given all the man had done to redeem himself over the last several months, but Peter had been nearly certain, and she figured there were extenuating circumstances he couldn’t share with her that led him to that conclusion, so she didn’t question it.
Now she wished she had. She trusted her husband implicitly, but she wished she’d let her faith in their friend play a bigger part and at least make Peter consider the alternative.
“Elizabeth?” El opened her eyes and looked up; it was the same nurse who had spoken to her before, accompanied by a tall Asian man in his 30s. “This is Dr. Lee.”
El stood and shook the man’s proffered hand. “That was quick,” she commented. “How is he?”
“He’s got internal bleeding, and will need immediate surgery. We’re going to take him up in a few minutes, but he’s awake if you’d like to be with him until then.”
“Yes, thank you.”
They took her through again, explaining his injuries and the procedures that would be necessary to treat him as they walked. Soon, she was standing next to Neal’s bed and peering into his battered face. He opened his eyes when she approached, though only one eye was visible, but he seemed to recognize her, which made her feel somewhat relieved that there might be no head injury. “Hey,” she greeted, and placed a hand lightly on his knee.
“Elizabeth,” he said and closed his eyes tightly. She noticed a tear leaking out of the side of his eye, down into the pillow.
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
He nodded. She looked over at Dr. Lee, who instructed the nurse to increase Neal’s morphine. El stepped closer, put her right hand on the top of his head. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Who did this?”
He opened his eyes as the morphine took effect and he seemed to relax.
“Who did this, Neal?” she repeated.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. They wanted access to the Federal building. Thought I’d be willing to help them, and when I didn’t they -“ he didn’t elaborate. “But I didn’t. Tell Peter I didn’t.”
“Shh, it’s OK. I’ll tell him.”
Neal closed his eyes. “It was like they enjoyed it,” he whispered.
“Don’t think about it,” she said, tears beginning to form in her own eyes. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, OK?” She realized how silly it all sounded as soon as she said the words, but they seemed to soothe him.
“They were going to kill me, but I got away. And I saw I was in Brooklyn, so I …came to your house. Did I scare you? I’m sorry if I scared you.”
He seemed agitated, so she began to run her fingers through his hair, shush him. “It’s OK, Neal. You came somewhere safe. You can always come to our house. Always.” She looked up as two more men arrived.
“We’re ready to take him to surgery now,” Dr. Lee told her. “It’s on the sixth floor. The nurse will take you to the waiting area.”
El looked down at Neal and smiled despite the tears falling down her cheeks. “I’ve got to go, let these guys take care of you, OK? I’ll be there when you wake, I promise.”
----
Elizabeth stood staring out of the windows in the surgical waiting area, left arm slung across her belly, a cup of tea dangling from her right hand. It had been over an hour since they had taken Neal to surgery, and she knew she couldn’t expect to be told every little thing that was happening, but the fact that she knew nothing, coupled with being utterly alone in the room, did nothing to alleviate her anxiety. Images of Neal lying in her vestibule kept flashing before her mind’s eye interspersed with images of that horrible day when Matthew Keller and his men had broken through that very same door and taken her away. She tried to banish the memories but couldn’t, knew they were recurring only because she did not want them, and yet that realization did nothing stop her from reliving it. Sometimes she really hated her brain.
“El!”
She turned to find that her husband had finally arrived. He looked harried, panicked as he gathered her into his arms. “There was an accident on the bridge,” he said into her hair, holding her tight. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
She tilted her head up and he kissed her. “How is he? What do the doctors say?”
She stepped away from him as she recalled what the doctor had told her. “There’s internal bleeding and they’re operating now. He’s got third degree electrical burns that will require skin grafts down the line, he might need plastic surgery to repair his -“ she gestured at her own face, “eye socket.” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “It… it’s bad, Peter.”
“Did he say where he was? What happened?”
“He said he was been kidnapped,” she said, and it came out more forcefully than she’d meant it to, like an accusation.
“Who-?”
“He doesn’t know,” she replied bluntly. “They tortured him, Peter. They tortured him for information on how to get into the Federal building.”
Peter reacted as if he’d been gut-punched. “What?!”
“Don’t worry, he didn’t tell them anything.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Jesus!”
She could see the muscles working along his jaw line as he clenched his teeth, could see his eyes brighten from a sudden influx of tears. She softened her tone as she continued, “He escaped and came to our house, and he just barely made it. He was unconscious when I found him, and then I called 911 and you know the rest.”
Peter only looked at her, speechless. “He didn’t run, Peter,” she felt it necessary to say. “You were wrong. He didn’t run.”
“He didn’t,” he echoed. “Of course he didn’t.” His voice was low, and she could see the emotions playing out over his face, or thought she did: guilt, shame, fear. He turned away from her, went to a nearby bank of chairs and sat down, heavily. He ran a hand over his jaw, leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.
Elizabeth turned back to the windows and stood with her arms crossed, watching as a bank of clouds closed in from the West, threatening rain.
----
El sat in the waiting room beside Peter, his hand cradled between hers in her lap. Her hands were slack on his, not really holding it, but she sensed he needed the contact, the comfort. She wished she could take comfort from his solid presence beside her, wished she could offer it as well because he clearly needed it, but at the moment, all she could think about was Neal and what had happened to him. The only images filling her thoughts were of his injuries; the horrific burns along his ribs, and how they might have been inflicted, his dear, friendly face battered until it was almost unrecognizable. Pictures of that face in terror, in agony, flooded her imagination until it could hold almost nothing else, certainly not thoughts of what her husband might be thinking and feeling, and not how they might be able to comfort each other.
The sudden appearance of Dr. Lee in his surgeon’s scrubs was a welcome sight. She rose and met him almost as soon as he entered the room.
“How did it go?” she asked urgently. “How is he?”
“It went very well,” he assured her. He looked up at Peter as he approached, and El introduced them to each other. “We were able to repair all the bleeding, and he should make a full recovery. I’ve asked our head of plastics to consult on repairing the facial injuries and treatment for the burns. Your friend is lucky to be alive, Mrs. Burke, but he’s got a long road ahead of him.”
“Is he awake? Can we see him?”
“He’s in recovery now, but I don’t think it will be a problem if you came to see him for just a few minutes. You can come with me.”
The doctor led them through a series of doors into a large ward where cubicles were set up for post-operative patients. Neal was to be found in the one nearest the door, where a young intern was monitoring his vital signs and making notes on a chart.
“He should be coming out of the anesthesia shortly,” Dr. Lee informed them in a low voice. “He’ll be very disoriented, so be prepared. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He left them alone and Elizabeth moved closer to the bed, Peter right behind her, and looked down at Neal. He was completely still - she couldn’t remember any time when she’d seen him this inanimate, and it was a little frightening.
“Jesus,” Peter breathed and she looked over her shoulder at him. She’d forgotten that he hadn’t yet seen Neal, and so the sight of his bruised and swollen face must have been disturbing. Peter swallowed reflexively and tightened his grip on her shoulder.
“I know, honey,” she said, covering his hand with her own. “What kind of person does such things?”
Neal stirred and she let go of Peter’s hand. They both leaned forward, calling his name. When he opened his eyes, they darted around without fixing on anything. Elizabeth put her hand on his forehead, running her thumb lightly on his brow. “Neal, hey Neal,” she said to him in a calm voice, and he looked up at her. “The doctor said you came through the surgery just fine. No complications. You’re going to be OK.”
He nodded to show he heard her. At that moment, Dr. Lee returned wearing an apologetic expression, and El understood that they were being asked to leave. “We’ve got to go.”
Suddenly, Neal clutched at her sleeve weakly. “No, don’t. Please stay,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
El gently removed his fingers from her sleeve and placed his hand back down on the bed. She leaned forward and stared into his eyes. “I have to leave this room, Neal, but I’m not leaving you. If you need me, just ask the nurse, OK? You need to get some rest. When you wake up, I’ll be here. I’ll be right here.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis.
He nodded and she told him to close his eyes and he did. With a small sigh of regret she turned to go, and noticed that Peter was staring at her. “Something wrong?” she said to him.
“Nothing,” he replied. She saw concern etched in the lines around his eyes, and a little fear, too. “Nothing.”
As the doctor ushered them back to the waiting area, Peter’s phone, which had been buzzing intermittently since he arrived, did so again, several times in quick succession. Finally he had to take a look, and paused as he read the messages there. “Shit,” he muttered.
“What is it, hon?”
“This case. Neal’s case. They’ve been monitoring chatter and talking to informants about these people, and there’s a solid lead. Maybe. Diana’s got someone in interrogation.”
“And you want to be the interrogator,” Elizabeth deduced.
“If I find the people who did this -“ He let it hang there; the flash of anger in his eyes told her enough. “But I don’t want to leave you here, either of you.”
She knew he’d be better actually doing something rather than sitting and waiting. “I’ll take care of him, Peter. It’ll be fine.”
“I’d feel better if you were at least able to get in touch with Moz.”
“I left messages on all his numbers. He’ll turn up, I’m sure. Go. Get the bastards that did this.” He gave her a grateful look and kissed her, and she watched him go with silent wishes that whoever did this to Neal might not come quietly, and that the full weight of the FBI would rain down upon their heads.
----
El felt herself nodding off over an absolutely riveting article about toilet training in the November, 2006 issue of Parents magazine. She raised her head and glanced over at Neal in his bed, where he had remained, unmoving, since they’d transferred him to a room three hours earlier. She glanced at her phone and saw there were no new messages from Peter, or from Moz. She felt she was, effectively, in limbo until Neal emerged from his anesthetized haze.
Wanting to stretch her back a bit, she got up and stood beside Neal and stared into his expressionless face. She needlessly straightened the blanket that covered him, fussed with the wires on the leads for the heart monitor, which were not running parallel to each other, then leaned heavily on the bedrail, all busywork completed and still feeling restless. “Are you in there?” she said softly to him. “Because I wouldn’t mind seeing those beautiful blue eyes right about now. I’ve missed them.”
He didn’t move or give any indication he heard her. “I’m sorry this had to happen, Neal, that everyone thought you ran and no one knew what you were going through. I can’t even imagine it. I’m sorry they lost faith - we lost faith, because you didn’t deserve it. You’ve proven what a good person you are, time and again, and now…” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t notice the tears in her eyes until one of them fell on the blanket. She straightened, turned away and leaned her hip against the bed, swiping the tears away with disgust. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, as if she didn’t deserve to be crying over him, but the tears had started, and soon she couldn’t control them.
There was a stirring behind her and then Neal’s hand was twitching on the bed. She turned to face him. “Neal?”
He opened his eyes and found hers immediately. She could see he recognized her, that he had none of the confusion that was typical with anesthesia, which was more of a relief than she expected it to be. “Hey,” she said to him, attempting a smile.
“El,” he said, his voice weak and tired-sounding. He stared at her for several moments. “Am I dying?”
“What? No.”
“Why are you crying?”
“That’s not important right now.” She grabbed some tissues from the nightstand and tried to clean herself up, smearing her eye makeup in the process. “How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”
“Thirsty,” he said, trying to wet his parched lips.
“Here, the nurse said you could have some ice chips.” She fed him a few and then used another tissue to clean up the moisture that had dripped down his face.
“What happened?”
“You had surgery. Do you remember why?”
He closed his eyes, furrowed his brow as he tried, staring at the ceiling as his memories came back to him. “I - oh. I remember, I was…I was kidnapped.”
“Yes,” she confirmed for him sadly.
“But I escaped.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted me to do something. I don’t remember what, though, I can’t remember, I can’t!”
“It’s OK, Neal, if you don’t remember,” she interrupted, but he continued as if he hadn’t heard her.
“They wanted me to, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. And th-they beat me up, they took turns at it, and I said they’d have to try harder if they were going to break Neal Caffrey.” He smiled at the memory of his defiance, but then his face clouded over as he continued to remember. “Then one of them, the short one, he brought in a lamp, and he plugged it in, and he pulled the cord out of the lamp…” His voice trailed off then and he looked at her, and his words came out in a rush. “They tortured me. They tortured me with electrical wires, Elizabeth. They tortured me.”
Tears were running out of his swollen eyes and into the pillow, and she took his hand in hers and brought it to her face and kissed it, squeezed it, shook her head. “No,” she said. “No.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he cried.
“You’re sorry for what?” Tears were again flowing freely down her face.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Who else will you tell?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. No one.” His voice was barely audible, and he was shaking.
“Tell me, Neal. You can tell me.”
“Can I?”
She leaned closer, held his hand tighter, whispered into the back of it, her lips touching his skin. “Tell me, I’m here for you, honey. Tell me.”
“OK. OK.” He took a deep breath and continued. “They laughed. I screamed and they laughed. But I wouldn’t tell them, so they said they would kill me. They’d dump me in the river to drown. But they had to wait until nightfall, so they threw me into a garden shed and locked me in. And I got out. I kicked through the corner of it - it was made of cheap sheet metal - bad soldering job, so I got out. I climbed a bunch of fences and I got away.”
“And you were in Brooklyn?”
He nodded. “I was. Isn’t that funny?”
“No.”
“Lucky then.”
“Lucky I was home,” she told him.
“Lucky,” he repeated, his eyelids suddenly drooping.
“Neal, I’m sorry you had to go through that, I am. You were so brave.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, El,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m the one. I should be sorry.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer, but closed his eyes and sighed.
“Why, Neal?”
“You’re Elizabeth.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, but he had fallen asleep.
She laid his hand gently back onto the bed, put the shoes she’d discarded earlier back on her feet and left the room. She made a beeline for the ladies’ room beyond the nurse’s station, plunged through the door and headed straight for the first stall, where she promptly vomited up whatever remained in her stomach of the tuna sandwich she had choked down for dinner. When she was done she walked on wobbly legs back to the sinks and rinsed her mouth out with cold water, then began to splash some of it onto her face. But it did no good, because the sobs she’d been holding back since Neal awoke came on with a vengeance, and she almost couldn’t catch her breath.
There was a knock at the door. “El?” It was Peter. Had he seen her run in here? She couldn’t answer, didn’t trust her voice. The door opened slightly and he poked his head in. “Honey?”
She covered her mouth with her hand, but it did nothing to hide the fact she was crying, hard. He rushed over to her and wrapped her in his arms, his right hand on the back of her neck, his left rubbing her back soothingly. He made shushing sounds until she quieted, and then led her to the bench seat along the opposite wall and sat down with her.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it Neal?”
She nodded.
“Is he worse? Did the doctor -“
She shook her head. “No. His condition’s the same. He woke up. He,” she swallowed, hard, fighting back another sob, “he told me what they did to him,” she said, her voice a whisper.
He took her face in his hands and pulled her close, their foreheads touching. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I do, Peter, it has to be said.” She stood then, shook off his hands as he tried to hold onto her. She snatched several paper towels from the dispenser and wiped at her face carelessly. “They beat him. They took him from his home, and they beat him bloody,” her voice rose as she spoke.
“El, you don’t have to-“
“Oh, I think I do, because I can’t be the only one with this in my head. Because when Neal wouldn’t give them what they wanted, they started to torture him with electrical wires, Peter. And they laughed at him when he screamed. They laughed. At our friend.” She was crying again, but so was he, and it gave her a kind of perverse satisfaction.
He stood, put his hands on her shoulders. “El, please!” he cried.
“Please what, Peter?”
“Stop.”
“Stop? Why? Because you don’t want to hear about it?”
“No, because you’re upsetting yourself.”
“You’re damn right I’m upset. Our friend - your partner - was abducted, tortured and nearly murdered! What have you done about it?”
He stepped away from her as if she’d hit him. “I - we ran down some leads and they didn’t pan out,” he admitted with a defeated air.
“So these people are still out there?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Did Neal tell you anything about who they were or what their plans were?”
“He couldn’t remember.”
“Did he say where he’d been taken? An address, anything?”
“No.”
“I need to ask him. It might lead to something.” He made as if to move past her, towards the door.
“No,” El said, her voice suddenly steely. She took a step to block him.
“Honey, I’ve got to see if he remembers anything that will help in this investigation.”
“And if he does, I will tell you. He’s sleeping now, and he shouldn’t be disturbed.”
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “It will only take a few minutes. Lives could be at stake.”
“Oh, when you put it that way - the answer is still no.”
“El, he’s a material witness.”
“Who is in no condition to be interrogated, Peter. I have told you everything he told me. What more do you need?”
She saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but he held his tongue.
“I need to watch out for him Peter, because no one else will.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means. People can’t just take other people. Someone has to protect them.”
“You mean like I couldn't protect you from Keller?” he said.
“That’s not what I said.”
“But is it what you meant?”
She had no answer for him, and the expression on his face was immediately transformed into one of sorrow and guilt, and it hurt her to see it, to know she’d put it there. He pushed past her and walked out of the rest room. She turned away and stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered who the hell the woman was looking back at her, because she didn’t recognize her.
----
The nurses told her she could stay the night in Neal’s room, and wheeled in a small cot for her to sleep on, lent her a set of scrubs and some toiletries. El suspected many of them assumed Neal was her husband, and she didn’t disavow them of that notion, if it got them to let her stay. As she lay curled up on her side, she reflected that she’d never - not once in the nearly fifteen years she’d known him - gone to bed angry at Peter. She didn’t know what was going on with her, why she found herself so angry, but something inside her, some primal, protective instinct had burst into life, and she’d be damned if she’d let anything else bad happen to Neal.
As she tried to fall asleep, she couldn’t stop the memories of that horrible night Matthew Keller and his men had broken into her home and taken her away. The fear she’d felt - for herself, for her husband and family - had been almost crippling when it happened. The men had been oddly respectful for a gang of murderous thugs and, apart from a few bruises resulting from their grabbing her and shoving her into a van, she’d sustained no other injuries. But the violation of her home, her safe place, was not something she easily got over, and she still felt antsy on the rare occasions that Peter had to leave her home alone at night. She thought she’d gotten past it, had left it behind her, but the day’s events had brought the memories back with a vengeance, and the intensity of her reaction was stunning and shocking to her. And she couldn't help it.
It was well after 2:00 AM when she finally fell into a fitful and thankfully dreamless sleep.
----
“El,” Neal said.
She got up from her chair, dropped the magazine she was reading onto the seat and moved to his side. It was the middle of the next day, and he’d been sleeping the entire time. But when she looked at him, his color was much improved, and his eyes were clear as they blinked up at her. “Hey there,” she said with a smile, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Are you in pain?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Have you been here this entire time?”
“Maybe.”
“Watching me?”
“Watching out for you.”
“Thank you. Where’s Peter?”
She should have expected the question, but she couldn't meet Neal’s eyes. The memory of her last conversation with her husband cut her like a knife, but she hadn’t reached out to him to make it right, even though she knew he’d be waiting for her to make the first move. “Catching the people who did this to you, I expect.”
“You expect, or you know?” Neal probed. She should have known she couldn’t keep a secret from him. He and Peter both often said that you can’t con a con, and now she saw how right they were.
“I haven’t talked to him since last night.”
Neal seemed to understand that something was bothering her. “What happened?”
“We had a disagreement.” Neal raised his eyebrows, expecting more of an explanation. “He wanted to question you, and I said he had to wait.”
“El -“
“Don’t ‘El’ me. You’re in no condition to withstand the third degree. I told him everything you told me, they have all the information they need, and until you remember more, there’s no reason for you to have to go over it again.”
“I don’t think Peter would do anything to hurt me.”
“I don’t think so, either. But one thing you don’t know, Neal, is that when you were missing, they all suspected you’d cut and run.” There was immediate pain in his face and she regretted telling him. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”
He blinked back sudden tears. “No, it’s…a natural assumption, I suppose.” His voice was quiet, halting, as he realized they hadn’t actually been looking for him to rescue him but to arrest him.
“Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be protected while you’re vulnerable. If Moz were here, he’d give you the same advice.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t want you going against Peter for me. He’s your husband, he needs you.”
“And you’re my friend, and right now, you need me more.”
“Thank you, but this makes me very uncomfortable.”
“The feeling will pass,” she told him imperiously.
He closed his eyes and she thought he’d fallen asleep. She slumped a little, dropped her head and sighed. She knew she was doing the right thing for him, for right now, and she knew he had a long road to recovery ahead of him - both physically and mentally, but if she could delay some of his stress for even a little while, she would. But it was still hard.
“I remember something else,” he said suddenly, and she looked back up at him, surprised. “I remember the house they took me to, the block it was on. I was down by the Navy Yards. You have to call Peter for me, Elizabeth!”
----
Elizabeth stood at the door outside Neal’s room, feet planted and arms folded across her chest. She imagined she made a pretty comical sight, barefoot and wearing borrowed scrubs, hair tied into a haphazard bun at the back of her head.
Peter arrived with Diana at his heels, leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and she let him, though she didn’t take her arms down. It was an uneasy truce, they both understood - for the moment.
“How is he?” Peter said gently, his eyes on Neal through the open door.
“Stronger, today, I think, but he’s in a lot of pain,” she said.
“Any complications from the surgery?” Diana asked. Her eyes were large, concerned; they flicked into the room nervously - she was clearly worried for her friend.
“A slight fever, but they said that’s normal, and the antibiotics are keeping it under control.”
“How are you?” Peter asked, a hand on her arm.
“The plastic surgeon just left - they’ve scheduled those surgeries for tomorrow,” she went on, ignoring his question.
Peter sighed, dropped his hand. “You said he remembered something else?”
El nodded. “He insisted I call you, said he needed to tell you himself.” Peter nodded. “Listen to me, Peter, he’s very traumatized, but he doesn’t want to admit it. You need to be careful.”
“El,” he said gently but firmly, “I know how to question a witness. I’ve done this before, you know?”
Elizabeth nodded but still looked worried for Neal. Peter led the way into the room, standing over Neal’s bed and looking down at him, a worried expression creasing his brow. Diana took up a place just inside the door while El stood on the other side of Neal’s bed.
Peter laid a hand on Neal’s knee. “Hey, buddy,” he said quietly.
Neal opened his eyes, turned his head to look up at Peter, and flashed his best Caffrey grin up at him. The sight of his partner’s bravery brought tears to Peter’s eyes that he quickly blinked away, but it didn’t go unnoticed. “Do I look that bad?” Neal kidded. “Maybe we should get the plastic surgeon back in here.”
“No, you look fine,” Peter replied gruffly, smiling. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I won’t take long, I promise. Elizabeth said you were getting some of your memory back.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything that happened, from the beginning.”
“Peter,” El warned.
He ignored her and talked instead to Neal. “You may remember another detail that might help, Neal, so if you can, I’d like you to tell me the whole story. Can you start from the beginning?”
“Sure. I was walking home from dinner Monday night when a guy approached me, asked me how to get to the Russian Tearoom. I told him he was way off and advised him to find a cab. Then he addressed me by name, he said, ‘Aren’t you Neal Caffrey?’”
“He knew you?”
Neal shrugged. “I had never seen him before. He was a white guy, short, maybe five foot six, thin. Big nose, dark hair and eyes. He had mean eyes.” Neal shuddered as he remembered. Elizabeth took his hand in hers and held it; he squeezed back.
The gesture did not escape Peter’s notice - he looked at his wife, but she was looking at Neal. “Go on,” Peter said.
“Then someone tasered me and put a pillow case over my head and shoved me in a van. They cut the tracker and threw it into the street, I remember. I wasn’t really unconscious; we drove for a while, over a bridge, I thought. Well, there had to be a bridge, right, if I ended up in Brooklyn?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They shoved me around for awhile, and when they took the case off my head, we were in a basement.”
“How many were there?”
“I only ever saw three.”
“Armed?”
“Yes.”
“Describe the others?”
“One was really big, like a linebacker. Young, maybe 23. Hispanic, spoke with an American accent, though - Texas, maybe? The other was average height, average build. Unremarkable. Older, though - maybe 50. I got the impression he was the brains of the outfit, but he didn’t really talk much.”
“What did they want?”
“They wanted -” Neal’s voice began to shake and he stopped talking, took a deep breath. “They wanted me to help them break into the Federal building. They said they knew who I was and who I worked for, and they thought that I’d be interested in helping them, because maybe I wanted to stick it to the FBI.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them no way, that I was two years from parole and if they thought I’d screw that up for a bunch of thugs who came to me without so much as a reference, they were nuts.”
Peter smirked. “Good answer,” he said and nudged Neal in the arm.
“Then they beat the crap out of me.”
Peter’s face fell. “Oh, Neal -“
“Forget it, let’s move this along.”
“You’re sure?” Elizabeth said to him, staring daggers at Peter.
Neal nodded and Peter plowed on. “What happened next?”
“It gets a little blurry then. I blacked out at some point. When I came to, they’d start all over again. At one point, they showed me blueprints of the building, specs of the security systems, really high level stuff. By the way, if what they showed me was current, there’s a gaping flaw in the service elevator control system. Bad design - a child could override it. Seriously.”
“We’ll make a note.”
“They asked me again if I would tell them about the security guards’ shifts, the setup and placement of the surveillance cameras, and if I knew how to override the system. I told them nothing. That’s when -” He stopped talking suddenly, stared down at his lap. He shook his head.
“You OK?” Peter asked.
Neal shook his head again, not looking at him.
“Is that when they tortured you?” Peter asked gently.
Neal nodded and closed his eyes, began to shake.
“Do you want to take a break, Neal?” Peter said.
“No, I think that’s it,” Elizabeth said. “Interview’s over.” All eyes in the room were suddenly on her.
“El,” Peter began.
“You’re pushing him too hard.”
“We need this information if we’re going to have any hope of catching these guys, Elizabeth. He might recall a detail that will lead to an arrest. We have to know what Neal knows.”
“He doesn’t remember,” she said, suddenly angry.
“That’s a question for him,” Peter reminded her quietly.
“He doesn’t remember! Don’t you see that if he does, it changes everything,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“El!” Peter exclaimed, reaching out for her hand.
She stepped back and away from him, holding her hand against her chest. “If he remembers, then it’s something that really happened to me, not somebody else,” she was sobbing uncontrollably now, shaking. “Something I let happen, I didn’t fight back, I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t, I -“
Neal sat up and leaned over, reached out to her. “Elizabeth,” he said, taking her hand. She looked at him, bottom lip trembling. “Listen to me, hey, come on. All of this was beyond anyone’s control, you have to understand that. Both of us had horrible things done to us, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. About the only thing we can do is decide how we deal with it. It can’t take us over, we can’t let it define us.”
She was shaking her head, but she kept her eyes on him as Neal continued, “Matthew Keller took something from you, something he had no right to. He did more than use you as a pawn against me, he took your sense of security, of safety, and I am so sorry it happened. If I could, I would give my life to undo it.”
“Don’t say that, Neal.”
“But I would. There’s no way any of this should have touched you, Elizabeth. You’re special and you make everything right. You’re my friend and the best person I have ever known, and to realize that my actions damaged you - well, it kills me a little every time I think about it.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t. You have to listen to me. What happened to you was entirely my fault, and it’s still hurting you. It’s hurting you to be here looking after me, it’s dredging everything back up.”
“Neal, stop. You’re bleeding!” she reached down and put her hand over the rapidly spreading stain of red on his abdomen.
“Oh,” he said, suddenly dizzy. He fell back on his pillows.
“Peter, call a doctor! Hurry!” Elizabeth said frantically as Neal passed out.
----
Elizabeth stood once again at the windows in the waiting room in the surgical wing, staring out over the city. She was suddenly aware of a warm presence behind her as Peter arrived and slid his arms around her. “Neal’s out of surgery,” he told her.
“And?”
“They said he popped a few internal sutures, but they repaired them and he should be OK. But he won’t be allowed visitors for a couple of days.”
She sighed, but whether it was relief at the news or worry that she couldn’t be there for Neal, she wasn’t entirely sure. The fierce need she had to look out for him was almost frightening to her, but she couldn’t really help it.
“We need to talk, hon,” Peter began.
“We do?”
“We need to understand what’s going on with you.”
“We do,” she agreed. She turned within the circle of his arms and rested her head against his chest. She could hear the strong beating of his heart, and it soothed her. She was suddenly aware of how exhausted she was.
“I left a message with Dr. Warren’s office,” Peter told her, referring to the therapist she’d seen for a brief time after the Keller incident. “I think you need to talk with someone about what you’re going through. You’ve been keeping it all bottled up inside, and it’s not good.”
“You’re right. I thought I was over it, but this whole thing with Neal just brought it all out into the open. Poor Neal! He’s got such a hard road ahead of him, honey, and I don’t just mean his physical recovery.”
“I know. He’s got you to help show him the way though, doesn’t he?” Peter bent his head and kissed the top of her head.
“Yeah,” she agreed. She wasn’t so sure she was the best candidate, but she’d help where she could. “Just like you, he’ll always have me.”
“And just like me, I don’t think he’d have it any other way.”
----
Thank you for your time.