Fic: Mosaic - 7/? - Apology
A/N: Okay, so, I wrote this pre- "Burke's Seven", so this is an AU immediately following "Point Blank". I debated posting this as I personally had a million different ideas on how that particular, erm, situation would play out, and I've addressed it before (in a different fic, "Backup") and may yet adress it again, but I figured, what the heck. They're my little non-cannon ficlets, and I can have a million if I want, right?
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Apology
He'd apologized to Mozzie first. In the hospital, in those long hours of waiting, of silence only broken by the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor and the whirring of the respirator, Neal had apologized, over and over again, in between desperate entreaties to "Please, wake up," until his voice was hoarse from it.
But Mozzie hadn't woken up.
He'd apologized to Diana next, in the car as she'd escorted him back to June's. She'd picked him up from the hospital with a terse "Let's go," and hadn't spoken to him since, hadn't even looked at him. They spent the first half of the car ride in tense silence, while Diana pretended he didn't exist, and he tried to figure out how to apologize. He finally did, ten minutes from June's.
Diana turned on the radio.
He'd apologized to Peter the next day, when he came to inform him that he was under house arrest. Peter had called him "Caffrey," and looked at him like he had the first time they met, like he was a criminal, a stranger. And while the first may hold true, Neal had liked to think they were friends, partners, had coveted the term like something precious when Peter gave it to him. It hurt, that he seemed to have stolen it back. "Peter, I'm-" But Peter hadn't wanted to listen, had refused to listen, had left before Neal could get out the words.
Neal apologized to a closed door.
He apologized to Elizabeth last. When she'd dropped by unexpectedly, late in the afternoon, and he'd invited her in to sit, and she hadn't said a word, had just stared at him, like she was searching for something, but Neal was too tired to try to figure out what. He was tired, and weary, and lost. Finally, he apologized, even though he knew it was for nothing.
He'd spent the last two days apologizing to deaf ears, not asking for benediction or forgiveness, but just for somebody to hear it.
He said "I'm sorry", but nobody was listening.
Elizabeth rose to leave, and he bent his head, unable to watch another person walk away from him. But her footsteps stopped, just behind him. He didn't dare to hope enough to lift his head.
One step, behind him, and she was close, closer to him than anyone had been since this had happened, since he made a mistake that he couldn't take back, and he couldn't regret if not for all the people he'd hurt.
"I know," she said, soft but sure. She leaned down and laid a kiss atop his head, brushing her fingers through his hair, then left.
The door clicked closed behind her, and he released the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and tried not to cry.