CRIMINAL

Chapter 4

By

Lacadiva

Rating: PG-13 for violence.

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me, but to Jeff Eastin and USA Network.

Summary: Elizabeth and Neal are shot in a jewelry heist. Peter thinks Caffrey is the blame. After all, he is a criminal…

This is the final chapter. Thanks for sticking with it to the end.

~WC~

"Peter!"

Diana was instantly at his side, holding onto him, steering Peter toward a chair.

"I'm fine!"

"You nearly passed out!"

"I did not!" Peter said in his defense. "I just…lost my footing."

He'd just seen Neal and El fall victim to the gunmen in slow motion video…saw them get shot…he wanted to say, but the words were unspeakable, the idea unthinkable. In what strange, bizarro world could something like this happen? The unreality of it all was more than his mind could bear.

A few seconds later someone was placing a paper cup of water to his paling lips, while another agent slapped a cold and sopping wet paper towel upon his forehead. A half dozen other agents had filled the conference room as well, hoping to help, or at least get a glimpse of what all the commotion was about.

"This isn't necessary!" Peter shouted. "I'm fine." He moved to his feet but immediately felt the floor undulate under him again. He returned to the chair and held on to the armrests for support.

"Diana, get them out of here," Peter whispered conspiratorially to his most trusted agent.

"Everybody out!" Diana cried and every agent complied. "Boss, you're dehydrated," she said to Peter when the room was clear. "You have eaten in hours. And you're upset."

"I'm fine, Diana."

"You don't have to be. Not for me."

Peter instantly relaxed into the chair and allowed the depression he felt deep within to show upon his face.

"You saw it," said Peter. "El…and Neal…"

Diana nodded.

"I gotta get back to the hospital. Elizabeth needs me. She must be traumatized…"

Diana stopped Peter again, holding him down in the chair as the agent tried to rise.

"Not so fast," she said. "El's fine. You said it yourself. The doctors said her injuries were minor."

"She needs me. I should've been there for her. I should've prevented this. If Caffrey was still in prison, none of this would've happened."

"So that's it."

"So what's what?"

"Caffrey. You're not just mad at him because of what happened. You're also mad at yourself for letting Caffrey become such a big part of your life."

"If I needed a psych evaluation, I'll ask a real professional."

Diana was done. She straightened, regarded her boss with a blank expression, and then headed for the door.

"Diana!"

She stopped short and turned back to Peter.

"If Neal dies, and you find out after the fact that he wasn't responsible for this, I know what it's going to do to you. You're Peter Burke, the Archeologist. When you can't find the truth, you keep digging until you do. What's so different about this case?

"You're more than a boss to me, Peter. I consider you a friend. So as a friend, I suggest you do some digging. Neal is a criminal…I'll give you that. But what you're doing…this is criminal."

Peter watch through the glass walls as Diana nearly ran down the stairs to her own desk where she sat and rested her weary head upon her hands.

Peter drew in a deep breath and felt his gut clench. He knew there was truth to her words. Neal had always been more than a CI, far more than he should have been to Peter, even to El.

Neal knew things about Peter and his wife few others had privy. He confided in Neal. El confided in him.

They were stake out buddies. Drinking buddies. When the two of them worked a case there was a frisson in the air, a crackle of creativity that was undeniable and priceless. But it extended well beyond the office. Caffrey was a favored houseguest. Heck, he even had his own personal set of Egyptian cotton towels (a birthday gift from El), favorite sheets for the couch, and the Burkes always kept an extra toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet and a couple Cornish hens in the freezer in case he dropped by unexpectedly.

How could Neal betray him after everything?

Or had he?

Peter eased up from the chair and waited to see if his legs could carry him. And when the limbs did not buckle or weaken, he grabbed his coat and left.

~WC~

New York Presbyterian Hospital

6:05 pm

"Where is my wife?" Peter demanded.

He could feel the heat of his blood rushing to his face, migrating to his head and causing it to ache, and imagined he looked nothing short of hysterical.

The Nurse at the station was professional to a fault, unruffled by the bellowing agent.

"Calm down, sir," she said with practiced indifference.

"I won't calm down," Peter bit back. "Not until you tell me why her room is empty!"

Every button Peter had had been pushed throughout the course of this most unholy, unhappy day. Now Elizabeth was gone, her room empty. Had her head injury been worse than the doctors had originally diagnosed? Was he too late? He could not bear to take yet another hit in the gut.

"My wife..." he said more quietly this time. "…is she…? Is she…?

"She's fine," the Nurse said, not even bothering to blink, but offered a thin, seemingly tolerant smile that Peter suspected had nothing to do with putting up with the likes of him.

"Her doctor cleared her for discharge. She didn't want to wait in her room – like she was supposed to – but insisted on going to ICU to visit your friend."

"Thank you," Peter said as he exhaled, his anger at the nurse quenched as a new focus claimed his rage.

Why would she go and see Neal, after everything that had happened? Perhaps to give him a substantial piece of her mind, he mused.

Peter made his way down to ICU, noticing little but the icy chill of the hard-working air conditioner and the rage throbbing between his ears, the beating of his heart, and the sick-sour feeling of angst deep in his belly.

He ignored the hospital's sacred rule of one person at a time in ICU and sipped quietly inside the unit.

Monitors were loud, thrumming and humming, beeping and chirping, while Neal lay prone, still, and pale as the dead. Deep dark circles lurked under Neal's eyes, and there were still crusts of his own dried blood showing darkly under his fingernails.

Peter stared at the back of Elizabeth, who was sitting by Neal's bed, holding Neal's chalk-white hand, whispering to him. Jealously rose up like a wave and crashed against Peter's good sense. He stood still, hoping that Elizabeth had not detected his stealthy entrance, hoping to surreptitiously hear what words she had for his fallen CI.

"…whatever you might believe, Neal, it's not your fault. None of this. You can't take responsibility for what happened. If you hadn't been there, I shudder to think what those two might have done to me."

She looked over her shoulder, just a bit, her way of telling Peter that she knew he was there. She continued.

"Peter's angry, but he doesn't know. Deep down in his heart, in his gut, I think he wants to trust you more than anything. It's hard for him. He's not naturally trusting. You're the only person in the world, other than me, that's ever made it that close to his heart. So you have to hold on. Give him a chance to see the truth. You have to wake up, though. You have to wake up so you can tell him the story."

Done, she looked over her shoulder directly into her husband's eyes.

"Hi, hon," she said.

"Hi, hon," he replied, his voice breaking in a way he wished it hadn't.

She turned back to Neal. "Peter's here."

Elizabeth noticed that the heart monitor seemed to respond with a quickened chirp to her words, and wondered if it were merely a coincidence.

"El, c'mon," said Peter quietly. "Let's get you home."

She made no move, but reached out to gently stroke dark, sweat-slicked hair from Neal's forehead.

"Not yet," she said sweetly, then whispered to her husband, in the hopes Neal would not hear, "I need to say goodbye, just in case…"

"He'll be fine," Peter stated flatly.

"And you know this because…?"

"Because Neal's always fine. He always bounces back. Nothing ever sticks."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Depends," he said. "Do you remember anything yet?"

"I do," she said with a nod.

"How much?"

"Everything, I think."

"That's great, hon. We'll need to get a statement from you, but it can wait until morning. Let's get you home and…"

"No."

El stood and turned to her husband. The sleeveless dress she wore was stained with dried blood, both hers and Neal's. Peter reached out to touch the thick gauze bandage wrapped around her arm and shuddered.

She took a step closer and offered her lips. He accepted and bent to kiss his wife, lightly at first, as if she were made of some delicate matter, and them more deeply, and felt his life for the moment restored. It almost didn't registered that she had refused his request for a statement. Almost.

"Sweetheart, it's not like you can refuse. You're a material witness to a crime. You don't have a choice."

"You think Neal's responsible, don't you?"

"I saw the surveillance footage. I saw…"

"Then you saw it wrong. Peter…talk to Neal. He's your friend. He needs you. Help him out of this. Help him back. Or he may not make it back."

Peter took a big, ragged breath. He didn't want to argue. But El needed to know the truth.

"El…Neal is a criminal…"

"He was a criminal…"

"He does what he does because he can't help it. It's not just what he is, it's who he is. People get hurt because of him. And while he shakes it off and smiles his way out of one situation after another, the rest of us are left to deal with the damage. It's not my job to help him out. It's my job to put him away. For good."

"You think he set up the robbery?"

"I do."

"And you think he used me as some kind of cover?"

"Yes."

"Lured me there…"

"Is that what happened?"

"Neal was there because I asked him to meet me there."

"What? Why?"

El said nothing, but folder her arms across her chest. She stepped aside, and Peter knew that this gesture meant he should take the chair she had only just vacated.

"You want my statement? Talk to Neal first."

"He's unconscious."

"He can still hear you. Sweetheart, when did you start doubting his loyalty to you?"

"When I walked into a jewelry store and found my wife unconscious and bleeding on the floor. When I realized I had brought someone into our lives whose level of honesty is as flexible as a rubber band. I liked him…I trusted him. And almost lost you as consequence."

"The only reason I'm standing in front of you right now is because of Neal. I would've been in that jewelry store one way or the other. Without him there, standing between me and those gunmen, who knows what would've happened. It wouldn't have been good!"

"What are saying? That he took a bullet for you?"

"No, babe…he took two bullets. And not just for me. For you. Neal knows what I mean to you. He knows. I owe him. And so do you."

El reached for her purse sitting on the floor next to the chair, and moved toward the door.

"You want the details, I'll tell you everything. After you've talked to him. I'll be waiting for you outside."

Peter, still unconvinced, stopped her, grabbing her by the arm.

"I'll need your purse."

"What? Why?"

"Evidence."

"Evidence? Of what? What are you talking about?"

"Open it."

"Peter, what…?"

"Open your purse and look inside."

El pulled away and took a step back. She opened her bag and peered inside, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. She reached in to be sure, moving aside her cell phone, favorite red lip-gloss, her wallet…

"Oh! Oh my gosh…Neal…!"

"Neal," Peter repeated.

"I can't believe it…"

"I know…this is the crux of everything, I'm telling you…"

"In all that confusion…"

"He stole."

"No, sweetheart…"

Elizabeth reached into her bag and pulled out the set of gold antique handcuffs and stared at them.

"I bet," she said smiling wide, eyes filling with tears, "if he could've, he'd have found a way to wrap them. You think he stole these, don't you?"

"It's on the store surveillance video. I saw him palm them and slip them into your purse, making you an unwitting accomplice."

"How can he steal something that's already been paid for?"

Peter regarded his wife quizzically.

She held out the cufflinks to Peter, who opened a hand to accept them.

"Happy anniversary, hon…albeit a few days early."

He stared at the cuffs for a moment, as if nothing made sense. Until he looked closer.

"My grandfather's…! You found the match? Where? I lost it years ago, back when we first got married!"

"I know, hon," she said with a loving smile. "It's a replica. I commissioned Mr. Fonseca to create a match for the cufflink, and restore the other. I paid for the work up front weeks ago.

"Neal didn't steal them. He saved them from being stolen by those two freaks in ski masks."

Peter could not stop staring at the two gold pieces in his hands.

"But Neal was there…"

"…at my request. I begged him to meet me there, to offer his expertise. To see if he could tell the original from the replica."

"How'd he do?" Peter asked quietly, shame beginning to overwhelm him. "Could he tell the difference?"

"He said he could, but it took a while. He said it was good work."

"It is…" Peter dropped his head and shook it.

"Hon…?" El ventured, taking a small step toward her husband.

"I need a minute."

Peter pushed through the ICU door and headed down the hall.

~WC~

She found him twenty minutes later standing just outside. The evening cold made goose flesh of her arms and caused her to shiver. She had no coat, no sweater; just what she had worn when they admitted her to the hospital earlier.

Elizabeth stood behind her husband and wrapped her arms around him.

"They kicked me out," El said. "No more visitors for Neal until morning. Nothing left to do but to go home."

Peter said nothing.

"I can make a statement tonight if you want."

Peter shook his head. "I should get you home. You've had a helluva day."

"So have you," she said, and squeezed her man a little harder.

"You're freezing." Peter pulled away and slipped his coat off his shoulders, then placed it around his wife as he hugged her again.

"I'm taking you home and putting you to bed," Peter said, kissing the top of his wife's head. "And I'm going to keep you there until I'm certain you're a hundred per cent."

"Sounds promising," she said coquettishly.

"You can make your statement tomorrow. Tonight, I want to take care of my wife."

"You always take care of me."

"I want to hold you in my arms, and thank God you're alive. I want to give you everything you need, anything you want, and all things in between. I want to dote on you, wait on you, and cater to your every whim."

"Oh, I love my husband…."

~WC~

New York Presbyterian

Four days later

"Hey."

Neal opened his red-rimmed eyes to find Peter standing at his bedside.

"Hey."

Neal managed a weak smile. His mouth was dry and his body didn't feel like it was his own, so filled with pain meds was he. But he was better, each day a little bit better.

"You look chipper," Peter said as he sat down.

"Escaping death does wonders for the demeanor."

"Does it hurt much?"

"Some. But they've got great meds. How's Elizabeth?"

"Aw, she's great. I spent a couple days at home with her, breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, dinner in bed. And this morning she kicked me out so she could have some time to herself. Women."

"Yeah." Then, "I'm glad she's okay, Peter."

"Thanks, in no small part, to you. So I'm told."

A long beat of silence passed between them. Neal stared at the ceiling while Peter stared at the floor.

"Nurses treating you all right?" Peter asked.

"Yeah."

"Nice room. You got lucky…private room."

"Somebody must have tipped the reception nurse."

"Wasn't me."

Silence filled the room again, as if it were another person that stood between Peter and Neal.

"I blamed you for everything," Peter said finally.

"Peter…"

"Let me…"

Peter shifted in the chair, wringing his hands together, fumbling with his tie, picking away non-existent stray hairs and lint from his jacket sleeve as he tried to knit together the right words.

"I blamed you for El being hurt."

"She's okay, right?" Neal asked, deeply concerned. "You said she was okay."

"She got a bit of a bump on her head. GSW to the arm…just a graze. Won't leave much of a scar, according to the doctors."

"But she'll have a lifetime of bragging rights," Neal said with a smile that quickly faded when he noticed the still-serious look on Peter's face.

"I'm sorry, Peter. I did everything I could to keep her safe."

"Neal…"

"I tried…"

"Neal! Would you let me finish? I blamed you…"

"Why wouldn't you? She's your wife. And I'm a criminal."

Peter sat back and exhaled deeply.

"You heard me?"

"I did. Some of it. Most of it. For the record, I would've come to the same conclusion if I were in your shoes."

"Neal…I'm trying to say I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"The two robbers were caught last night. Jones got a statement from the security guard, who wasn't in on the robbery at all, as it turns out. He had is own little operation going. He'd already stolen most of the contents of the safe and was trying to leave the country, not to mention is wife and kids, with a very blond companion in tow. Mr. Fonseca had no idea so many hands were in his till."

"Poor guy. How's he doing?"

"Concussion. Lost a tooth. He'll survive. I have a feeling he might be leaving the jewelry business."

"Can't say that I blame him."

Peter catapulted from the chair and began pacing anxiously.

"Peter…"

"Shut up, let me say this. I crossed over into a very, very dark place. El was lying there on that cold floor…next to you…bleeding…I lost it. I lost my objectivity, and I never once gave you the benefit of the doubt. It was a blind rage…I couldn't even see what was right in front of my face. I lost it."

"No one could blame you for that, Peter. You're right. I am a criminal. I've done terrible things without pity or remorse for my victims, I've lived a life of entitlement…"

"Neal…just…shut up. I'm not done."

"Peter…"

"Shhh!"

Peter took a couple awkward steps and stopped.

"Elizabeth is my blind spot. When it comes to her… If she had died…"

Peter stopped to compose himself, to steady himself.

"Instead of digging for the truth, I took everything at face value. I doubted you. I doubted your friendship, your loyalty."

"I'm a criminal."

"Yes, you are. But you're also my friend. You took two bullets to save El's life. And no matter what happens between us in the future, I will never, never forget that. So…"

Peter quickly wiped tears from his eyes, pretending they were never there.

Neal looked away. He couldn't let Peter see the redness or the wetness in his own eyes.

"You know I'd do it again, Peter."

"Just…do me a favor and stay out of situations that make you have to."

"Promise."

Peter returned to the chair and sat. Silence returned but for only a beat.

"You liked the cuff links?" asked Neal.

"Oh, yeah," Peter said, and showed them off, pulling up his jacket sleeve to reveal his grandfather's heirlooms attached to the cuffs of his perfectly pressed linen shirt.

Neal raised an eyebrow. "Nice."

Peter smiled. "Yeah. See? You're not the only one who can look fancy."

"Please don't use that word again."

"What, fancy?"

"That's the one."

"Why not?"

"Long story. Ask El. She'll tell you."

"I'm not sure I like the idea of you and my wife knowing things I don't know about."

Neal laughed. "Keeps you on your toes."

"Look, I better get back to work."

"Yeah, I'm getting a little tired anyway."

"I'll come back later. Check up on you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Neal said, indicating the IVs attached to his arm and the back of his hand.

"Want me to bring you one of those French bistro sandwich things you like so much? Maybe a little duck confit salad?"

"Maybe in a couple of days. I'm still trying to keep Jell-O down."

Peter nodded and headed for the door.

Something stopped him. He came back into the room and stood right by the bed, and offered Neal his right hand.

Neal, though weak, took Peter's hand firmly. They shook. The Agent's palm was warm, slightly calloused. Neal fought to keep his emotions in check, to keep his bottom lip from quivering. He cursed the weakness caused by his injury, as if that were the reason it was so difficult to keep a dry eye.

"Thank you," said Peter.

"No need to…"

"Thank you," Peter said more emphatically.

"Anytime."

Peter nodded, a crooked smile playing at his lips. Once they let go, Peter turned quickly and left the room.

"Hey! Peter! I'll take a cro-nut! If you happen by that bakery," Neal called out, hoping Peter heard him.

He lay back on his pillow and dreamed of Italian roast coffee and sweet croissant/donut hybrids shared between good friends.

THE END.

Thanks again for reading, and for seeing the story all the way through. If "Criminal" moved you at all, my hope is you will kindly consider reviewing it. Thanks again. Until the next story.

Lacadiva.