A Judgement Day AU

Peter still couldn't figure out how Neal did it. Kramer had announced his plan to arrest Neal over the list of crimes he committed trying to get the Raphael to Sara. He was going to take Neal back to DC with him and keep adding years to his sentence. All so he could have a high closure rate.

Peter had indicated to Neal to run as they were out of options.

Yet, hours later, Neal showed up at the Burkes' house as a free man.

How had Neal done it?

Peter had shaken his head and Neal moved. On autopilot, he moved down the street. Plans shot through his mind; he would have to call Mozzie and see if they could get a plane out of New York, his anklet would have to be cut, he had about a few hours at most. Slightly lost in his planning, he ended up bumping into someone. A someone around the same height as him. A someone who placed his arms on Neal's shoulders to steady him.

"Danny!" a voice very similar to his own stated, "I didn't know you were in New York."

Neal blinked and examined the person before him. Leather jacket over a dark cotton shirt and jeans that were faded with age, dark hair just a bit longer than Neal's own and dim, ice blue eyes set in a hard, round face.

"Bryce?" Neal questioned in disbelief. No, it couldn't be! However, only one person called him 'Danny'. "Aren't you dead?" Neal had seen the obituary when he got out while seeing if he could track his younger twin down.

"Yeah," Bryce said, seemingly embarrassed about it, "about that... you might want to tell your little friend that he was right."

"About?" Neal asked with a smile and a cock of his eyebrow.

"Turns out that the technology to revive someone exists, as long as they're incubated within a certain amount of time."

Neal pulled a face. That didn't sound pleasant.

"I heard about your commutation! Congrats!" Bryce noticed the way Neal's face dropped at the mention of his commutation. "What's wrong? Danny?"

"I have to run," Neal responded, his throat tight at the thought of leaving New York and his life here behind. He loved his life here; the place and the people had given him his dream life. Leaving it all behind; it just wasn't fair.

"What? I thought everything was going great?" Bryce questioned, "the whole treasure thing was a hiccup, sure, but you made it through, right?"

Neal laughed a slightly hysterical laugh. He should have known that Bryce would know something like that. Bryce made it his business to know everything.

"There's this FBI agent," he explained, "Agent Kramer from DC art crimes. He doesn't want me to be free."

Bryce frowned for a moment and then grabbed Neal's wrist.

"Let's show this guy that he shouldn't mess with Larkins." Bryce always preferred his Witsec name.

"Caffreys," Neal corrected, having preferred to use their mother's maiden name with his birth name.

Bryce shook his head; his relationship with their mother was strained at best. While Bryce didn't approve of Neal's decision to take their mother's name, he had to admit that it kept Neal safe from Bryce's enemies.

Neal wanted a picture of Kramer's face. The man's eyes bulged and his mouth twisted in numerous, distasteful, motions. He even pressed his right palm to his left eye in the hopes that the vision of two Neal Caffreys would vanish.

"Bryce, meet Agent Kramer. Agent Kramer, meet Bryce," Neal said with a smile. A smile Bryce mirrored.

"Agent Kramer, nice to meet you," he said, holding out his hand for him to shake. Kramer glared at it and stepped back, motioning to the marshals behind him. "Oh. Okay," Bryce commented as he retracted his hand. He placed it in his jacket and pulled out his badge, completely ignoring the guns which the marshals pointed at him.

Neal had stepped back the moment the guns appeared, his hands raised and fingers spread out.

Kramer took the badge and looked over it with a critical eye.

"Everyone knows how good a forger Caffrey is," he commented, pulling out a pair of handcuffs.

"Unless you can prove it, I'm not going to let you cuff me," Bryce said, placing his hands on his hips and glaring down at the older man. Before anyone could refute his words, he continued, "you can't prove that I've done anything illegal. And I don't understand why Neal needs to be cuffed for his own commutation hearing."

Neal gave a smile and shrug when Kramer and a few of the marshals shot him a glare. He hadn't invited Bryce.

He hadn't missed that Bryce had called him 'Neal' either.

"Neal," Kramer draw the name out like it was something distasteful, "is under arrest for public endangerment-"

"Can you prove it?" Bryce butted in.

"What? Of course! I have witnesses-"

"Do you have fingerprints? Can you tell him apart from me? You know that if you can't prove it was him, or me, the charges have to be dropped."

Kramer's face turned a fascinating shade of pink.

"Neither of you are to leave the building," his hissed, motioning to the marshals to cover the exits. And he stormed off.

Bryce and Neal shared a look.

"So, what next?" Neal asked, "I doubt you're in New York just to see me."

"Hassling FBI agents is fun too," Bryce responded, "or so others tell me." Neal didn't miss how Bryce hadn't answered his question but, his twin brother had saved him so he let it go.

Neal and Bryce had hid as Peter left the building, neither wanting to be seen by the FBI agent who still thought Neal had taken his chance to run. Then, side-by-side, they walked up to the where the panel was.

Neal introduced Bryce and the panel dismissed him in order to talk to his mysterious twin brother. Calls were made and identities checked. Kramer's 'evidence' was thrown out.

And then they said the words Neal hadn't believed he would hear;

"Congratulations, Neal Caffrey," the head of the panel had said, "as of today, you're a free man."

Later, Neal shed a few tears on the way to the Burkes, which were quickly wiped away.

Bryce was in the wind and Neal didn't know when, or if, he would see his twin brother again.

Author's notes: This White Collar/Chuck crossover features Bryce and Neal as twins! You'll see that it's marked as complete. This story has been something I've wanted to write since seeing the Judgement day episode. What would happen if Neal had a twin? There have been times when people have been found innocent of a crime because they couldn't prove which twin did it. As for how Bryce is alive, lets say Orion saved him (where was Orion while his son was fighting the Ring? Seriously?)

Basically, I'm going to write a few White Collar/Chuck crossovers featuring twins Neal and Bryce (Neal is older). Most will be one-shots which can stand alone (I hope). They will vary in length. Additional stories will be added at random. Feel free to post prompts of what you want to see; no guarantees though. I have at least two more stories about the twins to add (when I write them) one of which is a prompt from my sister (I shouldn't have told her about this).

Just a bit of background info: Neal and Bryce both grew up in Witsec as Danny Brooks and Bryce Brooks. When they were fourteen, their mother remarried; a nice man with the last name 'Larkin'. The three Brooks family members took the last name 'Larkin', henceforth known as Danny/Neal Larkin and Bryce Larkin. Later, when Neal learned the the truth about his birth father (he's a murderer and is still alive) he left and became Neal Caffrey. Bryce stayed and went to Stanford as Bryce Larkin.