Title: The Spirit of Christmas
Author: QWERTYfaced
Fandom: White Collar
Wordcount: ~5000
Rating: PG
Characters: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke
Genre: Gen, angst, hurt/comfort
Notes: Written for the 2013 H/C Advent event at the whitecollarhc LJ community. Warning: contains mention of alcoholism.
Summary: Peter and Neal get a glimpse of what their lives could have been like, had they chosen different paths. It's not at all what they would have expected.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. All characters and settings belong to their respective copyright holders, not me. Which is why I don't have diamond-encrusted Christmas ornaments yet.

The mansion was aglow. Warm light spilled from the windows, dripped from the eaves, twinkled along every ribbon-bedecked garland. As Peter pulled up at the corner, he raised an eyebrow at the line of town cars dropping off festively clad guests.

"June's party looks popular," Neal said. "You and Elizabeth should have accepted her invitation."

"El's knee-deep in cooking tonight," Peter replied. "Besides, with all the people coming to dinner tomorrow, I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet Christmas Eve."

"Well, suit yourself." Neal gave an easy shrug and let himself out, collecting his hat and scarf off the dash. "I'll see you tomorrow, Peter."

From behind the wheel, the FBI agent watched as Neal made his way jauntily off across the road and into the house. A few bars of music drifted out into the night air as the door opened to whisk him inside.

Peter shook his head, then pulled out into traffic. It was time to head back to Brooklyn.

He made it all the way to the end of the block before his cell phone lit up with a text from El.

I need more cranberries and nutmeg NOW.

Well, time to head to the grocery store, and then back to Brooklyn.

Over an hour later, he walked in the front door, and was promptly mobbed by both dog and wife. There was what he could only think of as a scrum, as Elizabeth determinedly tried to take possession of the grocery bags, Satchmo tried to press himself against Peter's legs in greeting, and Peter himself simply tried to get inside without dropping anything or stepping on anyone.

"Where have you been?" El demanded. Her accustomed poise had been replaced with a voluminous apron and flour in her hair. Peter took one look and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. It was clearly not the time to point out that he'd been at the grocery store. At her request. Three times. At this point he was simply grateful that he'd been allowed to leave the place.

After a particularly intricate moment, he managed to put down his briefcase and hand over the bags. Elizabeth promptly vanished into the kitchen. Peter and Satchmo tried to follow her, enticed by the incredible aromas filling the whole house, but they were both immediately ordered out. Peter merely got a confused impression of pots and pans strewn across every available surface before he found himself back in the living room, a beer and a covered plate in his hands.

"Don't sit at the table with that," El called after him. "I need the workspace! But don't get crumbs anywhere, either!"

Crumbs? Peter lifted the foil and eyed his dinner.

Peanut butter and jelly. Festive.

And his briefcase was sitting reproachfully in the entryway. With a sigh, Peter went and fetched it, then settled onto the couch to go over paperwork.

Sometime close to midnight, he finally tiptoed into the bedroom. Elizabeth was already asleep, having gone upstairs immediately after drafting him into dishwashing duty and warning him otherwise not to touch a thing, Peter Burke.

As he crept carefully under the covers, he thought wistfully of the magic that had always infused Christmas Eve when he was a child. He knew now that magic had only happened because of his working hard to make it, doing dull and responsible things like cooking and cleaning and shopping, but it was hard not to miss the times when it just happened.

Of course, it still did happen for some people. The glimpse he'd caught of Neal traipsing off to June's glittering party came to mind. If he'd become a high-powered accountant, his and Elizabeth's life could have been like that. Servants to do the work, so that everything was perfect and magical...

"Could have been nice," he said to himself.

"Hmm...what?" Elizabeth turned over and snuggled against him, still three-quarters asleep. Her hair smelled like a spice cabinet, sage and cinnamon and a definite touch of nutmeg.

"Nothing, hon."

But he couldn't quite stop imagining it, until daydreams slipped gently into darkness...

Neal plodded wearily up the stairs to his apartment, leaving behind the excited babble of voices and strains of jazzy Christmas music below him. After a long day at the office—because after all, the kind of criminals White Collar chased tended to just love the holidays—even he had reached his tolerance for noise and glamour and people.

And if it was going to have time to chill properly, he still had to make piecrust.

The loft was dark and quiet and blessedly free of Mozzie. Oldest friend or not, Neal wasn't in the mood. He shucked off jacket and tie and threw them over the arm of the sofa, then flicked on the kitchen lights and regarded the gleaming countertop with resignation.

Bowls and measuring cups stood ready-arrayed on the immaculate surface, and as Neal eyed them with disfavor, he was rather startled to remember how contented he'd been that morning as he laid them out. So when had his mood gone south?

He rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands, thinking all the while. The day had been long, but it hadn't been bad. As he measured out sugar and salt and pastry flour, he mentally replayed it all, and realized the first pang of dissatisfaction had come while he talked to Peter on the ride back. Not while they taunted each other about the gifts they'd bought, but after.

The discussion of the Christmas dinner itself, the one the Burkes were hosting. He'd had just a flash of a thought that it might be nice to have the kind of cozy home you could invite people to.

Still, that was barely a blip on the radar, really. After that, there was June's party, and he'd been in his element. Fine food and drink, wonderful music, everything he'd always pictured when 19th century authors wrote of the "gay and glittering throng." He'd talked about art and architecture, danced and flirted, dragged a laughing June under the mistletoe to kiss her on the cheek (and then done the same to her giggling 6-year-old granddaughter). It had been fun.

Ah, but...of course. There were those endless minutes in the middle, when June's daughters and their husbands and children, were saying goodnight: a tangled mass of happy people, trying to hug and put on coats and scarves at the same time.

A family.

Neal cut cold butter into the flour, giving the simple task more concentration than it really deserved. It was a futile attempt not to think about the single thing that always loomed through the holidays like an iceberg—but like an iceberg, it ground down relentlessly.

Christmas was a time for family. And family, for Neal... Well, he still had a mother, as far as he knew, but he hadn't talked to her in years. Ellen was dead. And his father? Neal stabbed down hard with the pastry blender, sending the bowl juddering backwards on the countertop.

When it hit the backsplash, he roused himself enough from his tangled thoughts to focus on what he was doing. That looked about right. He finished the dough off quickly and threw it in the refrigerator, then surveyed his wine rack musingly.

No. He'd had enough wine downstairs, and it was decidedly unwise to drink when he was tired and unhappy. That was a maudlin path he did not need to go down. Going to bed was a far better answer, and perhaps he could lose his sourness in sleep.

All the same, once he settled between the sheets, he found himself staring up at the darkened ceiling. There were times when it was hard not to think about the life he might have had, if he'd jumped the other way when Ellen told him about his father.

There had been that moment, once he processed the information, when he was equally poised between utterly rejecting his dreams of joining the force or clinging to them the harder.

He had to wonder, if he'd chosen the other path, would he be just a normal cop, living a normal life? Would he be married, maybe even a father?

That thought brought an accompanying pang. He'd planned to raise a family with Kate, and he'd at least started to think about it with Sara, once...

"It might be a lot better to be normal," he told the shadows overhead.

And now he was talking to himself. Wonderful. Neal sighed and resolutely closed his eyes.

Sleep. That was what he needed.

Peter found himself standing, fully dressed, on a featureless plain while waist-deep mist wreathed around him. Perhaps it was just the fog, but he had a peculiar impression that the space around him was infinite. The light, emanating from a hazy overhead glow, created a perpetual twilight.

He had just started to look around, puzzled at the strangeness of the dream, when a faint jingling noise made him turn. Someone was standing behind him, startlingly close. Peter stepped back sharply, automatically reaching for his gun.

"Peace, Peter Burke," said the man, in an oddly echoing voice. He was as strange as the setting, more like a sketch than a solid human. Almost everything about him was indistinct, from his face and hair to the suit he wore. The only things with any real solidity to them were the chains draped around him.

"I have not brought you here to harm you," he said, "but to give you a gift."

"And I didn't get you anything," Peter said dryly. "Who are you?"

"A guide," the man said.

"And what exactly are you a guide to?"

"Possibilities," the man said. "You were thinking of possibilities tonight, I believe."

He waved his hand, and a broad circle cleared between them in the fog, like a window into another world. Beyond stood a glittering room full of elegantly clad people.

"Step through, Peter Burke, and take your gift. See the life you might have known."

Peter hesitated, but the scene before him was too tempting to resist. He squared his shoulders, and stepped forward.

The room was awash with light and color and noise. An enormous chandelier sparkled overhead, throwing off a thousand answering glints from expensive holiday decorations, jewels draped from wrists and necks and ears, silver trays carried by uniformed waiters. A mingling of voices and music echoed from the vaulted ceilings in the mansion.

Unfortunately, it wasn't loud enough to drown out the "conversation" near the fireplace. Peter tried to fix an expression of polite interest on his face while Ted Danforth droned on beside him.

"So then earlier this fall, as I'm sure you remember, we acquired Grinnell Insurance, but then the board wanted to push through a deal on Kimber Financial, but I said—"

Peter snagged a canapé from a passing tray, then seized more enthusiastically on a glass of Scotch from the waiter that followed. He took a long swallow, then bit into the tiny, flaky pastry he'd picked up. It turned out to be some kind of apple-sage-brie thing, and he wondered for the thousandth time why people couldn't just have simple apple pie at these endless holiday parties.

"Am I right, Peter?"

Somewhat guiltily, he snapped his focus back to his host, who stood there sporting the kind of expectant grin people wear when they're only waiting for confirmation so that they can keep yammering on. It was a look Peter was very familiar with.

"Uh, sure, Ted. Of course. Excuse me, though, I'm going to go find my wife."

He left the men behind, trying not to walk away too hastily. Behind him, he could hear Ted saying, "Damn straight! Peter would know. I mean, taking out a debenture at this point is just..."

Peter speeded up a little, making his way across to the end of the party where most of the women were gathered. As he surveyed the sea of formal dresses and careful updos, he tried to remember what his wife had been wearing. Or at least what color her hair was this week.

Eventually, he found Gwen by spotting the knot of her own particular friends and steering for it. As expected, he found her in the middle of an animated gossip session, and he sighed. It was always so hard to extract her, and by now his head was starting to ache with the combination of too much Scotch and not enough real food.

The instant there was a tiny break in the flow of chatter, he leaned in, forcing a smile. "Excuse me, ladies, but can I borrow Gwen for a moment?"

Before she had a chance to brush him off, he drew his wife off to a quieter corner. Or at least, it was quiet until he got her there.

"Really, Peter, that was so rude," Gwen said in an undertone. Her face was set in a determinedly pleasant smile, but her half-whispered words were irritated. "I was having a conversation."

"You talk to those women all the time," Peter muttered. "Every day, lately. All these ridiculous parties..."

"It's the holiday season, and the Danforths are our friends."

"Marla may be your friend, but Ted is possibly the most boring man I know," Peter retorted.

"Keep your voice down, Peter!" A daintily manicured hand closed on his arm in a fierce pinch, though the smile stayed firmly in place. "Why must you insist on trying to humiliate me in front of everyone?"

"I'm not trying to humiliate you, Gwen, but it's late and I'm fed up with all of this. I'm ready to go home." Annoyance turned his voice sharp, and he tried to pry the pinching fingers away unobtrusively. "Are you coming with me?"

Gwen's wide gray eyes narrowed in anger. "No. I'll stay here tonight and try to come up with some excuse for you to Ted and Marla."

"Tell them whatever you like. You usually do."

Now far too frustrated to care about keeping up appearances, Peter leaned down and gave her a perfunctory peck on the cheek, then turned on his heel and stalked off for the entryway.

By the time his company towncar dropped him off outside his building, his annoyance had faded into depression and a throbbing headache. He walked past the doorman with scarcely a nod, making his way to the private elevator.

When the elevator opened on his penthouse, Peter stepped out and then dodged smartly to the right in a practiced maneuver, neatly avoiding the teeth of Gwen's dog, Precious. The spoiled little Westie liked to greet him every day by taking a nip at his ankles.

A moment later, his butler materialized to take his coat. He handed it over with a sigh, waving off the standard greeting on the man's lips.

"It's too late for that, Rogers. Just bring some aspirin and water to the study, would you? Then you can go to bed. Gwen is staying with the Danforths tonight."

"Of course, sir." Rogers paused. "Lucia made a pie today," he added, his expression delicately inquiring.

"Apple?"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring a slice of that, too, please."

Peter headed off to the study, stifling the now-familiar pang of dismay that he felt whenever he crossed its threshold. When they'd moved in, the room had been cozy and traditional with dark mahogany and russet leather paneling. He'd immediately envisioned comfortable club chairs, good old-fashioned bookcases, a substantial desk.

Instead, once Gwen and her decorator were through, the walls were covered with woven papyrus, and all the furniture was glass and steel. It was about as welcoming as a dentist's office.

He settled himself into the ergonomic mesh office chair just as Rogers arrived with his tray. Peter dismissed him, then gulped down the aspirin. He gazed at the plate and fork in front of him and realized ruefully that this would be the high point of his Christmas Eve: actually getting a slice of apple pie.

"And I'll have to eat it with you staring at me, too," he told Precious, who had followed the smell of food. "I don't know what you care—you prefer the taste of people."

Precious growled at him.

"Little monster. I don't know what Gwen sees in you." Peter shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought that there were some days when he wasn't sure anymore what he saw in Gwen.

He'd been enchanted by Gwen when he met her. The young law student was so different from any girl he'd dated before. She was luxury, glamour, wealth—everything that was still intoxicating, then, about the life he'd climbed his way to. And she was so pretty, so earnest, full of plans to work for international charities and change the world.

When they were married, he'd been deliriously in love with Gwen Stanleigh. But somehow, once she became Guinevere Stanleigh-Burke, things started to change. Somehow, she never did join those charities. Somehow, she started "filling" her days with shopping, lunches with her friends, and various ineffectual committees for things like the opera and the ballet.

These days, it seemed she cared a lot more about what everyone else thought than she cared about changing the world. Maybe...maybe more than she cared about Peter, too.

"I still love her, you know," he told Precious, uneasily aware that he sounded defensive, even to a yappy, inbred dog. "Of course I do."

Finding the dog's stare uncomfortable, Peter shifted in his chair and stared out the window, taking slow bites of his pie.

"Of course I do," he muttered.

The man watching from the mist stepped back from the window, closing it with a gesture. The fog swirled back into place, sweeping across him for a moment. When it settled, he no longer stood there. In his place was a woman, wearing a peculiarly vague dress and solid chains.

She made a beckoning motion, and Neal Caffrey appeared before her, his back turned. The woman cleared her throat, and he swung swiftly around to face her, a momentary look of surprise crossing his face before he had a chance to hide it.

"Hello, Neal," she told him. "I have a Christmas gift for you."

"Do you, now?" Neal shoved his hands into his pockets, flashing her a boyish smile. "I love presents."

As he spoke, he was studying her, and somehow she wasn't surprised when he cocked his head to one side, his smile broadening.

"Are you the Spirit, madam, whose coming was foretold to me?" he asked.

She winked. "Close enough."

"And I wasn't even reading Dickens before bed," Neal said. "But as I recall, it was Marley who wore chains. I could pick those for you, and you can get some pearls instead. They'd go a little better with the dress."

The woman laughed and shook her head at him. "It's very rude to criticize the giver of a gift," she said, opening another window in the mist. "And look, here it is."

Neal blinked at the sight of his boyhood home in the St. Louis suburbs, giving her an inquiring look. She gave his shoulders a little push.

"Go on," she said.

He shrugged, then stepped through.

The table in the tiny dining room was scratched and worn. Dan Brooks could remember long afternoons spent doing his homework at that table, but he could also remember the silence. He'd always spent that time alone, with Ellen away at work and his mother locked into her bedroom and into her own head.

The same kind of silence prevailed now, broken only by the tiny sounds made by people who are done with dinner and growing uncomfortable, but are unwilling to be the first to push away.

Bridget Brooks cleared her throat. Dan looked up from the table reluctantly, trying again not to notice her lipstick. It was an unsuitable shade of frosted pink, and she hadn't managed to put it on straight.

"So...Danny," she said. "How is Jenna?"

He frowned before he could stop himself, then pulled on an insincere smile. "She's fine, Mom. Riding with the new kid for now. She might stay with him once I get off the desk—it seems like a good partnership."

Dan rubbed absently at his shoulder as he spoke, trying to ease more than the persistent ache in it since he'd gotten shot in September. Jen had been a good partner. Not the warmest and fuzziest—you didn't necessarily expect that in a homicide detective—but solid and unflappable. When and if he ever got cleared to go back into the field, he wasn't looking forward to going back into the pool. There was no telling what he'd get.

"Maybe...maybe this would be a good time for you to switch departments?" Bridget said tentatively.

"No," he said flatly. "I'm accomplishing something in Homicide. You know why that's important."

The moment the words escaped, he bit down on his tongue. He hadn't been able to stop himself from saying it, but it hadn't helped the atmosphere at the table. Ellen was giving him reproving look only somewhat leavened with understanding, and his mother's face was suddenly sorrowful.

Perversely, it only exasperated him. Somehow, no matter what, it always came back to this on the holidays. All right, so he was the one who had brought it up, but dammit, his father had been the elephant in the room for the last fifteen years. Sometimes he had to say something or else scream. And screaming would really upset his mother.

"Maybe this would be a good time to open gifts," Ellen said firmly.

Dan nodded, rather than say anything else just at that moment. They all trooped out to the living room, where the modest—and rather battered—fake tree stood. Most of the ornaments were plain and personality-free balls from some department store, but there were a few tacky and childish ones that he'd made in grade school. He only felt like sighing at the sight of them.

He nearly did sigh when he opened his mother's gift to him. The sweater in the box was an especially eye-smarting shade of orange, and the wrong size. "How nice. Thank you, Mom," he said instead.

It didn't escape his notice that she made the same kind of polite noises over the gift card that was his customary present to her. But it was something that she could use online, instead of at the corner store. Or at the bar.

Ellen seemed more genuinely enthusiastic over the new gardening tools and books he'd gotten her, at least. As if to prove that they thought very much alike, she presented him with a new set of paintbrushes, as well as a coffee table book on the Louvre.

"I'll have to buy a coffee table," he quipped, smoothing the handsome slipcover. He'd always wanted to see the Louvre, but it didn't seem very likely any time soon.

Ellen smiled at him, relaxing a little, but the moment of levity was broken by a clatter as Bridget knocked over a stack of magazines. She'd been trying to tidy up the scraps of wrapping paper, but the shakes were really starting to set in.

Dan stood up, and was instantly aware that he'd done so a little too hastily. "Well...it's been great to see you both, but I should probably get back. Tomorrow'll be a long day."

From the shamed flush on his mother's cheeks, he hadn't succeeded even a little at being nonchalant. Her trembling hands were tightly clenched on her lap to keep them from further betraying her.

"I don't know why you always have to work on Christmas, Danny," she said. All three of them knew it for a lie.

"Oh, Bridget, you know Christmas always brings the nuts out," Ellen said, stepping into the breach again. "It's one of the busiest days of the year for cops."

"Someone has to work," Dan agreed gratefully. "And a lot of the officers have kids."

He bit his tongue again. That had been another mistake.

Sure enough, his mother looked up wistfully. "I wish you would settle down and start a family," she said softly.

"I have a family right here, Mom," he said, forcing a smile. He bent down and hugged her too-thin shoulders. "And I wish you would...take better care of yourself."

She hugged him back with a kind of desperate strength. Dan stood it for as long as he could, then disengaged himself from her clutching arms as gently as he could manage. Before he straightened, he gave her a self-conscious little kiss on the forehead.

"I really should get going," he repeated. "Merry Christmas, Mom."

He turned and headed briskly for the hall with Ellen following him. As he bent down to open the safe in the closet and retrieve his gun—it always upset his mother when he wore it in the house—they both heard Bridget get up and climb the stairs.

After closing the door of the safe with unusual care, Dan straightened up slowly. "She hasn't been to the meetings once, has she?" he asked without turning around.

From behind him, Ellen sighed. She sounded as tired as he felt. "I can't make her go, you know that. She has to want to. But she did try tonight."

"I wish she didn't have to try so hard," he said. He turned around almost reluctantly to face her.

"I know, but...she is who she is." They exchanged a long look of shared frustration and heartache, then Ellen shrugged wearily. "Incidentally, my boy, are you seeing anyone new?"

"No." It was still a sore subject, but he didn't mind so much when Ellen asked. After all, she was the one who'd actually raised him. "I'm done with that for a while, anyway. When Marie left, she said she didn't want to spend every day worrying that her boyfriend would be killed. I get that. A lot of women feel the same, I'm sure."

"Not all of them," Ellen said. "You said it yourself: a lot of the officers have children. So that can't be true for everyone."

"It's true enough for me." He said it brusquely to shield himself from that residual hurt, unconsciously massaging his shoulder again.

Ellen folded her arms in response, but her eyes were slightly sad. "You've gotten hard lately," she said. "Or at least you're trying to be. I don't like to see it."

"I grew up, that's all."

She cocked her head to one side, reproachfully. "Neal..."

He smiled wryly. "You know, all my life, you've only ever called me that when you're scolding me? When I was little, I used to think all kids had two names: one for everyday use, and one for trouble."

Despite herself, a rueful little smile quirked the corner of Ellen's mouth. "That's actually true. But it's usually a middle name."

"Well, I did always have to be a little different." Dan judged that it was time to make a strategic withdrawal, before Ellen got properly started on that scolding. He gave her a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Good night, Ellen. Merry Christmas."

By her expression, she knew exactly what he was doing, but she pulled him down for another hug anyway, ruffling his hair as she'd done when he was a child.

"Merry Christmas, kiddo. I love you, you know."

"I know." The smile he flashed her was a little bittersweet, but it was by far the most genuine he'd worn all night. "I love you, too."

Then he made good his escape.

In his car outside, he slumped back in the driver's seat for a minute or two, letting out a deep breath. At length, he drummed his fingers on the freezing steering wheel, then started up the engine and pulled out, deeply relieved to be on his way back home.

Homicides were so much easier than holidays.

On Christmas morning, an indistinct figure stood alone on an infinite plain. It was neither male nor female, and as it looked out through two windows, mist hovered around it, vaguely outlining a hazy suggestion of wings.

It watched Peter Burke whistling as he carried a tray of breakfast upstairs to his wife.

It watched Neal chatting cheerfully with June while they chopped apples and nuts for pie filling.

And it smiled, then nodded to itself in satisfaction.

The gifts had been well received.

That evening, the Burke house was packed to capacity with food and presents and people.

Mozzie was earnestly talking to an amused Elizabeth about the potted oak sapling he'd brought. A few feet away, Diana was laughing while Jones jiggled little Theo in his arms, singing Christmas carols in a silly voice to the fascinated baby. Hughes and his wife sat on the sofa, chatting animatedly with June.

And Peter and Neal stood at the sideboard, having a drink and taking it all in.

"Do you ever have the feeling that you're living exactly the life you're supposed to be?" Neal asked.

Peter nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do."

They exchanged smiles, and Neal raised his wineglass. Peter clinked his beer against the rim.

"Merry Christmas, Peter."

"Merry Christmas, Neal."