It ended here, of course.

It was always going to end here. Peter Burke approached it with the resignation of an exhausted man who knows he must ascend a forbidding peak: conserve what's left.

Shepherd your meager resources.

Radiation sickness was a mean, ugly thing. What happened to you—as Peter had learned in excruciating detail—was that your DNA unzipped and disintegrated, causing you to suffer what felt like every illness in the world at once, from the worst flu to the worst headache to the worst stomach bug. Peter had spent twenty-four hours in Bethesda Naval Hospital as sick as he had ever been in his life. It had been harder on Neal. They had put him in a coma for a fortnight and done some kind of weird new chelation procedure on him. Finally off the ventilator, Neal was now in a condition called "guarded but hopeful." When Peter heard this, he thought: well, Christ. That'd been Neal Caffrey's condition since he was four years old.

Peter had been cleared medically over a week ago, but what with the national security crisis and all, he'd been marooned in Bethesda since the event. He could have fought to be sent back to New York, but he couldn't leave Neal defenseless. Mozzie wouldn't come within ten miles of a naval base, and if the Navy wasn't careful, Neal would walk off with the plans for the next missile and a permanent seat on the National Security Council. Assuming he ever woke up. So instead of going home, Peter had his family sent down, and they were all put up in relatively OK officers' housing. It was almost like being on vacation. Peter spent his mornings sleeping in, his afternoons with the scientists, soldiers, doctors and brass, and his evenings sitting in an easy chair in Neal's hospital room reading a book called Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White Collar Criminal.

Compared to the ICU, Neal's recovery room was intensely quiet, without even the comforting blip-blip-blip of a heart monitor. Peter licked a fingertip and turned the page. The words on the page blurred and ran together. He lifted up his reading glasses and rubbed his tired eyes.

An object came sailing over his shoulder and into his lap.

It was a small greasy paper bag with the smiley-face logo of a local fast food restaurant. Willie's Waffles, famous for their honeycrisp chicken, sweet potato waffles and double-roasted Colombian coffee. It was the first meal he'd held down in Bethesda and now it was his favorite. He was going to have withdrawal problems when he made it back to Manhattan. He looked over his shoulder. Elizabeth Burke leaned in the doorway, clutching her own bag of food. "Yes, hello," she said, smiling.

Peter dogeared his book. "Hey, hon."

"Hey, hon." She sat on the foot of Neal's bed and began picking through her meal, nibbling the crisp waffle.

"How's Neal?" he asked, meaning their son.

"Having the time of his life," said Elizabeth. "Saluting everything that moves. How's Neal?" Meaning their friend.

"No change." Peter's smile was a sort of grimace.

Elizabeth bit her lip and nodded. She picked at her chicken. "I'm tired. I want to go home."

"You have no idea," Peter agreed.

"OK," she said, "so when does this stop being a—a short-term situation?"

"Tonight."

"Really."

"He's gonna be fine," said Peter. They both looked at Neal Caffrey's still form like he might rise up like Lazarus at that exact moment. He didn't. Peter was not concerned. "I know him."

He looked, and was, gravely unwell, his face slack, his skin loose and the color of chalk. His breaths were fast and shallow. He'd lost fifteen pounds in the hospital. Before they put him out he'd spent three days with a hundred-and-four degree fever, talking out of his head. But Neal could die right now, and Peter could bury him outside using his own badge as a shovel, and he still wouldn't believe it. He'd never believe it again.

"You still haven't told me what happened," said Elizabeth.

"You know what happened, El."

"I have heard the story," she said, "from two cops, a doctor, and a classified after-action report."

Peter sat up. "Hey, don't tell anyone I gave you that."

She held up a hand. "I haven't heard it from you. It's not Peter Burke official."

Peter chuckled. "What, if it's not 'Peter Burke official,' it didn't happen?"

"You're sitting a naval hospital next to the world's greatest con artist and I think you've retroactively joined the CIA," said Elizabeth. "I'm thinking you may have left a couple of things out of the official report."

"Well, I'm convalescing," said Peter. "I forget things. I'm a mess. It's a human tragedy."

"Mm."

"I'm a hero, you know. They're gonna give me a medal."

"Yeah, you and Captain America."

"Well. Do you have conclusive proof that I'm not an Avenger?"

"Could go either way."

Peter admitted, "I may have left a couple of details out."

She crossed her arms. "You almost died. I moved our family to Maryland. And I bought you waffles."

"They're good details," said Peter.

"They're good waffles. I haven't mentioned that Neal is in our lives again and while I am thrilled, I don't imagine it will make things less chaotic for us."

"It was a VW Beetle," said Peter.

Elizabeth pursed her lips and waited.

"This supercar Mozzie was supposed to get us so we could chase down the nuclear terrorists," said Peter. "Cos of us being—"

"Heroes. I get it," said Elizabeth.

"He told us he could shop for a car," said Peter.

#

Three weeks earlier, Neal Caffrey had stepped off the plane with a worn valet ticket in his hand. What the valet brought back from long-term parking was a '68 VW Beetle, its red color faded to a powdery rouge, rusty handles, and an engine that chugged and sighed like a steam train. It smelled of burning oil.

The two men stared at the vehicle for a minute. Neal sighed. "I did tell him not to steal anything."

"Wait," said Peter. "Are you saying this is Mozzie's own car?"

Neal smiled grimly. Then a thought occurred to him and he leaned into the car and popped the trunk, which in the old Beetles was in the front. Neal lifted the hood. They leaned over it like a couple of guys in the shop on a Saturday. The trunk was not empty, but it was hard to say what it was full of: it looked like a bunch of heavy rubber and plastic tubing.

"This an impact buffer," said Peter. He stepped back to look at the bumper. Dings and scratches but also: it wasn't original to the car. He kicked it. It was loose. "Neal, is this a crash car?"

"Draw your own conclusions."

Peter walked around the back. No insurance sticker. "If I run the VIN," said Peter, "I'm going to find about sixty-five accidents and a six-digit insurance nut, aren't I?"

"Why do you think it's stashed in airport parking?" said Neal. "But that's not the point. The point is—" Neal opened the engine compartment. He fiddled with a couple of whirring components and pulled out something that looked like a vacuum filter, but wasn't an essential part on any car Peter had ever worked on. The Beetle choked once, then went VROOM. The unmistakable sound of a V8 engine in tip-top condition. "Rules for working with Moz," said Neal. "Never assume you know what's under the hood. Come on. We have to get on the highway. I'm driving."

"We're going to get pulled over and arrested."

"Come on. Who'd pull this thing over?"

"Me, Neal. I would pull you over."

"Yeah, but you're with me." Neal grinned.

Peter threw up his hands, but he also got in the car. Everything about the Beetle was deceptively old and cheap. The seats were comfortable, heated buckets. The headlights sliced through the early-evening mist. The doors were reinforced steel. When Neal shifted it into first gear it moved like a serpent and purred like a kitten. This was a very high-end rally car dressed down for its working week committing insurance fraud. It suggested that Mozzie, the consummate Manhattanite, had a secret life as a car guy. Then again if you started cataloging these guys' secret lives you'd never finish.

"I feel like if I touch anything the seat's gonna eject," said Peter.

"I'm sure it's perfectly safe," said Neal.

Peter kept his hands in his lap. "I bet it drops tacks."

Neal wagged his eyebrows and gunned the engine.

#

They picked a rest stop at the end of the highway range the Windhoek Brain Trust had calculated back at the mine. Neal pulled the Beetle over on the shoulder. They sipped from Styrofoam cups of tepid coffee. There was a range of about four hours in which the famous truck might appear. If they didn't spot it, their timing was off, which was either a complete disaster or nothing. But their timing wasn't off. Peter scowled at the highway. A dozen vehicles were passing per minute. "There's no way this can possibly work."

"How long did it take you to recognize this as a crash car? Four seconds?" Neal asked.

"That's different," Peter said. "We need to call in more people. You know it takes six people at least to stake out a highway. How many times have we been here? It always goes south if you don't have enough people."

"What do you want to do?" Neal asked. "Park cruisers going both ways and start running plates?"

"Yes," said Peter. "That's what I want to do."

"You don't think that might... tip them off?" said Neal carefully.

"That's not the point."

"What's the point?"

"The point is, Neal, in real life, the fate of the free world doesn't rely on the spotting skills of a couple of guys parked on the shoulder."

"I think you'd be surprised," said Neal. "Don't stare at me."

"Have you thought about what you're going to say when Highway Patrol pulls up and asks us what we're doing here?"

"Please, please help us?" Neal suggested. "Have you thought about what we're going to do when we find this thing?"

"I was thinking about shooting out the tires."

"You didn't bring your gun."

"Yeah, that's fine," said Peter. "What if it crashed?"

Silence. They watched the road.

"It's a problem," said Neal. "Isn't it?"

Peter nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. He was exhausted, the kind of tired that plays tricks on your vision. Night was falling. There was a cold knot in his stomach. He missed his family. He hadn't laid eyes on his boy in more than a week, and thinking of Elizabeth gave him a sour feeling in his mouth. It wasn't a good time.

After twenty minutes Neal got fidgety and his attention wandered. He was not suited to this work. This was one of the aspects of their partnership where their skills, psychology and orientation differed so drastically that they could barely work together. Patience was not one of Neal's virtues. Peter caught himself wishing Neal would just drift off so that his own attention wasn't divided between the road and Caffrey's own frenetic tension. Talking to him made it worse.

Then after an hour or so Neal jumped like he'd been bitten, slammed his fist against the steering wheel and spoke a word not suitable for a family paper. Peter had let his mind settle into an easy stake-out rhythm and this sudden cacophony scared the hell out of him and tore his attention from the road. He glanced at Neal once—his face was chalk-white and he was shaking the pain out of his fingers—before zooming back in on the traffic. It was the worst possible light out there. Too bright for headlights, too dark to make out details. They couldn't afford this right now. A second of inattention could cost them everything.

"Tell me," said Peter.

"Hold on."

"Neal, for God's sake—"

But Peter was talking to the empty air. Neal had slipped out of the driver's seat, leaving the keys behind. Peter stared out at the road. A dozen vehicles a minute. About a quarter of them small trucks like the one Mozzie had crossed the border in. He had no license plate number. Neal had taken off. Peter stared out at the highway for a moment longer while his hands clenched into fists. Then he bit his lip and got out of the car and turned his back on the road. The complex behind them was a busy highway rest stop, almost as big as a strip mall. Gas. Restrooms. A small parking lot. Several fast food places. Showers. A place to park your truck overnight. Fast enough when he wanted to be, Neal had already made it across the grassy median to the parking lot. While Peter watched, Neal climbed up onto the top of an eighteen-wheeler and scanned the lot. Peter's head was filled with visions of the truck passing right by them on the road. But he realized what had gotten to Neal: they hadn't been watching the rest stop behind them.

Idiots!

This is why they needed more people.

Peter took out his phone and tried to call Neal. The conman didn't answer, though he did touch his pocket and glance over his shoulder. As if prompted by the buzz of his phone, Neal hopped off the eighteen-wheeler and jogged into the complex. Peter waited for a beat and then began to follow. He had nearly crossed the median when a box truck whipped by him. It was an anonymous off-white box truck with Texas plates. And clinging to the back, pulling on the lock bar, was Neal Caffrey.

The truck was plowing down the merge lane, gaining speed with every second. Neal pulled open the door and slipped inside. Neal pointed at Peter as the truck put distance between them. Then he pulled on the heavy door and shut himself inside.

Oh God.

"Probable cause," Peter muttered to himself. It was like they had never stopped working together. He was giving Peter probable cause to collar the truck. Whatever happened now, Neal was caught up in it for sure.

Peter's phone was still in his hand. As he ran toward the souped-up Beetle, Peter dialed 911.

#

Kzzzt! Kzzzt!

So, here he was. Neal put his hand over his burner phone. The ringer was off, of course, but the vibrator was ridiculously loud and Peter was calling him approximately every fourteen seconds.

Like he needed an update.

The inside of the truck was dark, warm and stifling. He was surrounded by film canisters, marked off with a dozen warnings. His feet slipped on the metal floor. Fine Italian leather shoes were not made for chasing down nuclear terrorists. A single tiny window looked into the driver's seat. The truck driver was a Hispanic man who likely had no clue what he was carrying—but then again, maybe he did. Neal only knew that he had to stop the truck in an orderly way and that no price was too high to do that. There was no upside, no trick, no special secret way out. Neal thought it was very likely that he had seen his last sunset, had his last—and unexpected—laughs with the guys, kissed a girl for the last time. He knew he was already living on borrowed time. He should have been dead ten years ago. He knew he was smart, fast, and lucky, but not this smart. Not this fast.

Not this lucky.

So screw it then. If you knew you were definitely going to die, probably horribly, there was no point in playing by any sort of rules. Neal took his lockpick set out of his secret pocket. The canisters were unbearably heavy. One of the indicators that this was the truck was the groaning way it sat on its shocks.

Difficult to move, they were not, however, hard to open.

Inside the rest stop, Neal had soaked a few towels with water, and now he covered his mouth and nose with one. He used the tiny knife from his kit to cut the seal around the top of the canister. Then he twisted it open and lifted it carefully off. The golden powder inside was finer than baby powder and he knew that the gentle motion of the truck, combined with the still, thick air, would begin to lift it out of the canister. It would hang suspended in the air. Neal clamped the damp towel over his face—for all the good that would do—and used the metal lid to smash the window.

The driver slammed the brakes. Neal felt it under his feet as they pulled off the road and slowed to a stop. The open canister rocked a little. The driver turned an aimed a gun directly in Neal's face. He the whites all the way around the driver's eyes. The fear they both felt.

The driver knew.

So screw him too, thought Neal. We'll all go together when we go. "Hey," he said, "there are only two choices now." Neal's throat was already sore and scratchy. "We wait here and maybe they can help us. Maybe." Neal coughed. His eyes were watering. "Maybe we get clean. Think about it. You wait here with me, and maybe they can save us. Or you can run. That's it. We're done." Neal sat down and hugged his knees. The truck was stopped. Two choices.

No.

There were three. Three choices.

Neal didn't move when he heard the gunshot. He didn't like the sight of blood and he had the sinking feeling that he would be seeing more than enough of his own before long. There were tiny flickers of light at his temples. It seemed like he sat there still as stone for a million years before the truck's door cracked open. The distance to the door seemed impossibly, painfully far. The distance across a desert.

It wasn't a nuclear radiation guy in a Hazmat suit. It was just Peter Burke.

"Shut the door," said Neal. "Get out of here."

Peter strode into the truck and grabbed Neal by the collar and pulled him out of the truck. It had turned into night outside. The truck had plowed about three hundred feet into a wheat field. There was no traffic. The road had been closed. Peter closed the door of the truck tightly behind them and sealed it. Hardly safe. They staggered together to the side of the road where Peter had parked Mozzie's Beetled with its emergency lights flaring.

"That was stupid, Peter," said Neal. "You contaminated yourself."

Peter did not look happy, but he looked calm and determined. "I did that a long time ago."

They could see the cars approaching. Not police cruisers. A hazmat team. An ambulance.

"Don't run," said Peter gently, knowing Neal's instinctive response to flashing lights, the collision of old and new identities, the horrible feeling of the noose closing. Neal shook his head. He couldn't run if he wanted to, and he didn't want to. He staggered and got down on his knees. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. His stomach churned and stirred. Peter rested a heavy hand on his shoulder.

He was so tired. His eyes ached. His mouth tasted of metal.

"It's OK," Peter's voice echoed in his ear, fuzzing out the sound of sirens, the churning noise of an approaching helicopter. "You're fine."

He was fine. He was completely fine. He slept.

#

It took a minute for Neal to realize that the lump at the foot of his hospital bed was a child. It was a small boy, just beyond toddlerhood, in that state of sleep so deep that it seemed to represent some other plane of reality. He had full red cheeks and longish straw-colored hair. Peter's jawline. Elizabeth's mouth. He was covered up in a fuzzy blue blanket with stars on it. It made Neal think of Vermeer. That kind of fragile luminescence. He was in a lot of pain. They gave him a clicker that controlled his morphine and he clicked it a couple of times. He saw white stars and said, "Wow."

"Whoa, pace yourself, kid." Peter Burke took the button from his hand. "Four drink limit."

Neal swallowed a few times. He wasn't in pain anymore but now his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. "Why? I'm not driving." He blinked a few times. "I thought I heard Elizabeth."

"Couple of hours ago," said Peter.

"Tell her I said hi," said Neal.

"She says hi," Peter replied. "How you doin'? It was touch and go for a few days."

Neal turned his head. Peter sat in a tired-looking vinyl chair with his feet up on Neal's bed. He was looking rumpled in shirtsleeves and a five-o-clock shadow. Behind him was a picture window with vertical blinds, and through them shone a full moon. The room was bathed in bluish light. The last time Neal had seen the moon, over the cornfield, it had been a quarter moon. It had been a bit more than two weeks. So touch and go was an understatement. He did feel like he had been killed. He probably deserved that though. He put everybody else through a lot. He made the effort to lift his hand. A red band was tight around his wrist and the name on it red Ben Keel. A few lines underneath: flight risk. Well that was true. He thought, hunh.

"Neal."

Neal blinked. "Heya, Peter."

"Need some help?"

Neal coughed painfully. "I'm fine. Never better. I don't need anything." Neal pushed himself up on his elbows and adjusted the pillows. He took a deep breath. Steadied himself. Got ready. "How'd we do? Did we stop it?"

"Of course we stopped it," said Peter. "You did good, Neal."

Neal fingered his hospital band. "They get the buyer?"

"No," said Peter. "But they will. Don't worry about that."

"And what about me?" said Neal.

Peter steepled his fingers over his lips. Then he dropped his feet to the floor and stood. He stretched in a way that made Neal feel jealous, since he didn't think he'd be that steady on his feet for a while. The memories of his radiation sickness were coming back and they made him feel like his shoulders were nailed to the bed.

Peter put his hands on his hips. "Neal, I've been sitting here and I've had a lot of time to think about that. And what I've been thinking about is—" He shook his head. "You know when I was flying to Italy with Mozzie I thought, this is what it means to be corrupt. I lied. I used FBI resources. I left my job. And I didn't feel bad about it."

"Peter."

"Because if I hadn't done that," said Peter. "Then what?" He looked down at his tiny son and sighed. "Caffrey, I'm done trying change you or—or save you. I give up. You are what you are and Christ knows I can't stop you. And if I can't, then it's a lost cause. Cause I'm the only person you've ever listened to." A hint of exasperation and defeat in his voice. "So here's what's going to happen: nothing. You get better. You do your physical therapy. You take some pills. You go home, wherever the hell that is and whatever the hell you do there. I'm giving you your freedom. Real freedom. The kind you don't have to run from. You can even keep the villa. Congratulations."

"I don't get it," said Neal. "Are you angry with me?"

"No," said Peter. "Never again. I'm telling you I understand. Intent matters. Your intent. Neal, you have gifts I don't have. Maybe nobody has. The things you see... and I understand that it means there's a deeper context that just escapes you. So let's talk about what my demands are."

"Demands?" Neal chuffed.

"I'm giving you your identity back," said Peter. "You don't have to use it. But it will be there when you need it. Don't destroy it again." What Neal didn't know then—though he found out later—was that Peter had restored his identity eighteen months ago. He had pulled the same okeydoke with Neal's legal name and documents that had followed Neal around since he was a kid in Witness Protection. Peter had established that Neal was an FBI asset under deep cover. That meant Neal would always have access to the FBI's resources. There was a fire alarm that he could pull.

The real gift Peter was giving him ran deeper than that, though. It gave Neal a mooring. He was still alive. He was still himself. Neal nodded. Something settled inside him that he'd been holding on to for three years. He hadn't liked being a dead man. "Fine."

"Two, don't disappear on us. Me, Elizabeth, Mozzie. Running from us is always a mistake. It doesn't protect anybody. Talking to us is always safer. I don't care what it is."

"OK," said Neal, and he realized his eyes were watering. "What else?"

Peter spotted it, of course. He didn't comment on it. He didn't have to. "That's it."

"That's it?"

"Well. This nuclear thing has a lid on it. You'll have to sign some documents."

"OK," said Neal.

"And the President wants to give you a medal. Unfortunately, that's classified too."

"It's fine," said Neal. "I'll just make my own."

It wasn't that funny, but they both snickered till their sides hurt. Neal coughed up half his lungs, but even though it hurt, he didn't feel bad. He felt buoyant. OK, he was stoned out of his gourd, but there were things he carried with him that drugs couldn't touch. He'd never let himself imagine that he could be both things, do both things. Cop and criminal. Conman and spy. For a man who had founded his entire life on transformation, stability felt like a radical invention. Something new.

"I need coffee," said Peter, when he caught his breath. "You want some coffee?"

The way his throat was feeling, a few ice chips were more his speed. "No," he said. "I'm good."

#

Peter was gone for a long time—or it felt like a long time. Neal wanted to sleep again but Peter had left his little boy here. Little Neal Burke. The namesake. Peter's chance to do it again the right way.

Neal hadn't spent a whole lot of time around kids and wasn't sure what the rules were about really little ones and supervision and sleeping and so on. Parenting was not something Neal Caffrey saw in his future. Maybe. A long time ago. Not now. Peter's could raise a child to be good. For Neal, there would always be an element of performance in it. It wasn't enough.

Neal waited long enough that his eyelids felt heavy and his breaths synced with the child's. He realized he was losing focus and pushed himself up again.

That was how he realized little Neal wasn't the only thing his handler had left in Neal's care. Sitting on the bedside table was a thin blue file marked SECRET. In Neal Caffrey's experience, these kinds of cautions did not apply to him. He was very functional on the subject of secret government files. He opened the file and flipped through it. He tipped it into the light. Something something arson at an FBI safe house. Something something Russian arms dealers.

Something something target Theodore Winters. Mozzie.

The printer.

"Moz." Neal sighed. "What did you do?"

This was going to be a job. He reached up and turned on the overhead light.

At Neal's his feet the little boy stirred. Neal looked over the edge of the file at him. The boy cooed, rolled over and soothed the air with soft snoring. Neal could not remember ever sleeping so fearlessly. Neal coughed into the crook of his arm. Then he licked his fingertips, turned a page, and began to read.

###