elrhiarhodan | White Collar Fic - Things Taken, Things Left Behind

Title: Things Taken, Things Left Behind
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke (allusions to future Peter/Neal)
Spoilers: 3.16 - Judgment Day, 4.01 - Wanted, 4.02 - Most Wanted
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~ 1600
Beta Credit:

coffeethyme4me and

theatregirl7299
Summary: Neal’s learned to travel light, but there are things he has to take with him and there are things he has to leave behind.

A/N: Written for my very sweet and dear friend,

ivorysilk, on the occasion of her birthday. I know you’re in the middle of some pretty serious crunch time at work. I hope that when you get the chance to read this, it will make you happy, even though it's a little bit melancholy for a birthday fic.

Also, fills the "Loss of Home/Shelter" square on my H/C Bingo Card.

Through the years, Neal learns to travel light, to avoid accumulating the things that would weigh him down. He learns to live for a future that can be carried in a small duffle bag.

He’s carrying that bag when he goes to meet Kate in a hanger in a small municipal airport just north of Manhattan. It’s slung over his shoulder when he tells Peter he doesn't want a life of virtue and good deeds. Neal never finds out what happens to that bag. The Marshals take it from him when he is taken into custody after the explosion, his ears still ringing, his hands and face flecked with ash.

He never gets it back and it doesn't matter. There's nothing in there that's of any importance. Some clothes, money, a few passports under different names, the wine bottle that was the promise of a better life.

He has another duffle bag, one he keeps in a hidden compartment behind a false wall. He feels nothing when he packs it. It's habit and good practice, because even if he wants to stay in New York, even with his electronic leash and his minders with their gold shields, even though his heart is tied here by love and friendship and the pleasure of a life of virtue and good deeds, Neal knows that there will always be something to drive him away. That this life, the love, these friendships will be torn from him as like a leaf pulled from a tree in a sharp October wind.

It happens on a day when he is looking at every chance for happiness. It happens with the most minute of gestures. The shake of a head, a pair of sad, angry eyes telling him it is time to leave. He can stay and he can be taken away, or he can go and be free of all obligations. But the end result will be the same - the life he has forged here in New York is over. He races back to his apartment, not even taking the time to say goodbye to June - the woman who'd been more of a mother to him than his own - and grabs that duffle bag.

Like the one he carried to the airport on a bitterly cold day two years ago, this one holds some clothes, a few spare passports, plus a lot of money, an ancient pager and a framed photograph. Nothing important, nothing irreplaceable. Nothing that matters.

A half-dozen flights later, Neal finds himself in Cape Verde. The air is warm, the sky is blue, the people friendly and there's no treaty requiring him to be returned to the U.S. in chains. He winces against the brightness and thinks that it's a nice place, he could make a home here, but it will never be the place where his heart is.

Moz works quickly and by the end of the second day, they've each got their own private villa. His overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, an endless vista of water and sand and rolling waves. Moz's is up in the hills, more fortress-like, if such things actually exist on Praia.

During the day, Neal paints, creating outsized versions of the icons he worships - DaVinci, Rousseau, Monet, Gauguin. When he loses the light, he swims, he goes to the cafe, he flirts with the pretty owner, he makes a life for himself and tries to forget about everything he's left behind.

But at night, Neal walks along the beach, crossing and recrossing the liminal mark the tide leaves behind. His toes dig into the damp sand that hasn't given up the day's heat. Cape Verde is a different world from any other place he’s lived. There's privacy here, solitude, and it's strangely uncomfortable. He is accustomed to noise and life and the knowledge that there are other heartbeats around him. Neal walks the beach because he can't sleep. The crashing surf is no substitute for the rumble and roar of New York City traffic. He looks up and sees millions of stars, but they are unfamiliar to him. He's in the other half of the world and he needs to learn these new constellations. He looks up and finds the Southern Cross and wishes for all the world that those points of light are the illuminations of airplanes and helicopters moving and reforming because when he looks out over the city, he can't see the stars.

The clothes from that duffle bag hang in the back of one of the many closets in this vast and empty villa. The bag itself is stuffed in another closet. The passports, all except the one under the name "Daniel Brooks" have been burned. The money's been spent - it's bought security and protection and there's always more to be had. The pager's at the bottom of an old trunk that Moz rigged so it will never run out of a charge. Neal wonders if the pager can be reached here at the Equator, so far away from the only person who knows the number.

And the photograph? It's tucked into the night table drawer, underneath a copy of the latest Swedish bestseller and a box of condoms. But Neal takes it out almost every night. He sits on the edge of his bed and looks at the smiling faces of the people he loves.

There's Jones and Diana and the rest of the Harvard Crew, and of course, Peter. He hears their laughter as if he’s back in that office and he remembers the day that the picture was taken. It’s right after they close a major case, one where the whole team pulls together and makes the extraordinary look ordinary. Their suspects plead guilty and roll on a whole bunch of bigger fish. It’s the type of day that makes Neal regret his earlier life choices and makes him proud to be counted amongst the good and worthy. Hughes stands on the balcony and snaps a photo, then someone says something about the infamous double finger-point and they all made the gesture. Hughes takes another picture between the gales of laughter.

Neal doesn't really understand why he has a copy of that photo printed and framed, why he puts it in his run kit. Maybe it’s because his life is so disposable. He tosses away cell phones the way most people throw out tissues. The picture is a tangible reminder of this happiness. He can look at it and remembers that once upon a time, he had been part of something good.

The six weeks in Cape Verde might as well have been six months or six years. The days and nights are equally long and when he sleeps, he dreams of the early darkness of a November day, of watching the sun rise over a frost-encrusted balustrade. He longs for a voice saying his name in fond exasperation, a hand at the small of his back, on his arm. It’s the middle of the night and he thinks about dialing a number he knows will never change. He gets as far as entering it onto a burner phone - first the country code, then the area code, then the rest of the numbers. They might have been a combination tattooed onto his heart, but he can’t complete the call.

There are people listening, waiting, watching. And it’s over - after all. Peter’s an FBI agent and he’s a felon, how could it have worked out?

So he pulls the picture out from his drawer and brushes a fingertip across that beloved face. He puts the picture away and wonders if forever is truly forever.

Neal knows that his life can change in the blink of an eye. The nod of a head. The unspoken instruction to run far and never look back.

When his life changes again, there’s no convenient duffle bag to take with him. And he doesn’t need it as he’s herded onto the small waiting plane. He's going home and there’s nothing in his life he can’t replace, nothing that’s on Cape Verde that he’s not prepared to leave behind, nothing he needs to save. The clothes remain in the back of the closet, the next tenant will take them to a second-hand store or donate them to a worthy cause. Someday, the pager might wash up onto another foreign shore, a ruin of plastic and metal corroded by the Atlantic salt.

The passport bearing the name ‘Daniel Brooks’ is in Moz’s possession. Like a message in a bottle, it may come back to him, or it may not. It doesn’t matter.

And the photograph under the book and the box of condoms? That doesn’t matter, either. Neal doesn’t need to look at the photo and be reminded of what he once had and all that he's lost. Someone who loves him has risked everything - his life, his reputation, the very thing that defines him - to bring him home, to give him back the life he really wants.

No, Neal doesn’t need the tangible reminder of a memory, a moment that he thought would never come again. He can settle in at his desk, feel the weight of the tracker around his ankle and relax into a future that will include a thousand more moments like the one in the picture he left behind.

Until it’s time to grab that duffle bag filled with some clothes, a few extra passports, money and a photograph.

Until it’s time to run.

Again.

Fin