elrhiarhodan | White Collar Fic - Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places

Title: Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places – Chapter Six
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke, Mozzie, Reese Hughes, Clinton Jones, Diana Berrigan, Olivia Benson (L&O: SVU), Section Chief Bruce (McKinsey) Original Characters
Spoilers: White Collar, all of Season 5; no specific spoilers for L&O: SVU, but set in Season 15
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Kidnapping, torture (off-camera), rape (off-camera),
Word Count: This chapter – ~1600
Beta Credit:

coffeethyme4me,

miri_thompson,

sinfulslasher,

theatregirl7299
Story Summary: Six months after Neal disappears, Peter still has no answers and his decision not to go to Washington has had significant repercussions for both his career and his marriage.
Chapter Summary: Neal’s not always asleep when he’s attacked by nightmares.

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Previous Chapters: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five |

A/N: Title from Alan Hovhaness’ wind concerto, which takes it from the Old Testament. New chapters will be posted to my LJ every Thursday and to the relevant communities on Fridays.

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Sometime in Late January – Friday Evening

It was such a strange feeling. Safety.

Neal rested his hands on top of the blankets, rolling the worn white cotton between his fingers. To be clean, unshackled, warm. It seemed like a miracle.

Doctors had been in, they poked and prodded and made pronouncements. Neal didn’t say anything, he didn’t ask questions. He didn’t meet their eyes and they seemed to go out of their way to avoid looking at his face.

He was a case, a patient with an interesting wound, nothing more. That was fine with him.

The nurses were a little better. Some were unfailingly cheerful, but all of them were competent and careful not to hurt him any more than they had to. That was a novel sensation.

There were two people he didn’t like and he didn’t want to see, but they wouldn’t leave him alone. The police.

He’d had plenty of experience with the PD, mostly making them run around in circles. But these two seemed a cut above the boys and girls in blue. The sergeant was a woman with a thousand-yard stare and an infinite well of compassion. The detective was intense, eager for facts, like a dog with a bone.

He didn’t want to face that compassion; he didn’t want to deal with that intensity. They wanted answers that he didn’t want to give.

Like his name.

It was too dangerous to do that. He was certain that Neal Caffrey was on a BOLO that went to every police department and law enforcement agency in the world. Probably along with every other alias that he’d ever used with the FBI.

But the police were persistent and he figured that if he didn’t offer them a name, they’d take his prints and find out everything he didn’t want them to find out. After that, the Marshals would take him from this comfortable, safe, clean hospital bed and throw him into a prison medical unit where he’d be shackled and left to rot.

Giving them ‘Danny Brooks’ was a calculated risk. There was no criminal record associated with that name and since he’d turned eighteen and willingly left WitSec, there were no flags on it in the Marshals’ records. Of that, he was certain. Mozzie had checked.

Asking for Clinton was another risk. They weren’t precisely friends and Clinton knew better than to trust him. Clinton was also someone who believed that he should have served out his sentence. He’d told him that before he’d testified at his commutation hearing. But Clinton Jones was also a man who believed in fairness and that justice wasn’t an abstract concept to be enforced in strict accordance with words in a book.

So he told the sergeant to ask for Clinton, to tell him that Danny Brooks wasn’t living the dream, and he hoped that the man remembered the conversation they once had over some very excellent scotch. He hoped that Clinton would be decent enough to come himself and ask for an explanation before sending the Marshals.

Neal wondered if he should call Moz. Except he didn’t know if his friend was even still in New York or if any of his cell phones were working. He had disappeared without a word. Moz always said he was old school, and old school meant never saying goodbye. When it was time to go, you just left and didn’t look back.

Except that Moz knew that Neal always looked back, he always said goodbye. Almost always.

A nurse came in, changed the bag on his IV, and asked if he was in pain. He smiled and said he was fine for now. She actually argued with him – that being “fine for now” wasn’t fine and wasn’t going to help him heal. He told her that he didn’t want the fog that the drugs would bring. At least not until he was ready to sleep. Then he’d need something that would knock him out, to give him some surcease from the demons that chased him through his dreams. She reiterated that it was important to manage the pain and it would help him heal and recover faster.

They talked about options - he wanted ibuprofen, she said that he already had too much of that and offered Percocet, instead. Neal had taken that before and he was prepared for the floating, detached sensations that the medication caused. What he wasn’t prepared for was how completely the painkiller dismantled the walls he’d built around his psyche. As the pain receded, his thoughts took dark and dangerous turns.

He didn’t want to think about Peter. He didn’t want to think about Peter. He didn’t want to think about Peter.

And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Peter, wondering if he was happy, if he liked being a Section Chief. If he missed him. If he cared about what had happened to him. If he had even looked for him.

Behind his closed eyes, fantasies played out of Peter finding his hidden message, of Peter busting down the door and rescuing him. He could feel Peter hugging him, telling him how much he’d missed him, how everything was all right now.

Neal hated those dreams; he hated himself for indulging in them. Because they never came true. Peter was in Washington, he was a big shot, a big deal, and he didn’t need Neal Caffrey anymore. Peter never found the message and his kidnappers used him up and killed him. He could feel the knife sliding into him. It didn’t hurt any worse than any of the other things they’d done.

Memories cascaded, words echoing in his brain. Words he wanted to deny ever saying but he couldn’t deny the truth of them.

"Out of all the people in my life, Mozzie, even Kate, you know, you're the only one."

"The only one what?"

"The only person in my life I trust."

As he sat in that stinking cell, chained to the wall, battered and damaged, he trusted Peter. He trusted that Peter would rescue him, would find him, would come and take him out of this living hell.

When he realized that Peter was never going to come for him, that Peter was going to let them keep doing these things to him – hurting him – he wished they’d just kill him and be done with it.

Maybe some wishes did come true. Maybe he was dead.

And the dark train of his thoughts kept lurching forward like some terrible and ungainly monster. As much as he tried not to remember, Neal could still hear the words Peter had said to Clinton that terrible day – how he’d regret taking Neal on. Making it clear that he’d regretted taking Neal on. That Neal was nothing but trouble, and not worth the pain he’d bring. Maybe Peter wanted to get rid of him, maybe those last few weeks, working together like it was old times was just an illusion. Maybe Peter hated him, wanted him gone, wanted to forget he ever existed…

“Mr. Brooks? Danny?” Someone called his name softly. He didn’t respond. It was the police. He recognized her voice, the woman who’d tried to get him to talk. The one he’d sent away with the message for Clinton. “Neal?” she whispered.

At that, his eyes snapped open. He wasn’t too far gone to make the connection. She must have spoken to Clinton.

“Hey.” What a wonderfully all-purpose word, so useful in situations like this. “Sergeant Benson, right? I remember you.”

“Yes. How are you feeling?”

Neal shrugged and regretted the gesture as it pulled at the incision, at the scabs and scars on his neck and back and shoulders. Because the cop was a stranger and even as drugged out as he was, he knew that lying would be easier, “Okay, maybe a little better.” His voice sounded so slurred. “I guess you talked to Clinton … Agent Jones?” When are the Marshals coming?

“No, actually I didn’t. He was gone for the day. I spoke with his boss, though.”

Neal’s heart sank. She’d talked with some bright and shiny new ASAC who was probably all too eager to close the case on Neal Caffrey, escaped felon, fugitive from justice. No, wait – that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t think why, he couldn’t make his brain work. He closed his eyes and tried to shut everything else out, tried to make sense of this. He finally grasped the missing piece – the new ASAC wouldn’t know about Danny Brooks.

“Neal?”

That voice, he knew that voice, he’d heard it in his dreams and his nightmares. Sometimes he thought it would be the last sound he ever would hear. Peter. His eyes snapped open and there was a figment of his imagination standing there. His best friend, his bête noir.

He didn’t understand what was going on. Peter wasn’t supposed to be here, he was in Washington, not here in New York. The confusion made him panic and he began to hyperventilate. “No, no, no – ” He kept his eyes squeezed shut and turned his face away from that voice, away from the pain, the betrayal.

“Neal?” The voice repeated his name, like a monk at prayer.

This wasn’t right. Why was Peter standing there, looking like he’d just had a long day at the office? Like nothing was wrong, like nothing had changed? Something in him snapped, something unreasoning and unreasonable.

Words spewed out of him, words he had no control over, words that tasted like poison. “This is your fault. Your fault!” He was screaming and the pain was a thing trying to rip itself out of his gut. “You did this, you bastard. You forgot about me and left me to die!” He tried to get out of bed, to get to Peter, to make him realize what had happened because he never found him.

Because he never looked for him.

Monitors starting squealing and medical people rushed in, holding him down. He thrashed and screamed and tried to claw his way free.

The blackness, when it came, was a mercy.

TO BE CONTINUED
Go To Chapter Seven