White Collar Fic - Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places - Chapter Fourteen

[elrhiarhodan]

Title: Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places – Chapter Fourteen
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 – ~2900
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: Mozzie and Hughes go after the people who hurt Neal. Or at least, the people who know the people who know the people who hurt Neal. Neal gets a visit from a friend.

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Previous Chapters: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen |

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.


Art by kanarek13



Sometime in Late January – Early Wednesday Morning

It was close to three AM when Clive finally showed up, sliding into the booth across from him. Mozzie had already consumed enough tea to make his bladder uncomfortable, but relief would have to wait. Clive spooked easily and if Moz wasn’t in the appointed spot at the appointed time, it could be weeks before he’d get another face-to-face. But he wasn’t going to let the man get the upper hand, there was too much at stake. “You’re late.”

Clive shrugged. “Sorry, I promised Madeline that I’d take care of the baby before going out. You know how four-months-olds are.”

Moz did, but that wasn’t relevant. He pushed back, “You should have let me know. I’m a busy man.”

“Sorry.” Despite the apology, Clive didn’t seem at all cowed. “But you’re the one who should be sorry, to be honest. You bailed on me, man. You’ve never bailed on me.”

“I had my reasons.” Moz had gotten Peter’s text about five minutes before he was going to complete the transaction for the dirty Franklins. He aborted the deal and then the news about Neal arrived. It took the better part of four days before he could get the details from the Suit about why he’d told Moz to walk away.

Peter was willing to let him play it out, he trusted him to put Neal’s interests above his own and as much as he despised the idea of helping the Feds put honest criminals out of business, he despised dirty criminals even more. And what the counterfeiters did to Neal was unspeakable. The Feds and the local heroes might put them in jail, but Moz would see them suffer in a hell not even Dante’s Ninth Circle could rival.

“Care to share those reasons?”

Moz pulled out a copy of a sketch of the guy that Neal said had kidnapped him. The artist the NYPD had sent to Neal’s hospital room wasn’t bad, as far as sketch artists went. Neal could have done a lot better, but his friend had enough difficulty talking about the bastard and what he did to him; expecting him to use his talents to draw that face would be a million times worse. “Is this the guy?”

Clive gave him a beady-eyed stare. “Why do you have a police sketch?”

Moz ignored Clive’s question and asked again, “Is this the guy?”

Clive insisted, “Answer my question.”

Moz was getting impatient with this game. “No, you answer my question.”

“Not until you tell me why you have an official police sketch. You don’t deal with the police.” Clive dramatically sniffed the air. “You know what? It’s beginning to smell like ‘rat’ here. It’s time I was gone.” He started to slide out of the booth, but his way was blocked.

The Old Gray Suit slipped into the booth next to Clive, effectively imprisoning him.

“What the hell? Who the fuck are you?” When Hughes didn’t answer, Clive turned to Moz. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

Moz deadpanned, “My twin brother. He doesn’t say much, but he has an affinity for making people talk.”

Clive looked from him to Hughes and back to him; his normally dark skin was now a sickly shade of gray.

“I don’t know you anymore, man – this isn’t you. You don’t work with muscle and you don’t work with cops. So tell me, what the fuck is going on.”

“This guy,” Moz tapped the sketch, “is a wanted man.”

“Hey, we’re all wanted, you know that.”

“Wanted by me. And by my brother, here.”

“Why?”

Clive’s question was reasonable. But all Moz could think of was Neal in the hospital, battered and broken, almost in tears because he’d brought him a silly pastry. He wasn’t inclined to reasonableness. “Tell me if this is the guy who wants to sell the paper.”

Refusing to answer, Clive’s jaw jutted forward and he stared out over Moz’s shoulder.

Moz looked at Hughes and nodded.

The Old Gray Suit commented, “You have children, Clive.” That wasn’t a question. Moz didn’t know what to think. Was he really threatening the man’s family? His calm, almost casual tone made the hair on the back of Mozzie’s neck stand up.

Clive sucked in his breath.

The old man continued, “Children are wonderful. I don’t have any of my own, but I have people I consider my family, my children. This man – ” Hughes gestured at the sketch, “hurt someone I think of as a son. Hurt him badly. He wanted to force his compliance and then tried to kill him.” The old man’s voice never went above a conversational tone, but the intensity of his words was chilling.

Clive picked up the sketch, his hands were shaking. Hughes relaxed against the booth and Moz took back the conversation.

“You remember my friend Neal?”

Clive nodded. “He took off for parts unknown a few months back. Or so I heard.”

“You heard wrong. This son of a bitch grabbed him, tortured him and made him create the plate for those Franklins he wants you to move.” Moz poked at the sketch, his emotions overtaking him, voice too loud in the empty coffee shop. “When they were done with him, he stabbed Neal and dumped him on the street like he was some piece of trash.”

Clive finally understood. “Man, I didn’t know – I mean I thought the guy was kind of squirrelly but I didn’t know how he got the stuff. Brinker – you remember him from the Watteau job – he was the one who put this guy in touch with me, and Brinker’s always been solid. He’s never steered me wrong. He’s been brokering the deal. I only met with this guy once – him and an older dude. Slick bastard with a fancy accent. They were there when I saw the goods, them and a lot of muscle. But you would have met with Brinker to close the deal if you hadn’t gone tits up on me last week.”

“I need to talk to Brinker.”

Clive shook his head. “No – I’m supposed to be a vault. If people can’t trust me, then I’m out of business. How am I supposed to feed my babies? I’ve got bills to pay.”

Hughes casually asked, “I think the question is: how are you going to feed your nine children from inside a Federal Prison, Mr. Hanover?”

Clive all but tried to climb over the back of the booth in his panic. “How the hell did you find that out? No one knows my name.”

Under different circumstances, Moz might have sympathized with Clive’s distress. But Neal needed him and that trumped even his own enjoyment of this theater of the absurd. He tossed a little more fuel onto the fire. “My brother and I know lots of things. And the way I look at it, you don’t have a lot of options. So give us Brinker.”

He could see the muscles clench in Clive’s jaw. “You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m giving you squat.” He pushed against Hughes, who didn’t budge. “Let me out of here.”

He caught Hughes’ eye and the man gave a very slight nod. Moz continued. “Put us in touch with Brinker and we’ll consider our business with you finished. We all walk away satisfied. You don’t help, and my brother here might decide to take things personally.”

Clive finally caved, but with poor grace. “For the record, I’m doing this under extreme duress.”

Triumph was a sour taste on his tongue. “You’re going to call Brinker right now, you’re going to arrange for another meeting and you’ll make it clear that my brother and I are not interested in meeting with a flunky – we do business with the top dog or we don’t do business at all.”

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sometime in Late January – Wednesday Afternoon

Monday had been a good day. Monday, he felt like he was going to get out of here. Then Tuesday night happened – or didn’t happen - and all the progress he’d made was gone as if it had never existed.

Today he wondered if he was even going to survive.

Yesterday, he’d woken up hot and distressed, his hospital gown almost too much to bear. It seemed like ages before a nurse came in and took his temperature – it was soaring. Despite the antibiotics they were pumping into him, his wound had developed an infection. Doctors were in and out all day, poking at him, prodding him, doing things to him that made him want to scream.

Matters escalated from there, he began having trouble breathing – it felt like he was drowning. The doctors came in, listened to his lungs and muttered something about air and fluid in the chest wall. Neal listened as the doctors argued – one was worried about the infection spreading, the other said that there was a greater risk from the collapsed lung. All night he fought for breath, the nasal cannula couldn’t seem to feed him enough air. This morning, he was prepped for the minor surgery needed to insert a chest tube, so minor that it was done in his hospital room. It hurt, and it was kind of disgusting to watch the container fill up with fluid, but at least he could breathe again.

The nurses were kind and helped him deal with the humiliation of being completely bed-bound, and after everything he’d been through, having to use a bedpan was a fairly minor one. What was harder to deal with was the loneliness and the boredom. His condition had been downgraded and standard infection-risk precautions limited his visitors. June stopped by after the procedure, donning the protective gear, which didn’t even seem worth the effort since she was only allowed to stay for five minutes. Mozzie, naturally, was completely absent. Hughes was, too. Although he’d left a message for Neal that things were progressing and not to worry.

That was something, he supposed.

He tossed his head against the hard, inadequate hospital pillow, shifted against the sagging mattress and tried to be reasonable. It wasn’t so long ago that his “bed” was a cement platform in a windowless cell, and rather than kind nurses helping him with his catheter, there were faceless men beating the shit out of him. But it was hard to be rational when everything hurt. The pain was almost as bad as it had been when he’d first realized he was safe, in a hospital, and no longer waiting for the next round of torture and rape.

Neal deliberately tried to change the pattern of his thoughts. He was not chained in a dark room, his body and will shattered, forced to do something illegal. He kept telling himself he was safe, he was healing and this was a minor setback, but logic couldn’t keep the demons at bay. The drugs, particularly the painkillers, were breaking down the walls between reason and desolation. He turned his head away from the light and wasn’t surprised to feel tears pouring down his cheeks.

“Neal?”

He turned back, surprised to hear a familiar voice. “Diana?”

Her face was covered by a mask and she was wearing a protective gown over her clothing. “Hey, how are you doing?”

“Been better, been a lot worse.” Just her presence here made the situation a lot more bearable.

“What’s going on? The docs won’t tell me anything. I’m not family.”

Neal reached out and grabbed her gloved hand. “Yes, you are – but I’m too tired to explain.”

She gently squeezed his fingers. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

He swallowed and tried to gather his thoughts. “Right now, not so hot. Since you're in the gear, you know I’ve got an infection and a fever.” He lifted his other hand, the one with the IV in it. “I’m on some powerful antibiotics. And my lung, where I was stabbed, it has problems too. I think the docs said that there was blood and fluid in the chest wall. They had to put in a drain to get it out.”

“Sounds like fun.” Trust Diana to underplay the trauma.

Neal could see the smile behind the face mask, in the crinkles at the corner of her eyes. “I’m being a pain.”

“What else is new? You’re always trouble, knew you’d be from the first time I set eyes on you. Remember, at the airport?”

“You looked at me like I was pond scum.”

“Eh, you were flirting. Two days out of prison and you behaved like the world was your oyster”

He smiled at the memory. “You liked it, you liked me, and you definitely liked the hat. Admit it.”

Diana shrugged. “Yeah, of course I did. I wasn’t interested – I’ll never be interested, but there’s nothing wrong with a good looking man finding me attractive.”

“Ah, so you admit I’m good looking!” Neal tried not to laugh, it hurt too much. This comfortable banter with Diana was the most normal conversation he’d had with anyone since, since Cowboy Boots had grabbed him off the street.

“You don’t need me to feed your ego, Caffrey. But yeah, you’re good looking and I do like you. And if you tell anyone I ever said that, I’ll make you wish you had warts, a harelip and a hairline that starts somewhere in the middle of your back, spreads across your shoulders and ends at your earlobes.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, which turned into a wet, choking cough. He struggled, trying to sit up and Diana gingerly tried to help him get into a more comfortable position.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Like I said, you’re trouble, but I don’t mind.”

Neal felt himself become more centered, more grounded by Diana’s casual behavior. Moz, as wonderful as he’d been, still treated him like he was made from butterfly wings and eggshells. He knew that time was running out, a nurse would come in to tell Diana she had to leave, so Neal screwed up his courage and asked the question he’d asked El, the question she couldn’t answer. The question no one would answer. “Why hasn’t Peter been to see me?”

Diana blinked, confusion evident in the arch of her brows. “What? He hasn’t?”

“No – I haven’t seen him at all. At first, it was because the police, the Treasury Department, the Marshals – they needed to get my statement and Reese – Agent Hughes – said that Peter and the White Collar division were too close, that they couldn’t see me until after everything had been cleared. But you and Clinton came in right after the interview, and Clinton came back on Sunday. Even Elizabeth came by before she went back to D.C. But Peter hasn’t been in to visit, not once.” He wasn’t going to tell her that Peter was a frequent visitor in his dreams and his nightmares.

He struggled against the rising tide of emotion and then just surrendered to the current. “I want to see him; I want to tell him that I didn’t run, that I wasn’t going to run.” The sob hurt more than the earlier laughter. “I thought … ” Neal closed his eyes, this time the tears started and shamed him, “we were friends.”

He scrubbed at his face. “I’m sorry – I don’t mean to be such a baby. It’s just – just that I really want to see Peter. I know he’s in New York but I don’t know why he can’t see me. Do you?”

It was hard to read Diana’s face behind the mask, her eyes were wide open, but he couldn’t tell if she was surprised at Neal’s question, upset at his childish behavior, or something else entirely.

“I don’t know why he hasn’t been in, but Neal, Peter looked for you. He went through every case you’d ever worked on, he went to see Rachel; he went to see every person you’d helped put behind bars. He skirted disciplinary hearings and suspensions because he’d been ordered to back off, finding you was not his job. The Marshals were responsible for looking for you, they thought you were a fugitive, but Peter never did.” Diana sighed and shook her head. “I know that nothing – no case – has been more important to Peter than finding you. And since you turned up here, he’s been working his ass off to get the Justice Department to let you go free. But I don’t know why he hasn’t been to see you.”

The nurse in charge of his case had excellent timing, she came in to get Diana out. “Ma’am – you need to leave. We need to work on Mr. Caffrey and then he has to rest.” She fussed with his IV and checked the monitors before getting into a staring contest with Diana.

Diana gave in, “Neal – I’ll talk to Peter. I’ll try to find out what’s going on, okay?”

Neal nodded. There was nothing else he could do.

“And I’ll be back, like the Terminator – so behave yourself.”

Neal gave Diana a watery smile, pretending to feel a little better. “I won’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”

Diana left and the nurse asked him about his pain levels. He didn’t want to tell her how badly he was hurting, because there was nothing she could give him that would take this pain away.

TO BE CONTINUED
GO TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN