White Collar Fic - Let Your Honesty Shine - Part 5 of 5

[elrhiarhodan]

Title: Let Your Honesty Shine – Part Five
Author: elrhiarhodan
Artist: kanarek13
Fandom: White Collar / The Normal Heart
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke, Elizabeth Burke, Diana Berrigan, Satchmo, Ned Weeks; Peter/Neal, Peter/Elizabeth, Peter/Elizabeth/Neal, Ned/Felix (past)
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for the end of WC S5,
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Canon death of canon character (Felix Turner), death of a non-canon White Collar character. Mild public expression of homophobia, self-deprecating use of homophobic slurs.
Word Count: ~40,000
Beta Credit: sinfulslasher
Summary: On a hot June day, one summer in the near future, Ned Weeks finds himself in a West Village coffee shop. When he overhears a fascinating conversation about blackmail, kidnapping and getting shot at, he has to take a look. One of the speakers is definitely a Fed – Ned can tell just by the haircut and the ugly suit. The other man is his lover, Felix. Except that Felix has been dead for thirty years.

Then he remembers…
__________________



It was a week before Christmas and Ned was trying to remember why he hated summer so much. New York in December wasn’t a pleasant place to be when you were old and sick and lonely.

He looked at the electric menorah that was still perched on the window sill; the orange light bulb for the fourth night was flickering erratically. Chanukah had been over for a week. It annoyed him, but not enough to make him get up and find the box and put the damned thing away. He had to wonder if he’d live to use it another year.

Another year. That’s all that Felix had asked for. To live another year. Thirty years ago, he wanted to live another year and he didn’t get that wish. There were times – too many times – that Ned wished he could have crawled into the grave with Felix and shared the rot.

But he didn’t. He manned the ramparts, waved the flags, excoriated the weak and the cowardly and the promiscuous and tried – with some success – to change the world.

And now the world seemed to be changing without him. The drugs they’d hoped for back then – in those terrible days – were out there. Take a pill every day and fuck whoever you want, however you want.

The thought disgusted him. All that he’d worked for, to be undone.

Or maybe he was just old and blind and too narrow minded. Someone – a well-educated, pompous twink – once called him the gay Jonathan Edwards, comparing his speeches to the Puritan preacher’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

He’d told the twerp to fuck off, but he’d been secretly pleased. Not that he liked being compared to a Christian theologian, of all things, but that his own words had such power.

It was raining outside – only four in the afternoon, but so dark that it seemed like it was closer to midnight. That’s December in New York for you. He’d argued with his brother yesterday – or was it this morning? Ben wanted him to come down to his place in the Keys for the rest of the winter. It was warm and sunny, and wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot nicer to spend time with family?

Part of him wanted to say yes, part of him wanted to get on the plane that Ben would charter for him. He wanted the sun and the warmth and maybe one more year with people who cared about him.

But he couldn’t bring himself to give in, to say yes. He was too fucking stubborn. So he argued with Ben instead and hung up the phone in anger. He might be seventy-six, Ben might be nearly eighty-eight, but some things never changed. Or maybe they did. He sent Ben a text, wishing him a happy New Year and maybe he’d come down in a few weeks. Not for the whole winter, but for a little while.

Ben replied, saying that would be very nice.

Ned sighed and watched the rain trickle down the window, the street lights reflected in the tiny droplets. He felt like something out of an old Simon and Garfunkel song. The lyrics teased at his memories –

I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls.

Which one was it? Kathy’s Song or For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her?

Ned was actually curious enough to get up from his armchair and head over to his record collection. He was a dinosaur in more ways than one – refusing to give up on vinyl. It would all go in the trash when he died. But he’d be dead, so what the hell did it matter anyway?

He pulled out an ancient copy of Sounds of Silence and his hands were shaking. In the dark days and months and years after Felix had died, before he became ill, he had listened to this album incessantly – it had become the soundtrack to his life. He kept trying to find some meaning in the lyrics, a surcease to his grief in the poetry of desperate alienation.

But he found nothing to ease the pain and finally stopped listening. As he dropped the needle onto the record – the fourth track, Ned realized that it was close to twenty-five years since he’d put this album on the turntable.

The once-familiar strains of a solo guitar leading into Paul Simon’s achingly lonely voice confirmed his memory…

And a song I was writing is left undone
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme

And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I

As the guitar was reaching for the final crescendo, his cellphone rang – loud and obnoxious – breaking the peace he had almost found.

He didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, from 212 – a rarity these days. The phone shrilled again and Ned debated ignoring the call. But he didn’t.

“Hello?”

“Is this Ned Weeks?"

The voice was vaguely familiar.

“I don’t know if you remember me – my name is Peter Burke. We met in late June in a -”

“Coffee shop on Barrow Street. In the West Village. I’m old but I’m not senile.”

The man on the other end let out a deep sigh. “Then I guess you remember my friend, Neal?"

Yes, oh god, yes – how could he forget? Ned managed to breathe.

“Mr. Weeks? Ned?"

He squeezed out a single syllable. “Yes. Of course.”

“He’d like to see you. Would that be possible?”

“Why?” Ned closed his eyes and remembered a face – so familiar, too familiar – beautiful and strange in its perfection. “After all these months, why?”

“It’s complicated."

“So’s life.” An almost visceral need to pick a fight rose in his gut. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s not my story to tell, that’s why.”

He could hear Burke striving for patience. People tended to need to do that around him. “But your ‘friend’ isn’t related to … ” Ned paused before saying that name. “Felix. He’s not my lover’s son.”

This time it was Burke with the telling pause.

“He is Felix’s boy?”

“Will you talk with him?”

Ned collapsed into his chair. How could he even think of saying no? “When?”

“Neal will met with you whenever you want to see him.”

His heart fluttered in uncertainty, in joy. Now? He strove for a level of detachment. “Tomorrow afternoon? Maybe around two?” He’d have taken his meds and the nausea would have passed by then.

“Hold on.” He heard voices, an indistinct conversation, before Burke came back. “Two o’clock is fine. Where?”

“My apartment will be fine.”

“The address?”

“It’s the same one I’ve been living in for over forty years. I’m sure the address is in your files.” Despite everything, Ned felt himself being difficult. It was a reflex and he couldn’t help himself.

And Burke didn’t seem to have any compunction about calling him on it. “Stop being such a jackass and give me your address.”

Ned laughed. “54 Carmine Street, Apartment 5C.”

“Neal will be there – tomorrow at two.”

“Okay.”

Ned barely listened as Burke made a few polite comments, thanked him and hung up. He couldn’t quite believe it. Maybe he’d wake up and realize that the whole thing had been a dream.

In the background, Paul and Art were noodling something in a minor key that made no sense at all. The album ended and the turntable clicked off. The abrupt silence was startling.

All Ned could think was that Felix was coming back to him.

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





“Are you sure you’re up to doing this? I’ll call Weeks and tell him you couldn’t make it.”

Peter was so earnest, so damn helpful, offering him a way out. He knew how much he was dreading this meeting. Instead of answering, Neal fiddled with a stack of photographs – ones he’d removed from that wedding album and had reproduced. He had no idea Ned Weeks would want anything from Felix’s life before they’d met. And he took a bigger risk by including copies of the photographs that his mother had cut up, ones he’d repaired. He put the photographs into a manila envelope.

“Neal?”

“No. It’s okay. I need to do this.” He did. Ned Weeks was the only person alive who really knew his father. He’d spent the last few weeks researching the man. Reading the file Peter had gotten from the FBI, hundreds of news articles about him over the last three decades, his books and plays, helped form a picture of a man who knew how to do one thing and do it well – he knew how to fight.

He hoped he was a man who also knew how to love.

“What’s that?” Peter pointed to a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. “A Christmas present?”

Neal prevaricated. “Ned Weeks is Jewish.”

“You know what I meant.”

He sighed. “It’s the Rembrandt I did – the one from last summer.”

“Old Man in Red.”

“Yeah. I thought maybe … ”

“It’s a nice gift. Did you leave the glasses on?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s an original Neal Caffrey.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“No one says that L.H.O.O.Q. isn’t an original Duchamp.”

“Peter, I’m impressed – I didn’t think modern art was your forte. And besides, I’m no Marcel Duchamp.”

“No, you don’t sign a urinal, hang it on a wall, and call it ‘Fountain’. You have better taste than that.”

“No, what I mean is that I don’t have an ounce of Duchamp’s creativity, Peter. I replicate, I don’t create.” This was an old argument. And a good distraction. He put the photos and the wrapped painting into a canvas bag. The few other items he needed were already in the bag. “I’m ready.”

“No – I think you need this.” Peter handed him his coat.

“Ah, right.” He put it on and again proclaimed his readiness.

Peter smiled and followed him out of the apartment.

They were on the Henry Hudson Parkway, just south of the Boat Basin before Neal spoke. “You didn’t have to take the day off, you know. I think I could have managed to find my way downtown.”

“I know – but I didn’t want you to do this all by yourself.”

Neal could hear the whole ‘we are a family’ speech hanging in the air. “Thank you. But I want to see him by myself.”

“I know. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“Could be a while.”

“I don’t mind. One of the perks of being ASAC; I don’t really need to account for every minute of my day. I’ve got a stack of year-end reports to wade through. I can do them in the comfort of my car just as easily as I could if I was sitting at my desk. Besides, someone made a recording of Derek Jeter’s last game for me. I never get tired of listening to that.”

Neal had given that to him a few weeks ago, knowing how much he’d enjoy listening to the Captain’s last triumphant game over and over again.

“You sure?”

Peter sighed, but there was no annoyance in his exhalation. “Yes, Neal. I’m sure.”

Neal sank back into silence, wondering and worrying about this meeting. Ned Weeks wasn’t, by even the kindest accounts, a nice man. A recent New York Times profile, published to coincide with editorials about strides made in AIDS research and the availability of prophylactic antiretroviral drugs, noted how little he’d mellowed, despite decades of serious illness. The Times article pointed out that two years ago, Weeks had started a very public feud with a one-time close friend because the man had refused to portray a historic figure as gay, even though the evidence that he was gay was very scant and suspect.

The internal tension was too much and Neal couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “Do you think he’ll like me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

Neal slumped down in the seat, feeling like a twelve year-old. “Dunno – the prison record maybe?”

Peter cut across traffic, ignoring the angry horns blasting at him, and turned onto Ludlow Street. “You’ve never been ashamed of who you are, why start now?”

That wasn’t quite true. Neal remembered a woman who once called herself Rebecca and looked at him like the sun rose and set in his eyes.

“Felix Turner was your biological father, nothing more. He tried to give you a good life. You are the sum of your experiences, your choices, not your biology. No one has the right to judge you for that.”

“Well, no one except a jury of my peers and a man in a robe with a gavel.” Neal tried to inject a little levity.

Peter laughed and it helped. “Well, that is true. But you don’t have to impress Ned – he’s just a man.”

“Who knew my real father. Who loved him.”

Peter turned onto Carmine Street and found a spot a few doors down from Neal’s destination. When Neal didn’t make a move to get out of the car, Peter again offered him a way out, “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”

“No. Like I said, I need to do this. I want to do this. You understand, right?”

“Of course I do.”

Neal leaned across the console and kissed Peter. “I love you.”

He felt Peter’s smile under his lips. “I love you, too.”

Neal took a deep breath and got out of the car, then grabbed his bag from the back seat. He looked up at the sky, a deep, steely gray. Three days before Christmas and he found himself hoping for snow.




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

Ned was sure he was going to be sick. It wasn’t the nausea from his pills, but the anxiety. He didn’t sleep last night, not that he slept well under ordinary circumstances – but last night was worse. This morning, the cleaning lady who had worked for him for almost twenty years nearly quit when he called her a rather unspeakable name because she wasn’t getting everything perfect.

He kept telling himself that Neal Caffrey wasn’t Felix. That he wasn’t the reincarnation of the man he’d loved and lost. That this person would have no idea who Felix was and what he had meant to him. And as many times as he tried to convince himself of that truth, the more he wanted to believe otherwise.

It was also possible that Neal Caffrey would be a total jackass. But Ned really didn’t think so – if their first encounter at that coffee shop was anything to go by. Until he had wigged out and starting demanding to know if Felix was his father, the man had been deeply concerned about the welfare of stranger. Not typical behavior of any of the jackasses he’d known throughout his life.

And he’d known quite a few of them.

At noon, he was shaking so badly he’d dropped the glass of water he needed to take his medication. At least it was plastic and it landed in the sink. At one, he’d changed his shirt for the fourth time. At one-thirty, he’d almost called Burke and told him to forget the whole thing – maybe another day, when he wasn’t dying.

But he looked at the framed picture of Felix, happy and healthy and smiling into the camera, and remembered that he wasn’t a god-damned fucking coward after all.

Five minutes before the hour, he called down to the doorman and told him that when Neal Caffrey arrived, to let him go right up. A minute later, he called back and said, no – call him first. He might not be a coward, but apparently he was a dithering faggot.

At one minute past two, and exhausted from pacing the length of the small hallway between his front door and his living room, the phone rang and Ned lunged for it.

“Yes, yes – please send Mr. Caffrey up. He’s expected.” No shit, didn’t you just tell the idiot that you were expecting him?

He took a few deep breaths, trying to control his excitement, his anxiety, his terror. This all felt terribly familiar, too much like the night he was waiting for Felix to show up on their first date. He needed to remember that this man probably didn’t give a damn about the things he cared about, he had to control his need to harangue and insist and demand.

And he got nowhere with that effort when the doorbell rang. Ned’s hands shook as he undid the locks, and for a moment, his vision tunneled into a single point – like he was looking through a peephole, but he finally got the door opened and he didn’t faint. There was something to be said for small triumphs.

When he let himself think about the encounter in that coffee shop, Ned had told himself that the the resemblance between Felix and Neal Caffrey was merely superficial, coincidence. Dark hair, good bones, blue eyes, strong brow – that was it. It was how he survived without breaking down. Looking at Neal Caffrey now, he could see just how badly he’d deluded himself. Neal Caffrey looked too much like Felix Turner to be coincidence.

He stood there and stared at the man on the other side of the threshold, frozen by memory, by grief, by love and fear and longing.

“May I come in?”

Ned swallowed all of those emotions and shuffled back. He managed to get out a single word. “Please.”

Not-Felix – no – Neal, was carrying a large canvas bag, which he set down by the door as he rid himself of his hat and coat. Ned was curious about the bag and the item wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It seemed oddly old-fashioned, much like the man’s hat and suit.

Ned went into his living room and gestured for Neal to take a seat.

“Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”

“No, thank you – I’m okay. But don’t let me stop you if you want something.”

Most of the time, Ned didn’t miss drinking – he’d spent too much of his childhood avoiding his useless father’s fists and rants after he’d spent the evening drowning his incompetencies in whatever liquor he could find. He hadn’t been a tea-totaler as an adult – a healthy adult – but now, with his liver so heavily compromised, alcohol was pure poison. At this moment, though, he could have used something to steady his nerves. Something to give him back his balls.

Instead, he lowered him ass carefully into a chair across from Neal Caffrey and stared at him. He might not have his balls, but he could pretend that he did. “Why the fuck did you want to see me?” Ned jutted out his chin, all but challenging the man to slug him.

Caffrey, however, didn’t rise to the bait. He just let out a gentle, almost sad sigh. “You loved my father. You knew him better than any other person alive.”

Those simple words broke all of Ned’s pretenses; they shattered the anger that had been his best defense against the life he’d suffered through. “Felix was your father, then.”

Caffrey – no, Neal – nodded. “Yeah.” His lips twisted into a rueful smile, an expression that Ned hadn’t seen for thirty years.

“But I thought you said that you father had DNA tests done?” He remembered the disgust on Neal’s face when he’d mentioned that.

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s what your friend Peter said. And you know what, just being alive is complicated.”

Neal chuckled. “I know, all too well.” He looked at his hands for a moment. “Maybe a cup of tea might help the story go down a little better.”

Ned figured Neal for a coffee drinker, but he also could see that the tea was more for him than for any real desire on Neal’s part for something to drink. Ned fussed his way through the process of making the tea and then stared at the tray with the two mugs and a plate of cookies and realized that there was no way he’d be able to carry it out of the kitchen.

Neal, however, was apparently psychic. He came into the kitchen and just said, “Let me take that.”

“I hate being so fucking old.”

Neal set the tray on the table and smiled. “That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?”

“What, old?”

“No – Fuck. Fucking. You use it a lot.”

Ned shrugged and sat down. “I’m old. I’m entitled to use whatever fucking words I want to use.”

“Except you used it a lot when you were young – younger.”

That startled Ned. “How do you know?”

“I’ve read some of your plays, and a lot of your speeches, too.”

“Why? Why read them?”

“Why not? I wanted to understand you.”

“And what about my FBI file – I’m sure your friend supplied you with a copy.”

Neal’s eyes darkened with anger, but Ned wasn’t sure where that anger was directed. “Yes. Peter made a request – as a private citizen – for a copy. It wasn’t pleasant reading.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Ned itched to see it. He briefly entertained the idea of asking Neal if he could have a copy, then discarded it. He could always have Ben get it for him.

Neal poured tea for them and Ned fixed his with just enough sugar to put a diabetic into a coma. Neal drank his black.

“So – you said the story’s complicated. I’ve made us tea. Anymore distractions before you tell me the pitiful story of your misbegotten childhood?”

Neal paled and this time, Ned was certain the anger was directed at him. “You’re a fucking asshole, Ned Weeks.”

“That’s old news. So, are you going to leave in a state of high dudgeon or are you going to spill.” Ned kept attacking. It was less shaming than breaking down and begging.

Neal stared at him and kept silent. Once upon a time, Ned might have been able to match that glare, but he broke first. “Sorry.”

Neal nodded his head, graciously accepting the apology. “Last June, when we met, you asked me if my father was Felix Turner. I told you, no – and that I had the DNA test to prove it. That wasn’t quite the truth.”

“What – the DNA test was wrong?”

“No – the DNA test didn’t prove any kinship between me and the man I thought was my father.” Neal made a face. “No – that’s not explaining things properly. I need to start at the beginning.”

Ned wasn’t sure what he expected to hear, but the story that Neal told was so bizarrely improbable it had to be true.

“From the time I was a little boy, my mother told me that my father was a cop and that he’d died a hero. When I was seventeen, and getting ready to apply to the police academy – because I wanted to be just like my hero daddy – my father’s former partner, a woman who had helped raise me, told me the truth. That my father wasn’t a hero, that he was a dirty cop and he might have been a murderer. And that he wasn’t dead.

“A few years ago, Peter encouraged me to try to find out the truth about my father.”

Ned wanted to interrupt, to get more details about Neal’s life between discovering a version of the truth about his so-called father and when Peter told him he needed to find what really happened, but he managed to keep a tight rein on his tongue. For once. “And he used his FBI resources to open a can of worms?”

“No. I contacted my father’s old partner – and she reached out to someone. And that’s what opened the can of worms.”

Ned listened patiently, letting Neal fill in the details of how – unknowingly – he’d spent his childhood in witness protection because the man he’d grown up believing was his father had turned state’s evidence against the crime family he’d been working for.

Finally, Ned couldn’t stop himself from asking, “So – what about the DNA test?”

“Ellen – my father’s former partner – had reached out to another cop. Someone she said she’d talked with over the years about my father, someone who might have had the truth about him. Ellen hadn’t wanted to believe that my father was a cop-killer and this guy apparently shared her belief. Somehow, the people who my father – ” Neal cut himself off. “No, not my father – James Bennett. You’ll have to forgive me if I keep misspeaking. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the reality of my real paternity.”

Ned nodded and Neal continued. “Ellen was murdered by the people that James Bennett helped put in prison, even though she was still in witness protection. But as she was dying, she told me that I should trust the cop she’d contacted – the man she called ‘Sam Phelps’.”

“Was he the one who tipped off her murderers?”

Neal didn’t say anything for a moment. “The thought had crossed my mind more than once.”

“Who was this guy? Did he know James?” Ned almost said ‘your father.’

“No – he was James Bennett.”

Ned thought he should have seen that coming from a mile out.

“A few weeks after I finally met Sam, I found out that the D.C. cop named ‘Sam Phelps’ had died of a heart attack on his fishing boat in the Florida Keys a few years before. I needed to know who this guy was, so I managed to get a sample of his blood. Peter got the DNA test results.”

“And they were a match for James Bennett, right?” Ned was beginning to see the picture forming.

“Yes, and I drew the obvious conclusion – that James Bennett was my father. I kept on believing that until our chance meeting last June.”

“But he wasn’t? Did the lab make a mistake? Was Bennett related to Felix?”

“No, no and no. He was James Bennett, the lab didn’t make a mistake, and he wasn’t related to Felix Turner.” Neal paused and took a sip of the probably cold tea. “You have to understand, there were a lot of things going on at that time. It was a little crazy when Peter got the report. He just saw that it said the blood tested was a match for James Bennett. We both made assumptions and never questioned them. It never occurred to him that the lab had run a kinship analysis with my DNA. James had been in prison before he testified, and his DNA was in the system. Not only was the DNA test based on samples in the Federal database, but it stated that a kinship analysis determined that there was no match for any other DNA in the database. Sam Phelps was James Bennett, but James Bennett wasn’t my biological father.”

A question teased at Ned’s brain, but he was too focused on Neal’s story to let it fully form. “And how did you find this out?”

“The day we met – after Peter left you, he finally read the full report and then he told me.”

“How did you feel when you found out?” Ned had despised his own father and would have been thrilled to learn that his paternity was in question. And apparently Neal felt the same.

“About finding out that James wasn’t my father? Relieved. He was a weak man who did terrible things and lied to a lot of people who cared about him.” Neal paused and gave him a curious look. “Do you remember when a U.S. Senator was shot during an FBI investigation in the Empire State Building?”

“Vaguely – I might have been in the hospital when that happened.”

“The senator had once been James’ precinct captain – he had been just as dirty. I’m not going to bore you with the details – ”

“Oh, believe me – you’re not boring me.”

Neal shook his head. “They aren’t relevant. What’s really relevant is that James shot the senator and let Peter take the fall. I begged him to turn himself it; it was self-defense. But he refused and he ran. You don’t want to know what happened afterwards.”

Ned did, but he didn’t ask. Maybe someday, he might get the whole story.

“Anyway – you wanted to know how I felt? Relieved, yes – but confused and lost, too. I thought I finally knew who my father was. Even a terrible truth is better than ignorance.”

“Yes.” That simple concept was something Ned had tried to get across for over three decades. “But most people seem to prefer the bliss of ignorance.” Ned met Neal’s gaze. “And you want to know the truth about your father? You want to know the type of man that Felix was?” Ned pressed his palms against the table. Not as a gesture of emphasis, but to keep from betraying how much this meant to him.

“Yes.”

“There’s just one thing I need to know before I’ll answer you. – why are you so positive that he is your father?”

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

This was going better than he’d expected. He might just get away without having to explain his felonious past. Yes, he had called Ned Weeks an asshole, but Neal was positive he wasn’t the first one – this week – to do so. Ned was pretty much as Neal had expected. Perpetually angry, despite his age and his ill health.

But he was also a man who had loved someone very deeply and barely survived that loss. And Neal understood loss.

When Ned was making the tea, Neal had retrieved the bag he’d brought with him. He reached into it and pulled out one of the folders he’d packed and checked it before handing the first piece of paper to Ned. “I found this a few months ago.”

Neal had thought long and hard about this moment. How to tell Ned Weeks the truth, Or at least the truth as he understood it. He watched the old man’s face, noting the muscles tightening along the jawline, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. He didn’t like what he was seeing.

“You went digging through some city hall archives for this?” No, Ned Weeks didn’t like seeing a copy of Felix Turner’s marriage license to Veronica Caffrey.

“No, I found it with my mother’s papers. She died a few months ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Neal hadn’t heard such a meaningless expression of sympathy since Alex had offered her condolences over Kate’s murder.

“And this puts a lid on it.” He gave Ned a copy of his birth certificate.

Ned glanced at it before returning it to him. “I wanted Felix to fight for his rights to be a father. I couldn’t understand why he’d just walked away.”

“When was this?”

“Eighty-two.”

“It was too late by then. He’d already signed the papers giving up his parental rights. James Bennett legally adopted me in 1980.”

“And it was too late for Felix anyway. We fought and five minutes later, he showed me a sarcoma on the sole of his foot.”

“I’m sorry.” Neal reached out and touched Ned, trying to give him just a little comfort.

Ned pulled his hand away, rejecting that comfort. “I am, too. Every god-damned, fucking day.”

Neal tried not to smile. Now he understood the invective, it was Ned’s coping mechanism. “Will you tell me about him?”

Ned and shot back aggressively, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything – what was he like as a person? As a human being? What made him tick?”

Ned didn’t respond and Neal wondered if he was asking for too much.

“How about starting at the beginning? How did you meet my father?”

Ned leaned back in his chair and his features softened a little. “It was 1981. I was looking for someone at the New York Times who’d be interested in reporting on ‘gay cancer’. Friends had suggested that I reach out to a guy who wrote for the Style section – I might find some traction there because he was gay, too.”

“My father.”

Ned nodded. “Not that Felix was the least interested in writing about anything gay-related. At work, he was as closeted as my mother’s mink coat in the middle of summer.”

“It seems so strange…”

“What?”

“Being that closeted. Being so unable to be who you really are.” Neal tried not to wince at the hypocrisy of his words. Hadn’t he spent most of his life doing just that, being something other than himself?

“And you can’t tell me that your FBI friend is waving the rainbow flag in the office?” Ned’s question was dripping with acid.

God, would this man ever stop with the attacks? “Actually, one member of Peter’s senior staff is lesbian. She’s never been in the closet. And since the mid-nineties, the FBI has one of the best records on gay rights in the entire Federal government. As to whether Peter has come out to his superiors is none of your damned business. And has nothing to do with Felix Turner.”

“No, it doesn’t. But you have to understand my curiosity.”

“I do. But I’m not here to talk about the history of gay rights in the FBI. I want to know about my father.”

Ned said nothing, and Neal realized that the man didn’t really want to talk about Felix. His memories were private and sharing them, even with his son, was too painful. He couldn’t bring himself to keep badgering an old man who had so little left. “Look, all I really want to know is if Felix was a good man?”

The simplicity of that questioned seemed to startle Ned. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because that’s what’s important to me. I spent the first part of my life trying to live up to the memory of a hero. The next twenty years were spent trying to – ” Neal paused. He couldn’t tell Ned that he’d spent two decades of his life trying to follow in his father’s criminal footsteps. “Live down the memory of what James Bennett wasn’t.”

Ned didn’t seem to catch his hesitation. “Felix was a good man. He wasn’t perfect – he was human, after all. But he was a good man.”

Neal sighed. He wanted more than this, but if it was all he was going to get …

“He taught me how to love.”

And at that, Neal found what he’d been searching for.

Ned opened his mouth, trying to say more, but no words came. His fists were clenched and Neal could see him struggling not to cry.

“That’s all I needed to know. Thank you.”

Ned looked at him, disbelief chasing away some of the grief. “Really? That’s it? That’s all you came for?”

Neal didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, he reached into the bag and pulled out the envelope with the photographs. “You might want to see these.”

Ned seemed hesitant. “What’s in there?”

“Photographs. From my mother’s stuff.”

Ned grabbed the envelope from him. “I guess you’d like me to share, too.”

“Would you mind?”

“The blue box, over there –” Ned waved a hand towards a bookcase near an easy chair. “The best pictures are in there.” Neal retrieved the box, feeling too much like Pandora.

Despite his eagerness, Ned still hadn’t opened the envelope and Neal waited patiently for him to go first.

“Aren’t you going to look?”

“Aren’t you?”

Ned snorted in amusement. “Shall we go on three?”




Neal didn’t bother to wait. He opened the box and found the rest of his father’s life. It was as unnerving an experience as looking through the pictures in the wedding album. Felix looked so much like him, but he wasn’t him. As he looked through the pictures, Neal had a hard time connecting to the man. He was smiling and happy – and most definitely in love with Ned. All of the photos were taken in the summertime, at some beach house and often with Ned in the frame. He wondered who the cameraman was.

“Tommy – Tommy Boatwright.”

“Huh?”

“You asked who took the pictures.”

“Oh, sorry – I didn’t realize I’d spoken.”

“That’s okay.” Ned was still holding the envelope.

“You don’t want to look?”

Ned shrugged. “It’s hard – can you understand that?”

“To see evidence of a life lived before you’d met?”

“Yeah.”

Neal put the box of pictures down. “I’m living proof that Felix had a life before you. How does that make you feel?”

Ned pursed his lips and Neal wondered if he wasn’t going to answer. “When I really think about who you are, it hurts like hell. Worse than almost anything. It reminds me that we had so little time together. That someone else had a part of him that I’ll never know.” The old man glared at Neal and, in a defiant gesture, opened the envelope and let the photos slip out.

“Oh, oh …” Ned picked up the one that broke Neal’s heart – the one of Felix holding him, smiling with love and joy and pride at his newborn son. He put it down and picked up one that Neal had taken out of the wedding album, of Felix standing in front of the church doors, by himself. There had been a companion shot of his mother surrounded by her parents – but Felix had no one.

“She was pregnant.” Neal had not intended to tell Ned that.

“Huh?”

“My mother was pregnant when they got married.”

“I didn’t know that. He never told me. We never talked about his past. There was just that one argument and then our lives became something different.”

“She loved him.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You should know.” Neal swallowed against the pain. “You should know that someone else loved him. It doesn’t take anything away from what you had, but you should know.”

“She told you?”

“No.”

“Then how the hell do you know she loved him? Maybe she trapped him and forced him to marry her?”

“Maybe she did – but that doesn’t mean she didn’t love him.”

Ned shook his head, trying to deny the words.

“I told you I grew up in witness protection. When the Marshals came and took us from D.C. and we relocated to St. Louis, we had to leave almost everything behind. I don’t really remember much – I was about three or four. But I remember my mother saying I could only take a few of my toys. Everything else had to stay.”

“And what does this have to do with anything?”

“My mother took only what mattered to her – and that included a wedding album filled with pictures of a man who’d left her.” Neal picked up one of the pictures and showed Ned the line across the print. “She cut him out of all of the photos in my baby album – but she never threw those pieces away. She kept them. When she went into the nursing home, when she had to leave almost everything behind again, she still took that photo album. He still mattered to her.”

“Do you hate him?”

“No. I understand why he left. He couldn’t stay and live a lie. And I really think he wanted what was best for me.” Neal looked at the picture of his father cradling him in his arms. “I’ve spend much of my life trying to understand where I came from, who I am. I don’t have to do that anymore. I have the answers I need.”

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

The more time he spent with Neal Caffrey, the more he had to accept the sad truth. Not only wasn’t he Felix, he wasn’t anything like him. And how could he even think that Neal could be like Felix? He had been an infant when Felix left. He had been raised by someone else, made to think he was someone else’s son. Felix never let himself have the chance to be a father to his son.

A part of Ned, a small and hidden part that hadn’t been completely worn away by life’s cruelties, felt terribly, desperately sorry for Neal Caffrey. The greater part of him, the angry and bitter man who’d lost everything that ever mattered, couldn’t allow that sympathy to flourish.

But both parts of him – the parts that made up the man who was a writer – wanted to know how Neal Caffrey had made his way from St. Louis to New York. How he had ended up involved with an FBI agent. Why he had once led a life where he could joke about blackmail and kidnapping and dodging bullets. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Who is Neal Caffrey?”

Something moved across the man’s face. Ned didn’t know if it was fear or shame, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let it be.

“I’m an independent art consultant. I do appraisal work, research provenance, authentication. Mostly for private collectors, but I do work for museums too.”

Ned still had his sense of smell, and the bullshit was stinking like it was high noon on a hot day in July. “Interesting career choice. Where did you study?”

“I’m self-taught.”

“Hmm, I’ve always heard that it’s difficult to break into that world unless you’ve got an Ivy League degree, or you’re a Kennedy. I guess I’m wrong.”

“I guess you are.”

“You know, that day in the coffee shop, I overheard your conversation with your Fed friend, Peter. You once worked for the FBI. Somehow, you don’t strike me as a former Federal agent.”

“I wasn’t an agent. I was a consultant for the Bureau.” Neal all but spat out those words.

“Really? I didn’t know that the FBI allowed private consultants to get shot at, kidnapped and blackmailed.” He should have been appalled that Felix’ son was put into such dangerous situations, but the man’s caginess about his past was too interesting to ignore. “So, I guess you met Peter when you were working as a consultant for the FBI?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his question.

“No, I knew Peter Burke for quite a few years before I started consulting for the FBI.”

Ned couldn’t stop himself; he probably should have let it lie but he couldn’t. “So, how did you meet?”

“Why is it so important to you?”

Ned could see how Neal was struggling to keep a rein on his temper. “Because I need to know what type of man you are. You wanted to know what your father was like, I want to know what Felix’ son is like. Would he have been proud of you?”

The man’s temper didn’t so much as snap, but deflate with an almost audible hiss. “No, he wouldn’t have been proud of me. Not at all. You really want to know how I met Peter Burke? He was the FBI agent assigned to track down a man passing forged bonds at banks around New York. He arrested me almost a decade ago, after chasing me for three years.”

Ned didn’t know what he expected, but this wasn’t it.

Neal continued, his tone weary, resigned. “I didn’t want to tell you – I didn’t want you to know the type of man I was. Peter arrested me, and I was tried and convicted for bond forgery. I spent almost four years in a maximum security prison. You want to know how I ended up ‘consulting’ for the FBI?”

Ned nodded, almost afraid to speak.

“I was stupid. I escaped with three months left on my sentence. Peter found me less than a day later – I was sitting in my girlfriend’s apartment, holding an empty bottle of wine like some damned romantic fool. They tacked on four more years for that boneheaded stunt.”

“Girlfriend?” Ned was appalled.

“Of all the things – that’s what you ask about? I’m bisexual, Ned. And I don’t want to hear your thoughts on that subject, okay?”

Ned took a deep breath. “Okay – okay. So – the FBI?”

“I made a bargain with Peter. Instead of going back to prison, I’d work for him; help him close cases in the White Collar division for the next four years. They put a GPS tracking anklet on me. I finished my sentence about fifteen months ago.”

There was so much that Neal wasn’t telling him. “But wait – you were working for Peter Burke for four years?”

Neal seemed to understand just what he was and wasn’t asking. “And for those years, we were just friends.”

“Really?” Ned had a hard time believing that.

“Yes, really. I had loved Peter for a long time. I loved him, loved his wife, his dog, and everything about him. I loved him enough to want to walk away before I destroyed him. When my sentence was over, just before I was about to leave New York for good, Peter and Elizabeth told me how they felt. That they loved me, too.”

“So, now you’re what? One big happy family?” Ned didn’t bother to hide the derision in his tone.

Now, Neal was angry. “Yes, we are. I would think that you, of all people, could understand that.”

Ned remembered Peter Burke’s words, back in June, when he’d noticed that he’d been wearing a wedding band, but Neal hadn’t. “There’s a universe of difference between promiscuity and polyamory…”

“Look, for a long time, I wasn’t a good man. I lied and cheated and stole and I never felt anything but pride at being one of the world’s greatest con artists. And even though that’s behind me now, I’m not like you or Felix. I don’t have causes and I’m not someone who fights battles, but I do help people. When I worked with the FBI, I helped save lives – maybe not millions of people – but one at a time. Peter gave me that, can you understand? He looks at me and sees who I am; he trusts me. Elizabeth – who had no reason to – trusts me. That trumps everything else.”

Ned didn’t know what else to say. He found himself intensely regretting this meeting. Neal Caffrey was not Felix Turner and he never would be. Ned wanted him gone – out of this apartment, out of his life.

“Here.” Neal pulled an envelope from his jacket. “I came into some money recently. I thought maybe you could use it.”

“Me?”

“Actually – your cause. AIDS research, education, support for those who need it.”

“It’s your cause too, it’s everyone’s cause.”

“Spare me, Ned. Please.” Neal seemed just as fed up with him, just as ready to be gone. He took the paper wrapped parcel from his bag and set it on the table, next to the envelope. “I need to go.”

“What’s that?”

“Something I made. Keep it, toss it. I don’t care.” Neal moved past him, into the hallway, and put on his hat and coat. “Thank you for telling me about Felix.”

“I’ll probably be dead soon,” Ned blurted out.

“Should I say Kaddish for you?”

Ned wasn’t sure if the offer to recite the mourner’s prayer was sincere. Neal was a total stranger, and a goy at that. Neal had nothing in common with him; he was nothing like his father, Felix. Why the hell would the man offer to do something so holy for him? In the dim light of the hallway, Ned stared into that familiar, and yet so unfamiliar face and asked, “Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” Robbed of his usual eloquence, those were the only words Ned could say. He knew he’d never see Neal Caffrey again.

Neal gave him a small, almost sad smile, and left.

The air in the apartment felt dead, lifeless, empty. He went back into the living room and stared at the parcel Neal had left behind. Half-eager, half-afraid of what he’d find, Ned pulled the string off and unfolded the paper. It was a canvas – a painting. He flipped it over and had to laugh. It was one of Rembrandt’s Jews, but with his face – old and sour and still curious. How the hell had Neal Caffrey managed to capture him so perfectly? He wanted to call him back. To apologize, to explain.

Ned shuffled over to the window and looked down at the street. It was snowing, just light flurries, and he saw Neal walking away. But Neal stopped, waved and crossed the street as a man got out of a parked car. There was just enough light from the streetlamp that Ned could recognize him – it was Peter Burke.

He watched the two men embrace, kiss, and get into the car. A few moments later, it pulled away and disappeared into the night.

FIN



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