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They were only supposed to be serving a search warrant on an identity theft case.
Forging IDs and social security cards was a small-footprint operation, the tools easily hidden. Neal knew what to look for, otherwise he probably wouldn't even have been there. They basically had the guy stitched up, but when Peter walked into the garage Neal was petting some complicated printing device like it was a newfound kitten.
"This is it," Neal said, looking covetous. He glanced up at Peter and then around the room. "It's all here. Nichols didn't even bother hiding it."
"He's hiding enough," Peter said. "Jones!"
"Yeah boss?"
"Bag all this. Everything," Peter swept the garage with a hand. "Get it into evidence. Neal, I need you to look at something."
Diana was standing in the bedroom with their suspect, Nichols, already in cuffs. He was protesting loudly while the evidence team sifted through his belongings, shouting that they couldn't just trash the place. Leaning against the wall were two gorgeous oil paintings.
"Hello, baby," Neal crooned, crouching in front of one of them. He took a pair of evidence gloves from Peter and pulled them on, touching the corners of the painting, turning it around to study the back.
"You know if they're worth anything?" Peter asked. "Stolen?"
"Yeah," Neal said. "Not sure from where. They're minor works, but definitely old and definitely stolen property."
"Oho, what have we here," Peter added, turning the other one around. There was a file folder tucked between canvas and frame.
Nichols suddenly went very quiet. Peter glanced up at him, pulled the folder out of the frame, and opened it.
He closed it again quickly and called, "Diana!"
She joined him in front of the paintings and he showed the contents of the folder to her. Diana pressed her lips together, anger flickering over her face.
"I'll call Beyer," she said.
"No -- call Donohough," Peter replied, handing her the folder.
Diana took it and walked away, cellphone already out. As she passed Nichols she leaned over and whispered, "You're going away forever, you sick fuck."
"What's got Diana riled up?" Neal asked, standing. Peter glanced at Nichols, who looked furious more than anything.
"Sometimes we find things with a warrant we don't expect," he said.
"Peter, what was in that file?"
"Porn," Peter replied, gritting his teeth.
"Really," Neal said, sounding amused. "Anything kinky?"
"Shut your mouth, Caffrey," Peter snapped, walking away. He could almost feel Neal's puzzled gaze on him as he left the room.
---
Sometimes you saw things you didn't want to see. Peter knew that. Sometimes you were working a case and suddenly you got a faceful of the worst things humanity could do to one another. You found a woman tied up in the back of an office owned by a guy you thought was committing mortgage fraud. You found a body under the floorboards of a bank robber's apartment.
You found kiddie porn serving a warrant for identity theft.
Everyone dealt with it differently. Peter knew that nothing really fixed it; he just tried not to think about it, tried to let the special taskforces do their jobs, and went home and held his wife tightly and told himself at least they caught the guy.
"I looked up Agent Donohough," Neal said the following morning, while Peter was going over the arrest paperwork for Nichols. He looked...elaborately casual, like a tense man putting on a very relaxed act. Most people couldn't see that about Neal; to Peter it was like flashing lights warning Danger: Neal Caffrey About To Do Something Stupid. "Listen, I didn't know he worked in the Innocence Lost program," Neal continued. "I'm sorry. The kinky remark was out of line."
"You didn't know," Peter said, setting the paper aside. Neal settled himself in the chair opposite him, leaning back.
"Why didn't you have Diana call Beyer?" he asked. "Beyer's his boss."
"Beyer's a creep," Diana said, leaning in the doorway. Neal glanced up at her. "Some people get into his part of law enforcement for the wrong reasons."
Neal looked at Peter, eyes fractionally wider than they had been.
"I'm not going to gossip about a fellow agent," Peter said, looking away. "But there are people who believe Beyer enjoys his work too much."
"They think he likes the evidence a little too much," Diana clarified. When Peter looked up, Neal hadn't moved. His fingers were twitching against his leg, though, restless -- a tell if ever there was one.
"Donohough's a good guy," Peter said, because he really didn't want to go down that road, accusing Beyer of anything, especially since OPR had already gone down it and Beyer had come up clean. "He'll get the job done."
"How does it work?" Neal asked. Peter sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"They'll try to identify the children," Diana said. "Or the locations the photographs were taken. Get Nichols to give up where he got them, go after the bigger fish. Run them through the pattern-recognition software, see if similar images show up online anywhere."
"Online?" Neal asked.
"You think monsters can't use the internet too?" Peter said. "You want to find out what the sex crimes unit does, go ask them, I don't want to talk about it."
Neal got up and left, silently. Peter glanced up and saw Diana's eyes following him.
"You don't think he's ever been involved in that kind of thing, do you?" she asked.
"Neal? Are you kidding me?"
"He seemed pretty interested in how they investigate."
"Neal's a con man," Peter said. "He's one of those crook-with-a-heart-of-gold types. He's not in on something like that. Trust me."
---
Four hours later, as Peter was coming back from lunch, Diana caught up to him in the lobby of the building.
"We have a problem," she said. "Why weren't you picking up?"
Peter checked his phone. Silent; eight missed calls, six of them from Diana.
"Silent," he said, holding it up. "Sorry, it keeps doing that. What's going on?"
"You should see for yourself," she said, and hit the button for the 21st floor, blocking anyone else from entering the elevator before it could close.
"Neal went down to talk to Donohough," she continued, fingers fidgeting along the edge of a slim FBI folder marked Sensitive. "Donohough called me and said he showed Neal the evidence from our case and Neal left in a hurry."
"You don't think he's involved -- "
"No," Diana said, shaking her head. She handed him the folder. "He saw these."
Peter opened the folder, curious. The photos were copies, FBI-issue whitespaces covering the nudity in them. There were three, all of a young boy with short dark hair, in poses that would have been provocative in an adult but looked ridiculous on his adolescent body. Peter's gut clenched.
"How old is he, fourteen? Twelve?" he asked, looking up at her.
"Crime lab says probably fourteen. Now look at his face," Diana said.
The first thing Peter saw was fear in the kid's blue eyes; he was smiling but there was a taut tension around his lips that said he was being told to smile or he'd get worse. Something familiar about that smile, the shape of the jaw just emerging from childhood --
"Oh, my god," he said softly, closing the folder against the nausea in his stomach. "It's Neal."
"Donohough thinks so too," Diana said.
"He saw these and he ran out...do you know where he is?"
"We called up his map, but all that tells us is that he's still in the building somewhere. He hasn't moved in the last ten minutes."
"Shit," Peter said, handing the folder back to her, feeling like he wanted to disinfect his hands. "Shit, shit -- "
"I've got Jones and a couple of others looking floor by floor," Diana continued, following him through the bullpen. "Quietly. I tried calling him, he's not answering."
"He saw those on an evidence table," Peter growled. "He saw people looking at them."
"Peter -- "
"Find him, Diana, find him now," Peter said.
"I'll put another team on it," she answered, hurrying away. Peter stood at the top of the stairs and rubbed his neck, already feeling guilty that he'd snapped. She wouldn't take it personally, but she wasn't the one he was angry at and it was petty to snarl at her. What he wanted was to get his hands around the throat of whoever had done this. Not fair to use Diana as a scapegoat.
Maybe Neal would answer for him. He took out his phone and dialled. No response, just Neal's usual cheery voicemail greeting: You've reached Neal Caffrey. The FBI knows who you are! But I don't, so leave a message.
"Neal, call me," Peter said. "Wherever you are, call me, okay?"
Hughes leaned out of his office. "Burke, what's this I hear about a manhunt for Caffrey?"
"Yeah, we're keeping it quiet. He hasn't done anything, we just can't find him in the building," Peter said distractedly.
"Burke," Hughes said, quieter now. "You should make a call from your office."
Peter looked at him, brows drawing together, and then looked at his office. It was empty, no Neal, but Neal's hat was sitting on his desk.
Peter opened the door quietly and picked up the hat, leaning his hip on the edge of the desk. He still couldn't see anyone in the room.
"I didn't see those pictures when I picked up the folder in Nichols's house," he said. No response. "If I had I would have made sure you never did."
There was a very, very soft indrawn breath. Peter picked up the phone on his desk and called Diana.
"I found him. Let Jones know."
He hung up before Diana could ask where.
"Who knows?" Neal asked. Peter caught movement in the reflection off the window. He stayed where he was.
"Diana. Donohough suspects. Nobody else. They were looking for you but she didn't say why," Peter said. "And. Well. Me."
Another tiny movement. Neal was curled in a corner, legs drawn up to his chest, forehead resting against the glass -- hidden from view even in the office, unless you walked around the desk and looked behind the chair. Or saw his reflection.
"Can I come over there?" Peter asked. Neal laughed, bitter and sharp.
"I'm not going to fucking break if you breathe on me," he said, though he sounded like that was exactly what he was going to do.
Peter came around the desk and slid down the wall next to Neal, not touching, but close enough to touch if Neal leaned back. He looked pale, but otherwise okay.
"You want to tell me about it?" Peter asked. Neal's smile was still bitter and ugly on his face. "Or not. You don't have to."
"Beyer knows too," Neal said. "He wanted to take a statement. Diana's right, he's a creep."
"You don't have to give a statement."
"Spare me, Peter, I've seen the Lifetime Original Movie of this," Neal said. "It's in the past. It doesn't matter."
"Obviously it does, or you wouldn't be hiding in my office," Peter said.
"Forgive me for having a moment of panic when I figured out the entire FBI was going to see me pornographically naked," Neal snapped. Peter frowned.
"Why...?" he asked, not sure how to articulate what he meant.
"Come on. Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke's golden boy, a con, he shouldn't even be here -- they're going to love this," Neal said. "You think that's not what's going to happen?"
"I think," Peter said quietly, "that they spend every day working with people who've had their privacy violated, or are afraid it will be. Sometimes they have to find these kids and save them. That's what we do, Neal, we save them, we don't humiliate them. Beyer even tries to breathe a word about this, I'll strangle him myself. Diana's not going to tell anyone. It's illegal to make evidence public like that."
"I'm evidence," Neal said, still staring out the window.
"The photographs are evidence. Against the people who did that to you."
Neal turned away, finally meeting Peter's eyes.
"He didn't really even do anything," he said, shrugging. "That's what makes it so ridiculous. He took the pictures, but it's not like he ever -- "
"Hey, that's not nothing," Peter said. Neal, very carefully, shifted his weight and pressed his forehead to Peter's shoulder. Peter moved to put an arm around him and Neal didn't freak out or protest, so this was probably okay. "They wouldn't be in our offices if they were nothing. It's still not something you should do to a kid. Not something that should have been done to you."
"You're not a kid now," Neal said, and Peter could tell he was echoing something he'd been told a long time ago. "You're thirteen, Caffrey, man up. I'll give you a cut if you smile pretty -- "
"Shh," Peter hushed him, horrified. "Jesus, Neal. Who did this?"
"Buddy of my dad's," Neal said. "He said he wouldn't touch me, he just wanted to take the pictures. Which was a lie. He would have. Just a matter of time."
Peter rubbed Neal's hair, resting his chin on his head. "What happened?"
That same laugh, the one that wasn't a laugh at all. Neal leaned back and looked at him.
"Why do you think I took off?" he asked. "Why do you think I'm here today? Dad wasn't gonna do anything. Fuck it, school was boring anyway. You want to know why I didn't graduate Valedictorian? I was busy running for my life before some asshole -- "
"Okay, okay," Peter said, and Neal subsided. "I get it. It's not your fault."
"Again," Neal said, "I've seen that movie."
"Hey, you know I'm not good at this," Peter said, and Neal's smile lost a little of its edge. "What do you want, Neal? Right now. Tell me what you want."
Neal turned back to the glass for a while, thinking.
"I want to go home," he said.
"Okay," Peter answered. "We can do that."
---
On their way out, Peter stopped Diana in the bullpen and told her to tell the Marshals he was taking Neal out of his radius, though he knew that when Neal had asked to go home he'd meant June's place. Still, Peter wasn't about to leave him alone right now; Neal wouldn't even look Diana in the face. And he didn't object, just followed Peter quietly out to the car, hat tipped down low over his eyes, and sat in silence as Peter drove.
"I'm not going to give a statement," Neal said finally, taking his hat off and watching New York go past. "Not to Beyer."
"You don't have to give one at all," Peter said.
"Donohough, maybe," Neal added, as if he hadn't heard him.
"Or you could give it to Diana," Peter suggested. "Or me. Someone you trust."
Neal snorted. "You can't even look at those pictures. You really want all the dirty details, Peter?"
"No. I don't want to hear any of that. But I would, for you, if I needed to be the one you told," Peter said.
"I'm not going to therapy, either."
"Nobody said you had to."
Neal glanced at him. "I was in supermax. They send child molestors there."
Peter concentrated on driving.
"That was good therapy," Neal added. "You know what they do to guys like that in prison?"
"I've seen that movie," Peter said. Neal was silent the rest of the drive home.
---
"El?" Peter called, when they walked into the house. "Honey?"
"In here," Elizabeth's voice drifted out from the dining room. "You're home early. Did you get shot or something?"
Peter grinned. The joke was ten years old, but it was still just a little funny. She walked out into the foyer and gave him a welcome-home kiss, then leaned around him to where Neal was lurking near the door like a shadow. "Hey, Neal," she said, sounding only a little bit puzzled.
"Elizabeth," Neal said. The smile was almost genuine.
"Neal's not feeling well," Peter said. His face probably told her more. "Neal, you know where the guest room is. I'll come up in a minute."
Neal nodded and walked towards the stairs; Satchmo, seeing his favorite houseguest, scrambled up from where he'd been dozing and followed Neal. Elizabeth smiled, watching them.
"What's going on?" she asked softly, once Neal had disappeared onto the landing.
"Rough day," Peter groaned, pulling off his tie. "Listen, honey, I need to talk to him. Have we got anything to eat?"
"Stuff for sandwiches, some leftover pizza," she said. "You want me to bring some up?"
"No, I'll do it," he told her.
"Okay. Whatever it is, make it better," she said, and kissed him and went back to her work.
Elizabeth sometimes had more faith in him than he probably deserved.
He was halfway up the stairs with two plates before he decided this was probably fucking ridiculous; Neal was facing down this thing that someone had done to him when he was just a kid, and here was Peter Burke with sandwiches. Still, it was better than taking them back down and randomly leaving them in the kitchen, which would really make El think he'd lost his mind.
Neal was sitting on the guest bed when he walked in, Satchmo curled up next to him, doggy head nudging his arm. He was barefoot, tie off, shirt open at the throat as if he'd been a little desperate to breathe. He'd taken a cheap snowglobe from the windowsill, a memento Peter had brought back from -- come to think of it, from a trip he'd made out to California, chasing Neal Caffrey -- and was turning it over and over in his hands.
He'd seen it before, in trauma survivors, the way they would grab hold of something and learn every inch of it, focusing on a thing they could hold in their hands like they needed to reaffirm reality. He knocked his elbow against the doorframe, and Neal looked up.
"I got food," Peter said.
"Deviled ham?" Neal asked, skeptical.
"Turkey," Peter said, showing it off.
"Mustard?"
"What is this, Chez Burke, sandwiches to order?" Peter said, sitting next to him on the bed and putting the plate in his lap. "No mustard. I did spend three years studying you."
Neal smiled a little, looking down at the sandwich. Peter sighed and rested a hand on the nape of Neal's neck. He realized too late that the gesture might be exactly what Neal didn't want, but some of the tension went out of his shoulders, and he picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
"You tell Elizabeth?" he asked, swallowing.
"Nope," Peter said.
"She wasn't curious?"
"Not my place to tell. You want me to tell her, I can, but that's up to you. You don't want that, she's just going to have to be curious."
"She's your wife," Neal pointed out.
"You're my partner," Peter replied.
"I'll be fine tomorrow," Neal said, still looking down at his plate.
"You telling me or the sandwich?" Peter asked. Neal looked up at him, met his eyes.
"I'll be fine tomorrow," he repeated.
"You've been 'fine' for more than fifteen years," Peter said. "I don't think you're going to have a breakdown. Obviously you live with this. But I do think if you need a few days, nobody's going to get pissy with you. If they do, they're going to have to go through me first, and trust me, nobody gets pissy with me for very long."
"Thanks," Neal said, turning back to the food. His fingers tugged at a corner of the bread, ripping little fractures in the crust. "Nobody's going to find out," he said, like he was testing the truth of it.
"That's not how the FBI works," Peter assured him. "Besides, we protect our own."
"I'm not FBI."
"You're one of us. The badge doesn't matter. We're going to find the guy who did this, Neal, with or without your help, and we're going to find anyone else he might have dealt with, and put them away for a very long time."
"What about Nichols?" Neal asked. "You know people don't keep photos like that around as art prints."
"Like you said," Peter replied. "You know what happens to guys like him in prison."
Neal fed Satchmo a potato chip from his plate. "I thought you were all about justice."
"Instead of revenge? I am," Peter said. "Justice is finding them and putting them where they can't hurt little kids. What happens after that is out of my hands. I don't like revenge, but I'm not the one doling it out. If it helps you, I'm okay with that."
Neal ate in silence for a while. Peter sat and picked at his deviled ham, while Satchmo whined for another potato chip.
"I can give you a name," Neal offered.
"That's a good start," Peter said.
"I'm not going to testify."
"Name's enough for a warrant. If we find any evidence, you don't have to."
"Maybe he won't have any. Maybe it was just me."
"Neal..." Peter turned to him. "It's never just one kid. It's never just you. You didn't do anything to provoke this, and nobody thinks less of you because this was done to you. I'm not going to tell anyone, but it's not something to be ashamed of."
Neal was chewing his lip, almost to the point of bleeding. Peter took his plate away and put them both on the desk nearby. Satchmo jumped off the bed and went to stare at the plates.
"Come here," Peter said, and Neal made a soft choking noise and turned into his body, face against Peter's chest, one arm wrapped around Peter's waist.
"I want to believe you," Neal said against his shirt, voice cracking. "I really really want to believe you."
Peter held his shoulders awkwardly, one hand rubbing his hair again. He couldn't tell if Neal was crying. Peter wasn't good at this; he knew all the things to say, but they were things Neal already knew, and he didn't know how to make him believe them.
"These people," he said slowly, not letting Neal go. "They do a number on you. They mess with your head, tell you that you want it, that you'll get in trouble, they hold things over you to make you do what they want. They lie so much and so fast that you don't know which way is up. You don't know who to trust. You spend your life not knowing who to trust."
Neal relaxed a little, leaning back. He swiped at his nose with his wrist, casually wiping away tears that Peter decided to pretend he hadn't noticed.
"But you trust me," Peter said, holding his gaze. "You do trust me, right?"
Neal nodded.
"Then trust me when I say these things. Believe them," Peter said. Neal nodded again, but after a second he looked away, and a shadow passed over his face. "What?"
"I'm just tired," Neal said. "I'm really tired."
"Get some sleep. Elizabeth and I are around, just yell if you need something," Peter said, and Neal caught his wrist as he went to rise. Peter looked down, curious.
"Don't make me ask," Neal said.
Peter's internal Neal-to-reality translator kicked in: Please stay with me.
"Okay," he said, sitting down again.
---
When Elizabeth came upstairs a few hours later, to find out what had happened to her husband and his felonious partner, she found Neal asleep on the guest bed, head on Peter's thigh. Peter had his other leg drawn up, heel hooked on the edge of the bed, and he was reading a romance novel someone had left on the bedside table.
"Did you get to the part where he rips her clothes off in a passion yet?" she asked, smiling.
"Hey, hon," Peter said, closing the book and setting it aside. "It was all I could reach."
"What's going on?" she asked. Peter looked down at Neal, a proprietary hand resting on his head.
"Long story," he said, sighing. "Not mine to tell."
"Is he going to be all right?"
"I think so. I'll wake him up for dinner in a while."
Neal, she thought, looked awfully young when he slept. "Peter, what happened to him?"
"Something a long time ago," Peter said. He rubbed his hand through Neal's hair. Neal shifted a little, sighing. "But he's safe now. He's mine now. Nobody hurts mine."
Elizabeth smiled. "Does he know that?"
Peter nodded. "Yeah. He does."