Chapter Text
“Tell me there’s a good reason for this.”
Neal didn’t miss a beat reassuring him. “There’s a good reason for that.”
Of course, he had no idea what Peter was talking about, and glad though he was to be back in Peter’s life, and even back at the FBI if only for a visit, he didn’t fully appreciate the tone Peter had chosen in lieu of greeting him as Neal stepped into his office to collect him for lunch.
Peter levelled a flat stare at him.
“Peter, what?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Peter carefully enunciated the final word, its sharpness almost comical. He held out a stack of photos. “There was a robbery at the Allenheim Gallery last night, and the thief left this.”
Neal knew where this was going, obviously. He took the photos and made a point of rolling his eyes as Peter walked him through what he already knew.
“A perfect replica of the Augden Manuscript that very clearly shows the signature of one Charles Aulden under a polarized light. If you remember, that happens to be the name you were using six months ago when you flew in for your mother’s funeral.”
As usual, Peter was careful not to voice the actual accusation, but it floated between them, anyway.
“It also happens to be the name of the artist they commissioned to create the facsimile two and a half years ago, so the original doesn’t have to be on display. Did you happen to ask the Director of the Allenheim how he knew to check under a polarized light within an hour of the theft being known?”
Neal didn’t wait for Peter to answer.
“It’s because he was the one who chose the font, to match the gallery’s branding. Only the Director and members of the board knew about the facsimile, which tells me it was an inside job, probably some assistant curator who got access to the Director’s files.”
He tossed the photos onto Peter’s desk. “Next case,” he shrugged.
Peter’s face contorted, his drawn brows and wide eyes and thin-lipped stare asking the question he seemed not to find the words for.
Neal shrugged again, slowly, as though the words were physically pushed out by the steady upward movement of his shoulders. “I identified a niche in the market, and Charles Aulden happened to have the skills to fill it. It’s all legal.”
Peter gathered the photos, tapped them into a neat stack, and stood. “Okay,” was all he said on the subject. “Where did you have in mind for lunch?”
~*~
“Remember when you said to me next case?” Peter ventured the next time they had lunch together.
“No,” Neal answered truthfully, but he put down his fork because he didn’t trust Peter’s tone.
“When you told me about Charles Aulden’s facsimile business. You were right about the Allenheim robbery, by the way.”
“You mean do I remember an offhand comment I made in August? Five months ago? Peter, why are you asking?”
Peter must have picked up something in Neal’s tone or expression, because he immediately backed down and tried to revamp the conversation.
“Never mind, it was silly. Just a random association I had.” He took a drink of his soda and wiped his mouth on a napkin. “But tell me about Sara. When are you two going to visit? Now that your relationship isn’t a secret—”
“Privacy isn’t the same as secrecy, Peter, you’re just used to tracking my every move and walking in when Sara stayed overnight.”
“Now that your relationship isn’t a secret,” Peter repeated, determined to hold on to his mock offense that Neal hadn’t mentioned at any point over his last visit—not when they’d had lunch, not during the impromptu game night, not when Peter had driven him to the airport for his flight out—that he and Sara had reconnected, “when will we get to see you both together? It’s been years since El and I had you guys over for dinner. You two are due for a visit.”
Neal pulled his napkin off his lap and folded it into a neat rectangle, then straightened it against the linen tablecloth, then placed his silverware neatly on top of it; her knew that no amount of neatness would make what he had to say next any less messy, but he supposed relationships were like that.
“As it happens,” he started, raising his eyes to Peter, but only managing a moment’s contact before flitting them away, down to his tie, to his hands, back to his face. Away again. “We’re going to be in New York in June next year.”
Peter widened his eyes in slight confusion over Neal’s elaborate discomfort. “Well, that’s great,” he said tentatively, elbows on the table but hands spreading as though to sprinkle his approval of the plan across the restaurant. “Eighteen months ahead is a bit far in the future to plan, but put us on your dance card.”
Neal nodded, about to shatter the easy amiability of Peter’s tone. “There is definitely going to be dancing.”
He raised his eyes to Peter’s.
Peter tilted his head, narrowed his eyes at some undefined spot on Neal’s face, then slowly raised them to meet Neal’s again.
Realization dawned.
“Neal, are you two…?”
Neal had to look away when the smile broke out on its own. “She said yes,” he shrugged, and this time when he raised his eyes to Peter’s neither looked away, and for one of the very few times in his life he saw his own happiness fully and exactly reflected on the face of another. All of Peter’s joy, lighting him from within, turning his default half-smile into a full, incredulous grin.
“Neal—”
He didn’t finish. He stood, and all but crashed into Neal when he stood up. He held him tightly, then tapped his back and pulled away, and as soon as he was at arm’s length he looked down, took in Neal’s face—Neal could feel the smile, but he couldn’t help it, it wanted to be seen and he wanted to be seen, because it was the single best thing he could ever imagine sharing—and Peter breathed, “Neal!” Again and pulled him in again.
When they separated Peter took his seat with a giddiness Neal couldn’t place. The closest he could remember was when Peter told him that El was pregnant.
“How did you ask her? Was it a big shindig, top of the London Eye, inside the Colosseum?”
Neal shook his head, with a conscious smile. The reality of the memory was so much bigger.
“One of those touristy space flights?”
Neal looked mildly disgusted, now. “God, no. It just happened, the night before I flew out. We were at home, and…” He trailed off, and Peter, Peter let him. He sat back, a pursed little smile, his chin held in that particular way he had of denying the fullness of his mirth, and waited.
“It’s weird, I don’t even remember what started the conversation. Something on TV. Sara said only idiots would get married in the winter, so I asked her when would be a good time for not-idiots to get married. And somehow by the end of the conversation we had a date.” He shrugged again, suddenly shy.
“Part of the reason I’m in town is to secure the venue, and a few other time-sensitive things.”
“Neal—” Peter said again, but stopped himself short, and shook his head. “I’m so happy for you.”
Neal hadn’t ever considered that he could make Peter happy; and even less that he could do it at the easy cost of making himself happy. The feeling wondered him, and perhaps it was because he’d been prodding it right up until they were ready to part outside the FBI building that Neal had thought to ask, “What was it you were going to ask me before?”
Peter waved his hand and frowned in easy, loose dismissal. “Ah, never mind that. I didn’t realize you were a man on a mission, I’m sure you have errands to run.”
Neal raised his shoulders and his eyebrows in an easy admission of guilt. “Maybe I’m not above a few—harmless!—cons to...” He paused to select his words carefully, “to ensure Sara has the wedding she wants. I more-or-less finished what I had to get done,” he concluded, and pitched forward, hands in his pockets, so his shoulder almost bumped Peter’s.
“So, what was it?”
“Really, it’s silly, it’s nothing,” Peter denied, and Neal wondered whether it was a ploy to try and get him interested; whether intentional or not, it was working.
“We recovered a Cassatt, maybe,” Peter said, shifting his weight and looking over Neal’s shoulder as he explained. “We have six different experts weighing in, and they’re split down the middle as to whether or not it’s a forgery. I thought...”
“You want me to be the tie-breaker?”
“Right now I’m supposed to be the tie-breaker, but I’d like to make a more informed decision, yeah.” He stopped fidgeting, and focused his attention back at Neal.
“Since Charles Aulden is already established as an expert with pieces in several leading galleries, I’m sure his word will carry enough weight. It pays,” Peter tacked on, as though that might be the deciding factor for Neal.
Which it wasn’t, but it was a thread he wanted to tug on. “How much?”
“It’s a range, but each of the independent experts took around $950 for an authentication and a report outlining their findings.”
“Nine hundred and fifty dollars?” Neal echoed, suddenly chagrined, and determined to take the job, on principle. “Peter, do you know how many of those I did for the Bureau for free?”
“Over a hundred and fifty. We couldn’t pay you then, but we’ll pay you now.”
Neal took his time, thinking whether he could get anything else out of Peter for the job he’d been willing to do either way, the moment Peter mentioned it.
“You said that some of the experts were in-house?”
“A few of the more senior agents have been asked to weigh in. Me. Kramer.”
“I get to override Philip Kramer?” Neal asked, any other angle forgotten.
“Depends on whether you think the piece is a forgery. If not, then you get to agree with him, but yours would be the deciding vote.”
Neal nodded slowly, thinking through that. Good enough.
“Good enough. Do you have the painting upstairs?”
Peter clapped him on the shoulder. “I do.”
That was the first time Charles Aulden worked with the FBI.
~*~
Between that first time and the wedding, Charles Aulden worked another six cases for the FBI. Most of them were authentications, and once or twice Neal got the impression that Peter saved some interesting cases specifically for when he visited.
On his last visit before the wedding, Peter had him over for a beer. Neal thanked him, then helped himself to a glass of wine, and followed Peter outside to the patio.
The April evening was chilly and the air was crisp, and as Neal took his seat he wondered whether Peter was about to give him an early wedding gift; his movements were sharp and disorganized, and he had on the expression that singularly meant that he was unable to hide a smile.
“I was asked by Cliff Barbary, the new AD, about Charles Aulden a couple of months ago.”
Neal sipped his wine, and waited. They had known for a while now that the reclusive authenticator had been gaining attention within the FBI; while Neal’s undead status was something of an open secret amongst those of the White Collar team who overlapped with his time in New York, Neal Caffrey was still officially dead.
“At the time, I indicated to him that it was an alias, but it was someone the New York White Collar division had worked with in the past. That seemed to satisfy him. But then, two weeks ago, he brought it up again.”
Neal couldn’t see what part of this had Peter acting like he was sharing good news. If his identity were to crumble, New York would be burned to him again, possibly for good. And considering Sara was up for Winston Bosch’s position when he retired in two years or so, being barred from New York would derail the life he was trying to build for himself.
He put down his wine glass. “Peter, is the FBI about to burn Charles Aulden?”
Peter shook his head. “Nope. Opposite.” He leaned forward and looked at Neal. “When the AD asked again about Aulden, he summoned me for a meeting. In Washington. This was last week.
“He said it was important we met in person because the whole Neal Caffrey affair was something of a blot on the Bureau’s CI program, considering how it ended, and... Well, his bottom line was that the FBI would be better served by some ‘misfiled paperwork’ indicating that Neal Caffery’s death was a Bureau-sanctioned op to protect everyone against retaliation from the Pink Panthers, than to have a star CI murdered on the job.”
Peter pulled an envelop out of his breast pocket, and slid it over the table to Neal. Neal could tell it was firm when he picked it up, and he had to lean over to catch the patio lights behind his own shadow in order to read what was printed on the heavy banknote paper, embedded into a larger sheet with a delicate serrated edge.
It was a newly issued social security card. His social security card.
“Peter?”
He was handed a print out of an email. It was seemingly CCed to everyone who’d ever worked in the DOJ, the FBI, the US Social Security Administration, and the US Marshals. It was neatly worded, dancing around the fact that it was meant to align their stories and their expectations of the Caffrey case; he was officially undead and their own files were to be reflective of that as soon as possible, the paperwork filed correctly, as though it had ever been filed at all, and he was to be reenlisted as a paid consultant for the FBI under his own name.
“Peter— ” Neal raised his eyes, and found Peter smiling broadly.
“I know.”
“This means— ”
“I know.”
Peter stood when Neal did, but this time Neal initiated the embrace. “No strings attached? By some miracle Neal Caffrey is alive?”
“Neal Caffrey never died,” Peter gently corrected, and the words seemed to carry a meaning Peter had been trying to impose on Neal ever since the day of his mother’s funeral. “Like I said, I don’t believe in miracles so much as—”
“Vitamin C and keeping the doors shut?” Neal laughed, holding up his card again. It had his name, his SSN, his... his life. Neal Caffrey had become real again.
“As people doing the best they can. This isn’t a miracle, Neal. It’s what’s right.”
“I’ll have to refile for the marriage license,” Neal thought out loud. “And Sara was going to hyphenate, she’ll need to know...” He caught what he was doing, and shook his head at the irrelevancy, even though Peter was gently smiling at the detour.
“This is the best wedding present imaginable, Peter,” Neal said, and Peter raised his beer to Neal’s wine glass in acknowledgement.
“Does that mean I don’t need to get you that Corelle set?”
“Oh, we still want the Corelle set,” Neal left no room for argument, taking up his wine. “But... Thank you, Peter.”
Peter held out his beer bottle, and Neal tapped his wine glass against it.