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sheenianniTitle: Simple Gestures (Part II)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sheenianni
Fandom: White Collar
Notes: See Part I
Part II
One year later
When they leave the café, they’re still laughing.
“We should definitely do this again.”
“Agreed,” says Sara cheerfully.
Alice smiles back at her. “So, same time next month?”
Sara takes a small sip from her cup before she grins. “You know, why not. Just let me put it into my calendar.”
She reaches into her handbook and pulls out the pen and the little book that she carries with her everywhere. She opens the book to today’s page and feels a pang of pain as she notices tomorrow’s date, but she just turns the pages until she comes to the next month. “So how about Thursday the 15th? Six o’clock again?”
“Let me see… Yes. Sounds perfect.”
As the two of them part ways, Sara wonders at the strange ways of life. She and Alice had hit it off the moment they met, and even though Sara broke up with Alice’s brother a few weeks after they started dating, the two of them were on the best way to becoming friends.
It’s getting late, so Sara catches a cab to get to her apartment. She has a busy day tomorrow – testifying in court in the morning, a meeting after lunch, and a photography class in the evening. As she walks up the stairs to her apartment, she briefly finds herself missing her baton – she always loved the way it felt in her hand – and then her thoughts wander back to where they’ve been a lot this week, to New York and one Neal Caffrey.
It will be a year tomorrow.
Sara closes the door to her place, slips off her heels and makes herself comfortable in a chair with a book and a coffee cup.
Thinking about Neal still hurts, though it’s a bit easier than it used to be. Sara hesitates, but then she sets the book aside and goes instead to get the box where she keeps her photos. It’s a recent habit, she didn’t do this before – she doesn’t know what led her to buy a camera three months after Neal’s death. But the thing about photographs is that they’re honest, concrete; they show the world just the way it is, and yet everything depends on the angle, the light, the composition… Sara goes over the pictures; most of them are black and white, but there are a few colored shots too. A lot of them were taken in a rush, but some were slow and carefully done – she took her time with them.
They’re not that great – and really, Sara never saw herself as an artist. Still, she thinks Neal would have liked them.
She is proud of what she has done with herself these past few months. After Emily’s disappearance, she was drowning for months, and then she spent over a decade hiding behind a mask of almost arrogant confidence, living for her work and the immediate satisfaction of recovering an item or one-upping the rest of the world. Then Neal came into her life and showed her that it wasn’t a bad thing to let people in once in a while.
Sometimes, Sara finds it ironic that the person who taught her to trust again was a con man and a professional liar. Except it’s never been that easy to put labels on Neal, has it?
She shakes hear head and smiles.
Most of the photos are kept freely in the box, but there is a single thin envelope that contains pictures separated from the others. Opening it, Sara pulls out maybe ten, twelve pictures. With a shaky breath, she touches one of the photos. It’s a winter scene of the bridge where she had said her goodbyes, the only picture she ever took of that place, one of the photos that she didn’t just take in a fraction of a second. For a moment, Sara stares at the winter scene; then she moves on to the following pictures – several shots of the river, footprints in the snow, a lamp shining next to an empty bench…
Her heart clenches, and in a single moment of weakness Sara wishes she hadn’t tossed away the rings. She had never seen Neal’s body, and if there was hope…
But Peter himself said that Neal was gone, and he wouldn’t have said that unless he was sure.
Sara puts the photos back into the envelope and then puts the whole box away. Then she picks up her book again and begins to read.
* * *
Three weeks later, Sara is returning home late in the night, straight from a Sterling&Bosch party – tired and a bit tipsy, but with a deep feeling of satisfaction.
The previous day finally saw the end of the trial that had been going on for the past month, when their thief’s defense team unexpectedly changed their strategy under the weight of the evidence and relinquished the stolen painting in a hope for a more lenient sentence. With the painting successfully authenticated today, Sterling&Bosch stood to get back a substantial amount of money, not to mention that Sara finally got to close a case that had been a pain in her ass for over eight months. Even though she usually cultivates the image of a somewhat hardass boss, today has been the perfect day for celebration – and though Sara’s head is still swirling a bit from the champagne, she grins when she thinks of how the painting felt in her hands, her first “failure” as boss of the London branch haunting her no longer. And then when she thought the day couldn’t get any better, Mr. Bosch called her personally to congratulate her on their success in recovering the painting.
Days like this, it feels damn good to be Sara Ellis.
She climbs the stairs to her apartment and reaches for the keys, when she realizes the door is open. Still grinning, Sara enters her place, closes the door takes a few steps inside –
She freezes.
The door was open.
She’s sure she locked it in the morning. Which means that –
Someone was inside. Maybe they’re still there.
That thought sobers her up almost instantly.
Acting on instinct, Sara reaches into her purse before she realizes that she has neither her gun nor her baton. She curses Britain’s paranoid weapon laws and instead quietly pulls out an umbrella from the nearby stand. She should call the police, and maybe the alcohol in her veins is still influencing her actions, because she might just be about to get herself killed – she presses her back against the wall as she carefully moves inside –
There is someone sitting in her armchair.
Sara’s breath catches in her throat.
She tightens her grip on the umbrella. The intruder’s head is tilted to the side. The darkness of the room is protecting her for now, but if he sees her –
She almost drops her weapon when the realization hits her. The way the man’s head is tilted, the way his chest is rising and falling – he’s sleeping.
What the fuck is going on?
Her curiosity winning over her fear, Sara quietly slips off her step-ins. She tiptoes to stand in front of him so she can get a look at his face –
“Caffrey?”
The umbrella falls to the floor with a loud clatter.
It can’t be him. Except that then Neal stirs a bit before blinking slowly. He opens his eyes and looks up at her. Sara’s heart is caught her throat. Frozen, she tries to say something, but she can’t get her mouth to move.
She watches as Neal stands up. He’s a bit thinner and there’s a shiner on his face, but otherwise he looks almost the same as two years ago.
“Hey,” he says quietly with a small smile.
“Caffrey!”
Sara wraps her arms around him. She pulls him close – “I’m gonna kill you,” she says as she swallows a sob – she bites at her lip and tries to keep it together. He let her think he was dead – ‘What the fuck, Neal’ – but it doesn’t matter because he’s alive, he’s here and she doesn’t want to let go.
Sara laughs through tears of joy, even as she’s furious with him – because somehow he did it again, he conned them all and got away with it, and she was stupid enough to fall for one of his scams.
“I thought you were dead, you bastard,” she chokes out even as she desperately clutches at his shirt. Finally, Neal puts his arms around her, hesitant and unsure, and Sara is pissed off even more by his reluctance. Did he honestly think that she wouldn’t be happy to see him, that she wouldn’t be relieved?
She breathes in his scent; she buries her hand in Neal’s hair and takes deep breaths, trying to calm down. What happened, and where the hell has he been?
At last, she pushes him away. “So what did you do, Caffrey? Why did you run this time?”
“I thought I had to,” he says with a grimace.
He doesn’t deny it. For a second, Sara had hoped (and dreaded) that there was another explanation; a kidnapping, a target on his back, anything… but the truth is that Neal left, again. And once again, she wasn’t part of his plan.
It really shouldn’t hurt this bad.
“So you faked your death.” She takes a deep breath. “I get it. Just tell me, why reach out to me when you were planning to disappear anyway?”
“It wasn’t like that,” says Neal earnestly. “I wanted – look, I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mozzie knew.”
“You let Mozzie and Peter think you were dead?” asks Sara in disbelief. “Neal… wow. I assume they know already?”
Neal grimaces. “If you want to punch me, go ahead.”
“Looks like someone already did that,” says Sara with a snort. She touches the bruise on his face and withdraws when he flinches. “Peter?”
“Moz, actually. Peter – well, he was angry too, but mostly happy to see me.”
“You mean he was happy you were alive,” says Sara knowingly. Neal gives her a crooked smile.
She still can’t believe this is real.
She has always known that Neal was capable of many things, but this… she never saw this. She didn’t know he had it in him to be this cruel.
“You were dead. You let us think that you were dead.”
“I’m–”
“I feel like I don’t even know you anymore,” she says with a mirthless laugh.
Neal’s expression is one of raw pain. “I missed all of you, more than you can imagine–”
“Don’t,” Sara snaps angrily, because somehow he caused this; he put them through this. He doesn’t get to act like the wounded party.
“Why?” she asks at last.
Neal swallows. “Can we sit down?”
She picks up the umbrella, exchanges her high heels for a pair of flip-flops and motions for him to follow her into the kitchen.
* * *
“I didn’t want the Panthers coming after you,” Neal explains an hour later as he finishes his story.
“I didn’t ask to be protected,” says Sara sharply.
Neal grimaces. “Mozzie and Peter said the same thing.” He pauses. “Kate was murdered because of me. Ellen died because I reached out to her. Siegel – my temporary handler – was gunned down on a street by my psychotic girlfriend.”
“Neal–”
“Mozzie was shot and poisoned, Peter and El were kidnapped, June was threatened by Hagen, Peter was hurt in the car crash, and then he faced a murder charge; even Rachel… It’s a pattern, Sara. People got hurt just by being close to me.”
“So, let me guess, you decided to remove yourself from the equation,” says Sara sarcastically.
“Ten years ago, Interpol had an informant in Germany who gave them Woodford’s name. A few days later, his wife and kid got injured when their apartment mysteriously caught on fire…” Neal takes a deep breath. “I thought – I was so sure it was just a rumor. At first I wanted my freedom so badly that it didn’t matter. But then I worked with the Panthers and I realized that if I had stayed, if they’d realized that I was the one who betrayed them, they would have killed you. All of you.”
“Neal, we’re a pretty tough bunch–”
“Doesn’t matter. You would have all been targets. A car crossing a street; a random street robbery; you, maybe a recovery gone wrong…”
“If you were so worried, you could have talked to Peter. You could have trusted the FBI, you know,” Sara points out.
“And what if it wasn’t enough, what if they came after you? I couldn’t bear the thought of burying you–”
“So you just let us bury you?” asks Sara incredulously.
“That’s what Peter pointed out…” Neal runs his hands through his hair. “I thought I did what I had to do. I never said it wasn’t selfish, Sara.”
“Caffrey…” She pauses and struggles to find the words. “Even if you had to leave, you should have told us.”
Neal shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have stayed a secret. It’s not a secret that I’ve faked my death before, and the Panthers would have been smart enough to notice that the timing was too convenient. It had to look good, it had to be convincing–”
“So you ‘did what you had to’ for the perfect con,” says Sara bitterly.
Neal sighs. “It wasn’t meant to be this long…”
“Oh?” Sara raises her eyebrows.
“I left a clue for Peter in my things. I thought he would find it, follow the lead as always. I had it all set up – an untraceable burner phone, my name on speed-dial–”
“And you thought that Peter would have the strength to go treasure-hunting when he was grieving your death?” asks Sara incredulously.
“Yeah, not the best plan–”
“You think? Neal…” Sara breaks off before she says something nasty. “And the rest of us?” she asks instead.
The silence is an answer by itself.
“So you faked your death, which, conveniently, also helped you escape the FBI,” says Sara at last.
“You still think I wanted this?” asks Neal incredulously.
“Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble to make it happen.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have put you through this. I thought–”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Caffrey,” says Sara, cutting him off before they could delve even deeper into Neal’s explanations.
Because as much as she is angry with him, as much as it hurts, she gets it.
She knows Neal and his tunnel vision. She also knows about losing people and being hurt and coping mechanisms; she understands masks and lies and being willing to do pretty much anything to spare yourself that pain again. For Neal it’s always been running and crime; Sara, she has her baton, and she knows that at least a part of her sometimes bitchy persona is about keeping people at distance. It took her over a decade to sort out Emily, and God knows that Neal has more reason than most to be fucked up inside after Kate and Ellen and everything else.
So she gets it. She understands, even though she’s still hurting from the consequences of his actions, even though she can barely imagine how Peter and Mozzie must have felt. She had left him for London; she knows she can forgive him; she’ll probably forgive him soon enough. And she is happy to know, she knows that the real joy will set in once the shock fades; she’s glad he’s back.
She stares at Neal, his face; she sees the regret in those blue eyes. And there’s more too, an echo of something long lost, and she feels the same disquiet in her stomach, and a part of her longs to hold him, wants to touch him.
She’ll never trust him again.
“Sara…”
“I thought about the two of us,” she says. “Before, when we were calling each other; I was thinking about how we navigated around each other, how good we were together. I was waiting for your sentence to be over so I could talk to you.”
Neal swallows. “I used to look up flight tickets to London. You were going to be my first stop once I was free–”
“I bought us rings,” says Sara.
He turns white as a sheet. “What–”
“Engagement rings. I wanted to know if we could make it work for real. I was going to ask you to marry me.”
“I – I didn’t know–” Neal tries to recover as he reaches for her hand. “We can still–”
“I dumped them in the river. You can’t find them. You can’t bring them back.”
She stabs Neal in the heart and watches as his world crumbles.
“Sara–”
“They’re lost. You can’t – it doesn’t work like that. They’re gone.”
And he finally gets it. Sara thinks she should feel satisfied, but there’s no joy in it; it’s cold comfort at best. That doesn’t make her words any less true.
“Look, you’re a friend, and… I’m glad to know that you’re okay.” She repeats her earlier words, as if that could take some of the sting out of it.
She watches as Neal withdraws and puts on a mask. “Friends, then.”
She hears the pain in his voice and it annoys her. “What, did you honestly expect me not to move on?”
He shakes his head. “No, Sara. No, I… I know I had no right to expect anything.”
“Caffrey…”
He pulls out a small diary and scribbles something down, then tears out the page and lays it at the table. “My new number. Call me or text me if you need anything.”
“Where are you going?” she asks as he stands up and heads for the door.
“Back to France.”
“France?” asks Sara almost despite herself.
“I have a job there. I work in consulting security.”
Sara raises an eyebrow. “‘Consulting’ security?”
“Believe it or not, I’m actually on a vacation right now,” replies Neal with a ghost of a smile.
Vacation. “That’s good,” says Sara with a small smile of her own.
He nods. “Goodbye, Sara.”
“Call me sometime, okay?” she says before he closes the door.
Neal gives her a last hollow smile.
And then he walks out, and she’s standing there with her anger and grief as the hurt starts all over again.
* * *
Part III
Author:
sheenianniFandom: White Collar
Notes: See Part I
___________________________________
Part II
One year later
When they leave the café, they’re still laughing.
“We should definitely do this again.”
“Agreed,” says Sara cheerfully.
Alice smiles back at her. “So, same time next month?”
Sara takes a small sip from her cup before she grins. “You know, why not. Just let me put it into my calendar.”
She reaches into her handbook and pulls out the pen and the little book that she carries with her everywhere. She opens the book to today’s page and feels a pang of pain as she notices tomorrow’s date, but she just turns the pages until she comes to the next month. “So how about Thursday the 15th? Six o’clock again?”
“Let me see… Yes. Sounds perfect.”
As the two of them part ways, Sara wonders at the strange ways of life. She and Alice had hit it off the moment they met, and even though Sara broke up with Alice’s brother a few weeks after they started dating, the two of them were on the best way to becoming friends.
It’s getting late, so Sara catches a cab to get to her apartment. She has a busy day tomorrow – testifying in court in the morning, a meeting after lunch, and a photography class in the evening. As she walks up the stairs to her apartment, she briefly finds herself missing her baton – she always loved the way it felt in her hand – and then her thoughts wander back to where they’ve been a lot this week, to New York and one Neal Caffrey.
It will be a year tomorrow.
Sara closes the door to her place, slips off her heels and makes herself comfortable in a chair with a book and a coffee cup.
Thinking about Neal still hurts, though it’s a bit easier than it used to be. Sara hesitates, but then she sets the book aside and goes instead to get the box where she keeps her photos. It’s a recent habit, she didn’t do this before – she doesn’t know what led her to buy a camera three months after Neal’s death. But the thing about photographs is that they’re honest, concrete; they show the world just the way it is, and yet everything depends on the angle, the light, the composition… Sara goes over the pictures; most of them are black and white, but there are a few colored shots too. A lot of them were taken in a rush, but some were slow and carefully done – she took her time with them.
They’re not that great – and really, Sara never saw herself as an artist. Still, she thinks Neal would have liked them.
She is proud of what she has done with herself these past few months. After Emily’s disappearance, she was drowning for months, and then she spent over a decade hiding behind a mask of almost arrogant confidence, living for her work and the immediate satisfaction of recovering an item or one-upping the rest of the world. Then Neal came into her life and showed her that it wasn’t a bad thing to let people in once in a while.
Sometimes, Sara finds it ironic that the person who taught her to trust again was a con man and a professional liar. Except it’s never been that easy to put labels on Neal, has it?
She shakes hear head and smiles.
Most of the photos are kept freely in the box, but there is a single thin envelope that contains pictures separated from the others. Opening it, Sara pulls out maybe ten, twelve pictures. With a shaky breath, she touches one of the photos. It’s a winter scene of the bridge where she had said her goodbyes, the only picture she ever took of that place, one of the photos that she didn’t just take in a fraction of a second. For a moment, Sara stares at the winter scene; then she moves on to the following pictures – several shots of the river, footprints in the snow, a lamp shining next to an empty bench…
Her heart clenches, and in a single moment of weakness Sara wishes she hadn’t tossed away the rings. She had never seen Neal’s body, and if there was hope…
But Peter himself said that Neal was gone, and he wouldn’t have said that unless he was sure.
Sara puts the photos back into the envelope and then puts the whole box away. Then she picks up her book again and begins to read.
Three weeks later, Sara is returning home late in the night, straight from a Sterling&Bosch party – tired and a bit tipsy, but with a deep feeling of satisfaction.
The previous day finally saw the end of the trial that had been going on for the past month, when their thief’s defense team unexpectedly changed their strategy under the weight of the evidence and relinquished the stolen painting in a hope for a more lenient sentence. With the painting successfully authenticated today, Sterling&Bosch stood to get back a substantial amount of money, not to mention that Sara finally got to close a case that had been a pain in her ass for over eight months. Even though she usually cultivates the image of a somewhat hardass boss, today has been the perfect day for celebration – and though Sara’s head is still swirling a bit from the champagne, she grins when she thinks of how the painting felt in her hands, her first “failure” as boss of the London branch haunting her no longer. And then when she thought the day couldn’t get any better, Mr. Bosch called her personally to congratulate her on their success in recovering the painting.
Days like this, it feels damn good to be Sara Ellis.
She climbs the stairs to her apartment and reaches for the keys, when she realizes the door is open. Still grinning, Sara enters her place, closes the door takes a few steps inside –
She freezes.
The door was open.
She’s sure she locked it in the morning. Which means that –
Someone was inside. Maybe they’re still there.
That thought sobers her up almost instantly.
Acting on instinct, Sara reaches into her purse before she realizes that she has neither her gun nor her baton. She curses Britain’s paranoid weapon laws and instead quietly pulls out an umbrella from the nearby stand. She should call the police, and maybe the alcohol in her veins is still influencing her actions, because she might just be about to get herself killed – she presses her back against the wall as she carefully moves inside –
There is someone sitting in her armchair.
Sara’s breath catches in her throat.
She tightens her grip on the umbrella. The intruder’s head is tilted to the side. The darkness of the room is protecting her for now, but if he sees her –
She almost drops her weapon when the realization hits her. The way the man’s head is tilted, the way his chest is rising and falling – he’s sleeping.
What the fuck is going on?
Her curiosity winning over her fear, Sara quietly slips off her step-ins. She tiptoes to stand in front of him so she can get a look at his face –
“Caffrey?”
The umbrella falls to the floor with a loud clatter.
It can’t be him. Except that then Neal stirs a bit before blinking slowly. He opens his eyes and looks up at her. Sara’s heart is caught her throat. Frozen, she tries to say something, but she can’t get her mouth to move.
She watches as Neal stands up. He’s a bit thinner and there’s a shiner on his face, but otherwise he looks almost the same as two years ago.
“Hey,” he says quietly with a small smile.
“Caffrey!”
Sara wraps her arms around him. She pulls him close – “I’m gonna kill you,” she says as she swallows a sob – she bites at her lip and tries to keep it together. He let her think he was dead – ‘What the fuck, Neal’ – but it doesn’t matter because he’s alive, he’s here and she doesn’t want to let go.
Sara laughs through tears of joy, even as she’s furious with him – because somehow he did it again, he conned them all and got away with it, and she was stupid enough to fall for one of his scams.
“I thought you were dead, you bastard,” she chokes out even as she desperately clutches at his shirt. Finally, Neal puts his arms around her, hesitant and unsure, and Sara is pissed off even more by his reluctance. Did he honestly think that she wouldn’t be happy to see him, that she wouldn’t be relieved?
She breathes in his scent; she buries her hand in Neal’s hair and takes deep breaths, trying to calm down. What happened, and where the hell has he been?
At last, she pushes him away. “So what did you do, Caffrey? Why did you run this time?”
“I thought I had to,” he says with a grimace.
He doesn’t deny it. For a second, Sara had hoped (and dreaded) that there was another explanation; a kidnapping, a target on his back, anything… but the truth is that Neal left, again. And once again, she wasn’t part of his plan.
It really shouldn’t hurt this bad.
“So you faked your death.” She takes a deep breath. “I get it. Just tell me, why reach out to me when you were planning to disappear anyway?”
“It wasn’t like that,” says Neal earnestly. “I wanted – look, I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mozzie knew.”
“You let Mozzie and Peter think you were dead?” asks Sara in disbelief. “Neal… wow. I assume they know already?”
Neal grimaces. “If you want to punch me, go ahead.”
“Looks like someone already did that,” says Sara with a snort. She touches the bruise on his face and withdraws when he flinches. “Peter?”
“Moz, actually. Peter – well, he was angry too, but mostly happy to see me.”
“You mean he was happy you were alive,” says Sara knowingly. Neal gives her a crooked smile.
She still can’t believe this is real.
She has always known that Neal was capable of many things, but this… she never saw this. She didn’t know he had it in him to be this cruel.
“You were dead. You let us think that you were dead.”
“I’m–”
“I feel like I don’t even know you anymore,” she says with a mirthless laugh.
Neal’s expression is one of raw pain. “I missed all of you, more than you can imagine–”
“Don’t,” Sara snaps angrily, because somehow he caused this; he put them through this. He doesn’t get to act like the wounded party.
“Why?” she asks at last.
Neal swallows. “Can we sit down?”
She picks up the umbrella, exchanges her high heels for a pair of flip-flops and motions for him to follow her into the kitchen.
“I didn’t want the Panthers coming after you,” Neal explains an hour later as he finishes his story.
“I didn’t ask to be protected,” says Sara sharply.
Neal grimaces. “Mozzie and Peter said the same thing.” He pauses. “Kate was murdered because of me. Ellen died because I reached out to her. Siegel – my temporary handler – was gunned down on a street by my psychotic girlfriend.”
“Neal–”
“Mozzie was shot and poisoned, Peter and El were kidnapped, June was threatened by Hagen, Peter was hurt in the car crash, and then he faced a murder charge; even Rachel… It’s a pattern, Sara. People got hurt just by being close to me.”
“So, let me guess, you decided to remove yourself from the equation,” says Sara sarcastically.
“Ten years ago, Interpol had an informant in Germany who gave them Woodford’s name. A few days later, his wife and kid got injured when their apartment mysteriously caught on fire…” Neal takes a deep breath. “I thought – I was so sure it was just a rumor. At first I wanted my freedom so badly that it didn’t matter. But then I worked with the Panthers and I realized that if I had stayed, if they’d realized that I was the one who betrayed them, they would have killed you. All of you.”
“Neal, we’re a pretty tough bunch–”
“Doesn’t matter. You would have all been targets. A car crossing a street; a random street robbery; you, maybe a recovery gone wrong…”
“If you were so worried, you could have talked to Peter. You could have trusted the FBI, you know,” Sara points out.
“And what if it wasn’t enough, what if they came after you? I couldn’t bear the thought of burying you–”
“So you just let us bury you?” asks Sara incredulously.
“That’s what Peter pointed out…” Neal runs his hands through his hair. “I thought I did what I had to do. I never said it wasn’t selfish, Sara.”
“Caffrey…” She pauses and struggles to find the words. “Even if you had to leave, you should have told us.”
Neal shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have stayed a secret. It’s not a secret that I’ve faked my death before, and the Panthers would have been smart enough to notice that the timing was too convenient. It had to look good, it had to be convincing–”
“So you ‘did what you had to’ for the perfect con,” says Sara bitterly.
Neal sighs. “It wasn’t meant to be this long…”
“Oh?” Sara raises her eyebrows.
“I left a clue for Peter in my things. I thought he would find it, follow the lead as always. I had it all set up – an untraceable burner phone, my name on speed-dial–”
“And you thought that Peter would have the strength to go treasure-hunting when he was grieving your death?” asks Sara incredulously.
“Yeah, not the best plan–”
“You think? Neal…” Sara breaks off before she says something nasty. “And the rest of us?” she asks instead.
The silence is an answer by itself.
“So you faked your death, which, conveniently, also helped you escape the FBI,” says Sara at last.
“You still think I wanted this?” asks Neal incredulously.
“Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble to make it happen.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have put you through this. I thought–”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Caffrey,” says Sara, cutting him off before they could delve even deeper into Neal’s explanations.
Because as much as she is angry with him, as much as it hurts, she gets it.
She knows Neal and his tunnel vision. She also knows about losing people and being hurt and coping mechanisms; she understands masks and lies and being willing to do pretty much anything to spare yourself that pain again. For Neal it’s always been running and crime; Sara, she has her baton, and she knows that at least a part of her sometimes bitchy persona is about keeping people at distance. It took her over a decade to sort out Emily, and God knows that Neal has more reason than most to be fucked up inside after Kate and Ellen and everything else.
So she gets it. She understands, even though she’s still hurting from the consequences of his actions, even though she can barely imagine how Peter and Mozzie must have felt. She had left him for London; she knows she can forgive him; she’ll probably forgive him soon enough. And she is happy to know, she knows that the real joy will set in once the shock fades; she’s glad he’s back.
She stares at Neal, his face; she sees the regret in those blue eyes. And there’s more too, an echo of something long lost, and she feels the same disquiet in her stomach, and a part of her longs to hold him, wants to touch him.
She’ll never trust him again.
“Sara…”
“I thought about the two of us,” she says. “Before, when we were calling each other; I was thinking about how we navigated around each other, how good we were together. I was waiting for your sentence to be over so I could talk to you.”
Neal swallows. “I used to look up flight tickets to London. You were going to be my first stop once I was free–”
“I bought us rings,” says Sara.
He turns white as a sheet. “What–”
“Engagement rings. I wanted to know if we could make it work for real. I was going to ask you to marry me.”
“I – I didn’t know–” Neal tries to recover as he reaches for her hand. “We can still–”
“I dumped them in the river. You can’t find them. You can’t bring them back.”
She stabs Neal in the heart and watches as his world crumbles.
“Sara–”
“They’re lost. You can’t – it doesn’t work like that. They’re gone.”
And he finally gets it. Sara thinks she should feel satisfied, but there’s no joy in it; it’s cold comfort at best. That doesn’t make her words any less true.
“Look, you’re a friend, and… I’m glad to know that you’re okay.” She repeats her earlier words, as if that could take some of the sting out of it.
She watches as Neal withdraws and puts on a mask. “Friends, then.”
She hears the pain in his voice and it annoys her. “What, did you honestly expect me not to move on?”
He shakes his head. “No, Sara. No, I… I know I had no right to expect anything.”
“Caffrey…”
He pulls out a small diary and scribbles something down, then tears out the page and lays it at the table. “My new number. Call me or text me if you need anything.”
“Where are you going?” she asks as he stands up and heads for the door.
“Back to France.”
“France?” asks Sara almost despite herself.
“I have a job there. I work in consulting security.”
Sara raises an eyebrow. “‘Consulting’ security?”
“Believe it or not, I’m actually on a vacation right now,” replies Neal with a ghost of a smile.
Vacation. “That’s good,” says Sara with a small smile of her own.
He nods. “Goodbye, Sara.”
“Call me sometime, okay?” she says before he closes the door.
Neal gives her a last hollow smile.
And then he walks out, and she’s standing there with her anger and grief as the hurt starts all over again.
Part III
