#I mean I support him lying to Mozzie

[thieves-never-say-die]

Oh noooooo now Neal’s keeping secrets from *everybody*

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Future

A/N: Yikes. I cried several times writing this. I'm very proud of how it turned out - I think it's one of my strongest pieces on the entire blog - but be warned: bring tissues. Also, Mozzie's quote is originally from Abraham Lincoln. Requested by @ladykeqing

Summary: In the wake of Neal's death, a regret haunts you.

Word Count: 1,964

Peter sat you down and told you in his home. Well… just June’s home, now. The way Mozzie had trailed behind him, for once wordless… His face looking ashen… A part of you had known even before Peter asked you to sit down.

“He told me to say he’s sorry,” Peter said, barely more than a whisper that somehow felt deafening to your brain. “And that he loves you more than you know.”

The room was suddenly stifling. It was more than just the emotions in the air, layering over each other into a thick, caustic fog. It was the darkening of shadows that stretched in from the glass doors, and the silence of the record player that drove deep into their eardrums to muffle the little sounds of life coming from each other. The penthouse was, in an instant, so tiny and deathly empty, and you wished so dearly that you’d been at your own apartment. Staying the weekend had seemed like such a great idea before you abruptly became the only resident.

For a few seconds, you had a mind to just stay put and let the shadows come and take over. To let the agonizing ache of loss engulf your entire heart and continue expanding until it was bigger than your body and you disappeared forever. All so you wouldn’t have to keep looking at the records Neal would never again play and the table he would never again sit at. So you would never have to spend a last moment in the home of your lover before turning your back on it and, by extension, him.

Without him, there was nowhere to turn. The prospect of your remaining lifetime without your partner made your chest and throat tighten with another round of sobs. It all felt so dim. You tried to hold it back, but couldn’t last long before your hands were to your mouth and a strangled whimper was breaking from your lips.

Mozzie could have fooled you into thinking he hadn’t heard, so resolute he was in boring a hole into the rug with his stare. Peter looked towards you with deep brown eyes, solicitous and pleading at the same time. He was as stunned as you were – but where you were being crushed under the weight of isolation, at least Peter got to go home to El. You didn’t have anyone to go home to anymore. Hell, without Neal, did you even have a home at all?

You envied Mozzie. Really, you did. His Buddhist leanings might be a comfort to him, able to think of Neal’s absence as temporary, or his spirit as remaining around them in some way or form. But when you tried to imagine you could feel him still there, the encroaching shadows and silent record player and empty bed all drew together at once until you were drowning in the lack. It was as if your haywire senses were punishing you for thinking even for a moment that you could feel your loss as anything less than absolute. He was gone and the world was permanently less wonderful.

A gunshot. Neal hated guns so much. Maybe this was why.

Wait. No. Time didn’t work like that. Right? He couldn’t hate something for a reason that hadn’t happened yet.

Laughter that bordered on hysterical bubbled out of your throat as you anxiously covered your face, waiting for the mania to pass. Laughter was easier than sobs. It physically hurt less. Emotionally it was so much worse. You could feel the concerned eyes on you while you waited until your desperate giggles died, just like your partner.

“I never said,” you said, wresting the words out before cries – or worse, more laughs – forced themselves out instead. You looked down with shame and guilt. His last words to you were almost cruel. Tender in their meaning, but cruel in consequence – he would never know how deeply you cared for him. You hoped he did. Didn’t you show it all the time? But that was different from hearing the words out loud, and now not only were you going on without Neal, but you were going on carrying the burden of knowing you hadn’t been able to offer him the comfort of certainty in knowing he had been loved in life and would be grieved in death. “I never got to tell him I love him.”

The mere look that Peter gave you in response would have broken your heart if it hadn’t already been lying shattered somewhere between your stomach and the floor. It was as if he were imagining for himself not getting to tell Elizabeth how he felt, or worse, imagining how alone or afraid she might feel if she didn’t know there were somebody fighting for her and remembering her every day.

Sobs would come any moment now. Your throat was tighter than a string on a violin, and any minute you’d stop being able to breathe. In, out, you reminded yourself. Keep it together just a moment more. And then another moment after that. You couldn’t break down until you were alone. You didn’t know why you couldn’t break in front of Neal’s family, but didn’t have the energy to question it, either, not when you barely had the energy not to scream and weep into your hands.

“He knew.” Mozzie’s words were quiet but startling and said with all the confidence of Neal himself. “You didn’t have to say it.”

“But he deserved to hear.” Knowing it and hearing it were different games and Neal, for all his faults, deserved to hear it, too. “He deserved to come home. I don’t…” You lost your train of thought. Why were you talking about yourself when you weren’t the one whose brilliant life had been stolen? After a small shake of your head, you sniffed and shakily breathed out. “We had an entire future. And now there’s nothing left.”

You could see it passing in your imagination, all the little milestones that you’d come to anticipate. Content days at home, interspersed with adventures to his favorite places around the world, marked by marriage and birthdays and achievements and anniversaries. You’d never articulated them out loud, never even realized fully that you’d started to await those days, but now you saw them vanishing and you realized not only were you having to grieve for the best man you’d ever known, but you’d also have to grieve for the missed experiences and joys that he had lost, and the shared life that you had to give up on, as well.

Mozzie finally looked up to you and you noticed that his eyes were puffy and red behind his glasses. You didn’t even know someone could cry that silently. “The best thing about the future,” he quoted, slow and weighty, probably to keep his own voice level. “Is that it comes one day at a time.”

The comfort was meaningless to you. One day at a time was worthwhile when it was endless days of love and companionship. When that was gone, it was just day after day of being adrift with nothing to hold onto.

You sniffed again and replied in a surprisingly even voice, “My future is laying in the morgue.”

~Future~

Leaving Y/N was one of the hardest things Mozzie had ever done, and he had a lot of challenges and dubious decisions in his past. Leaving her to wallow and suffer rubbed him in every wrong way possible, except for the one where it meant – at least for now – that she would be safe. He didn’t think, if he stayed, that he would be able to hold back from blurting out the truth. He couldn’t even look at her for fear of spilling. Not once her tears started. He couldn’t watch his friend, and his best friend’s love at that, weep with agony she didn’t need to feel.

Neal begged to differ, though Mozzie knew that it tore his heart in two to hear her voice over the long-distance connection. When Mozzie was sure the suit was out of earshot, and that Y/N and June had both stayed inside, he lifted his phone from his pocket and breathed heavily in the cold December air that seemed to burn his lungs.

“Did you hear all that?” He asked, impressively steady and managing to get his criticism and support across with his tone simultaneously.

He took off his glasses, thankful Neal couldn’t see that he, too, needed to wipe his eyes dry. Alive was good. Alive but far away and unreachable – at least for the foreseeable future – was still painful.

“I did,” Neal confirmed, voice and heart both heavy somewhere at least a thousand miles away. “I wish…” Neal trailed off, and Mozzie wholly believed that he also needed a moment to compose himself. Why either of them bothered pretending not to cry, he didn’t understand, but they had already dedicated themselves to the farce. “She’s safer this way. If she looks for me, we’re all in danger.”

“If you let this go on, she will never forgive you.” Mozzie warned, thinking about the broken look on your face. It had been like watching a dropped plate shatter in slow motion to see the cracks begin to appear before your very spirit seemed to splinter. Then he thought about how desperately you wished Neal knew you loved him, and he thought maybe there was a chance that desperate love would override the anger. He amended, “Or, if she does, it’ll never be the same.”

“I know.” Neal agreed readily but with a quiver to his voice. “I want to come home, but not if it means visiting her grave.”

“The cautious way it is.” Mozzie put his glasses back on his face, bravely shoring up his willpower. “I can’t know where you are, and she can’t know you’re out there.”

“Keep an eye on her for me.”His voice was full of sorrow and longing.

“Of course.” Neal didn’t even need to ask. If there came a time when the Panthers were dealt with and Neal could – well, if not return home, at least be reunited with Y/N somewhere without an extradition treaty, Mozzie would be the first to set it in motion. “Be well, mon frére.”

“You, too, Moz.”

The line went dead.

~Future~

Approximately four thousand miles away, on a windy beach, Neal stood barefoot in the dark, watching the light from the moon reflect off the choppy, shallow surf. The breeze drifted through his hair and bit across his face with the sting of northern weather.

He looked down at the open phone in his hand, fighting every feeling in him to turn it back on and beg Mozzie to take the phone back up to his former penthouse. Or, worse, to turn his whole body around and get on a ferry to the mainland, and fly back to New York as fast as possible to hold you in his arms. The heartbreak in your voice had been almost too much for him to bear. It would have been, if not for his terror of being reckless and selfish and letting you pay the price.

He had known you loved him, and because he loved you so unbelievably much in return, he couldn’t go home. Not yet. He would work on it from afar, where no one knew he was breathing, much less could trace him back to his darling. One day, if he were incredibly lucky, he could come home and you would still have space for him in your heart and mind. For now, he would have to settle on replaying your words in his head.

I love you, too.

Neal hurled the phone out into the ocean.

[firebirdsdaughter]

So…

… I think part of Neal’s problem is that even when he’s not on a con, he acts like he is.

For ex. rewatching Honour Among Thieves and I genuinely don’t think he planned it—or if he was supposed to have planned it, no one told Matt Bomer, which would kinda defeat the purpose. My rationale being that even though no one is watching him, he reacts in genuine surprise to how fast the FBI shows up at the end. Also he had no reason to hide the plan from Mozzie, who would support it, and instead we only see him brooding about the theft—although one could argue that that’s bc of the show’s habit of only showing selective scenes to hide the whole plan, yaddyada…

But I just don’t think he was planning that far ahead. I think he was genuinely upset and stressed about the blackmail and upset at the idea of going behind Peter’s back that he didn’t think that far ahead.

But I also can’t blame Peter for thinking he might have—bc honestly what he should have done, even after she framed him, was just tell Peter. Explain that Abigail was blackmailing him into the job, and hell, they might’ve even helped and made it a bonafide sting. But he doesn’t. Bc Neal doesn’t tell people things outside of emergency circumstances, and it seems to be a habit he can’t break. The fact that he kept this from Peter obviously makes Peter suspicious, bc it makes it seem like Neal planned it. But he didn’t. He defaulted to ‘fixing’ it himself, yet another habit he can’t seem to kick, the not relying on people.

I love the show, and this ep was actually well done on both sides, but at times I do agree that they try to force drama between Neal and Peter a little. I appreciated reading an interview by one of the show runners noting that they were struggling w/ that, which I think become visible a few times bc, to paraphrase ‘why are you still being a jerk to this guy who has done so much for you?’ Matt Bomer makes Neal likeable even in some of his more obnoxious moments (usually when they start going on about how wonderful being a thief is and I’m like… kinda sucks from here, but okay?), but there are occasions were I feel like Neal behaves suspiciously and then gets upset that Peter suspects him of something (not you s3, you and your character development are wonderful and I’m glad you’re here), or Peter gets made to be a bit overly nasty just to cause drama.

Honestly, my memories of the later seasons are kinda blurry, esp towards the end, but from what I’ve seen from other people, they are on good terms at the end, and the whole finale actually isn’t Neal running away to ‘live the high crime life’ again (like I originally thought, hence why I hadn’t really watched it) and is more along the lines of guerrilla witness protection? Bc faking your death and fleeing the city bc you’re trying to protect the people you love from a violent gang is one thing, but ‘waaaaahhh I wanna go back to stealing and using people and only caring about money’ is… Another. If it’s the former, I actually love that, bc it’d show how he’d changed from the start of the show to really start valuing people, whereas the second one just feels like ‘lol conman cool guys.’ Also makes the whole storage container thing (which I do know about) more of a promise of return than a farewell, bc I really dislike the latter.

I don’t care about Neal who only wants adrenaline rushes and money and lying to people bc it’s fun. I care about Neal who is intelligent and maybe a bit vain, impulsive and well meaning, faster talker, quirky, loves his adoptive parents and really needs to meet his new baby brother.

Like if you’re never gonna show me big Neal holding baby Neal, at least let me pretend it could happen eventually.

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Being Pregnant with Neal's Baby Would Include...

Between Mozzie, June, El, and Neal himself, you are the most pampered woman in the world.

            You knew as soon as you told everyone that you would have a support system to reckon with, but you hadn’t expected this. Neal, you’d predicted – he was cautious but enthusiastic, engaging and yet calm. Everyone else, however, was going above and beyond your expectations.

            The Burkes didn’t have any babies they’d had to buy things for, so Elizabeth didn’t have anything to pass on to you, be it advice or stories or references, but she more than made up for it in careful, knowledgeable planning. (You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised – she is an event planner.) She makes sure that you get to every single doctor’s appointment and get all your prenatal care. When you were at three months, she sat you down and the two of you started a list of things you’d need for your baby.

            Once, when Neal had been undercover, you had had a minor scare – you’d feinted. Luckily, you’d been with Elizabeth at the time, helping her select caterers for a fundraiser. She woke you up easily, but then insisted on dragging you to the hospital. You couldn’t get in touch with Neal (later you found out his cover had been blown and the suspect destroyed his phone), but El went as far as lying to the nurses and claimed she was your sister, just so she could stay with you in the emergency room.

            June claims she started out like any other woman on the planet, but you have your doubts she didn’t hide wings under those thick fur coats. She was a godsend. She had the stories and advice El lacked, and she even offered a tiny little fedora that you knew Neal would go nuts over as soon as he saw. (You kept it hidden and were waiting to surprise him with it.)

            Finally, though you knew Mozzie had always been skeptical that Neal would ever be able to ‘settle down,’ he was one of the most supportive of all. He always brought you movies and ice cream, and if you were alone, he’d keep you company as long as you asked. He even stopped drinking while he was with you, just because he didn’t want you to feel left out. He almost single-handedly supplied all of the toys and stuffed friends your baby would ever want, and he made you a CD of classical music, determined that any offspring of Neal’s would know how to recognize the subtle differences between Vivaldi, Bach, and Mozart.

  Mozzie is the godfather. No debate.

            “We have to meet a family law attorney,” you told Neal, presenting your case meaningfully. “We’re not married. You have a criminal record. We need to make sure that if anything happens to me, you get to keep full custody.”

            “I’ve already asked around,” Neal told you, standing up and frowning slightly. He reached for you and held you to him, drifting a hand lower to slowly rub his thumb over the rounding of your stomach. “We’ll be alright. I’m not going back to prison. No more cons, not with my family to think about.”

            You had been worrying about this for a long time, and even though Neal was making promises you truly hoped he would be able to keep, you had other concerns. “And what if something happens to both of us?” You questioned. “I want someone I trust taking care of my son or daughter, not some random people in a foster home.”

            “Well, obviously, Mini-You isn’t going to be in foster care.” Mozzie bristled. He’d been on the couch listening, drinking non-alcoholic cider. “Baby will come to the godfather.”

            Godfather? You and Neal both raised your eyebrows, asking each other the same question. Did you decide on godparents? You hadn’t even had that discussion yet. You hadn’t even decided whether or not you would name any godparents. You shook your head. Neal cocked his head at Mozzie inquisitively.

            Mozzie saw the whole exchange with an indignantly-opened mouth. “Me, of course!” He huffed. “I’m the godfather!”

            You looked back up to Neal, attorneys and worst-case-scenarios all but forgotten in the back of your mind. “This one’s your responsibility,” you vowed, pointing at Moz over his shoulder. Neal groaned quietly and dropped his head onto your shoulder.

   Neal would be excited to teach your child about art, and would actually design the nursery himself.

            About half of the nights when you woke up before your alarm, you were alone in bed. The first few times, this worried you, but lately, you know exactly where to look.

            You go straight to the room that you’ve decided will be the nursery. It’s only one door down from the bedroom you share with Neal. Although it’s spacious, it’s also small for a bedroom, which means it’s a good size for a human so small they can fit in your arms. The light is already on, and there’s a phone filtering slightly-tinny Sinatra music.

            You lean yourself against the doorway and bite your lip, taking in the beautiful sight before you. Your lover, in only his sweatpants, standing on a stepstool over a painter’s tarp, duct tape over the wall’s trim, a charcoal pencil in his hand as he darkens the outlines of a long mural that he’s designing to wrap around the entire room. To your tiny baby, it’s going to seem like he or she is sleeping in Paris. For many reasons, you’ve decided that – at least for the time being – you’re going to raise your child in New York, where you both have safety and friends, but you know Neal will miss being able to travel at a moment’s notice, and you think it’s incredible that he’s choosing to share his favorite city with his kid in this way.

            “It’s amazing,” you compliment, your voice kind of low and interrupted with a yawn. You rub at your eyes, blinking away sleep, and look around. Soon, he’ll start on painting, mixing and creating his own palette, and you’ll have to be very careful when you enter this room because his supplies will be all over.

            Neal turns to look at you over his shoulder, his back flexing gracefully. He picks up his phone and turns it off. “Sorry,” he apologizes needlessly, concern written over his face. “Was that too loud?”

            “No,” you promise. “I just got lonely.”

            He started to smile wanly. “Five more minutes, and I’ll be back, okay?”

            You nodded, fighting back yet another yawn. “I’m getting a snack first,” you mumbled, stepping over the tarps to give him a quick kiss on the lips. “Because I think we both know you’re going to be here for at least another twenty.”

  Sometimes, Neal would be really worried about being a father, especially since his was such a disappointment. You have to remind him that he’s a better man than his dad ever was.

            You were fortunate enough to not have parents that traumatized you for life. You were also fortunate enough that neither of your parents had hidden important facts from you that changed how you viewed the world and sent you reeling into an identity crisis. It was easy to forget sometimes that Neal was not so fortunate, and it always made your heart hurt when you were reminded of it – especially when it manifested in his attitude towards your pregnancy.

            “Hey,” you said, calling for his attention, tugging on his sleeve. “You’ve been looking forward to the ultrasound for weeks. How come you’re upset now?”

            Neal halfheartedly fixed his tie on his business-casual shirt and sat down on the sofa. You kept standing, playing with the hem of your long sweater.

            “I mean,” you continued, trying to lighten the mood a little. It felt too serious and too sad for a day that was supposed to be so good. “I know I’m upset, but I had to buy an entire wardrobe to accommodate for the fact that there’s a person growing in my abdomen. You don’t seem to be having the same problem.”

            Neal looked up at you and chuckled dryly. “No,” he agreed smiling slightly. “I’m really not.” His smile, as temporary as it was, faded. “Just… why are we doing this?” He looked up at you, his eyes open and honest, and more insecure than you had ever seen. Only the knowledge that you had to let him speak kept you from swooping down and cuddling him until that look went away. He turned his eyes to his hands nervously. “No one would exactly say I’m parent material, and after my father-“

            You cut him off right there, understanding what he wouldn’t directly say. “Neal, your father was a bastard,” you flatly stated, sitting down beside him and taking his hand. You threaded your fingers together. “And if he tries to come anywhere near our kid, I’m going to take out a restraining order.”

            Neal nodded his fervent agreement, but he still seemed skeptical.

            “Look,” you tried, exhaling slowly. “You won’t do anything to hurt either of us. Whether you’re Neal or Nick or Victor – or Danny,” you added a little more softly, and saw him look at you very quickly. You averted your eyes. You didn’t talk about Danny Brooks any more than you absolutely had to, but this… this felt necessary. “I know that you’re going to do the best you can for your family. Your dad, he didn’t care about you any more than he could use you. You love me. I know you love this baby.” You brought your clasped hands up and kissed the back of his. “That’s the difference.”

  You have the craziest mood swings. It scares Peter.

            You can go from crying to laughing to feeling mean and snappy and then to feeling like the lowest person on earth, all in a small window of ten minutes, and it’s happened.

            It wasn’t a big deal, really. You were just having dinner with Neal, Peter, and Elizabeth when Peter mentioned their case. He said that it was being passed to Violent Crimes, and it made you suddenly realize that some of the suspects Neal got close to were mean and vicious and would kill to protect themselves from the law. And, just like that, you were scared, terrified that he might not come home.

            And you started sobbing over your shrimp scampi, leaning back and crying into your hands with abandon.

            El, bless her, seemed to understand instantly what the problem was. She stood up, motioned for Neal to come with her, and led you from the dinner table and into the living room, where she sat you down next to Neal on the couch and then took the loveseat for herself. El promised you that everything was fine, and Neal showed you he was safe and talked to you about all the precautions they took to make sure he wasn’t hurt, and he hugged you tight while El made a joke about how no one would dare take Neal away from you, because hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman who has to make an unplanned trip to the hospital for anything other than her water breaking.

            So you started giggling, because suddenly that was the funnies thing you’d heard in the entire month.

            Peter came back in. You could see he was relieved that you’d stopped crying, and for about thirty seconds, you had fully planned to apologize for ruining dinner and for worrying him, but then he made a near-fatal mistake.

            “We’re okay now?” He checked, holding his hands up in surrender. “I can never tell. Sometimes it’s a minefield with girls.”

            The laughter gave way to anger as you glared at Peter, seriously contemplating taking his own gun and shooting him with it. How dare he stereotype you? How dare he act like your emotions were unreasonable? You’d like to see him nourish and grow a baby in his nonexistent uterus and see how he handled it!

            “Peter!” El and Neal synchronously exclaimed, Neal shocked and Elizabeth agitated.

            Peter was taken into the kitchen, scolded by his wife, and sent to walk the dog. You could overhear them, though, and heard that he was trying to explain he only meant that he was uncomfortable when women cried. He didn’t know what to do to help, because often his attempts at comforting only made things worse.

            So you felt completely terrible for going off on him.

            That dinner was kind of a failure, but it ended with Neal stroking your hair and reminding you that he loved you, and swearing up and down that you were not a bad person for being mad at Peter, so all things considered, it could’ve gone a lot worse.

            Neal would just be so excited. It would be completely adorable.

            Neal took all of the parenting classes twice as seriously as you did. You understood the basics and you knew that you could learn, with each other’s help, as you needed to. You clearly had to be educated and prepared, but you didn’t see the point in stressing about everything when you still had a few months to go. Stress was bad for the baby. You got a real kick out of Neal trying to convince you to practice Lamaze, and, unbeknownst to him, so did El, who saw the entire secret recording.

            One of your favorite parts of being pregnant was undoubtedly right before you went to sleep every night. Neal made a point to go to bed with you, even if you both knew he would have to get up after you were unconscious to finish what he was working on. He would make sure you were comfortable and then curl in around you protectively, kissing your forehead. You would talk casually for a few minutes about whatever you wanted, and the whole time, he would be moving his hand in circles over your tummy, waiting to feel for the little kicks. At some point, he would talk directly at your child and kiss your swollen stomach until you giggled and started playfully complaining. Almost every night, he would sing to you both, because he was thrilled by the idea of his baby recognizing his voice.

            You had no doubts that Neal was going to be an excellent father, and you were happy to be able to give him the family that he’d had in the back of his mind for so many years. Mostly, you couldn’t wait until your little ventures into the nursery to watch him paint the murals would turn into quiet visitations to your little one, where you might see Neal kneeling by the crib and reading, or cradling your child in his arms and walking around the room.

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