Austin, TX. Saturday morning. June 26, 2004.

Neal rolled over when his phone beeped at him. His 6am check in was 5am in Texas, and he'd set the alarm for fifteen minutes ahead to wake himself up before talking to Peter. He couldn't believe he was resorting to instant coffee, but caffeine was imperative. He washed his face and brushed his teeth and stretched, all the while trying to convince himself that this time he would set the right tone with Peter.

He poured a cup of coffee and then called. "Remind me why I agreed to check in at this ungodly hour," Neal said when Peter answered. "There has to be..." He paused for a sip of coffee. "Oh. God." He dropped his phone on the table and ran to the miniscule kitchen sink to spit out the coffee. He dumped the contents of the mug, rinsed it, and filled it with water to wash away the taste.

When Neal picked up the phone again he heard Peter saying, "Neal? Neal! What's going on?"

"That was even worse than Bureau brew. Does instant coffee have an expiration date?" Desperate for something else to drink, he opened the tiny fridge and pulled out a can of cola. "I thought I didn't like coffee as a teenager, but I was clearly trying the dregs when Henry brought me here. Hold on." He popped open the soft drink and chugged half of it. Then he sat down. "Have we considered that Robert is actually a decent guy driven to desperate acts by truly terrible coffee?"

"I'll run that by the criminal profilers," Peter said. "What's your plan for today?"

"Finding decent coffee moved to the top of my list. Then I'm flying to Seattle, catching up with family and celebrating Angela's birthday. She's one of my candidates for who's helping Henry stay hidden, so I'll find time to chat with her."

"Are you talking to Noelle?"

Neal drank more of the soft drink and put his feet up on a table that functioned as coffee table, work space or nightstand, depending on the need. "Yeah, but she's as motivated as me to bring Henry back home. She'll tell me if she's learned anything about his plans or location."

"No, I mean talk. You know, a session. Therapy."

Right, it was Saturday. "That's the plan." There was a moment of awkward silence and then Neal said, "Tricia said I came off as, um, immature yesterday."

"I would have said stressed. And it has me concerned. I'm trusting you to act as an employee of the FBI on this trip, and not to get fed up with us and run. We can't help Henry if you go rogue and leave us out of the loop."

"Do you want to help him, Peter? Or do you just want to catch Robert?"

There was a sound of a refrigerator opening. "I like Henry. I don't condone what he's doing now, and the worry he's causing his family, but I still think he's basically a good person. The faster we can catch Robert, the better the chance that Henry comes out of this unscathed, and without a criminal record or doing anything he's going to regret for the rest of his life." Now there was a sound of juice being poured into a glass. "One more way he's a lot like you. I keep telling myself I've pulled you off the path that would send you to prison, but at times like this I worry you're going to do something impulsive that can't be undone."

Neal thought about Yvette and sighed before he could stop himself. Of course Peter would hear and have questions.

"Okay. That touched a chord. Should I be worried?"

Sitting in an apartment filled with memories of Henry, Neal had never felt more alone. "There's this girl," he said automatically, and then stopped. What was he thinking, letting the conversation veer into personal ground?

"What about her?" Peter asked.

"No. I'm sorry. This is a case check in. She isn't relevant to what we're supposed to discuss."

"Have you learned anything relevant to the case since your last check in?"

"No. All I did was paint and sleep."

"Then the check in is over. Now we're just talking. Friends. I'm closing the case file." There was a sound of a folder being closed and pushed across a table. "We're off the record." When Neal didn't say anything Peter added, "Would you rather talk to Noelle about it?"

"God, no," Neal said in horror. He did not talk to his aunt about his love life. But he had learned in therapy that talking through things that troubled you was healthy, even cathartic. He craved the opportunity to share his pain with someone who would understand.

"Then who?" Peter persisted. "You learned from therapy you need to talk about stuff and not keep it bottled up, right? If you can name someone else you can talk to about whatever's bothering you, I'll stop harping on this."

"Henry," said Neal. His cousin was the one person he could tell anything. There was stuff he had to keep from Noelle, even from Peter due to his position in the FBI. But he didn't have to keep secrets from Henry, and he hadn't realized how much he missed having his best friend available to confide in.

"But you can't talk to him. He's been out of touch for weeks."

"Yeah," Neal said, surprised at the effort it took to keep the stress out of his voice. Henry's disappearance really was getting to him.

"I'm not Henry, and I can't pretend to be, but I'm here for you. Can you tell me at least part of what's troubling you? What's the deal with this girl you mentioned?"

Would it hurt to talk to Peter about Yvette? The need to keep him at arm's length had added tension to every recent conversation, but Hughes had specifically said not to be overly familiar with Peter at work. With no witnesses from the Bureau, he wouldn't be endangering Peter's position by talking about a very personal pain. "She was the last person on my list to talk to here, and the last person I wanted to talk to. If I weren't so worried about Henry, I'd have skipped that conversation."

"I've been there," Peter said, surprising Neal.

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm. Before I met El, I dated another agent. It seemed practical at the time. You know, someone who understands the demands of the job. But after we split, I was going out of my way to avoid tasks or cases that required working with her."

Amazing. Maybe Peter really would get it. "This girl always had a crush on Henry. But she was too young when they first met, and even as she got older she wasn't his type. Then the last time I was here she gave up on him and chased me instead."

"It didn't go well?"

"I convinced myself she really could want me more than she wanted him. I was flattered into closing my eyes to the warning signs. When I realized she was still hung up on Henry, it was like being in one of those cartoons where the character is flattened by an anvil. Letting her catch me when she chased me definitely falls in the category of things that can't be undone, no matter how much I wish I could change things."

"Listen, Neal, there are plenty of girls out there who are going to prefer you to Henry."

"Yeah, but this is the one I needed to talk to. And our history made it weird yesterday when I had to ask if she'd heard from Henry."

"You said you were flattered by her interest. So tell me, did this anvil flatten your ego or your heart?"

Neal relaxed into the daybed as Peter responded. It was such a relief to be able to confide in his father figure again. "You're surprisingly perceptive about this."

"Baseball players, even in the minors, deal with groupies. You learn they're more interested in your role than in you as a person. Figuring that out is a blow to the ego, but if you're paying attention it becomes obvious before things get serious."

It was a good analogy. Henry, in his Shawn Legend identity, did attract groupies. And he'd learned to be flattered but not to take it too seriously. "Henry had that figured out. He has a lot of charisma, and he has experience with the effects. With... With this girl he realized she adored a persona, and not a person."

"Smart," said Peter. "That shows a lot of maturity, actually."

"For the most part, it was good. Him being smart, I mean. I learned a lot from him. But every once in a while I resented being in his shadow. I'm grateful for everything he did for me, but he always assumes he should be in charge and stopping him when he's made up his mind is about as easy as stopping a train going full speed."

Peter chuckled. "That's something he has in common with my brother. The ten-year age difference convinced Joe he was my superior in all things. By the time he went to college, he seemed more like an uncle than a brother. It's only since I finished college that we've interacted like equals. I remember a talk we had when he filed for divorce. As bad as I felt for him, I was happy that he recognized he could turn to me for support." There was a pause, and it sounded like Peter was drinking the juice he had poured. "When you were a teen, do you think Henry felt like he needed to be a dad for you?"

"No, he was in Peter Pan mode then. Parents were unnecessary and he wasn't going to grow up enough to act like one himself. But towards the end he saw that I was craving a father and thought Robert would be the answer."

"Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday. I still don't get it. How did he go from hiding from Robert to thinking his dad was what you needed?"

Neal looked up at the faux skylight as he remembered Henry's explanation after he'd thrown Robert and Neal together in Las Vegas. "Robert had a vision for what he wanted his son to be, and he came down hard when Henry deviated from what he expected. In the end Henry escaped rather than cave in, but on some level he missed having a dad. He thought that I came closer to Robert's ideal, and hoped Robert would see that and would praise Henry for bringing him the son he really wanted."

"Another instance of you being a substitute for Henry, but this time you were the superior model."

"That was the theory. But Robert had too many prejudices for Henry's plan to work. I'd been condemned as a criminal from the time I was a child, because Robert was a big believer in like father like son. He could never see past that."

"His loss," said Peter.

Neal smiled. He'd missed Peter's campaign to convince Neal of his worth. "Sometimes I thought Robert had already found his substitute son before I came on the scene."

"Did you meet this guy?" Peter asked. Suddenly he sounded all business.

"No. I can't prove he even existed. For all I know it was my ego convincing me I failed to impress him because someone else had already taken Henry's place. What stuck with me was a comment Robert made when it was just the two of us in his office. He said, 'I wanted a Ferrari when my son was born and I got a Beetle. I don't need you to pretend you're a Ferrari. I already got what I need.' I've disliked Ferraris ever since."

"You're sure about that? He said Ferrari?"

Neal sat up straight, intrigued at the excitement in Peter's voice. "Yeah. What's going on?"

"You think Henry has an accomplice in order to stay hidden. I think Robert does, too. We'd come across a couple of references to Ferrari in his files, and couldn't link that name to an actual person. Do you think he had an affair, maybe has another son?"

Neal ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe. Or it could be someone he mentored and felt a connection with. Kind of like the way you..." He couldn't say it. He couldn't compare Peter to Robert. Then he noticed the time on the microwave clock. He hadn't expected his conversation with Peter to go on this long. "I need to get ready for my flight. I'll be in the air at noon Eastern, but I'll call Tricia for the 6pm check in."