Brooklyn, Burke residence. Tuesday morning. June 29, 2004.

At breakfast Peter and Elizabeth were practically tiptoeing around each other, trying to keep the peace after a difficult evening. El had been dismayed at the news that Peter might be called off of White Collar cases temporarily to work anti-terrorism. Peter almost wished he hadn't told her, but thought having time to prepare would be best. He also suggested that she might want to make plans to visit her sister or parents. That hadn't gone over well. Leaving the city could kill her new business before it even got off the ground. They'd settled their differences before going to bed, each admitting that they had overreacted out of their fears for the other. Now they were cautious, not wanting to touch off another argument.

When Peter's phone rang, there was a moment when their eyes met, wondering if it was the FBI calling to announce an emergency. El, who had been showing Peter her ideas for the Burke Premiere Events website, clicked a link to a New York City news site, to see if anything was being reported.

Peter drew a breath of relief when he pulled out his phone and saw the name of the caller. "It's Joe," he said, before answering the call.

"I need information about Robert Winslow," Joe told him. "Last night I had dinner with Noelle, and she asked me about my ex-wife. I filled in some details, but when I turned the question around, she was reluctant to tell me about her ex. Before I meet her parents I'd like to know something about him, to make sure I don't come across as being a lot like him. What can you tell me?"

"Some of it's restricted information, but I can give you a basic overview. What do you know so far?" Peter looked at El, who seemed absorbed in what she was reading online. He reached for the sugar to sweeten his oatmeal. Without even looking up, El moved the sugar bowl out of reach.

"She said Robert swept her off her feet when she was a summer intern at Winston-Winslow. His relationship with his son eventually turned rocky, and when she realized that both her marriage and her son were a means toward an end of furthering Robert's career, she filed for divorce. She said Robert recently took unethical and illegal steps to impress the Win-Win board, and he's no longer with the company."

"That's putting it mildly. When Robert realized that Win-Win had decided to bypass him and instead groom his son to be the next CEO, he became obsessed with proving he was the better candidate for the job. Among other things, Robert used blackmail in an attempt to beat the FBI on the trail of Vincent Adler. When we realized what he was doing, he tried to kill Neal and made it look like Henry was behind the attempt."

"Henry. As in Noelle's son."

"Yeah, that's right. Robert's been on the run since March, with Win-Win and the FBI collaborating to catch him. Henry was ordered to stay away from the case. The fact is, he probably is the best person to find his father, and I'd be tempted to let him take the lead on that part of the investigation, but he's too volatile."

"What if you had his cousin Neal partner with him, to keep him in check?"

"I've got two reasons I can't do that. First is that Neal's a consultant, not an agent. As such, I'm not supposed to send him into extremely dangerous situations. The second is that Neal and Henry together are twice as likely to get into trouble. Kind of like Rosalind and Viola," he explained. As he spoke, he walked into the kitchen for a refill on his coffee. Joe's daughters were a little younger than Henry and Neal; the youngest had just finished her first year of college.

"I have to warn you, if Henry and Neal are really like my girls, you aren't going to keep Neal from jumping into Henry's trouble."

"Yeah, that's becoming obvious." Peter glanced out the kitchen window. It was the kind of blue-sky day that made you think any challenge could be overcome by a positive attitude, but his own internal landscape was overcast. He wondered if Joe's experiences with raising two bright, headstrong children could shed some light on Neal's recent behavior. "Speaking of Neal, maybe you can help me."

"Always glad to let you take advantage of my superior experience," Joe offered.

"Let's call it more experience rather than superior. Anyway, over the last few months, I've slowly gained Neal's trust. At least, I thought I had. A retired agent we worked with earlier this year even said Neal had a case of hero-worship toward me. It seemed like the kid was really opening up to me, willing to talk about nearly anything. And then all of a sudden he's started shutting me out. The weird thing is, sometimes he still seems willing to talk, even seems grateful to be able to get things off his chest, but other times it's almost like he's a stranger. Did your girls put you through anything like that?"

"Sounds like Viola. With Rosalind, after she got her driver's license and didn't need me to drive her around anymore, I realized we'd drifted apart. Not intentionally, but because she got so busy with all her high school activities that we barely had time to talk. Well, I decided to arrange more family time, and that helped me keep the lines of communication open with Rosalind. But a year later Viola didn't just drift away. She actively started avoiding me. I noticed the same thing you're describing. Sometimes she couldn't get away from me fast enough, and other times it was like she craved my attention."

"What was going on?" Peter asked.

"Turns out some of her friends told her hanging out with her dad wasn't cool and then she resented the family time I was trying to enforce. She thought it meant I was treating her like a child. It wasn't that she disliked me, but that she wanted to be treated like an adult. At least, she thought she did. But when it was just the two of us, without any chance of her friends catching her having fun, she still liked our old family traditions."

"Sounds complicated."

"Was it ever. We had to reach an understanding, where I agreed to consult her on what we'd do with family time instead of imposing a plan on her, but she agreed to be her own person and tell me what she wanted to do with family time, rather than what she thought her friends would approve of."

Peter wondered if Neal was experiencing some kind of peer pressure in the office. That could explain why he seemed normal when it was only the two of them on the phone, but acted distant when there were witnesses. "Thanks. I think you've pointed me in the right direction."

"Any time. That's what your big brother is for."

They ended the call, and Peter continued leaning against the kitchen cabinet, sipping his coffee. It was thanks to his relationship with Joe that Peter understood the bond between Henry and Neal. They were always going to be there for each other. Trying to tell Neal to stay away from the case was like telling him to pick between his brother and the job that tied him to his father figure. He was going to try to find a way to keep both as long as he could, and that had to be stressful. Maybe Peter could let Neal have a role in helping Henry in a way that the Bureau would still approve.

Back in the dining room, El was glued to her computer. This time she didn't notice when Peter added sugar to the oatmeal. He looked over her shoulder. "I didn't know you were a fan of urban legends."

"I'm not," she said. "Urban Legend is the name of a band. When I checked my email I had a note from my old college roommate telling me about them, and I've been reading the comments in some of the music forums and on the group's site. It's fascinating." She closed her laptop. "It's tempting to follow the links to hear them sing, but if I do that I'll never get my own work done. I need to leave in a few minutes to meet with a potential client." She stood up, kissed Peter and said, "Love you, hon."

He repeated the endearment and then cleared the table before heading to the Bureau. Unlike El, he wasn't fascinated by music and musicians, but her comments triggered a memory that he pondered on his drive to work. He remembered a moment at the cabin when El asked Henry about a song he'd sung, and Neal had looked distinctly uncomfortable. He'd meant to look it up, but then got distracted with other things. What was the title? He thought back to what he'd heard Neal and Henry say. "Fix You." That's what Henry had called it. And Neal had said something about 2005. It was unlikely that a song would be a viable clue for finding Henry now, but it couldn't take long to look it up, right? Peter should keep his research skills sharp. What better way than to search for something in a field outside his area of expertise?

###

Neal arrived in the office minutes before the morning briefing, suppressing a yawn. His flight from Las Vegas had been bumpy, especially over the Rockies, and he hadn't gotten as much sleep on the plane as he'd hoped. He'd barely had time to shower and change clothes when he got home before it was time to go to work. He could have convinced Peter to let him come in late this morning, but was glad he hadn't thought of it. It might have seemed like he was asking for special treatment, which would feed the perception that he was the teacher's pet.

Armed with a cup of coffee to keep him awake, Neal sauntered into the conference room. He recalled Angela's story about where the name Shawn came from, and reached for his own inner superhero, someone who could stay awake during the most boring meetings, remain calm when his best friend was endangering himself, and smile when he worried that the people in the meeting room were judging him and finding him undeserving of the breaks he'd gotten.

After the briefing, Peter asked Jones and Neal to stay in the conference room to discuss the Winslow case. He started with passing along praise from Agent Yoshida in Seattle, who had been impressed with Neal's work. Neal wanted to grin widely at the unexpected assurance that he wasn't simply getting by on favoritism, but instead gave Peter an enigmatic smile.

Oddly, Peter frowned in response. He'd been standing at the front of the room as he led the discussion, but now he took the seat beside Neal. He studied Neal carefully a moment and then asked, "How much of the last couple of days did you spend impersonating your cousin?"

Neal shrugged in unconcern. "Most of the time I wasn't in my hotel room. Why?"

"Because you're still doing it, right down to his expressions and posture. I almost called you Henry a moment ago. I need you to let go of him and be Neal Caffrey, FBI consultant."

Reluctantly, Neal let go of the protective barrier he'd put up.

Peter nodded in approval. "That's better. Now go home."

Neal sat up straight. "What?"

"You worked through the weekend. Standard procedure is to give you comp time. Especially as you couldn't have gotten more than a couple hours' sleep last night. Get some rest, and come back here ready to assist Jones with the Winslow case tomorrow."

"Seriously? What happened to not being allowed on cases where family is involved?"

"We've made more progress in a few days with your help than we've made in the last few weeks. I can't send you into the field on this one, not with the danger Robert poses to you, but I'd be a fool to ignore what you can contribute. Jones and I will decide how best to involve you. Unless you have something to contribute that you didn't mention in your check ins, get out of here."

"Standard procedure?" Neal repeated, wanting to be certain he wasn't getting special treatment.

"That's right," Jones confirmed. "Honestly, it was a shock to see you here this morning."

"I should have told you not to come in today," Peter added.

Neal nodded and headed out to catch a taxi. He realized he should start taking the subway more, to save money for his tuition, but that thought didn't occur to him until after he got in the cab. The late hours and the energy he put into his Shawn Legend performance last night were getting to him, and he was grateful to be sent home. Tomorrow he'd be on top of his game again.

###

"Why didn't you tell him not to come in today?" Jones asked Peter after Neal left. "I saw his flight schedule. He couldn't have done much more than drop off his luggage before he came here."

Peter gathered his notes from the briefing. "I considered it, but I know what would have happened. He would have used the extra day to keep looking for Henry, and still returned to the office with too little sleep. This way he came back to New York and didn't make any plans for the day because he expected to be working. Because he's tired he probably won't feel like making plans now, and therefore will actually go home and rest."

Jones shook his head in admiration. "You conned Caffrey."

"It helped that he was tired and on some level wanted what I was suggesting. And it wasn't exactly a high-stakes con. He's young and resilient enough to pull an all-nighter and still work the next day." In fact, Peter expected that would happen occasionally when Neal started grad school. "But I don't want to put my people through that needlessly."

"Glad to hear it," said Jones. He started to rise, but glanced at Peter and returned to his chair. "Is there something else?"

"Has anyone been giving Neal a hard time? Maybe insinuating that he's getting special treatment?"

"No, I haven't noticed..." Jones trailed off.

"What?"

"Travis said something, the day after the party at your house."

"Travis?" Peter was surprised. He remembered interviewing their electronics expert when he joined the team. When Peter asked what he hoped to accomplish in the FBI, Travis had mentioned a desire to help people who were victims of crime, something close to his heart because he had been bullied as a kid and identified with victims. He wouldn't have expected Travis to say something to make Neal defensive.

"He mentioned something he'd overheard, asked if he should tell you about it. I said I'd keep an eye out, see if it went anywhere. I didn't think there was a problem. Did I miss something?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. What did he hear?" Peter glanced down at the bullpen. Travis had an assignment in the van this afternoon, but should still be around. Seeing him in the break room, Peter went to the glass half wall and gave him the double finger point.

Travis jogged up the stairs with a granola bar in his hand, and took a seat in the conference room. "Hey, I heard back from IT. They looked into the glitch with our email server, and they think someone was trying to hack us." He started talking about firewalls and proxies until Peter held up a hand to stop him.

"Do they think this could be related to the meetings Hughes is attending about the unrest in Eastern Europe?" Peter asked.

"They can't rule it out, but that doesn't explain why the glitch was specific to our division. Why White Collar? None of the crimes we're investigating now have ties to that part of the world."

Jones looked thoughtful. "Maybe they were trying to hit all the divisions, and they encountered a roadblock after attacking us? Or maybe we were a test before they hit a bigger target?"

"I'm sure our IT department is looking into all of that," Peter said. And seeing the look of disappointment on Travis' face he added, "But if you have time this morning you can follow up with them to be sure. I brought you up here because Jones mentioned something you'd overheard at my house two weeks ago. Tell me exactly what you heard."

Travis nodded, looking grave. He leaned back, elbows on the arms of his chair, hands steepled in front of his face. His index fingers tapped his lips a couple of times as he thought. "I need to preface this by saying that I have a certain, shall we say, sensitivity to this subject. I might be inclined to cry wolf."

"Understood," Peter said.

"I was head and shoulders into your media cabinet that evening, rewiring the audio feed. I didn't see who was talking, and their voices were muffled by the cabinetry. I didn't hear every word and I can't tell you who they were. For all I know, one of them was a significant other and not an agent."

"But you heard something," Peter said. "Something that made you ask Jones for a second opinion."

"Yeah, I knew it wasn't Jones I'd heard, because he hadn't arrived yet." Travis took a deep breath. "At first I wasn't paying much attention to the conversations around me. I can get lost in my own world when it comes to electronics, and your sound system was fascinating. I had just figured out how to rewire it, when your dog stepped on me."

Peter winced in sympathy. Satchmo had grown to full size for a Labrador, but still thought he was a puppy. "We're taking him to obedience training, but he still gets excited in crowds of people."

Travis grinned. "We always had dogs when I was growing up. Getting stepped on was an everyday occurrence. Anyway, he brought me back to awareness of the world outside the media cabinet, and I heard someone saying, 'Neal looks right at home,' and someone else saying something that included 'teacher's pet' and then the first person saying, 'He doesn't know,' and the other person saying, 'No way,' and then... I can't even tell you which one said this, '... be a reckoning if he gets the best reviews at midyear.' And then they drifted away." He paused. "I was extricating myself from the cabinet to see if I could figure out who they were, and I was almost out when someone else said, 'That isn't good.' That voice I recognized. It was Hughes. It sounded like he'd heard, and my first thought was that if he was aware of it then I didn't have to worry. But I couldn't be sure. Maybe he hadn't heard them and he was commenting on something else. That's why I ran it by Jones, to get the reaction of someone without my biases." He spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. "I thought if we were both on the watch, we could step in if needed. But if I heard them correctly, there won't be an issue until midyear appraisals are done."

Peter couldn't help objecting, "But appraisals are private. No one is supposed to know the ratings of their team members." But even as he said it, he recognized the reality didn't match that ideal. Agents were inquisitive and observant by nature. You knew when your peers were being reviewed and could usually tell by their faces when they returned to their desks if the review had been good or bad. Managers were supposed to keep the lists of ratings hidden, but how many times had he walked into a manager's office to see him or her hastily covering up a document that was restricted? Over the years he'd gotten glimpses of ratings, bonuses and salary data for his peers and endeavored to ignore what he'd seen.

Travis watched as those thoughts played over Peter's face and then said, "It's hard to keep secrets around here. And maybe there's nothing to worry about. For all I know, they were simply speculating that someone else might be upset if Neal gets a great rating, and they weren't threatening to make trouble for him themselves."

Peter thanked Travis for his insights, and then sent both Travis and Jones back to their desks. He remained seated at the conference table, troubled at the war within himself. He wouldn't give Neal or anyone else a higher rating than they deserved simply because he liked them, would he? And he didn't want to believe he'd back down and give someone a rating lower than they deserved to keep the peace in the office. This summer would be his first round of giving appraisals since his promotion to the team lead, and he hadn't considered that he would be at all biased. Ratings were supposed to be objective, based on measurable goals. But in truth there was a lot of subjectivity in the final ratings, and a lot depended on behaviors that couldn't be easily measured. How could he convince his team that he was fair in his reviews of them?

"Sorry." Travis popped back in and grabbed the granola bar he'd left on the table.

"Wait," Peter said before the agent could leave. "I have to ask: have you witnessed anything you'd characterize as bullying in White Collar?"

Travis shook his head. "Not since Hitchum was fired. Before then a few people followed his lead, but they've been quiet since he left. Like I said, there might not be anything to what I heard. But I know how much I wish someone had spoken up about what the bullies were planning when I was in high school, and that's why I told Jones about it." He took a step toward the door and then stopped. "You know, there's another interpretation to what I heard. The reckoning they mentioned might not be against Neal; it might target you." Then he slipped out again.

Peter let that sink in. Of course. If Neal thought a friend was in trouble, he'd go to extreme measures to help. He was doing that for Henry, and very possibly he thought he had to sacrifice his relationship with his father figure if that relationship threatened Peter or his career. At last Neal's recent behavior was making sense. Now he had to figure out how this threat had come to Neal's attention, and how to deal with it.

His next step would be to talk to Hughes, he decided, and to ask what he'd heard at the party. Unfortunately Hughes had stayed in D.C. for more meetings. It might be another day or two before they could have this conversation.

A/N: Travis appears in The Queen's Jewels by Silbrith, and he describes his experiences with being bullied in that story.