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asimaiyatTitle: "I've Been Careless"
Fandom: White Collar
Characters and Pairings: Elizabeth, Kate, Peter, discussion of Neal/Kate and Elizabeth/Peter, possibly pre-OT4 if you like.
Rating: PG for crime talk
Summary: Kate comes to Elizabeth with her concerns about Neal's new life.
Spoilers: Through the very end of 1x07.
Disclaimer: You know the worst thing about fanfiction? You can't take credit for your work. ;)
A/N: I regret to inform you that this fic fails the Bechdel test like it's the Kobayashi Maru. I sort of think these characters deserve one that doesn't, so maybe someday soon I will write that one, too.
Title and inspiration from the song "Criminal" by Fiona Apple.
One extra tug to get the wings at the right angle, and Elizabeth decided that the paper swan was finished, and used two fingers to pick it up and place it with the little flock of fourteen other finished ones. That made fifteen down... only four hundred and eighty-five to go. Great. She had just picked up another little square of white satin-finish paper when the phone rang.
"Hello, Elizabeth Burke speaking."
"Elizabeth? It's Kate Perdue." The voice -- cool, young, very Manhattan -- wasn't familiar, but the name was.
"Kate Perdue... Neal's Kate?"
A breathy sigh crackled over the line. "I'm not 'Neal's Kate.' But yeah, the one you're thinking of."
"How did you get this number?"
"Peter gave it to me. I went to talk to him about Neal and what I'm supposed to do about him, and he said I should talk to you."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes a little, and made a mental note to ask Peter to remind her of when and how they'd decided to start running a halfway house for semi-reformed criminals. "So you're calling for relationship advice?"
"Kinda, yeah. I was wondering if we could get lunch or something."
"Okay... just out of curiosity, can you do origami?"
"Uh, yeah? I was the one who taught Neal to do it."
"Wait, Neal can do origami? Who's better, you or him?"
"That'd be me. Why...?"
"Right answer! Meet me at the house as soon as you can get here. I won't insult your intelligence by giving you the address."
"Ha, well played. I'll let myself in, then." Click.
****
Kate helped herself to a cup of the apricot white tea that was on the stove, and leaned against the counter for a minute, breathing in steam from her cup. She didn't look like someone who'd arrived on twenty minutes' notice -- her hair was pulled back in a neat twist, and she was wearing stiletto boots under her grey flannel slacks that made her legs look a mile long. It was easy to picture her and Neal as a couple of matching bookends. Once she finished contemplating the cup of tea, she sat down at the kitchen table with Elizabeth and the swans, which now numbered about thirty-three. She took a few sheets of paper off the top of the stack, and made a crisp fold down the center of one.
"I thought you ran your own wedding planning company. Don't you have assistants who can do this for you?"
Elizabeth knitted her brows together. "Why do you people always know things about everybody? It's kind of off-putting, to be honest."
"Sorry."
"Anyway, I don't have that many employees, and this is a massive wedding. We're all swamped. Plus my best decorating assistant has the flu."
"Bummer. At least I can help?"
"I appreciate it, I really do. I hope you know that if you'd said Neal was better, I'd have hung up and called him. And if the two of you were on speaking terms, this would be a lot easier."
"Yeah, about that." Kate's face stayed impassive as she made another swan and set it with her quickly-growing finished pile. "This tea is really good."
Elizabeth smirked. "About that?"
"Yeah." Another long pause, in which Kate absently put down the swan and raised one hand to her mouth, running a finger over her lower lip. "Can I smoke?"
"I'd really prefer if you didn't."
"Okay. Elizabeth. You ever break up with someone and it... didn't stick?" She gave a wry shrug and picked up where she started, folding faster than before.
Elizabeth let herself chuckle at that. "I broke up with Peter once. When we were dating."
"What happened?"
"Oh, it was just some stupid fight. We were watching the news and got into an argument over... was it Elian Gonzalez? No, that was later. This one was the whole thing with the cult in Waco. Which, of course, eventually got into another round of me versus Peter's career... and he said some stupid thing, I can't even remember what it was, and I told him to get out, and he got out." She frowned. "It sort of made me feel like I'd kicked a puppy."
"I know that feeling. So what, did he show up on your lawn with a boombox?"
Elizabeth had to put down her tea to burst out laughing. "No, oh my God, I would have changed my name and fled the country. He just wrote me a letter. It was very sweet. I still have it, actually."
"I wouldn't have pegged him as the letter-writing type."
"He's not, and it showed. It was... very, very awkward. But sweet. And weirdly genuine. So I took pity on him, and it all worked out in the end. For the most part."
Kate looked almost wistful at that. "I'd take pity in a second, I really would.'
"But you don't have a choice."
"Exactly. Damn it, why is it so hard to be a heartless bitch the one time it's the right thing to do?" Fold, fold, fold -- Kate set into the next sheet of paper so intently that Elizabeth was surprised she didn't tear it. It was startling how different it was from watching Neal work -- she'd seen him frustrated and emotional, but he'd never shown even a flicker of this kind of aggression. It was weirdly difficult to imagine him ever breaking something. Whereas Kate looked about half a second away from just crushing the paper in her hands.
"You know I have no idea what's going on with you, right?"
Kate looked up in surprise. "Peter hasn't been telling you? I sort of figured we were your new soap opera."
"I haven't let him. I hate lying, and I don't want to have to try and hide things from Neal." She gestured around her eyes. "No poker face."
Kate grinned. "Oh, I bet you're better than you think." She got up to refill her tea, one high-heeled foot tapping while she waited for it to steep. "You want me to just start at the beginning?"
"Sounds good. And sweetie, you might as well have that cigarette. You're making me nervous, and I'm the one who's apparently entertaining the entire population of Greenwich tomorrow."
Some of Kate's nervous energy seemed to dissipate at that, as she took out a red leather cigarette case and a silver lighter. Her movements seemed more confident as she took out a cigarette and lit it. "Well. I was going to wait for him, I really was. But then my friend Marcel got in touch with me about this amazing job in Europe, because he needed a partner and, well, it was kind of perfect for me. It would have been bigtime. Except I knew that if I so much as hinted to Neal that there might be something going on, he'd dry up every resource he had trying to track down every possible clue I'd given him, even if I just said I was going on vacation. You know how he is."
"Oh, Kate, I think we have tragically similar taste in men."
"We really do. And of course, he'd get himself in trouble, because he just can't resist. So I thought it would be easier to make a clean break and get back in touch after, you know, kicking ass and getting rich -- because he'd be right where I left him, right? I didn't think he was going to escape from prison. Who does that?"
"Sneaky people in love, I guess."
A cloud of wispy smoke hid Kate's face for a minute. When she re-appeared, she was smiling wryly. "Sneaky people in love. Yeah. Anyway, that was when your man got involved. He grabbed me at the airport and told me I wasn't going anywhere. I told him that was news to me, and he flashed his badge at me and told me that it was about Neal. What was I supposed to do? Of course I tried the 'this is a mistake, I don't know any Neal,' but that never works. So he won. I texted Marcel in the car to let him know, and well -- I lost the job, my cover, the plane ticket, the payoff, any chance of going to Marcel again, plus the stuff I'd already gotten rid of in my disappearing act --"
"Hence Kate Perdue?" Elizabeth pushed the French pronunciation, rasping the r.
"Oui, j'ai tout perdu. It was supposed to be a warning. I should have known better."
"Boys like ours don't do well with warnings."
"They really don't. The sad thing is, I really miss him. More than I expected to. I don't usually miss people."
"But you can't see him, can you?" Elizabeth had had an idea of what was going on for a long time, now. "Or you can only see him enough to keep him holding on. To remind him that you're just out of reach... and you're good at it, aren't you?"
"I'm the best." She shrugged and stubbed out the cigarette on a saucer, returning to the table. "But it's different. Obviously. And the irony is that I see Peter's pee-oh-vee more and more. Sure, Neal misses me too, but he's happier than he was. He needs some structure in his life, and I never saw that. We were always having too much fun, I guess."
"I see what you mean; he really does seem happy. But what about you? It sounds like you're kind of... in limbo. Can't be much fun."
"Kind of. In the sense that I haven't actually been charged with anything, but I could be at any moment. But eh. I'm stuck, but I'm stuck in Manhattan, so it could be worse. And he doesn't care what I do as long as it's nothing Neal will hear about. Plus, there's a decent payoff in it for me. I figure Peter'll cut me loose when he thinks it's safe, and then I'll slip away and go back to my old tricks."
Elizabeth finished the swan she was working on and did a quick headcount. They had about a hundred-twenty-five by now. "It just seems like such a waste."
"What do you mean?"
"You two both miss each other. You want the best for each other. And you're right here, just a couple of miles apart! I don't think all the progress we've -- I mean, all the progress Neal's made would be screwed up just because you came back into his life. I don't think you'd be bad for him."
"I'm not so sure." Kate looked down intently on her work as she spoke. "Let's be clear: I'm not a good girl. And I don't really want to be. I don't want to straighten out and fly right, you know?"
"Mmm," Elizabeth responded, staying neutral for the moment. Of course she didn't know what that was like, but she could certainly imagine it.
"I mean, I never wanted the nice house and the husband and the dog -- no offense, of course --" She held up a hand as if to hold off objections.
"Oh, none taken."
"I just -- you know, my Neal was the guy who thought laws were for other people. He thought getting chased around by the FBI was the funniest damn thing. It's hard to get used to the idea of him being all proud of his shiny badge that he didn't even make himself."
"But you're happy for him."
"Yeah. If this is what makes him happy, I don't want to stand in the way. I just... I don't quite see where I fit in." She turned the swan back and forth between her fingertips, taking just a minute too long to make sure it was perfect. "So Peter's right. It's best for me to hang back a little."
"Hmm." Elizabeth bit her lip and pictured the four of them, in their various eccentric orbits, and wondered if any of them were sure where they fit in right now. She certainly hadn't been, since the night she'd come downstairs in the middle of the night and found Peter at his desk, researching GPS trackers. "Are you sure you aren't underestimating Neal?"
"I might be. People tend to. What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe if you came back to him, he'd throw it all away and go back to a life that didn't really satisfy him. Maybe he'd want to run away with you to somewhere glamorous that doesn't extradite, and end up on the run again and probably back in jail. But... I don't really know him that well, but he just seems smarter than that."
"I don't know. He's done dumber things before. He escaped from prison! With three months left, after just sitting there for --- sorry, I'm not over that one quite yet."
"You're right." Elizabeth got up and crossed the kitchen to get herself another cup of tea. She cast an appraising look at the table, where Kate sat cross-legged and upright, fingers working intently, and the flock of swans was still growing at a workable rate. "I just think there's got to be some kind of a compromise. You can be in someone's life without taking over their life. And you know, a person can take over another person's life, or their inner life, or whatever you call it, for a little while, and it doesn't always mean it's permanent. It gets less intense over time, you learn to manage it. If every couple were as over-the-moon loopy over each other as they are on their wedding day... I'm not sure civilization would survive."
"I can almost see your point. Except for the part where I can be brought up on various federal charges if I, you know, wave at him without a direct order."
Elizabeth sort of chuckled and sighed at the same time. "There is that. But Peter's hardly made of granite and law, you know. Appeals to emotion confuse and sort of terrify him. I assume you can cry on command."
"Since I was six years old."
"Well, if you decide you want to change the arrangement, that's probably all you'll have to do. He'll get flustered and end up asking me about it, and I'll do my best to set him straight. It might take some arguments, but nothing the two -- wait, three -- nothing the four of us can't handle. Good grief, when did my life get so complicated?"
Kate smiled. "You'll get used to it.... wait, are we at two hundred already? That's fabulous!"
"I always have believed in teamwork."
"Me, not so much. I'm more comfortable working alone."
"You'll get used to it." She returned the smile and stretched out her stiff fingers, gazing lazily across the kitchen.
****
Lately Peter had started to experience a sinking feeling in his chest whenever his phone started buzzing unexpectedly, and the name "Nora" flashing on the screen (it was the lady's choice) didn't do much to ease his nerves.
"Burke here."
"Peter! Your wife is amazing."
"So I've been told, Kate. So I've been told."
Fandom: White Collar
Characters and Pairings: Elizabeth, Kate, Peter, discussion of Neal/Kate and Elizabeth/Peter, possibly pre-OT4 if you like.
Rating: PG for crime talk
Summary: Kate comes to Elizabeth with her concerns about Neal's new life.
Spoilers: Through the very end of 1x07.
Disclaimer: You know the worst thing about fanfiction? You can't take credit for your work. ;)
A/N: I regret to inform you that this fic fails the Bechdel test like it's the Kobayashi Maru. I sort of think these characters deserve one that doesn't, so maybe someday soon I will write that one, too.
Title and inspiration from the song "Criminal" by Fiona Apple.
One extra tug to get the wings at the right angle, and Elizabeth decided that the paper swan was finished, and used two fingers to pick it up and place it with the little flock of fourteen other finished ones. That made fifteen down... only four hundred and eighty-five to go. Great. She had just picked up another little square of white satin-finish paper when the phone rang.
"Hello, Elizabeth Burke speaking."
"Elizabeth? It's Kate Perdue." The voice -- cool, young, very Manhattan -- wasn't familiar, but the name was.
"Kate Perdue... Neal's Kate?"
A breathy sigh crackled over the line. "I'm not 'Neal's Kate.' But yeah, the one you're thinking of."
"How did you get this number?"
"Peter gave it to me. I went to talk to him about Neal and what I'm supposed to do about him, and he said I should talk to you."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes a little, and made a mental note to ask Peter to remind her of when and how they'd decided to start running a halfway house for semi-reformed criminals. "So you're calling for relationship advice?"
"Kinda, yeah. I was wondering if we could get lunch or something."
"Okay... just out of curiosity, can you do origami?"
"Uh, yeah? I was the one who taught Neal to do it."
"Wait, Neal can do origami? Who's better, you or him?"
"That'd be me. Why...?"
"Right answer! Meet me at the house as soon as you can get here. I won't insult your intelligence by giving you the address."
"Ha, well played. I'll let myself in, then." Click.
****
Kate helped herself to a cup of the apricot white tea that was on the stove, and leaned against the counter for a minute, breathing in steam from her cup. She didn't look like someone who'd arrived on twenty minutes' notice -- her hair was pulled back in a neat twist, and she was wearing stiletto boots under her grey flannel slacks that made her legs look a mile long. It was easy to picture her and Neal as a couple of matching bookends. Once she finished contemplating the cup of tea, she sat down at the kitchen table with Elizabeth and the swans, which now numbered about thirty-three. She took a few sheets of paper off the top of the stack, and made a crisp fold down the center of one.
"I thought you ran your own wedding planning company. Don't you have assistants who can do this for you?"
Elizabeth knitted her brows together. "Why do you people always know things about everybody? It's kind of off-putting, to be honest."
"Sorry."
"Anyway, I don't have that many employees, and this is a massive wedding. We're all swamped. Plus my best decorating assistant has the flu."
"Bummer. At least I can help?"
"I appreciate it, I really do. I hope you know that if you'd said Neal was better, I'd have hung up and called him. And if the two of you were on speaking terms, this would be a lot easier."
"Yeah, about that." Kate's face stayed impassive as she made another swan and set it with her quickly-growing finished pile. "This tea is really good."
Elizabeth smirked. "About that?"
"Yeah." Another long pause, in which Kate absently put down the swan and raised one hand to her mouth, running a finger over her lower lip. "Can I smoke?"
"I'd really prefer if you didn't."
"Okay. Elizabeth. You ever break up with someone and it... didn't stick?" She gave a wry shrug and picked up where she started, folding faster than before.
Elizabeth let herself chuckle at that. "I broke up with Peter once. When we were dating."
"What happened?"
"Oh, it was just some stupid fight. We were watching the news and got into an argument over... was it Elian Gonzalez? No, that was later. This one was the whole thing with the cult in Waco. Which, of course, eventually got into another round of me versus Peter's career... and he said some stupid thing, I can't even remember what it was, and I told him to get out, and he got out." She frowned. "It sort of made me feel like I'd kicked a puppy."
"I know that feeling. So what, did he show up on your lawn with a boombox?"
Elizabeth had to put down her tea to burst out laughing. "No, oh my God, I would have changed my name and fled the country. He just wrote me a letter. It was very sweet. I still have it, actually."
"I wouldn't have pegged him as the letter-writing type."
"He's not, and it showed. It was... very, very awkward. But sweet. And weirdly genuine. So I took pity on him, and it all worked out in the end. For the most part."
Kate looked almost wistful at that. "I'd take pity in a second, I really would.'
"But you don't have a choice."
"Exactly. Damn it, why is it so hard to be a heartless bitch the one time it's the right thing to do?" Fold, fold, fold -- Kate set into the next sheet of paper so intently that Elizabeth was surprised she didn't tear it. It was startling how different it was from watching Neal work -- she'd seen him frustrated and emotional, but he'd never shown even a flicker of this kind of aggression. It was weirdly difficult to imagine him ever breaking something. Whereas Kate looked about half a second away from just crushing the paper in her hands.
"You know I have no idea what's going on with you, right?"
Kate looked up in surprise. "Peter hasn't been telling you? I sort of figured we were your new soap opera."
"I haven't let him. I hate lying, and I don't want to have to try and hide things from Neal." She gestured around her eyes. "No poker face."
Kate grinned. "Oh, I bet you're better than you think." She got up to refill her tea, one high-heeled foot tapping while she waited for it to steep. "You want me to just start at the beginning?"
"Sounds good. And sweetie, you might as well have that cigarette. You're making me nervous, and I'm the one who's apparently entertaining the entire population of Greenwich tomorrow."
Some of Kate's nervous energy seemed to dissipate at that, as she took out a red leather cigarette case and a silver lighter. Her movements seemed more confident as she took out a cigarette and lit it. "Well. I was going to wait for him, I really was. But then my friend Marcel got in touch with me about this amazing job in Europe, because he needed a partner and, well, it was kind of perfect for me. It would have been bigtime. Except I knew that if I so much as hinted to Neal that there might be something going on, he'd dry up every resource he had trying to track down every possible clue I'd given him, even if I just said I was going on vacation. You know how he is."
"Oh, Kate, I think we have tragically similar taste in men."
"We really do. And of course, he'd get himself in trouble, because he just can't resist. So I thought it would be easier to make a clean break and get back in touch after, you know, kicking ass and getting rich -- because he'd be right where I left him, right? I didn't think he was going to escape from prison. Who does that?"
"Sneaky people in love, I guess."
A cloud of wispy smoke hid Kate's face for a minute. When she re-appeared, she was smiling wryly. "Sneaky people in love. Yeah. Anyway, that was when your man got involved. He grabbed me at the airport and told me I wasn't going anywhere. I told him that was news to me, and he flashed his badge at me and told me that it was about Neal. What was I supposed to do? Of course I tried the 'this is a mistake, I don't know any Neal,' but that never works. So he won. I texted Marcel in the car to let him know, and well -- I lost the job, my cover, the plane ticket, the payoff, any chance of going to Marcel again, plus the stuff I'd already gotten rid of in my disappearing act --"
"Hence Kate Perdue?" Elizabeth pushed the French pronunciation, rasping the r.
"Oui, j'ai tout perdu. It was supposed to be a warning. I should have known better."
"Boys like ours don't do well with warnings."
"They really don't. The sad thing is, I really miss him. More than I expected to. I don't usually miss people."
"But you can't see him, can you?" Elizabeth had had an idea of what was going on for a long time, now. "Or you can only see him enough to keep him holding on. To remind him that you're just out of reach... and you're good at it, aren't you?"
"I'm the best." She shrugged and stubbed out the cigarette on a saucer, returning to the table. "But it's different. Obviously. And the irony is that I see Peter's pee-oh-vee more and more. Sure, Neal misses me too, but he's happier than he was. He needs some structure in his life, and I never saw that. We were always having too much fun, I guess."
"I see what you mean; he really does seem happy. But what about you? It sounds like you're kind of... in limbo. Can't be much fun."
"Kind of. In the sense that I haven't actually been charged with anything, but I could be at any moment. But eh. I'm stuck, but I'm stuck in Manhattan, so it could be worse. And he doesn't care what I do as long as it's nothing Neal will hear about. Plus, there's a decent payoff in it for me. I figure Peter'll cut me loose when he thinks it's safe, and then I'll slip away and go back to my old tricks."
Elizabeth finished the swan she was working on and did a quick headcount. They had about a hundred-twenty-five by now. "It just seems like such a waste."
"What do you mean?"
"You two both miss each other. You want the best for each other. And you're right here, just a couple of miles apart! I don't think all the progress we've -- I mean, all the progress Neal's made would be screwed up just because you came back into his life. I don't think you'd be bad for him."
"I'm not so sure." Kate looked down intently on her work as she spoke. "Let's be clear: I'm not a good girl. And I don't really want to be. I don't want to straighten out and fly right, you know?"
"Mmm," Elizabeth responded, staying neutral for the moment. Of course she didn't know what that was like, but she could certainly imagine it.
"I mean, I never wanted the nice house and the husband and the dog -- no offense, of course --" She held up a hand as if to hold off objections.
"Oh, none taken."
"I just -- you know, my Neal was the guy who thought laws were for other people. He thought getting chased around by the FBI was the funniest damn thing. It's hard to get used to the idea of him being all proud of his shiny badge that he didn't even make himself."
"But you're happy for him."
"Yeah. If this is what makes him happy, I don't want to stand in the way. I just... I don't quite see where I fit in." She turned the swan back and forth between her fingertips, taking just a minute too long to make sure it was perfect. "So Peter's right. It's best for me to hang back a little."
"Hmm." Elizabeth bit her lip and pictured the four of them, in their various eccentric orbits, and wondered if any of them were sure where they fit in right now. She certainly hadn't been, since the night she'd come downstairs in the middle of the night and found Peter at his desk, researching GPS trackers. "Are you sure you aren't underestimating Neal?"
"I might be. People tend to. What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe if you came back to him, he'd throw it all away and go back to a life that didn't really satisfy him. Maybe he'd want to run away with you to somewhere glamorous that doesn't extradite, and end up on the run again and probably back in jail. But... I don't really know him that well, but he just seems smarter than that."
"I don't know. He's done dumber things before. He escaped from prison! With three months left, after just sitting there for --- sorry, I'm not over that one quite yet."
"You're right." Elizabeth got up and crossed the kitchen to get herself another cup of tea. She cast an appraising look at the table, where Kate sat cross-legged and upright, fingers working intently, and the flock of swans was still growing at a workable rate. "I just think there's got to be some kind of a compromise. You can be in someone's life without taking over their life. And you know, a person can take over another person's life, or their inner life, or whatever you call it, for a little while, and it doesn't always mean it's permanent. It gets less intense over time, you learn to manage it. If every couple were as over-the-moon loopy over each other as they are on their wedding day... I'm not sure civilization would survive."
"I can almost see your point. Except for the part where I can be brought up on various federal charges if I, you know, wave at him without a direct order."
Elizabeth sort of chuckled and sighed at the same time. "There is that. But Peter's hardly made of granite and law, you know. Appeals to emotion confuse and sort of terrify him. I assume you can cry on command."
"Since I was six years old."
"Well, if you decide you want to change the arrangement, that's probably all you'll have to do. He'll get flustered and end up asking me about it, and I'll do my best to set him straight. It might take some arguments, but nothing the two -- wait, three -- nothing the four of us can't handle. Good grief, when did my life get so complicated?"
Kate smiled. "You'll get used to it.... wait, are we at two hundred already? That's fabulous!"
"I always have believed in teamwork."
"Me, not so much. I'm more comfortable working alone."
"You'll get used to it." She returned the smile and stretched out her stiff fingers, gazing lazily across the kitchen.
****
Lately Peter had started to experience a sinking feeling in his chest whenever his phone started buzzing unexpectedly, and the name "Nora" flashing on the screen (it was the lady's choice) didn't do much to ease his nerves.
"Burke here."
"Peter! Your wife is amazing."
"So I've been told, Kate. So I've been told."