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It is always going to end.
From the first click of the handcuffs behind his back to the last beep of the anklet turning green from red. They each know the score, and they both know how it goes.
This is what Peter Burke never saw coming when he’s handed both the lock and key.
This is what Peter Burke never saw coming when Elizabeth tells him, it’s a boy, and a year later, it would be Neal instead.
(The day he lands in Paris, he can still see the rim of Neal Caffrey’s trilby from the corner of his eye. He brings him back to the start with the taste of Bourdeaux hitting his tongue, and for all the signs that points him here, Peter Burke is not about to give himself false hope for what might be Neal’s final trick up his—
“What did I say about keeping me in the loop?”
Peter has the Queen of Hearts tucked against his breast pocket, and the Caffrey Box still left opened in the living room of his home in New York. Even if Neal leaves him a cargo container full of everything he’s asked of him, for all the years he knew exactly where he was, the pair’s got plenty to explain.
And turning around, that’s not Neal’s ghost giving him that signature Caffrey grin from the steps of the Louvre.
That’s Neal Caffrey in his finest suit. There's also Moz dressed as a janitor.
"We've been wondering when your plane was landing, Peter."
For all of Neal’s con, this one might just be his greatest yet.)
It is always going to end but who's to say it has to end here?
Peter Burke comes home to his baby boy at 6 o'clock, kisses his wife sipping another bottle with a great year, and rubs a hand in Satchmo's fur.
Who follows him inside is a mystery, one he puts together in Paris and brings home from the dead.
XXX Kuro