Caffrey Aloha

Chapter 1

A/N: See the end of the chapter for a list of the Burke and Caffrey family members and how they are related to Peter and Neal.

Wednesday evening. December 15, 2004.

Neal Caffrey sat at his dining table, editing his paper for Professor Sherkov's graduate seminar on Dutch baroque painting. The semester ended on Friday, and there wasn't much time left to polish the paper.

He had to admit, he'd had doubts over the summer that he could handle attending Columbia while working for the FBI. Now he was about to wrap up his first semester with a brilliant analysis of Rembrandt's technique. All he needed was one night with no interruptions.

He was tweaking the wording of the paper's intro when he heard Mozzie's distinctive knock. Back to iambic pentameter again. Neal suppressed a sigh. "Come in."

Mozzie burst in, full of excitement about his upcoming trip. In the morning he'd leave for Hawaii, where he would be conspiring with his latest business partner. It sounded mostly legal, which had been a relief for Neal. Now he didn't have the quandary of whether his loyalties belonged to the FBI or to his friend.

At first it seemed Mozz had simply dropped in to say goodbye. Even though Neal planned to spend Christmas and New Year's in Hawaii, it was unlikely they'd run into each other in the next few weeks. Neal would spend his time on Oahu, and Mozzie's ventures would take him to a different island. But before Mozzie left he grew more serious and said, "It's been a year."

Now Neal really did sigh. He'd hoped Mozz would forget it was the anniversary of his first day working for the FBI. Mozzie hadn't been thrilled about that change in Neal's life last December, but had decided it was a chance to get inside the Bureau and learn how they worked. He'd fully expected Neal to become bored or disillusioned and leave before a year had passed.

"One year ago today you sold your soul to the suits."

"Yeah, I remember. Peter mentioned it in the morning briefing, although he phrased it somewhat differently," Neal said. "It's also the anniversary of him being promoted into his role of leader of the Manhattan White Collar division."

"No plans to leave?"

"No," Neal said, wanting to shut down this line of inquiry. "I'm good at my job, and I like it." He stood up to have more freedom to gesture as he made his point. "Soon I'm going on a vacation, Mozz. A real vacation. No need to come up with another alias. No fears that the local police might recognize me from a wanted poster. We're talking complete and total relaxation."

"You don't miss it at all? The excitement, the rush of the job? Joining a crew and learning new skills from them?"

"No, I don't," Neal insisted. "I get all the excitement I need from my cases at work, and I'm learning new things all the time at Columbia."

"But you're confined to New York with this job. You used to go to Europe on a whim, immerse yourself in the culture and languages. You can't tell me dinner in Little Italy is the same as a week in Rome."

"When I'm done with school I'll have time to travel again. My classes make up for it. Instead of immersing myself in Paris, I'm immersing myself in great art."

After Mozzie left, Neal struggled to concentrate on his paper. He had to admit he'd exaggerated a bit in his responses. His cases could be exciting, but between the times he went undercover, there were mortgage fraud cases which could set records for inducing boredom. And he did worry that his language skills were growing rusty. Sure, every few months a case came along that allowed him to speak another language, but in most instances it was only for a few minutes. That couldn't compare to the times he'd gone days without speaking a word of English.