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white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen · 2 years

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Marbles

Summary: Ellen isn't the only person who knew Neal Caffrey before he became Neal Caffrey.

Word Count: 7,333

Requested by anonymous; photo credit is Jeff Eastin's Twitter

St. Louis, 1984

Kids at school called you Marbles because you always had a little bag of them with you. You knew even then that the nickname was supposed to be mean, but it had never gotten under your skin. You just laughed along, because, yeah, it was kinda weird that you carried marbles, but you played with them all the time and loved it. And before long, they were calling you Marbles because it stuck, not because they were laughing at you.

Marbles were just great fun. And in second grade, whenever you had extra time, your teacher would let you play with them and a classmate or two so long as your other work was already done. After a couple of weeks into the school year, you had a few people you would regularly play with. Danny was one of them. His bright blue eyes made him stand out from the boys at his table. He was cute, but at seven, you still preferred puppies to boys.

The first day he talked to you, you’d been bouncing some marbles on the carpeted floor to stay quiet, staring at them intently and trying to devise a new game in your head. Danny sat cross-legged and asked if he could play. Abandoning your half-baked game, you reached up to your desk and grabbed a piece of paper from your class folder, quickly drew the circles to represent a mancala board, and divided the marbles. Danny beat you on his first try. That was when you knew you liked him. You gave him a bag of your marbles so he could make new games, too.

From then on, you played together whenever you could, but scarcely stuck with one game for very long. You were both easily bored by the simple games that marbles allowed, so you fiddled with the rules, tampering with the game play to see what would happen. Sometimes you created entirely new games, sometimes incorporating other tools that were easy to carry in school or to the park, like a set of dice or an origami fortune teller.

By Christmas that same year, you’d started to exhaust your options and branched out into other ways of entertaining yourselves. Cards were good for quick games, and the randomness of a good shuffle kept games interesting for longer. Puzzles were great for you both, but they took too long to do at school and you could only play them when you had a playdate or sleepover. Eventually, you settled on codes and ciphers as your mutual favorite activity. You could create them when you were together and have secret communications, or you could create them separately and challenge each other to solve them. You liked to base yours on symbols and books. Danny liked incorporating math. By the end of the school year, you had a collection of codes of varying complexity.

St. Louis, 1986

After nearly two years of friendship, you and Danny snuck downstairs to his aunt Ellen’s TV to watch a new movie. It was called The Color of Money. With a shelf of adult movies in front of you, you were way more interested in the popular titles you recognized, like Ferris Bueller and Top Gun, but Danny convinced you to give Scorsese a try and you never regretted it. That movie introduced you two to the world of gambling. As cynical nine-year-olds, you weren’t really interested in the idea of gambling so much as the behavior of people who did it – and the methods behind milking out the most rewards for the least risks.

It took some needling and permission from your parents, but Ellen finally agreed to teach you both how to play poker. One Friday, she picked you both up from school, took you to the store to pick out a box of your favorite candies, and used the chocolates in place of money. With bowls of candy at stake, you learned what cards you wanted, when to fold, and how to count the multicolored plastic poker chips. Initially, Ellen hadn’t wanted to teach you to bluff on principle of not encouraging children to lie, but they had bluffed in all the movies, so you and Danny both tried it without her suggestion. She was exasperated, but amused by your complete failure. Danny had much better results, and when Ellen went to bed and left you to either play cards or watch a movie, he told you that when you lied, you always lifted your chin, like you were daring someone to call you on it.

You both had detention the next week for trying to use poker to win your classmates’ brownies at lunch.

St. Louis, 1989

When you were twelve, Nintendo came out with the Game Boy. Neither of your families had the kind of money to spend on a game system like that, so you and Danny decided you could team up to buy one for yourselves to trade back and forth. It was better to have the hot new thing sooner than later, even if it meant taking turns. You took out a sheet of paper to figure out how long it would take if you pooled your money together; even with the little bit of spare allowances you had socked away, you both still needed to save over thirty dollars each.

In hindsight, what happened next was probably your parents’ first red flag.

Sixty-four bucks, for a couple of kids in the late eighties, was a lot of money, and you were both too young to legally get jobs. Divide and conquer, however, had already demonstrated merit when it came to convincing your parents of letting you go to the fair or the movies, so why not divide and conquer to raise cash? All you needed was enough people contributing. But then came the problem that if they contributed, they’d feel entitled to your Game Boy. It was for the two of you, not anyone else. So they would need to be paid back by money you got from somewhere else.

To summarize a long story, and explain many angry phone calls from your peers’ parents, you and Danny essentially ran a pyramid scheme to raise the money for a Game Boy, enticing kids in your old elementary school to pay forward their allowance to your first- and second-round financiers in your middle school. When you were caught, you were grounded for months – but by this point, you were both well-practiced at sneaking between each other’s houses and hiding things in your rooms, and you had a Game Boy.

Your parents’ anger and the way your little sister’s friends’ parents treated you made you realize you’d done something morally wrong. It was humiliating and shameful to be looked at that way. Danny didn’t take it as hard as you did. It rolled off his back once Ellen was back to treating him the way she always had. Danny needed to be liked, and he was liked a lot, because he was cute, and smart, and didn’t bully girls at school, and now he had a Game Boy, so he didn’t mind that kids in a different school and their parents he never saw thought badly of him. It didn’t affect him day to day the way that the guilt started to carve into your self-esteem.

In hindsight, that was your first red flag that there was something a little bit off about Danny. When you brought it up to him, he genuinely didn’t see why you felt so bad. You hadn’t lied to those little kids, and after all, each one only sacrified a couple of dollars. You couldn’t articulate just why, but you needed to make it right. In the end, Danny helped you make it up to the kids by handing back out a portion of your allowances for a few weeks and helping out with their homework, but you knew he’d only done it because he was sad to see you so upset.

You couldn’t deny how great it had felt to accomplish something so quickly, and Danny had boasted for weeks about how persuasive he’d been, but you made an agreement that from then on you wouldn’t hustle kids anymore. Danny pouted about it a little because they were such easy marks, but he agreed to keep you happy. When your wrongs were righted, you felt restored, and you got back to your regular mischief – but you were much more cautious of whether you were being clever or just unethical.

St. Louis, 1992

High school was an entirely different beast from middle school. You and Danny kept sending each other coded letters and hanging out on the weekends, but he was the one who got caught up in how girls looked twice at him and how guys wanted to be his friend. Danny joined the cross-country team, partly to spend more time with those friends and partly to keep in shape to apply for the police academy after high school, and started to pursue girls. He had a new girlfriend every other month. And it meant, altogether, that there was less time for you – so you followed his lead and joined your own clubs, made your own friends.

In freshman year, there had been a rumor that you were dating. You’d loudly opposed it. You had eyes and could see that he was hot, and you didn’t think you’d ever be happy with anyone less smart, or less kind to you, but the idea of kissing Danny just made your stomach turn. There was one time when he started dating a cheerleader who made the mistake of threatening to “ruin” you if you didn’t back off of “her” Danny – he dumped her as soon as you told him what happened. So, although you didn’t have as much time to spend with each other, there was never any doubt that you were still best friends.

You still liked friendly competitions, and found ways to work together to make quick money or convince your parents that what you wanted to do or see was a good idea. But something about high school flipped a switch in Danny. Maybe it was all the teachers saying now was the time to shape up. Suddenly, everything he did was in light of being like his father. Danny had always idolized his dead dad, and you couldn’t bring yourself to criticize him for that, even when it made him sort of a buzzkill. Did he really think that none of the city cops had ever snuck some liquor from their mom’s freezer? And goodbye to any manipulative schemes – even if your conscience hadn’t stopped you, Danny’s ambitions would have. He still had no moral compunctions about taking from people who didn’t need what they had, but for the fact that it was illegal and could jeopardize his future as a cop.

“Cop this, cop that,” you complained once, playfully shoving at his arm. “Am I gonna have to become a criminal to force you to loosen up?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Danny responded with absolute confidence. “You wouldn’t like prison.”

You’d scoffed. “You’d turn in your best friend?!”

He gave you a cheeky grin. “If my best friend’s not smart enough to get away with crimes, she shouldn’t be committing them.”

St. Louis, 1995

You weren’t sure what you wanted to do after high school. Your parents were supportive of whatever you wanted to do, but they hoped you’d at least give college a try; but without any idea what you wanted to actually do, you couldn’t justify spending that much money on it to yourself. The more you thought about what you really loved to do, you kept coming back to games and puzzles. It had been years since anyone called you Marbles, but the passion that bonded you and Danny had persisted.

It was when you were watching the new Will Smith detective movie that you realized maybe you and Danny had this in common, too. He wasn’t just going to be a great cop because of his father; it was because he had a knack for solving puzzles. Maybe investigating was your great calling in life. How cool would it be to be detectives together??

You sat on it for a few weeks, thinking it over before telling Danny you were going to apply, too. That way he wouldn’t know to be disappointed if you changed your mind. In the end, you never did get to tell him. You were still thinking about in by his eighteenth birthday.

You’d already agreed to go to the mall together so you could buy him dinner, but he never came to get you like he’d said he would. You called his home, but no one picked up, so you called his aunt’s neighboring house instead. Ellen had answered and tiredly said that it wasn’t a good time. Assuming they’d had a fight, you let it be and minded your business, changing your plans when it became clear that the mall was off.

The next morning, you left to go get him before walking to school, just to make sure he was feeling okay. He and Ellen rarely fought; Danny tried so hard to be on his best behavior for her, even before he’d straightened up to make sure he got into the police force. You noticed the post on your mailbox was up and detoured, and took out a piece of folded paper. No envelope and no stamp – just your name on one of the trifolds.

Assuming it was another coded letter, you eagerly unfolded it to see what kind of patterns you were working with and mull it over on the way to school. To your disappointment, it was plain English. And, to your horror, it was an apologetic goodbye note.

You sprinted several streets away to the Brooks house and pounded on the door. No one answered. You were almost panicking, considering grabbing the extra key Danny had told you about, before Ellen next door caught your eye, waving for you to come over. You jumped off the porch and ran in, dumping your backpack by the doorway to show her the note. The blonde woman barely glanced at it before saying, “I know. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

It was surprising how clearly you could remember that moment all these years later, especially when what came next felt like a blur of colors and motions melting together. You think Ellen sat you on her couch and poured you some tea. She made you sit and breathe before she explained to you that she’d caught Danny – Neal – signing an application for the police. He was so eager to do it the moment he’d turned eighteen, that Ellen hadn’t had a choice. She’d had to tell him he couldn’t, because Danny Brooks wasn’t his real name; and even if it were, he needed to know that his motivation, the story he’d been telling himself for years, was a lie.

Ellen told you that the Brooks family were actually in Wit-Sec. That Danny’s real name was Neal Bennett, and that his father had been a cop, but a dirty one. That Ellen wasn’t really his aunt, but his corrupt dad’s police partner, who had testified against him and asked to be relocated near Neal, just to make sure the little boy grew up safely. That Neal had been too young to remember. That he had run away, and she didn’t think he was coming back.

Ellen – you still didn’t know if that was even her real name – let you sit on her couch for hours, staring at the floor, drinking the tea she poured mindlessly after it had gone cold, and crying with grief. It was the one and only time she’d ever condoned playing hooky from school. She rubbed your back for a little while, and then let you sit in silent shock while she went about cleaning. It took you an embarrassingly long time to realize that she wasn’t just cleaning, she was packing. Packing to leave. Because people were going to wonder why Neal had disappeared, and maybe the cops would get involved, and maybe her and Neal’s mother would both be in jeopardy.

Ellen gave you a small box of Neal’s belongings that she thought you’d want. In the bottom was the bag of marbles you’d given him in second grade.

Life was never the same after Neal left. Your best friend was gone. You figured, hey, he’d always been street-smart, the odds were pretty good that he was still alive; but the way he disappeared, the odds were also pretty good that you would never see him again, so to you, he may as well be dead. You thought of him sometimes (often) and hoped he was okay, when you weren’t wishing he would come home or cursing his fake name for making you care and then abandoning you without the decency to say goodbye to your face.

You had so many questions in the coming weeks, but the day after Neal had vanished, so had Neal’s not-aunt, along with any opportunities for closure. Once, a few days later, you scraped up the guts to use that hidden key he’d showed you and let yourself into his and his mom’s house. It was completely empty, but left in disarray, with scraped paint, peeling wallpaper, dust settled deep in the rug corners. It had been a long time since you’d spent time together there, rather than in Ellen’s, and now you knew why. With hindsight, and a psychology degree, you were reasonably sure that Neal’s mother had been fighting depression his whole life, and most of the house felt the same.

To make it worse, Danny had been such a beloved part of the school community that in the two months between his disappearance and your graduation, everything under the sun passed under the rumor mill. At first the cops investigated. They talked to you, interrogated you. One of them made you cry by insinuating you were secretly in love with him, and killed him because he’d been dating some chick on the track team. Another rubbed your shoulder and offered you cocoa because he “couldn’t possibly imagine how cofused you’re feeling”. And the whole time, you felt compelled to lie, choking on your tongue and stumbling through how he missed your plans on his birthday and left a note the next morning. You left out the part where you’d talked to Ellen, because what the hell were you supposed to do? Out her as a witness? Admit that Danny Brooks was such a deep lie that even he hadn’t known about it?

Whatever the correct procedure was, no one had bothered to tell you about it. But you were reasonably certain that whoever was in charge of securing the Bennetts, and Ellen, they had caught wind of the investigation, because rather suddenly, all the police activity stopped. You were left alone, and so was his girlfriend, and the guys he played soccer with. The only way they would drop a missing persons case that hard and that quick was if the feds stepped in and told them to back off.

Your parents, and even your little sister, knew that something was off about you. You’re reasonably sure that your entire family knew you knew something you weren’t sharing. But after weeks of trying to comfort you and get you to open up, they started to let go, trusting that if you knew anything actionable, you would have shared to protect your friend.

The police letting it go didn’t end the nightmare for you, though, because the talk at school continued. The US Marshals couldn’t tell everyone to shut up and mind their business. Some people thought Danny had run away from his mother, others thought he’d been kidnapped and trafficked. Some thought he’d knocked up a girl and they ran away, but that one ended when the girl came back to school, and it turned out she’d had the flu. Some people thought you must have had something to do with it, because you’d been so close for so many years. Those people really got to you, because in truth, you could hardly believe you’d known the boy for most of your lives and never suspected he was anything else.

March trudged into April and April slipped into May, and your graduation crawled closer. You were announced as valedictorian. When you went to get the honors sash to wear over your gown, the administrator compassionately told you that Neal would have been valedictorian, had he been there, so though they knew it must be hard, you should keep your head up and be proud enough for the both of you. That just made it even harder to get through. What was supposed to be one of the best days of your life was one of the darkest. A huge shared milestone was lonely. Neal had run away, left you picking up the pieces in a shattered social circle, and now you were taking his place, and somehow someone else had figured out he had that tiny edge over your GPA, and a picture of you in your cap and gown giving your speech was put on a blog along with an accusation that you killed him or threatened him away so you could be valedictorian.

You had to get the hell away. Every unnecessary second you spent in your neighborhood, in your school, in the city you used to share felt like it was scratching at your skin. The application cycle for colleges was long closed, but you took your savings, promised to call your parents every day, and moved to California, as far away as you could get. There, you got a job, found a shitty apartment to share with a girl who minded her own business, and scraped by until you could apply to college.

Palo Alto, 1999

High school valedictorian had felt like a hollow and bitter loss more than anything, rubbing salt in the wound that Neal was gone. In the four years of college since, you’d made plenty of friendly acquaintances, and even some good friends, but none as good as Neal.

You’d visited the school counselor a few times. Told her, minus what you knew about Neal and Wit-Sec, what had happened to drive you all the way from St. Louis to Palo Alto for school. She’d been incredibly sympathetic, even as she suggested that perhaps there had been some trauma mixed in with the grief. Looking back, you could accept it for what it was. You lost your best friend, on multiple levels, and then members of your community turned on you, accusing you of the worst. And, though you were still the only one who knew, the whole time you’d been holding onto a secret boring through your soul that you couldn’t share with anyone.

College graduation felt… much different. Like a success. You were proud of yourself. Sad to see it go but happy you’d made it out the other side, not just of a program but of the grief that had clenched you so tightly. This was what graduation was supposed to feel like. You weren’t valedictorian – or whatever the university equivalent was – this time, but you were graduating with honors, and had an acceptance to a graduate program in hand, so there was that.

Your whole family made the trip to see you graduate. As you walked across that stage, receiving a piece of paper bound in ribbon, you wished once again that Neal would’ve been there to celebrate with you, and hoped that he was okay, then found your family in the crowd and beamed at them brightly, tears pricking in your eyes with joy. Your sister was doing her best to be both supportive and embarrassing by wearing an obnoxiously neon shirt with your name on it.

You faltered in your steps across the stage, just for a second, when you saw the face in the crowd grinning from behind your father. They were so far away, it was kind of hard to see, but for just a second, you could’ve sworn…

You got nudged from behind and had to look down to safely get off of the stage steps. When you were out of the way of the procession, you looked for your family again and stood on your toes to see around your parents. The face you thought you’d seen was gone. You looked down to the rolled paper in your hand, proclaiming you’d earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and shook your head; you, of all people, should know the power of wishful thinking.

Your parents took you back by your apartment to change out of your regalia before going for a celebratory meal. You hurried up the steps in your dress heels, eager to get out of the heavy robe, but stopped cold just on entering the front door. Sitting on the cheap kitchen table was a bouquet of flowers and a little bag of marbles.

Your gut response was to clear the apartment like they did in the cop movies, but you didn’t have a gun or a taser or even pepper spray, so if you searched and found someone, you were really just putting yourself in more danger. Cautiously, you inched towards the table, along the way recognizing the flowers as the kind that you used to admire while walking to school. When no one jumped, and you didn’t feel unsafe getting closer to the table, you slowly picked up the bag of marbles. The little beads clinked together. You held them up for inspection and realized that they were color tinted, but still mostly translucent, and inside each was a clay creature. Your favorite animal, sculpted and suspended in resin.

No one had given you marbles, or called you by that name, in years. You hadn’t carried them anywhere since middle school. And you certainly couldn’t have told anyone what your favorite flowers were when you didn’t even remember what they were called.

The marbles, the flowers, and the face you thought you’d seen at the ceremony all added up to mean one thing to you, and instead of changing your clothes, you sat at the table with the marbles in your hand and had a good, solid cry for a few minutes. Then you stored your new marbles with shaking hands in your so-called Neal Box and put the flowers in some water. You couldn’t decide if you were happy, sad, or furious, but it all boiled down to one thing: he was alive. And still thought about you, just like you still thought of him. And that was something to celebrate, even if your family didn’t know it wasn’t just your graduation that you were happily crying over.

Quantico, 2001

Completing your Master’s degree was your new proudest achievement, but though there wasn’t anything bad about that graduation, when you walked the stage, you’d hoped to catch another glimpse of a familiar face. No such luck. You still weren’t too worried. Ever since getting those beautiful marbles, you’d gotten an anonymous postcard every once in a while. There was usually a little note on them in one of your oldest, simplest ciphers. Nothing complex, but enough to let you know that he was okay, and he was thinking of you.

Sometimes you wondered why he didn’t ever just come say hello if he missed you. Yes, you were a part of Danny Brooks’ history. But if Neal Bennett had had to reinvent himself out of a lie, did that have to mean shunning everything about who he’d been?

Still, a note once in a while was better than the four-plus years you spent with radio silence, hoping he was alive, knowing it was even probable, but with no proof and no way of verifying.

Shortly out of your Master’s program, you were accepted into the FBI. A couple of internships during school had showed you that you weren’t interested in clinical practice, nor did you think you really had the drive to push through a doctorate program, so you looked for ways you could use your degrees to solve puzzles, returning to that lifelong passion for an intelligent challenge. You found the bureau, and other members of the alphabet soup, but especially the bureau. It was probationary, but you were in, and it was time to head to Quantico.

The physical exercises were draining. You’d never been so active in your life. Still, the mental exercises were more entertaining than not, so long as they didn’t get so repetitive. Your very favorite instructor took the class of recruits through prolific cases that hadn’t quite become public knowledge, or cold cases that still had yet to be solved. Unlike a documentary, instead of telling you step-by-step what had happened, he prompted and prodded at the agents in training to work their way through themselves. You excelled at this exercise and it proved to you that, although you’d have to work hard to secure a role where you could choose to work on these types of cases, the opportunity was there. That was what you wanted to work towards.

At least, it was your favorite class. Your emotions changed the day that you were shown pictures of inductees into the FBI’s Most Wanted ranks. Because, to your horror, you recognized one of those faces. He was six years older, but there was no chance you wouldn’t have recognized him. Not him.

“Not him,” you nearly whispered out loud, barely catching yourself before your tongue moved in your mouth. You drank in all the information they had on him – suspected of bond forgery, along with a litany of other crimes, and dubbed James Bonds, because they had no clue what his real name was.

You had a split second choice to make, and you felt the pressure beating down on you. Either betray your best friend and turn him in to the FBI, or betray the moral conscience you’d long since sworn to live by – along with the bureau you were about to swear to serve.

It was an easier choice than it should have been. It would haunt you, but you couldn’t fathom for a second turning your back on him. For as long as you stared at the list of things he was wanted for, there was nothing in that list that could make you hate the man he’d become.

The instructor had noticed you stopped at Neal’s image. “Is there a problem?” He asked you expectantly.

Shit. Every game of poker with Neal came to mind and you controlled all the tells he had ever warned you of, making your decision and committing to it. “No,” you said, looking up and putting on your best amused face. “Sorry, Sir. It’s just… James Bonds?”

You sold it so well that you should’ve been ashamed. The senior agent chuckled and shook his head a bit. “I guess the opportunity felt too good to pass on,” he said, picking up the flyers from your row to share with the next group.

Quantico, 2003

You weren’t capable of turning on Neal, but you also couldn’t bring yourself to follow his case. The conflict of interest was too strong in your gut, so you just turned a blind eye to any flyer you saw, or a deaf ear to any curious chatter about James Bonds and his globetrotting stunts.

You kept an eye out for postcards and anonymous letters, but they’d become less frequent. Either Neal had been keeping tabs and learned you joined the bureau, or he’d realized sending mail was becoming more hazardous. In either case, you still got some once in a while, so if it were the former, he was trusting you.

Over the years, the more you heard about him, the more impressed you were. But also the more… saddened you became. Neal had strayed so far from the man he had wanted to be when you’d spent so much time together. You had to wonder if he were truly happy. At this point, his face was plastered anywhere law enforcement could be assed to look, and you had to hope that he was, because you feared it was too late for him to change course, even if he wanted to.

At some point, you’d begun to realize that you were technically aiding him just by keeping in touch. You didn’t have a way to send messages to him, but however he’d found your address repeatedly, he really was trusting you – it took over a year, but between bits you overheard and images on postcards, you realized that he was actively sending you clues as to where he was. Now, you doubted that he was doing so with that actual intention. More likely, he was just sending you the postcards because he knew you’d always liked their pictures and wanted to travel. But there was an additional professional boundary being crossed when you knew that the agent in charge of his case was searching for him in Germany or Iceland when you’d just gotten a card from Cape Town or Tehran.

It also occurred to you that he wouldn’t be an anonymous James Bonds forever. Sooner or later they would figure out who he was. They’d trace him back to either Neal Bennett or Danny Brooks. Both names would flag with the Marshals, and the FBI would learn all about how he disappeared overnight from St. Louis. The FBI would also learn all about how the police had questioned his best friend, Y/N Y/L/N, for days. And then they would have a lot of uncomfortable questions for you that you still had no idea how you were going to answer.

Then, one day, James Bonds had a name. Neal Caffrey. You didn’t recognize his last name, but it was instantly committed to your memory. Now you knew what he was going by. It was another hit to your heart. He didn’t keep either of his last names. But he had kept his birth name – which had been foreign to him when he learned what it was. It was hard to tell what was going on in his head. You hoped he knew what he was doing. And you hoped that whatever he was choosing, he was happy and safe.

From the moment he’d been named, you kept waiting for the agents you worked with to turn on you, ask you those awkward questions, but the time never seemed to come. For a second, you had considered running, but you didn’t have the knowledge or connections to get very far or hide for very long. No, the best option for you would be to bow your head and accept the consequences. But those consequences didn’t come for you, and when you saw the updated flyer, you saw why. They had him listed as born in Texas during February. The bureau had a whole fake identity that they fully believed; they had no idea who he really was.

“You astound me every time,” you’d muttered to yourself, closing the browser window.

Ossining, 2005

If you ask someone where Sing Sing is, they’ll probably just say “New York”. If pressed, they might even say “New York City”. Very rarely do they actually realize it’s about thirty miles upstate in a little town called Ossining. You’d never been, and had no reason to go, but when you saw the email memo that Neal Caffrey had been apprehended and was awaiting arraignment, you didn’t think you had much of a choice in the matter. You filed for a transfer, ostensibly for a change in scenery, and fortunately, it was granted. Your new home was New York City.

Your shoes and your conscience itched to guide you upstate straight away, but as much as it pained you, you forced yourself to stay away until after he was convicted. Neal was considered an extreme flight risk; any interactions he had were extremely closely monitored. No matter how loyal you were, you were still afraid of being in trouble for failing to give up his name and whereabouts. And while that made you feel quite selfish, there was also the detail that he’d been “caught” by voluntarily walking into a trap to protect his girlfriend from taking the fall for him. It comforted you that he was still the same softhearted man you’d always known and loved – but, since he’d always been fiercely protective, you weren’t sure if he’d welcome you jeopardizing your good standing to see him.

Well, too bad. You winced. Okay, maybe a little more sympathy for the guy in prison.

You signed in a civilian, not an agent, in the hopes that the bureau was less likely to be notified. You weren’t sure what you’d say, but you couldn’t just leave Neal to rot alone in here. The place looked like the place of nightmares, and you were free to just turn around and walk out the door. Your heart ached. God, Neal…

They searched you quite invasively, but that bit of your dignity was a small price to pay. Once satisfied you weren’t using your body to smuggle a nail file or the like, the guards had you wait while they fetched Neal for visitation and put him in a small monitored cell, then allowed you to be led back the same way. The moment you realized he had to have visitors in a cell with him, it felt like your heart skipped a beat. You knew his containment orders were serious, but to not even be permitted to use the visitation room? This was the kind of restriction that was usually placed on quite dangerous felons.

There was already one guard standing inside with Neal, close to the door but warily watching. You could tell from his profile, in the ugly orange jumpsuit, that his wrists and ankles were manacled together and locked to the metal table. As the guard who’d led you back let you enter, the guard already inside gruffly barked the rules: fifteen minutes, follow the tape on the floor to your seat (rather than take a shortcut which passed closer to Neal), and absolutely no touching.

You ventured in as Neal turned around as well as he was able to see you. The surprise in his eyes was quickly taken over by delight and he started to stand, only to get yanked down by the links around his wrists. That sight alone nearly killed your excitement to see him, but he remained undeterred. “Marbles!” he cheerfully chirped your old name.

You forced a little laugh, loosely sticking to the tape and hurrying to your side of the table, swinging your legs in comfortably to sit across from him. “You are such an ass, Neal,” you complained with a small smile.

There was almost a little look of shock when his chosen name came out of your mouth so casually, but before you could respond to it, it had melted into a soft smile that lit up his eyes. He looked at you like you’d put the sun in the sky for a long minute. “I’ve missed you,” he said quietly.

“I’ve missed you, too,” you risked answering, not daring to look to the guard. Hopefully he wouldn’t remember this bit. “When you… well, I thought for years that was it.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Neal admitted. It was easy to say that now that it was in the past and you’d gotten back in touch, but you couldn’t help but trust him. Neal had never told you an outright lie before, not for any reason. “Things just… is it too cliché to say I needed to find myself?”

You hesitated, but shook your head. “No,” you said haltingly, “But there were better ways to do it than becoming a milk box picture.” You’d imagined screaming in his face for it, giving him a real what-for over the way he left you to pick up the pieces he left behind. But now that you were here, in a prison where he’d be spending the next half decade of his life – well, it was hard to hold onto any anger. Neal was paying for his mistakes. You didn’t need to pile on with trauma you’d already processed. “Did you?” You gently prompted, sensing that if you didn’t, he was going to wait for you to say what you’d thought about.

His smile tightened into something wistful. Your heart sank a little for him. “I think I got close at times,” he allowed. You didn’t quite buy it, but thought if he needed to believe it, it wouldn’t hurt to let him tell himself that all of this was worth it. Like he’d always done when he was unhappy, he turned the subject around back to yourself. “I’m so proud of you, Y/N. I knew you’d make something good for yourself.”

We could’ve done it together. You thought back to his eighteenth birthday. You’d been so close to telling him you were going to take that next step with him. Maybe if he’d known it wasn’t just his journey… well, it didn’t matter now. It was ten years in the past.

“Stop talking like we’re in retirement,” you accused lightly. If it weren’t for the guard who felt very strongly about touching, you’d have nudged his foot under the table. “We’ve got ages to make more out of ourselves yet still.”

“You do,” Neal disagreed graciously.

“No, we do,” you argued, saying it so firmly that he wasn’t allowed to disagree again. Then you softened your tone, because you knew he already knew how bad this was going to be. “Four years… it’s gonna be hard. But one day it’ll be done and you’ll have a whole life in front of you to do something new.” It was the twenty-first century. When he got through his sentence, he’d still have more than half his life expectancy ahead. “And we’re gonna make it good. Got it?”

Neal’s expression had hardened a bit, for a moment showing his anger. When he was Danny, he’d been good at concealing anger, but when it did come out, it was volatile. Ellen wanted to put him in therapy to better manage it, but his mother had never gone through with it, so Neal had been left learning to self-soothe and manipulate his own emotions until he could explode in private. It wasn’t pretty. And, unfortunately, based on that familiar expression he’d made, that habit hadn’t changed. But when you were done, he seemed to assess what you were saying and judge it on the merits of your own belief in it, because he studied your face as he slowly nodded, and the anger slipped away, either unwinding from his joints or being masked by something else. You hoped for the former, but truthfully, it had been ten years. You’d once known him better than anyone. While you still suspected that that was largely true, you couldn’t be sure this hadn’t changed.

“We will,” he echoed after you. “You’ll be here?”

You nodded with certainty. If nothing he’d done so far had gotten you fed up with him, there was probably nothing he could manage from inside a prison to change that. “I will.”

You put a hand down on the table. The guard locked his eyes on it and you barely refrained from rolling your eyes. Symbolically, you were offering Neal a hand to hold. Judging by how exasperatedly he glanced at the guard, he understood as he made an exaggeratedly slow motion, mirroring your hand but not reaching across to you.

“It’s gonna be a long four years,” Neal grumbled under his breath, shooting an irritable glare in the guard’s direction.

~~~ ~~~

A/N: Wow! This ended up twice as long as I planned because I got really into it and carried away a bit. I might even be open to a continuation... Anyway, if you liked it and want to get announcements about stories and chat about what's coming up, leave a comment asking to join the Discord and I'll send you a link!

#white collar lawmen and conmen #white collar #white collar x reader #neal caffrey #neal caffrey x reader #platonic #x reader #friends #reader insert #oneshot #fic #requested #anonymous #james bonds #neal bennett #danny brooks #pre-series #marbles #fbi reader

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justareallyverychillperson · 4 months

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White Collar Incorrect Quotes: WitSec Edition- starring Marshall Bob ^^

#white collar #incorrect white collar quotes #danny brooks #neal caffrey #canon what canon

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sunnyie-eve · 9 months

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Devastated || 10. Register

Paring: (Christopher "Sully" Sullivan x Original Female Character Mance!)

Word Count: 2067

Warnings: slight language, death mention, betrayed

Last: Appearance | Next: Motive

Back in the main area, Jennifer thinks about her other brother she has no clue who he is. "You okay?" Danny asks her.

"He said it's part of their plan." She tells them.

"Their? He has an accomplice?" Sully asks.

"My other brother... he found him and they are bonding, making up lost time." She tells them.

"So there's someone else on this island we don't know about helping him?!" Danny panics.

"We have him locked up. No one we don't know is getting past us to help him get out." Sully tells them.

"What if-," Sully cuts Jen off.

"He's not getting out. And if he wants you he's gotta go through me first." He rubs her shoulders.

"He killed Shane, Sully for helping us girls. He strung him up over an oar... He'll kill you too." Her eyes get watery.

"If so at least it's me trying to help you." He kisses her forehead.

"Hate to ruin the moment but it's funny seeing you two like this. All lovey-dovey." Danny motions between the two.

"I don't care. Now, I'm going to see if I can fix this broken radio."

Abby arrives back at the station with Shea and Madison. Madison talks to Sully as he examines the broken radio, revealing he has knowledge of the inner workings of a radio.

"You just need a new one, I think." Madison tells him so he stops giving her a look trying not to snap at her.

"She's a child..." Jennifer puts an arm around his waist, "But there's gotta be another one somewhere on this island. There has to be." Jennifer looks at the broken one.

"If so it should shoot a beacon of light out of it so we know where it is." He looks at her.

Henry arrives moments later, announcing that Trish and Jimmy have disappeared. Shea mentions Jimmy's criminal record in the attic, causing everyone to suspect him.

"It's not him. Wakefield just told me about my other brother." Jennifer tells the others as Madison says Wakefield wanted to talk to Abby.

Sully reviews Jimmy's run-ins with Wakefield, each time surviving, and Danny suggests the head spade trap could have been set by a fisherman. Shea asks why, and Henry suggests he had been angered by Abby leaving seven years ago. Sully continues on to suggest that he had partnered with Wakefield.

"Please, guys. Just trust me; it's not Jimmy. I know that because my gut tells me." She says as Henry readies to find Trish and Jimmy enters, telling them that she fell at the bluffs.

Jimmy runs to gather supplies to rescue Trish and Henry grabs his rifle. Jimmy pleads for everyone to help Trish as they suspect him. Henry attacks Jimmy, suggesting he killed Trish, and Jimmy continues to plead for them to save her.

"Stop it!" Jennifer gets in front of Henry pushing him back. "It's not him!" She shouts at him.

"You're going to believe what Wakefield tells you?" Henry asks.

"Yes, because why would he lie to me about my other brother? He said he hasn't killed Jimmy because it's to mess with Abby and me and it makes him look suspicious to you guys." She moves to go over to Jimmy. "You aren't touching my brother." She glares at them and Henry huffs.

Abby, Jimmy, Henry, Jennifer, and Sully leave going to the bluffs and calling out for Trish. Jimmy readies the rope to climb down, and Henry suggests Jimmy pushed her off the edge.

At the bottom of the bluffs, Henry and Sully aim their guns at Jimmy, not finding Trish anywhere. Abby and Jennifer both step in front of their rifles, attempting to convince them Jimmy is innocent.

As tensions mount, Trish appears at the top of a bluff nearby. They all run to Trish, and she explains how she fell, before mentioning that she discovered a radio nearby.

Jennifer punches Sully in the chest before they follow Trish to the radio. Jimmy attempts to signal the coast guard using an emergency band. When he fails, Sully takes over attempting to fix the radio.

Sully manages to reach the Seattle coast guard, and Trish explains the situation to them. The coast guard tells her they'll be there in less than four hours, and to have someone stay by the radio.

Sully volunteers to stay with the radio, so Jennifer says she'll stay too. Henry agrees to take Trish to the Candlewick Inn for some dry clothes, and Abby decides to return to the Sheriff's Station with Jimmy.

"You're gonna regret it when Jimmy is cleared." Jennifer tells him as they were alone.

"You can't be too trusting Jen. You haven't known Jimmy for seven years. He could have snapped." He tries to explain to her.

"I know my brother and it's not him and why would Wakefield lie to me? Jimmy isn't his other kid because my dad hates I wasn't his like Jimmy was. Why can't you just trust me?" She takes his hands into hers.

"I'm scared, Jen. And I don't know who to trust. The only person I can clear is you." He tells her.

"If you love me and mean it... you'll trust me." She tells him.

"I do..."

"Then trust me, please." She begs him so he kisses her.

"Okay, I'll trust you."

"Thank you." She kisses him back.

After some time Shea and Madison arrive and informs them that Wakefield has escaped, "We think someone's helping him." Shea tells them.

"Yes, but it's not Jimmy. He never went in the back to see him in the cell so he couldn't have helped him get out." Jennifer says and looks back at Sully.

"Yeah, he's with Abby. They sent us here to find you." Shea agrees.

Sully asks about Danny, and Shea informs him that Danny fought off Wakefield to help them escape. Sully radios the coast guard again, informing them about Wakefield, and is enraged when they tell him they haven't left yet.

Sully notes the boat hanging in the boat house and decides to use it to leave. He tries to talk Jennifer into joining Shea and Madison on the boat but she refuses to go with them.

"I'm not leaving you here alone! I'm not leaving Abby, Jimmy, or Henry either! Plus, Trish is still out there." She fights him as he tries to get her to get on. "NO! I'm staying with you!" She yells.

"Fine!" He gives in as Shea heads off with Madison. "You're stupid." He tells her.

"I know, but I'm not leaving you here. We've known each other for fourteen years, and for eleven of them, you've been trying to get me... now you got me, and I'm not leaving you." She kisses him, "Let's get back to the boat house in case the others go back there. We can also let the coast guards know about Madison and Shea."

Sully radios the coast guard again, informing them of Shea and Madison's boat as Jennifer leans on his back with her arms wrapped around his shoulders as he sits at the radio and neither of them hear Henry enter.

"When the hell are you guys getting here?" Sully asks.

"I'll get back to you in a second with an ETA. Over."

"Yeah, thanks. Take your time." He puts the walkie down, "You should have gone with them." Sully sighs as Henry stays quiet walking to them slowly.

"Maybe but I wasn't leaving your side." She kisses his shoulder as Henry makes the floorboard squeak causing them to jump.

"Henry. Damn it. You scared the hell out of me. Man am I glad to see you." They huh each other.

"Did I hear right? Shea and Madison got off the island?"

"Yeah. Wakefield escape and I had to make sure they were safe. I tried to get Jennifer to go but she wouldn't go with them." Sully tells him.

"Why didn't you go with them?" Henry asks as Jennifer watches him. She hasn't exactly cared for him since he wanted to kill Jimmy. Yeah, Sully did the same but it was different and she couldn't explain it.

"And leave you?" Sully tells him.

"I...I'm impressed. Seriously. That is quite possibly the stupidest thing you've ever done."

Sully talks to the coast guard, while Jennifee watches Henry out of the corner of her eye messing with Sully's gun. Sully agrees to meet their helicopter at the marina in forty-five minutes.

"Jen, why don't you stay here in case Abby and Jimmy or even Trish come back?" Henry suggests not wanting her to go with them.

She looks at Sully not wanting to leave his side, "We'll be fine. Once we find them or if we can't, I'll come back to get you, okay?" Sully walks over to her.

"It's not just Wakefield out there... remember." She tells him scared and nervous about Henry's tiny recent actions. He was her best friend but like Sully said, who can you really trust. She course didn't want to think it was him, but she just confused with him for the past couple of hours.

"I'll be back. I promise you that. As you said, I've been trying to get you... now I got you, and I'm not leaving you." He kisses her while Henry glares at them from the side.

"Be safe, please." She kisses him back. "Henry," She gives him a head nod.

"Of course. Jenny, everything will be right once this is over." He gives her a weak smile as him and Sully leave.

As soon as the door closes, her heart drops and has a bad guy feeling about everything. No one they couldn't have known have slipped past them to help Wakefield escape.

You might already be very close to your brother; who knows?

Jennifer knew the only guys left were Sully, Henry and Jimmy. She knew 100% it wasn't Jimmy or Sully, but Henry...

Everything will be right once this is over. She hears Wakefield say it in her head and then Henry says they exact same thing to her.

"No," She rushes out of the boathouse trusting her gut.

He was the only person that made sense of you go over things. Always defending Abby and her a bit too much. He knew where Trish's dad would stand. He wanted the wedding to be on the island. Plus he locked up Wakefield.

As she was running around looking for them, she could hear a faint yell from Henry in the distance so she follows it running faster than ever.

Both guys keep calling out Trish's name as they walk around looking for her. "You know what I don't get. How Wakefield escape from that jail cell. He must have had help."

"Yeah, but who?" Sully asks.

"One of us it had to be." Henry tells him.

"Well, Jimmy wasn't anywhere near the jail and Jennifer made sure I cleared him as she gave me things to do so." Sully lets him know.

"What about Wakefield's kid? He could have done it."

"Then, he's a ghost. Cause there is no want in hell this guy slipped past us. And we know Jen didn't do it." Sully huffs.

"I locked Wakefield up. I could've slipped him the key." Henry says making Sully confused.

Sully brings up saying if this son was real that be was a wack job like his father so Henry explains he could just be really pissed about the whole thin being lied to.

"Dude. You're creeping me out." Sully stops to look back at him.

"You're right. Sorry. So you and Jennifer?" Henry changes the topic as they keep walking.

"What about it?"

"Got her to fall for your charm?" Henry shoots daggers into his head from behind.

"Turns out I didn't have to try. She said she's had a thing for me since we met. All I had to do was just be open. Why are we talking about us right now?" Sully asks confused.

"I'm just surprised seeing you two kiss. Especially her kissing you back after she said she was smart enough." Henry says so Sully glances back at him.

"She said she scared because of the type of guy I was so she can tell I've changed. Man, what we're going through has changed me and I realize some shit okay." Sully keeps walking.

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wutbju · 5 months

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A cast candid from the 1991 Speech Dept production of The Matchmaker.

#Bob Jones University #Archive #Ephemera #The Matchmaker #1991 #Speech Department #Charlotte Burke #Rena Steikes #Camille Lewis #Danny Brooks #Anne Nolan #Gary Weier

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i-wanna-die-like-now · 1 year

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Idk I just wanted to draw luffy

#artists on tumblr #digital art #danny phantom #digital doodle #danny phantom fandom #danny phantom fanart #one piece #straw hat luffy #monkey d. luffy #one piece brook #one piece fanart

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harveyguillensource · 3 months

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Harvey had a blast at the 2024 Vanity Fair/FX and MPTF pre-Emmys parties.

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judy1926 · 5 months

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Protesting the methods of the House Un-American Activities

From bottom to top: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Richard Coute, Geraldine Brooks, Paul Henreid, Evelyn Keyco, Sterling Hayden, Danny Kaye, Marsha Hunt, Gene Kelly, June Havoc, Jane Wyatt and John Huston, among others

#old hollywood #1940s #1950s #classic cinema #classic films #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #gene kelly #lauren bacall #Humphrey Bogart #Richard Coute #geraldine brooks #paul henreid #Evelyn Keyco #Sterling Hayden #danny kaye #marsha hunt #jane wyatt

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miahasahardname · 2 months

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the tdd cast have many reasons as to why they signed up to total drama!

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hello---cello · 3 months

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I'm gonna say it, I'm a member of the great team footemoji, and i's gonna dump ALL the art I have done for this right now so be ready, cause it's a lot. It's all under the cut in chronological order.

#my art #team footemoji #team footemoji Brooke #team footemoji Aver #team footemoji Danny #team footemoji Cupid #team footemoji deborah #team footemoji nibbles #team footemoji Candy #team footemoji Chloe #team footemoji Vern #team footemoji Ezra #team footemoji Elodie #team footemoji Hickory

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calebs-hangout-corner · 4 months

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Drew some besties!!!

#danny and hannah coming soon just you guys wait #goosebumps #zeke matthews #brooke rodgers #aaron messer #lucy dark #burtle art

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dinersaturn · 3 months

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I want Dan to play Brook in the live-action one-piece series. Mostly because I want him to be in full mocap aside from his afro.

#dan avidan #one piece #game grumps #soul king brook #brook one piece #danny sexbang

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duranduratulsa · 2 months

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Now showing on DuranDuranTulsa's Horror Show...The Stuff (1985) on glorious vintage VHS 📼! #movie #movies #horror #thestuff #MichaelMoriarty #scottbloom #brianbloom #PaulSorvino #RIPPaulSorvino #garrettmorris #andreamarcovicci #BrookeAdams #AbeVigoda #patrickoneal #tammygrimes #rutanyaalda #patrickdempsey #MiraSorvino #DannyAiello #clarapeller #ripclarapeller #vintage #vhs #80s #durandurantulsa #durandurantulsashorrorshow

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cultofpoppy-tm · 2 months

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Stu Brooks - They'll Just Love You (feat. Danny Elfman & Poppy) [Officia...

youtube

I never even heard of this and it's FIRE. Poppy sounds amazing 👏🏽

#poppy #cult of poppy #queen #poppy's world #i'm poppy #youtube #video #music video #they'll just love you #stu brooks #danny elfman #collab #feature #vocal feature #screamo #screams

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sunnyie-eve · 10 months

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Devastated || 2. Untimely

Paring: (Christopher "Sully" Sullivan x Original Female Character Mance!)

Word Count: 1918

Warnings: slight language

Last: The Island | Next: Fumble

The next day everyone was supposed to be teamed up to do a scavenger hunt, so Jennifer dressed comfortably for the day.

"Oh, Jen!" Henry calls out to her as she walks in front of him someway so she turns around to face him, "For the scavenger hunt, we had a say in teams, so I made sure you weren't stuck with Sully for the day." He lets her know. "You should be yellow, and he should be blue. Trish wanted to put him with you, but I talked her out of it. I know you hate his flirting."

"You didn't have to do that, but I appreciate the thought." She laughs, walking with him to join the others.

"Look, we're all on the same team." Sully comes back from talking to Cal with a yellow bandanna.

Jennifer just looks at him, making Danny laugh, which catches Henry's attention, "Jennifer," He calls her over, "I'll let you join another team."

"Babe," Trish sighs.

"No, it's fine. Really, I can put up with him. Thank you, though. Now you two have fun." Jennifer winks at them going to join Danny, Chloe, Booth, and Sully.

The scavenger hunt wasn't that fun, and at the moment, Chloe wanted to go see where Wakefield was buried. "Wouldn't you kinda know where he is?" Chloe asks Jennifer as they look for it while the guys don't.

"I left the island before they did it. My mom, who got away, got me off the island."

"You're mom almost died?" Chloe asks, shocked.

"Yeah, and there he is." Jennifer points ahead.

"I'm gonna go tell the guys." Chloe leaves her side. She comes back with just Sully, "The guy at the museum told me they wouldn't bury him in consecrated land."

"He killed six people, almost seven. He doesn't even deserve this." Jennifer stares at the headstone, so Chloe makes her way back to the group.

"Almost seven?" Sully asks, confused.

"My mom..." She looks at him, "That's one of the reasons why she sent me away from here. The other was because she doesn't, didn't, believe he's really there." She looks back at the grave.

Sully looks at her, slowly leaning towards her to kiss her, so she leans away, making him stand up straight so she looks at him, "You never give up, do you? Even when it is obviously not a good time." Jennifer sighs, "Sully, it's been eleven years. You're a good guy, but you never think with the right head, and that's what doesn't help you with me." She lets him know before going to join the others, telling them she's done with the scavenger hunt.

Instead of going to the Inn, she goes to the docks to hopefully find Jimmy working, and luckily he was there, "Aren't you doing a scavenger hunt?" He sees her walking towards him.

"I quit because of a certain attractive 6'1 with blonde hair, blue eyes, and whose name is Christopher but goes by his last name but shorter." She explains to him.

"You having boy trouble?"

"He hasn't given up in eleven years, Jimmy." She takes a seat.

"Eleven years?! I didn't know it was that long."

"He's a playboy and thinks with the wrong head. I just don't wanna get hurt. Like he's already eyeing Chloe while flirting with me." She explains to him.

"I'm guessing you already told him in a kind way to give up?" He stops working a bit.

"You remember how I said eleven years, right? Of course, I told him. And then I'm having a moment about Mom making me leave at Wakefield's grave, and he tries kissing me."

"Yeah, he doesn't use the right head." Jimmy laughs.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left... I'm sorry I never came back. And I'm sorry for leaving you to deal with our parents' death, but I couldn't do it. I had my reason why I didn't come back and why I was okay with Mom sending me away." Jennifer changes the topic, so he listens to her, "Dad hated me because of mom. After Mom was almost murdered, she went crazy with me and demanded I had to leave because she didn't believe Wakefield was dead and he would take me from her. Then Dad threatened me that if I ever stepped foot on this island, I would regret it. I was scared to come back home."

"Why do you think Dad hated you?" Jimmy walks towards her.

"I didn't think I knew because I heard them arguing one night. Jimmy, we have different dads. Mom had an affair with some guy she knew when she was around our age. Mom never told Dad who the guy was, and I for sure have no idea who. That's why he hated me. He thought I was his, and I wasn't."

Jimmy pulls his sister into his arms, hugging her as she tries not to cry, "I'm not mad or upset you left. And I never answered you because I didn't want you to come back. I thought you would be better off the island."

"Asshole," She laughs as she takes a seat and watches him for some time as they chat a bit.

"Permission to come aboard!" Henry comes towards the boat, "You quit too?" He laughs, seeing Jennifer.

"Sully," She smiles.

"Not surprised. Also nice. This is yours?"

"Yeah, I finally ponied up. Got it last spring." Jimmy tells him.

"Hey, listen, um, I wanted to come down here and make sure we're still cool. I know my brother and Shane got into it last night."

"Okay, that's been going on since we were kids. Come on, that never affected you and me." Jimmy tells him.

"Eh, still... I had a talk with JD earlier. I asked him to cool it until after the wedding."

"If you're asking me to talk to Shane, that's not going to change anything. It's just the way he is. Come on, you worked with him. You know how he is. Jen, especially knows first hand being his ex." Jimmy tells him so she nods her head.

"Uh... so listen, we're having a party tonight. A bonfire down at Harmon Beach. It should be fun. If you and Shane want to come by, hang out, we're gonna have a lot of food and cold beer." Henry invites him.

"I don't know. Tonight's going to be tough."

"Okay. Just wanted to invite you for old-time sake. Plus, I'm sure your sister misses you." He adds.

"I appreciate it."

"Well, I'm gonna go back with Hen. It was nice talking." Jennifer hugs Jimmy goodbye.

On the way back to the Inn, Henry asks what exactly did Sully do to make her quit the scavenger hunt.

"He tried kissing me after I said my Mom got away from Wakefield. At Wakefield's grave."

"I'm so sorry." Henry apologizes.

"You don't need to apologize for him. He's an adult that can apologize for his own actions. I wouldn't have a problem with him if he just took advice from us." Jennifer laughs.

"I'll talk to him."

"No, don't do that. Really, Henry. He won't listen now if he hasn't in the past." Jennifer begs him, "For me, don't."

"Since you asked, I won't."

"Thank you." She says as they arrive, so she goes straight to her room.

As she walks in, she sees a letter on the floor, so she picks it up to read it; Jennifer, on the outside. She opens up the envelope, taking the letter out to read it.

Have you ever wondered who your real father was? Being kept from him?

Jennifer puts the letter away, throwing it into the trash can. Only Jimmy knew because she just told him, so who the hell wrote that letter to put into her room.

After some time, there was a knock at her door, and she opened it to see Sully, "I want to apologize. No, Henry didn't come find me and give me a speech. Like you said, it was an inappropriate time, and yeah, I'm not the best guy..."

"I didn't say you were a bad guy. I said you're a good guy, but you never think with the right head. You want me to fall for your charm but you also eye Chloe from a distance. Tell me, Sully... how do you think that will work?" She lets him into her room.

"To be fair, I was hoping it would make you kind of jealous." He sits at the end of her bed.

"So for eleven years, every girl you come across near me you flirt with is to make me jealous? Yeah, I don't believe that." She sits next to him.

"Most were, but again I'm sorry. I should have noticed after eleven years of nothing, I should've given up."

"Change some, and you would be surprised. Now, get out of my room. I'll see you at the party." Jennifer gets up from the bed. Sully gets up, nodding his head with a slight smile leaving the room.

At the bonfire at night, everyone was having a good time eating and drinking. "Did you see that? I did it." Sully was happy with himself juggling.

"Not jaw-dropping but a small applause." Jennifer gives him one holding her beer.

"Thank you, my lady, for being the only one to care."

The sound of a punch makes everyone look to see Henry standing while Shane was on the ground. Jennifer goes over to get closer to hear them.

"Come on." Henry says but Shane just leaves.

Jennifer watches some before following him, "What the hell did you do now?"

"I didn't do shit. I have no idea what he's talking about. If I did something, you really think I would show up?" Shane steps closer to her.

"I don't know, you're pretty messed up."

"Believe whatever you want because I don't care." He tells her.

"Okay," She turns to go back to the party.

"Jimmy told me you guys talked and settled things." He speaks up.

"Yeah, I did. What about it, Shane?" She turns back around.

"Seven years ago, did you really what to fix things between us or?" He asks.

"I did, yes. But that was seven years ago. I'm sorry how things were left and I'm sorry we never got to end us on good terms." Jennifer tells him then goes back to the party.

"Hey, where did you go?" Danny asks as she joins them again.

"Talk to Shane and apologize for something in the past." She takes a seat, confusing him.

"They used to date before she left and it was on bad terms." Abby lets him know.

"You used to date that?" Sully looks at her.

"I did for five years. I know, don't add any comments, please." She begs him.

"Cal! Has anyone seen my cute little Englishman?" Chloe walks around.

"Oh, man." Jennifer hears Sully.

"Sully, why did you go, oh man?" She gets up.

"I might have forgotten to get him help... He's hanging upside down in the woods..." He tells her so he, Chloe, Jennifer, Malcolm, and Abby go find him.

Once they do, Chloe rushes over to him and Cal was slightly unconscious from hanging upside down for too long. "How do you forget about him?" Jen looks at Sully.

"I went to apologize to you, so I got sidetracked. I'm sorry." He apologizes.

"Don't tell me sorry; tell them." She points at the two.

3 notes · View notes