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Elizabeth considers herself a very patient woman. Too patient, even; sometimes she knows Peter wishes she would just get mad when he’s forgotten the dry cleaning or had to cancel dinner, because somehow that would wipe his own conscience clean. But that’s not who she is. She’s never been the sort to get mad over small stuff, and even big stuff - well, mostly she’s able to let it roll off her.
But she’s only human, and sometimes she comes to the end of her rope. The moment an agent she’d never seen before - and why didn’t they send Jones or Diana, even Blake the probie, someone she knows? - walked into her office and told her Peter was in the hospital and no, ma’am, he didn't know how bad it was - that was one of those moments. All of a sudden, Elizabeth was done.
Most women, she knows, would have reached this point after getting kidnapped from their homes at gunpoint. But that was somehow easier than this. It was easier to figure out how to trick her guard into leaving her alone than it was to sit in a chair by Peter’s bedside, reading a book so she wouldn’t think about how badly he could have been hurt. For years now, she has put up with sharing Peter with Neal; she has put up with never knowing what will happen next, whether Neal will disappear, leaving her husband’s heart broken and his career in shambles, or whether the latest in the string of unlikely and unfortunate events that seem to just happen around Neal will result in one of them being seriously injured. Well, now it has. And that, it seems, is her tipping point. She is done.
What makes her angriest, when she stops to think about it, is that when she asked Neal to lie to protect Peter, he resisted. I can’t lie to Peter, he said. As though he hasn’t done so before, a million times, and for considerably more selfish reasons. She wanted to slap him, but instead she simply looked him in the eye and told him what she wanted him to do. He looked like a kicked puppy afterward, but she was unswayed. Peter thinks of Neal as a wayward kid brother a lot of the time, but Elizabeth knows better. Neal can take care of himself.
When she finally brings Peter home, to their house with the state of the art alarm system, she breathes a little more easily. Peter has medical leave for a week, and though she can’t keep him from working, at least she can keep him where she can see him.
Diana and Jones come bearing files and take-out twice during the week Peter is off work. Neal doesn’t come with them. He calls, but not as often as she would have expected - only once on Wednesday, and on Thursday not at all.
Elizabeth can see that Peter isn’t unaffected by Neal’s absence. He’s suspicious, there’s no denying that, but El can tell that underneath, he’s also just plain hurt. “I’m sure he’s busy,” Elizabeth says, when Peter finally says something about it while they’re loading the dishwasher on Friday evening. “Things at the office have to be in chaos right now.”
“Yeah,” Peter says, obviously unconvinced. “But it’s not just that. He lied to me, El. Bald-faced lied to me.”
El shrugs, passing him a scraped-clean plate to put in the dishwasher. “It’s not like he hasn’t done that before, dozens of times.”
“No, he hasn’t,” Peter says, with a vehemence that surprises her. “In three years, El, he’s never lied to me. Not to my face, not like this. He’s let me think things that weren’t true -”
“Which is the same as lying,” El points out.
“No,” Peter says, shaking his head. “Not to him. Not to me.” He sighs. “He didn’t even bother to do it well.”
El bites her lip. She didn’t mean for it to be like this. She didn’t think Peter would figure out that Neal was lying to him so quickly or be so upset about it. It isn’t exactly new territory for them. Peter and Neal have a bone-deep affection for each other, but they’ve never trusted each other. Neal lied to Peter for months about the U-boat treasure, even if he never actually looked Peter in the eye and told him he didn’t have it. And Peter knew it.
She doesn’t say anything then, just like she didn’t say anything in the hospital. She’s still having moments when her brain throws up images of what could have happened to Peter in the car crash. In those moments, her stomach turns sour and her throat tightens, and she just doesn’t care what happens to Neal or to Peter’s relationship with him, as long as Peter comes home to her at the end of the day. If things fall apart, she’ll pick up the pieces. As long as he’s alive for her to do so.
On Sunday afternoon, Jones comes by, and he and Peter spend a couple hours working at the dining room table. Elizabeth goes to the grocery store, and when she comes back, the house is empty. She has a moment of heart-stopping panic until she hears Peter laugh, and then she realizes they’re out on the patio. She forces herself to take three deep breaths and then goes to put away the groceries.
They haven’t come in by the time she finishes. She decides they’ve had enough “guy time” and pulls a beer of her own out of the fridge. She pops the top and is about to head out to the patio, when she catches a glimpse of the work that’s still spread across on the table.
It’s the outline of a key, blown up on an 11x17 piece of paper. Next to it are printouts of cityscapes: Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Paris, Tokyo, Saint Louis, DC, Toronto, and a whole mess of others.
She can’t seem to take her eyes off the key. “Dammit,” she mutters, feeling tears sting the backs of her eyes. Nothing she does is going to work, she thinks. Nothing she does is going to keep Peter safe.
She barely hears Peter and Jones come in. “Hey, El, I didn’t realize you were back,” Peter says.
“Yeah,” she says, too brightly. “Just a few minutes ago.” She forces a smile, but Peter takes one look at her face and knows. Within a few minutes, he’s ushered Jones out - the printouts go with him - and then Peter comes back to her. She’s drunk half her beer by then, too quickly.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “You’re working on that damn key.”
Peter looks surprised. “Yeah, of course I am.”
Of course I am. Like it was a given. “Aren’t you taking on enough trying to take down Pratt?” she says, fingers tightening on the neck of the bottle. “Do you have to do this, too?”
Peter frowns. “They’re the same case, hon. The key is hopefully going to lead us to evidence that’ll make taking down Pratt a lot easier.”
She shakes her head, takes another swig of beer. “I don’t see why you have to go after him. Why is this your job?”
“Because someone has to do it,” Peter says. “And nobody else will.” He reaches out and gently takes the beer bottle from her. “What’s going on, El? You looked like you were crying when we came in.”
“I wasn’t crying,” she replies, and it’s the truth. She wasn’t, though she feels like she might start.
“El.”
“I wasn’t,” she insists.
“Okay, fine,” he says, holding his hands out, palms-up. “You weren’t. But if something’s wrong, I wish you would tell me what it is.”
Elizabeth doesn’t answer. What can she say to make him understand? He’ll never stop, she realizes now. It was stupid of her to think that she could make him stop. Neal knew it. He knew it wouldn’t work, and that was why he lied so badly to Peter at the hospital.
Peter steps closer, takes her hand, pulls her toward him. El goes willingly, lets him tuck her against his body. “I’m afraid for you,” she confesses, closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest. “All the time, Peter. The accident could have been so much worse, and I’m so scared that next time we won’t be so lucky.” Peter sighs, his breath ruffling her hair. She pulls away and looks up at him. “What would you say if I asked you to stop looking into all of it? The key, Pratt, Neal’s father. What would you say if I said, please, for both our sakes, just drop it?”
Peter cups her cheek in his hand. “Are you asking me that?”
El swallows. “Not yet.”
Peter sighs again. “If you really asked me to . . . I would try. But I hope you don’t, because to be honest, I think we’re past the point of no return. Backing out now won’t help. Pratt knows I’m looking into him. More importantly, Neal has the key, and he’s never going to let this go. I can’t let him walk into this alone. I can’t abandon him, even if he is lying to me.”
Elizabeth conjures up a smile for him, small and painful though it is. Peter’s loyalty is why she loves him, after all. Peter’s loyalty to his people and to his ideals. She can’t ask him to forsake all of that, not and have him still be who he is. “Then I won’t ask you to,” she says.
His arms tighten around her. “Thank you.”
She takes a deep breath. “And I have to tell you something.”
He looks down at her. “What?”
“The reason Neal lied to you that day in the hospital . . . it was because I told him to.”
Peter pulls away from her, frowning. “You told him to lie to me? Why would you do that?”
“Because I was scared, Peter,” she says. “I was so scared. They couldn’t tell me how badly you were hurt, and Neal was right there in front of me and - and I lashed out. I told him to lie to you to keep you from looking into the key. He didn’t want to, he said he couldn’t lie to you, but he’s lied to you so many times.”
Peter is staring at her. “This time was different.”
“I know,” Elizabeth says quietly. “I know that now. I’m sorry. I realize it was a mistake, but I - I wanted so badly to think that I could put a stop to this, to any of it. I love Neal, you know I do, but since you’ve been working with him, so much has happened, I just thought . . .” She shakes her head, pressing her hand to her mouth. “I just wanted to feel like I could make it stop. That I could make you a little bit safer. And I know,” she adds, when Peter’s frown deepens, “I know I can’t. I just thought . . . well, I wasn’t thinking, I guess.”
Peter shakes his head. “No, you weren’t,” he says, and there’s an edge to his voice that Elizabeth rarely hears directed at her. He’s angry, even if he isn’t showing it much. “And I wish you’d told me sooner. I’ve been wracking my brain all week to figure out why Neal was lying to me, and the only reasons I could come up with - well, they weren’t good ones. I know you were trying to look out for me, but this could have done a lot of damage. I need you to promise you won’t ever lie to me again to protect me.”
Elizabeth presses her lips together and draws away from Peter, putting a foot or two of distance between them. “And will you promise the same?” she asks, knowing already what the answer will be.
“I . . .” Peter stops. “El, I don’t lie to you. There are things I can’t talk to you about, and there are other things you’re better off not knowing, but I don’t lie to you.”
“Lies of omission are still lies,” she says. “It might work for you and Neal to split hairs like that, but it doesn’t work for me. And there are things we’re both better off not knowing,” she adds sharply. “Like that damn key.”
Peter shakes his head. “El, in order to keep you safe, to keep Neal safe, to keep my agents safe, I have to have all the information. I have to. There is no other way.”
Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest and lifts her chin. “Fine. Then that goes two ways. You can’t keep me out of the loop on this. I can’t sit at home, spinning my mental wheels and wondering when the next phone call is going to come. I need you to talk to me, even if you think I’d be better off not knowing.”
Peter hesitates, but at last he nods. “All right. And I understand why you did what you did, but asking Neal to lie to me - El, after everything he and I have been through, that was wrong. It was just plain wrong.”
Elizabeth looks away. She wants to defend her decision, but she knows - has known all along - that there really isn’t any defense. Peter’s right. It was wrong of her, and she’s probably lucky Peter figured it out so quickly. If he hadn’t, his own ignorance might have put him in even worse danger. “I know,” she says at last. “And I’m sorry, Peter. I just . . . I was terrified.”
“I know,” Peter says, and pulls her back into his arms. He kisses her, only briefly, but it’s enough for her to know they’re all right. She hugs him tight, and tries to press the memory in her mind, against all the future times when she can’t hold him like this.
But she can’t hold him forever, and so finally she lets him go. Peter rubs a hand over his face, then, looking suddenly weary. “I should call Neal,” he says.
Elizabeth sighs. “No,” she says, “I should call Neal. I’ll ask him over for dinner and tell to bring everything he knows about the key.”
Peter kisses her again. “Thank you.”
Neal picks up on the third ring. “Hi, Elizabeth,” he says. There is a distinct note of wariness in his voice, and she feels a brief pang of guilt for having put it there. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she says, “everything’s fine.” She takes a deep breath. Better to plunge right in. “I told Peter, Neal. About what I said to you in the hospital.”
There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Oh,” Neal finally says. “Oh, thank God.”
The obvious depth of his relief is unexpected. Elizabeth feels guiltier still. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It was wrong of me. Please, come over for dinner. Bring everything you know about the key. I want this done with as soon as possible, and it seems to me that you and Peter will be twice as fast working together as separately.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Neal said. “I - yes, I’ll come for dinner. Thank you, El. I didn’t want to do this without Peter.”
“Just . . .” She stops, swallowing. Peter is in the kitchen, giving her a bit of space, but she moves from the dining room into the living room anyway, just so he can’t hear her. “I need you to do everything you can to keep him safe. Not lie to him, but short of that . . . promise me, Neal.”
“Always,” he says, in a low, serious voice. “You know that, El.”
“I do,” she says, swallowing hard. “See you in about an hour?”
“Yes,” Neal says, “see you then.”
Elizabeth disconnects, then stands in the living room holding her cell phone. She hates feeling so scared, and even though Peter seems to think this will make them all safer, she’s not entirely convinced. She’s not sure anything can make any of them safer until Pratt is behind bars. But she has to trust Peter to get the job done. And she has to trust Neal to protect him. For now, that has to be enough.
Fin.