Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar or anything associated with the show.

If Neal could be predicted in anything, it was his serpent's calm. He was slick and wily and he could oil his way out of any situation. Even when his cover failed, he could always delay his captors long enough for backup to arrive.

So when Peter found him crumbled in June's apartment, broken glass and wine surrounding him like a grisly mural, he didn't know who was more shaken.

"Came in … last night," Neal slurred. Concussion. They'd hit him over the head before ransacking the apartment. "Tried …stop 'em… called..."

Peter's number was half-dialed on his phone. They packed it with the rest of the evidence. Paramedics wheeled a half-conscious Neal away, while Peter tried to piece apart the scattered information.

Burglary.

It was too easy. Unplanned. Spontaneous. Not even an underground mastermind or a dealer with a grudge to blame. Electronics were yanked out and gone. Paintings splintered. Anything deemed of value that couldn't be pocketed or thrown in a vehicle had been smashed or thrown aside: a petty stroke of vengeance for that which could not be possessed.

Neal's story came out slowly, over moments of blurred consciousness and erratic memory. June was gone for the weekend, and he had planned for a quiet evening. The front door must have been unlocked, though Neal admitted he could not remember whether he had checked. An alarming signal to Peter, who knew a thief's foremost attention must be on how another thief could make an entrance.

Two men with guns and the stench of alcohol must have thought an unarmed man was threat enough. Neal's quicksilver tongue had hammered on numbed senses, and annoyance spawned anger faster than fire brewed smoke. He was lucky they had clubbed him over the head and flung him into the wine cabinet rather than blasting his skull. Lucky they had retaliated against his art instead of smashing his jaw.

But when Neal returned to his ravaged apartment a week later, he didn't seem lucky at all. Lost blue eyes slowly took in the devastation. He moved slowly from piece to piece, picking up a shard of frame here: a broken heirloom of June's there. He tried to bluff a smile, but his eyes searched Peter's, and Peter sensed the deeper question that screamed inside. 'Why?'

There was no motive; no reasoning. It was two human beings who were senseless to another's pain, gloating in the destruction they could leave behind. There was quiet defeat in Neal's eyes as he began to shuffle the mess together, and something inside Peter snapped.

It was the instinct of a herder guiding the errant stray. The wariness of a bloodhound guarding the members of its household. Something rose in him to protect: to hold back and shield and discipline and lead: the instinct that reared up and warned those agents new to the job, that this kid had been taken under his wing and no one was allowed to harm him.

This was his boy who was hurting. His boy who had been thrown around and wounded and left with a raging headache and the inability to string three words together.

And no surrogate father, agent or handler would allow such a crime to go unpunished.

Sudden ending? Perhaps. I like leaving things with a cliffhanger touch, because not all stories end perfectly. Will the criminals be caught? How will Peter react? Will there be justice or a slap on the wrist? Could he be willing to step outside of the law to ensure justice is served? Will Neal find closure or will it take longer for him to recover?

What do you think the final ending could be?