"Neal. Neal!" Alex rocked on her heels as she leaned down next to Neal, sprawled out on the bed in the Burke's main guest room. She'd risked a lot coming in here at this hour, the wrath of both 'adults' in the house, not to mention discovery by a certain golden Labrador.

In her view, that was the biggest problem with being, or appearing to be, sixteen. No privacy to speak of. She was struggling to remember when and if she'd managed any alone time with, well, anyone, besides her parents, at this age.

Nobody sprang to mind, except the boyfriend she'd met senior year, Mickey.

Even then she'd been forced to sneak out of the house at ridiculous hours, not to mention cut classes, to spend any time with him alone.

"Neal, wake up."

She didn't get any real response, other than Neal screwing his nose up, grunting and shifting slightly in his sleep.

This was going to take desperate measures. Taking a deep breath, Alex leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, briefly.

True to form, this bought Neal out of whatever dream he'd been enjoying, as she drew back he lifted himself out of the bed, trying to keep his mouth in contact with hers.

"Neal." She said, voice firmer. He cracked one eye at her and flopped back onto the pillow.

"Alex?" he asked, sounding almost disappointed.

"Yes, Alex. Who were you dreaming about?"

"Never mind. Is it time to get up already?" He stretched one arm above his head and glanced at the digital clock next to Alex's head.

"Three AM? What the hell, Alex?" He flung one arm over his eyes and rolled away from her, feeling the beginnings of a headache building.

"I needed to talk to you, alone." She was sitting on the floor next to the bed, now, legs crossed.

"Okay, it couldn't wait?"
"You seriously think that the Burke's are going to let us spend any time alone, unsupervised? We look like teenagers."
"Yeah, but we're not."
"Have they let you out of their collective sight since you convinced Peter that you're you?"

Neal considered this, and conceded the point.

"Fair enough. What's so urgent that it can't wait until morning?"

"I just wanted to talk. Shove over."

Neal rolled his eyes, but shifted sideways in the bed, allowing Alex enough space to climb up and snuggle against him.

"You really do smell good, you know." He murmured, pressing his face into her hair as she rested her cheek on his chest.

"I only showered a couple of hours ago, Neal."

"I know… mmm…" Neal slid an arm around Alex's waist and gave her a squeeze, before pulling back and making direct eye contact.

"What's going on, Alex?"

"What are we going to do, Neal?"

"Tonight? Well, I don't have any-"

"No, we're not doing that tonight, Neal! I mean, what if this turns out to be permanent?" She gestured at their bodies, encompassing the entire bizarre situation with one sweeping movement.

"Well, Peter said that he and Elle might adopt me."
"Yeah, and what happens to me? I go into foster care?"

"Mozzie could adopt you."

"According to the government, Mozzie doesn't even exist."
"What about your parents?" Neal asked, but knew it was pointless even as he voiced the question.

"What about them? My father refused to acknowledge my existence even when presented with DNA results, and Mom died almost twenty years ago. I've been through the system once, Neal, and it messed me up badly enough then. Going through it again might…" her voice broke, and Neal wrapped both his arms around her, pulling her close and murmuring into her hair as she began to shake, crying against him.

"Shh… Alex, I'll never let that happen. I promise, no matter what. If I have to blackmail Peter into it, you're not going back." He kept his lips pressed to the top of her head and rubbed her back as her sobs slowly died down, and she snuggled into him.

After a few minutes, Neal felt his eyes sliding closed, and realized that he had to get Alex up – if the Burke's found them like this in the morning then there'd be hell to pay. Heck, even if he'd been his usual age, there would have been raised eyebrows at Alex spending the night in his bed while they were guests.

"Alex, you probably need to go back…"
"I know. Thanks, Neal."

"Anytime."

She stretched up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, before rolling off the bed and tiptoeing back to her own bedroom.

Neal rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, sliding his hand along the warm patch of bed Alex had left in her wake.

What were they going to do? He had no idea why he was like this, or how they were going to fix it. But surely, with a few hundred people affected, there would be some sort of program put in place? Not every 32-year-old had living parents, or a spouse. Most 32-year-olds had jobs, rents to pay, families to support.

The logistical nightmare of appearing to be half your age aside, Neal was rapidly realizing that Alex wasn't alone in having nowhere to go. His own parents were completely out of the picture, and his current sources of income were questionable enough for an adult; a teenager doing the things he was doing would just be begging for trouble.

Maybe he would take Peter up on his offer of adoption, there were worse fates than having the Burkes for parents.

Now that Alex had woken him up, he found himself unable to settle. He hadn't seen Mozzie, just sent him a text message once Alex had told him that Neal was in the same situation. Mozzie wanted to meet both of them, somewhere in the city, that afternoon. That in itself was going to be difficult – Neal seriously doubted that Peter was going to let him out of his sight, and was predicting that Mozzie would be equally unwilling to meet with the Suit in attendance. It might be easier for Alex to get away, but Neal wanted to see his friend, too.

He stretched again and his fingers brushed the wallet on the nightstand, the one belonging to Nick Halden, and he narrowed his eyes, thinking.

If he could just get back to the apartment… he'd be able to get some more cash, liquid assets. He had the anklet – thinking about it, he twitched his ankle and almost out of habit bought his left foot up to tug at it, but it still refused to budge – surely Peter couldn't object to him seeing June?

He rolled over to face the wall and tried not to think too hard about what might happen, his chest had begun to constrict and he'd had trouble breathing while Alex had been crying against him. The less he thought about the future, the easier it would be to sleep. Heck, if he was lucky, he'd wake up in his own bed at June's place, in his favourite blue pyjamas, and would discover that all of this had just been some kind of convoluted nightmare.

He sighed.

No, his luck simply wasn't that good. He pinched the skin on the inside of his wrist and the pain that shot up his arm was definitely real.

It took him almost another hour to get back to sleep.