Taking Heaven Off The Table

Summary: He's making a list of all the things he can never come back from, keeping it locked up in his head in the place where memories of an honest life should go. Post One Last Stakeout. Neal angst galore.

A/N: I apologize in advance for the fact that this might be the darkest, most angst-ridden piece I've ever written. That last episode just made me think of all the things Neal's both done and been through and it's really more than anyone should be able to stand. So I went dark with it and you've been fairly warned. ;)

He's not Peter, and the thought is some kind of twisted relief that makes Neal feel all the more guilty. It's Siegel that saw him with Hagen and it's Siegel's body on the ground. Neal shudders at the thought of Peter in his place instead, as though he needs an image worse than reality. Of course that was never a guaranteed outcome. Peter would have known better, Peter would have been faster with his gun, Peter would have confronted Neal instead. All of this and none of it makes any difference. Neal didn't know him long, but he's certain that Siegel was a good man. Honest and decent, all things Neal is not and all things Peter represents. He just wasn't lucky.

Siegel is gone from the world but not from Neal's mind. He's there when Neal lies down to rest, whispers in a voice too cheerful for the dead. Jesus, Caffrey, I thought you'd make or break my career, not get me killed. Siegel's in good company. He rests in the place beside Kate and Ellen. The place just beyond the time Mozzie was shot and Elizabeth was kidnapped. Near misses that would have destroyed Neal. Should have destroyed him, so that he couldn't be here standing with another body in front of him and more blood on his hands.

He was being honest when he told Mozzie that they'd already taken Heaven off the table. He's making a list of all the things he can never come back from, keeping it locked up in his head in the place where memories of an honest life should go. He wants to be a Peter, sometimes so badly it burns, but he's a Bennett not a Burke. He's a liar, a con, and always lets others fall in his place. He remembers working with Keller that first and last time the job went south, watching as he shot their accomplice down, and not going to the police after because it would mean being caught too. Instead Neal slipped away back to the place he called home back then, heaved out the contents of his stomach for a few hours, and pretended that the feverish sweat that followed actually cleansed him of the horror.

He's been a bad man longer than he's been a good one, but he has tried. He's not looking for redemption because none exists for him – he knows this with more certainty than ever. These days he just wants to do right by Peter and Elizabeth, who have given him the type of life he used to dream of when he was a kid who still believed in heroes. But even when he tries to do the right thing, he does the wrong thing. Freeing Peter was making a deal with the devil and Siegel pays the price. Someone is always paying the price just for being associated with Neal and the past that just won't let him go.

Siegel is just the most recent addition, just another ghost in his head. I'm sorry, Neal thinks, I'll get Hagen for you. Then he says a mental prayer asking for God to keep the others safe – Peter and El and Mozzie, and even Sara a continent away. Please God, don't let me ruin them too. He has to believe that even if Heaven's off the table, some divine and just power will spare the people he loves. All he knows is that he just can't stand to leave more flowers on just another grave that should be his.