If you haven't guessed yet, I am a hurt/comfort fan. Its what I like to read and what I like to write. My Neal is more open; my Peter is kinder. So if that's not your thing, then my stories may not be for you. Absent Without Leave is a little different from anything I've written before, so bear with me and we will see how it goes. Still hurt/comfort, but I've altered Neal's past a bit to fit my storyline. Let me know what you think. :)

I own nothing except the mistakes, for which I accept all responsibility.

Chapter One

"It's Mozzie." Elizabeth had entered the living room with the phone in her hand.

Peter was relaxing on the sofa enjoying the football game. It was one of the rare Saturdays when he had nothing pressing at work, no repairs pressing at home, and nowhere he had to be. Except in his sweats, on his sofa, enjoying the game. Baseball was his favorite but that season had come and gone; he had to make do with the sport at hand. Today, it was the Boston College–Syracuse game. Great college rivalry; great fun to watch.

"What does he want?" A call from Mozzie to his number meant trouble; a call to Elizabeth's number could mean any number of things. Sometimes they even exchanged recipes, but his wife's tone of voice hadn't indicated such an innocuous reason for the call.

"He is checking to see if I want to have dinner with him this afternoon since you and Neal are off on some secret mission this weekend," she said with curiosity. "He thought the two of you were working today."

"Tell him we're not," Peter replied. It had been a hard couple of weeks. White Collar had logged an obscene number of hours with several cases coming together in unison; everyone had earned the weekend off. He hadn't seen or talked, to any of his team since Friday afternoon at five p.m. and that included Neal. "We all have the weekend off."

"I did," Elizabeth informed him, "Mozzie says Neal missed their standing chest match last night, and he isn't answering his phone." She paused, "He thought a case must have come up."

"No case came up," Peter replied impatiently. Neal had stood up him up, and Mozzie was fishing for information. He wanted to say he wasn't Neal's keeper, but the truth of the matter was that he was. "Tell him I don't know what Neal's plans for the evening were, but he didn't step out of his radius, and he was home at eleven fifteen last night when I checked on him."

In addition to checking his email before he went to bed at night, he also checked Neal's location. The same way some people said prayers before bedtime so they could rest well, he verified the whereabouts of Neal Caffrey. At eleven fifteen last night, Neal had been on Riverside Drive.

"Well, that was odd," Elizabeth commented after the call had ended and she returned to the living room.

"And that surprises you?" Peter mused. "Mozzie is odd,"

"Odder than usual," she clarified. "He acted really strange. He went all quiet, told me to disregard his call, and abruptly hung up."

"He's probably annoyed at Neal for standing him up," Peter speculated. "It's been a tough couple of weeks and Neal probably wasn't up to any Mozzie antics. He'll get over it."

"He didn't sound annoyed," Elizabeth commented. "He sounded worried."

"Mozzie isn't only odd he's paranoid as well," Peter reminded her. Still, Mozzie checking with him on the whereabouts of Neal was a bit unusual. With a sigh, he grabbed his cell phone. Better safe than sorry.

"You worried now, too?" Elizabeth asked.

"No," Peter answered, "but I don't want Mozzie's paranoia ruining the rest of my Saturday." Neal might not answer a call from Mozzie, but he would answer a call from Peter; it was an unspoken rule.

"You've reached Neal. Big Brother's watching, so leave a message at your own risk." The call had gone straight to voice mail. His phone was turned off. Again unusual; Neal was always connected.

"You know better than to turn off your phone," Peter growled into the receiver. "Even on a weekend off; call me when you get this."

Peter disconnected the call and put his phone down. He tried to relax and get back into the game but between Mozzie and not being able to reach Neal, he found himself distracted. Finally, with another irritated sigh, he gave in.

"El, could you hand me my computer." He didn't respond to Elizabeth's raised eyebrows as she took his laptop from the dining room table and brought it to him. He sat it on the coffee table in front of him and opened it. Thirty seconds later, he was viewing Neal's location.

"Looks like he's on the terrace." His relief indicated he had been more concerned about Neal's unreachability than he had thought. "Enjoying his day off in peace, Mozzie-free."

"Wasn't worried, huh?" She asked with a smile; she had read him well.

"Well, maybe just a little bit," He admitted. He left the computer open but pushed it aside. "We're talking about Neal, after all. Just when you think you know what he'll do, he changes things up. I guess Mozzie's paranoia can be contagious."

He propped his feet up beside the computer, and leaned back against the sofa and returned to doing the same thing. Enjoying his day off.

Elizabeth sat down on the sofa as well, and ten minutes later broke the silence.

"Something is not right with this, Peter."

He looked at her in question. His team was winning, but she wasn't looking at the television; she was looking at the computer screen. Neal's tracking signal was still on display.

"What?" The signal still showed Neal in his apartment.

"Well," she said, "That little blip that's supposed to be Neal just jumped from one place to another."

"What do you mean?" The blip-that-was-Neal was now in what Peter had formerly determined was the bedroom.

"It was somewhere over here," she pointed at the screen, "and then it just jumped back over to where it is now. Jumped, didn't move from place to place the way it had before."

"Probably just a computer glitch," Peter surmised. The game momentarily forgotten, he began to watch the computer screen. He normally didn't do that; watch Neal's movements so closely. He just checked in. Knowing Neal's general whereabouts was usually enough. It did seem a little odd that at 2:30 in the afternoon, Neal was stationary in his bedroom. Perhaps not so odd, he thought with a blush. The man was entitled to a personal life even though he usually had very little time to fit one in. Having only a two-mile radius when he was on his own time didn't give him a lot of opportunities to visit with any lady friends outside his apartment.

He stayed there for ten minutes before moving to the bathroom. After a few minutes there, he briefly visited the main living area, and then was back on the terrace. After that, Peter determined that Neal had left his apartment and walked to the street outside.

Then, just as Elizabeth had said it did, the blip that was Neal disappeared from the street and reappeared in the bedroom. The minute that happened, he felt his heart skip a beat. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions, he waited. Exactly twenty-nine minutes later, the blip that was Neal, again at the street, suddenly dematerialized and reappeared in the bedroom.

The signal from Neal's tracking device was somehow running in a loop. The likelihood that Neal was in his apartment at all was slim. Mozzie had said that Neal had missed some appointment with him the evening before and if he was indeed in his apartment, no doubt Mozzie would have found him by now.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Peter had seen last seen Neal. In that amount of time, he could be almost anywhere by now. Be anywhere, and doing anything.

"Dammit, Neal," he said, reaching for his telephone. "What have you done?"