This is a work of fanfiction, for entertainment purposes only. The characters and concepts of White Collar do not belong to me, but to their creator.

Author's Notes: It's been more than a decade since I took Peter and Neal out for a little meta journey in Free Fallout. (Though I still remember that first mid-season finale like it was yesterday!) I didn't expect to visit them again in that format, but all the recent chatter from Jeff Eastin and the cast changed my mind. So consider this my small part of keeping the buzz. ;-)

Rebonjour

by

Cheride

Peter considered ignoring the phone just on general principle. After all, anyone who knows him at all knows that he watches the game on Saturdays. (And, as he's heard El say many times, there's always some kind of game.) Though more recently, his game-watching time has been more commonly spent with his young son, but people who know him should know that, too. But, since the world was on lockdown these days, all the sports were re-runs, and his son was currently playing mostly quietly up in his room, so there really wasn't much reason not to answer the phone, but it was Saturday. People should know better than to interrupt a guy's weekend.

Of course, pretending he needed some sort of sacrosanct weekend downtime was another thing he did on general principle; it had been over five years since he'd had to worry about emergency calls from the office, or the monitoring service that always kept track of his CI—the guy who'd sworn Peter was his best friend, right before pulling off his biggest con ever. And since that fateful date in December 2014, all of his days were like Saturdays. He used to think he'd be happy about that.

By the time Peter had realized he should answer the phone just for something to do, the damn thing had quit ringing, so he returned his attention back to the lacrosse he'd been watching. El was right; there was always something. When he heard the telltale buzz again just a few minutes later, he reached over quickly to snatch the phone before he missed out again. But then, he paused once more, seeing the caller ID provided no information beyond the country of origin: France.

His hand stayed frozen in indecision. Peter was pretty sure he only knew one person who might be calling from the land of wine and cheese, and he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to him. But boredom finally won out.

"This is Burke," he growled into the phone.

"Hi, Peter." The lilting voice greeted him like it was just another day.

"Neal," he answered blandly. "Or is it Victor?"

"It's always Neal to you."

Despite himself, Peter felt his anger and hurt fade away almost immediately. After all, it wasn't the kid's fault he'd been forced to take such drastic measures; Neal was just doing what he had to do. Damn the boss—Burke clamped down on the wayward thought before it could slip through his lips. It was likely that Jeff never gave him a second thought these days, but old habits died hard.

"So, how are you, Neal? I didn't really expect to hear from you again, what with the cancellation and all."

"Yeah, I know." Caffrey's voice had gone a little glum. "I wish I could've at least been dead in New York; maybe then I could've managed to sneak in a visit or something. I even tried to ask . . . Jeff about it, you know, back then, but he wouldn't budge."

Burke could tell from the way the conman had only whispered their creator's name that he wasn't alone in dealing with old habits, but Neal continued on before Peter could even tease him about it.

"But he said if I didn't go to Paris, it would be stupid to call the thing Au Revoir, and he really seemed to like that title."

Old habits or not, Neal still sounded a little miffed about the whole thing. And really, Peter couldn't blame him. At least he still had El and little Neal here with him, and even Jones and Diana snuck a call every once in a while, but Caffrey had been sent overseas all alone. Though it was true that Mozzie had become a lot more scarce after he'd made sure Peter finally caught a clue about what was going on, so the agent had just assumed the two conmen were up to their old shenanigans on the other side of the Atlantic. But none of that explained why Neal had finally picked up the phone today.

"What's going on, Neal? You can't possibly be in any kind of trouble; the writers are all gone."

"No, Peter, not trouble, just the opposite!"

There was nothing but excitement in his former CI's tone now, and Peter was immediately intrigued. "Really? Spill it."

"Are you on Twitter yet?" Caffrey responded, as if that were an answer.

"Don't be ridiculous," Burke snapped. "And you know how I feel about questions as answers."

"You're such a dinosaur sometimes, Peter. You miss out on so much." Neal sighed slightly before continuing. "Anyway, we've talked about this before, how Jeff . . ." and the brief pause let Burke know the younger man was scanning whatever room he was in to make sure the boss wasn't going to suddenly appear, "how he likes to stir things up sometimes."

"Seems like that's probably kind of his job," Peter suggested, suddenly very glad it had never been part of his. Who had time for Twitter, even now? He'd rather be a dinosaur. He refocused. "But what's he stirring up now? I mean, what is there to stir up? We're a memory, kid; the reruns aren't even playing."

"Yeah, but it seems like maybe we're at least a fond memory. The boss says it's time to get me out of retirement."

"Really?!" But Burke's immediate excitement was quickly quashed by a practical consideration. "Get you out of retirement? I hope that would mean me, too." He also hoped that didn't sound too pouty, but it really had been a boring five years, El and little Neal notwithstanding. The really good stuff only happened when the boss was around. Well, and Neal Caffrey himself.

"Of course it would mean you, too; what're you thinking?"

"Well, it's not like you'd need a handler anymore," Peter replied a little petulantly. "You do realize we've been off the air longer than we were on, right? No way they could conjure up any kind of a sentence left hanging over you, especially with that contract."

Neal sighed more loudly this time. "Peter. It's all I can do to keep up with Moz spiraling out of control every time I turn around; don't make me have to reel you in, too." Then he lightened his tone just a bit, and Burke could actually hear the blinding smile. "He's talking about bringing back the show, Peter, not just me."

Burke felt his own smile then, as he allowed the possibilities to enthrall him. "Okay, good. Then tell me what else he said."

"There isn't a whole lot," Neal assured him. "Just that he's kind of looking into things, having conversations, working on a story. I told you, he's just stirring things up. But it seemed to work. There were plenty of comments; blogs and articles got written; fans started talking. I mean, it's not like we're trending or anything, but there's some buzz."

Peter didn't bother to ask for clarification on 'trending', but he did need to ask the question that was burning in the back of his mind. "I hate to be the party pooper here—"

"Since when?" Caffrey interrupted.

Burke went on as if the ex-con hadn't spoken, "But has anyone mentioned yet that our ratings dropped every single season? Seriously, by the time you took off for Paris, they really weren't great."

"Well . . ."

"Well, what?" Peter prompted when it seemed his CI wasn't going to say more.

"Well," Neal repeated, the hesitation obvious, "I hate to say it, but I think a lot of that was your fault, at least toward the end."

"My fault? What the hell does that mean?" the agent blustered.

"Season five, Peter," Neal said flatly.

"Oh. Well. Yeah. I could see that." Burke rubbed at his eyes, suddenly weary. That certainly hadn't been his finest moment.

But then Caffrey was hurrying on. "But that's in the past. I'm sure after the boss put you through a year of grieving my death, people figure you've been punished enough. You'll be forgiven, no doubt about it."

"Forgiven enough that people would watch again? That's the key thing."

Neal didn't even pause to consider. "I'm sure. People know you really missed our bromance as much as I did. Besides, reboots are all the rage these days; we'll be trendy again. You'll see."

"So, what do you need me to do?" Burke asked, grinning at his partner's reassurance.

"I don't think there's much we can do; I just wanted to make sure you were up to date. It's up to the boss now. And maybe the fans. They could keep the buzz going, that's always a good thing."

Peter smiled into the phone, still imagining possibilities. "It would be really great to see you again, Neal," he said sincerely.

The younger man matched his tone. "Same here, Peter."

There was silence then, comfortable, but with a hint of sadness. Peter realized he didn't want to hang up, and he guessed Neal felt the same. Finally, he spoke again. "Would it be okay if I called you sometimes?"

"I'm not sure if we're supposed to do that," Neal pointed out. "You'd probably be breaking some kind of rule. And now's probably not the time to make—" he dropped his voice again, "Jeff mad."

"You called."

There was a slight laugh. "I always break the rules, Peter."

Burke nodded, and laughed himself. "Yeah, I guess you do. I've even missed that, if you can believe it."

"It'll be our secret." Then, after the slightest pause, "Goodbye, Peter."

"Goodbye, Neal."

Burke sat, staring at the now silent phone for several minutes, lost somewhere between nostalgia and future dreams, when suddenly it buzzed again. He laughed as he read the short text.

Seriously, Peter. Join Twitter.