Neal shrugged away the woman's soft touch. She reminded him too much of his mother, for Neal to trust her. He took a deep breath, waiting for the accompanying dizziness to subside.

"Neal?"

"What happened?" Neal croaked, turning his head towards Peter.

"You had a nightmare."

"What was it about?" the woman spoke up for the first time.

Neal glanced questioningly at Peter, who awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Uh, Neal…this is my wife, Elizabeth Burke."

"Nice to meet you Neal. Call me El" she smiled.

Neal gave a tentative smile back and Peter thought he had never seen the conman so innocent.

Neal was finally discharged from the hospital the next morning. And Peter needed a way to keep the ex-con occupied so he didn't run.

He had already tried to talk Diana and or Jones into baby-sitting, but both had refused. Jones, because he didn't want to have a problem with El again and Diana, because she was, well, Diana. El had the event-planning business and Peter knew that her baby-sitting Neal wouldn't work. He'd probably sweet-talk his way into anything, especially since El was so soft when it came to kids. Satchmo was also not a valid candidate for this task either. As it was, Peter was already running late for work and he decided to take Neal with him.

Neal surprisingly didn't protest as Peter explained to him what was going to happen. He did, however roll his eyes at the amount of rules Peter had made.

Peter glared at Neal, and tried to think of any other rule that would hopefully discourage Neal from running.

"Alright, let's go" he snapped irritably. In his opinion, Neal should not look this happy, especially since he wasn't exactly allowed to do anything.

Peter sighed, rubbing his forehead. He had been stuck in meetings for the past three hours an he was seriously worried about Neal.

Meanwhile, Neal was getting bored. He was sitting in a spinning chair, idly using his foot to slowly spin it one way or the other. He soon got bored of that and started to tap his fingers on the desk.

Peter came in to the conference room, looking tired. He didn't even say anything to Neal, and just sat at the opposite end of the desk and pulled out a file. After a few minutes he looked up, an irritated look on his face.

"Neal would you please stop?" he asked, sounding exasperated.

"Sorry Peter…I'm just really bored" Neal grimaced, he hated sounding like a whiny brat.

"Why don't you just…draw or something?"

"Paper? Pen?" Neal actually looked happy at the prospect of being able to use his incredible art skills.

Peter sighed and tossed a sheaf of printer paper and a couple of ballpoint pens over to Neal.

An hour later, Peter was finished with his paperwork and ready to go home. He stood up stretching, biting back a chuckle as he saw how engrossed Neal was in his drawing.

Peter came to stand behind Neal, his eyes widening as he saw how amazingly lifelike Neal's drawing of El was.

"Ready to go home?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah, let's go home" Neal looked a little startled as he hesitated on the word "home".

As they were walking out to the car, Neal said, "I like work."

Peter couldn't help grinning and affectionately ruffled Neal's hair.

A/N: First off, I am SO sorry for the huge delay. My exams are coming up, so I probably won't be updating for awhile. I will NOT forget this story, however. I also need a few ideas for the ending of this story, I think it's gonna get wrapped up soon!