[open]

[notgoingtorun]

If Neal was being truly honest with himself, he knew full well that this moment was inevitable. He knew he was going to be exposed one way or another. At least this way, Peter had let him keep at least some of his dignity by allowing him to tell the truth on his own, rather than have the message delivered for him as though he were completely incapable of telling the truth. Oh, it would still be humiliating to round up so many people and tell them the truth, reliving a difficult conversation over and over again, but perhaps that was the message that Peter was trying to get through Neal's head: taking the easy way out was never the best solution. Neal had taken the easy way out, and he was paying the price for it now.

Neal had put this off for as long as he could, but he knew it had to be done. Aside from facing Peter's wrath, the guilt would gnaw at him until he did. Guilt was a new feeling, one that had never touched him when he was stealing priceless artifacts or defrauding billionaires, but now that he'd made friends and started a life that was built on lies, he was starting to know what regret really felt like.

This wasn't the first time that he'd had to do this dance -- once, not so long ago, he'd had to sit down with Kate and tell her that Nick Halden was a fabrication, and that hurt -- but that didn't mean he wasn't nervous about it. He'd dressed in his best clothes today -- suit, waistcoat, tie, hat -- because if he was going to go back to being Neal Caffrey, then he was going to own it.

As Neal began to track down his friends, people he cared about, people who trusted him, he realized that this was going to be a very long day.

"Hey there," he said, plastering on a cheerful smile as he approached, "do you have a couple of minutes? There's something I need to talk to you about."

Comments

[radicalize]

It made Lucy all the more curious, there was no doubt about that, but she wasn't about to go asking questions. That he'd told her all this was a lot already, and though she thought she was willing to put it behind her, this being nothing like the betrayal she'd gotten from Bryce, she didn't have any right to push for more. She knew the truth. That was the important part. "So here you are," she echoed, nodding once. "Well, I... I'm glad. That you came forward about it. Whatever that's worth."

[notgoingtorun]

"Thanks," Neal said, offering up a slightly more subdued smile than his usual brilliant grin. "I appreciate you hearing me out. Not all of these conversations on my little apology tour have gone so well." It was his own damn fault, though -- he'd gotten himself into this mess, and he didn't expect people to cut him any slack just because he asked nicely.

[radicalize]

"Hey, just because I had a boyfriend who turned out to be a douchebag, who was also using a fake name, who happened to look scarily like you, doesn't mean I'm not going to give you a chance," Lucy said, almost surprised by how genuine her own smile was, albeit soft in turn. The prospect still made her a little uneasy, she couldn't deny that, but what he'd said made sense. She wasn't going to let the grudge she held against someone else carry over because of a few admittedly eerie similarities. "Other people giving you a hard time about it?"

[notgoingtorun]

"Not as many as I thought there would be," Neal said, thinking back on the conversations he'd had. "A lot of people here seem to have had less than law-abiding lives back home, so people generally have been relatively understanding." That didn't make the disappointment he faced from others sting any less, though. "There've been other people who... well... expected more of me, I guess, which stings."