[open]

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."