Title: Anchored
Author: Flora
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Neal/Kate, Mozzie
Word Count: 2000
Warnings/Spoilers: Through 2.11
Summary: The job should have been simple, safe, easy - perfect for a beginner.
A/N: Written for veleda_k for fandom_stocking.



Neal remembers water.

He remembers sun striking ice-bright sparks from cobalt waves; he remembers the flare of golden light blinding him, reflecting off brass fittings at the end of the boom. He remembers the shadow of the yacht leaning hard over, a dark shape against the water, dipping toward a foam-fringed wave.

He can’t remember where Moz said he got the intel for this job; he knew once but the memory is lost down a black well. It should have been simple, safe, easy - perfect for a beginner. Nothing dangerous. O’Reilly wasn’t supposed to be on the island; he certainly wasn’t supposed to own the goddamn island -

The last few hours come back in ragged patches, badly-sewn together and tangled in grey haze and Neal realizes he’s been drugged.

He feels like he’s floating, a gentle rocking motion, watching sparklers twist and dance; he might be lying on his back in the ocean. The water is warm and he’s watching fireworks, maybe, or heaving patches of phosphorescent plankton swirled and broken by the waves. In some dusty back corner of his mind an alarm bell is ringing.

Two years ago O’Reilly was lieutenant to a mob boss; he’d been a dangerous mark but Neal got away clean, that time. He never thought they’d cross paths again.

Neal opens his eyes and there’s a lamp swaying on a chain, shining directly in his face. He’s alone.

He has a dim memory of agony clamped around his right forearm, of being shaken like a rag doll before everything went dark and cold.

But they escaped. All three of them. He remembers that; he’s sure of it.

He’s still on the boat; he’d spun a story to get all three of them on board. It was their best, their only chance of escaping the island before O’Reilly found them and Kate said of course she could play bored trophy wife for the seven hours it took to reach the mainland. She’d smiled bravely and tried to pretend she wasn’t in over her head and terrified.

He squeezes his eyes shut again. He hears, muffled, the creak of sails somewhere above the low ceiling overhead. He’s on a narrow cot under a thin blanket.

Where is everybody? Where’s Moz? Where’s - ?

He tries to sit up, in sudden panic, and his head reels like a balloon, like it’s about to float away from the rest of his body and he has to lie down and hold onto it with his good hand.

Kate was never supposed to be within a hundred miles of someone like O’Reilly.

He can’t tell if it’s day or night; there’s a shade drawn over the tiny porthole. The rhythmic rush of water on the other side of the wall is distracting, but the monster that tore up his arm has settled down to a dull gnawing ache.

He remembers the whoosh of canvas and the boom swinging toward him; he remembers flinging one arm up to protect his face and blue water dissolving in a red wave of pain.

The tiny hatch opens, then, barely three feet from the end of the cot and he sees her first, ducking her head to come in. She’s upset, strained lines around her mouth and sleepless shadows making her blue eyes huge.

“Kate -”

His tongue feels thick and heavy and his mouth is lined with fuzz, but numbed or not his lips know her name.

Kate freezes. Moz is behind her, his face blank like his mind is racing. Coherent thought gropes through thick veils of fog; finally Neal sees the other man behind her and he thinks, shit.

Kate isn’t her name, of course, and Neal Caffrey isn’t his. The man behind her only goes by Junior but Neal remembers him; he owns the yacht and his father owns the island. Junior’s never met Neal; he had no idea Neal ever stole from his father and no reason to suspect they aren’t who they say they are.

No reason until Neal just gave him one.

Junior has a reputation, too, and the last guy who crossed him ended up in several pieces at the bottom of the bay.

Junior’s frowning, confused, and Neal needs a plan. Damage control. Some plausible reason for calling her by the wrong name that isn’t we’re trying to get away from your dad before he finds out I conned him out of half a million two years ago and has us all shot but his mind is dull and smothered under layers of drug-soaked fuzz and all he can think is Kate wasn’t supposed to be here.

Kate’s learning and she’s smart but it’s only been three months since she was working for Adler in an office and now he’s blown her cover and Junior’s going to kill her and -

He can see her standing at the rail in a light sundress with a shawl around her shoulders, obviously unhappy for anyone at a party on a yacht in the Caribbean. Junior was suspicious at first; he asked her what was wrong and she said she got seasick. But she walked the deck and balanced like a sailor and she didn’t look seasick, she looked tense and angry and afraid, and the lie only made things worse.

Neal covered for them both by flirting outrageously with every other woman on board, offering a plausible reason for her obvious distress. Start from the truth and build the lie from there, he’s always told her, and the truth was Kate did not want to be on this boat with these people, not Junior or his thugs or any of his party guests.

He’s still reaching for something slick to say but his tongue is lead wrapped in cobwebs and all his brain offers is horrifying and completely unhelpful visions of Kate and Moz being shot. Or do they still make people walk the plank these days?

And then she steps forward, quick and furious, and slaps him hard across the face.

“Who the hell is Kate?”

That’s how he finds out his face is numb, too, though some reflex still makes him blink at the impact.

“I knew it!” she snaps, and Neal tries to raise both hands, surrender or apology or both and he realizes his right arm is strapped to his side in a sling.

“Baby -” he tries in his best pleading voice; she hates pet names but he can’t remember her alias right now. He can’t remember his own. He thinks it was Nick but he can’t be sure.

He says, vaguely, “I love you.” Moz is shaking his head, looking exasperated, and Junior -

Junior looks mildly amused by the whole scene.

“Who is she?” And now she rounds on Moz, who makes the catch as smoothly as if they’d rehearsed the scene, stepping back with both hands raised. “Give me his cell phone!”

“You’re amazing,” Neal tells her, because she is. And he owes her an apology. He owes her a thousand of them. She’s a far better actress than he gave her credit for, all hard lines and broken glass and incandescent spitting fury.

“Don’t even try that with me, you -” And she sells it. She sells it beautifully. “How long have you been seeing her?”

She’s brilliant, he thinks, and he says so, in a voice that’s both muzzy and too loud in his ears.

“I watched you almost drown!” She’s not done. “I’ve been worried sick for a day and a half thinking you hit your head and you’re not going to wake up, you worthless asshole -”

She’s not acting. Or she is, exactly the way he taught her, start with the truth and build the lie from there but she really is furious and he wonders how long it’s been and if he really did almost die.

He tries to sit up and there’s two of her, glaring, and his head does that thing where it tries to float away again. He hates this, even the jangling fear is dulled, wrapped in a haze he can’t fight through, like sticky grey cotton candy smothering him.

But Moz is here, Moz steps forward and takes her arm and says, “Alice, calm down.” Neal thinks Alice, and thank you, Moz. “It’s only been three hours -”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Her voice rises and she steps closer to the cot, close enough that she can wrap her fingers around Neal’s, hard, without anyone seeing. She turns just enough to glare at Junior and doesn’t falter for a second. “And what are you looking at?”

Junior only gives him a shark’s grin and says, “You’re on your own here, Nick.” And he turns and walks out, sliding the hatch shut behind him.

But he’s not. (On his own.)

The realization hits Neal in a shaky flood of terror and relief. One drugged slip of the tongue and he’d nearly killed all three of them, would have if Kate hadn’t thought faster than he could.

“You’re brilliant,” he says again, weakly. “And beautiful.”

“Shhhhhh,” she says. “You’re all right.”

“Bewitching,” he goes on, and she’s rolling her eyes but he’s on a roll, here, and there’s a hint of a smile twitching one corner of her mouth. “Bedazzling. Bewildering …”

And that’s not quite right but now she does crack a real smile, just for a second, wavering. “They’ve got you on the really good drugs.”

He’s shaking his head, now, carefully like it might fall off. The drugs are not good, not good at all. But he’s not alone.

He knows that and he lets his eyes close. Only for a few seconds, then he’s lost and floating and disoriented again. His eyes open and he squeezes Kate’s hand tighter; she’s glaring again but her other hand is fussing with the edge of the blanket, tucking it up under his chin.

“What happened?” he asks quietly.

“You were leaning out over the side and the boom swung around and knocked you overboard,” Moz says grimly.

He remembers pain, and falling, a dizzy spin and the black outline of the yacht silhouetted against the sky before dark water closed over his head.

He’d been trying to snap a picture; the image comes back to him suddenly. He’d pulled out a camera, hooking one arm around the rail, leaning far out. He’d wanted to take a picture of the sails, wide dark canvas against the amber setting sun. Something Kate could paint, later. He’d hoped it might cheer her up.

He thinks maybe he shouldn’t mention that right now.

“The boom slammed into your arm and broke the bone,” Mozzie says, which explains the pain lurking beneath the drugged haze. “You’re damn lucky it didn’t crack your skull. One of the guests here claimed to be a doctor; he set it and shot you full of -” He waves a hand in the air. “- whatever.”

Most likely Moz had stood over the doctor the whole time, glaring and suspicious. Neal is absurdly warmed, thinking about it.

And then, turning to Kate, Mozzie says, “Nice catch, there.”

She blinks and Neal realizes she’s still shaking. Mozzie pretends not to notice.

“Okay, get some sleep, mon frère,” he tells Neal. “I’ll go entertain our host with tales of your romantic misadventures until we get to the dock. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

Kate sits on the edge of the cot as he leaves; Neal brings her hand to his lips and kisses it, twice, before they both start talking at once.

“I’m sorry -”

“Don’t you ever -”

Finally, after a silence, she ventures a weak smile and says, “I was good, wasn’t I?”

“You were amazing,” he says again. “Even Moz thinks so.” And Mozzie had not been thrilled about adding a third to their team. “I’d say you have a future in this business.”

“Go to sleep,” she says. Her fingers thread lightly through his hair as he lets his eyes close.