Title: Every bridge we build we burn (and never learn to swim)
Author: Flora
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Mozzie, Elizabeth, Peter
Word Count: 2200
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for 4.12 “Brass Tacks”
Summary: Mozzie knows what it is to be afraid of losing someone. Episode tag for 4.12 “Brass Tacks”.
A/N: Okay, this is the first time in a while that I’ve watched an ep and had to sit down and write a tag right away. The title is from Tom McRae’s “Walking to Hawaii”.



The Suit answers the door and stares at the potted Gerber daisy in Mozzie’s hands.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

Mozzie suppresses a long-suffering sigh. “It’s for Elizabeth.” He holds the glazed terra cotta pot and the wine bottle out of reach as Satchmo sniffs diligently at his shirt, as if he hasn’t visited Casa Suit a dozen times before. “I know all this has been difficult for her, so -”

“You’re bringing my wife flowers.”

It’s a quiet summer evening, a hazy white sky blurring red at the end of the street, copper-gold sunset light blazing farewell along the roofs of parked cars at the curb. The smell of a neighbor’s lilacs mingles with blue charcoal smoke from a cookout up the block.

“I thought about boosting this six-foot stone sculpture I caught her admiring at -”

“Get in here.” The Suit rolls his eyes but he steps back, motioning Mozzie to come in and shooing the dog aside.

“Hon?” Elizabeth calls from the dining room.

“We have a visitor.” Peter shuts the door and abruptly Mozzie has his full attention; it’s just the two of them in the warm yellow light of the foyer. Peter’s brown eyes are sharp and worried and searching. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Mozzie?”

Mozzie knows that look; the Suit suspects. He always does. “What, can’t a guy show up with wine and flowers for somebody else’s wife without getting the third degree?”

Peter’s lips press together in an annoyed look usually reserved for Neal; when he turns his head Mozzie can still see angry red cuts, marks of broken glass at the side of his neck where the sling’s strap rests.

“Oh, Moz.” Elizabeth leans in to sniff the daisy, taking his arm to lead him toward the kitchen. He can hear soup simmering on the stove, and the smell of baking bread escapes in a wash of fragrant steam as she peeks into the oven. “Dinner’s almost ready. Can I get you anything?”

“I won’t be staying.”

She tilts her head to the side and asks quietly, “Did Neal send you?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

She grabs two glasses and a corkscrew, steering him out to the patio quickly enough that the Suit turns to look after them, curious. Mozzie shakes his head, exasperated, as the door bangs shut behind them.

“Seriously, that was amateur.” He sets the flowerpot on the little table between a marigold and a scrubby grey-green rosemary bush. “You could have just waved a flag saying we’re up to something sneaky and suspicious out here. If you’re going to run a con, you should at least try to do it right.”

“I’m not running a con, Moz.” And she looks like Kate when she frowns at him, her mouth set in a tense, frustrated line. “I’m trying to keep Peter out of one.”

“You’re lying to a federal agent about the fact that a convicted felon is violating half a dozen of the terms of his parole agreement on your orders.” Mozzie picks up the corkscrew, carefully opening the bottle. “Congratulations, you’ve officially joined Team Wrong Side of the Law. Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies.” He pours a generous slug of Neal’s best Cabernet into each of the glasses, lifts one and salutes her with it. “Also, we have better booze. How many times have you lied to the Suit, anyway?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” She lifts a steel watering can from under the windowboxes and pours into the drying soil around the daisy; the marigold and the basil in the window get the rest of the water, with the last few drops sprinkled into the rosemary.

“It’s relevant because he’s good.” He pauses. “Don’t ever tell him I said that. I hate to give him credit, but -”

“You think I don’t know that?” She raises the other glass. “You do have better booze. This is nice.”

“It’s Neal’s.” A streetlight flickers somewhere up the street; the moon and Venus are framed in the circle of the Rai stone, a diamond and an ivory sickle claw against a peach velvet sky. “Did you see him with Pratt this afternoon?”

“He got Pratt’s attention.”

“Waved a red flag.” Mozzie didn't see the live feed from the briefcase cam, but Neal told him about it after. “Probably hoping they’ll come after him next.”

Elizabeth only nods; he can see lines of strain around her eyes in the fading light.

He doesn’t tell her he briefly considered putting a hit on the senator. Considered, and discarded the idea; a high-profile target like that would make too much noise. He’s not that desperate yet.

“You know, if there’s one thing Neal doesn’t need it’s lessons in survivor guilt.” Mozzie leans against the wall beside the window as another streetlight comes on. “He’s perfectly capable of blaming himself for what happened without any help from you.”

She doesn’t answer. He turns the wineglass in his hands and thinks longingly of sun and turquoise waves and fine white sand.

Finally he says, “Are you sure keeping the Suit out of this is the way to go?”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, now you sound like Kate.”

“There’s no need to be insulting.”

“I wasn’t.” He lets a note of steel creep into the words. “Kate was a friend.” For a long moment the only sound is a car radio, a bass beat passing by at the corner. “She was young and pissed at the whole world and she could be an idiot sometimes, but she loved Neal. I don’t care what the Suit told you.”

The Suit believes otherwise because she lied to Neal; Mozzie considers pointing out the implications of this before deciding he’s not here to play relationship counselor. “I don’t think she ever loved anyone else, but she would have killed for him if she had to.”

“I thought you never trusted her.”

“I don’t trust anyone. That’s not the point.” Sometimes Elizabeth reminds him of Kate so much it hurts; she has the same raw potential, the same cold steel nerve and natural talent for the game, despite a conventional and law-abiding early life. She could have made a brilliant con artist. But talent without experience can only take you so far.

“Kate thought she could protect Neal by keeping him in the dark about what was really going on with the music box.” He takes another sip of wine and wonders if he should have brought a bottle of fake whiskey instead. “Obviously that didn’t work out so well for her. Or for him.”

“This is different.”

“No, it’s not.”

Elizabeth folds her arms like she’s cold. “I thought you of all people would rather do this without involving the FBI.”

“First we have to work with the feds, now we have to keep the feds out of it.” He thinks again of white sand and an airy villa, no extradition treaties and no one shooting at them; they’d almost made it, almost left all this behind. “For all I know we’ll be back to working with the feds again tomorrow. At this point I’m getting whiplash.” He shrugs. “I just do what I’m told.”

That startles a real laugh from her, and he can’t help smiling in return. “Of course you do.”

She knows him too well; they’re alike, the two of them, in ways Peter and Neal don’t see.

“The Suit’s suspicious already,” he says. A door opens somewhere nearby; he hears a dog barking, a mother’s voice calling a child home for dinner. “He won’t let this drop.”

“He will.” Elizabeth’s eyes are wet steel. “He has to.”

Mozzie sighs; he could tell her wishes can’t prevent someone you love from being reckless. If they could Mozzie might have saved Neal from any number of desperately stupid mistakes over the years.

He tops off both their glasses and listens to the murmur of a neighbor’s radio, the grumble of a car’s engine starting. The porch light comes on next door, warm amber spilling across the surface of the patio; he can see tufts of dry grass and a bunch of wildflowers struggling through cracks in the concrete, stubbornly trying to fit in where they’re not wanted.

It was an evening like this, the night he ran away.

He remembers the sky at dusk unrolling like a bolt of midnight silk, a hazy pink ribbon border at the horizon and the brightest constellations stitched in silver thread, wavering through industrial smoke. He left with a roll of cash under his shirt, a backpack holding a change of clothes and a battle-scarred stuffed bear; he’d like to say he didn’t look back, but he’d be lying.

He can see the windows along that street like it was yesterday, framed portraits of an inaccessible dream rendered in yellow light and laughing voices, a series of paintings in an outdoor gallery with titles like these things are not for people like you.

He learned that lesson early, from the foster parents who gave him everything and then took it all away. He could have told Neal. You might think you’re part of the family, but there comes a day when they have to choose between you and one of their own, and on that day you’ll find out you’ve always been on the outside looking in.

He really should have brought the whiskey.

“You could tell Neal to run.”

Elizabeth looks up, startled.

“If you think he’s putting Peter at risk, tell him to leave.” The moon spills a thin line of silver across the table, a shimmering horned reflection in a darkened downstairs window. “Tell him to cut the chain off his leg and disappear. He’ll do it if you ask him.”

It would tear Neal apart, leaving all this again; Mozzie knows that. It might also save his life. He hates to give any credit to the Suits, but taking on someone with Pratt’s reach without FBI backup is one of the more suicidal ideas Neal has proposed, and that’s saying something.

Sometimes you have to hurt the ones you love to keep them safe.

The band of sunset gold at the horizon frays and blurs, dissolving into the dark; her face is half in shadow as she shakes her head. “They’re in too deep with Pratt already.”

“Neal is dangerous to Peter,” he says quietly. “Peter’s dangerous to him.” You’re dangerous to him. He can’t say no to you; he’ll keep your secrets if it kills him. “They’ll both be safer if we separate them.”

“Peter’s dangerous -” Her voice rises sharply. “Peter would do anything for him.”

“Neal would do anything for you. He’d jump in front of a bullet if you asked him to.” He can close his eyes and imagine Neal walking up to Pratt, with that hard, reckless light in his eyes Mozzie knows only too well. Throwing down a gauntlet and making himself the target. “That’s exactly what you asked him to do, isn’t it?”

People underestimate Elizabeth. Mozzie has always known this; he’s been underestimated himself for most of his life. It’s part of what first drew them together.

“What do you want from me, Moz?” Her chin lifts, and her face shows neither denial nor remorse; he sees fear in her eyes, behind that hard edge. “Peter has risked so much -” She chokes on the last words. “If you’re expecting me to apologize -”

“I’m not.”

She stops and blinks, surprised.

“You’re protecting your family,” he says gently. “I get that.” And he can't judge her; he knows what it is to be afraid of losing someone. “But you should know I’ll do whatever it takes to protect mine.”

Mozzie has grown soft and sentimental, here; the Burkes’ home is every dream of every lonely foster kid, full of warmth and light and delicious smells; it’s the sort of home he once longed to find.

But when the lines are drawn (and in the end they always will be) he knows whose side he’s on.

This is about Neal. Neal who didn’t laugh at his stupid shadow puppets. Neal who was ready to take the fall for Mozzie’s treasure heist, who gave himself up and gave Mozzie twelve hours’ head start to disappear. Neal who was there at the hospital after he was shot.

Neal who was the front man for all their schemes, who took the credit and the blame and paid for his own crimes and Mozzie’s, too, with a steel cage and a leash he still wears.

“Neal is the only family I’ve got. And he’s not jumping in front of any bullets. Not for the Suit. Not for his father. Not even for you.” Mozzie drains the last of his wine and sets the glass on the table. “I won’t let him. If he gets in over his head with this, and I think he needs help, I’ll tell Peter everything myself.”

Her voice drops the temperature several degrees. “You can’t do that.”

He doesn’t want to; going to the Suit behind Neal’s back has always been a nuclear option. But this time Neal might need more backup than Mozzie can provide. “I’m curious how you intend to stop me.”

He doesn’t have a sword to salute her with, so he settles for a fraction of a nod as he turns to leave.