Burke family cabin, Catskills. Friday morning. March 5, 2004.
Over breakfast, Joe shared some of his proposals for projects in Baltimore, tied to a downtown revitalization project. He started out sitting on a sofa beside Noelle, paging through a portfolio and quietly discussing the buildings. But then he called Neal over, asking his opinion from the perspective of an artist. Before heading back home, Joe got Noelle's phone number and promised to call when he was in Baltimore again. Neal didn't give it much thought until Joe had left and Elizabeth said, "So, Noelle. You and Joe, hmm?"
"Oh. It isn't like that. I mean... Really, Elizabeth, he must be five years younger than me."
Neal looked up from the game of chess he'd been playing with Henry. He'd never heard Noelle sound so flustered. Henry was also watching his mother.
"That's hardly anything," Elizabeth insisted. "And I've never heard him so determined to get a woman's phone number unless she was a potential client. Isn't that right, Peter?"
Peter looked up from a book he was reading. "The fact is, Joe's been divorced about twelve years now and he's always been very reluctant to date again. He didn't want to do anything to disrupt his daughters' lives or their relationship with their mother. I'm glad to see he hasn't completely forgotten how to get a woman's phone number."
Neal returned his attention to the chess board. A few minutes later, as Henry had a piece in hand to make his next move, Noelle said, "You mentioned something about an affair?"
Henry put the piece back where it had been on the board to follow the conversation.
Peter cleared his throat. "Yeah, his wife was meeting a guy here in this cabin, in fact."
"Oh. So Joe didn't...?"
"No," Elizabeth said. "The Burke men are as faithful as the day is long."
Henry had been listening with a very serious expression, but Elizabeth's comment seemed to assuage his concerns. He grinned and said, "So Peter, if my mom marries your brother does that make you my uncle?"
Peter smiled back. "Yeah, I'd say that makes me an official uncle to you and to your honorary little brother. You know, the more I think about this, the more I like it. Noelle, you should definitely go out with Joe. He's a great guy. He deserves someone like you. And as a real uncle by marriage, I'd have a lot more authority over both of these kids."
"Yes. Well. I think this talk of marriage is rushing things a bit. But if Joe actually asks me out, I promise I'll take it seriously."
###
After lunch Neal had another session with Noelle. This time they sat at the picnic table, and they talked about how Vance had affected Neal's life even after the man was arrested. "I always avoided that greenbelt after I got back home," Neal said. "It used to be one of my favorite places to play. It seemed magical, before."
"And after?"
"It seemed haunted." Neal looked down into the valley below them, the trees glistening under a blanket of snow and ice. "You know, I think I've avoided hiking and camping and outdoorsy activities in general because I was abducted from my favorite outdoor place. But now... Now I want to come back here again someday and explore. It's like I can start to see the magic again. It's beautiful here."
When the session was over, Noelle took Neal's hand. "Yesterday you asked if I still love you. I do, very much. The fact is, I didn't expect you would get to me so quickly."
"And that's a problem. As a therapist."
"Yes, sweetie. We don't have to make a transition right away, but I don't have the objectivity you need from a therapist in the long term. I know a lot of excellent psychologists in the New York area; in fact I studied with many of them when I went to Columbia. When you're ready, I'll refer you to someone who will be a good fit. And then I'd like to focus on being your aunt."
Neal squeezed her hand. "I'd like that." After a moment he added, "Can we talk about my mom?"
Noelle took a shaky breath. "We can try. What do you want to know?"
"Do you think I'll end up like her?"
"You mean an alcoholic?"
Neal shook his head. "No. I tested that out shortly after I ran away. I asked Henry to make sure I didn't overdo it, and I finally tried drinking. I still don't care for beer, but I'm good with wine and alcohol in general. I've never had a problem stopping, and I don't crave it. It's not my go-to when I feel upset or overwhelmed."
"What do you turn to in those circumstances?"
Neal let go of her hand and leaned forward, elbows on the picnic table. "Art. For the big things, I use my art. Music for smaller stuff. And now I have Peter. And Henry. When everything with Robert happened in 2001 and I had to promise to stay away from Henry, I spun out of control. I poured myself into art, but specifically for criminal purposes. Being able to turn to Henry again has been... It's like someone replaced a broken pressure valve and I can let off steam again."
"For your mother, her pressure valves were cooking and... me. Our parents, of course, and our brother David, but mostly me. Going into WITSEC, she lost almost all contact with us, and the Marshals insisted she make a career change as part of her new identity. For some reason, she couldn't or wouldn't find other ways to deal with the pressures. That's where you're different. You're still finding new ways to handle the pressure. You let Peter into your life; you agreed to therapy. These are all healthy choices, and signs that you're able to continue adapting."
"But I wasn't making healthy choices in 2001. I threw myself into crime. I was kind of an adrenaline junkie for a while."
Noelle rubbed his back and said, "The important thing now is that you stopped, and that you recognize those old behaviors as self-destructive. Are you tempted to do those things again?"
Neal stretched his back, feeling his muscles loosening. "There are parts that were fun, but I can get the same kind of rush working at the FBI. And I realized I don't need that rush constantly. Is that it, then? Mom's issue was she refused to adapt?"
"People are rarely that simple and straightforward. The next question would be why she refused to adapt. We're reaching questions now that we can't answer without talking to her. But if I had to speculate, I'd have you consider that she didn't love herself very much. Something happened to make her feel... bad... and not worth the effort of adapting. Then as she saw how her poor decisions were hurting you, she would have felt even worse about herself, and it becomes a vicious cycle of drinking and dating someone like Vance." Noelle stopped rubbing Neal's back, and instead ran a hand along his face, sweeping back a lock of hair. "You could use a haircut."
"Talk about a non-sequitur."
"I was getting too maudlin. As long as you remember that you have value, that you are loved and are deserving of that love, I don't see you turning out like your mother. And I promise that Henry and I will do everything we can to help you in that regard. Peter will too, for that matter."
Neal sat in silence for a moment, feeling warmed by her promise. "I always believed my mom loved me, on some level. But at the same time, she avoided me. She worked late, or escaped in the drinking. She would have been more content if I weren't around, and I knew it. But she would have felt guilty leaving me, or if she thought she drove me away. I couldn't win. Neither of us could. No matter what we did, there was no way for her to be happy. When I finally ran away, I knew... Well, I was certain it was best for both of us to go our own ways. By then we'd go days, sometimes weeks, without talking to each other."
"You both would have been better off if you'd discussed what was troubling each of you with a family therapist. But avoidance often seems easier."
"It takes courage to talk about it," Neal said. Then he looked at his aunt in surprise. "I never considered that she was scared, but it makes sense now. She must have had a flight instinct, like me. But she couldn't leave, either because of the Marshals or because she believed it would be wrong to abandon me. Feeling pinned down when your instincts are screaming at you to run is awful, and that's how life must have been for her for years. No wonder she was messed up. But she's better now, right? You said she's not drinking anymore."
Noelle sighed. "She's not drinking, and that's an improvement. But the last time I talked to her she didn't seem... She didn't seem as rational as I expected. I'm starting to suspect she puts up an act around Christmas, when she knows we're going to talk. When I took her by surprise with an unscheduled call recently, she... she worried me. I'm going to ask the Marshals to get her professional help."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I'm glad Henry talked me into therapy." He studied his aunt a moment. Usually he was struck by her physical similarities to his mother, but like Henry he was surprised that anyone would confuse the two women. They seemed very different to him now. "You're a lot braver than she is."
"That's a matter of opinion. I'd say we react to fear in different ways. My mother used to say that the easiest way to tell us apart was to be around us when we were afraid. Meredith would clam up and hide, and I wouldn't stop talking. Our parents knew how to calm us down, so that I would shut up and Meredith would acknowledge her fears. It sounds like she didn't have anyone filling that role for her in St. Louis. I'm disappointed she didn't find a support system – like those pressure valves we were talking about."
At the start of the conversation Neal had been concerned about what he had in common with his mother, but now he took comfort in the ways they differed. That led to a thought about one of the differences between himself and Henry. "You and Henry have a fight instinct instead of a flight instinct, don't you?"
"Yes. That's one reason it was such a shock when Henry essentially disappeared when he was twenty. It wasn't like him to run."
"He was still fighting," Neal said, "but in a different way." Unsure how much Henry would be comfortable letting Noelle know, Neal stood to cut off the conversation. "We should head back inside."
Noelle walked with him in silence until they neared the cabin. "I wish Henry would tell me more about what happened to him. His refusal to talk about it has always troubled me."
"Henry's strong," Neal said. But he was worried. Something was off with Henry now and no one seemed to notice, perhaps because they were all focused on Neal. He needed to find out what was going on, and then find a way to help his cousin. For the last few weeks everyone had been coming to Neal's rescue, and he was glad for their help. Now he wanted to return the favor, and suspected it wouldn't be long before Henry was the one who needed to lean on someone.
A/N: Neal's right about Henry, and we'll see the first step toward their roles reversing in the next chapter as things start to fall apart for Henry, and Peter and Neal start to pick up the pieces. We're nearing the end of this story, and picking up all of the pieces will be the focus of the story Caffrey Disclosure. That's where we'll see Neal making a transition from victim to hero.