(Warning: spoilers for White Collar episodes “Pilot”, “Judgment Day,” “Wanted,” “Most Wanted,” and “Au Revoir.” Mild spoilers for several stories in the Caffrey Conversation series.)
In the pilot episode of White Collar, Peter warns that if Neal runs, he’ll catch him. As the characters become friends, the threat turns into more of a promise of support. When Neal runs after Kramer’s machinations, Peter searches for Neal to keep him safe. In the series finale, I’m left with the hope that Peter will again find Neal and confirm he’s all right – offering help if necessary.
Our AU employs several variations of hide and seek. There are stories about Neal and Henry playing the game as children. We observe this in Caffrey Envoy as they make life hell for their babysitter. In Caffrey Disclosure, Henry’s grandfather Graham describes a tradition of playing the game when the family gathers at Winston-Winslow company events, and in Caffrey Aloha his other grandfather mentions how little Henry hid on a visit to Edmund's alma mater.
When he was in WITSEC, Neal played the game with Ellen, who had an ulterior motive. She was teaching him how to stay hidden and get away in case his father’s enemies found them. Also as a child, Neal invented the Hospital Game – mentioned in several stories in our series – which is a version of hide and seek initiated by a bored hospital patient. (See chapter 7 of By the Book for a deeper explanation, and chapter 26 of Caffrey Flashback for a description of the first time Neal played the Hospital Game as a child.)
At first Peter’s team doesn’t trust Neal, and they make a habit of tailing him over his lunch hour to see what he’s up to. To win them over, Neal turns it into a game that becomes a weekly training session known as Tuesday Tails. And then later he introduces the reverse Tuesday Tails, where he gets to be the seeker occasionally instead of always being the one hiding. In addition to being a fun twist, it also shows a change in mindset. Neal’s moving from being a criminal on the run to being a hunter of criminals in his role at the FBI. He’s also becoming more grounded, which helps counter his natural flight instinct. It’s a strong instinct, which led to him running away from home as a teenager.
We see a couple of playful chase scenes in By the Book. First Neal challenges Peter to keep up with him in a park, and later in the story Peter watches as Neal leads Henry on a chase through another park. In these examples Neal is happy and confident, and while he wants to show off his skills in evasion, in the end he does stop to let his pursuers catch up. He wants to be found by them. Another fun example is the Reverse Goldilocks con in The Woman in Blue, where Neal, Peter and Elizabeth play a practical joke on Peter's brother.
However, it isn’t always fun and games. In Caffrey Flashback, Neal wanders off when he thinks he’s dying, and Peter’s team scrambles to find and save him. Later in that story Neal engages in a version of the Hospital Game to protect his grandparents by leading a villain away from them. When his flashbacks become an issue in the next phase of that story, he sneaks away from his family to go to the office, because he feels more in control at work.
In Caffrey Disclosure, much of the plot revolves around a game of cat and mouse between Henry and his father Robert. While they each try to find the other, Neal joins the game hoping to find Henry before he goes off the deep end. This leads to a scene where Robert chases Neal through the Seattle Underground, and Neal is grateful for Tuesday Tails keeping him in practice. We also learn that Neal’s skills were honed in his late teens when he traveled with Henry and they needed to avoid a stalker.
In Choirboy Caffrey, Neal mentions that he's an expert in running away and recognizes the signs of someone else being tempted to run. That flight instinct plays a big role in stories that follow. In particular, Silbrith excels in writing scenarios where Neal wants to run from his troubles, yet he manages to hang on long enough to find another solution. This was a crucial component of The Queen’s Jewels when Neal felt trapped while wearing a tracking anklet, and we’re seeing a variation of the theme in The Mirror, as Keller threatens Neal’s friends. It was also in Silbrith’s stories that the Columbia tunnels were introduced as one of the ways Neal is able to lose the bad guys when they try to follow him; he disappears into the tunnels to elude people trying to tail him.
In addition to variations of hide and seek as a physical game, there’s also a mental version that’s prevalent in our AU. We see one aspect of this as we realize that Neal has memories that are hiding from him, popping out occasionally as flashbacks and nightmares. With Noelle’s help, he’s able to find those memories and start dealing with them. Another aspect is introduced in the story Caffrey Conversation, when Neal has his first conversation with Elizabeth. He mentions that he’s been a con artist so long that he’s gotten too good at hiding his real self. He thinks Peter might be able to find the real Neal, but he’s also afraid of being found. What if he doesn’t like what Peter finds? In later stories, the game changes to Peter’s perspective. Neal is so good at hiding his true self in cons, Peter worries that Neal will lose himself – especially when the con is necessary to protect those he loves. Would Neal go so far into a con that he’d sacrifice himself, and be unable to emerge again? In Caffrey Aloha, Neal is so convincing playing the role of a cold-hearted con artist that Peter asks for help getting Neal back to normal again. In The Mirror… Well, hold on to your hats. Silbrith is taking us on a wild ride.
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