Voices in my head

So, I have been enjoying reading some very fun, very good, White Collar fanfics. Neal Caffrey is a con man who was caught and is now doing what amounts to community service with the FBI, Peter Burke is the FBI agent who caught him and now supervises him, and Elizabeth Burke is Peter's wife who watches it all with a certain amount of amusement and provides some much-needed advice to them both. Heists and cops-and-robbers and banter... it's great fun. 

One of the themes I've found in the fandom is that the three of them go off together in the end. (Yes, lots of hot threesome action there.) Anyway, in many of the stories, the Burkes manage to socialize Caffrey so that he doesn't go back to his life of crime after his four years are up. However, a couple of the stories have Caffrey corrupting the Burkes, that they all run off to a life of leisure. This one strikes me as just highly improbable. For one thing, you don't get to be a highly successful (and fairly obsessive) FBI team manager by being the type to crave lazy days doing nothing much on a beach. Plus, there's two against one on the "let's obey the law" concept,not to mention the entire rest of society which supports lawfulness.

It's very improbability made me think, what would make me believe this? 

I decided that Elizabeth Burke is an immortal of the Highlander tradition. She's lovely and law abiding and loves her husband, but she didn't tell him about her immortality. And she's getting older. Or rather, she's not getting older. When "Elizabeth" started college at 18, she looked old for her "age". Now that she's approaching 40, she's looking decidedly young. Soon, she's going to have to leave and start a new life.

So this story starts off with a bit of angst, as she's been putting off leaving for quite some time. She loves her current life. She really doesn't want to leave.

Maybe she can tell her two men about her immortality? And Neal at least is used to disappearing. Maybe they could come with her? It was a daydream, she knew, but it was a really tempting one.

Then Amanda arrives on the scene.

Elizabeth twitched and then started looking around the small cafe where they were having lunch. She was giving a fairly good appearance of casual interest but Peter knew her and Neal knew false-casual.  They exchanged a glance before turning to Elizabeth, but before either could ask, someone else called out, "Darling!"

Elizabeth winced and muttered "oh dear", before more loudly, "Amanda! Lovely to see you. Perhaps I should introduce my husband Peter and his partner Neal? They both work for the FBI tracking thieves of various sorts.”

Everyone at the table heard the warning in that. Amanda winced.

Peter looked consideringly. “Amanda? As in, The Amanda?” Whatever he saw on Elizabeth’s face confirmed his suspicion. “You know The Amanda and you never told me, Elle?”

Neal looks enlightened and entranced. He pulls out a chair for Amanda to join them, assuring her of his delight to meet such a notable personage. Peter and Elizabeth are still talking.

“Well, sort of. I didn’t tell you because it would just cause a conflict of interest.”

“As if I don’t already have a conflict of interest with Neal here.”

Neal looked unsure whether he should be offended or pleased. Amanda pats his arm, “Take it as a compliment.” Then turning to Peter, “don’t worry, I’ve gone straight for the moment. Alas, I have apparently fallen into the cliché of having been tamed by the love of a good man.”

Elizabeth looks surprised. “And where is this good man? Don’t tell me it’s MacLeod.”

“No, no. His name is Nick. And, well, he doesn’t like me much at the moment.”

“What happened?”

“He didn’t care for what he learned about me.”

Peter looked between the two women, knowing he was missing some subtext. “About you being a thief?”

“No, he knew about that from the start. It was something else.” Amanda was referring to Nick’s being immortal himself.

Elizabeth winced because she assumed it was just the immortality issue that had turned Nick away from Amanda. She couldn’t bear it if she told her two men about her immortality and they shunned her for it. She would have to confess to murder, after all, when she explained The Game, and murder was something they were both against.

While Neal and Peter can both see that there’s subtext, Amanda can read Elizabeth’s face and thinks to ask the question, “Elle,” she uses the name that she heard Peter use. “How old are you right now?”

“Nearly forty.”

“I’m sorry.” Amanda knows that this is time for Elizabeth to leave.

“Hey, the forties are going to be wonderful!” Peter leaps to defend his wife. Neal notices that something is off.

In the end, though, Amanda’s presence reminds Elizabeth that she can’t avoid other immortals forever, and her due date on this identity is really past due. She needs to leave.

She arranges to die a reasonably documented death that doesn’t leave a body and disappears. At least Peter and Neal will have each other.

Of course, she didn’t consider the fact that they are both extremely good about identifying con jobs and tracking them down. And her death necessarily couldn’t leave a body behind, so there are definite suspicions.

Much high jinx ensue as Elizabeth tries to disappear into a new identify, Peter and Neal are increasingly suspicious of the whole situation, the rest of the FBI think they’re crazy with grief, and Amanda and Kate are both running around being red herrings.

It’s possible that Moz has Watcher ties. Or possibly June does.

Anyway, high jinx!

 
At this point I've still only seen two episodes of White Collar, but I've now read some really fabulous fanfic for it. So, of course, I have ideas. And because these are my first flirtations with the fandom, the first one is a crossover with Highlander. However, oddly enough, the main Highlander character this time is Duncan MacLeod (although Methos is on the sidelines, making commentary. Possibly hanging out with Elle Burke.) 

I'm not sure of the details, but the plot arch is that Neal Caffrey's friend Kate is in trouble, and Duncan MacLeod is going to save her. 

So many fanfic stories show MacLeod as being overly judgmental and failing to understand. I want a story that shows him off, shows the guy who's friends with both Amanda and Methos, and once had a sword fight with umbrellas, and helped steel the stone of scone (or whatever it was), and danced on top of the Eiffel Tower, and is generally fun and silly and accepting. While, of course, still going out and saving damsels in distress. 


Methos: "Oh, don't worry. Mac will save her. He's the perfect chivalrous knight in shining armor. He's constantly saving damsels in distress."

MacLeod rolls his eyes: "I just help people when I can."

Methos: "The ultimate boyscout." 

Neal looks back and forth between them: "Well, Kate isn't exactly an innocent in all of this."

MacLeod, reassuring: "Don't worry. If she's in trouble, I'll help her out." 

Neal: "And what will you do then? I don't want to get her out of this jam, only to have you put her in jail." 

MacLeod, indignant: "I wouldn't do that!" 

Methos shrugged: "Mac doesn't approve of the lifestyle, but the cons you guys run are the sort of thing he does as a lark when his girl friend is in town. It barely even registers on his scale as a crime." 

MacLeod looks vaguely affronted but doesn't contradict the sentiment. 

Neal actually looks taken aback: "Huh. So if I asked you to help me out of this ankle tracker...?"

Mac laughs in his face: "You got yourself into the situation, you can get yourself out of it."

Methos casts a sly look in Peter's direction: "If you even want to get out of it." 

Neal does not blush. It's quite noticeable that he does not blush. instead he looks mildly affronted, like a cat that's fallen off a counter top and is trying to regain his dignity. 

MacLeod rolls his eyes but also looks vaguely amused: "Don't let him get to you." 


~~~ later ~~~


Peter: "If MacLeod doesn't consider theft a crime, what does he consider worth stopping?"

Methos, carelessly: "Kidnapping of lovely young ladies, obviously. Murder, assassination, terrorism, large-scale destruction." 

Peter considers this: "Did you say he helped you out at one point?"

Neal recalled that, too, but in criminal circles it was considered impolite to bring such topics up. He nonetheless listened to hear what the answer was. 

Methos looked considering and then smiled in a rather taunting fashion: "Indeed, he helped me change career paths." 

That put an end to that conversation although Peter looked like he wanted to take Methos to interrogation. Neal just wanted to keep a safe distance. Elle came in to get Methos' help making dinner. They go off to cook. Peter considers objecting, but then imagines having to explain why to his wife, and refrains--she is more than capable of taking care of anyone, even a possibly reformed murdering terrorist. 

Neal and Peter skulk in the background. Neither of them are nearly as sure that they can handle such. Maybe they'll go and try to help MacLeod some more. 


~~~


And I really need to find a way to see the first six episodes. Aargh. I would have expected them to be up on YouTube by now, but no such luck. Hmph.