Work Text:
In the sun outside is a small private jet, and as Kate makes her way through the dimness of the hangar, she can see Neal framed in the doorway of the plane. His smile is brilliant as he waves to her. She waves back, relieved that this isn’t just some new trap.
"Kate!" Peter's voice rings out behind her, tugging her back like the leash he no longer has. "Don't go."
She turns, slowly, clutching the documents Fowler gave her. Peter’s coat is rumpled, and he’s breathing hard, as if he were running a moment ago. But now that she’s watching, he slows down, like he's trying not to spook a suspect.
Or a victim. Kate pushes away the anger that tries to surface; if this is their goodbye, she doesn’t want it to be like that. "I’m leaving, Peter,” she says gently. “Neal and I, we have new identities now. We can go anywhere. He'll be safe."
Peter sidles a step closer, eyes wild enough that she wonders what happened to him since she saw him last. "You don't know that. Fowler's dangerous --"
"I don't care!" Kate blushes at the childishness in her tone, but she's done playing this man; she's done playing everyone. She doesn't have to be tough any more. "Neal and I can handle it."
Peter scrubs a hand across his face, but he doesn't bother to state all the ways she already knows that’s a lie. "You said goodbye to everyone else, but not to me. Why didn't you?"
Kate glances back over her shoulder at the plane. She can see Neal watching them from the window. He has to be wondering why she is still talking to Peter instead of joining him.
"It's because you think I can talk you out of it." Peter makes it a statement, one Kate knows better than to answer directly.
"Everything I've done has been so I can be with Neal." She can say that with utter conviction. She can't say that it's all she wants, so she doesn't try. "Prison, working for you, the music box. All of it."
Peter puts out a hand as if he’s trying to catch her before she tumbles off a cliff -- but he doesn't quite touch her. "Stay. You can make a life here --"
"No." It comes out weaker than she likes, because he’s right. She could have a life again, a legitimate non-criminal life where she'd never have to look over her shoulder. But Neal would never be safe from his past that way, and he’s sacrificed so much for her already.
That thought lets her turn around, back toward the plane.
"Kate, please." When she looks, Peter still has his hand out. She can't tell any more which of them is supposed to be saving the other. "Don't go."
An answer is fighting its way up her throat; she doesn’t know which one it is. She doesn’t have a chance to find out before the plane behind her explodes.