[Fanfiction] Why Does My Heart Feel so Bad?

Title: Why Does My Heart Feel so Bad?
Author: Aragarna
Characters: Peter, Neal, Elizabeth.
Genre, rating: Gen, g. Angst/comfort. Post-finale angst with lots of feels and a happy ending.
Spoilers: for the entire show, especially the last episode.
Word count: 4350
Beta credit: many many thanks to the awesome anodyneer!
Summary: Neal isn't dead after all, and his return to New York creates in Peter a complex mix of relief and pain.

Author's Notes: This is my necessary post-finale therapeutic fic. It took me a while to put down in words properly my feelings about it all, and I felt I needed this earnest conversation to get back to my happy place, and my happy ending. After this, I feel a lot more confident that a happy ending is actually possible, and that the shenanigans of Caffrey and Burke (or Burke and Caffrey) will continue happily ever after.

Title from the eponym song by Moby.



( At the beginning, it was mostly a big, giant relief. A sudden lifting of the burden that had weighed on Peter for so long that he had forgotten the weight was there. Or more precisely, he had learned to live with it. The weight of guilt. The guilt of not having been able to protect his friend and partner, guilt of failure, guilt of loss. But if Neal didn’t die, he had nothing to feel guilty about. It was all fake, it didn’t actually happen. )