Fandom: WHITE COLLAR
Pairing: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth, Neal/Elizabeth
Length: 22,000
Author on LJ:
lightgetsin Author Website: LightGetsIn on AO3 Why this must be read: Summer, 1998. Neal Caffrey robs the gallery where Elizabeth O'Dell is working late, and comes away with a lot more than art. Agent Burke has no idea what's about to hit him.This is probably one of the most well-executed AU's I've ever read, because it doesn't just take the same characters and place them in a different setting. Instead,
lightgetsin does a masterful job of taking the same characters and stripping them of ten years of experience, ten years of time together, and ten years of all the ways, small and large, that they would have changed for each other. Peter is a little less sure of his position with the FBI, Elizabeth is a little more wild and impetuous, and Neal isn't
quite Neal Caffrey: Criminal Mastermind yet, but he will be, one day.
This story doesn't just ask "what if", it answers it in the most entertaining of ways.
( 'What'd he do now?' Peter asked, looking up. ) Always Starts the Same, With a Boy and a Girl