Keryl Raist's Blog, page 43
January 11, 2013
Original Fic Friday: Hunter's Tales Volume One: Billy Price
A/N: Vampires, snark, meta, all manner of good things lie within. Want to start at the beginning? Click here. Want to read it all at once? It's .99 at Amazon.
Chapter 11.
I spend the next two days with Billy, talking to him about being a vamp and who I am when we’re alone, about school and my cover life when his parents are with us. He slips into a coma a bit after dinner on the second night.
A bit of work with my glamour gets his parents to go out for dinner on the third night.
As soon as they’re out of the room, I pull the IV out of his arm and spend a moment gently massaging it, pushing as much of the morphine tinged blood back out of him as I can. Not that I mind morphine, but it tastes pretty mucky. I wipe his arm off and lay my lips upon the wound, pulling his blood into my mouth.
I eat my fill, which isn’t a whole lot. I’m not really hungry. It takes about a week before I start to feel hungry. The two or three mouthfuls I take won’t kill him, but they don’t have to. I don’t know precisely how the magic works, but I do know you need at least some of the soon-to-be vamp’s blood in your system.
With his blood still on my tongue, I pull back. I bite my finger, feeling my own blood welling up, and then open his mouth, tracing a line of my blood on his tongue. Then I kiss him, deeply, mixing his blood with mine.
Almost done.
Our blood mixed with theirs is toxic. I don’t know why, but it is. But it’s not enough to let them drink your blood, nor is it enough to drink theirs. You’ve got to mix them together.
It acts quick, too. Less than a minute later, his heart stops and the monitor begins to beep. Gotta get this done fast.
‘The blood is the life.’ True, but blood isn’t all there is to life; there is breath, too. I hold his face in both of my hands, draw in his last breath, and exhale it back into his lungs.
Gives new meaning to ‘the kiss of life,’ huh?
I put the IV back in and get out of there fast.
Chapter 12.
April 2, 2017
The Libertine is absolutely slamming. It’s an Enlightenment Club. NeoClassical music pours out of the speakers. Electric guitar, violin, and drums pound out a quadrille faster and better than it had ever been in the old days.
I love it here. So do a lot of other vamps. Mostly old vamps, ones within a hundred years of my age. If I had to guess, I’d say only two-thirds of the crowd here is human. The rest are like me: voraciously enjoying a version of the world we left behind, a version that had all the fun of the old world, with a modern twist.
It’s beautiful. I never saw the salons of Paris, but they couldn’t have held a candle to this.
The music switches into a waltz with a hip hop arrangement, more drums than anyone in Vienna ever thought could go with this sort of music, and the tempo’s way faster. It works. And I’m working it.
The prey for tonight is dancing with another woman, but he was in my set for the last quadrille, and he will be in the next.
It’s different here. He knows I’m a vamp. My corset’s so tight that no one who has to breathe could pull it off. He thinks we’re flirting for sex.
Of course, I know that’s not quite how this is going to work out.
The music shifts again, and he’s once more in my dance set. As we clasp hands and turn to the music, he compliments me on my frock. Frock… Hell, he might even be old enough to remember when that was the word for a dress. He’s not wearing contacts, and his eyes are awfully light blue. I’m thinking he’s from the 1820s originally. Not quite old enough to remember the world The Libertine is trying to recreate, but old enough for it to seem familiar.
Unlike the old days, none of us are wearing wigs. It’s his own hair that’s curled and pulled back into a ponytail. My hair is the only bit of my outfit that’s out of time. Instead of the sky-high piles of curls most of the women are wearing around me, I’m sporting a simple bun with two hair sticks.
At the end of the set, he offers me his arm. I take it gracefully. We don’t really need to talk. He’s confidently leading me toward the back of the club.
Because of the nature of the clientele here, there’s a large number of secluded nooks, corners, a few private rooms, and a long and usually deserted hallway in the far back. He’s taking me to one of the private rooms. I change his direction. The private rooms are lavishly appointed, all velvet and gilt, and I don’t want to get blood and ash all over them.
The management appreciates that I’m a polite guest.
I steer him gently toward the back hallway. It’s concrete block and cement floors. Much less romantic, but significantly easier to clean up.
“Want to play a game?” I ask him as we get into the hall.
“Yes.”
“Good.” I push his damask silk coat down his arms, unbutton his very fine silk shirt, and pull it down so his arms are trapped behind his back in his shirt and coat. Did you know that silk has the same tensile strength as steel? I didn’t either until recently. But it certainly works to my advantage. I slip off my stockings, also silk, and finish up the bundle of his arms by tying them in a precise knot.
“Ohhh… fun.”
“I certainly think so.” I push him against the wall and begin to unbutton his breeches.
He certainly is old school; he’s got nothing underneath them.
Until the moment I bite into his femoral artery, he thought this was foreplay.
He’s kicking and struggling, but he’s not strong enough to get away from me.
He suddenly stops fighting. “Please, help me!”
I can feel the vamp behind me grin. Okay, I can imagine the vamp behind me grin. A familiar voice says, “May I join you?”
I look back and see Billy in full 1770s garb, including powdered wig, smiling at me. I scoot over a bit, leaving the vamp’s left leg free. Billy settles in, eating with the famished hunger of the young.
After a minute, the vamp is unconscious. I stake him to finish it off.
“You found me.”
Billy licks his lips, getting the last of the blood, dusts vamp ash off of his silk coat, and then smiles at me.“Of course. He really was tasty. I understand why you hunt us.”
“Do you now?” I tuck the hair stick back into my bun.
“I think I do. Mistress Pruitt, would you do me the honor of a dance?”
"Certainly, Master Price."
Chapter 11.
I spend the next two days with Billy, talking to him about being a vamp and who I am when we’re alone, about school and my cover life when his parents are with us. He slips into a coma a bit after dinner on the second night.
A bit of work with my glamour gets his parents to go out for dinner on the third night.
As soon as they’re out of the room, I pull the IV out of his arm and spend a moment gently massaging it, pushing as much of the morphine tinged blood back out of him as I can. Not that I mind morphine, but it tastes pretty mucky. I wipe his arm off and lay my lips upon the wound, pulling his blood into my mouth.
I eat my fill, which isn’t a whole lot. I’m not really hungry. It takes about a week before I start to feel hungry. The two or three mouthfuls I take won’t kill him, but they don’t have to. I don’t know precisely how the magic works, but I do know you need at least some of the soon-to-be vamp’s blood in your system.
With his blood still on my tongue, I pull back. I bite my finger, feeling my own blood welling up, and then open his mouth, tracing a line of my blood on his tongue. Then I kiss him, deeply, mixing his blood with mine.
Almost done.
Our blood mixed with theirs is toxic. I don’t know why, but it is. But it’s not enough to let them drink your blood, nor is it enough to drink theirs. You’ve got to mix them together.
It acts quick, too. Less than a minute later, his heart stops and the monitor begins to beep. Gotta get this done fast.
‘The blood is the life.’ True, but blood isn’t all there is to life; there is breath, too. I hold his face in both of my hands, draw in his last breath, and exhale it back into his lungs.
Gives new meaning to ‘the kiss of life,’ huh?
I put the IV back in and get out of there fast.
Chapter 12.
April 2, 2017
The Libertine is absolutely slamming. It’s an Enlightenment Club. NeoClassical music pours out of the speakers. Electric guitar, violin, and drums pound out a quadrille faster and better than it had ever been in the old days.
I love it here. So do a lot of other vamps. Mostly old vamps, ones within a hundred years of my age. If I had to guess, I’d say only two-thirds of the crowd here is human. The rest are like me: voraciously enjoying a version of the world we left behind, a version that had all the fun of the old world, with a modern twist.
It’s beautiful. I never saw the salons of Paris, but they couldn’t have held a candle to this.
The music switches into a waltz with a hip hop arrangement, more drums than anyone in Vienna ever thought could go with this sort of music, and the tempo’s way faster. It works. And I’m working it.
The prey for tonight is dancing with another woman, but he was in my set for the last quadrille, and he will be in the next.
It’s different here. He knows I’m a vamp. My corset’s so tight that no one who has to breathe could pull it off. He thinks we’re flirting for sex.
Of course, I know that’s not quite how this is going to work out.
The music shifts again, and he’s once more in my dance set. As we clasp hands and turn to the music, he compliments me on my frock. Frock… Hell, he might even be old enough to remember when that was the word for a dress. He’s not wearing contacts, and his eyes are awfully light blue. I’m thinking he’s from the 1820s originally. Not quite old enough to remember the world The Libertine is trying to recreate, but old enough for it to seem familiar.
Unlike the old days, none of us are wearing wigs. It’s his own hair that’s curled and pulled back into a ponytail. My hair is the only bit of my outfit that’s out of time. Instead of the sky-high piles of curls most of the women are wearing around me, I’m sporting a simple bun with two hair sticks.
At the end of the set, he offers me his arm. I take it gracefully. We don’t really need to talk. He’s confidently leading me toward the back of the club.
Because of the nature of the clientele here, there’s a large number of secluded nooks, corners, a few private rooms, and a long and usually deserted hallway in the far back. He’s taking me to one of the private rooms. I change his direction. The private rooms are lavishly appointed, all velvet and gilt, and I don’t want to get blood and ash all over them.
The management appreciates that I’m a polite guest.
I steer him gently toward the back hallway. It’s concrete block and cement floors. Much less romantic, but significantly easier to clean up.
“Want to play a game?” I ask him as we get into the hall.
“Yes.”
“Good.” I push his damask silk coat down his arms, unbutton his very fine silk shirt, and pull it down so his arms are trapped behind his back in his shirt and coat. Did you know that silk has the same tensile strength as steel? I didn’t either until recently. But it certainly works to my advantage. I slip off my stockings, also silk, and finish up the bundle of his arms by tying them in a precise knot.
“Ohhh… fun.”
“I certainly think so.” I push him against the wall and begin to unbutton his breeches.
He certainly is old school; he’s got nothing underneath them.
Until the moment I bite into his femoral artery, he thought this was foreplay.
He’s kicking and struggling, but he’s not strong enough to get away from me.
He suddenly stops fighting. “Please, help me!”
I can feel the vamp behind me grin. Okay, I can imagine the vamp behind me grin. A familiar voice says, “May I join you?”
I look back and see Billy in full 1770s garb, including powdered wig, smiling at me. I scoot over a bit, leaving the vamp’s left leg free. Billy settles in, eating with the famished hunger of the young.
After a minute, the vamp is unconscious. I stake him to finish it off.
“You found me.”
Billy licks his lips, getting the last of the blood, dusts vamp ash off of his silk coat, and then smiles at me.“Of course. He really was tasty. I understand why you hunt us.”
“Do you now?” I tuck the hair stick back into my bun.
“I think I do. Mistress Pruitt, would you do me the honor of a dance?”
"Certainly, Master Price."
January 9, 2013
38 Weeks: The Nineteenth Week
A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Week Nineteen:
"Sean's coming for the wedding," Fiona says while brushing her teeth. It's Wednesday night, and they're getting ready for bed."That's good." Michael says, stepping out of the shower.
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgOf all of Fi's family, and yes, he met most of them during the years he was in Ireland, Sean's the one he likes the most, gets along with best. Sure there's the whole saving each other's lives things, but when it came down to it, even before bullets and bombs and the glorious cause, he just liked Sean. Sean has that same devil-may-care attitude Fi does, and while it's annoying on ops, it can also be a lot of fun. As Sam said, "How many times do you have to touch the flame before you'll know it burns?" Well, Sean's the same sort of fire Fi is, and Michael likes that sort of fire. Sometimes, deep down, he wishes he could just be all fire. It seems a whole lot easier, more restful."My mom wants to, too."He stops toweling off. Michael supposes it shouldn't be a surprise that Katherine Glenanne might want to come to her daughter's wedding. "Okay," he says, thinking that's a somewhat less welcome addition to the guest list. "Okay?" Fi's a little surprised to hear that. It's not that her mom didn't get on well with Michael when he was in Ireland; it's just that since the whole leaving thing, she's loathed him and hasn't made much of a secret of that fact. Finding out why he left, when Sean got home again, didn't do anything to make that better. Fi generally thinks it's a good thing her mom's been a on the other side of the Atlantic this whole time, because she's very aware of Michael's flaws, and is not his biggest fan by any stretch of anyone's imagination."Do you want her there?" he asks. "Yes." And she does. She's sure this is going to be awkward, to say the least, but especially since she's been pregnant, she's wanted her mom nearby."Then it's okay. I'm not going to tell you your mom can't come to our wedding.""It just might be a little tense." Fi sits on the edge of the tub, facing Michael, who's leaning against the sink, toothbrush in hand."You mean having the woman who, after all five of your brothers had a wee chat with me about how, if I hurt you, they'd kill me so dead I'd come out the other side alive again and then they'd do it all over, said to me that I had nothing to fear from her lads; they'd never get to me in time, because she'd hunt me down, cut my balls off, and choke me with them if I got her good Catholic girl pregnant without a wedding band on her hand, might be tense.""She said that to you?" Fi looks stunned at that idea. "First time you brought me home. You were in the kitchen helping Thomas and Pat's wives with the washing up. She pulled me aside, took a long drink of her whiskey and said, 'There's a proper order for the doin' of these things, and if you think you can get to the fuckin' without puttin' a wedding ring on my daughter's finger, you're sorely mistaken.' And then proceeded with a very detailed description of what was going to happen to me if I did not heed her words."Fi grins at the idea of it, laughing a little at the idea of her mother staring up at Michael, cussin' him out properly. "What did you say to that?""I think I blushed." He slips into his Irish accent, leans forward, and whispers into her ear, "If ya remember, that was about six months after the fuckin' had started." She laughs. "It was my Da's line. He said that to all of my boyfriends while he was alive, usually while sharpening his hunting knife.""Did it work?"She looks at her bulging stomach. "Apparently not." She places her fingers on their child, feeling it squirm and kick. "I haven't told them I'm pregnant."Michael closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them slowly, while sitting on the edge of the tub next to her. Telling his mom was one thing. Telling her family, who had already promised numerous levels of extreme bodily harm in the event of this, was another thing all together. Not that he thinks they're going to physically hurt him, much. Still, he doesn't enjoy spending time with people who are pissed off at him. On the upside, they live on the other side of the planet and won't spend all that long in Miami."Fi—""The last time I talked to them we hadn't decided if we were keeping him or not. And I didn't want to tell them if we weren't keeping him."Michael understands that. He would have happily not told his family either. But the whole living less than half an hour away thing made sure that was impossible. "And now we're keeping him, and it didn't seem like something to tell them over the phone.""Because in person, picking them up at the airport, shocking them with this," his hand caresses over her very visible tummy, "is going to be that much easier.""Think of it this way, if we get them before they get their luggage, they won't be armed.""Your bother carries a ceramic knife when he travels commercial."Fi winces. "Forgot about that. Maybe he won't get it through the sensors." Michael thinks about that. Those full body sensors might be the end of... "He'll have a garrote, at least.""Yes, but he's coming for our wedding, so he probably won't be too interested in making me a widow. Just, wear a cup when we get them.""Great." He stands up and brushes his teeth, headings into the bedroom, finding a pair of his pajama pants a moment later. "Any new name ideas?" he asks as he sits on the bed putting his pajama pants on."How about Dan?" Fi says as she pulls back the sheets and slides into their bed. She fluffs a pillow and settles down on her side."You're thinking it's a boy today?""Today. Maybe not tomorrow, but today I'm thinking of a son. A little boy with your eyes and build, but my smile."Michael grins at that idea and lies down beside her, resting his hand on her tummy. "Isn't one of your cousins named Dan?""Good memory. He was my favorite when we were little.""Dan... I like Dan.""Daniel Westen. That sounds good."Michael thinks about Dan as a name for a moment. "Who in your family thought Dan Glenanne was a good name?"Fi gives him an exasperated look. "No one. Dan McKiernan. He's my mum's nephew. No one in my family is so tone deaf as to name a child Dan Glenanne."Michael thinks about that for a moment, too. "I was hoping, if it's a boy, to use Nathaniel as a middle name." Fi nods; she's been expecting that. "And you don't think Daniel Nathaniel works?""Not really.""So, not Dan then.""Not Sam, either.""Not a good idea anyway, we'd never hear the end of it if both Westen boys ended up named after him." Michael looks momentarily confused. "You didn't know that was the reason behind Charlie?""No. I didn't even think about it until now. For Sam, really?""Really." He shakes his head. He didn't know Sam and Nate were even that close. He wonders if Sam knows, but judging by Fi's comment he must.
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgHe thinks that's something he'd have liked to talk to Nate about. Thinks all of this is something he would have liked to have talked to Nate about. Not that they really would have talked, more like sat near each other and worked on something, like the Charger, or with this new house, furniture. But at least a few words would have gone by, mostly Nate's, and he finds himself wondering what Nate would have had to say about this.He guesses Nate would have been mostly smugly pleased, amused to see Mike not knowing what to do next. He absolutely knows Nate would have laughed at the idea of Mike having a huge collection of angry in-laws.He tries to smile, to conjure up Nate's amusement, and feel it for himself.And it works, a little.
January 5, 2013
38 Weeks: The Eighteenth Week
A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
During the eighteenth week, they met with seven couples interested in adopting their baby and turned them all down. None of them were right.It worked out pretty well for Michael. He never had to voice his doubts about putting the baby up for adoption. He didn't have to admit that he changed his mind, and that exactly what Ellen said would happen had happened. He didn't even have to voice his doubts about the couples they met. Fi shot them all down, and he just tried not to agree too enthusiastically.
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgAfter saying no to the seventh couple, Fi and Michael got some take out and went home."None of them are ever going to be good enough," Fi says as she chews a bite of her fish taco. "I know." After the beach, he promised himself he'd at least meet the potential adoptive parents. Maybe, if he could put a face and name to the idea of a different family for the baby, he could get back to the idea of it being right. Because he knows, in the hard, rational part of his mind, that giving the baby up is safer, but safer or not, he just doesn't care. He sat there and watched people, perfectly safe, normal, fine people talk about how much they'd love to provide a perfect 1950s-Hollywood-fantasy family for their child, and he couldn't make himself say yes to any of them. "We can move. Start over, new life, new city, new names.""Fake our deaths?"Michael perks up a little. "That's got potential. Big car accident, lots of fire, and then vanish.""Shoot some bullets into the car, spatter some blood around, Jesse and I have done that before. It's not too hard." "I'd prefer all of your blood stay inside you right now.""I'd prefer all of my blood stay inside me all the time, but if you've got to sell a dead person when you've got no body, you need blood, with the right DNA.""I know." Michael takes a bite of his taco, not really tasting it, just chewing to keep himself fed. "How are we set for cash, if we're going to do this?""I've got enough tucked away in a few different names, untraceable to me, to set us up comfortably, but not much more than that. Call it a year of savings." Mike thinks about that. For him, a year of savings could be as low as ten thousand dollars, as long as he's got one decent suit and a pair of shoes, he's good to go. But he knows Fi prefers a higher standard of living than he does."I can shift some of mine around, but most of it'll have to get left."That stops both of them dead. Normally they aren't the kind of people who worry about that. Both of them are pretty good at squirreling money away, but when you fake your death, if you want it to stick, to look like you really died, especially if there's no body, most, if not all, of your assets get left behind. Enough to set them up comfortably is one thing, but a baby on the way means big expenses coming soon and lasting for the next twenty years.Likewise, the jobs they're both best suited to do require a web of trust and people who know you. Fake your own death, and suddenly that web of job referrals vanishes, making it that much harder to make new money.The stupid thing is they've got enough to retire, comfortably, if they stay alive. Michael did finally get his assets unfrozen, and Barry moved them outside of any banking system that would work with US authorities less than ten minutes later. Six years of compound interest worked out pretty handsomely. So, he's got money. But it's still in his name. If they "die," they've got to leave it behind, which means they'll need to work, and the kind of work you can get when you know no one and have no reputation is very dangerous and pays lousy. Catch-22. Stay "alive" and be a target. "Die" and end up a target all over again trying to get enough work to keep living.He shakes his head. "Five years from now, we can fake our death. That's enough time to hide the assets slowly. For now we'd be better off on the run. New town, new name, have Barry keep a trace on all of our information so that if anyone tries to use it to track us, we'll get a heads up. We'll still have our money. If we do it right, we'd even get to come back here on occasion, see everyone.""I'd like that. Your mom would, too.""Yeah, she would. And Sam would miss us if we completely vanished." Michael puts his food down and takes her hands. "We're going to do this, keep the baby and run?"She half-smiles, half-cries a little, "Yes.""Then I guess we're going to need a name."
January 4, 2013
Original Fic Friday: Hunter's Tales Volume One: Billy Price
A/N: Vampires, snark, meta, all manner of good things lie within. Want to start at the beginning? Click here. Want to read it all at once? It's .99 at Amazon.
Chapter 9.
I leave Billy when it’s time to go to school. Amazingly enough, none of the nurses told me to leave. Or, maybe I should say, none of the nurses succeeded in getting the full sentence out. Several of them began to tell me to leave, but one look from me and my glamour and they shut up.
I don’t have any interest in drawing things out with Jack, not even to track him back to his place. I’m getting hungry, and if the next few days go the way I think they will, I’ll need to be well fed.
He breaks away from his crowd of friends and heads toward the bathroom during lunch. Best chance I’m going to get all day. Not my favorite location for something like this, but it’ll work.
Now, as you might remember, I mentioned we don’t digest. What goes in comes out. This is useful to know for a few reasons. In relation to hunting vamps, it’s good to know because human nature tends to work the same way for everyone.
Guys have a sort of code. When they’re in the bathroom that code is: ‘Thou shalt not look at the other guys.’ So if one of them is at the urinal and he hears someone come in, he’s not going to look up and around to see who it is. He’s going to keep looking straight ahead.
Go in moving faster than he can see, and he won’t even have the time to notice something is wrong.
I go in fast, tackle him into the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom, and have his arms pinned behind his back, a hair stick pressed into his chest (I usually try to get far enough in to get past the ribs but not into the heart. You poke a stake that far into a vamp and he’s going to go very still, not wanting to risk having it go in further), and my fangs in his neck before he knows what is happening.
“Let me eat, and I don’t press it home.”
I can feel him trembling under me, fear or rage, I don’t know. He’s doing what I tell him to, so I don’t care, either. I prop his feet against the stall door, straddle his hips, and get to it.
Boys come in and out, giggling, talking. I press a finger to Jack’s lips, and he stays quiet.
You can’t actually kill a vamp by draining him dry. He’s going to be in awfully bad shape after something like that, but he won’t die. From the way he looks at me, I guess he knows that and is willing to let me drink up if it means he’s going to get out of this alive.
“Good boy.” I pat his cheek patronizingly as I feast. Someone else in the bathroom must have heard that and seen our lower bodies under the stall. Chuckling and sexually unimaginative comments are the soundtrack to my meal.
I don’t pull back. I don’t do anything to signal I’m done. I don’t want him to figure out the next move. I can feel I’ve had enough, so mid-suck, I shove the hair stick home.
Interesting bit about vamps: we do turn to ash or dust or something when we die. Our clothing does not.
I debate leaving the clothes or not.
Screw it. I leave them. Worst come to worst, people will think he spontaneously combusted. No, I don’t know for a fact that dusted vamps is where that idea comes from, but I’d give even odds on it.
I dust myself off, tuck the hair stick back into my bun, stroll past a few shocked boys in the bathroom, glamouring them to forget me as I walk past, and head off.
Good-bye Jenks High.
Chapter 10.
I pull up a chair next to Billy’s bed.
“Helen?” He sounds groggy, like he just woke up. He probably has just woken up.
“Yeah. How you doing?”
“Been better.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
He turns his face to my general direction and reaches a hand out toward me. I take his hand in mine, not in the least concerned about keeping up the appearance of humanity. For a moment, he just holds my hand.
“I got about fifty Facebook updates telling me Jack Cross went missing today. Rumor around the school is that his clothing and a pile of ash were found in the boy’s bathroom.”
“I heard that.”
“You know, he was room temperature, too.”
“Yeah, I bet he was.”
“He had this unnerving habit of not blinking for way too long.”
“I noticed that, as well.”
“Hypothyroid, huh?”
I sit on his bed next to him and wrap my arm around him. “Well, I don’t have any thyroid function at all. Technically, it’s true.”
He smiles at that. “So, you’re what, Blade?”
“Not quite. I really don’t think dhampir exist. I’ve never seen or heard of one. I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Do you still want to be a vamp?”
“Could I stay with you?”
“No. Baby vamps aren’t my thing.” He looks disappointed. But baby vamps annoy me, and no matter how cute he is as a human, I don’t want him around as a vamp until he’s grown up a bit.
“How would it work?”
“I’ll wait until you fall into a coma, finish you off, and the next night you’ll wake up in the morgue or funeral home and have to fend for yourself. In five or ten years, when you’ve had the time to grow up a bit and see if you can survive as a vamp, then I’ll want to see you.”
He thinks about it. I can see him pondering how he’d survive, what his parents will think when his body suddenly goes missing, weighing that against having maybe a few weeks, most of them unconscious, of life left. He gently pokes my wrist with his thumb.
“You’re soft.”
“All of us are soft. The hard as stone vampire thing… I don’t know where that comes from. Modified Golem myth? Anyway, hard things don’t bend all that well. They tend to crack and break. If you want to move, you need to be soft.”
He nods at that, still holding my wrist. I realize he’s feeling for my pulse.
“I really don’t have one.”
“Appears so.” His fingers stroke down my wrist a few times. “Will they notice the bite marks?”
“I’m not going to bite you. I’ll use your arm, where the IV is, and put it back when I’m done.”
He thinks about that for a moment. “I’m full of morphine. Will that be a problem?”
“I doubt it. I’ve smoked opium and didn’t notice any issues.” Vamps can get high and drunk and anything else really. It just takes a ton of whatever it is to do it. I don’t know why that’s true, but my guess is it would take about three times a lethal dose of morphine to get me even buzzed, let alone loopy.
“Really?”
“Really. San Francisco, back in the 1890s. I’d never seen real Asians before and was fascinated by them. I spent a lot of time in the opium dens because they were there, and no one made any sort of fuss about my kind eating the customers as long as I paid the house well.”
He thinks about that for a few minutes, too. “Did you kill them?”
“Very rarely. A bunch of them thought they had some really intense hallucinations about a blond girl sucking on them.” I pause for a moment, thinking of a good way to explain how it works.
“Do you know about the Masai tribe in Africa?”
He shakes his head.
“They live on a diet of cow blood and milk.” He looks a little nauseous at that, but I keep going. “They don’t kill the cows often, because a dead cow makes no more blood or milk. That’s how most of us treat humans. A pint here, a pint there, and we’re good. Young ones tend to need more food, but even then, you’re usually full by two or three pints. I mean, think about it: how big is your stomach? Even full to bursting, it’s not much more than three pints. Most humans can survive that level of donation.”
“But you killed Jack, right?” He looks a little dubious, and I’m not sure if he’d be happier with me saying yes or no. Either way, I’m not going to bother to lie to him.
“Yes. If you eat cow blood, there’s no reason to kill the cow. Not like it’s going to hunt you down in your sleep. Me, I eat grizzly bear blood. Turn your back on one of them, and it will kill you.”
“Oh.”
“So, do you want me to do it?”
“No demons?” I’d laugh at the earnest doubt on his face if he were anyone else in any other situation.
“No demons. If you’re a basically decent human, you’ll be a basically decent vamp. We’re just like sharks.”
“You know, that’s not usually a compliment.”
I smile at him and realize he can’t see it. “Some of us like being sharks. And you don’t have to be one. I won’t think any less of you if you say no. Most sharks don’t live a long time. It’s hard work being a shark.”
“Well, even if I turn out to be the least effective, most bumbling vampire ever, I’m still looking at a longer lifespan than I’d have otherwise.”
“Probably true.”
“So what do I have to lose?”
“Doesn’t look like much from where I’m sitting.”
“Yes. I’ll be a vamp.” He looks very young and very certain at that moment. And then, for a second, very scared. “Will you stay with me until…”
“Sure.”
I can see him pushing fear aside. “How will I find you? In five years, I mean. Will we have some sort of special mojo? Some sort of maker/child bond?”
“Nah. Luck. Perseverance. Google. Facebook. After all, it’s not like I’ll look different. I’ve got friends here and there, and I’ve been around for so long, a lot of the older vamps know me. It won’t be easy, but I’m not impossible to find, either.”
“Will you have sex with me? I don’t want to die a virgin.” His smile tells me he’s not entirely kidding. His sightless eyes let me know he’s more asking just to ask; he doesn’t have the strength for it anymore.
“Nope. Once again, five, ten years from now, when you’ve got a bit more experience, and yes. But right now, I’d break you, and not in a good way.”
“Damn.” He shakes his head, looking sad and relieved. “Even on my deathbed I can’t get a girl to sleep with me.”
“Even on your deathbed.” I smile and kiss him on the temple.
“So, tell me about being a vampire. Obviously, the bursting into flames thing is off…”
“Just a bit…”
Chapter 9.
I leave Billy when it’s time to go to school. Amazingly enough, none of the nurses told me to leave. Or, maybe I should say, none of the nurses succeeded in getting the full sentence out. Several of them began to tell me to leave, but one look from me and my glamour and they shut up.
I don’t have any interest in drawing things out with Jack, not even to track him back to his place. I’m getting hungry, and if the next few days go the way I think they will, I’ll need to be well fed.
He breaks away from his crowd of friends and heads toward the bathroom during lunch. Best chance I’m going to get all day. Not my favorite location for something like this, but it’ll work.
Now, as you might remember, I mentioned we don’t digest. What goes in comes out. This is useful to know for a few reasons. In relation to hunting vamps, it’s good to know because human nature tends to work the same way for everyone.
Guys have a sort of code. When they’re in the bathroom that code is: ‘Thou shalt not look at the other guys.’ So if one of them is at the urinal and he hears someone come in, he’s not going to look up and around to see who it is. He’s going to keep looking straight ahead.
Go in moving faster than he can see, and he won’t even have the time to notice something is wrong.
I go in fast, tackle him into the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom, and have his arms pinned behind his back, a hair stick pressed into his chest (I usually try to get far enough in to get past the ribs but not into the heart. You poke a stake that far into a vamp and he’s going to go very still, not wanting to risk having it go in further), and my fangs in his neck before he knows what is happening.
“Let me eat, and I don’t press it home.”
I can feel him trembling under me, fear or rage, I don’t know. He’s doing what I tell him to, so I don’t care, either. I prop his feet against the stall door, straddle his hips, and get to it.
Boys come in and out, giggling, talking. I press a finger to Jack’s lips, and he stays quiet.
You can’t actually kill a vamp by draining him dry. He’s going to be in awfully bad shape after something like that, but he won’t die. From the way he looks at me, I guess he knows that and is willing to let me drink up if it means he’s going to get out of this alive.
“Good boy.” I pat his cheek patronizingly as I feast. Someone else in the bathroom must have heard that and seen our lower bodies under the stall. Chuckling and sexually unimaginative comments are the soundtrack to my meal.
I don’t pull back. I don’t do anything to signal I’m done. I don’t want him to figure out the next move. I can feel I’ve had enough, so mid-suck, I shove the hair stick home.
Interesting bit about vamps: we do turn to ash or dust or something when we die. Our clothing does not.
I debate leaving the clothes or not.
Screw it. I leave them. Worst come to worst, people will think he spontaneously combusted. No, I don’t know for a fact that dusted vamps is where that idea comes from, but I’d give even odds on it.
I dust myself off, tuck the hair stick back into my bun, stroll past a few shocked boys in the bathroom, glamouring them to forget me as I walk past, and head off.
Good-bye Jenks High.
Chapter 10.
I pull up a chair next to Billy’s bed.
“Helen?” He sounds groggy, like he just woke up. He probably has just woken up.
“Yeah. How you doing?”
“Been better.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
He turns his face to my general direction and reaches a hand out toward me. I take his hand in mine, not in the least concerned about keeping up the appearance of humanity. For a moment, he just holds my hand.
“I got about fifty Facebook updates telling me Jack Cross went missing today. Rumor around the school is that his clothing and a pile of ash were found in the boy’s bathroom.”
“I heard that.”
“You know, he was room temperature, too.”
“Yeah, I bet he was.”
“He had this unnerving habit of not blinking for way too long.”
“I noticed that, as well.”
“Hypothyroid, huh?”
I sit on his bed next to him and wrap my arm around him. “Well, I don’t have any thyroid function at all. Technically, it’s true.”
He smiles at that. “So, you’re what, Blade?”
“Not quite. I really don’t think dhampir exist. I’ve never seen or heard of one. I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Do you still want to be a vamp?”
“Could I stay with you?”
“No. Baby vamps aren’t my thing.” He looks disappointed. But baby vamps annoy me, and no matter how cute he is as a human, I don’t want him around as a vamp until he’s grown up a bit.
“How would it work?”
“I’ll wait until you fall into a coma, finish you off, and the next night you’ll wake up in the morgue or funeral home and have to fend for yourself. In five or ten years, when you’ve had the time to grow up a bit and see if you can survive as a vamp, then I’ll want to see you.”
He thinks about it. I can see him pondering how he’d survive, what his parents will think when his body suddenly goes missing, weighing that against having maybe a few weeks, most of them unconscious, of life left. He gently pokes my wrist with his thumb.
“You’re soft.”
“All of us are soft. The hard as stone vampire thing… I don’t know where that comes from. Modified Golem myth? Anyway, hard things don’t bend all that well. They tend to crack and break. If you want to move, you need to be soft.”
He nods at that, still holding my wrist. I realize he’s feeling for my pulse.
“I really don’t have one.”
“Appears so.” His fingers stroke down my wrist a few times. “Will they notice the bite marks?”
“I’m not going to bite you. I’ll use your arm, where the IV is, and put it back when I’m done.”
He thinks about that for a moment. “I’m full of morphine. Will that be a problem?”
“I doubt it. I’ve smoked opium and didn’t notice any issues.” Vamps can get high and drunk and anything else really. It just takes a ton of whatever it is to do it. I don’t know why that’s true, but my guess is it would take about three times a lethal dose of morphine to get me even buzzed, let alone loopy.
“Really?”
“Really. San Francisco, back in the 1890s. I’d never seen real Asians before and was fascinated by them. I spent a lot of time in the opium dens because they were there, and no one made any sort of fuss about my kind eating the customers as long as I paid the house well.”
He thinks about that for a few minutes, too. “Did you kill them?”
“Very rarely. A bunch of them thought they had some really intense hallucinations about a blond girl sucking on them.” I pause for a moment, thinking of a good way to explain how it works.
“Do you know about the Masai tribe in Africa?”
He shakes his head.
“They live on a diet of cow blood and milk.” He looks a little nauseous at that, but I keep going. “They don’t kill the cows often, because a dead cow makes no more blood or milk. That’s how most of us treat humans. A pint here, a pint there, and we’re good. Young ones tend to need more food, but even then, you’re usually full by two or three pints. I mean, think about it: how big is your stomach? Even full to bursting, it’s not much more than three pints. Most humans can survive that level of donation.”
“But you killed Jack, right?” He looks a little dubious, and I’m not sure if he’d be happier with me saying yes or no. Either way, I’m not going to bother to lie to him.
“Yes. If you eat cow blood, there’s no reason to kill the cow. Not like it’s going to hunt you down in your sleep. Me, I eat grizzly bear blood. Turn your back on one of them, and it will kill you.”
“Oh.”
“So, do you want me to do it?”
“No demons?” I’d laugh at the earnest doubt on his face if he were anyone else in any other situation.
“No demons. If you’re a basically decent human, you’ll be a basically decent vamp. We’re just like sharks.”
“You know, that’s not usually a compliment.”
I smile at him and realize he can’t see it. “Some of us like being sharks. And you don’t have to be one. I won’t think any less of you if you say no. Most sharks don’t live a long time. It’s hard work being a shark.”
“Well, even if I turn out to be the least effective, most bumbling vampire ever, I’m still looking at a longer lifespan than I’d have otherwise.”
“Probably true.”
“So what do I have to lose?”
“Doesn’t look like much from where I’m sitting.”
“Yes. I’ll be a vamp.” He looks very young and very certain at that moment. And then, for a second, very scared. “Will you stay with me until…”
“Sure.”
I can see him pushing fear aside. “How will I find you? In five years, I mean. Will we have some sort of special mojo? Some sort of maker/child bond?”
“Nah. Luck. Perseverance. Google. Facebook. After all, it’s not like I’ll look different. I’ve got friends here and there, and I’ve been around for so long, a lot of the older vamps know me. It won’t be easy, but I’m not impossible to find, either.”
“Will you have sex with me? I don’t want to die a virgin.” His smile tells me he’s not entirely kidding. His sightless eyes let me know he’s more asking just to ask; he doesn’t have the strength for it anymore.
“Nope. Once again, five, ten years from now, when you’ve got a bit more experience, and yes. But right now, I’d break you, and not in a good way.”
“Damn.” He shakes his head, looking sad and relieved. “Even on my deathbed I can’t get a girl to sleep with me.”
“Even on your deathbed.” I smile and kiss him on the temple.
“So, tell me about being a vampire. Obviously, the bursting into flames thing is off…”
“Just a bit…”
January 2, 2013
38 Weeks: The Seventeenth Week
A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgMonday evening, and Michael and Fi are out on Romantic Date Night: Part II.After weeks of Fi not eating, Michael may be going a bit overboard on trying to feed her. They've finished dinner, with dessert, over an hour ago, and he's trying to get her to have some frozen yogurt as they walk along South Beach."You do know I don't actually need four thousand calories a day," she says as she notices he's easing them in the direction of a frozen yogurt shop."Yes. But you do need 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day, and if you split one with me, you'll be at 1,200 for the day.""You're keeping track of my calcium intake?" She looks horrified by that.He smiles, looking slightly guilty. "Not usually. We ate all of our meals together today, so I noticed.""Well, stop it. It's unnerving to know you're paying that close of attention to what I'm eating.""Fine. No yogurt, then?" "I didn't say that." Ten minutes later, they exit. He's got a small, plain tart yogurt with fresh blueberries. She's got a slightly larger chocolate with peanut butter sauce and Reese's Peanut Butter cup pieces. They head for the sand. It's been almost a year since they've been to this beach, since the night after Nate died and Fi got free. They sit there, watching the waves, feeling the sun on their backs as it creeps behind the Miami skyline. No sunset on this beach, but it's a good place for moonrise and watching the stars.Michael realizes as he sits there, eating his yogurt, that he doesn't really remember that night. For example, he knows they had a blanket, but he can't remember where or how they got it. He knows they were on the beach but not why. He knows they talked, but he doesn't really remember what about. He does remember the all-pervasive feeling of crushing loss, and the image of Nate dying below him. He remembers feeling happy, grateful Fi was there, and guilty for it. He knows they spent a very long time staring at a black, star-free sky, her hand in his, and the sound of the waves and wind the only thing in his mind.Fi brushes his cheek, bringing him back to now. "Where are you, Michael?""Remembering the last time we were here."She gives him a small, half-sad smile. "I thought so. Do you want to leave?""No. If I avoid every place that makes me think of him, I'll never go anywhere." "It's good to remember the ones we've lost. It helps—" Michael never found out what that helped because Fi suddenly looked very startled and stopped speaking."What?""I just—" She stopped, grabbed his hand, and pressed it low on her belly. "Can you feel it?"He wanted to feel it. Willed himself to feel something, and maybe he did. Possibly there was a very faint, tiny, almost fluttering under his palm. Or he could have imagined it. Either way, Fi was grinning hugely at him."She's moving."Michael put down his yogurt, and scooted so he was sitting a bit behind Fi, her between his legs, and both palms resting against her stomach."You think it's a she?"Fi leaned against his chest, her head on his shoulder. "I do right now."Then it happened again, and he knew he felt it. There was an almost sliding sensation under his hand, followed by a fast fluttering. He has no idea what their child might be doing in there, but it certainly feels fast."Maybe she likes yogurt.""Or chocolate."He holds Fi and their baby close and knows that he's lost too many people over the last year, lost too much of who he had been. He feels that fluttering under his hand again, and tries to summon the certainty he had the week before that giving the baby up is the right thing to do, the only thing to do, the sane, rational, right thing.And he can't find that part of himself anymore.Michael kisses Fi's ear, sits on the beach with her, and wonders how to tell her he's changed his mind, wonders if she'll go along with it, and wonders if there is something greater than them that's put them here for this moment.
*****************************************
On Saturday of the seventeenth week, at dinner, Fi asks the others, "What are you all doing four weeks from today?"Jesse and Sam seem to think about it.
Maddie says, "Nothing.""I'm free," Jesse answers."Can't think of anything," Sam replies."Good." She smiles. "The church is free that afternoon, and the back room at The Forge is free, too. Feel like coming to our wedding?"
**********************
With the right frame of mind, wedding planning is pretty easy.First of all, be the groom. Wedding planning is a breeze if you're the groom. Even if you have the sort of bride who wants you to pay attention and have opinions, it's fairly easy to fake that. Look alert, ask questions, and even if you couldn't care less about whatever it is, be decisive. Michael is good at all of these things. Sure, he's never going to care if the napkins are hunter green or teal, but as long as he picks a color quickly and keeps up eye contact, no one will know.Not that he'll have to do that, though. Because the real secret to easy wedding planning is having a bride who doesn't much care about this stuff either.Fiona's got wedding planning down as easy as possible. Get a dozen or so of your nearest and dearest. (Okay, half a dozen.) Find a restaurant they all like. Grab the back room and flash around extra cash for bar service and them to move some of the tables out of the way so there's room to dance. Voilà, a location is set.Then go find whichever church has a priest who isn't doing anything that afternoon. Once again, planning a wedding with a half-dozen people means that if, say, there's no room in the church, it's not too hard to suggest the pretty garden in the back, and when any priest with a pulse will do, it's not hard to find one.Generous donations to whichever charity the church runs don't hurt. (This is also helpful in case the church in question wants you to attend pre-marital counseling, though being visibly pregnant is a pretty good way to get that waved, as well. While it's true that Catholic Churches wants to encourage people to make good decisions about which spouse to choose, they also want mom and dad to be married, to each other, before the baby shows up.)For music, grab a laptop and get one of your buddies with sound equipment to make sure it's got good speakers. Set the play list up days before the wedding and have it ready to go.Let the restaurant take care of the tables, centerpieces, chairs, and linens.
You're already in the beautiful garden at the back of the church, so no need to decorate that. After all, there is such a thing as overkill, and trying to improve on the natural beauty of a space kept for the contemplation of the divine certainly qualifies as overkill.This leaves getting a dress, some shoes, suits, some flowers and some sort of outfit for the guys.Mike, being in charge of the guys, pretty quickly decided that since this was an outdoor wedding in Miami early summer, going casual seemed like a good plan. Nary a tie nor tux will be allowed anywhere near this wedding. Which pleases Fi because she's not finding anything in the way of particularly attractive formal wedding dresses for a lady in her shape. Though both she and Maddie were quite taken with the one they did find. It's white, with a mid-thigh to knee length hem, a deep v neckline, and three quarter length sleeves. All in all, it took six days of fairly lackluster effort, but by the end of it, they had a wedding ready to go. At which point Michael found out there was one other job he was supposed to be in charge of. Lucky for him, Jesse mentioned it because it wasn't something he was even aware of on his own. But apparently the groom is in charge of honeymoon planning.One of the few good things that came out of the last year is that he can once again travel. And he does remember there is somewhere Fi's mentioned going to about four times in the last few years. The downside is that it's awfully difficult to set up a trip to the Riviera without a credit card.For the first time in years, as he's handing Jesse a wad of cash to book him a trip online, he's thinking that maybe getting a credit card might be a good idea. He adds it to the list of things to talk to Barry about. Supposedly the shell corporation they're setting up is coming along, and maybe it'd be a good idea for that corporation to have a few corporate cards.
Ten minutes later it's all set, and while it's true the concept of being married has been very real for him since he bought the rings, this is the first time the concept of wedding has been solidly in his mind. He's mildly surprised to see that it's a good feeling, after all, it's not like parties are really his thing, but this party, he's looking forward to.
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgMonday evening, and Michael and Fi are out on Romantic Date Night: Part II.After weeks of Fi not eating, Michael may be going a bit overboard on trying to feed her. They've finished dinner, with dessert, over an hour ago, and he's trying to get her to have some frozen yogurt as they walk along South Beach."You do know I don't actually need four thousand calories a day," she says as she notices he's easing them in the direction of a frozen yogurt shop."Yes. But you do need 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day, and if you split one with me, you'll be at 1,200 for the day.""You're keeping track of my calcium intake?" She looks horrified by that.He smiles, looking slightly guilty. "Not usually. We ate all of our meals together today, so I noticed.""Well, stop it. It's unnerving to know you're paying that close of attention to what I'm eating.""Fine. No yogurt, then?" "I didn't say that." Ten minutes later, they exit. He's got a small, plain tart yogurt with fresh blueberries. She's got a slightly larger chocolate with peanut butter sauce and Reese's Peanut Butter cup pieces. They head for the sand. It's been almost a year since they've been to this beach, since the night after Nate died and Fi got free. They sit there, watching the waves, feeling the sun on their backs as it creeps behind the Miami skyline. No sunset on this beach, but it's a good place for moonrise and watching the stars.Michael realizes as he sits there, eating his yogurt, that he doesn't really remember that night. For example, he knows they had a blanket, but he can't remember where or how they got it. He knows they were on the beach but not why. He knows they talked, but he doesn't really remember what about. He does remember the all-pervasive feeling of crushing loss, and the image of Nate dying below him. He remembers feeling happy, grateful Fi was there, and guilty for it. He knows they spent a very long time staring at a black, star-free sky, her hand in his, and the sound of the waves and wind the only thing in his mind.Fi brushes his cheek, bringing him back to now. "Where are you, Michael?""Remembering the last time we were here."She gives him a small, half-sad smile. "I thought so. Do you want to leave?""No. If I avoid every place that makes me think of him, I'll never go anywhere." "It's good to remember the ones we've lost. It helps—" Michael never found out what that helped because Fi suddenly looked very startled and stopped speaking."What?""I just—" She stopped, grabbed his hand, and pressed it low on her belly. "Can you feel it?"He wanted to feel it. Willed himself to feel something, and maybe he did. Possibly there was a very faint, tiny, almost fluttering under his palm. Or he could have imagined it. Either way, Fi was grinning hugely at him."She's moving."Michael put down his yogurt, and scooted so he was sitting a bit behind Fi, her between his legs, and both palms resting against her stomach."You think it's a she?"Fi leaned against his chest, her head on his shoulder. "I do right now."Then it happened again, and he knew he felt it. There was an almost sliding sensation under his hand, followed by a fast fluttering. He has no idea what their child might be doing in there, but it certainly feels fast."Maybe she likes yogurt.""Or chocolate."He holds Fi and their baby close and knows that he's lost too many people over the last year, lost too much of who he had been. He feels that fluttering under his hand again, and tries to summon the certainty he had the week before that giving the baby up is the right thing to do, the only thing to do, the sane, rational, right thing.And he can't find that part of himself anymore.Michael kisses Fi's ear, sits on the beach with her, and wonders how to tell her he's changed his mind, wonders if she'll go along with it, and wonders if there is something greater than them that's put them here for this moment.*****************************************
On Saturday of the seventeenth week, at dinner, Fi asks the others, "What are you all doing four weeks from today?"Jesse and Sam seem to think about it.Maddie says, "Nothing.""I'm free," Jesse answers."Can't think of anything," Sam replies."Good." She smiles. "The church is free that afternoon, and the back room at The Forge is free, too. Feel like coming to our wedding?"
**********************
With the right frame of mind, wedding planning is pretty easy.First of all, be the groom. Wedding planning is a breeze if you're the groom. Even if you have the sort of bride who wants you to pay attention and have opinions, it's fairly easy to fake that. Look alert, ask questions, and even if you couldn't care less about whatever it is, be decisive. Michael is good at all of these things. Sure, he's never going to care if the napkins are hunter green or teal, but as long as he picks a color quickly and keeps up eye contact, no one will know.Not that he'll have to do that, though. Because the real secret to easy wedding planning is having a bride who doesn't much care about this stuff either.Fiona's got wedding planning down as easy as possible. Get a dozen or so of your nearest and dearest. (Okay, half a dozen.) Find a restaurant they all like. Grab the back room and flash around extra cash for bar service and them to move some of the tables out of the way so there's room to dance. Voilà, a location is set.Then go find whichever church has a priest who isn't doing anything that afternoon. Once again, planning a wedding with a half-dozen people means that if, say, there's no room in the church, it's not too hard to suggest the pretty garden in the back, and when any priest with a pulse will do, it's not hard to find one.Generous donations to whichever charity the church runs don't hurt. (This is also helpful in case the church in question wants you to attend pre-marital counseling, though being visibly pregnant is a pretty good way to get that waved, as well. While it's true that Catholic Churches wants to encourage people to make good decisions about which spouse to choose, they also want mom and dad to be married, to each other, before the baby shows up.)For music, grab a laptop and get one of your buddies with sound equipment to make sure it's got good speakers. Set the play list up days before the wedding and have it ready to go.Let the restaurant take care of the tables, centerpieces, chairs, and linens.
You're already in the beautiful garden at the back of the church, so no need to decorate that. After all, there is such a thing as overkill, and trying to improve on the natural beauty of a space kept for the contemplation of the divine certainly qualifies as overkill.This leaves getting a dress, some shoes, suits, some flowers and some sort of outfit for the guys.Mike, being in charge of the guys, pretty quickly decided that since this was an outdoor wedding in Miami early summer, going casual seemed like a good plan. Nary a tie nor tux will be allowed anywhere near this wedding. Which pleases Fi because she's not finding anything in the way of particularly attractive formal wedding dresses for a lady in her shape. Though both she and Maddie were quite taken with the one they did find. It's white, with a mid-thigh to knee length hem, a deep v neckline, and three quarter length sleeves. All in all, it took six days of fairly lackluster effort, but by the end of it, they had a wedding ready to go. At which point Michael found out there was one other job he was supposed to be in charge of. Lucky for him, Jesse mentioned it because it wasn't something he was even aware of on his own. But apparently the groom is in charge of honeymoon planning.One of the few good things that came out of the last year is that he can once again travel. And he does remember there is somewhere Fi's mentioned going to about four times in the last few years. The downside is that it's awfully difficult to set up a trip to the Riviera without a credit card.For the first time in years, as he's handing Jesse a wad of cash to book him a trip online, he's thinking that maybe getting a credit card might be a good idea. He adds it to the list of things to talk to Barry about. Supposedly the shell corporation they're setting up is coming along, and maybe it'd be a good idea for that corporation to have a few corporate cards.Ten minutes later it's all set, and while it's true the concept of being married has been very real for him since he bought the rings, this is the first time the concept of wedding has been solidly in his mind. He's mildly surprised to see that it's a good feeling, after all, it's not like parties are really his thing, but this party, he's looking forward to.
December 29, 2012
38 Weeks: The Sixteenth Week
A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
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On Friday of week sixteen, they went to a second adoption agency. This time, Michael didn't wear Armani. Fi dressed down, too, taking off her engagement ring, and though they both used their real names, they added thick southern accents.
By the time Michael was talking about having been laid off from his construction job three years earlier, and how he and Fi were the only support for his mother, who had dementia and tended to violent outbursts, the lady at this agency was very willing, eager practically, to sign them up as birth parents and let them start looking at prospective adoptive parents.
They spent seven hours looking at names and files and created a list of people they were deeply unenthusiastic about meeting.
Walking toward the Charger, appointments to meet with prospective adoptive parents set, Fi said, "Ellen might have been on to something."
"Of course she was. But that doesn't mean this is the wrong decision."
"I know. I just..."
"I know, Fi. Trust me, I know." And he does. He knows in his bones that given half a chance and any plausible excuse at all, he'll change his mind about this.
As he drives home, he thinks about the fact that apparently both Brennan and Management were able to keep families safe, despite very dangerous jobs.
But he also knows that he found, or at least guessed well, about Brennan's daughter, and if he could do it to Brennan, then someone else could do it to him.
And if someone can do it to him... That sends a chill through Michael. And that chill pierces through his desire to keep this child. Once upon a time, he was sure he was the smartest man in the room, that no matter the challenge, he was up to conquering it. Now, he knows better.
No, he doesn't want to meet with the couples they've picked out. No, he doesn't want to give this child away. But if this last year has taught him anything, it's that it doesn't matter how good he is, there's always someone better, someone coming from the angle he can't see, and all it takes is a few seconds to stop a heart.
And he knows, driving home with Fi, that he can give this child away. She can, too. It won't be easy. They won't like it. But they will survive, and go on, and know they did the right thing.
But if they keep this child and if something happens to it, it'll break him. It'll be the final trauma he won't be able to come back from. And he's awfully sure losing a child would destroy Fi, as well. So, no matter what Ellen may say, he's not going to change his mind, because he's sure he can't live with the consequences of changing his mind.
[image error]
On Friday of week sixteen, they went to a second adoption agency. This time, Michael didn't wear Armani. Fi dressed down, too, taking off her engagement ring, and though they both used their real names, they added thick southern accents.
By the time Michael was talking about having been laid off from his construction job three years earlier, and how he and Fi were the only support for his mother, who had dementia and tended to violent outbursts, the lady at this agency was very willing, eager practically, to sign them up as birth parents and let them start looking at prospective adoptive parents.
They spent seven hours looking at names and files and created a list of people they were deeply unenthusiastic about meeting.
Walking toward the Charger, appointments to meet with prospective adoptive parents set, Fi said, "Ellen might have been on to something."
"Of course she was. But that doesn't mean this is the wrong decision."
"I know. I just..."
"I know, Fi. Trust me, I know." And he does. He knows in his bones that given half a chance and any plausible excuse at all, he'll change his mind about this.
As he drives home, he thinks about the fact that apparently both Brennan and Management were able to keep families safe, despite very dangerous jobs.
But he also knows that he found, or at least guessed well, about Brennan's daughter, and if he could do it to Brennan, then someone else could do it to him.
And if someone can do it to him... That sends a chill through Michael. And that chill pierces through his desire to keep this child. Once upon a time, he was sure he was the smartest man in the room, that no matter the challenge, he was up to conquering it. Now, he knows better.
No, he doesn't want to meet with the couples they've picked out. No, he doesn't want to give this child away. But if this last year has taught him anything, it's that it doesn't matter how good he is, there's always someone better, someone coming from the angle he can't see, and all it takes is a few seconds to stop a heart.
And he knows, driving home with Fi, that he can give this child away. She can, too. It won't be easy. They won't like it. But they will survive, and go on, and know they did the right thing.
But if they keep this child and if something happens to it, it'll break him. It'll be the final trauma he won't be able to come back from. And he's awfully sure losing a child would destroy Fi, as well. So, no matter what Ellen may say, he's not going to change his mind, because he's sure he can't live with the consequences of changing his mind.
December 28, 2012
Original Fic Friday: Hunter's Tales Volume One: Billy Price
A/N: Vampires, snark, meta, all manner of good things lie within. Want to start at the beginning? Click here. Want to read it all at once? It's .99 at Amazon.
Chapter 6.
What to do about Jack? The immediate satisfaction of just tracking him to his home and eating him wars with the desire for the greater satisfaction of a real hunt.
An hour of that and I am just as undecided.
Better question, or at least a question I could likely come up with a real answer for: what to do about Billy? He is kind of cute...
Okay, stop it right there. This is not a YA paranormal romance. Do you sleep with your food? No! You don’t. (And if you do, I don’t want to hear about it. That’s a bit kinkier than I want to get, and my own tastes on the subject are already pretty damn broad.) Do you fall in love with your food and expect to have a long-term relationship with it? No! You don’t. I am a vampire. He’s a human. Basically, to put it in human terms, he’s a steer. Steer may be cute, they may, on rare occasions, make good pets, but really, the reason you keep them around is to get them nice and fat so you can eat them.
But, I do kind of like him. And, there is something to be said about occasionally breaking in an eager virgin. There’s a certain look on a guy’s face the first time… Anyway… We’ve way too far into TMI territory here.
Okay, it’s true that some of the young vamps do sleep with humans for fun. And it’s true that these days the humans more or less expect us to have sex with them before or during eating them. From what I can see, that’s about as exciting for the vamp as kissing your 97-year-old great-grandmother is for most humans. (And yet another reason I don’t go after humans anymore. I wear most male vamps out. What the hell am I going to do with a human? Please!) Usually, if we’re looking for a bedmate, we’ll turn them because humans just don’t have the stamina to keep up with us.
Oh, and for all you paranormal romance reading girls out there, heads up: sex is a learned skill. Turning into a vamp does not suddenly make you Mr. Romance or particularly good in the sack. Just like any other learned skill, you need time and practice. Expecting a vamp to be good at sex is like expecting him to be able to speak perfect French. If he’s put the time and effort into it, he’ll probably be better at it than anything you’ve
ever seen. If he hasn’t…
Here’s the thing; I’ve let several of the ones that hang out at high schools ‘seduce’ me, and they were pretty damn lame. I don’t know if they were still pretending to be teen boys, or they were holding back because they thought I was a human girl, but, even if I wasn’t dead, those few kisses wouldn’t have gotten my heart pounding.
Likewise, I’m pretty damn sure Anne Rice never met a real vampire. We don’t get off on eating. Even the best meal of your life wasn’t a literally orgasmic experience. It’s not for us either.
Okay, all clear now? Good.
Back to Billy. I do sort of like him, the kind of fondness one might have for a particularly cute kitten.
But now that I know what is up with him, keeping him around could only mess up my chances of catching Jack. One thing most vamps don’t go for is the girl who already has a visible boyfriend.
Of course, keeping him around might be fun, and that’s also the point of this. After all, there’s nothing that says I can’t outright hunt a vamp, instead of letting him think he was hunting me.
But just a straight, outright hunt would be awfully fast. Find vamp. Follow him home. Break in. Kill him. In, out, and done—not a lot of finesse there.
And not a lot of finesse is boring. I might as well eat humans if I’m not going to bother with finesse.
I can try seducing the vamp. Try being so fabulous that he’ll want to be seen with me. Make him decide to drop Evie and move up the food chain.
Well, it’ll be a challenge. And, if I’m going to be popular and cool, I could have friends, like Billy.
Might be interesting.
It would certainly be different.
It’s pretty close to midnight. Time for me to go to sleep. Yes, we do sleep. Just like with humans, as we get older we need less of it. Three, four hours does me just fine.
Tomorrow, I’ll be fabulous.
Chapter 7.
“You look nice,” Billy says as he slides into his seat.
“Thanks. Wanted to be pretty today.”
“You’ve succeeded.”
I am pretty today. I skipped the black clothing and went with a pink cheongsam, white leggings, and cute, little pink pumps. I left off my Goth makeup and went for something that emphasizes how good my skin really is.
I have my hair in its usual bun, hair sticks at the ready, with a few artfully curled tendrils wisping about, looking soft and romantic. I’m so damn cute it would make a puppy cry. With any luck, it will also intrigue Jack.
It seems to be working. He’d checked me out three times by lunch. That was a start. Give it a while longer and he might actually decide to talk to me.
I set my glamour so that everyone near me will feel a desire to get a little closer. They’ll look in my direction and want to know who I am and what I’m doing. It’s subtle; most of the humans won’t even notice they aren’t the ones generating the desire to go check out the new girl.
By the end of the day, I’ve said hi to close to fifty people. There’s a small clot of them chatting with me in each class. Jack’s in my sixth period class, and he did look my way when I walked in with a collection of teen girls all babbling away about my outfit. I look back at him and smile. One of the other girls saw him and starts cooing about how cute he was.
I agree with her and let the wash of blather rush around me.
A brief fantasy of glamouring them all into shutting up and just following me around flits through my mind. I smile at the image and dismiss it. I’ve never had a herd of minions, though I’ve met some vamps who have. Herds of minions are for the people who don’t like hunting.
When the final bell rang, I’m sure of one thing: I am not cut out to be popular in high school. The vast vapidness of it is killing off IQ points at close to fifty an hour. Too much more of it and I’ll be a talking monkey.
So, back to plan A? It’s a bit late for that. I can just ditch this town and go looking for the next one. Maybe head back to Charleston and go for a different sort of hunt. Been a long time since I’ve done an urban hunt with prey that acted like an adult.
That sounded good. Catch Jack. Eat him. And then get out of high school for a while.
I was sure of one other thing: the crowd of kids kept Billy away. He vanished shortly after English.
No point on being here if I’m going to be surrounded by morons.
So, tomorrow I’ll be me again. I’ll hang with Billy. And at the end of the day, I’ll track Jack to his lair. In, out, and done. So much for finesse. The day after tomorrow, or the day after that, I’ll head home: back to warm air, soft breezes, blue, blue skies, and my Charleston single.
My cell buzzes, pulling me away from my image of home.
“Helen Grace?” I don’t recognize the voice. It’s an adult woman.
“Yes.”
“Hello. This is Rebecca Price, Billy’s mom. We’ve had to take him back to the hospital, and he wanted me to call you.” For a second, I wonder how he’s got my number, but then I remember that I friended him on Facebook and my cell number is listed there.
“Oh. What’s happened?”
She sounds like she’s in danger of starting to cry, but holds it together to say to me, dispassionately, “He got a nap this afternoon. He woke up with a massive headache, unable to see.”
“What room is he in?”
“145.”
“I’ll be there to see him as soon as I can.”
She didn’t say anything, but I get the feeling she’s relieved to know her son has a friend who wants to visit him.
Chapter 8.
I’m not a huge fan of hospitals, but they’re way, way better than they ever were in the old days (defined as any time before 1980). Sick humans smell bad and taste worse. And, of course, the vast majority of people in a hospital are sick. So, for comparison purposes, imagine going to a grocery store where all the food is going off. Some of it minutes from rancid, some of it barely past its prime.
What, you don’t want to visit? Amazing.
The cancer ward isn’t all that bad. The chemicals sort of mask the smell of dying human.
I poke my head into Billy’s room.
“It’s not looking all that good for you, is it?” I say it like a joke, and he responds in kind.
“Nope.” He smiles in my direction, but I can see from the tilt of his head that he can’t actually see where I am. “Worse and worse by the minute.” His voice goes serious. “I turn eighteen day after tomorrow, and as long as I’m not in a coma by then, I’m going DNR. My parents don’t want me to, but… This is futile. It’s not worth a few extra days.”
I enter the room and stand next to his bed. “I didn’t press your mom for details. She sounded like she was about to start crying on the phone.”
“Tumor’s so big it’s pressing on the nerves that let me see. So no vision. It’s growing fast, so obviously the chemo isn’t doing its job.”
“Are you in pain?” I can’t smell it, but like I said, the cancer ward smells chemical.
“Nah. Got all the morphine I could possibly want.” He fumbles around for a switch on the bed. “Hit this little button and I’m just dandy.”
“So, you weren’t kidding about doing morphine for fun?”
“Only a little. It’s pretty nice. Nothing hurts; my mood is good; if my skin would stop itching, all would be zippy.”
“So what happens now?”
“Now… I’m here. I keep pumping myself full of drugs. Eventually, my brain stops functioning, I slip into a coma, and then…”
“Then…”
He smiles at me. “You know what they say: live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Would have liked a little more fast living, but you take what you can get.”
“That you do. Can I do anything for you?”
“This’ll sound dumb, but, can you read me my Facebook feed and update it?”
“Sure.” And that’s how we spend the next hour.
Chapter 6.
What to do about Jack? The immediate satisfaction of just tracking him to his home and eating him wars with the desire for the greater satisfaction of a real hunt.
An hour of that and I am just as undecided.
Better question, or at least a question I could likely come up with a real answer for: what to do about Billy? He is kind of cute...
Okay, stop it right there. This is not a YA paranormal romance. Do you sleep with your food? No! You don’t. (And if you do, I don’t want to hear about it. That’s a bit kinkier than I want to get, and my own tastes on the subject are already pretty damn broad.) Do you fall in love with your food and expect to have a long-term relationship with it? No! You don’t. I am a vampire. He’s a human. Basically, to put it in human terms, he’s a steer. Steer may be cute, they may, on rare occasions, make good pets, but really, the reason you keep them around is to get them nice and fat so you can eat them.
But, I do kind of like him. And, there is something to be said about occasionally breaking in an eager virgin. There’s a certain look on a guy’s face the first time… Anyway… We’ve way too far into TMI territory here.
Okay, it’s true that some of the young vamps do sleep with humans for fun. And it’s true that these days the humans more or less expect us to have sex with them before or during eating them. From what I can see, that’s about as exciting for the vamp as kissing your 97-year-old great-grandmother is for most humans. (And yet another reason I don’t go after humans anymore. I wear most male vamps out. What the hell am I going to do with a human? Please!) Usually, if we’re looking for a bedmate, we’ll turn them because humans just don’t have the stamina to keep up with us.
Oh, and for all you paranormal romance reading girls out there, heads up: sex is a learned skill. Turning into a vamp does not suddenly make you Mr. Romance or particularly good in the sack. Just like any other learned skill, you need time and practice. Expecting a vamp to be good at sex is like expecting him to be able to speak perfect French. If he’s put the time and effort into it, he’ll probably be better at it than anything you’ve
ever seen. If he hasn’t…
Here’s the thing; I’ve let several of the ones that hang out at high schools ‘seduce’ me, and they were pretty damn lame. I don’t know if they were still pretending to be teen boys, or they were holding back because they thought I was a human girl, but, even if I wasn’t dead, those few kisses wouldn’t have gotten my heart pounding.
Likewise, I’m pretty damn sure Anne Rice never met a real vampire. We don’t get off on eating. Even the best meal of your life wasn’t a literally orgasmic experience. It’s not for us either.
Okay, all clear now? Good.
Back to Billy. I do sort of like him, the kind of fondness one might have for a particularly cute kitten.
But now that I know what is up with him, keeping him around could only mess up my chances of catching Jack. One thing most vamps don’t go for is the girl who already has a visible boyfriend.
Of course, keeping him around might be fun, and that’s also the point of this. After all, there’s nothing that says I can’t outright hunt a vamp, instead of letting him think he was hunting me.
But just a straight, outright hunt would be awfully fast. Find vamp. Follow him home. Break in. Kill him. In, out, and done—not a lot of finesse there.
And not a lot of finesse is boring. I might as well eat humans if I’m not going to bother with finesse.
I can try seducing the vamp. Try being so fabulous that he’ll want to be seen with me. Make him decide to drop Evie and move up the food chain.
Well, it’ll be a challenge. And, if I’m going to be popular and cool, I could have friends, like Billy.
Might be interesting.
It would certainly be different.
It’s pretty close to midnight. Time for me to go to sleep. Yes, we do sleep. Just like with humans, as we get older we need less of it. Three, four hours does me just fine.
Tomorrow, I’ll be fabulous.
Chapter 7.
“You look nice,” Billy says as he slides into his seat.
“Thanks. Wanted to be pretty today.”
“You’ve succeeded.”
I am pretty today. I skipped the black clothing and went with a pink cheongsam, white leggings, and cute, little pink pumps. I left off my Goth makeup and went for something that emphasizes how good my skin really is.
I have my hair in its usual bun, hair sticks at the ready, with a few artfully curled tendrils wisping about, looking soft and romantic. I’m so damn cute it would make a puppy cry. With any luck, it will also intrigue Jack.
It seems to be working. He’d checked me out three times by lunch. That was a start. Give it a while longer and he might actually decide to talk to me.
I set my glamour so that everyone near me will feel a desire to get a little closer. They’ll look in my direction and want to know who I am and what I’m doing. It’s subtle; most of the humans won’t even notice they aren’t the ones generating the desire to go check out the new girl.
By the end of the day, I’ve said hi to close to fifty people. There’s a small clot of them chatting with me in each class. Jack’s in my sixth period class, and he did look my way when I walked in with a collection of teen girls all babbling away about my outfit. I look back at him and smile. One of the other girls saw him and starts cooing about how cute he was.
I agree with her and let the wash of blather rush around me.
A brief fantasy of glamouring them all into shutting up and just following me around flits through my mind. I smile at the image and dismiss it. I’ve never had a herd of minions, though I’ve met some vamps who have. Herds of minions are for the people who don’t like hunting.
When the final bell rang, I’m sure of one thing: I am not cut out to be popular in high school. The vast vapidness of it is killing off IQ points at close to fifty an hour. Too much more of it and I’ll be a talking monkey.
So, back to plan A? It’s a bit late for that. I can just ditch this town and go looking for the next one. Maybe head back to Charleston and go for a different sort of hunt. Been a long time since I’ve done an urban hunt with prey that acted like an adult.
That sounded good. Catch Jack. Eat him. And then get out of high school for a while.
I was sure of one other thing: the crowd of kids kept Billy away. He vanished shortly after English.
No point on being here if I’m going to be surrounded by morons.
So, tomorrow I’ll be me again. I’ll hang with Billy. And at the end of the day, I’ll track Jack to his lair. In, out, and done. So much for finesse. The day after tomorrow, or the day after that, I’ll head home: back to warm air, soft breezes, blue, blue skies, and my Charleston single.
My cell buzzes, pulling me away from my image of home.
“Helen Grace?” I don’t recognize the voice. It’s an adult woman.
“Yes.”
“Hello. This is Rebecca Price, Billy’s mom. We’ve had to take him back to the hospital, and he wanted me to call you.” For a second, I wonder how he’s got my number, but then I remember that I friended him on Facebook and my cell number is listed there.
“Oh. What’s happened?”
She sounds like she’s in danger of starting to cry, but holds it together to say to me, dispassionately, “He got a nap this afternoon. He woke up with a massive headache, unable to see.”
“What room is he in?”
“145.”
“I’ll be there to see him as soon as I can.”
She didn’t say anything, but I get the feeling she’s relieved to know her son has a friend who wants to visit him.
Chapter 8.
I’m not a huge fan of hospitals, but they’re way, way better than they ever were in the old days (defined as any time before 1980). Sick humans smell bad and taste worse. And, of course, the vast majority of people in a hospital are sick. So, for comparison purposes, imagine going to a grocery store where all the food is going off. Some of it minutes from rancid, some of it barely past its prime.
What, you don’t want to visit? Amazing.
The cancer ward isn’t all that bad. The chemicals sort of mask the smell of dying human.
I poke my head into Billy’s room.
“It’s not looking all that good for you, is it?” I say it like a joke, and he responds in kind.
“Nope.” He smiles in my direction, but I can see from the tilt of his head that he can’t actually see where I am. “Worse and worse by the minute.” His voice goes serious. “I turn eighteen day after tomorrow, and as long as I’m not in a coma by then, I’m going DNR. My parents don’t want me to, but… This is futile. It’s not worth a few extra days.”
I enter the room and stand next to his bed. “I didn’t press your mom for details. She sounded like she was about to start crying on the phone.”
“Tumor’s so big it’s pressing on the nerves that let me see. So no vision. It’s growing fast, so obviously the chemo isn’t doing its job.”
“Are you in pain?” I can’t smell it, but like I said, the cancer ward smells chemical.
“Nah. Got all the morphine I could possibly want.” He fumbles around for a switch on the bed. “Hit this little button and I’m just dandy.”
“So, you weren’t kidding about doing morphine for fun?”
“Only a little. It’s pretty nice. Nothing hurts; my mood is good; if my skin would stop itching, all would be zippy.”
“So what happens now?”
“Now… I’m here. I keep pumping myself full of drugs. Eventually, my brain stops functioning, I slip into a coma, and then…”
“Then…”
He smiles at me. “You know what they say: live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Would have liked a little more fast living, but you take what you can get.”
“That you do. Can I do anything for you?”
“This’ll sound dumb, but, can you read me my Facebook feed and update it?”
“Sure.” And that’s how we spend the next hour.
December 26, 2012
38 Weeks: The Fifteenth Week
Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.org
A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
On Thursday of the fifteenth week, Ellen Muslen, who ran Anderson's adoption agency, looked at them as they entered her office and said, "So, tell me why you want to adopt.""I'm sorry?" Fi asked.Ellen looks startled, not expecting that answer. "You're Sarah and Abe Gunderson, right?""No. I'm Michael Westen and this is Fiona Glenanne. We're looking to put our child up for adoption.""Oh. I'm so sorry." Ellen spent a long moment looking them over and then gestured for them to sit down while she looked through her files, found the right one, and skimmed over it. She nodded her head a few times as she looked over it and then looked up at them."Terribly, terribly sorry about that. I don't know why, but I've been thinking it's Friday all day. We don't get many couples, let alone..." She can't seem to find a polite way to say what she's thinking, so goes for blunt, "of your age or economic status on the birth parent side of the equation. So, tell me why you want to give your child up."Neither of them answered for a moment, neither of them wanting to explain, let alone have to put words to this idea, and then Michael says, "It'd be better for everyone if we didn't keep this child.""Uh huh." She flips through the file. "The information we have here says that you've kept up with your doctor's appointments and the child is healthy.""From everything we can tell, yes," Fi answers. Getting the results of the nuchal fold test back last week and finding out the baby didn't have Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 13, or a host of other genetic abnormalities was very good news for both of them.Ellen looks up at them again, seems to be studying them. Her eyes flick over their clothing, and settle on Fi's engagement ring. "Okay, let me be very blunt with you, we will not accept you as birth parents. Not for this agency.""Excuse me?" Fi asks, though Michael is thinking it, too. He's never heard of anyone being turned down for trying to put a child up for adoption."That's a what, eight thousand dollar engagement ring? You're clearly in love. The address you have listed on the form is for a house that's in a pretty good school district. Your clothing is expensive, so you've got income. You've listed your job as security consultants, so you might be professional go-getters who can't stand the idea of taking time away from your business for a child, but the kind of person who fits that profile goes to an abortion clinic, not an adoption agency. "I don't know why you are here, but I can tell you what I see when I look at you: two people who will change their minds. And I'm not about to allow you to get the hopes of my adoptive parents up just to crush them. Too many birth parents change their minds, and in Florida they can do that for up to two years after the birth of the child. Our agency does everything it can to make sure that when adoptive parents and birth parents agree to put an adoption in motion, it happens. So, in a word, no. We will not accept you as birth parents, you are too high of a risk." For a moment Fi and Michael just sit there, too stunned to say anything. Then Michael begins to talk, "Fi worked for the IRA. I worked for the CIA. We both have enemies who wouldn't blink about using a child for revenge. This baby will be safer raised by someone else."Ellen seems to consider this. She looks at both of them for a long time and then shakes her head again. "Most of the birth parents we get here are young, single women. They have boyfriends who couldn't care less about a baby, and parents who have the funds to deal with a pregnancy and career aspirations for their daughters. As they get older they'll go to school, build careers, eventually get married, and then have children later in life. They will be able to tell themselves that they couldn't possibly have raised the child they gave up, and knowing that they made the right decision will comfort them. "We occasionally get couples. And without exception they are heartbroken by this. This is possibly the most traumatic decision a couple can make. It's bitter when a couple has to give up a child because they can't raise it. But once again, they'll take comfort in knowing they really couldn't raise a child. "You two can raise a child; you're just scared. And maybe you're scared for good reason. But you want this child, and as day after day passes and nothing terrible happens, you'll regret giving it up. You will change your minds. As you get closer and closer to the birth, and this baby becomes more and more real, you'll decide it won't be that dangerous, and that you can cope with it, and you will change your minds. I'm not about to let that happen to any of my clients.""But..." Fi begins."But nothing. Tons of people in this world have dangerous jobs and skeletons in their closets and manage to do a fine job of raising their kids. You will, too." Michael and Fi stared at her, thunderstruck. "That's it?" Fi asked."That's it. Though I would counsel that you not try to find another agency to go through with this. All you'll be doing is breaking someone's heart."
December 25, 2012
Grand Gestures and Day to Day Life 6.18.1
A/N: What Mike was doing during the three weeks his friends were being debriefed. Want to start at the beginning? Head here.
6.18.1
Image From: http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgThere... a point where your body just won't do anymore. When it just shuts down: your eyes close, your brain stops thinking, and your muscles refuse to do anything more strenuous than hold you in one position and breathe. Adrenaline and guilt will only keep you running so far and so fast, and when that last spike is done, your body stops with it.
There are stories from World War One, where men, coming out of the trenches, would be piled into trucks, standing. They'd have to duck every so often, low overpasses, low hanging wires, things like that. Heading towards the back, towards R&R, regular food, and no more random death falling from the skies, or rats, fat from meals of human corpses, skittering about, their bodies shut down, lost the ability to duck, and a few of them were decapitated when they didn't get down in time.
For Michael it's not quite that drastic. They put him in a room, and fear for his friends and Mom kept him up for what felt like hours. They brought in Raines to handle him, and as soon as he told Michael that everyone was alive and in custody, Mike shut down.
He stopped being able to focus. Raines would have to repeat questions two, three times, and even then Michael could barely answer. Words slurred, details slewed sideways and inside out. Eventually, it felt like forever for Mike, but was actually half an hour, Raines half-carried Mike into a cell, and left him to sleep.
When you're truly exhausted, your brain has a hard time shifting from awake to asleep. You get stuck in a sort of half-way dream land that looks remarkably like the land you just left.
He's in the ship, staring at Riley, wondering if she loves her life more than he loves his friends. He wonders if she has gone mad, or worse, because there's always a key to mad, though he's sure he can't find it in the time he's got. But there's no key to pride, and if she's too attached to her reputation, if she values the legend of Olivia Riley over breathing, she'll let both of them die, keep her name intact, and this will have been for nothing. They'll all burn, and he'll have gotten the easy way out, because he'll be dead.
He can hear himself yelling grenade, and things slow down, slow down into crystalized honey, and Jason is staring at him, begging for help, and he didn't help.
Nate says, "I'm scared."
Sam's heart isn't beating. He's pounding on his chest, and his heart isn't beating, and Michael can feel sane sliding away from him, feel it loosening its grip, rage, revenge, and fear, fear colder, harder, and more desperate than he's ever felt, melts his mind and severs him from the real world.
He half wakens, barely aware he's in a cell, stumbles to the john, pees, and collapses back in bed.
This time he doesn't dream.
The pattern repeats several times, he doesn't know how many. He'd pull, barely, out of joint gluing, mind melting sleep, stagger to the john, pee, gulp down a glass of water, and crash back into the bed.
When he finally wakes, truly wakes, he doesn't know what time, let alone what day it is. He's in a small, windowless cell, laying on a bunk. His head hurts, his mouth tastes horrible, his teeth feel fuzzy, and he smells bad. Fear does have a smell, a sharp, acrid reek with a cloying, sweet undertone, and it's permeated his skin and clothing, wending through the more common scent of unwashed male. He sits up slowly, vague half-dream memories of the past however many days letting him know that he's slept through at least one full day, maybe two.
There is a tray on the floor, and the food on it makes him realize he's achingly hungry. It's prison food, but good prison food. A hamburger gone soggy and cold, an apple, limp, greasy tater tots. A glass of iced-tea makes him realize they're treating him with kid gloves. He tries to eat slowly, tries to chew and taste, but he can't. Too hungry.
From his hunger level and the way he smells, he's guessing he's been asleep for more than three days. Probably not more than five.
The food stays down, definitely not more than five days. Go that long without eating, then stuff yourself, and you'll throw the food up after.
There's no mirror in the cell, probably a good thing. He can imagine how bad he looks, no need to see it. No shower stall, not that he expects one. There is a sink and fresh clothing: jogging pants, boxers, and a t-shirt. Not bad, not prison garb, but not his usual armor. So, kid gloves, but there's a fist, well, an open handed slap, in there somewhere.
He strips out of the clothing he'd been wearing, the same shirt and pants they caught him in, gives himself a quick towel bath, and wishes the sink was big enough to wash his hair in. It's not. So it'll have to wait. He's halfway to trying to comb through it with his fingers when he decides he'd rather not touch it. He doesn't need to know how bad it looks or feels.
New clothing makes him feel even more human, and a little less crusty.
He sits back down on the bed, meaning to think about what had happened, and try to plan, but before he's gotten through the second sentence of his internal monologue, he's asleep again.
When he wakes yet again, there is more food, which he bolts down before noticing what else has changed. His old clothing is gone and more fresh clothing, as well as fresh sheets, are sitting on the floor next to the tray of food.
He is in the process of stripping off the bed, Michael prefers a tidy, and better yet, clean, surroundings, and the sheets smell like someone who hasn't had a shower in more than a week has been laying on them for more than a week, when he hears the door open.
Raines is there, and that triggers some faint memories of maybe seeing him right after they brought Michael in. But at this point he's not sure if he dreamed that or not.
"First off, your friends and Mom are fine."
Michael sighs at that, then stiffens. Trusting Raines is a habit, one that he's used to, but as he gets more awake, he slides back into remembering why he no longer trusts anyone who isn't Sam, Fiona, Jesse, or his Mom.
"I'd like to see them."
"I can do that. Grab your towel and the clothing. I know you want a shower. We'll go by their cells on the way to the showers."
"Okay."
He walks by four cells in a row, and sees them all, safe, in one piece, sleeping. He especially notices that Sam's color is good, and that he's not hooked up to any medical equipment.
"What time is it?"
Raines checks his watch. "3:36."
"What day?"
"Saturday."
It takes a good thirty seconds for Michael to remember that it was Wednesday when they caught him. "Did I sleep for three days or ten?"
Raines smiles. "Ten. We thought you might have been up for real the day before yesterday, but you conked back out again, and we figured we'd let you keep sleeping."
"We figured?"
"I figured. Your team has been talking. Jason Bly kept good notes, and the tech team was able to get a few pictures off the hard drive on his camera. Card kept good notes too; it just took us a while to find them. We've been getting piles of intel to go through. And you were so tired you were insensible the last time I tried to talk to you. There was no good reason to wake you up."
"Thanks."
Raines nods toward the door next to him. "Shower's in there. Take care of yourself, and we'll talk." "Okay."
His hand is on the door when Raines asks, "What do you want for breakfast?"
"I get a choice?"
"As long as I'm in charge, you do."
"How about the others?"
"You want to order breakfast for them, too?"
"Yeah, if I can."
"Sure. Why not?" Kid gloves indeed. Something about this was either going to go very right or very wrong, either way, he might as well get his friends something worth eating. Raines grabs his smart phone, pokes it a few times, and says, "Shoot."
"An egg-white only western omelet for Fi. Sam gets bacon, extra crispy, scrambled eggs with cheddar on them, and biscuits if you've got them. My mom's not a big breakfast person, good coffee, cream, sugar, and a bowl of Cheerios, skim milk. Jesse likes turkey sausage and pancakes, butter, not margarine, and honey."
"And you?"
"Eight low-fat Breyer's blueberry yogurts."
"I'll see what I can do. Get cleaned up."
There are some pleasures that you just can't enjoy without going through rough patches. The exceptional feeling of water at precisely the right temperature streaming down your body after far too long without is one of those things.
The shampoo is cheap and smells like artificial green apples. In any other circumstance, he'd hate it. But right now, able to get clean, really clean, so clean his hair squeaks when he runs his fingers through it, the smell of the shampoo doesn't matter.
It's probably the longest shower he's ever taken. Though his time sense, usually awfully good, is pretty fuzzy right now.
The towel feels like it's a mix of polyester and raw wood fiber. Probably the least expensive option you can get at whatever warehouse deals in these things. But really rubbing his skin dry feels awfully good, too. As he's drying off, it occurs to him that this is possibly the best it's going to be for the rest of his life. Depending on how the next however many days go, this might be his last solo shower, last chance to suck up as much hot water as he likes.
He closes his eyes. The board, this whole game since his burn notice, is empty. There are no more moves. Now it's time to wait and see what the ref had to say about how he played. And if he's lucky, very lucky, he might be able to get the only four pieces left on his side out of this with their freedom intact.
He gets dressed, walks out, and finds Raines waiting for him.
Michael puts his game face on and smiles. "Let's talk."
"Indeed." Raines hands him a yogurt, a spoon, and leads him toward the door at the end of the hall.
**************
Interrogation is the art of getting people who don't want to talk to you to tell you things. Debriefing is the fine art of getting every detail of what happened out of people who probably don't want to tell you things, but are technically on your side and supposed to tell you everything.
Michael is not precisely sure if this is an interrogation or a debrief. The questions are soft, so is the chair he's sitting on, the yogurt is cold, and there's a pitcher of unsweet iced-tea, all of which leans toward debrief.
But he's not CIA, not anymore, and besides Fi, Sam, Jesse, and his Mom, there is no 'on his side,' and as much as he likes Raines, he's wary that this is just another step in an ever unfolding mess of angles and puzzles all designed to destroy his life.
He answers everything honestly, as best as he knows the answers. He admits to killing Card. He admits to wanting to kill Gray. He makes is immensely clear that Sam kept him from killing Gray, and that Sam was not in the room when he killed Card, while skipping how much Fi wanted him to pull the trigger. He stresses that even after Riley sent an armed squad of drug dealers in to kill him, that neither he, nor anyone on his team, killed or even hurt really, any active member of the CIA.
The room they're talking in has no windows. No clock. And the angle Raines is sitting at means he can't see his watch. Time passes. He talks. Eventually he's having a hard time following the questions and Raines calls time.
The next time he wakes up in the cell, there is a clock to go with the new clothing and food.
7:15 Monday. His normal wake-up time. For the first time in a very long while, he feels almost human.
***********************
They talk, a lot. He goes over the same ground again and again. Brady's death, Bly's death, Gray's death, Card's death, Nate's death, the Burn Notice, Simon, Anson, Management, every move of the game, every layer, every time he thought he had found the king, only to knock it over, call checkmate, and find that nope, there was one more hiding behind the pawns.
When they finish talking, late each afternoon, he eats more and sleeps.
He dreams of Fiona.
Between dreams he prays that this... confession? Contrition? Whatever it is, buys her her freedom. He prays that he can do what he's promised Sam, that in fact it is possible to make this right.
Sometimes he dreams of Nate, and he wishes more than anything that he could take that back. But nothing can ever be taken back.
****************
On Thursday Raines says to him, "We've got enough to move forward."
"So what happens now?"
"That's going to depend on you. Enough careers have crashed and burned over this that there are only two ways out. Here's the hard way: you and your friends all vanish. Due to the NDAA, and Fiona's IRA affiliation, you, Jesse, Sam, and your Mom can enjoy the rest of your lives in a hole in Gitmo. Fiona will, of course, be returned to the Brits. I'm sure they've got questions for her."
Unspoken is the fact that they'll die in prison. Fi first, someone will kill her, either when she tries to escape, or a hit will be called on her. His mom next. Heartbreak and old age don't lend themselves to long prison stays. Next Sam. He's healing up well from the gunshot, but he's still 56, and not in great shape. He and Jesse can look forward to what is likely going to be an excruciatingly long thirty or forty years in prison followed by an unmarked grave.
"And the easy way?"
"You've spent the last six years on an ultra-high security, off-the-books internal investigation. Your adventures will have become the brainchild of Michael Hayden, who upon his swearing in as Director of the CIA in 2006, noticed that things were looking off, and sent you to investigate. You will, upon leaving here, continue with what is now an on-the-books, ultra-high security internal investigation. You will be given the tools to make sure that every last iota of this conspiracy is eradicated, as long as it makes the powers that be look good."
Michael holds out no hope for the idea that the powers that be might not be in on this. Either they're setting him up to cover everything up, or they're setting him up to die in the field. "And if they're in on it." It's a statement, not a question. Might as well get this out of the way, find out what it is they actually expect him to do.
Raines smiles, the look on his face cold and jaded. For a moment, Michael once again remembers what trust feels like. "Then you'd be in Gitmo, along with Sam, Jesse, and your Mom, and Fiona would already be enjoying the hospitality of the Brits. This offer comes right from Morell." Michael thinks for a moment, trying to remember who Morell is. Then it hits him. Morell is the current Acting Director of the CIA. Raines sees recognition dawn on Michael's face and nods. "The higher ups are more than embarrassed enough as is. But, the current higher ups weren't on the job when most of this went down. If they set you loose to take out whatever of this is left, they come out of this looking good. If there was any chance of you finding any dirt on them, they wouldn't give you the chance to do it."
That actually makes a lot of sense. No one minds if the last boss, or better yet, the last administration comes out of this looking bad. "And if I do this?"
"As I said, the easy way. You get your bank accounts unfrozen. You get six years of back pay. You get to be the Hero agent who took down a conspiracy so deep that no one could be told you were doing it. Sam, Fiona, and your Mom get paid as assets of yours. Sam's Russian spy issue vanishes. Jesse gets paid as an asset and his record wiped clean. You get your record wiped clean. Fiona not only becomes a legal permanent resident of the United States, but her name also vanishes from every terrorist watch list she's on. Hell, we'll even bring Pearce back, clear her record, and put her on your team."
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. Almost everything he could have ever possibly asked for.
Almost. Over the years he's made hundreds, if not thousands, of implicit promises to Fi. And he's broken hundreds of them as well.
But in fifteen years, he's made exactly one explicit promise to her.
An image of her forms in his mind. She's wearing that white dress, facing him, her hair blowing in the wind, as an FBI agent handcuffs her.
The imaginary version of him stands before her, his fingers cupped against her face, forehead to forehead, as her hair whips around them.
He can't remember the last time he kissed her. Can't remember the last time she smiled at him and the sum total of the emotions in her eyes was joy.
"I love you," he whispers to the image of the woman in his mind. He kisses her lips, her cheek, her ear, and whispers it again. "I love you, Fiona."
The imaginary Fiona does not respond.
He pulls out of the image, fully aware that this is probably the broken promise she cannot, will not forgive. This is the one issue he doesn't have enough trust built up for her to believe him. Years of putting the job first, of habits entrenched over a decade and a half will make this look like one thing, even if it really is another. As Sam said to him, even if you have good reasons, if you do enough bad stuff, you become one of the bad guys. And all the good reasons in the world aren't going the change the fact that there is exactly one promise he's ever made her, and he's going to break it.
But if the choice is Fi free and hating him or caged and in love, he'll free her and face her hate.
He signs the paper, closes his eyes, seeing her in his mind again, this time, she's barreling through a shuttered window, yelling at him, "I'm tired of you making all the decisions in this relationship!" Tears threaten as he looks at that image of her, her hands wrapped around his, her life wrapped around his and placed in his hands. I'm sorry, Fiona.
He takes a deep breath to calm himself, wipes his eyes, and says to Raines, "Now what?"
Raines is deeply surprised to see Michael's on the verge of crying. This deal should be very good news. Hell, if Michael Westen had a Christmas list full of goodies for Santa to bring him, this deal would have been it. Maybe the tears are relief? He shrugs and says, "Now? You get changed. They get set free. And then you go and really, truly finish this."
***************
A/N: And thus, dear readers, Grand Gestures must end until we get to season seven. 38 Weeks will continue on until March 20th. And I'm sure after that, I'll have a story or two to keep things fresh. Anyway, see you in the summer!
6.18.1
Image From: http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.orgThere... a point where your body just won't do anymore. When it just shuts down: your eyes close, your brain stops thinking, and your muscles refuse to do anything more strenuous than hold you in one position and breathe. Adrenaline and guilt will only keep you running so far and so fast, and when that last spike is done, your body stops with it.There are stories from World War One, where men, coming out of the trenches, would be piled into trucks, standing. They'd have to duck every so often, low overpasses, low hanging wires, things like that. Heading towards the back, towards R&R, regular food, and no more random death falling from the skies, or rats, fat from meals of human corpses, skittering about, their bodies shut down, lost the ability to duck, and a few of them were decapitated when they didn't get down in time.
For Michael it's not quite that drastic. They put him in a room, and fear for his friends and Mom kept him up for what felt like hours. They brought in Raines to handle him, and as soon as he told Michael that everyone was alive and in custody, Mike shut down.
He stopped being able to focus. Raines would have to repeat questions two, three times, and even then Michael could barely answer. Words slurred, details slewed sideways and inside out. Eventually, it felt like forever for Mike, but was actually half an hour, Raines half-carried Mike into a cell, and left him to sleep.
When you're truly exhausted, your brain has a hard time shifting from awake to asleep. You get stuck in a sort of half-way dream land that looks remarkably like the land you just left.
He's in the ship, staring at Riley, wondering if she loves her life more than he loves his friends. He wonders if she has gone mad, or worse, because there's always a key to mad, though he's sure he can't find it in the time he's got. But there's no key to pride, and if she's too attached to her reputation, if she values the legend of Olivia Riley over breathing, she'll let both of them die, keep her name intact, and this will have been for nothing. They'll all burn, and he'll have gotten the easy way out, because he'll be dead.
He can hear himself yelling grenade, and things slow down, slow down into crystalized honey, and Jason is staring at him, begging for help, and he didn't help.
Nate says, "I'm scared."
Sam's heart isn't beating. He's pounding on his chest, and his heart isn't beating, and Michael can feel sane sliding away from him, feel it loosening its grip, rage, revenge, and fear, fear colder, harder, and more desperate than he's ever felt, melts his mind and severs him from the real world.
He half wakens, barely aware he's in a cell, stumbles to the john, pees, and collapses back in bed.
This time he doesn't dream.
The pattern repeats several times, he doesn't know how many. He'd pull, barely, out of joint gluing, mind melting sleep, stagger to the john, pee, gulp down a glass of water, and crash back into the bed.
When he finally wakes, truly wakes, he doesn't know what time, let alone what day it is. He's in a small, windowless cell, laying on a bunk. His head hurts, his mouth tastes horrible, his teeth feel fuzzy, and he smells bad. Fear does have a smell, a sharp, acrid reek with a cloying, sweet undertone, and it's permeated his skin and clothing, wending through the more common scent of unwashed male. He sits up slowly, vague half-dream memories of the past however many days letting him know that he's slept through at least one full day, maybe two.
There is a tray on the floor, and the food on it makes him realize he's achingly hungry. It's prison food, but good prison food. A hamburger gone soggy and cold, an apple, limp, greasy tater tots. A glass of iced-tea makes him realize they're treating him with kid gloves. He tries to eat slowly, tries to chew and taste, but he can't. Too hungry.
From his hunger level and the way he smells, he's guessing he's been asleep for more than three days. Probably not more than five.
The food stays down, definitely not more than five days. Go that long without eating, then stuff yourself, and you'll throw the food up after.
There's no mirror in the cell, probably a good thing. He can imagine how bad he looks, no need to see it. No shower stall, not that he expects one. There is a sink and fresh clothing: jogging pants, boxers, and a t-shirt. Not bad, not prison garb, but not his usual armor. So, kid gloves, but there's a fist, well, an open handed slap, in there somewhere.
He strips out of the clothing he'd been wearing, the same shirt and pants they caught him in, gives himself a quick towel bath, and wishes the sink was big enough to wash his hair in. It's not. So it'll have to wait. He's halfway to trying to comb through it with his fingers when he decides he'd rather not touch it. He doesn't need to know how bad it looks or feels.
New clothing makes him feel even more human, and a little less crusty.
He sits back down on the bed, meaning to think about what had happened, and try to plan, but before he's gotten through the second sentence of his internal monologue, he's asleep again.
When he wakes yet again, there is more food, which he bolts down before noticing what else has changed. His old clothing is gone and more fresh clothing, as well as fresh sheets, are sitting on the floor next to the tray of food.
He is in the process of stripping off the bed, Michael prefers a tidy, and better yet, clean, surroundings, and the sheets smell like someone who hasn't had a shower in more than a week has been laying on them for more than a week, when he hears the door open.
Raines is there, and that triggers some faint memories of maybe seeing him right after they brought Michael in. But at this point he's not sure if he dreamed that or not.
"First off, your friends and Mom are fine."
Michael sighs at that, then stiffens. Trusting Raines is a habit, one that he's used to, but as he gets more awake, he slides back into remembering why he no longer trusts anyone who isn't Sam, Fiona, Jesse, or his Mom.
"I'd like to see them."
"I can do that. Grab your towel and the clothing. I know you want a shower. We'll go by their cells on the way to the showers."
"Okay."
He walks by four cells in a row, and sees them all, safe, in one piece, sleeping. He especially notices that Sam's color is good, and that he's not hooked up to any medical equipment.
"What time is it?"
Raines checks his watch. "3:36."
"What day?"
"Saturday."
It takes a good thirty seconds for Michael to remember that it was Wednesday when they caught him. "Did I sleep for three days or ten?"
Raines smiles. "Ten. We thought you might have been up for real the day before yesterday, but you conked back out again, and we figured we'd let you keep sleeping."
"We figured?"
"I figured. Your team has been talking. Jason Bly kept good notes, and the tech team was able to get a few pictures off the hard drive on his camera. Card kept good notes too; it just took us a while to find them. We've been getting piles of intel to go through. And you were so tired you were insensible the last time I tried to talk to you. There was no good reason to wake you up."
"Thanks."
Raines nods toward the door next to him. "Shower's in there. Take care of yourself, and we'll talk." "Okay."
His hand is on the door when Raines asks, "What do you want for breakfast?"
"I get a choice?"
"As long as I'm in charge, you do."
"How about the others?"
"You want to order breakfast for them, too?"
"Yeah, if I can."
"Sure. Why not?" Kid gloves indeed. Something about this was either going to go very right or very wrong, either way, he might as well get his friends something worth eating. Raines grabs his smart phone, pokes it a few times, and says, "Shoot."
"An egg-white only western omelet for Fi. Sam gets bacon, extra crispy, scrambled eggs with cheddar on them, and biscuits if you've got them. My mom's not a big breakfast person, good coffee, cream, sugar, and a bowl of Cheerios, skim milk. Jesse likes turkey sausage and pancakes, butter, not margarine, and honey."
"And you?"
"Eight low-fat Breyer's blueberry yogurts."
"I'll see what I can do. Get cleaned up."
There are some pleasures that you just can't enjoy without going through rough patches. The exceptional feeling of water at precisely the right temperature streaming down your body after far too long without is one of those things.
The shampoo is cheap and smells like artificial green apples. In any other circumstance, he'd hate it. But right now, able to get clean, really clean, so clean his hair squeaks when he runs his fingers through it, the smell of the shampoo doesn't matter.
It's probably the longest shower he's ever taken. Though his time sense, usually awfully good, is pretty fuzzy right now.
The towel feels like it's a mix of polyester and raw wood fiber. Probably the least expensive option you can get at whatever warehouse deals in these things. But really rubbing his skin dry feels awfully good, too. As he's drying off, it occurs to him that this is possibly the best it's going to be for the rest of his life. Depending on how the next however many days go, this might be his last solo shower, last chance to suck up as much hot water as he likes.
He closes his eyes. The board, this whole game since his burn notice, is empty. There are no more moves. Now it's time to wait and see what the ref had to say about how he played. And if he's lucky, very lucky, he might be able to get the only four pieces left on his side out of this with their freedom intact.
He gets dressed, walks out, and finds Raines waiting for him.
Michael puts his game face on and smiles. "Let's talk."
"Indeed." Raines hands him a yogurt, a spoon, and leads him toward the door at the end of the hall.
**************
Interrogation is the art of getting people who don't want to talk to you to tell you things. Debriefing is the fine art of getting every detail of what happened out of people who probably don't want to tell you things, but are technically on your side and supposed to tell you everything.
Michael is not precisely sure if this is an interrogation or a debrief. The questions are soft, so is the chair he's sitting on, the yogurt is cold, and there's a pitcher of unsweet iced-tea, all of which leans toward debrief.
But he's not CIA, not anymore, and besides Fi, Sam, Jesse, and his Mom, there is no 'on his side,' and as much as he likes Raines, he's wary that this is just another step in an ever unfolding mess of angles and puzzles all designed to destroy his life.
He answers everything honestly, as best as he knows the answers. He admits to killing Card. He admits to wanting to kill Gray. He makes is immensely clear that Sam kept him from killing Gray, and that Sam was not in the room when he killed Card, while skipping how much Fi wanted him to pull the trigger. He stresses that even after Riley sent an armed squad of drug dealers in to kill him, that neither he, nor anyone on his team, killed or even hurt really, any active member of the CIA.
The room they're talking in has no windows. No clock. And the angle Raines is sitting at means he can't see his watch. Time passes. He talks. Eventually he's having a hard time following the questions and Raines calls time.The next time he wakes up in the cell, there is a clock to go with the new clothing and food.
7:15 Monday. His normal wake-up time. For the first time in a very long while, he feels almost human.
***********************
They talk, a lot. He goes over the same ground again and again. Brady's death, Bly's death, Gray's death, Card's death, Nate's death, the Burn Notice, Simon, Anson, Management, every move of the game, every layer, every time he thought he had found the king, only to knock it over, call checkmate, and find that nope, there was one more hiding behind the pawns.
When they finish talking, late each afternoon, he eats more and sleeps.
He dreams of Fiona.
Between dreams he prays that this... confession? Contrition? Whatever it is, buys her her freedom. He prays that he can do what he's promised Sam, that in fact it is possible to make this right.
Sometimes he dreams of Nate, and he wishes more than anything that he could take that back. But nothing can ever be taken back.
****************
On Thursday Raines says to him, "We've got enough to move forward."
"So what happens now?"
"That's going to depend on you. Enough careers have crashed and burned over this that there are only two ways out. Here's the hard way: you and your friends all vanish. Due to the NDAA, and Fiona's IRA affiliation, you, Jesse, Sam, and your Mom can enjoy the rest of your lives in a hole in Gitmo. Fiona will, of course, be returned to the Brits. I'm sure they've got questions for her."
Unspoken is the fact that they'll die in prison. Fi first, someone will kill her, either when she tries to escape, or a hit will be called on her. His mom next. Heartbreak and old age don't lend themselves to long prison stays. Next Sam. He's healing up well from the gunshot, but he's still 56, and not in great shape. He and Jesse can look forward to what is likely going to be an excruciatingly long thirty or forty years in prison followed by an unmarked grave.
"And the easy way?"
"You've spent the last six years on an ultra-high security, off-the-books internal investigation. Your adventures will have become the brainchild of Michael Hayden, who upon his swearing in as Director of the CIA in 2006, noticed that things were looking off, and sent you to investigate. You will, upon leaving here, continue with what is now an on-the-books, ultra-high security internal investigation. You will be given the tools to make sure that every last iota of this conspiracy is eradicated, as long as it makes the powers that be look good."
Michael holds out no hope for the idea that the powers that be might not be in on this. Either they're setting him up to cover everything up, or they're setting him up to die in the field. "And if they're in on it." It's a statement, not a question. Might as well get this out of the way, find out what it is they actually expect him to do.
Raines smiles, the look on his face cold and jaded. For a moment, Michael once again remembers what trust feels like. "Then you'd be in Gitmo, along with Sam, Jesse, and your Mom, and Fiona would already be enjoying the hospitality of the Brits. This offer comes right from Morell." Michael thinks for a moment, trying to remember who Morell is. Then it hits him. Morell is the current Acting Director of the CIA. Raines sees recognition dawn on Michael's face and nods. "The higher ups are more than embarrassed enough as is. But, the current higher ups weren't on the job when most of this went down. If they set you loose to take out whatever of this is left, they come out of this looking good. If there was any chance of you finding any dirt on them, they wouldn't give you the chance to do it."
That actually makes a lot of sense. No one minds if the last boss, or better yet, the last administration comes out of this looking bad. "And if I do this?"
"As I said, the easy way. You get your bank accounts unfrozen. You get six years of back pay. You get to be the Hero agent who took down a conspiracy so deep that no one could be told you were doing it. Sam, Fiona, and your Mom get paid as assets of yours. Sam's Russian spy issue vanishes. Jesse gets paid as an asset and his record wiped clean. You get your record wiped clean. Fiona not only becomes a legal permanent resident of the United States, but her name also vanishes from every terrorist watch list she's on. Hell, we'll even bring Pearce back, clear her record, and put her on your team."
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. Almost everything he could have ever possibly asked for.
Almost. Over the years he's made hundreds, if not thousands, of implicit promises to Fi. And he's broken hundreds of them as well.
But in fifteen years, he's made exactly one explicit promise to her.
An image of her forms in his mind. She's wearing that white dress, facing him, her hair blowing in the wind, as an FBI agent handcuffs her.
The imaginary version of him stands before her, his fingers cupped against her face, forehead to forehead, as her hair whips around them.
He can't remember the last time he kissed her. Can't remember the last time she smiled at him and the sum total of the emotions in her eyes was joy.
"I love you," he whispers to the image of the woman in his mind. He kisses her lips, her cheek, her ear, and whispers it again. "I love you, Fiona."
The imaginary Fiona does not respond.
He pulls out of the image, fully aware that this is probably the broken promise she cannot, will not forgive. This is the one issue he doesn't have enough trust built up for her to believe him. Years of putting the job first, of habits entrenched over a decade and a half will make this look like one thing, even if it really is another. As Sam said to him, even if you have good reasons, if you do enough bad stuff, you become one of the bad guys. And all the good reasons in the world aren't going the change the fact that there is exactly one promise he's ever made her, and he's going to break it.
But if the choice is Fi free and hating him or caged and in love, he'll free her and face her hate.
He signs the paper, closes his eyes, seeing her in his mind again, this time, she's barreling through a shuttered window, yelling at him, "I'm tired of you making all the decisions in this relationship!" Tears threaten as he looks at that image of her, her hands wrapped around his, her life wrapped around his and placed in his hands. I'm sorry, Fiona.
He takes a deep breath to calm himself, wipes his eyes, and says to Raines, "Now what?"
Raines is deeply surprised to see Michael's on the verge of crying. This deal should be very good news. Hell, if Michael Westen had a Christmas list full of goodies for Santa to bring him, this deal would have been it. Maybe the tears are relief? He shrugs and says, "Now? You get changed. They get set free. And then you go and really, truly finish this."
***************
A/N: And thus, dear readers, Grand Gestures must end until we get to season seven. 38 Weeks will continue on until March 20th. And I'm sure after that, I'll have a story or two to keep things fresh. Anyway, see you in the summer!
December 23, 2012
Just In Time For Christmas!
My new book is out. Happily Ever After is a cute, fluffy, fun little bit of paranormal romance. Basically, if you've read any of my stuff, you'll probably notice there's a lot of darkness and sarcastic humor. Well, I couldn't put down the humor. I love a good, snarky, wry line. But this one is about life after the darkness. This is about taking those first steps into a new life, about embracing the possibilities when you put the ghosts behind you and try to make a new life.
The back of the book reads:
In the movies, you go off to war, have some harrowing adventures, win the big fight, watch the bad guys die off, and then head home and marry the love of your life to live happily ever after in post-war peace.
Real life isn't quite that tidy.
The war ended with a huge number of casualties. Jessica Flint's first love didn't survive to the final battle. Sarvin Elgin's didn't survive the first year.
And the bad guys, they didn't just roll over and die after the "final battle." A month long series of magical terror bombings took a terrible toll on the survivors.
Post-war peace? That hasn't been all roses and sunshine. The magical population of the UK has gotten so low the Senex has made a law requiring all of the fertile survivors to find a mate and marry within the year, or face exile.
Sarvin and Jessica have a choice. They can leave the UK and continue to lick old wounds, or they can stay and try to make a new life, with new loves, and finally heal.
It's available on Amazon for $3.99 for the Kindle version and $14.99 for the print book.
The back of the book reads:In the movies, you go off to war, have some harrowing adventures, win the big fight, watch the bad guys die off, and then head home and marry the love of your life to live happily ever after in post-war peace.
Real life isn't quite that tidy.
The war ended with a huge number of casualties. Jessica Flint's first love didn't survive to the final battle. Sarvin Elgin's didn't survive the first year.
And the bad guys, they didn't just roll over and die after the "final battle." A month long series of magical terror bombings took a terrible toll on the survivors.
Post-war peace? That hasn't been all roses and sunshine. The magical population of the UK has gotten so low the Senex has made a law requiring all of the fertile survivors to find a mate and marry within the year, or face exile.
Sarvin and Jessica have a choice. They can leave the UK and continue to lick old wounds, or they can stay and try to make a new life, with new loves, and finally heal.
It's available on Amazon for $3.99 for the Kindle version and $14.99 for the print book.
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