Promises to Keep

These entertaining characters do not belong to me. They belong to the USA network, the genius of Matt Nix, his writers and the talented actors who give us human faces to see them more clearly. With thanks for letting me borrow them for a while.

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Fiona's words echoed loudly over the dull roar of wind and rising tide. He heard them as clearly as if she was sitting next to him, her arm through his, her hand on his, her shoulder tucked against him. Sunrise waited beyond the thin edge of pale grey light barely visible on the cobalt horizon, as the fading night was about to transform into a new day of unknowns.

He sat on damp sand, ignorant of the faint chill, ignorant of his hunger or thirst. He'd arrived as night was falling, hiding his presence. He could have returned to the loft, but he sought solace in the ocean's timeless assurance that he could still breathe in and breathe out, matching the rhythm of his lungs to moving water.

Her words had burned into his flesh, permanently scarring him with a red-hot branding iron of truth, a truth he had always known, had always accepted and would never seek to break free of captivity. He could have, he knew he should have, returned her gift with the same words: I love you. Forever.

With a humbling, searing regret, he acknowledged that he had never done that. He held his head between his hands and dropped his chin to his chest, shaking his head as if to say no, no. No.

You do what's right, no matter the cost to you.

He could only swallow the shameful knowledge that it was Fiona who had done that for him, without regard to the cost she would pay.

And she would pay a price; Agent Pearce assured him of that.

I can't let you ruin anyone's life to save mine.

There were no guarantees, Pearce told him, that everything he'd done since Fi had disappeared into the Federal Building would produce the results he needed and wanted, the results she had gambled her freedom on.

I have to force you to tell what you know. If you don't, you won't be the man I love.

Duty, anger, desire, fear . . . he couldn't be sure which emotion had him turning away the moment she disappeared from his sight. He only knew he would do what she wanted. He nearly walked away without it when a flutter of color made him stop to scoop up her note from where he'd dropped it. He jammed it into his pocket and had gone to work by telling Pearce everything Fi wanted him to tell her.

He'd explained why Jesse had removed the hard drive from her laptop and had repeatedly smashed it with a hammer. He'd enlightened her that the probable reason Rebecca Lang sabotaged the mission to take Reed Perkins was because she was being blackmailed by Anson the same way he was. And then, with much detail, he'd explained to her why he and Fiona were being blackmailed. After that, he explained it again. Then once more. And then from the beginning, again.

Pearce was nothing but tireless and thorough in her debrief.

She demanded that he surrender his CIA security card after he explained why he lied months ago when she posed those questions for the security check. At the time, only a week had passed since he'd learned they had not been successful in taking down the organization that burned him.

They'd missed Anson Fullerton.

It had taken Michael more than 60 hours of bitterly truthful explanation, but he'd done as Fiona had begged. Now that she was gone, he came to the realization that she was exactly right. She had seen what he didn't want to. No matter what or how much he did for him, Anson would have kept forcing him to do his bidding.

So Fiona ended it.

The agonizing shame of it for Michael was that it was a sacrifice she should never have felt compelled to make.

Months ago, his mother had warned him of what his friends sacrificed for him by stopping that CIA convoy. She'd come battle-ready when she arrived to pick him up after he was released from Pearce's custody following Tavian's confession of killing Max. She warned him that he needed to start putting his friends first. He'd been chastised, justly so.

Fiona's bitter comment about endangering Sam with the Carmelo Dante episode had pained him in ways he could not feel . . . until now.

Yes, his mother had been correct. Life had changed since he'd returned to Miami, albeit against his will and by Anson's design. What affected his life now affected each of them, his mother, his brother, his friends, his Fiona. How many times, and how many different ways had his mother said that?

Anson himself had said that when he argued that he hadn't taken his life, he'd given him one. He should have let Fiona take that shot, but that's not what he did.

This is delaying the inevitable! There is no happy ending!

Fi had refused to accept his hope that he could find a way around, past, above, below or under Anson's plans, a way that would allow him to take down Anson and undo the terrible damage he'd done in the interim. They had yelled at each other until Sam had told them to stop. Heightened emotions and stressful situations were his stock and trade, but that exchange with Fiona had left him reeling, as had listening to the pain and fear in her voice as he left the loft while she cried his name after he'd handcuffed her to the wire wall.

As he sat there, watching pale sand stretch out to grasp the water as the rising revealed the horizon, he wondered how he would be able to stand upright under the weight of this pain.

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"Pearce said they finished last night around 8. He told her he was going home," Sam muttered as Jesse came through the loft door and slammed it shut.

"He wasn't at Maddie's place. He's not here. Not at Carlito's. Barry hasn't seen him. And Nate said he's not there, either, so where the hell is he?" Jesse checked his phone. "No messages. Nothing. His phone's off."

"Yeah. He's . . ." Sam sighed with a weary resignation and looked out the loft door. "He's not here. . . ah . . ."

"What?" Jesse nearly bit the word in two and frowned.

"He did this two, three years ago when Fi told him she was going back to Ireland."

"Fi left?" Jesse was clearly surprised by this revelation.

"No, it got real . . . complicated."

Jesse sat in the stool across from Sam at the kitchen bar. "With Mike, it always does. I think we should call Maddie."

Sam shook his head. "And tell her what? That he disappeared because Fi turned herself into the Feds for a bombing she didn't commit?"

"I'm guessing she'd know where to start looking for him."

When Sam's phone rang, he reached for it, recognized the number and shook his head. "Hey, Maddie. Ah, okay then, well, good. No . . . it's been about 10 hours . . . oh, okay. We'll check there. Mmmhumm. Yeah, see you soon. Bye."

Jesse raised an eyebrow, waiting for Sam's explanation.

"She overheard your call to Nate, and she's coming home. She says he's sitting in the sand somewhere and told me where to look."

"Probably doesn't want to come back here . . ." Jesse said, glancing at the rumpled bedding on the bed that he'd never seen when it had not been perfectly made.

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Michael glanced over at Sam when he sat down next to him. "You talked to my mother." It was an accusation. His voice was flat and devoid of anger, but he was clearly communicating an irritated response to Sam's intrusion.

"She called me."

Michael looked away, as if he wasn't there.

"When was the last time you ate?"

He didn't respond.

"Slept?"

Beyond them and around them the day was awakening, blending orange and yellow with red across the amethyst ocean. Gulls screeched, swung low in the sky and skimmed the water looking for breakfast.

"You're not going to be any good to her if you don't take care of yourself. You know that, don't you?"

"I did exactly what she wanted me to do."

Sam realized the significance of that single statement. "And?"

Michael looked away. "I surrendered my security badge, my phone and I agreed to stay at my mother's house until they tell me something has changed."

"And Fi?"

"Pearce knows where she is, but she won't tell me."

Sam stood up and studied his friend in the morning light. He was wearing the same clothing he saw him in three days earlier. His face was gaunt, whisker-stubbled. It was not a trick of the dawn, he realized, to see the faint, thin tracks of tears that had etched a journey down Michael's cheeks.

"Come on, Mikey. I need some breakfast and a ride to your Ma's."