"I work my whole life—I don't apologize—to take care of my family. And I refused to be a fool, dancing on the string, held by all those bigshots. I don't apologize; that's my life. But I thought that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the strings." Vito Corleone

- 1920 -

Vito Corleone propped himself on an elbow on the bed when he heard his wife making noises in the bathroom. When he realized she was retching, he threw off the bedding and put his feet on the floor—and sat there, realizing what it meant. He knew the signs; there had been enough of them already. Carmela was pregnant.

Another child. A son, he was sure of it. Vito felt a stirring deep inside of him, something another man might have identified as joy, or pride. Still other men might have simply claimed the movement taking place inside of them—the awakening, the rebirth, the glow—was an expanding to accommodate an extra place in the family, a shift in thought. These men might have hid their feelings behind idle speculation as to whether the child would have his wife's eyes—her gentle, beautiful eyes, whether it would be tall, like him, whether it would be a girl or a boy.

But Vito Corleone was not like these other men. He knew that the child was a boy, and his only way of interpreting the thing happening inside of him was the sudden, intense desire to make love to his wife, again and again and again.

He resisted the urge to go to her, to stand by her as the nausea passed and then gather her up in his arms and take her to bed. Instead, he sat on the spring-less mattress and stared at his hands. These hands, he was thinking, and another mouth to feed. Why had she not told him there would be another? Did she know that neighbors less poor than they had not survived previous winters in this cold city?

No, Vito decided. Yes, she knew that others had died, and no, she did not fear for a single instant that he would let that happen, that even Frederico—small, sickly, weak—would be lost because Vito Corleone could not care for his own family. He had her utter trust and confidence. She could have worried and chose not to, because she believed that he would take care of it all.

She had not told him about the child because this morning was the first day she could be sure. A few minutes later she would come back to the bedroom; she would tell him plainly that she was with child, and yet be filled by that unfathomable light as she had been when she was with Santino, then with Frederico. It was a part of the feminine mystery, that glow, the enigma of women that he didn't understand and felt good not understanding. It was something sacred, sacred and unknown. Things between them were as they should be; he bathed in her light, her sacred, unfathomable light, and she believing that he would take care of it all.

Any other man would have worried. How? he would have asked. How, without a job, with only Sicilian friends as down-trodden as they themselves were, with Don Fanucci taking cuts out of every honest Italian in Hell's Kitchen; how, how how?

But Vito Corleone was not any man, and he did not bother with worrying.

First, he thought about the things he wanted: his family to be prosperous, like Don Fanucci's; a home like Don Fanucci's for his wife and children. He wanted to be able to give generously to the plate at mass like Don Fanucci did; he wanted people to tip their hats—even step back or put a hand forward in respect or regard—as men on the street did when they saw Don Fanucci. He also very much admired Don Fanucci's silk suits.

Next, he thought about how to acquire those things. These days, Vito had heard rumors that Don Fanucci was expecting a cut. Any day now, Fanucci would come demanding that he, Tessio, and Clemenza give him money. On that day, or the next day, or the next or the next, Vito would get a gun, make sure the timing, light, and noise-level was right, and shoot Don Fanucci in the heart, then in the head. Then no one in his family—no Italian in his neighborhood—would have to give cuts to Don Fanucci. Then maybe all of them would be buying silk suits.

It was a simple plan that Vito Corleone conceived not because he was smarter than Tessio or Clemenza, though he was. Vito was the only one to think of it and begin to implement it quite simply because he was the only man who had decided, once and for all, that he was not going to be controlled any more.

This was an idea he had had at first when he was nine, when Don Ciccio had killed his father, his brother, his mother, and then had it put through the streets that he would kill the ones who helped Vito Andolini. Not only does Don Ciccio control the Andolinis, had been the boy's thought, he controls anyone who helps an Andolini, anyone who knows an Andolini. He controlled all of Corleone. Vito, at nine, had some strange thoughts, then, about control, and the strangest thought of all was that one day he would be controlled by no one.

Vito had not thought about it again in any definite way for a long time until that day at the theatre with his friend, when he had first seen Don Fanucci. There had been people on the stage—a man, a sweetheart—but all that was a set, directed by the theatre-owner from backstage. And backstage—backstage! The sweetheart again, but this time, perhaps for the first time, her wide, black eyes and her cries of fear meant something real, and the man with the knife to her throat was the man who was directing life as it really happened.

Later, after the strange conflict of feelings that had washed over him upon seeing that girl helpless under a knife while her father was threatened by an Italian who should know better, a man who was Italian and so practically family—later, he remembered what he had thought about Don Ciccio, that he was like a puppet-master who tried to work the puppets as he wanted them to go. And what he realized that day, seeing Don Fanucci threaten that family, was that there was always someone back there—always someone behind the stage.

Fanucci was only the lowest tier. In Italy there had been Don Ciccio, and here in America there were businessmen, tycoons, know-nothings, politicians, their bosses and their bosses and their bosses . . . Oh, he might only be an impoverished Sicilian, without a very firm grasp on English just yet, but he knew how these things worked. A political machine was a box, a black box that contained the whole city in a space smaller than Tammany Hall, and at the top of that box were the few men in white gloves who held all the strings. America, they said, was free, but only because you elected the people who were already secretly controlling you.

Vito thought it was a fine system. In Italy, the Dons inherited their positions from their fathers and their fathers before them, though of course there were the various inter-generational killings or thefts that made one family able to move in on or buy out another. But in America, you took what you wanted. You could shoot the Don, even if you were an Andolini, and no one could say you couldn't. You could even take a new name, if you liked. America was not a hereditary monarchy, handed down from crime lord to crime lord through family names. America was the country of free elections, and Vito saw no reason why he couldn't elect himself Don. It was a fine system, indeed.

Don Corleone, Vito thought. It sounded right. Vito liked being called Corleone; it instantly told you who he was, and the magnitude of it hinted at what he wanted to be. Some day, his influence would warrant that he be called after a town, because some day, he would control one. And if he was Don Corleone, what could Santino Corleone be?—Don of all the Sicilians—all the Italians of all New York—not just city, but state. There would be so many strings to hold, then, strings enough to divide between all three of the Corleone sons. The Italians of New York, united, could be their own political machine, in this country of free elections. One day, there could be Corleone tycoons, Corleone politicians . . . Corleone senators. Then who would be the one behind the stage?

It was then, without a thought to the fact that free elections weren't supposed to have a price, without a thought to the fact that a few lost innocents thought government was meant to be legitimate—it was then that Vito decided he loved the American way. In the end, Vito was among the best Americans of them all; he dreamed the American dream.

Vito stood up and walked to stand behind his wife in the tiny bathroom. She was wiping her mouth dry with a towel after having gulped a few sips of water from the faucet. His eyes met hers in the mirror, and they remained standing like that, her in front of him, not facing each other. Slowly, she reached around, clasped his wrist, and drew his hand around to rest on her belly, her eyes never leaving his in the mirror. The heat of the glow in her was almost tangible.

Vito remained still, quiet, unresponsive in the way that some people claimed was daft. But Carmela saw the smile creeping up, saw it suffuse his eyes, felt it warm her soul. She sighed and leaned back against his chest, closing her eyes. He brought his other arm around her.

He could stand there like that forever, his wife's soft buttocks pressed against him, one hand drifting down to cup her between her legs, and best of all, his palm over her belly, imaging it growing, curving, expanding to encompass new life. Hairs curled around the shell of her ear, tickling his neck, growing damper with the heat of his closeness. He leaned in, those curls now tickling his mouth, and said simply, "Michael."

They had been considering 'Paolo' for their second son, after Vito's brother. But in the end, Vito had wanted a son named after his father, just as Carmela had wanted their first son to be named after her own father, and so he was named Frederico. But for their third child, Vito was no longer thinking about naming the son after his brother, and the reason was that he didn't think the voting public could pronounce Paolo so well as Michael.

Vito was grinning into the crook of his wife's neck. "Alright," she replied, consenting to the name, and turned around to face him, her eyes shining. Her lips touched his neck, his own brushed the corners of her mouth.

Then Vito pulled away, his hand cupping her cheek. "Do you know the rug in the parlor?" he said finally.

Of course she did. They only had one real rug, and the parlor was one of the three rooms in the apartment. But Carmela only nodded.

"Clemenza borrowed it from his friend." Vito paused. "I helped him in this."

Carmela knew, though not because he told her. Vito never talked about his business, and it was not her place to ask. The fact that he was doing so now meant something very important was happening behind that high brow of his. It meant that something was about to change.

"We work together, now. Clemenza, Tessio, me." Vito's hand fell away from his wife's face. He looked at himself in the mirror then, looked a long time. "Do you know Don Fanucci?" he asked, finally. When she nodded again, his eyes met hers, and then he told her that he was about to change their lives irrevocably—all by simply saying, "I'm thinking about borrowing some rugs from Don Fanucci. By myself. For us."

Carmela might have judged him—but it was not her place to judge, either. Instead, she stood there looking at her husband, her eyes roaming over his face. At last, she looked away. "He will not like that," she said finally.

"He won't mind," Vito said simply, and never said anything about Don Fanucci again.

Carmela never did either. She understood exactly what all this meant, and simply closed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, and let it go again. In the other room, Fredo began to cry. She opened her eyes. "Sienna Vincentini?" she said at last.

Vito looked at her for a moment, and then pressed his lips together and carefully shrugged his shoulders, showing that he was listening.

"She has done so much for us. Been such a help with Frederico." Carmela paused. "Maybe she would like a rug, if your plans work out."

Putting his head to one side, Vito moved his shoulders again. "Good," he said at last, and put a hand on either side of his wife's head. Then he leaned in to place a kiss on her forehead.

Knowing all that she had just tacitly consented to, knowing that he would never, ever ask her permission again, Carmela shivered a little, and moved closer into the warmth and strength of his arms. Looking up into his eyes, she saw no malice and no hatred, either for Don Fanucci or for the task that lay before him. Nor did she see fear, or anxiety. This was why she loved him—because in his arms, she was safe, and their children would be well-cared for.

Then she kissed him, and he knew, except not consciously, that it was kisses like that that gave him the strength to be the man he was. He held her tight, so tight that she couldn't have moved from his arms, even if she had wanted too. Her eyes changed, darkened, and she took a small step back so that she was standing against the wall. His body moved to cover hers, to overwhelm hers, and she bent her head. In the background, Federico went on wailing, for the first time in his short life, ignored.

A/N: For now this is a one-shot. However, eventually I mean this fic to be a series of vignettes illustrating Michael's life before the movies.

My main hope for this fic is that by writing for GF myself, more, new, better writers will come and write for GF too.

If anyone is a GF aficionado, will you be my beta? I can do grammar, etc, but I have not read the books and have limited access to the movies, so basically I need a detail-checker. Please contact me by email if you are interested.