Author's Note: This fanfic was written around one of my favorite episodes of Dr. Quinn, entitled "Happy Birthday" (Season 1). My story doesn't exactly follow the episode, since I've inserted several of my own scenes, and the piece contains an expanded, slightly different ending from the one that appeared in the actual episode. This alternate ending is what I would have liked to see happen between Michaela and Sully after their first kiss. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman," or any dialogue from the script for the episode that I've incorporated into my story. The rights to those characters, the script and to the show belong to the creators of the show, to CBS, The Sullivan Company and to A&E.
BIRTHDAY WISHES
by Mia
Chapter 1: Loneliness & Longing
As she'd grown accustomed to doing since she'd moved to Colorado Springs, Michaela awoke shortly after sunrise, roused by the plaintive crowing of the rooster in the yard outside her rented homestead. She remained in bed for a few minutes in order to get her bearings and allow the final vestiges of sleep to fall away. It was the first week of February, and, as such, a deep winter chill hung in the air. The dying embers from the previous evening's fire were insufficient to heat up the interior of the homestead, making her a bit hesitant to leave the warm cocoon of her bed. As a sliver of dawn sunlight cut through the frigid air and shone through her window, she recalled her dreams from the night before, which were slowly beginning to fade away as she became more alert. Her face colored as she remembered a particularly pleasant dream, in which she had not been in her bed alone. Although many of the details were now somewhat foggy, she vividly recalled one particular aspect of the dream: That the person sharing her bed had been Sully, the mysterious "mountain man" who had become her friend and ally since she'd relocated to the frontier town just under a year ago. In her dream, they'd been snuggled-up together much like they had been on that rainy night a few weeks ago, when they'd sneaked onto Harding's land to prove that his mine was polluting the town's main stream. On that bone-chilling night, they'd had to huddle together (against Sully's protests) in order to use their combined body heat to avoid freezing to death. However, in Michaela's dream, though she and Sully had been similarly curled up against each other, they'd been sleeping together in her bed willingly and of their own volition, unforced by harsh weather or other extenuating circumstances. That realization caused her to blush all the way down to her toes. In spite of herself, her hand wandered to the pillow on the other side of her bed, and she felt an odd pang of loneliness when she again found it empty and cold.
Michaela had never experienced these types of dreams and feelings when she'd been in Boston, where she'd lived all her life before moving to Colorado Springs. Truth be told, she hadn't even felt this type of longing when she'd been engaged to David, her fiancé who had died in the war several years ago. She and David had undoubtedly been close, since they'd had a lot in common -- both being Boston doctors -- but their courtship and engagement had never caused the intense desire for closeness that Sully aroused in her. She quickly shook away her errant thoughts and silently chided herself. Perhaps the fact that Valentine's Day was less than two weeks away was causing her to think so illogically. After all, everywhere she went, it seemed as though the townsfolk were all abuzz about their plans to commemorate the day celebrating love and romance. It was enough to cause the thoughts of even a reasonable woman like herself to go slightly astray.
And, on top of that, it probably didn't help matters that her birthday was the day after Valentine's Day. The proximity of those two days had irked her ever since she'd been a débutante, old enough to attend the annual Valentine's Day Ball hosted each year by one of Boston's wealthiest and most prominent families. Every year, the boys (and then men) had overlooked Michaela-the-bookworm in favor of other young ladies that had attended finishing school instead of college and medical school. Her late father, Dr. Josef Quinn, and her eldest sister, Rebecca, had assured her that she was beautiful and that any young man would be lucky to have her. But it had seemed as though her male counterparts had preferred ladies who spent their every waking moment focusing on perfecting their physical appearance rather than on expanding their minds. So every year, the morning after the Valentine's Day Ball, Michaela would awaken to yet another birthday, feeling herself slipping closer and closer towards spinsterhood. That had changed for a short while during her engagement to David, but then the war had taken him away from her permanently.
Strangely though, she found her mind drifting back to Sully rather than David now. Whenever she allowed her thoughts to roam freely instead of tightly controlling them, it was always Sully that came to mind. With his fathomless blue eyes that seemed to see right into her soul. And then there was his broad, rugged chest, which she'd seen unclothed for the first time when they'd gone to collect water samples on Harding's land. The memory caused a frisson of yearning to run through Michaela's body. She knew that she was being silly: Although Sully had been a great friend, always there when she or the children needed him, he'd given her absolutely no indication that he felt anything more than friendship towards her. Well, except for that one time when she'd broken her wrist on their expedition to Harding's mine, and she'd needed Sully to button up the blouse that she'd laid out to dry in the sun a few hours prior. Then, the look in his eyes had been so intense that she'd feared that she would melt into a puddle at his feet. She sternly reminded herself to be realistic -- after all, she'd been in her underclothes, and his reaction was probably typical of the way any man would react in the presence of a woman in such a state of undress. It didn't mean anything significant. The fact remained that Sully seemed to be very much a loner who preferred his own company to hers or anyone else's, for that matter. She abruptly rose from her bed, determined to dismiss her idle musings and get started with her day.
A few hours later, after the morning chores had been completed, Michaela sat with Colleen and Brian, leafing through a catalog from Loren Bray's Mercantile. She heard the sound of an approaching wagon, and looked up to see Matthew pulling up to the homestead, hours before she expected him back. He lifted a large box from the back of the wagon, excitedly ran up the front steps, and deposited it in front of a puzzled Michaela. They soon learned that the box and its contents were from Michaela's mother, Elizabeth Quinn, in Boston. She had sent the package to Michaela in honor of her thirty-fifth birthday, a fact that Dr. Mike had deliberately kept secret from her children and the rest of the town. Apparently, her mother had decided that this birthday constituted the definitive end of Michaela's chances of ever getting married, and she had therefore sent her youngest daughter some fine china from her Hope Chest in case she might find some use for it. The children eagerly opened the box, but inside, everything but one small teacup was broken. To Michaela, that signified the broken state of her love life, or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Her mind drifted back to the previous night's dreams and her reflections earlier that morning, and suddenly, a wave of loneliness overcame her. Not wanting to cry in front of the children, she ran out of the homestead before letting the tears flow freely.
She was tired of being alone. Of course, as little Brian correctly pointed out, she wasn't alone in the literal sense. She lived with the Cooper children, and they'd grown to love one another over time after their mother Charlotte had died and left them in Michaela's care. But the children were too young for her to explain to them that what she craved was a different kind of companionship: The kind a woman got from the man she loved. It was at times like this that she desperately wished that she had another woman to confide in. Even if her mother had been close by, Michaela could never have discussed this with her. Elizabeth Quinn would doubtless see it as an opportunity to say "I told you so," since, in her opinion, Michaela's foolhardy choice to become a doctor was the cause of her failure to find a husband. Rebecca, whom Michaela adored, was also far away in Boston; and, in any event, Rebecca had been out of the house and married with her own children by the time Michaela had become old enough to seek advice on courting. And as for the ladies of Colorado Springs, she liked Olive, Grace and Emily well enough, but she didn't yet feel close enough to them to share her deepest feelings and insecurities. With a sad sigh of resignation, she hugged Brian to her and allowed the unconditional love of her little boy to banish her feelings of solitude for the time being.
Across town, Sully was having his own, similar struggles. With each passing day, he'd grown to care more and more about Michaela and the Cooper children. To be honest, his feelings for Dr. Mike had gone beyond mere friendship some time ago. At first, he'd tried to ignore his emotions, then to deny them, and finally, to fight them, but his efforts had all been fruitless. When he lay in his lean-to at night, alone with his thoughts, it was Michaela's face that he pictured, her voice and her laugh that rang in his ears. It was only in slumber that he allowed his thoughts of her to go further. His dreams were always about Michaela; the way her lips would feel against his, the way she would touch his bare skin, and the way her gorgeous, long brown hair would frame her face as he held her close. At times, these dreams were so intense that they would awaken him, causing more frustrated, sleepless nights than he cared to recall. It was always unsettling to emerge from the visions of Michaela that came to him in sleep, and to awaken to the isolation and cold, hard earth of his meager shelter in the woods. He'd tried to quell his growing affection for Dr. Mike by telling himself that it was disloyal to the memory of his late wife, Abigail, but he knew that guilt was a useless weapon against the dictates of the heart.
His increasing proximity to Michaela and the children hadn't helped matters, and, in fact, had only served to bring them closer together and deepen his feelings for Dr. Mike. As Sully sat down in his lean-to on a crisp, early-February evening to eat yet another dinner-for-one, he ruminated over his recent encounters with the lady doctor. For example, there had been the time when they'd made the treacherous trek up to Harding's mine to collect water samples, to prove that his operation was polluting the town's major water supply. They'd been trying to scale a small cliff when Michaela had fallen and broken her wrist. Even now, remembering her cries of agony tugged at his heartstrings. With only the use of her left arm, the fiercely independent lady doctor had been forced to rely on him for certain basic tasks, and that had changed the dynamic between them. He'd never forget when she'd let him brush her beautiful, long brown hair. Although they'd been fully dressed and had barely touched, the experience had been unexpectedly intimate. As he'd run the brush through her silky tresses, he'd allowed his mind to drift into the future, picturing himself performing the same task in their bedroom. The air between them had been so charged that he'd known she'd been having similar thoughts. Then, the next day, when she'd asked him to help her button her shirt, the experience had been sheer torture. Not that he'd minded seeing her in her camisole, which had revealed much more than it had concealed. But he'd had to summon every ounce of his self-control in order to do up the buttons, instead of giving into his clamoring instincts to undo them and reveal more of her desirable body to his ardent gaze. He'd had to grit his teeth to keep his hands from shaking as he'd helped her get dressed.
It was at that point that he'd also realized just how innocent Dr. Mike had been (and still was) about romantic matters between men and women. He'd done little to conceal his desire as he'd stared intently into her eyes while fastening the buttons of her blouse. She'd known exactly what he'd been thinking, and her answering gaze had held a clear element of fear and uncertainty, together with a great deal of feminine longing, which had touched him to the core. Sully had heard around town that Michaela had had a fiancé back in Boston who'd fallen victim to the war several years ago. Nevertheless, it'd been clear to Sully that day on Harding's land that she'd possessed precious little knowledge about what happened between lovers behind closed doors. And he fervently hoped that someday, he'd be the one lucky enough to teach her everything that she needed to know.
Sully continued his trip down memory lane, recalling what had happened later that stormy, freezing night, with a sheepish smile. It had been difficult enough to keep his hands in check while helping Michaela get dressed, but having to snuggle up behind her for warmth while they'd slept in the makeshift lean-to, had pushed the limits of his willpower to the brink. Even now, he still cringed when he remembered how close he'd come to embarrassing himself like a randy schoolboy. As he'd lain behind her curvaceous body, he'd tried every means in the book to distract himself from how wonderful her posterior had felt against him, even through their clothing. He'd mentally mapped the locations of his traps; inventoried his supply of skins and calculated how much they would sell for; and counted sheep, deer, elk, and any other animal he could think of until he'd been blue in the face. But it had seemed as though nothing would do the trick. He'd had to ease his hips away from her as he'd fought to get himself under control. Dr. Mike may have lacked practical experience in intimate matters, but she was, after all, a doctor, and Sully was sure that if he hadn't changed position, she would've been able to feel the unmistakable evidence of his body's reaction to her. Recounting the casualties that he'd witnessed during the war had finally succeeded in dampening his ardor, and he'd threaded his fingers through hers, allowing her closeness to chase away his demons.
Of course, the question that remained was what to do about his feelings. That, perhaps, was the most terrifying issue of all. There were times when he felt like just whisking Michaela off somewhere and kissing her senseless; and other times where he was literally paralyzed by fear when he was near her, afraid of what the future might hold for their relationship. His intuition told him that she was a woman of strong moral character who didn't easily share her affections, and that she would expect some kind of commitment from him if she reciprocated his romantic overtures. But Sully wasn't sure that he was ready to make those types of promises. The last time he'd promised to share his life with someone, it had been at his wedding to Abigail, and that had ended with the deaths of both her and their newborn baby girl, Hannah. He was afraid of a similarly dire outcome if he pursued a romantic relationship with Michaela. It was easier to remain alone, as he had been, never having to depend on anyone or having anyone depend on him. That way, neither they nor he would be hurt when he inevitably disappointed them. It made for a lonely existence, but he tried to convince himself that he was happier that way.
Naturally, all such arguments tended to go out the window the minute he laid eyes on Michaela. Every time he looked into her unique, bi-colored eyes or saw her smile, he knew that she had to be a part of his life. Even though it had taken the men of the town a while to warm up to the idea of a woman doctor, Sully had no doubt that they would all jump at the chance to be with Michaela if she showed any one of them even the slightest bit of encouragement. A woman as stunning as Dr. Mike -- not to mention compassionate and talented -- wouldn't remain single for long, whether she was a doctor or not. Frankly, the thought of her in another man's embrace made Sully sick to his stomach, and his dinner congealed in this throat. He knew it was irrational and unfair to expect her to remain alone indefinitely while he sorted out his confusing feelings, but he couldn't help it. Having lost his appetite, he gave up all hope of finishing his dinner and decided to call it an evening. He knew that sleep would be long in coming tonight, as he would likely be haunted not only by thoughts of Michaela, but also by his own concerns about losing her forever if he waited too long to let her know his true feelings.
[END OF CHAPTER 1. GO TO CHAPTER 2.]