Hello readers! Here is my most recent oneshot. It is done in a different writing style than I normally use, but I really like it. I hope you do too.
Disclaimer: I do not own Burn Notice in any way, shape, or form.
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The silver metal of the gun feels heavy in his hand. Deadly yet familiar. An old friend whose hand he holds when life wages war against him and his only other allies are his training and his abilities. He thinks back to when he had people he could trust - colleagues, friends - but doesn't let himself linger on the memories. They will only hinder him today.
The former spy moves through the woods, his heavy boots snapping an occasional twig, sending chattering birds fluttering in the opposite direction. Normally he would take more care with his steps, tread more softly. But not today. Today there is no point in sneaking around like a fox on the prowl.
When he tries, he can surprise anyone...except her. Never her. Though perhaps he's never tried.
The only reason he hasn't marched up to her house and broken down the door is that he is hoping to finish this without having to see her eyes. He doesn't know what will happen if he sees the bright orbs that once lit his path. If he's honest, he hopes the sea-green depths will swallow him whole before he is able to extinguish them.
Michael searches his mind, without delving too deep, as he approaches the location of his...victim. Reminds himself why he is standing there, trying his best to remain numb. A gun in his hand and a single goal in his mind. The reason is a simple as one name: James.
James, who started as an enemy, as so many people had, but has become a partner, boss, leader. A wolf, who led Michael into his territory and gave him a home among the pack.
Since joining James, Michael makes his own rules. No more blindly following orders given by a pushy man in a cushy office a world away. He had followed the CIA's orders, let them put a collar around his neck, and what had come of it? Burned. Abandoned. Outlawed. No more.
A head of dark hair passes in front of the window only a hundred feet away, the long tendrils seeming to float around the sharp edges of neck and shoulders. For a moment, Michael lets himself imagine walking away, forgetting his mission, his orders, the way he forgets his childhood nightmares. He can. He can slip his gun behind his back and walk away, run away to...to where? He has no home, no real job, no family. He left them all behind; they moved on. The only purpose that's been keeping him going for the past six months is James, Sonya, and the organization. Their organization. It is all he has left, and it too is being threatened, by the wisp of a woman in the house before him. The one currently curled up in a suede armchair, sipping tea that is superfluous in the Miami heat.
That's why he's here, standing on soft dirt with rough leaves peeking up from underneath his well-worn combat boots. To take care of a problem. To prove his loyalty.
She will ruin everything, Sonya's confident voice echoes in his head. And Michael can't disagree with her explicit statement. The woman in question, the target, has done everything in her power to take down the organization that means the world to Michael, that fills the holes in his soul. The holes that were once filled by...
No. Not now. Not ever. He cuts off his own thoughts. That is over and this is the end. His brain means it's the end for her, but his heart whispers, and for you too.
He never could trust his heart.
Moving closer to the small, robin's egg blue house, he finds that all the windows are wide open. Perhaps because it is a warm but breezy day, or perhaps because she was expecting him. It seems that she is always expecting him.
He crouches down, allowing damp earth to cushion his knee, gun raised, waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger. She is sitting motionless in front of an open window, so any moment is the perfect one. Michael stubbornly disregards this fact.
After a lifetime, or perhaps it is a single heartbeat, she turns her delicate chin and spots him. There is no smile. There is no frown. Michael wonders if he is really kneeling outside her window, or if he is only a spirit and she is staring straight through him.
It is only when she notices the gun, weighing his hand down as if made of lead, that she parts her flowery lips to speak. "I thought you'd come." The words flit from her mouth with the lightness of a butterfly landing on a sprig of milkweed.
Michael thinks that her lips have all the delicate beauty of a spider's web: sparkling with dew but all too easy to destroy. He nods gravely, as if he is the one with a death sentence, although maybe he is, he just doesn't know it yet.
An arm that he recognizes as his own lifts of its own accord - or is it James's accord? - so the gun is aimed directly at her heart. He doesn't want her to suffer. But for some reason no bullet leaves the barrel of the gun, and he finds that he can't remember how to shoot.
Looking up in confusion, Michael sees that the murky depths of Fiona's eyes have not left his dispirited blue ones, and he feels a surge of fury, clamoring to be released. It's her fault. He knows how to shoot, better than he knows how to do anything. But how can he flex his finger when her unadulterated gaze is boring into his demoralized soul? Although, he's not sure that it is his soul anymore. Did he sell it to James, or did he bestow it unto a fiery Irishwoman years ago? He's been so jaded these past few years that he can't recall when it ceased belonging to him.
The woman whose precious life he holds curled beneath his trigger finger speaks again. "I'm not going to stop fighting for you. Not until I'm dead."
It's as if she is commenting on the weather: sunny and temperate, with a chance of rain in the afternoon. Doesn't she understand what she's done? Doesn't she know that her transgressions against his organization give him no choice? He has to kill her, she could ruin everything.
Michael raises the gun again, and it feels lighter than it did before. He places his finger on the trigger, ready to put his past to rest.
Fiona is not my past!
The words force themselves to the forefront of Michael's mind, uninvited and unwelcome, yet the quintessence of truthfulness. The intense memory of the day he had shouted those words is nearly enough to break Michael free of his trance. But James's pull is too strong, too all-encompassing. No sooner does he relive shooting Strickler than the pain of the drugs and James's role in his relief from them invades his psyche once more. He knows he needs to shoot Fiona, even though he can't quite remember why. James told him to, and he knows James must be obeyed.
But how can he shoot an angel, his angel in red?
He opens his eyes before he realizes they are closed, and for a moment she is gone, escaped from the prison in which he is her warden and executioner. Turning away from the window reveals the displeasing truth. She is even closer than before, standing directly behind him, the green in her eyes so potent that he swears it's burning a hole in his heart.
He is disappointed to find that he is still whole, or as whole as someone without a soul can be. He decides to raise the weapon one final time, determined to make the confusion stop, to return to the state of mindlessness, numbness, that had occupied his frame until her gaze had caressed his.
But his right hand is empty, there is no gun. Was there ever a gun? he wonders hopefully, until he spots it, in her sun-kissed hand.
She raises it and for a moment he thinks he is about to die, cut down by his other half. But instead of pointing it towards him, she places it over her own heart, and now he knows he is going to die because how can he be alive when she is not? How can Earth revolve when there is no sun? She is his sun and as she pulls the trigger on her own life, he knows that his life too has come to an end.
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Begging for mercy never once crosses Fiona's mind. Glenanne's don't beg. They fight, they run when it is tactically sound, but they don't beg. But faced with the blank slate of the man who was - is - the love of her life, Fiona finds herself unable, unwilling, to do any of those things. She has no emotions in that moment. She wishes she were surprised, horrified, by the actions of the man who holds her heart, but she is not.
She knew this hurricane was coming, had cultivated it herself, set it spinning, knowing that it would likely destroy her. When Michael had let himself be brainwashed by James, she had become angry, furious. So much so that she had set out on a suicide mission, hoping to destroy James Kendrick's organization before it could destroy the man she loved.
Fiona knows now that she failed. Miserably. She kicked the hornet's nest, repeatedly, and now it is time for her to pay the price. Her only solace is that it is Michael who will do it, take it all away from her, her whole being. She supposes it is odd that that gives her comfort. But out of all the ways to die, being killed by one's soulmate is unique, and she has always been unique. Besides, if anyone deserves the honor of stealing the life of Fiona Glenanne, it is he, the man who has already taken her heart and soul.
She waits, stoically, but he doesn't do it. He seems to be having second thoughts. The spirits of his past, their past, are clouding his vision, blocking him from seeing the future he has always wanted. But the fact that he came, ready to kill her, means that what they had was nothing more than an illusion, the twinkle of a star long burned out.
Not wanting to stretch this out longer than necessary, unable to bear the sharp, throbbing pain that she once called love, Fiona walks around to where Michael is crouched, seemingly in another dimension.
He stands to face her, his feet reluctantly, clumsily obeying their master. His expression is still blank, uncertain. She looks into his eyes, but doesn't recognize them. His soul, her soul, are absent, missing. She wonders what happened to the man she loves, the man she fears she has lost forever.
In a characteristic burst of impatience, she snatches the metal weapon from his hand, the hand of a stranger, and holds it against her own heart, wanting him to see exactly how thoroughly he has destroyed her. There is no time to dwell on what could have been. Ever since the day he sauntered into her life, dark hair, thick accent, devil-may-care attitude, she has taken it as her personal responsibility to protect him. This is simply an extension of that goal. She tried to save Michael by sabotaging the organization that wormed its way around his heart, blocking her out, or trapping her inside, she's not certain which is more accurate. It didn't work. So, this is it, time for her final stand, her final sacrifice. For better or for worse, probably for worse; but she knew that the moment he laughed in the face of her snub-nosed revolver.
Fiona's finger rests on the trigger, knowing she'll never hear the click. She stares into his eyes, the last she'll ever see, and feels strangely content. She pulls the trigger with all the self-assuredness she has ever had, and hopes that her death will yank Michael back from the edge over which she fears he has already fallen.
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He closes his eyes as soon as her finger depresses the trigger that will end her life, the only life that really matters. The darkness behind his eyelids holds no solace, no protection from the nightmare that is masquerading as reality. Suddenly images, sounds, feelings wash over him in a tidal wave of raw emotion.
He's in Ireland, dancing in a silent pub, wrapped around an asset who already means too much to him.
He's in an empty loft, keeping her at arm's length but unwilling or unable to push her any further away.
He's carrying her in his arms, cursing the fire, the water, the people, that have tried to take her from him.
He's holding onto her hand as she dangles high over death's deep jaws, unafraid that she will fall because they both know that he will not let go of her, ever.
He is standing outside of her house, wondering how he could have missed the bang of her self-destruction. His eyes refuse to open, will never open again, stubbornly refusing to view a world where she doesn't exist.
It is ironic that, now that his eyes are closed, he is finally able to see with clarity. James's thick veil of smoke which has been choking him, brainwashing him, is no longer clouding his thoughts. He followed the wrong path, and Fiona paid the price.
For her sake, he wishes that they had never met. She deserved better.
A hand plants itself on his arm, fingers wrapping around him like vines that cannot be cut. Curiosity takes control of his body, and his eyes blink open of their own accord.
The sight before him makes him gasp and for a moment, he thinks he is in Heaven, before he remembers that if there is a Heaven he will never see it. But if he isn't in Heaven, then why is an angel standing before him, whole, alive, ethereal?
"You forgot to load it," she whispers breathlessly, the ghost of a smile on her lips, the smile he should have known he could never extinguish.
Of course there are no bullets in the gun. He would never hurt her, never stop breath from filling her lungs, blood from traveling though her veins. Rivulets of tears flow down his face, purging his body of the mental and physical toxins that James used to poison his mind.
Fiona wraps her arms around him and he can't remember ever feeling so undeserving of her compassion. Gently he peels her off of him, not wanting to taint her with his mortal sins. How could she be with him after...after this?
"Don't push me away, Michael, not again. Please."
This time she is begging, finally, and Michael wonders why being with him is worth more to her than her own life.
"I almost- I could have-" but he can't bring his lips to utter the gravity of his actions, of what he had been planning to do. She lifts a hand to his cheek, cups his chin which is rough with stubble, and strokes him. He is soothed by the coolness of her touch against his war-worn face, undeserving of it though he is.
"If you'd wanted me dead, you'd have put bullets in the gun." Her tone is one which could be used to explain something simple to a small child, but she seems to know that Michael needs things spelled out for him while in this state, made vulnerable by James's coercion and his own befuddlement.
"Why did you...?" Once again unable to finish his thought he places a hand over her heart, the spot where his universe begins and ends. The spot the barrel of his gun had briefly occupied.
"If you'd really been ready to shoot me, then there wouldn't have been anything left for me anyway."
Her words send bolts of fear up his spine, and he can't believe that someone loves him that much, that Fiona loves him that much. And he left her, almost lost her, for what? He can't remember but decides that, whatever it was, it is no longer worth it. Maybe it never was.
He sends a smile her way, or at least what he means to be a smile, but he suspects it ends up being no more than a grimace. He'll have to work on that later.
He reaches out his hand and their palms connect with the force of two opposite charges. They enter Fiona's house, and Michael sees that it is quaint and decorated elegantly. It fits her, and he adores it immediately, because it belongs to her.
The dark-haired woman disappears from his side for a moment and he finds himself unable to breathe for the full ten seconds that she is gone. When she returns it is with a cell phone against her ear and he hears her say, "Sam? He's back," before hanging up and brushing away the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. He approaches her, searching the newly recovered parts of his mind for the words that will put the light back in her eyes. He strongly suspects he can't live without that light. But it takes too long for him to wade through his thoughts and she speaks first.
"You are back, aren't you?" she asks cautiously, and the monster called guilt claws at Michael's chest, punishing him for giving her such ample reason to doubt him. He doesn't trust himself to say anything so he simply nods. It must have been the right thing to do, because she envelops him in her essence once more and he prays that the embrace will never end.
After a moment she pulls back, but refuses to break eye contact, and he is glad she doesn't. There, in her eyes, almost completely hidden by a glistening drop of moisture, he sees what he has been searching for: his soul. It seems obvious now that she has had it this whole time, and he is dumbfounded that he didn't realize it sooner. Now that he has found it, he will never let it go, never let her go. In a world of gray, Michael Westen has seen white, blindingly bright white. He vows he will never wander towards the darkness again.
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Well, what did you think? Please let me know! Thanks for reading!