Title: Twelve Years After
Author: UrbanMuzes

Show: Now & Again / Chaos - it's a CBS appreciation fic! -.-

Genre: Gen, crossover, AU

Rating: PG-13 - adult concepts
Pairing: n/a
Characters: Michael Wiseman, Michael Dorset
Spoilers: None. Unless you missed the part where Wiseman bailed on Morris that one time...
Status: Complete
Length: 1244 words
Disclaimer: CBS abuses their toys in unspeakable ways. They should be taken away and given to a network who will love them, feed them, hugs them, swaddle them in blankets and provide them with a good college fund. Until then, we have fic, people! Herein I try to excuse, forgive, and explain their mistake.

Warning: This fic references very briefly the events of 9-11-01 because Michael Wiseman would have been in the area at the time and to ignore it would have ignored a key event that explains the differences between the attitudes of the characters.

Summary: Twelve years of government paper-shuffling tends to darken a man's sense of humor and do nasty things to his natural-born optimism.

It had been a long twelve years for Michael.

Things had started to fall apart when Lisa, - his wife, his love, his life, - had gotten remarried to some Canadian Stock Exchange Wizard. For starters, that wasn't why he had stranded them in Canada after he had risked life and limb, proverbially speaking, to save them; Yes, they were supposed to start over some place safe, but that didn't mean they were supposed to forget him. That had stung. And it didn't help that the new guy - Cliff - was richer than Midas, providing for them in ways Michael could never have dreamed of. That was just salt on the wound. It lingered.

After that, of course, had come the hell of 9/11 and Michael's personal failure to save a tower full of people. What good were all the years of science and the days of nothing but physical training and the God-awful green milkshakes if he couldn't help when help was most needed? He couldn't, of course, because he had been training in New Jersey at the time, and there was no way his boss could justify the risk of letting him sort through the rubble. It seemed to shatter the good Doctor Theo Morris to come face to face with his own God-complex like that. He was angry, Michael was angry, the country was angry. But red-tape was red-tape and Superman heroics were still not allowed in public, even to save lives.

A year later, Morris lost his defense contract. Lack of funds in light of the war, despite all the hours of training Michael had been put through toward war scenarios. Morris told Michael that the prospects were dim, that the money was nearly gone. Michael's usual security detail dwindled down to two suits and the Doc.

They were picked up briefly by the Department of Fish and Game (through some loophole that Michael didn't want to ask about,) did a bizarre stint with the FBI, and when that died, Morris shopped him toward Homeland to get him out of New York.

Michael was a patriot if ever there was one, but he hated it at Homeland. Theo Morris, the Great and Powerful Oz of the scientific and medical worlds, met a lovely agent named Gwen and was married inside of the year. The contract with Homeland didn't even last that long.

Morris gave up after that and transferred the Newman project to his superiors at Langley. Last Michael had heard from him, Morris-midget Number Two was born on her parents' fifth wedding anniversary.

On one hand, Michael was bitter; The man stole him from his family, forced him to grieve their loss on a daily basis for a year, forced him to ship them off to Canada for their own safety and his, essentially controlled every element of his life for nearly five years like a Nazi with a stethoscope, and yet somehow it was Morris who got the happy ending. The wife, the kids.

On the other, he saw it as a quietly fitting revenge. Which pretty much still counted as bitter.

Now, Michael Wiseman (then Newman) was known as the unassuming Michael Dorset. He wasn't sure who had come up with that family tree, but he wanted to shoot them. What kind of guy thought it would be cool to cross the words "dork" and "corset" and call it a name, anyway? It had left Michael scowling at his ID badge for weeks. There had been nothing wrong with Wiseman.

Now, Michael was older. He was used to the stupid name. He was used to the stupid games at Langley. He was used to only ever hearing from the Doc - his once constant companion, as ever a monkey on the back could be - at Christmas and the 4th of July. (Though, for awhile, Michael had sent him cards for every holiday on the calender, just to make it known he was back to marking the days. Boxing Day was nearly impossible to shop for on this side of the pond because he didn't know what the hell it was actually celebrating to begin with.)

Now, Michael was officially married and properly divorced again. No one died the second time around, except a little more of Michael's faith in humanity. He chalked it up to a casualty of his past life as a lab-rat and learned to embrace the new found detachment that the CIA wanted from him. He still had all those years of insurance sales working in his favor, on top of almost as many years of training by Uncle Sam, in all sorts of subjects instead of just a few certificates of merit from their PE program. Michael made a good little spy when it got down to it. He liked to think the Doc would be proud, if the man hadn't been too busy enjoying retirement like he was. Having seen some of the dinosaurs walking around Langley, Michael had given up on retiring before eighty.

Now, Michael was the head of his own team. He gave the orders finally. It hadn't taken much doing, either; the new bosses just weren't sure what to do with him once they found out that they couldn't fire him - ever - and killing him would cause potential strife with the Defense Department if someone thought they were trying to steal secrets on a morgue slab. So he got to take his pick of assignments and pass the buck down. He had a paycheck that came in. There was a refrigerator at home with a stocked freezer - full of steaks. Michael drove his own car to work most days. He exercised because he wanted to, and like normal people, not as often as he should. It was almost like freedom again. He could enjoy a chili-dog in peace, with a smile on his face. It was lonely.

And so now he found himself at the end of a long day, at the end of a long week, in the middle of another year. It was 3am on a Sunday and the latest mission was tied up. The paperwork had been dropped on the new kid - Rick was sharp, he'd get it done - and Michael would sign off on it all Monday morning. The end of the day, the end of the week, was a relative concept.

What was concrete, however, was the existence of the desk calender on the corner, staring up at him around the edge of a very dusty bottle.

Twelve years earlier he had died.

The bottle was there to aid in the contemplation of the pros and cons of what that had meant. Alcohol made an effective bullet when combined with an F-train. It brought the end of one life, the beginning of another. The end of being happy, knowing love. The awakening to harsher realities that Suburbanites were never meant to see. The beginning of a life spent saving other lives, keeping the backyard-BBQ-set happy in the dark. His good Catholic upbringing likened it to penance. His very existence questioned the reality of God at all. It was all a confusing mess. Twelve years worth.

Michael's cell phone went off. He looked away from the still unopened six-year-old bottle of Scotch and checked the screen. His moment of contemplation had expired. It was time to go save the country again; that would take a little longer.