Michael, Her Son

by Cassandra or Bonkers pehaps

Madeleine-centric. When he was a boy he always had bruises. He stole groceries and cars. When he was older she signed a form and didn't see him again for years. He was her ghost of a son, never seen, rarely heard from. Then, suddenly he was back.

When push comes to shove, it's simple: Madeleine stays in Florida, sticks with Michael, because she knows he needs her. With Michael, it's not something that's obvious; he likes to be the strong one, his whole salvation complex, whatever it is, and Nate has always been the one who seemed…well, weaker, for lack of a better word. But Madeleine knows her sons better now: for years she tried to help Nate (he was, after all, the only son around to help), nagged him about the gambling, suggested groups, suggested girlfriends. His brother sent him money and occasionally a brief lecture on the phone when he was stateside. Of course, none of it ever helped, with the gambling, with anything. Then his big brother came back, and of course it took all kinds of nonsense just to get her boys in the same room together; at first it just seemed like more of the same old same old between them.

Things changed, though, when Michael was in trouble, when all kinds of crazy people were chasing them, when the big brother had to ask the little brother for help. Of course, it wasn't as if Madeleine liked her sons giving each other guns as a measure of trust but, well, it changed Nate. It changed him that for once, when it really mattered, he was the one helping Michael, that he was the one getting them to safety, getting them away from those terrible people who wanted Michael for god knows what. Nate really seemed to get it together after that: he started his limo company, and Madeleine could see, she knew when he asked her for the loan that this wasn't like all those other times, that for finally her youngest boy was serious and that needed – no, that he deserved – her help. She knew she was right when he moved to Vegas – Vegas, of all places – and did better there than he ever had in Miami. Even his new wife – Madeleine might detest the woman, but she can see that their feelings for each other are real, and that this is a good thing, her son finally settling down, getting a family. Nate is a man who needs to know that the people who love him trust him to handle his own business, and that is why she says no when he asks her to move to Vegas, to stay with them. Her youngest son, she knows, will be just fine now without her.

Michael, on the other hand, is the kind of man who will always tell you that he is just fine. Michael is the kind of man that will insist he can do anything by himself. Michael is the kind of man who sits at her kitchen table hunched over and moaning in pain because he's just been shot in the chest and then thrown around in a crazy car crash and still refusing to take his pain medication because he needs to keep his head clear for the job. Never mind that he can barely move without wincing in pain – there are people to be saved and of course he, Michael Weston, has to be the one to do something about it. With Michael there isn't even a point to arguing, she knows. In the end, he'll just go off, pain or no pain, and do it anyway because he's Michael and that's what he does.

He was always like that, her oldest boy. She can still remember him, ten years old and bringing her a stolen car to take his brother to the doctor with. She can still remember how proud she was, and how angry and afraid and guilty she felt that her boy, her ten year old boy was stealing cars to take care of the family (it wasn't until hours afterwards that she really thought about how it God's name did he get it over here without getting caught? That was always Michael too, doing the impossible). She can still remember the first time he stole groceries – how proud he looked when he gave them to her, his face bruised and bloody but of course that hadn't stopped Michael – whatever instinct it was that all animals had, to avoid danger, avoid injury, her son was clearly lacking. She didn't know, wouldn't know for decades, that the pride had been a façade, that somewhere beneath it all her son had wanted her to know, to ask, to be bothered by what he'd had to do. That was the trouble with Michael – even as a kid he'd been far too good at pretending he didn't feel, pretending he wasn't hurt, pretending he didn't care; he was so good that even his own mother could be fooled by his little act, not knowing for decades just how much it'd hurt him that she'd gone along with it. With Michael, it was never clear when he needed, what he needed, if he needed.

Madeleine knows that it's her own fault, really, that it had taken so long for her to know her oldest son. She knows now that she should have left Frank when the boys were kids, that it would have been better for all of them if she had. At the time though – well, it had been hard. She had loved Frank, and she could still remember him as the boys could not: she remembered what he was like when they were teenagers, back before the drinking had consumed everything, back when it was still just knocking back a few beers on the weekends. She remembered what it had been like when he had been charming, when he had taken all that intensity - the same intensity Michael had, the same intensity with which he would later beat his oldest boy and terrorize the family – and wooed her with a kind of single-minded determination. She knew he couldn't really help the drinking, knew the powerful grip that addiction could have. She hadn't wanted to be alone, to have to raise the boys alone. In truth, she'd been terrified of it. She wanted them to be a family, had told herself that if she just stuck it out, if they just tried a bit harder, if she could just get Frank to drink a bit less, if she didn't make him angry, if Michael didn't make him angry… She knows now that all of that had been a pipe dream. Frank never did stop drinking and Michael, well, it was true that the boy had provoked his father – unlike Nate, Michael never could do the smart thing, the safe thing, never could just get out of the way and let his father rage. No, Michael would step in every time, lie and take punches for his brother, lie to distract his father from his mother; as he got older, he seemed to start those fights for almost nothing at all, to prove a point, to show that he father couldn't control him, couldn't terrorize him, whatever. Madeleine had never been able to figure out what was going on in her older son's head, only that those last few years he'd been home had been hell, that she'd lived in fear that Michael's father would kill him one day, that she'd lived in fear that Michael would go to prison for life for all the laws he broke with seeming reckless abandon. Of course, Michael wasn't like his father in that regard – where Frank broke the law to rip people off, to make a few bucks he could drink or gamble away, Michael always had a reason, always did it for someone other than himself, but the way he almost didn't seem to care anymore if he got caught…it scared her.

It scared Maddie enough that she signed the permission form he'd left on the table for his father, knowing that Frank never would. She forged her husband's name on the form that would take her oldest son away from her for almost two decades. She signed it, knowing he would run like a bat flies out of hell, knowing that she had to let him: the alternatives were much worse. And leave he did, the guilt at doing so reserved only for his younger brother. He joined the army and was shipped off somewhere (he wouldn't even tell them that much), and a couple years later he joined the Special Ops and after that she had no idea what the hell he did or where he was at any given time. He almost never wrote, sent maybe half a dozen postcards in twice as many years. He called a few times a year – on her birthday, on Nate's, whenever he was sent back stateside. It was never for long – he called from DC, from New York, once from California even, and always it was the same, that he was only back for a few weeks, that he probably wouldn't have time to call again and had absolutely no time for a visit. He was still a good son, in his own way. She discovered he wouldn't hang up the phone quite so quickly if she talked about her health problems, or Nate's problems. He would help, send money, and she hated that this was the only thing that she could talk to him about, but it was something, at least, to hear his voice across a static-filled phone connection for a few minutes a few times a year.

He didn't come to the funeral when Frank died. She had called, made sure he knew, called and called the government, the army, trying to get through to whoever the hell he worked for until finally she had gotten a man, some kind of superior of his on the phone. He had let her know on no uncertain terms that yes, Michael had definitely received the news, and that the option of leave and transport home had been made available to him. The man was patient, in a long-suffering kind of way, answering her questions, her demands. Finally, defeated, Maddie had hung up the phone. Michael knew. Michael could come, if he wanted to. He didn't. Nate had been so angry at his brother for that. The gambling got a lot worse after Frank's funeral and Madeleine knew it had more to do with his brother's absence than with Frank's death. As for her – Madeleine was disappointed, of course, but she understood. It hurt, seeing her family so broken, seeing the very thing she had tried all those years to avoid.

It went on like that for years and years, Michael becoming a kind of ghost, the son only spoken of, never seen. She knew it was better this way, better than the alternative. When her friends came over for a game of cards and they all took turns speaking about their kids, Madeleine could say then that her oldest was serving his country, that Michael was fighting for America, and it was a hell of a lot better than saying that her oldest was serving a sentence in federal prison for god knows what. She always made him sounds so noble in her stories, embellishing, obfuscating, her son the perfect war hero – it bothered Nate to no end that she did this, she knew, but she had to; it was all she had of Michael. She knew nothing – the year after his father's death when he didn't call on her birthday, didn't call until weeks after and wouldn't explain anything even then, just a cool "I'm sorry, ma" she had wondered if he even cared anymore (again with his all-too believable façade, again she wouldn't learn for years, until that stupid therapy session, that he hadn't called because he'd been almost dead and didn't tell her so she wouldn't worry, of course he would do that, it was Michael). He was the son she had that existed somewhere, the boy she had lost because she was too afraid of losing his father, who she'd lost anyway to a liver too-scarred from drinking and who she learned she could do without quite easily. That, too, had been a bitter realization.

And then, one day, quite out of the blue she'd gotten a phone call from a nice woman with a distinctly Irish accent. The woman had introduced herself as Fiona, said that she used to be involved with Michael. Michael was hurt, Fiona said, but fine (don't worry, she had said with a kind of nonchalance that instantly calmed Maddie's nerves, he's been much worse, I know, he'll be up and about in no time) and he was in town, and she had just thought his mother might want to know. Madeleine had wanted to hug this woman, who had called her and told her what Michael never would have. They chatted for hours and Madeleine knew that she liked this woman, this Fiona. She had never really known any of Michael's girlfriends – even as a teenager he never brought anyone around the house it he could help it – but she was sure this woman was right for her son.

(She was right, of course. Fiona was as bad as Michael with the guns and the explosives and the jobs, but Madeleine knew that was what her son needed. For a man like Michael, a normal woman wouldn't interest him enough, and even if she did, the relationship would be too much like the one he had with her: all secrets and need for protecting and Michael alone because he feels he needs to protect everyone. Fiona, with her guns and C4 is strong, just the opposite of a damsel in distress. She is the partner Michael has always needed, someone he can trust with everything and anything. And of course, it doesn't hurt that Madeleine can have the most delightful conversations with the woman, or that Fiona is the only one of the three that makes an effort to not keep her in the dark about everything. Yes, she knew right away, and was right, that Fiona was just perfect for Michael.)

She called him, of course, called the number Fiona gave her again and again. When Michael finally picked up he sounded irritated. Madeleine knew he was just looking for an excuse, for a reason to avoid her, and she wouldn't give him that. She needed to see him, after all those years, needed to see her boy again. So she pulled out her ace, something she knew he wouldn't be able to refuse her: Madeleine demanded Michael take her to the doctor. He protested that he didn't have a car, of course, and then showed up in one she was sure was stolen, just like old times, and the nostalgia washed over her so strongly, seeing him sitting there behind the wheel, and she'd wanted to say something so badly but knew instinctively that it would be the wrong thing to say, so she held back, said nothing about it. She smoked incessantly even though he yelled at her for it ("It's not my car, don't do that!"), trying to calm her nerves, trying to stop her hands from trembling because here he was, her Michael, home again and in time for Christmas, at that. She'd wanted to touch him, her son, her oldest, but she knew he could barely stand being in the same car as her and didn't push it. She would make them a family again, she'd decided then.

Of course, it was never easy with Michael. Not when he was a teenager and certainly not now, when he was back with his spy skills and his secrets and all his jobs, which made her proud because here was her son, here was Michael helping people, just helping people even though he had problems of his own because he was Michael. Not that it was all that simple, but they learned to trust each other again, after a fashion. He began to bring his 'friends' over, usually to hide out at her house while he did whatever it was that he did for them. That was fine, really – she got to see her son, and some of his little friends were quite interesting (or, in the case of Virgil, a bit more than just interesting). He accepted the Charger, fixed it, made it his own. He dropped by to find this and that, screws, his fathers old scam shirts, whatever. Sam and Fi dropped by and they had drinks. The three of them made bombs or whatever in her garage. They hid guns. They plotted their crazy plans, Michael always telling her to leave the room. They had crises, Michael made her flee to Ft. Lauderdale, Sam blew up her sun room, Michael tried to make her go again but this time she refused, this time knowing enough of her son to know that if he was trying to send everyone away from him it meant he needed their help a hell of a lot more than she needed Sam's protection, and she was right about that, of course.

She was right because finally, finally Madeleine was coming to know Michael. She was seeing his life for what it was, for what it had been for years, and well yes, it's a bit of a shock what with all the guns and explosions and car chases and the watching people, 'surveillance' and whatever, but hardly the end of the world. She just needed some time to wrap her head around it, is all. She even helped out a few times. The worst of it was probably when she had come when Sam called for help, seen Fiona's brother bleeding out on floor, her son knocked about but, Sam assured, OK, and Fiona missing. It was hard, seeing someone almost die like that, and she wondered how many times her son had seen it, had seen worse, had done worse. She wondered just how much he had locked up in that head of his with that always needing to be strong, to protect people, to be Michael fucking Westen no matter what it cost him. Caring for Michael was like trench warfare, just as she had told Fiona, and a large part of it was knowing him and knowing that he was human and knowing when he needed you and knowing that he was an incredible liar and not believing it when he or anyone else said otherwise.

She tried to remember that when the FBI guys had come into her house, questioning her, yelling at her, telling her that her son was a terrible man, a terrorist, a murderer. The pictures had shocked her, yes, but she knew, knew that this wasn't her son. She had seen all the people he'd helped and yes, she could hardly say that what he did was legal, but who the hell in her family did things the legal way anyway and who the hell were these men to tell to judge her son? When the FBI agent had tried to convince her that Michael had shot at him, tried to kill him…well, Madeleine had taken a particular pleasure, the venom in her voice stark when she said, "If Michael had wanted you dead…You. Would. Be. Dead." In the end, when they had taken her, threatened to arrest her, threatened her with jail…well, she knew that if it came to that, she would let them. Michael had always tried to protect her, and whoever he was now, her actions, her failings, had helped make him that. If she would have to pay for his actions now…well, it was only fair, wasn't it? And even that, even sitting there in that little holding room waiting for them to arrest her or not, even that was easier than hearing them say that her son was gone, that he had been taken god knows where, or why. She'd wanted to scream, to cry. She slapped that piece of shit FBI agent, could barely control her grief because her son, her Michael, was gone again. She didn't know if she could learn to live with his absence again, not when she'd finally gotten to know who he was.

For a few weeks after that there was nothing. Sam and Fiona tried, contacted everyone they could contact and learned absolutely nothing useful. For a few weeks there was nerves and sleepless nights, pack after pack of cigarettes, guilt. And then suddenly, in true Michael fashion there is a single, vague phone call and her son, walking through her front door as if nothing had happened. Just like that, her son is back, and just like that he is doing a job again.

She knows him now, Madeleine does. She knows that he is not perfect, that he is just a man, her son. She knows even that he doubts himself – the look on his face when he admitted that the psycho he had been chasing, Simon, had told him that he would be just like him and that he was afraid that it was true. She knows that it isn't, that whatever he might be, her son is good. She tells him that, and she knows that he needs her now, whatever he might say. So she keeps her house, so that Michael and his friends have a place to hide clients and guns and bomb detonators and even nice young spies that Michael burned and is lying to. Madeleine hates watching him do that to Jesse, but she forgives him in the end, because he is her son and she knows he didn't mean to hurt the man. Michael is good, but sometimes he forgets where to draw the line between caring for ideals and caring for people. Sometimes the lines of what is acceptable and what isn't blur a little too much for him, and that is what she is for, after all, to call him out on his bullshit and to plead his case to homicidally-inclined friends, to help him kidnap jerkass congressmen, to try to take care of him after he's been shot in the chest and blown up, even if he won't really let her, and to spend six hours searching through all of the upscale sunglass shops in Miami until she finds the exact pair of sunglasses that Michael had before they were destroyed.

Moving to Vegas with Nate would be much safer, sure, but right now Madeleine knows that she wouldn't trade this life, this life with her eldest son in it at last, for anything