Disclaimer: Burn Notice and its characters belong to Matt Nix and USA Network.
I pushed hair out of my eyes and shifted my weight to the other foot. For nearly half an hour I had been waiting on the damn street corner for him to show up. When I had called, Michael hadn't sounded surprised. He knew I was out on a job, that I hadn't taken my car to the meeting. Sam had dropped me off, a couple blocks away. It had given me time to think as I had approached the man who had set the whole thing up. And without my car, it didn't give him a way to follow me back to my apartment, or Michael's loft.
In spite of what Michael often rebuked me for, I did try to keep my work separated from my personal life. I had learned that lesson the hard way, with him. And it wasn't like I had clients spending days in my mum's guest bedroom, or on my couch like he did. He, of all people needed a lesson on how to separate his work from his personal life. But, for him, his work was his life.
I glared at a passerby and pressed my hand tighter against my side. My sweater was trapped between my skin and my hand; its once perfectly white material ruined by blood. No one had called the police to report an angry looking woman leaking blood standing on the corner yet. But three people had already stopped to ask if I was alright.
The Charger pulled up and I tried not to visibly sigh with relief. Carefully, I opened the passenger door and slid in, still holding the sweater tight against my side.
"Fiona…" Michael started.
"You kept me waiting, Michael." I let a hint of a whine creep into my voice. "Do you realize how many people stared at me?"
"If you didn't have your sweater pressed to your side, I'm sure people…" Michael pulled into an ally and slammed on the breaks. "Why did you have your sweater held against your side?"
I shrugged and brushed my hair back from my face again, knowing that he'd be getting a full view of my swollen eye. It worked. Michael cursed and started the car again, pulling back onto the street.
"You said that you would be careful, Fiona."
"No. You told me too. I never agreed." I shot back, wincing when the seatbelt cut into my brusied ribs.
"Fi…" He sighed and let silence fall between us on the rest of the ride back to the loft.
If I had known he would have taken a half hour to get to me, I would have walked. And have been there earlier.
As Michael locked the metal doors behind the car, I made my way carefully up the stairs, hoping I wasn't dripping blood. Sam, as usual, was at the counter drinking a beer. He looked up when I entered.
"Jesus, Fi. What happened to your eye?"
"I ran into someone's fist with it." I snapped.
Behind me, Michael took a breath. He had noticed I was bleeding.
"Fi…" His voice cracked.
I let him pull my hand and the sweater away from my side. My gaze was locked on the workbench as he carefully eased the material of my top away from my torso. His investigation into the extent to my injuries ended in curses.
"Fiona, how did this-"
"Black eye, a cracked rib or two, and a knife. He didn't manage to actually stab me. And you should see what happened to him." I tried to smile and meet his eyes, but failed on both counts.
Michael forced me to lie on my uninjured side on his bed. It didn't take much effort; I was tired of acting like nothing hurt. The slash on my ribs was stinging now that it had been fully exposed to the air. And to the disinfectant that he was pouring over the wound. Sam had apparently found the first aid supplies.
I took the stick that Michael handed to me, fingering the teeth marks as he carefully unwrapped a suture needle from its packaging. This time, I knew the stitches would hurt. The skin on my side had always been more sensitive than my legs and arms, and he hadn't bothered to try and make me take and painkillers before deciding he'd use his field medicine skills.
Not that the medication would have had much time to work before he would have been forced to start the suture process. I knew he had already calculated how long it had been since I had been slashed, and how much blood I had probably lost. A pint at the very least, and I guessed it was closer towards a full litre. Anymore, and I'd need a blood transfusion for sure. I probably should have had by that point anyway.
I bit down onto the stick as Michael slid the suture needle into my side. Sam at some point had come to hold my right arm above my head, giving Michael full access to my right side for the sutures. I made a mental note to kick both of their asses as soon as Michael was done, and the room stopped spinning. Sam, for touching me without asking me first, and Michael for telling him to. And for being a bloody gorilla with the sutures. A monkey could sew better than him with its feet.
Though since monkeys had feet that were just like their hands, opposable thumbs and all, so it wouldn't be a difficult task for them.
Michael would demand the full story the moment he was done and had finished cleaning up after the first aid session. It wasn't that I didn't mind telling him about my jobs, at least when they went well. When they went badly, I still felt like I could, on occasion. When they went badly, and I wound up having to get my side sewn back together, he would become overprotective. A thing I only hated on the principle that I didn't like to ever think of myself as the damsel in distress. I had worked too hard, and too long to want to have that title applied.