This is the first chapter of three (the next one should be up in a week tops if all goes well). I'm not entirely sure if it works, I've never written a fic like this before… I really took time to observe Michelle's actions and reactions for this, and something kept telling me that she never had it easy (every time I watch that scene where she says to Tony, "He's my brother…", I always get the feeling that Danny is all she really has – until she meets Tony of course, lol). Anyway, it's just a feeling, but I decided to follow my instinct for this story. Please feel free to tell me what you think!
Michelle Dessler was only three years old on the day that her father picked his last fight with her mother, stormed out of the apartment and disappeared from the face of the earth. And even though she was the younger of the two children he left behind, she was the one who remembered him while her brother didn't.
She asked about him once, only once. It was hardly more than a week later; she and Danny were playing outside in the yard. She ran back into the house to ask for popsicles, but when she found her mother in the bedroom, she forgot and asked something else instead.
"Mommy, where's Daddy?"
Lois Dessler looked down at her toddler, wondering what it was about the child that always made her feel like she was talking to a teenager instead of a three-year-old. While her son would forever remind her of the unstable, unpredictable man she had married only because she was pregnant, her daughter was already growing into a complete stranger that resembled neither her nor her husband in the least. And in some ways, that was even more terrifying.
"Daddy's gone," she said curtly, turning so she wouldn't have to face those big, solemn eyes, "And he's not coming back."
And little as she was, Michelle found she wasn't at all surprised.
She was four when her mother met Richard Bodson, a well-known tax attorney. It didn't take her long to catch on to the fact that he was nothing like her father, the exact opposite in fact – wealthy, well-educated, rational, calm, distant.
He quickly clashed with Danny, who, at six, was becoming increasingly impossible each day.
"All that boy of yours needs is a little discipline, Lois," he'd say, his voice booming through the apartment, and both children quickly came to hate that voice.
But after less than a year, Richard stopped trying to handle Danny in any shape or form, claiming that "the kid was hopeless". And since Lois had given up on her son long before that, the task of keeping Danny under control was now subtly placed on Michelle's tiny shoulders.
The two of them started to withdraw from their mother even before the arrival of Richard and Lois's first and only child, Kirsten, when Michelle was seven and Danny nine – though they would both always privately feel that the birth of their younger half-sister was what made it irreversible.
The baby was worshipped since she let out her first cry, and rapidly became the centre of the entire household. Richard adored her, and as usual, Lois followed suit. And as their world revolved around the wellbeing of their precious little daughter, they failed to notice that both Danny and Michelle were growing into adolescents.
Danny became bigger, stronger, and – if possible – even more unmanageable. His grades were awful, and no amount of pleading from Michelle made him even try to do anything about them. Other than that, though, he was having a pretty good time in high school – hanging with his buddies, getting drunk, cutting class…
"I could go on like this forever," he'd tell his sister when she asked him if he didn't want something more from his life, "I wouldn't care."
It was Michelle who wanted out, who wanted to leave it all behind and meet the world. She had grown quieter over the years, though she had a mean-streak that occasionally surfaced when she was pushed too far into a corner. But her gentle nature hid the restlessness she felt inside, the unshakable suspicion that there was something out there for her, and she was missing it.
Unable to mirror herself to her mother, she started wondering about her father, something she kept to herself for a long time before finally spilling her guts to Danny. She got up her courage and asked him if he ever felt the urge to look their father up.
"Our father?" Danny said in disgust, "Michelle, he's the bastard who left us, remember? I mean, Mom's not the greatest parent either but at least she didn't leave us."
She was so crushed by her brother's reaction that she never brought it up again. But that didn't stop her from secretly wondering. Secretly wanting.
To everyone's surprise, Danny somehow managed to get into the California State University, and did relatively well there. And despite all the grief he had been giving her since they were kids, Michelle found herself missing him desperately. She sensed the relief in Richard and even in her mother that Danny was finally out of the house, and although she had to admit that things were a lot easier with him gone, she still resented them for it.
When it was time for her to pack up and leave for college, she was more than ready. Her half-sister came into her room the evening before she would leave for the dorms. At eleven, Kirsten was already rapidly entering puberty, or so she thought.
"Oh my gosh, Michelle, now that you're leaving, I'll be like… like an only child!" she cried out, almost dramatically.
Michelle looked at her and thought, Honey, you always were an only child, but just smiled a little and didn't say anything.
In college, her world went open. For the first time since her father left, now fifteen years ago, her life finally felt right. She got over her shyness, allowed herself to go to parties and on dates – without, of course, letting her schoolwork suffer. Allowed herself to have fun, feel good about herself.
She had a couple of boyfriends, some lasting longer than others. They were all nice guys who went out of their way to make her laugh, but somehow she could never picture herself actually shacking up with them and starting a family. While all her girl friends complained that their boyfriends were afraid of settling down, Michelle was starting to fear that in her case, she was the one with the commitment issues.
"I don't know, maybe there's something wrong with me," she finally confessed to her best friend, Erica, after her latest break-up with Brian Hamlin, a guy her friends had all been swooning over since the minute they met him, telling her how lucky she was.
"Nah," Erica assured her, "There's nothing wrong with you. You just haven't met the guy, that's all."
Michelle smiled, grateful for her friend's faith in her normalcy, but she didn't voice what she was starting to become truly afraid of – that her father had taken away any shot she had at a normal relationship the day he walked out.
When Danny got married, she told herself to stop being ridiculous; if he was capable of commitment, surely she was too. And she honestly admired Judith's courage for trying to make it work with someone like Danny. Michelle knew out of experience that living with him wasn't always easy, despite the fact that he seemed happier than ever.
Their first child, Zachary, was born shortly after Michelle graduated from college, and she became a very proud aunt/godmother. The second would follow two years later, a daughter this time, whom they called Haley.
Meanwhile, Michelle was working at Division Los Angeles, where she was content. Although the hours were long and often exhausting, she liked the work and felt she was finally doing something about the unfairness of the world. Her job pretty much dominated her social life, so she told herself she had a solid excuse for not having a boyfriend when someone teased her about that.
When Danny ran off with Carrie Turner, his kids were five and three, the same age as he and Michelle had been when their father took off. And as much as she tried to push the thought away, Michelle couldn't help remembering her brother's words from a few months before. Judith had been at work, and she and Danny, who had the day off, were watching the kids play.
"Look at 'em," Danny had suddenly said affectionately, "They're just like us. That's us when we were kids."
She had laughed and argued that Zach had curly hair and Haley had straight hair, while with them it was the other way around. And Danny had smiled a little and said, "You know what I mean."
Michelle told herself that her brother would never, ever turn his back on his kids the way their father had done to them – he loved them too much. But when he got fired, lost his battle for joint-costody and was dumped by Carrie all in the same week, he snapped. He swallowed down every pill he could get his hands on, and was nearly in a coma when Michelle found him sprawled across the kitchen floor a few hours later.
She took him in after that, fed him, let him lean on her like she had long ago when they were little and Richard had tried to bully him into submission. There was no one else. His ex-wife was still furious and refusing to speak to him. Lois had visited him in the hospital only once, and had stayed for about fifteen minutes. Kirsten kept promising she'd come see him but never actually showed up – not that he was surprised or, indeed, cared much. So it was once again Michelle who ended up having to deal with his misery.
And, gradually, Danny landed back on his feet – or as much on his feet as he would ever get. Michelle helped him find a job and an apartment, all the while desperately seeking for a new job of her own. He remained bitter and clingy though, and this resulted in them fighting much more than they used to.
By the time she was offered the position at CTU Los Angeles, Michelle had long given up on anything that even remotely resembled love. She had watched too many marriages fall apart to be able to believe in such things. She could only conclude that she had probably been lucky to escape the pretence of it.
So one might say that, when Michelle Dessler first walked into the CTU bullpen one particularly cold morning in September, she was in for the surprise of her life.