Fi Crashes a Burn Notice Writers' Meeting
By AerynFi
"That's it" Fiona Glenanne announces as she storms her way into the writers' meeting. "I can't take it anymore!"
With a sigh, Matt Nix turns to face her.
"Can't take what anymore?" he asks patiently. He is used to outbursts from his leading female character and although he often finds her difficult, he knows that listening to her input is a good idea. Listening to Fiona has contributed to the series being so successful for six seasons.
"I just finished reading your outline for episode one of series seven" she explains. "What the hell do you think you are doing?"
"Which part do you have an issue with?" Matt asks.
"The part where you have me going straight back to Michael!" she clarifies with a yell and some expressive hand movements.
"I told you she wouldn't be cool with it" Ben Watkins says from the other side of the table.
"But you love Michael" Matt says in confusion. "Why wouldn't you go back to him when he gets back to Miami?"
"Because I have reached my limit!" she explains as she moves closer to Matt. "I have taken six years of crap from him because I love him. I have offered to die with him, I have gone to prison for him, I have …"
"But Fiona," Matt interrupts. "Those things were your idea! I proposed totally different story lines for both of those situations but you said you wouldn't do them."
"That doesn't matter!" she says emphatically. "He promised me that he would leave the CIA and stay with me. He broke his promise. He broke our relationship. The End"
"Fine. So what do you want to do instead?" Matt asks tiredly.
Fiona sits down and speaks to the table. She gives eye contact to every person there. Even the guy with the afternoon tea.
"Well, after Michael left I met this bounty hunter named Carlos"
"You're with someone else?" One of the other writers interrupts incredulously. Fi silences them with a frightening stare.
"Carlos and I have started our own bounty hunting business and yes we are together romantically too" she clarifies for the table.
"I knew I should have checked on you during the break" Matt mutters. "I was too busy deciding whether or not Michael should have a beard during the premiere"
"So what is so great about this new guy?" Another of the writers asks.
"He's a good man and he is with me all the time. He works with me and he trusts me and he is committed to building a business and a life with me." Fiona explains. "I have moved on. I will always love Michael, he showed me so many things. But he never understood that life doesn't just stop because there's a mission to complete or a conspiracy to unravel."
"Fiona. I think Michael is getting there. He understands now." Matt says slowly.
"Michael is brilliant" Fiona says directly to Matt. "If he thought our relationship was a life and death situation he would have worked it out long ago. If I were his number one priority, we would be having a very different conversation right now."
"Ok" Matt concedes. "I understand. We will find a different way to move forward with the story."
"Good" Fiona turned and swept out of the room.
"So, I'm thinking flashbacks" said one of the writers at the far end of the table.
"But we don't do flashbacks on Burn Notice" one of the others said. "Besides which, all of our main actors have aged over the show's run. Flashbacks would be tacky and unrealistic. None of our characters live in the past. They live in the present, so flashbacks just wouldn't work"
"But if we do flashbacks we can maybe start to understand why Fiona followed Michael to Miami at the beginning of the series."
Matt sat back and let the others chew on the styling issues while he thought about Michael and Fiona's grand love story. Somehow he had to convince her to go back to Michael. There was only one more year to go and he doubted that he could do a quick fix by killing off her boyfriend or making him cheat on her. Fiona would see right through that. He and his writers would sort it out. Michael hardly ever visited the writer's meetings, so he couldn't really discuss the issue with him, and Madeline and Sam had their own issues.
"Hey everybody" Matt addressed the group. They all stopped talking and gave him their attention.
"Do you think Michael knows she's with someone else?" he asks them.
"No" answered one of the writers to Matt's left. "He knows she's pissed at him, but he doesn't know how pissed. I reckon he believes he hasn't lost her yet."
"Ok" said Matt. "I think you are right. So what we'll do is we will have to spend some time exploring Michael's understanding of the situation. He'll have to find out that he's lost her, then work out what went wrong"
"Do you think he'll come in here?" asked Ben looking toward the door nervously.
"No" Someone else answered. "He's only come into the meeting like twice, and at the moment he's drunk in South America. He likes to stay focussed you know? And he doesn't know she's not waiting for him, so he's not super angry yet."
"Can we make sure to include some more super cool spy gadgets?" asked someone else. "It is the last season and I don't want it to be all sniper rifles and car bombs"
Matt sat back again and surveyed the room with satisfaction. This was going to be an awesome last season.