Burn Notice: I don't own it, I just like to play with it.

A little story pre-Burn Notice. I was thinking about the episode Fearless Leader, when Sam encounters Stacey, the boy with the girl's name, only he's all grown up and has a chip on his shoulder. I thought it would be interesting to flesh out Sam's explanation of what happened, in his own words.

The Boy Without Strings

By WritePassion

When I disembarked from the carrier and arrived at my quarters at the Norfolk base, I thought there had to be some mistake. They stuck me with a non-comm who needed some serious lessons in keeping things ship shape. I didn't even unpack. I just hauled my butt over to the Admin building and went in search of the yahoo who made this asinine mistake. After a couple of directions that sent me on a wild goose chase, I found the office with the door marked Housing & Procurement.

I thought that was kind of an odd mix, but hey, you never know what the Navy will come up with. I opened the door and discovered it revealed a very small room containing one desk, two walls lined with file cabinets and bookshelves, and one window at the end. The desk held personal things, pictures and such, but the surface was so neat, the Admiral himself could have eaten off of it. At the moment, the seat was also empty of its occupant. The name plate read Ms. Josie Connolly. A civilian.

Well, that figured. She wouldn't know an Ensign from a Lieutenant, of which I was one. There was a big difference between one and two stripes, and I earned it and all the perks that went with the decorations. I found a chair near the door and sat. I didn't have anywhere to go for a few hours yet, so I could just bide my time and wait for Ms. Connolly to come back. After about five minutes, I crossed my legs and bounced my foot in the air. After almost ten minutes, I got up and went to the window. The base was just like any other, except for the beaches to the east and the promise of lots of fun and sun on the horizon. If my luck held out, tonight I would be taking advantage of all that Virginia Beach offered.

I heard a noise and thought maybe Ms. Connolly was coming, but the door didn't budge. Letting out a sigh, I turned back to the chair, but not before making a quick perusal of her desk. I was especially interested in the photographs. Most of them were of a little boy from infant to about eight or nine years old. He was geeky looking with big, dark rimmed glasses, but he had a cute dimply smile. A woman with dark wavy hair hugged him from behind in one of the shots, her smile radiating sunshine and her brown eyes full of a joy that drew me in. I heard footsteps, high heels on the tile, if I wasn't mistaken, and I shot over to the chair and sat in it before the heels stopped clicking.

"Ow! Hey!" The door flew open, right into my shoulder. I rubbed it and glared at the slim, statuesque beauty that stood staring at me with her big brown doe eyes. They were even better looking in person. I tried to smile, but dang, that hit was gonna leave a bruise!

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant…." She glanced at my name plate. "Lieutenant Axe."

Okay, so maybe she did know her Ensigns from her Lieutenants.

"What can I help you with, Lieutenant?" She closed the door and skirted around me to stand behind her desk. I watched as she smoothed the back of her tight, knee-length skirt before she sat and pulled the rolling chair up to her desk. Her expression was all business.

"I just got in on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower."

"You should have received your bunk assignment before you left the ship," Ms. Connolly said as she reached for a file folder in a graduated rack.

"I did, Ma'am, except there's a problem with my assignment," I said. It seemed odd to call anyone under fifty "Ma'am", and I didn't have any superior officers who were female, so it seemed even less proper. My mother, however, would have smacked me if she ever knew I was less than a gentleman to this woman who held part of my happiness in her hands. I quickly explained what I found when I entered my quarters. "It was my understanding that I would be housed with the officers, Ms. Connolly."

"Hmmm," she said and her lips pursed. I could tell from the look that there had indeed been some sort of snafu, and she wasn't happy about it. "Let me take a look at my files." She tapped into a computer to her left, the CPU hanging onto the corner of the desk but partially wedged against the wall. After a few keystrokes, she made that noise again before taking a deep breath and letting it out slow and even.

"Is everything okay," I asked, leaning forward and giving her a charming smile.

Her eyes slid toward me and a hint of a smile crossed her lips while she continued typing. "Everything's fine, if you can stand rooming with Ensign Wright for a couple of days."

"A couple of days? Are you serious?"

"Sorry, Lieutenant. The room you were supposed to have was commandeered by a Commander, and he insisted that he have no roommates," Ms. Connolly answered with her deep brown eyes full of regret. "He'll be shipping out in a couple of days, and the room will be free at that time." She turned a smile on me. "At least then you'll be alone. I don't have anyone slated to join you for three months."

"And by then I could be on another mission," I muttered. Oh well, I decided to be glad to have the privacy for however long it was mine. "You sure there's no alternative to staying with Ensign Pigpen?"

Ms. Connolly had to fight to keep from laughing at my smart remark. I liked that. "Maybe you can get a weekend pass and on Monday come back and check into your quarters?"

"The weekend pass is no problem. I just didn't want to put my stuff in that room… you know, you're right. I'll just stay off base on my pass, and come Monday I'll be back." I stood, wishing there was something else that could keep me in her office for a little longer.

"Okay. I guess I'll see you Monday morning, then, Lieutenant Axe," she said. She had that look, the kind that women gave me when they were begging for a date.

I shouldn't. I'd never tried to date a civilian working on a base before, so I didn't know if there was some sort of protocol, or if there was a regulation against it. I couldn't imagine why it would be wrong. She wasn't a subordinate. I was still standing there, debating in my head whether I should or not, when Ms. Connolly solved my problem for me.

"Lieutenant Axe, have you ever been to the Norfolk area before," she asked with a guileless expression. "I mean, beyond Norfolk. Virginia Beach, for instance."

"No, Ma'am."

"So you don't even know where to go, do you," she said with a shake of her thick mane and a soft, lilting laugh. "I'm getting off work in an hour. Why don't you go hang out at the Commissary, and I'll find you and show you around?"

"Really? I wouldn't, uh, be intruding on your plans for the evening, would I?" Excitement raced through my veins as I wondered what was her motivation, if she was as attracted to me as I was to her.

"No. I have a sitter for my son tonight. I planned on meeting some of my friends for dinner and a girls' night out, but we both know how that always ends." She flapped a hand in the air. "We wind up pairing off with some guys we meet or sit there alone the rest of the night. It's getting old, and…." She gasped. "I'm sorry. I don't think you really care about that."

"Try me," I said with a suave tone and a smooth smile. "I've been told I'm a good listener."

With another shake of her head and a slim hand flipping her hair behind her shoulder, she spoke with a challenge in her voice. "We'll see, won't we, Lieutenant? I'll see you in the Commissary at seventeen hundred hours, and we'll go from there. Deal?"

"Deal." I reached over the photographs and shook her hand, then turned it over knuckles up and kissed it. It was probably a bit too much, but I liked the way she blushed. When I walked out of that office, I felt like I was in for quite a night.

Not only was Ms. Connolly beautiful and charming, she was punctual. Exactly at a thirty seconds before seventeen hundred hours, she appeared in the door frame and scanned the room for me. I held up my coffee cup, and she came forward. I stood before she reached the table.

"Care to join me for some coffee," I asked. Wishing she would say...

"No, thanks. It's been a long week, and I'm ready to go out and unwind. How about you, Lieutenant?" She stood with her weight on one stiletto heel and her clutch purse clamped between her elbow and her side, her hands clasped across her flat stomach. One good look at her gams, and I could tell she kept in excellent shape.

"Sounds like a good plan, except for one thing. Can you call me Sam?"

"When we're off base," she replied and turned on the ball of her foot.

I set my cup on the table and fell into step beside her, noting that even with the high heels, the top of her head reached to just under my nose. Petite but powerful. She was getting better and better by the minute.

We walked outside and she pressed a button on her keyfob to unlock the doors on a shiny red Mazda two-seater parked outside the Commissary. I hadn't expected that. She must be rich to have a car like that. Oh God, please don't let her be married. Please! I glanced at her ring finger and saw that it was bare, but that didn't mean anything. I would bide my time and rein in my desires until I knew for sure, then we would see where this was going.

She didn't expect me to follow her and open her door, taking her hand and helping her into the driver's seat while gaining more points in her book. "Thank you," she said, her voice showing how I'd just overwhelmed her.

She drove us to Virginia Beach where we ate at some seafood place and got to know each other. Josie was divorced from a rich CPA and had a really nice settlement out of it. "I don't have to work, but I love being on the base and putting my skills to good use. My dad was a Navy man, so I just gravitated to it." Josie took a sip of her second Cosmo. "What about you?"

"What about me?" I hadn't really told her much, at least nothing she wouldn't have seen in my files at the base. "I'm a SEAL. Most of my life is a closed book."

"No, I mean how did you wind up in the Navy?"

The way she listened as I told her about my dad, it was like her attentiveness opened up a floodgate. Things that I hadn't revealed to anyone in years came out, and I was powerless to stop it. Maybe it was the empathy in her eyes, or the parallel between my childhood and how her son Stacey was growing up without his dad that did something to me. I never gave up anything so easily, and it didn't take long for us to get more intimate. A couple more drinks certainly didn't hurt, and before I knew it we were on the darkened beach kissing in the sea oats and making love.

I woke up feeling the heaviness of salt and gritty sand in my hair, but my head rested on something soft. A pillow. I almost forgot how I got there, and how Josie was too drunk to drive so I took the wheel of her hot little car. We went to a little cottage near the ocean, tiptoed inside so as not to awaken Stacey, and while she directed me to the bedroom Josie paid the sitter and dismissed her. That led to round two and a crash into one of the best night's sleep I'd had in awhile. I heard feet on the wood floor and thought maybe Josie was up and around.

Opening my eyes, to my left Josie lay in a tangle of hair and covers. So who did I hear? I turned my head to the right and came upon a curious face with a pair of big brown eyes behind the large glasses. I knew this had to be Stacey. "Hi," I said.

"Hi. You must be Commander Axe," Stacey said as he held out his hand.

Blindsided, I shook it. "Yeah, I am." My uniform blouse lay draped over a chair, with the name plate and insignia plain for him to see. I briefly wondered how many times he saw such things.

"I'm Stacey Connolly," Stacey introduced. "You know you're in bed with my mom."

"Uh huh." I took a quick glance at her and saw she was still asleep. Whispering, I said, "She had a late night, so you might wanna keep it down a little."

Stacey nodded. "Hey, you wanna see my baseball card collection?"

Not sure if the kid was serious or not, I hesitated. Did he ask all his mom's one night stands that, or was I special somehow? What if this was some sort of test? One thing I was sure of, even if you took the sex out of the equation, I really liked Josie and wanted to see her again. So I answered, "If you let me grab a quick shower, we'll take a look at your baseball cards. Okay?" I winked at him, and the biggest, brightest grin crossed his face.

"You betcha!" He rushed out of the room and closed the door, leaving me to get out of bed, grab some clothes from my suitcase, and step into the master bath. Good thing I'd had the foresight to bring my stuff in, or I'd have had to wear the uniform that was definitely in need of dry cleaning after last night's romp on the beach.

As I emerged from the bathroom, Josie was making sounds like she was awakening. I smiled and slipped to her side of the bed. Sitting on the edge, I swiped the strands of wild hair from her face and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Her eyes opened and she smiled at me.

"Good morning, Josie," I said.

"Morning, Sam." She replied with a widening smile. "Last night was a lot better than hanging with the girls."

I laughed. "I'd have to agree." She rolled, exposing her lips to me and I kissed them, basking in the touch of her fingers at the back of my neck as she pulled me closer. A guy could get breathless kissing her. Before she could distract me, I broke away because I felt more than a little uncomfortable getting into something with the kid somewhere outside the room. "Stacey is up. He wants to show me his baseball cards."

Josie giggled. "He likes you, Sam."

"We just met. He doesn't know anything about me."

She shrugged. "All I know is that he doesn't show just any guy his baseball cards. His dad gave him some pretty valuable ones, and he takes meticulous care of them." Her smile dimmed at the mention of Stacey's dad, but it didn't go away completely. "He's a good kid. I've been really blessed to have him. It's just that his dad... well, he's kind of married to his job, especially around tax season, so Stacey doesn't get to see him much."

"I think you said something about that last night. That's why I don't want to keep him waiting." That, and the ick factor of having sex right under the kid's wide awake nose. It was different when he was dead to the world.

"I'll get myself up and at 'em, and then I'll make some breakfast."

"Sounds good." I kissed her once more. Every time I did that, I felt a rush that I hadn't had in a long time. Josie was good, and if I wasn't careful, I'd fall in love with her.

As a SEAL who could be shipped out at any time to any location in the world, I learned that getting involved and falling in love were hazardous and detrimental to those who became the object of my affection. I lost a wife that way. She couldn't handle me being gone so much, and I found her in the arms of another man, my best friend. Just a couple years earlier that happened. We still haven't gotten around to getting the divorce on paper, but I know she doesn't consider herself married to me, and the feeling is mutual. If I have no intention of ever getting married again, it doesn't matter.

I forgot about my history and instead focused on Stacey and his box of baseball cards. He kept each one in a plastic sleeve that allowed me to see both front and back without taking it out, keeping fingerprints from ruining them. They all fit snug and safe in a hard shell briefcase. I marveled over some of the players he had and when I asked him about them, he could spout off facts and figures like no one else.

"Wow, Stacey, you've got a great memory for all that stuff," I said, impressed.

"I got my dad's brain for numbers and details," Stacey answered in such a casual tone, I was surprised. I noticed he had a shoebox sitting to the side on the coffee table, so I asked, "What's in the box?"

Stacey answered without giving the box a look. "Those are all the extras. The duplicates of cards that aren't valuable. I like to do stuff with those."

"What do you do with them?" I glanced up to see Josie enter the kitchen and give me an encouraging smile. She maybe thought I was being nice to her son, but he intrigued me and I was interested in learning more about him.

"Sometimes I make card houses with 'em," Stacey answered. "Or I make forts for my GI Joes."

"GI Joes, huh? Are they all Navy guys?" I gave him a hopeful smile.

"Sorry, but they're not. Hey, why don't I show you? They're all displayed on my bookshelf in my room." Stacey jumped up from the couch, grabbed my hand and wouldn't take no for an answer as he dragged me to his room. "See? I've got a dozen of 'em."

He did have a dozen, and they were all sorted by branch of service. I glanced around his room and noted how neat everything was, that all his toys had a place that made sense. The bed, covered in a bedspread decorated with all the planets in their natural alignment, was made so neat, I figured I could probably bounce a quarter off it if I tried.

"You like my room," Stacey asked, his eager eyes dancing as he looked at me studying his space.

"Yeah, Stacey. It's a really nice room." For some reason, my answer meant a lot to him. I could see it in how his shoulders relaxed and the distance between us narrowed a little.

"Boys, breakfast is ready!"

Stacy's dimples appeared when he smiled. "We better hurry, or it'll get cold!" He snatched my hand again and led me out of the room, down the hall, and he didn't stop until we reached the dining room. I had to restrain myself from laughing. It was crazy how fast the kid latched onto me, and how, by the end of the weekend, I was feeling an attachment to him as well. I saw so much of myself in Stacey when I was his age. Hungry for a father. Wanting to fit in, and be accepted. To be loved. That part really stabbed me in the gut as I said goodbye on Monday morning and Stacey got on the school bus. For a second I wondered, is this how it feels when you've got a kid of your own?

After Josie got me situated in my new quarters and I unpacked, I didn't have anything on my agenda that day except to think. I ran through every moment she and I spent together, with and without Stacey, and I realized that what I was doing with this mother and son was nuts. I was dancing too close to the fire, and we were all going to get burned if I wasn't careful. I couldn't let that happen. I cared too much about them, which made distancing myself even harder to do.