A/N: I wrote this quite a while back, so it's more of a standalone Christmas special. Oddly enough, this is the same theme as the Psych Christmas episode this year, for those of you who are fans of Psych as well. I thought it was kind of funny and it's what inspired me to finally post this little holiday piece.

Covert ops doesn't often lend itself to introspection. Being burned, however, leads to a little too much free time and, therefore, more introspection than a spy has ever had before. It can be good for a person, but it can also cause some unhealthy thoughts. Even the spies who get out with debriefings and pensions have this problem, but burned spies have to undergo that sudden adjustment and questioning of purpose. Of course, some of them have to hit a brick wall and have it hit back before they realize they've lost that purpose. I suppose I was one of those guys.

The former spy sat in his favorite green chair in the middle of his industrial loft. It was dark and rainy outside, nothing new for a Miami night, and Michael was stuck inside with no new jobs or information. He was literally and figuratively in the dark. As he sat there, he began to wonder if there was any good reason for him to keep up this tiring lifestyle. Running around the world with a satellite phone and gun is one thing. Running around Miami for little money and a lot of violence, not to mention his mother and sometimes ex-girlfriend, was a different story entirely. Of course this line of thought took him down memory lane of past missions. He didn't find any of them to be particularly amazing or special to him in any way. He began to feel as if he'd done nothing of real value that couldn't have been done just as easily by someone else. Why was he even here? Should he even be alive?

With a tiny pop and a warm chuckle, a rotund man dressed in odd clothing was standing before him. "Who are you and how did you get in here?" Michael asked, not panicking, but still reaching slowly for his Sig Sauer P228.

"Now, now, Michael. There is no need for that. I'm Clarence. Joseph let me in," the strange man replied. "I'm an angel, here to help you…"

He was cut off by Michael's questioning. "You're a what?"

"An angel," Clarence replied calmly. "You're wondering if you should be alive, I can show you." Hesitantly and with his gun still in hand, the burned spy joined the man and the scenery around them began to change. "This is Miami three days from now, if you were to die today," he offered as commentary as everything started to focus. The blurry outlines became clear. There were people, more people than Michael had expected, gathered near a canopy in a cemetery. The coffin was a silvery gray and the grass seemed almost Technicolor. "Go ahead. They can't see you."

Michael took a few steps forward and nobody noticed him. People he'd known in high school were gathered in the back, and he could hear their thoughts. They'd wished they had tried to know him a little better, reach out a helping hand. Samantha and Charlie had hid themselves amidst the small crowd, though it didn't seem as though Madeline or Fiona cared if they were there. Charlie was praying for God to be kind to Michael because he was a good man and had helped him a lot. Samantha was wondering what had gone so wrong. Michael wished he could tell her. There were former clients who were appreciative and kind in their thoughts. Someone cleared their throat at the front of the group and everyone's—including Michael's—attentions became focused on Sam. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that was more muted than usual and a pair of black pants. The rest of the crowd was clad in various degrees of formal attire.

"Thank you all for being here to honor Mike. My best friend always hated funerals and I've wondered a time or two if he would try to skip out on his own. Mike was a good guy. The only real friend I've ever really had until he showed up again here. He's done some wonderful things for all of you and I'd like to thank you all for coming to support Michael's family. That would be his mother Madeline, his brother Nate, me and Fiona, his significant other, most of the time," Sam said from the makeshift podium. At his friend's final words, Michael heard what sounded like a cross between a hiccup, a sob, and a laugh from the front row.

He made his way up there and used his newfound power to gain access to their thoughts. Nate was cradling their mother against his shoulder and crying just a little. He wasn't thinking about much, only wishing for more time. His mother was sobbing hysterically and thinking of how terrible it was to have to bury one's children. Sam was slowly making his way back to his seat reminiscing on the good ol' days. Fiona was crying softly into a handkerchief and cursing the world, cursing God, cursing the man who'd shot him, cursing herself for not telling him she loved him back. Unnerved by the weight of this, he sat at her feet and laid a hand on her knees. She didn't move or flinch or give any indication that she'd noticed.

The scene began to fade away and he watched as Sam handed a bag of Michael's clothes to a thrift shop worker. The ex-SEAL then walked across the street and down a block to a bar and ordered the strongest drink he could find. Michael sighed. The scene changed again. Madeline was smoking more now than ever before. She had given up poker nights. Nothing was as it should be. Another change. Nate was stealing a car as the sirens came wailing around the corner. He dropped everything and ran, right into another police car. He was arrested and sentenced to jail time. One more change and Fiona was on a rooftop, dashing quickly to the other side and setting up a sniper's nest. She aimed and took out the man who'd shot Michael, before more than a few bullets could be aimed in her direction she was gone, running down the stairs with tears streaming down her face.

"Maybe you were wondering something different," Clarence said as Michael snapped back to the semi-reality of his supernatural trip. "Maybe you were wondering what life would be like if you had never been born." The world around them blurred and they arrived in the men's restroom of Carlito's. "Thank you Joseph," Clarence addressed the heavens. "You were never born. Michael Westen does not exist."

In near shock, the former spy moved toward the mirror. He raised his hands to his face and touched the places where his scars used to be. "You were never alive for him to hit. You have no scars," Clarence told him. Still unconvinced, Michael pulled his shirt over his head roughly. There were no bruises from the last job he'd done, a stupid, supposedly easy job he'd opted to do by himself that had left him with a lovely purple and blue canvas of bruises and a broken rib or two. Upon closer inspection he could not see the small scar on his chest from Dublin, where he'd taken a piece of shrapnel from an explosion of Fiona's. He lifted his upper arm to the mirror and realized the gunshot scar from where he had once taken a bullet for Fi was also gone, as were the other miscellaneous scars he'd acquired over the years. None of it had ever happened and he felt the unmistakable pull of longing, like some part of him had been taken away even though bits of his skin had actually come back to him.

He left the bathroom quickly, pulling his t-shirt back on before stepping out into the café and then to the patio where he saw the easily recognized form of Sam Axe. "Hey, Sam," he called. The man turned, but he was not the same man Michael was used to. He was almost gaunt and did not seem to be enjoying his "retirement" as much as the other Sam had.

"Do I know you?" the ex-SEAL asked.

"Yeah, it's me Mike. Stop messing around Sam. We worked together for years. The mid-90s, around here, too," the burned spy replied with more enthusiasm than he felt. Sam seemed to deflate in something between depression and anger when Michael mentioned the 90s.

"The mid-90s were a bad time, whoever you are," he commented before turning back to the beer he was nursing. Michael turned to Clarence bemusedly.

"Pick up a newspaper and see for yourself," the angel instructed. Finding a few coins in his pocket, Michael dropped them into the nearest newspaper stand and grabbed the daily news. The headlines were terrifying. Serbia and Sweden Join the Eastern Alliance. "World War III for posterity's sake. All because a handful of covert ops blew up and made a few Eastern European governments angry. Russia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, the Balkans. All the operatives were killed and those nations didn't particularly enjoy being duped by the United States," Clarence explained to a shocked Michael.

"Where's my mom?" Michael asked. Clarence just smirked and gestured for him to follow. He did so, skimming the paper as he went. They reached a park and he found his mother playing shuffleboard with some other retirees. "No. I can't. That's not my mother," he commented, turning and leaving the park abruptly. He couldn't deal with that. His mother was not one to play shuffleboard. She had vowed to never play the game. She had said so the day she retired according to Nate. "What about Nate?" he asked.

Clarence led him along another road for a little while until they reached a cemetery, the same one his dad was buried in. There, on a headstone a good deal older than his father's next to it, was Nate's name and dates that showed he died at six years old, on a day Michael remembered well. Nate had been playing with a bouncy ball in the yard and it had rolled out into the street. Without looking, Nate dashed into the road to get it and was almost run over by a car. If Michael had not been there to pull him out of the way in time, he would have been hit for sure and there could not have a been a good ending to "six-year-old vs. pick-up truck." Nate didn't remember that day, or so he told his brother, and Michael intended to keep it that way.

"You weren't there to save him, so Nate died when he was a little boy," Clarence explained as he followed Michael out of the cemetery.

Michael led Clarence through the neighborhoods he remembered. As they strolled aimlessly, Clarence recounted the lives of his clients. Cara and Sophie, Oleg's waitress and her daughter, had been found in a ditch, each shot once in the head by the drug cartel. Akhom Thabet, a spy whose life he'd saved once upon a time, was dead, just bones in the desert now, had been for a long time. Javier, an employee who had been blamed for a theft, had been sent to jail. David, his son, had been put in a foster home and kicked out of three schools for fighting. Dawn, the kidnapped fiancé of a house sitter, was killed because Nick couldn't pay the ransom. Jenna, Michael's classmate from high school Bill's daughter, was part of the Wilhelm Brothers' escort service in Dubai and her father was still looking for her. And that was just the start. So many things were different without him; it was a little overwhelming.

Michael stopped suddenly and walked up the steps of a house. There were newspapers gathered on the front step. He picked up the previous day's paper and the Sunday paper. It had been much the same as the current headlines, but the Sunday paper piqued his interest. IRA Begins Weapons Mobilization. Major Revolt Anticipated. The color photo on the front showed a truck being loaded with guns and the raw materials to make explosives. Next to the truck, with an AK-47 slung around her shoulders, was a petite woman who looked suspiciously like Fiona. He nearly ripped the front page from the rest of the paper and ran off toward the nearest office supply store. Clarence simply followed with a smirk.

Once inside Michael looked around until he found a magnifying glass that was strong enough to enlarge the image so he could see the woman's face. It was indeed Fiona. Judging by the red and white marks along her arms and the bit of her stomach between her shirt and pants, she had acquired quite a few more scars. Was he really part of why she'd left the IRA? "Can I see her?" he asked Clarence. The angel smiled and looked up to the heavens.

"Joseph?" he asked nicely and then the scene began to blur around them and they were in a rural part of Ireland. It was green and beautiful, despite the makeshift camp and enough weapons to stage a pretty formidable coup. Her silhouette was easy to spot and Michael rushed over to her immediately. She turned at the noise behind her and no recognition showed on her face as he approached.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" she asked sternly in her native dialect.

Stumbling over his words, Michael addressed her in the cover of the man he'd played so many years before. "I'm Michael McBride. I met you in a pub in Dublin about a decade ago." She showed no signs of recognition.

"I do not know you. I never have and I do not intend to. Leave, now," she commanded and got back to her work. It was never like Fiona to plan, and it apparently still wasn't like her. Someone else was working out where everything needed to be placed while she whipped up bombs like they were pancakes. The ease with which she constructed each bomb would have been frightening if he hadn't seen her do it dozens of times. The frightening thing was that it was nearly twice as fast as any of her recent endeavors. She had had far too much practice it seemed.

Michael and Clarence walked away, as far away as Michael's legs could take him before collapsing to the ground and staring up at Clarence with reverence. "I get it. I helped people then and I'm helping them now. And I'm actually important to people. Take me home, please," he said with exhaustion. With a smile and a snap of his fingers, Clarence deposited Michael onto his bed in the loft and disappeared without a trace.

About an hour later, the former spy awoke with knowledge of everything that had happened. He jumped out of bed and almost ran to the bathroom to check for his scars. Each and every single one was there, even his unofficial favorite: the one from Germany. The bruises on his torso were there and the pain of his broken ribs was there, as well. Almost everything was as it should be.

Michael grabbed the keys to the Charger and headed out into the rain without taking the time to grab a jacket. His wet shirt clung to his shoulders and neck as he got into the car and pulled out of the warehouse driveway. He sped, a tad bit recklessly, toward Fiona's apartment, only to find there was no parking because everyone wanted to be close to their car when it rained. He was forced to park a block away and walk. It was fine with him, though, because nothing could bring down his high from knowing there was something he could do.

He got inside the building and knocked on her door. No answer. He knocked louder. Still no answer. He began pounding on the door with increasing force until the door swung open beneath his fist to reveal a fairly pissed off Fiona Glenanne. She had a right to be pissed, and she had used that for the past three days. Michael had taken a job without telling her or Sam or Nate or Madeline or anybody and had taken an unnecessary beating. That was one thing, but one day that stupid training and lone-wolf tendency were going to get him killed, and that meant something to people for the first time in his life. He understood now. It didn't matter whether it had actually happened or if he'd dreamt it. He understood.

The rainwater fell off of him in rivulets as he stood there on her stoop of sorts soaking the welcome mat and grinning like a maniac. "Fi," he breathed. "I'm sorry I was an idiot." It wasn't everything he had wanted to say, but it was a start. She cocked an eyebrow at him and opened the door wide enough for him to just barely enter.

Michael went to sit down, but stopped mid-bend when Fiona sent him a glare that could have burned a whole in the wall. "If you want to sit down, you're drying off first," she said testily. He nodded and slipped off his shoes and socks before heading to the bathroom. "Here," she said, roughly pushing a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants into his hands.

"Did you steal these from me?" he asked, recognizing the hole in the hem that he was pretty sure he remembered her creating. She smirked and walked back to the living room, waiting there for him to finish drying of and getting dressed. Once he had finished changing into dry clothes and had left his sopping wet t-shirt and jeans hanging over her shower, he found his way back into her living room where she was sitting waiting for him.

"You were saying something about being an idiot?" she asked as he sat down.

He nodded. "Yeah, and it will probably happen again, but I get it now. I know why it bothers you. So, I promise to let you know if I'm taking a job in the future. Are we good?" he asked, hoping she would let him off the hook.

"Yeah," Fi breathed back. After a pause filled only with the sound of the rain outside, Fiona uncharacteristically wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "I was so worried about you."

Michael hugged back, ignoring the pain in his ribs for the moment and thinking about the warmth in his heart instead. A few moments later, however, he squirmed a little, trying to find a more comfortable position, only ending up in a more painful spot than before. Fi heard the resulting hiss of pain in her ear and pulled away, looking into his eyes.

"Cracked ribs," he answered her unasked question.

She pulled completely away and led him to the bedroom, wanting him to lie down and rest. "You go off by yourself and get beat up and expect me not to do anything about it?" she asked when he began protesting. Michael rolled his eyes at her before she climbed over his legs to lie down beside him.

"I really am sorry, Fi."

"I know, Michael. Now go to sleep so you can get better. I'm taking a new job and I need a sparring partner."

So, that was it. Please leave a review if you feel so inclined. And if you happen to be a fan of NCIS, hop on over to my profile. I have another poll there about a fic I'm writing and I want a little bit of input. Thanks a bunch and Happy Holidays!