A/N: I do not own Burn Notice, which is lucky because this season is going to kill me.

This is just a short fic, based on S07E02, lots of spoilers - you've been warned.

I am quite taken with the way this season had started, to the point that it made me write for it. This is just to try and take things off my mind. Please tell me what you think.

She's lying to him. He knows she is. He knows her well enough to know when she makes a show just for him.

This is not his Fiona. His Fiona is angry, and explosive, and when she sees him for the first time in nine months, after he almost got her killed, again, he expects her to put a gun to his head, or a C4 to his car, or tell the CIA operatives that roam around them, pretending not to look, exactly what she thinks about them.

Only she doesn't.

She fucking doesn't.

She stands a few yards from him, and he feels like he never came back from the Dominican Republic, because she's still miles away.

She speaks softly, and she doesn't ask a single question, and when she comes over, to plant a soft cold kiss on his almost burning skin, it's the cruelest thing she could do to him.

()()()

So you see? He knows she's lying to him. He knows she is.

Because people don't change like that after almost twenty years. People don't stop loving each other after making all these sacrifices time after time after time after... She got hurt when he left, again. He broke her heart to pieces, again. He disappointed her for the umpteenth time after he promised, he will do what's right and save what they had, and put her first, and... But she knows him. If anyone in the world understands him and the amount of pressure he's facing it's her, and if anyone in the world knows that he only tries to do what he can to protect his loved ones it's her, and if anyone in the world knows that he loves her, despite his total incapability to show it it's fucking Fiona Glennane.

Only she did change.

She fucking did.

She'd changed when she stood there in that wretched hanger, mortified by his most recent betrayal, looking at him with big green bloodshot eyes.

She turned around, and walked out after that, and she never looked back. Sam and Jesse and his mom had to practically hold him from running after her.

()()()

Only he knows she's lying to him. He knows it.

He sits on his bed, back in that cockroaches infested Dominican motel, drowning in self loathing. She's lying because she wasn't even surprised to see him. Not really. He could see it in her eyes, when he appeared suddenly, trying to save her life. She looked at him casually like it was the most natural thing in the world, to see your ex-boyfriend marching in after nine months, leading a cavalry of CIA operatives to save you when you're someone else's girlfriend. She's lying because when someone came looking for him, asking questions and jeopardizing his life, she stepped right back in. She had his back, and she still has his friends, and he hopes she still has his family too, although he was too scared to ask anything of consequence, when he saw his mother earlier.

It's just that... She didn't smile. And she didn't thank him. And she looked like she wished he didn't even come. And when he stood there, yearning to... to touch her. She made god damn sure he'd see who would be doing the touching from now on.

He looks at the morning breaking in the window, thinking about fucking Miami.

She didn't forget about him. She's still tied up in his web.

And she didn't let him go. Not yet. And he hopes Sam and Jesse will make sure she never will.

And she can't lie to him. Not entirely... Not after so many years.

()()()

He's lying to himself now. He knows he is.