This is the first in what I hope to make a short series of stories. It takes place right at the end of Season 7, so everything here is speculation. This is just what I suspect might happen. I hope you don't hate me too much after getting through Chapter 1!

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

The Rise of Sam Axe

By WritePassion

After all the running and fighting off one enemy after another, it felt good to relax. The warmth of the sun seeping into Sam's skin was therapeutic. He was lying on the beach with Elsa by his side, enjoying a mojito along with her company, hearing the ocean waves crashing against the packed sand, smelling the thick salty air. Ahh, it was pure heaven when she held his hand. He squeezed back, but his response felt weak.

"Come on, stay with us!" Someone squeezed his hand and pressed on his shoulder.

Who was that? Sam didn't recognize the voice. A chill ran through him. He turned his head and looked, but Elsa was gone. The beach had been replaced by a frozen lake and piles of snow. Large flakes fell from the sky and landed on his face, sharing their coldness for a brief time until his warmth defeated them and they melted. The icy air bit into his exposed skin and wrapped around him like a blanket of death. That was it. He was dying. Far from Miami, from Elsa. Would she ever know, or continue to wait in vain for him?

"Mr. Axe! Mr. Axe!" Someone was yelling his name, and he wanted to answer them, but he couldn't. Coldness leached through the parka shielding his back. It was rated for below zero temperatures, but it wasn't doing its job to keep him warm.

"Mr. Axe. Mr. Axe, are you still with us?"

He didn't recognize the voices yelling at him. The urgency in the tone made him open his eyes just a slit and squint. A male face hovered over him, the blonde hair cropped close to his head. Sam had an inkling of who he might be. Yes, he was one of Riley's men. Oh great, now he was in trouble.

"He's coming around," the man announced. He got on a radio and barked, "Where's that ambulance? We need it now!"

"It's at the gate, coming your way," a disembodied voice responded around the static.

"Copy." The agent barked. "Hey, you shouldn't be upright. Stay down, Mr. Axe!"

Sam heard a disembodied groan that he didn't think could have come from him. His chest hurt too much to breathe, much less make noises. He'd been shot; several times, in fact. His hand rested on his abdomen, the wetness of his own blood oozing between his fingers, chilling his digits. He should have been concerned, but all he could think was that underneath the parka one of his favorite shirts was ruined. It was better than listening to the people around him, the tension in their voices making him realize that he was hanging by a thread. They wanted him alive and would probably do anything to make that happen.

A tiny voice inside spoke to him in a mocking tone. Look on the bright side, Sam. You may wind up in prison, but at least you'll be the recipient of the best medical care available to get you there.

If he could have, he would have sighed in resignation. Riley won, and all the patching up these people around him might do would be for nothing. No matter how he looked at it, Sam was a dead man.

"Hey, Sam, come on, don't do that. Don't close your eyes. Hang in there. Help is coming."

"Je… Jesse?" Sam opened his eyes again and looked up toward the sky. He saw Jesse's bald head in silhouette, and he managed a small smile. "You… you're okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine. You're gonna be fine too, Sam. You just have to hang on. The ambulance is coming." A siren shrieked in the background and stopped, followed by scurrying feet.

"Where...where's Mike? Fi?" He could barely get out the words, and they took the last of his breath.

"Hey, Mr. Axe. No! Help is here, just stay with us!"

Sam drifted in and out of consciousness as the paramedics worked on him. A needle in his arm, he barely felt it with the fire in his gut taking center stage. His sight doubled and turned fuzzy as he became lightheaded. There was no escape from the sensation as he was already prone.

"He's going into shock. Let's get him out of here now."

He felt himself floating, but it wasn't his soul going heavenward; the hands of several men lifted him and deposited him onto a gurney. Riley's man gazed at him with an apology in his eyes. The guy thought it never should have come to this, yet Sam knew it was inevitable. Agent Olivia Riley was a pit bull and she wouldn't stop until Westen and his crew were dead. The gurney rolled, and Sam's stomach lurched.

Before he closed his eyes, he turned his head toward the airplane hangar. He saw two figures lying on the concrete near the airplane that was meant to be the ticket to freedom, their lifeblood drained and freezing the surface. Closer to where Sam had been, another body lay. Riley was dead. Sam knew it without a doubt because he was the one who shot her in the head at close range after she shot Mike. Someone else had taken Fiona down. It was like a freakin' Mexican standoff, and Sam couldn't comprehend how he and Jesse managed to survive.

At the moment, he was too tired and worn out to contemplate anything. He just wanted to rest, to sleep and dream of happier times, and maybe when he woke up he would find that Mike and Fi were alive and well, and this had all been some terrible nightmare.

"BP is dropping. We're losing him. Get this bus moving!"

The next time he became aware of feeling anything, it was quite obvious that his wish for an end went unheeded. If anything, the pain had worsened. His left thigh throbbed where he'd been hit. His midsection tortured his nerves and he wished he could cut himself off from it. He tried moving, writhing away, but it only increased his discomfort.

Fabric rubbed against fabric and he heard soft tapping on the tile floor. He sensed a presence nearby, and warm hands touched his arm and shoulder. "Sam? Sammy, honey, don't move. The doctors are trying to help you. Don't resist."

Elsa? He tried to speak her name, but he couldn't. Something blocked his throat. A tube. Another one snaked down his nose, and he gagged on them. He fought even harder, but his current full-strength was nothing like when he was healthy.

"Mr. Axe, please, stop that." Someone held his arms down and he struggled against the grip.

Mr. Axe? Why would Elsa address me that way? He opened his eyes, but even with his blurred vision he saw the truth. The woman who spoke was a nurse's aide, not Elsa. He wanted to speak his beloved's name, to ask this person to find her and bring her to his side. With the tube down his throat it was impossible, and at the moment, he turned his focus onto trying to breathe on his own. The ventilator prevented that from happening.

Hands touched him and held him down. "Mr. Axe, calm down. Just let the ventilator breathe for you."

The urge to resist poured out of Sam and he was spent. He fell back into the sanctuary of a world between wakefulness and unconscious and heard the words of those around him.

"I've administered another round of the sedative."

"Good. We have to keep him stationary until his lungs can work on their own." The speaker sighed. "No doubt about it, he's a fighter. I sure don't envy the agency and whoever has to deal with him when he's well." Footsteps faded away, and Sam was alone.

He had to figure out where he was and if he was in danger. Was he in even greater trouble for killing Riley? God only knew what was in store for him when he regained his health. Listening to those people talk, he knew it wasn't good.

He was drifting again, savoring the scent of Elsa's perfume from the last time he saw her and the touch of her hand on his arm. Now and then he imagined that she spoke to him, urging him to come back to her. Didn't she know that he was working on it? If the medical staff didn't keep him down with such heavy-duty drugs, he would be awake now, trying to get up and around and back to normal. But the question was, would normal ever be close to what he once knew, and would it be worth it?

Time stood still for Sam while the outside world continued moving forward for almost everyone. Madeline Westen stood on the cemetery lawn that had been freshly mowed that morning, the blades snapped off and sucked away to a mulch pile somewhere. Her sons' lives had been taken away in just as an abrupt manner. First Nate, gunned down by a cold-hearted sniper whose target was Anson Fullerton. He didn't care that his action caused collateral damage and broke a mother's heart. Then Michael and his friends, on the run from the CIA, ran out of room to flee and were mowed down like the blades of grass.

Madeline stared through tears blurring her vision. The new granite stone sparkled in the sunlight, so shiny and solid while inside Madeline was falling apart. At the base on one side was Nate's name with the day he was born and the day he died. When it was her time, she would lay next to him. On the side where Madeline stood, Michael and Fiona's names were carved over their final places of rest.

"Michael," she began, but she couldn't translate her thoughts into words. She swallowed and tried again. "I love you, honey. You too, Fiona. But... did it really have to end this way? Why couldn't you have turned yourselves in? At least you'd be alive and we could work something out, to find a way to clear your names." She sniffled and blew her nose into a tissue. "Now I'm alone, and I have nobody. Sam is... I don't know where he is. The CIA won't tell me anything."

"I feel so lost, and angry too. This didn't have to happen!" She shouted and subjected the grass to her frustration, stomping her foot once and grinding her half smoked cigarette into the dirt underneath the blanket of green. "Why didn't you just let things be when you were burned, Michael? You were helping people! Now who are you helping? No one!" Dropping to her knees over where he lay, she pounded the ground with her fists, wishing it was his chest, trying to knock some sense into him. But it was too late. Too late for second chances.

Unable to resist anymore, Madeline crumbled and sat on the grass, sobbing out her heart. She fell to her side and grasped thick handfuls of the grass and pulled. "How could you do this to me, Michael? After I sacrificed for you, helped you get away from your father, and now you leave me for good!"

Madeline didn't know how long she'd lain there, but she was spent and exhausted from the effort. She wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again. Then she wouldn't have to deal with the pain. Out of nowhere, a rough, worn, but warm hand lit upon her arm in a gentle, soothing caress, and Madeline's eyes flew open, her body stiff and ready to fend off whoever it was that dared to touch her.

"Maddie?"

She gaped and sat up, leaning on one hand, blinking against the glare from the sun. When she found her voice, she whispered, "Virgil? Is it... is it really you?"

He gave her a soft, mournful smile. "Yes, sweet darlin', it's me."

She wanted to ask how he found her, but it didn't matter. Maybe she wasn't as alone as she thought, which brought some comfort. But what's done is done, and nothing could bring her sons back and the beautiful, wonderful woman who she hoped would some day become her daughter-in-law. "Virgil, everything is... it's like hell on earth." She broke down, and if it weren't for Virgil, Madeline was sure she would die of sorrow right there.

She heard him make a small grunt as he dropped to the grass and pulled her close. He tucked her into his embrace and his lap, and he rocked her with gentle movements. Her hands clung to his shirt and she wet it with her tears. His own fell and landed in her hair. No words were necessary. Only tears could wash away the pain, at least for a little while.

Maddie was tired. Her cheeks felt stiff from the mix of saltwater and makeup that dried in streaks. She glanced up at Virgil and saw the trails of his tears on his sunburned face, and she lifted a hand to his cheek, swiping at them with her thumb. For him she had a weak smile.

"Oh, Madeline, I'm sorry I wasn't here. I wish I'd known what was happening, because I could have helped Michael, Fiona, Sam and Jesse get out of the country and find a safe place to hole up." His breath rattled as light blue eyes riveted on hers. "I feel sort of responsible."

"Virgil, how could you? You didn't know!"

"I should have kept in better touch with you, sweetheart. I love you, but I stayed away because Michael asked me to." He sniffled. "I respected your son and his wishes because I knew he loved you enough to try to protect you from me. I should have loved you more and said to hell with him and stuck around."

"He was being ridiculous!" Her bottom lip protruded almost like a child's.

"I know, darlin'. But I was bidin' my time, waiting to come back and prove myself to him, that I wasn't as bad as he thought." He grinned, the gesture tinged with sadness. "I heard about what happened, and I finished up some business and came back here right away."

"For how long?" Her brow furrowed. She was afraid he would leave again.

"For as long as you want me around, Madeline." He caressed her cheek and moved closer, his lips meeting hers. He kissed her, and her lips responded with desperation and the bittersweet joy of lost love found. "My, my, I missed that more than my mama's sweet potato pie!" He took her hands and helped her up from the ground, and the two walked to the car with arms around each other, stealing kisses all the way.

"Where's your truck, Virgil?" She glanced around. Her car was the only vehicle in sight.

"I took a cab here. I wasn't sure you'd be in a state of mind to drive." He gave her a smile. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Maddie replied with a smile of her own. "It'll take time, but I will get past this, that is, if I can count on you to stay." She looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

Like sunshine splitting the clouds, a smile lit up Virgil's face. "I told you, I'm here for the long haul. I went and sold everything I had in the Bahamas, so I'm back for good."

Madeline closed her eyes and let out a deep cleansing breath. "Thank you, Virgil. You're my lifeline, and I am so grateful for you."