For Maggie, in way of explaination. :)
...
Charlie: now and then (part one)
(now he is five)
Fiona stood at the window watching Sam and the children arrange something resembling a baseball game. The sides of her lips twitching up when Maddox gestured for his brother to fix the cap that was awkwardly hanging over his face. Charlie put his hand on top of his head, puzzled. Fiona's jaw tightened as John reached to do it for him, swallowing hard when Maddox swatted his arm away. The older boy used his own hat to demonstrate. Fi waited, watching her son for a second before he mimicked his brother. Fiona suppressed the smile that sprang to her lips before giving a resolute nod.
"Ready to go?" Michael asked cautiously as he came up behind her, rubbing his hands down her arms. She nodded again, turning to look up at him.
"It's going to be fine." He told her quickly. "Come on."
…...
(then he was an embryo)
The day that she found out she was pregnant with her third child Fiona Glenanne (Westen) McBride had promptly burst in a fit of uncharacteristic tears. Much to the dismay of her husband, but not as much to their closest friend.
"Get used to it." Sam huffed from his spot at the kitchen table. "The first couple months are pretty much a sob-fest." Michael looked vaguely nauseous.
He'd had enough of her surprise early pregnancy symptoms this morning when she'd started making breakfast before promptly ending up unconscious on the floor.
It was only when she was revived that she and Sam exchanged knowing glances, making Michael feel even more uneasy.
"Fi." He'd whispered. "Are you-?"
"No..." She'd shaken her head before moaning. His eyes rolled.
"You are." He told her before excusing himself muttering about the drugstore.
Now even with the proof in her hand she still refused to give in.
"I.." Fiona looked at the test again before chucking it across the kitchen towards the trash can. "I cannot be pregnant." She sniffed. "I'm over forty."
Michael started to respond before the frantic shake of Axe's head stopped him, he closed his mouth quickly.
"I.." She braced herself on the counter, the rolling wave of vertigo that had lead to her shocking discovery claimed her again. "Oh Jesus I'm going to pass out again."
Her husband startled, sliding over to her side and brushing her hair back from her face. Sam moved a chair behind her and she slowly eased into it.
Michael watched his best friend grab a glass and fill it with ice before making his way over to the liquor cabinet and moving bottles around.
"Sam is now really the time to break out the hard stuff?" He groaned.
"No Mike. Now is the time to break out the club soda." He announced, gripping the liter and quickly pouring a glass. He looked at Fiona. "Bed. Now."
She nodded her head in response before groaning and leaning into Michael's chest.
"I don't think I can-." She looked up at him. "Michael will you-?"
He nodded before lifting his wife into his arms and carrying her up the steps to their bedroom. He laid her on their mattress before making his way back to the door.
"Where are you going?" She snapped.
"I'll be right back." He assured her nearly bumping into Sam in his haste. "It's always like this?"
"With Claire morning sickness came before fainting. With Maddox the other way around." Sam flip flopped his hand in a wild gesture before shoving the club soda at his friend. "Little sips." He warned. "Just in case they come together this time." Axe turned to leave.
"Whoa where you going?" Michael looked pathetic.
"Look Buddy," Sam shook his head. "I took this bullet for you not once, but twice.. so." He pointed towards the steps. "You're on your own this time."
…...
(now he is five)
"I don't understand." The woman in front of them smiled a placating smile that made him want to roll his eyes.
Fiona McBride sat on the edge of the small chair, her hands gripped tightly around the straps of her purse. Michael looked at her from the corner of his eye before quickly looking away.
This was going to be bad. He considered reaching over the small divot between them and covering her white knuckle grasp with his own, but another glance at her told him it was probably not worth the risk.
"I think that given his problems Charlie is working a nice pace for this first semester." The young teacher smiled at them. Michael winced.
"And what problems are those exactly?" His wife's icy sing song voice made his eyes shut. The teacher looked between the two of them.
"His learning delays." She sounded like she was gently reminding them.
"So. Miss. Belle is it?" Fiona leaned forward, Michael sighed. "What you're telling me is that since my son requires more individualized attention in the classroom to achieve at the level of his peers that you feel that his being behind is working nicely?" She paused, a sharp eyebrow arching. "For whom exactly?"
"Mrs. McBride I assure you-."
"Miss. Belle." Fiona interrupted quickly. "I don't know about you, but my husband and I have very high expectations for Charlie." Fiona raised her head confidently on her neck and blinked at the teacher. "Expectations that are going to be difficult for him to reach if all of his educators are as overly eager to accept mediocrity as you seem to be."
"Fi." Michael interjected quickly, not surprised at all when she jerked away from the hand he had laid against her knee. "Miss Belle, Betty. May I call you Betty? What my wife is trying to say is that we would appreciate it if you treated Charlie the way you would any other student in your class."
The teacher blinked at them.
"Mr. McBride. You certainly realize that your son has challenges that may never allow him to-."
"When my son was born he couldn't breath on his own." Fiona snapped. "He had to be pushed and challenged then. Should we have taken pity on him and allowed him to carry oxygen around with him for the rest of his life?" She paused, the young woman looked at her like she was insane. "They told me he may never walk. I suppose I could have continued to carry him around but I decided against that. They told me he may never speak, but damn if he didn't want that juice enough that he finally did ask for it. Should I have just given it to him when he pointed at it? Is that what you would have done? Betty?"
Miss. Belle looked at Michael with a pained expression.
"Don't do that." Fiona sang. "Michael has long ago learned that it's a waist of his valuable time to be apologetic of my behavior."
Michael raised his eyes at the teacher in silent agreement.
"I understand my request may mean you have to actually teach my son, and I can imagine how hard that-."
"Fi." Her face slipped from it's confident facade for a second as he pried one of her hands from the purse strap and ran his thumb gently over it. She swallowed hard, shaking the weakness away. "We know how difficult it is, to watch Charlie struggle." He glanced at Fiona, squeezing her hand when he found the slightly broken look on her face. "But he comes from a long line of people who have manged to overcome being dealt difficult hands. We're just asking for you to give him the opportunity to overcome his."
She looked between them for a second before nodding silently.
"Thank you." Michael decided, quickly rising and pulling his wife from the room.
She followed silently until they reached the car. He turned her away from the door and lifted her chin to his face, she avoided his eyes. He waited her out, the corner of his lips curving upward slightly when her gaze drifted up to his. He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers.
She rested her temple against his chin for a second, slowing the rapid flutter of her heart. He kissed her forehead, running his fingers up and down her spine until she pulled away. He opened the car door for her closing it quickly.
"So." He exhaled, dropping into the driver's seat with a thud. "I say, since the kids are already at Sam and Mary's, we make a night of it."
She took a deep breath before turning towards him.
"And just what do you have in mind, exactly?"
"Port Soif?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Your offering to take me to the Tea Garden?" She grinned. "I must really look a mess."
"You look beautiful, Fi." It was the same serious and genuine voice he'd used for the past thirty years, but it still managed to make her chest flip. She reached her hand across the center console and slipped it into his. He lifted it to his lips and pressed the backs of her fingers against them. "Always beautiful."
…...
(then he was a fetus)
The first trimester seemed to stretch on forever as far as Michael was concerned, but it was somewhere around seventeen weeks that Fiona's ship seemed to write it's self. The early hellish and some times down right dangerous mood swings gave way to a peaceful serene Fiona that he found oddly more frightening.
She started working again just before the family came in for Jesse and Lucy's wedding. She was around twenty four weeks and the soft uncomplicated jobs that she would take let her come away smug and satisfied. This was what he'd remembered from Maddox's pregnancy, she'd somehow managed an easy going grace about her. She was quieter, more affectionate, more... turned on. This he could deal with.
So at twenty seven weeks he'd lulled himself into a comfortable haze of false confidence. When she suddenly suggested camping, out of the blue, he'd thought nothing of it.
"Why exactly are we going camping ?" Sam asked pointedly, as he lugged Maddox and his bag of toys to the rented camper that Michael was busily checking the tire pressure of.
"It's something she did with her brothers when she was younger." He shrugged. "Why not?"
"Well first of all, we aren't in the military anymore, so we don't have to sleep outdoors."
Michael raised his eyebrows and tapped the side of the tin camper, Sam made a face.
"Second." He continued loudly. "Camping really? With two kids?"
"It'll be good for them. Didn't you go camping when you were a kid?" Michael attempted to brush off the annoying feeling that Sam was onto something.
"You did?"
"Yeah." He shrugged, before making a face. "Not saying it was pleasant."
"I'm telling you Mike. No woman as pregnant as Fiona volunteers to go camping all the sudden." He pointed at his friend before looking back at house. "And she's been in the weapons shed for like.. thirty minutes." Sam raised his eyebrow before opening the door to the camper for Claire and following her inside.
He blinked after him for a second before Fiona and her black duffel bag came up behind him.
"Ready?" She asked brightly. He gave her a quick once over before moaning. Sam was absolutely right.
"This is a job." He stated flatly, she blinked again.
"What?" Fiona was always horrible at feigning ignorance were Michael was concerned.
"Fi." He stretched out the sound and the happy go lucky look fell off her face.
"Alright it's a little job." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together. He rolled his eyes.
"How bad is this job that you disguised it as camping?"
"Gun deal." She murmured.
"Fi! Why would you-?"
"He's a good guy, Michael! Someone I've worked with in the past. He just needs a few things." She patted the bag.
"Then why are we meeting him in the middle of the woods?"
"He's in a bit of a bind." She grimaced cartoonishly. "Getting a little paranoid if you ask me."
"I'm doing the deal." He huffed.
"Right cause the last time you did a deal.. What happened again? Oh yeah You got kidnapped."
"Fi!" He pointed at her. "Stop bringing that up."
"Yeah cause it was like eight months ago and I should be over it by now?" She tossed the passenge3r side door to the camper open and climbed inside.
"It was almost nine months ago!" He grumbled before going around to the drivers side door.
…...
(now he is seven)
"How's reading going?" The doctor asked, looking from Charlie to Fiona.
"I like reading." Charlie reported dutifully, the physician smiled at him.
"School work isn't the problem." His mother sighed. "It's running, kicking a ball.." Firing a sniper rifle. She added that part silently. "Those types of things."
The woman smiled kindly before looking back a the boy.
"Charlie can you take your glasses off?" Her request was gentle, Fiona swallowed hard as her son removed his black rims. She watched his eyes twitch. "Depth perception is one of the major challenges with nystagmus. He just needs to find the right balance. Literally." She smiled, Fiona wanted to smile back. "Charlie? Have you been working to find your best null?"
Fi watched her youngest child nod before adjusting his neck at an odd angle. His eyes stilled, blinking into focus and landing squarely on her face. She forced her lips into a grin.
"Hi Mommy."
"Hi Charlie." She repeated. The woman slid her son's glasses back on his face.
"We can try prisms." She decided. "To help equalize the null."
Fiona nodded, her eyes never leaving her son's bright blue gaze.
…...
(then he was a fetus)
"Sam and I should go." Michael muttered, watching his daughter toss sticks into the fire.
"No. I told you Michael he's paranoid. I have to be there. Sam and I will go." Fiona rolled her eyes. "I'm fine."
"No your seven months pregnant and the last time I checked that's too pregnant for a gun buy." He murmured.
"What's the cut off Michael? I'm like seven months by a day. Would it have been alright yesterday?" She teased.
"Well I don't know Fiona. Should have asked me yesterday." He smirked.
"What do you expect me to do for the next three months Michael?" She stared at him indignantly.
"I don't know.. take it a little easy?" He shook his head.
"Can we do this later?" Sam huffed. "An overly paranoid guys gonna be looking for his guns."
"Vote." Fiona said quickly. Claire looked up from the campfire with a fearful look on her face.
"I'm not voting." Claire announced shaking her head back and forth. "No way."
"Fine." Fiona announced. "No possibility of a tie. Ready? Hands up if I'm going."
Michael glared at Sam as his hand slowly rose into the air with a wince.
"She's the contact Mike." Axe muttered feebly. Fi looked at him triumphantly.
"Hands up if I'm going." Michael said solemnly. Fiona huffed as three hands went up in front of her.
"McBride!"
"Fair is fair." She may have been two months shy of eleven, but Claire McBride had learned young that sometimes her mother needed to be knocked down a few pegs.
"Let's go." Michael grinned, picking up the duffel bag and following his wife to the drop site.
…...
(now he is ten)
"Try again." Michael said softly.
"I can't do it." His son pouted, his eyes slipping from side to side, a sure sign he was stressed.
"Yes you can. It just takes time." He moved from his spot across from him so that they were side by side. "Watch me."
"I want my other shoes." The boy whined.
"Charlie you can do this. Watch me." Michael slowly looped his lace and tied the shoe. His son started on his own before huffing as the knot slipped undone. He turned his face to his father. Michael bit his lip reaching out quickly and tying the sneaker. "Don't tell your Mom." He told him. "Get you backpack."
Michael followed him with his gaze, his eyes falling on Maddox.
"Don't." The former spy warned his older son. "We didn't have enough time." Maddox continued to stare. "I don't know why your mother insists that he have shoes with laces anyway."
"It's dress code." The older boy explained.
"They could make an exception." Michael snorted.
"Dad."
"Mads-."
"The shoe will come untied today." He told him. "And you won't be there to tie it." McBride (Westen) stared at his middle child. "And he's going to have to ask a teacher, and someone will call him a wimp. Or a baby or a wuss."
"They shouldn't-."
"You're not always going to be there to explain he needs a special shoe exception, or to tie his laces." Maddox shrugged. "That's all I'm saying." He pulled his backpack onto his shoulder and turned towards the door. "Come on Charlie, we're gonna be late for school."
…...
(then he was a fetus)
It had been a long time since Michael had been on a buy, but he was pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be this much gunfire. Fiona had stopped short before turning to him with wild frantic eyes.
"Run." Was all he could say, fumbling for the Sig he had stuck in his waistband automatically like he still did it every day. Fiona grabbed at a nearby tree branch with one hand and headed to higher ground, grasping at the arm he'd been using to shoo her away from the fire fight.
He shrugged her off, moving protectively in front of her.
"Damn it, Fiona go!" He shouted backward. Her chest heaved at the familiarity of the whole situation. Nine months may have made it a distant fading memory to him, but she still woke up at night reaching across the mattress to make sure he was still there.
He took a couple steps back as if he was trying to assure her he was coming. Fiona turned too quickly, loosing her balance and tumbling down the small embankment behind them with a yelp. Michael jumped down to her grasping her upper arm with his free hand and yanking her back up. She grunted in pain before willing her feet to go forward a few more yards until he tucked his weapon away and hurried her along in his embrace.
Once they were far enough away he pushed her back between the trees.
"Are you alright?" He yelled in irritation, his hands skimming over her shoulders. She nodded mutely. "Fi?"
"I'm banged up but I'm fine." She huffed in irritation. He let his eyes close.
"I knew this was going to go bad." He spit the words like profanity.
"Guys!" Sam's frantic call silenced any reply she hand to offer.
"We're alright." Michael answered, grasping Fiona's forearm and tugging her reluctant body away.
"What the hell?" Axe muttered, his nine mil outstretched and pointing around the quiet woods.
"Apparently Fi's friend wasn't as paranoid as we thought." He muttered. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"What and drive into that?" He pointed in the direction of their battle. "There's only one way out of here Mike. Through that." He nodded his head. "We're better off here."
"Perfect." He looked at Sam. "Did you leave the kids alone?"
"No of course not. There was a family camping in the next site. A woman and her sister and her two kids. I left them there when I heard the gun shots." Michael ran his hand over his face before nodding as the camp site came into view. "You okay?" He asked Fiona who was oddly silent. She nodded at him absently before staggering up the steps of the camper and slamming the door behind her.
Michael rubbed his face again before folding his hands behind his head and pacing a few steps.
"This is ridiculous." He muttered to himself. "She's insane."
"Cut her some slack it was a misunderstanding." Sam soothed. "You think she doesn't feel guilty enough?"
Michael looked back towards the camper before taking a deep breath and trying to calm down.
"You're right Sam."
"Of course I am." Sam mumbled. "I'm gonna go check on the kids."
"The sister hot and single?" His Buddy figured.
"No." Axe shook his head before starting to nod. "The mom is. Oh and hey Mike she's a nurse. You want me to bring her over, just to say hi? Maybe give Fi a once over?"
Michael nodded before grasping Sam's arm.
"Give her a few minutes to calm down first?"
"Sure thing, Brother." He watched his friend pull out his hand gun and give it a long look. "You remember how to work that thing right?"
"Shut up Sam." The former spy grumbled.
…...
(now he is ten)
He found Charlie in his favorite after school location, the game room.
"Hey." Maddox sat down on the floor next to his brother.
"Claire's coming tonight." The youngest McBride (Westen) child informed him.
"I think she's here." Maddox sighed.
"Is the guy with her?"
"Not yet." The older brother raised and eyebrow. "Your shoes untied."
He watched his brother's face squint as he looked at his foot.
"No it's not." The boy protested. Maddox smiled, reaching forward and tugging at the knot.
"Is now." He teased, laughing at the dirty look he received. "Come on. You can do it. You need the practice."
"Fine." Charlie huffed, looping the lace into a hoop before giving his brother a worried glance.
"Just relax wrap it around the bottom." He watched his brother's head tilt into his best focusing position and carefully tie the shoe. "See. Told you." He nudged him with his shoulder before reaching over and untying the other foot. "Your shoes untied." He sang. Charlie McBride (Westen) started to laugh.
…...
(then he is a fetus)
"Fi?" Michael opened the door slowly, looking at her curled onto the bed. "Hey, you okay?"
"A little too much excitement for the baby." She whispered absently.
"What?" He tried to hide the alarm in his voice.
"It's nothing. Braxton Hicks. I had them all the time with Claire." She whispered. "They'll stop when I calm down." He nodded back at her, relaxing the tightness in his shoulders.
"You want water? That helps right?" She smiled at him, slowly pushing her body up from the bed as he grabbed a bottle and unscrewed the cap. "Here."
"I'm sorry Michael." She whispered before sipping at the drink.
"Shh." He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "It's alright. You didn't know. I should have been fine."
She winced and he laid his palm against her stomach. "You sure you're alright?"
"Yeah, my head's just spinning a little." She closed her eyes at how ridiculous the whole thing was. He felt the pull of her abdomen before her posture stiffened, glancing down at her body.
"I thought you said you didn't hurt yourself." It was almost a sigh, he pulled his hand back from her middle and ran it up her leg.
"I didn't."
"You obviously did." He snorted, peeling off her legging shorts and running his hand along her thigh. "All this bloods coming from somewhere." He held his fingers up for her to see. She blinked at him in confusion before inhaling sharply as her back arched up violently.
"Michael." She hissed, her face contorting in pain. He reached his free hand back to her waist, rubbing along the firm spasm there before looking back at his bloody hand, realizing just where all that blood was coming from.
"I need Sam." He breathed, pulling up from the bed.
"No." She cried, grasping a his wrist.
"His new friend is a nurse." He shook his head before sliding his clean hand against her cheek and untangling himself from her. "I'll be right back."
He was out the door before she could protest again. Not that she could have mustered much when the next wave of contractions knocked the wind out of her. She curled into a ball on the bed, gritting her teeth and clawing a the comforter.
…...
She was still writhing when the door burst back open.
"Fi." Michael called quickly his hands falling lightly against her.
"Something's really wrong." She whimpered, curling closer to his body.
"You fell?" The woman wasted no time with introductions, rolling Fiona carefully onto her back and running her palms over her abdomen. Fiona cried out, her body tensing and arching.
"She fell about two feet." Michael told her, his hands feverishly stroking his wife's hair as her hand clamped like a vice around his arm. "She got right back up."
"Is this tender?" Sam's new friend, Nurse Mary asked quickly.
"I don't know." Fiona growled, before mashing her teeth together. "It hurts."
"Has she ever been hypertensive before?"
Sam nodded quickly.
"With Claire." He supplied. Mary nodded grimly.
"Twenty seven weeks?" She asked again. Michael nodded this time before wincing at Fiona's yell.
"She's in preterm labor?" Axe guessed.
"I think she's abrupted." Mary shook her head quickly. "The placenta was bruised, it separated from the uterine wall."
"That doesn't sound good." Sam murmured.
"It's not." She agreed. "We have to get her to a hospital."
"Michael." Fiona moaned, winding her hand in his shirt. "Michael I can't-."
"The abruption causes tetanic contractions." Mary clarified. "They're stronger more frequent. We need to go. Now." Sam nodded, looking up towards the drivers seat. "I'm going to call my sister and tell her to meet us here and follow us out. Try and keep her calm."
Michael looked at his wife helplessly before laying down beside her on the bed. She pressed back into him, her body tense and ridged.
"Breath." He told her easily. "Just like before."
"It isn't like before." She sobbed.
"I know." He pressed his face into her hair. "I know. Just hold on."
…...