Disclaimer: Burn Notice and its characters belong to Matt Nix and USA Network

Half an hour later, Michael came out, dragging the body of a large man behind him. He looked like he weighed more than Sam had before he had lost weight. Michael opened my door and cut the cable tie from my wrist.

"Help me get him into the back seat, Fi?" He panted.

I made a show of annoyance, blowing hair out of my face with my sigh and dragged myself from the car. Michael pushed the passenger seat forward, opening a way into the back. Using some of the cable ties, I fastened the thug's feet together and hooked his meaty hands to the seatbelt hook in the ceiling. Fixing the passenger seat, I sank back down.

"Don't even think about it." I warned when Michael fingered the cable ties. "Don't worry, at the next house I'll stay with this guy."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that." Michael grabbed my wrist and fastened it back to the door.

"Can't I at least break a rib or two?" I whined as Michael pulled away from the curb. "You know, a rib for a rib?"

"He's the one who broke your ribs?" Michael got a strange look on his face.

"Yes." I wiggled my trapped hand.

In the half hour that Michael had been inside the first house, I had managed to work the part of the door my wrist was strapped to loose. It didn't move much, but I was sure given another ten or fifteen minutes to play with it, I'd be able to get free. Michael, however, had noticed. When we got to the next house, he grabbed my free wrist and strapped it to the steering wheel.

"Sorry, but I don't trust you to play nice with our guest."

"What if a neighbour comes by and sees how you've tied me up?"

"At four in the morning?" Michael kissed my cheek and shoved the driver's side door shut.

I glared at his back as he ran up the steps, and the moment he disappeared inside, began to work on the door again. It was harder, with my other hand strapped halfway across the car, but it felt like it was getting looser. Finally, the piece came free, and I turned to contemplate how I was going to get my other hand free.

There was a groan from the back seat. Twisting, I reached over the seat back and slammed the piece of plastic tied to my wrist against the thug's head. The groaning stopped.

"Fi." Michael's voice called through the open window.

I turned and bit down on my lip when pain shot through my side. Michael sighed, and wrestled the other thug into the trunk, his wrists and ankles neatly bound together. Once he was secured, Michael opened my door and crouched next to me. His hand lightly touched my side. When I winced, he pulled my shirt up, peering at my bandages in the dim light cast by a street lamp at the next house down.

"I think you might have ripped out a few stitches." He said slowly.

"Well, that guy was groaning. I didn't want him waking up."

Michael cut my wrist free from the piece of the door and shoved it next to his 9mil in the glove compartment. He crossed to the other side of the car by jumped over the hood and cut my other wrist away from the steering wheel. Reving the engine, Michael peeled away from the curb, speed-dialing Sam on his headset.

"Sam, we got them. We're headed towards the storage unit now. How are things on your end?" Michael clentched his fist tigheter on the wheel. "Right. See you in a few. Get the other two chairs prepaired."

"Sam's already there?" I pressed my palm against my side.

"Yes. He only had one package to collect. Fi, I-"

"Don't apologize." I cut him off and inspected my fingers for blood. "You were just being an overprotective idiot."

"And you got hurt."

I shrugged and pressed my hand back against my side. Michael grabbed my free hand and wove his fingers through mine. He squeezed it gently and let go to work the gear shift. Now in third gear, Michael took my hand again, eyes glued to the road in front of him.

"Don't blame yourself, Michael. I was bound to rip out my stitches at some point." My side was beinging to feel a bit warm and sticky under my fingers.

"On day two?"

"If you had let me seduce you last night, I probably would have ripped them out then." I shrugged. "I'll just have to be more careful next time."

"You won't be saying that when I fix your stitches." Michael pulled off of the causeway and took a narrow street through one of Miami's more decrepit warehouse sections.

I got out of the car the moment he stopped in front of a large green storage container. Sam was waiting outside, and helped Michael to pull the guy out of the trunk. They dragged him inside, and no more than five minutes later came back to wrestle the other thug from Michael's car. This time, I followed them inside and watched in the dim glow of Sam's headlights as they strapped him to a chair.

Michael led me back out of the storage unit, and pulled my hand away from my side.

"Mikey, what did you let Fi do, roundhouse one of the guys or something?" Sam asked, looking over Michael's shoulder at my side.

"She whacked one of them on the head when he started to wake up." Michael replied, not bothering to even look at Sam. "Sam, I have to get Fi back to the loft so I can fix this. Are you okay babysitting them for a little while?"

"Will you bring food with you? I don't have much left in my cooler."

"Yes. Food and beer." Michael met Sam's eyes. "Thanks, Sam."

"No problem. Take good care of her, Mikey."

I stuck my tongue out at Sam and got back into the car. Michael turned the engine back on and took off, the Charger's wheels spitting gravel in our wake. The ride back to the loft seemed to take much longer than I would have expected from that part of town, even though I knew Michael was breaking almost every driving law that there was. Blood loss. It had been years since blood loss had made me disoriented. Between what I had lost earlier, and what was now oozing out of my side, there was probably enough to make me anemic. But not that dizzy – no, that was blood loss and not having eaten much in the previous twenty-four hours.

Michael would tell me that I needed to take better care of myself.