A/N:
DODGING RAINDROPS
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Chapter Thirty Seven
Sam Axe sat down in one of the wooden chairs outside on the veranda, taking a few minutes to unwind. It had been a busy couple of hours for the ex-SEAL since Billy Clemens had announced that their safe haven might not be as safe as they all thought; hours that he had spent mostly on the phone and radio, as he did his best to make sure his best friend continued to get the rest he needed to recover from his time in the hands of a Russian interrogation specialist.
Staring up at the dark, star scattered sky, Sam tilted his head back and breathed in the sweet aroma of the night blooming jasmine growing up the thick wooden supports. He would have to head back inside soon and check on how Michael was doing. Finding his friend laid out on the floor had been one hell of a shock and listening to him babble about Larry Sizemore running an operation in Cuba had nearly stopped his heart. Who woulda thought Michael Westen having a hallucination was good news? He sighed heavily, unless of course the alternative was Dead Larry turning up to add his own brand of crazy to the mix.
"Your ears recovered yet from Jojo cussing you out?"
Sam was jerked from his musings as Trini Delaney strolled over to join him. As she sat down facing him over the large wooden table, she placed two shot glasses on the top along with a full bottle of Tequila.
"I think Fiona is gonna get the worst of it." Sam watched as she filled the glasses and handed him one. "Though, come to think about it, he's stuck with her. So they're probably about even." He dipped his head then and offered her a small smile of apology as he remembered Jojo's reaction to the news his family hideaway might have been compromised. "We didn't mean to bring this trouble to your door. We thought -"
"Don't worry about it. De nada," she dismissed his worries. "We'll get plenty of notice if somebody comes asking questions." She nodded to the perimeter wall where it was possible to make out the silhouette of a man on guard duty. "It's one of the beauties of this place; there's only one road to watch and the sea around here is bounded by reefs and rocks... Salud." She raised her glass.
"Salud," Sam replied and, after a quick clink of glasses, they both downed their drinks in one swallow. "I don't think we'll be dealing with a full on assault team, at least not yet." Sam grinned, as he leaned forward to refill both glasses. "I mean, these guys who are coming after us are working fast, but all they've got is Mike Finley, the doc's name and the location of her clinic and as nobody's been around askin' questions, I think we're okay."
"And by tomorrow morning the word will have spread throughout Santiago de Cuba that Fiona Glenanne is looking for transport to Brazil and the name of an underground doctor." Trini took another long gulp of tequila, emptying her second glassful without any sign of discomfort. "You all make it sound so simple."
"Hopefully it will be. If the bad guys turn up at the clinic, Pilar is gonna tell 'em we came in with Mikey in a pretty bad way, but then we left without waiting to get the results of the tests she ran. Meanwhile, Fiona and your husband are going to be selling the lie by Fi showing her face around Santiago. That should be enough to draw all the baddies away and give us some breathing space... See, easy peasy." Sam finished his beverage in one go.
"Ooh, don't you try that wid me, Sam Axe," Trini chuckled. "Easy peasy, my ass... If it's so easy, why do you wan' my boy an' his friends watchin' the harbor? An' why is Pilar comin' out here early tomorrow morning?" She poured their third measure of tequila.
Sam swallowed and stared into his hostess's dark brown eyes. He had forgotten for a moment she was the wife of a major gunrunner and not one of their easily fooled clients. "Okay, maybe not easy, but the lady doc is comin' out to give Mikey a quick look see, jus' to see how he's doin' now that he's getting back on his feet. As for havin' somebody watch the harbour, it's just a precaution you know, like the guys on the walls. Be prepared is the Navy SEAL motto."
"I'm pretty sure it's the Boy Scouts' motto, Sam, but I get what you mean." She pushed his replenished glass so it was in front of him. "You'd best get that down you... I've got a couple of jobs for you tomorrow morning... Jojo's men are all gonna be busy an' I have a safe house - well, more of a bolt hole- that needs cleaning out in case we need it."
()()
Michael's eyes moved rapidly under tightly closed lids and his lips parted silently, forming words as he slipped deeper and deeper into the dreamscape waiting for him. In his mind's eye, he stood outside on the pavement of a busy Miami street, the early morning sun shining brightly in the clear blue sky above him and hordes of tourists brushed by on their way to breakfast or in search of a prime spot on the beach.
A pretty girl on roller blades sailed past him, turning to flash him a bright smile and call out a shy greeting. But Michael only had eyes for one woman whose bright smile and tousled auburn hair he had already glimpsed in the crowd. Only she wasn't alone and his dream was becoming more of a nightmare...
"Michael, I want you to meet my brilliant, adorable paramedic boyfriend Campbell."
There was a sinking feeling in his gut and a sharp pain in his chest which began at the word "boyfriend."
"I just want to know if this going anywhere, Michael." In another memory, she had looked so sad and small, standing there in the darkened loft, removing her bracelets, asking if there was more to their relationship than the occasional reconnection.
Then he was back to being forced to watch her fawn over Mr. Bland and uninteresting.
"You didn't wake us... We were already up."
He thought he hid his chagrin, but in reality it was like a knife twisting inside him.
"What do you think of him?"
It was his own fault he had driven her into the arms of this perfectly normal man. There was no room in his life for complications and Fiona Glenanne was the most complicated woman he had ever met.
His mind dredged up another image. They were back in the loft, at the work bench.
"You left, Michael, you had a choice to make and you made it. I always thought, maybe, when it came down to it - but you didn't." He'd chosen to leave her again... so she had left him for...
Campbell, what sort of name was that, anyway? A clean cut, all American boy sort of name obviously, someone kind and thoughtful, and a paramedic, too. What was there not to like about him? He could give her everything she thought she wanted: a nice safe life, a little bit of normalcy, the white picket fence, kids and no doubt a large shaggy coated dog, like the ones her mother kept back in Ireland.
"I know how much you like eggs."
"Mmmmm"
"Over easy?"
"Mmmm, ahhhh, ohh, don't you just love him?"
She loved Spanish omelettes, egg whites only. What did this upstart know of Fiona Glenanne, IRA operative, bank robber, and gun runner? Did this ordinary man have any idea that the extraordinary woman fawning over him could kill him in half a dozen ways without messing up a single strand of her long auburn hair?
"Would ya like ta dance?" Now he could smell the cigarette smoke, hear the loud raucous voices shouting over the sound of the fiddle and drums of the Celtic band playing in the corner of the dark dingy bar.
He wondered if she'd stuck a gun into the chest of dear, sweet Campbell when he got up the nerve to ask for a date... Then he remembered the text message she'd taken while they had been waiting for that crazy arms dealer Seymour Talbot to put in an appearance. The perfect boyfriend had asked her out in a text message.
Suddenly, they were sitting at the work bench again, light streaming through the windows...
"I'll always care about you, Michael and I'll still help you with your thing and you'll still help me with mine, but we can no longer be together." ...She was letting him go, she was moving on...just like he'd said he'd wanted for a long time...
And there he was again, forced to watch as her fingers brushed against the interloper's arm, her lips on his stupid lips, his dumbass smile and earnest expression. Michael knew he could break Campbell like a twig, but that wouldn't get her back.
He wanted her to be happy... He wanted to see the smile on her face like the one she wore when something went BOOM!... He wanted to see her eyes light up and her fingers move restlessly the way they did when he handed her a shiny new gun, watching the gentle touch of her fingers skimming over the shiny smooth surface of the barrel, while her right hand wrapped expertly around the chequered grips.
She had to come back to him; she always did in the end. How many times had she left the loft angry or hurt, only to come back the following day? But maybe he'd turned her away one too many times.
"I- I lost you, the other day." He'd seen the pain in her eyes, but instantly dismissed it; he came back. What was the problem?
He didn't mean to play with her emotions. He didn't mean a lot of the things he had done in his life. But sometimes you just had to look at the big picture, weigh up the costs, and make the hard choices. Do the right thing.
The scene shifted again. She'd been helping him look for bugs in the loft, but then..."This is the perfect time to discuss why you left me."
This was what he meant. She was too damned complicated.
"I'm doing this for Campbell. I want to make him happy."
The pain was physical. It hit him in the chest, just seeing them together, thinking about them being together.
"Oh, I think we've socialized enough for one day." She had been sprawled out on his bed, but staring suggestively over at lover boy Campbell.
"Fiona Glenanne will wreck your career. Are you willing to throw everything away over a pretty face?"
His old mentor's words of warning echoed inside his head, as a cold chill came out of nowhere and the scene shifted yet again.
"She was your asset, yes? Your lover? Yet you willingly deceived her, your actions got her friends arrested or killed and then, when you had finished using her, you snuck away in the middle of the night. Why, when you nearly destroyed her life, would she want to help you?"
Michael whimpered, his fingers clutched at the sheet covering his body as Doctor Vincent stepped out of the shadows and, in his claw-like hands, the faded red, stiff cardboard folder that Michael had learned to hate. He shrank back into the pillow, as his arms and legs suddenly locked as if being held in restraints.
The two realities were beginning to vie for space, twisting around each other, confusing him and leaving him breathless. He was unaware of Billy Clemens trying to wake him or of the oxygen mask being placed over his nose and mouth.
"Why would Fiona Glenanne consider you a friend?"
The folder landed on his stomach, causing him to flinch. He could see the seal of Her Majesty's Secret Service and in the top left hand corner stamped in blue ink: Glenanne F.C. He heard the rustle of the cover being opened and the loose pages being lifted out.
"If I'd known it was the last supper, I would have chewed slower." She was staring at him, the trauma of the way he had left her hidden under a mask of sarcasm, her features clear in the single light shining in the darkness...
Doctor Vincent, shoving the pages into his face, making him read the words, the musty smell of the aged documents causing him to wrinkle his nose in distaste. The overwhelming sensation of claustrophobia was driving him further back into his nightmare.
"She joined up with another radical paramilitary after you left. They were quite the couple. They planted a large, home-made bomb on a school bus and it killed all eighteen ten year old girls, the bus driver and three schoolteachers."
He had been unwilling to look at the photographs, but Dr Vincent made him. His head was held in a vice-like grip, keeping him still while the photographs were held up one by one before his eyes. Doctor Vincent's calmly ordering him to study the twisted burnt metal skeleton of the bus, the charred and broken bodies and the splatters of blood and gore.
"We're playing army men." It was Fiona's voice again, but with that American accent. It crackled in his ear as if he was hearing it through a phone.
"They used ball bearings and screws in the bomb and copious amounts of rat poison, so any survivors would bleed out. This is what your supposed girlfriend did when you ran out on her. One short month after you left, she was living with this man." A photograph of a dark haired pale skinned man with blue eyes and a cocky expression was pushed in front of him. "And six months later she was murdering children."
The doctor hadn't finished there. He had a lot more information to impart.
"The cold blooded targeting of schoolchildren turned their own countrymen against them and they had to go on the run. Her boyfriend was killed in a shoot-out with the Ulster police force. She managed to get away, but not for long. She was arrested outside a small town called Rhyl in North Wales during an operation run by MI5. She was taken to stand trial at the old Bailey in London. The trial lasted a month, but it was mostly for show. She received a life sentence."
The trial transcripts came next as Doctor Vincent read out loud the prosecution's case, taking his time as he described every sickening detail of Fiona Glenanne's fall.
"Do you see now? Do you see why you need my help?... I'm only telling you all this to help you get better, Michael. It's important that you understand Fiona Glenanne is rotting away in a British asylum. Do you really want to end your days here in a hospital strapped to a bed? Stop fighting us and let us make you better. If you cooperate, you might even get to leave here one day... Isn't that what you want? You could leave here and be with your family."
He surfaced, suddenly breaking free from his nightmare. Sitting up, he gasped for air, his hands tearing the oxygen mask away from his face while his legs kicked out at the sheet covering his legs.
He shook uncontrollably from the terror and confusion of his nightmare. Unable to look at or even acknowledge Billy Clemens who was trying to hold him steady, he teetered on the edge of the bed.
He remembered all the despair he had felt. He could still feel it welling up inside of him now. He had been so close to breaking, so close to accepting all of Doctor Vin - Markov, Viktor Markov's carefully crafted lies. His stomach knotted and a wave of heat washed over him, leaving him nauseous and breathless as vomit began to rise in his throat.
Then he fell back on to his bed, curling up into a protective ball as he continued to shake. Closing his eyes tightly, he tried to block out the sound of Billy's soft cursing which mingled with sound of the medic cleaning up the mess sprayed all over the floor.
"Mike, c'mon man, you need to get cleaned up."
Michael curled up tighter as the medic's hand landed gently on his shoulder.
"I'm fine," He mumbled, not wanting anybody to see him.
"No, you're not. You need to get outta them clothes."
" 'm fine. Lemme alone. 'm fine."
He heard Billy sigh and then the sound of a chair being dragged across the room. Relaxing slightly, Michael lifted his head enough to see Billy and the chair disappear into the bathroom. Moments later, the medic was back at Michael's side, gently coaxing him to sit up.
"It'll be a tight squeeze, but I'm gonna help you into the bathroom and you can strip down and wash. I'll be right out here if you need me... Okay?"
Michael couldn't express how grateful he was to the medic for doing this, for understanding that he wasn't ready to face anybody. "Okay."
He slowly uncurled and, with Billy's help, removed his soiled T-shirt and allowed the older man to help him walk across the room.
Once his patient was settled in the chair, Billy busied himself turning on the taps to the sink and, once the water warmed up, placing the plug in the basin. All the time he worked, he explained what he was doing, hoping that he could keep Michael in the present and focused.
"I'm gonna fill the sink for you and then let you take over... You've gotta toothbrush on the side here. I've already put some toothpaste on it, so it's ready for you and there's plenty of towels next to you... Now I'm gonna leave you alone just for a few minutes while I get you something to eat. You okay?"
"Yeah," Michael remained slumped in the chair, staring blindly ahead.
"I'll only be a couple of minutes. That's all. Just, you know, just take things easy."
Michael let out a long shuddering sigh and dropped his head into his hands, hoping and praying Billy Clemens was going to be more than a couple minutes; a few hours would be better.
"It's okay, Michael. It's me. You have to calm down, you're safe. Open your eyes. I'm here."
He startled as Fiona's soft voice came to him. He could feel her presence all around him, the gentle touch of her palms cupping his cheeks, her lips brushing against his forehead.
"It wa' the girls," he spoke out loud, his voice and his accent raspy, as his throat was still rough from vomiting. "I knew it, deep down. I knew it wa' all lies. Ya'd never hurt a bairn, no matter whot I did ta ya. Ya'd never allow them ta bomb a bus full o' young ones."
He knew she wasn't there. But he allowed the memories of her lips laying kisses on his face, her fingers combing through his hair and the scent of her when he held her close, burying his nose in her hair to soothe him. It was like a balm to his soul and finally some relief from the nightmare.
()()
"Calm down Jojo." Fiona hid all her concerns behind a bright smile. "In the two years you've known me, have I ever let ya down?"
"Ya never asked me to hide ya ex government spy boyfriend before," Jojo pointed out as he tied up his Marauder cigarette boat to Pedro Gomez's rickety wooden jetty thirty miles north of the Cuban capital of Santiago de Cuba. "If it's his old bosses coming -"
"It won't be. They don't care about him. You heard Sam, he has a plan. So there's nothing to worry about. Honestly, Jojo, we're good at this sort of thing," she spoke airily and then gestured with a tilt of her head to the figure walking towards them holding a flash-light to show him the way. "Besides, if I'm not mistaken, here comes Pedro. Let's go explain to your friend how we intend to relocate lots of very expensive weapons and then you can take me into Santiago, where I'll make a big show of begging for a ride for three over to Brazil."
Not giving the gunrunner a chance to argue with her, Fiona jumped agilely from the go-fast boat and landed on the wooden jetty.
"Pedro," the Irish woman smiled warmly and held out her hand. "Fiona Glenanne. Jojo has told me all about you." She charmed the tall skinny Cuban gentleman who, not to be out done, took her hand and kissed her knuckles.
"Enchanted, Senorita Glenanne," he greeted her.
"So kind, Senor, now why dontcha show me your boat and I'll tell all about them lovely guns and how we're going to liberate them."
Jojo could only watch and follow on behind as she linked her arm with the old Cuban's and sashayed along the unstable wooden platform.
"It's gonna be a long night," he muttered, as Fiona's laughter floated out across the quiet cove.
()()
The meeting went well, so well that by midnight they had hashed out a strategy to board the German freighter and steal it's cargo of weapons. Happy with the thought of wealth coming his way, Pedro agreed to lend them one of his old cars and gave them directions to a smuggler's bar along the coast road.
"You go in there, ask about getting to South America and somebody will try to make some money off your misfortune," Pedro told them. "Get back here before daylight and I promise that if anybody comes asking, I'll tell them you stole one of my boats."
"We're gonna make this quick, girl," Jojo told her as he drove along the coast road. "I don't like the idea that a drone could be aiming a missile at my family right now."
"It won't happen, Sam Axe maybe be a drunken womanizer, but he is also a loyal friend and an ex-SEAL. He knows what he's doing." Then, without warning, she punched Jojo hard on his arm, causing the little car they were traveling into to swerve across the road. "And if ya ever tell ham thot, I'll fry yar eyeballs an' make ya eat them."
The gunrunner rubbed his arm and glanced across at her, trying to decide if she meant it. "You wouldn't -"
"Try me," she threatened and then smirked.
Tired and dirty, they called in at the bar Pedro had told them about. While Jojo stayed in the background, Fiona made her way around the bar asking about passage for three to South America. She wasn't shy about flirting and using all her wiles. This wasn't a time for subtly. She needed to make sure she was noticed and her urgent need to get far away would be reported to all the right people. Michael's well-being and Jojo's family's lives depended on her putting on a convincing performance.
After an hour of repeating her hard luck story, she was fairly certain that at least one of the people she spoke to was just waiting for her to leave before rushing off to make a call.
"We can go now," she announced, satisfied that as long as Pedro played his part, it would look like they had fled south.
"If these guys are tracking you usin' some drug that's left in Mike's blood, how does tellin' a load of second-rate smugglers you're goin' to Brazil help?" Jojo asked as they headed back to where he had tied up his boat.
"Oh, these guys aren't going to contact our bad guys. They'll just be asking around and try to sell the information to anybody interested, Cuban police, FSB, CIA, basically anybody who'll pay them. If they have any sense, our bad guys will be listening for any chatter about our whereabouts."
"Great, you remember me sayin' Isla was my family home? That as far as anybody else is concerned, I'm jus' a charter boat captain out here."
Fiona lost the false good cheer. "I promise no harm'll come ta yar family, Jojo. I give you my word."
She was doing a good job of masking her own feelings. But deep down, she was terrified that whoever it was would find them and take Michael away. He was too weak to run. Sam had already explained that. All they could do was try to misdirect and then dig in.
Back at the jetty, Jojo wasted no time on goodbyes. They had a three hour journey back to Isla Mujeres; that is if he could keep his boat running at top speed most of the way. Daylight was only an hour or two away and he wanted to be well clear of Cuban waters before then.
While the Marauder cigarette boat cut through the choppy sea, every now and again leaving the water to take flight as Jojo opened the engines up to make a fast run back home, Fiona hung on tight and hoped they were going to get back in time and in one piece.
There was no talking. Traveling at such a reckless speed meant Jojo had to keep his whole attention on steering the powerful boat. One wrong move could have them both thrown into the sea or have the boat capsize and possibly kill them both in the process.
Normally, Fiona would have been enjoying the adrenaline rush of the salty spray hitting her on her face as she helped to keep watch for any obstacles in their path. But in the grey half-light of the pre-dawn, her mind kept straying back to Michael and their future.
He had survived the journey from Key West to Mexico. He had gotten through the symptoms of withdrawal from the drugs the FSB interrogator had used to try to break him. He had even comeback to her after his heart stopped beating. No, there was no doubt in her mind that they were going to survive this latest predicament. After all, as far as she was concerned, there wasn't a problem she couldn't solve with a large stockpile of weapons and a box of C4.
All except one; she couldn't make Michael understand how trying to get back in to an agency that had abandoned him was a waste of time.
"I don't get why you're so dead set on getting back in. Why go back to work for the people who've put you through all this?" She had tried asking him to explain when Philip Cowan had come to Miami.
"I want to clear my name. I want to know who did this to me. I spent my entire career doing something I believed in, Fi, something important."
"You're doing something important here, Michael. Think about it. The next time you're risking your life to talk to this Phillip Cowan fellow, you think about it." They had been helping people who had nowhere else to turn. Wasn't that important enough? Wasn't she important enough?
How many times had he walked away from her for his job? Even when he no longer had a job, when they had kicked him out, he still clung to the ideal. He still treated her as second best.
"This breakup, the two of you are making a huge mistake if you don't mind my saying." Madeline had ambushed her on a girls' poker night, searching for an answer as to why her son was once again a single man.
"I need you to know you are the best thing that ever happened to Michael. He's different when you're around. He's better. He's almost happy."
"Thank you for saying that. It's more than he'd ever said himself."
"I know. His father was the same way. But I see the way he looks at you, Fiona."
"I just can't -" She had been unable to finish the sentence, but she hadn't needed to. Michael's mom knew exactly what she had wanted to say
"Be the second most important thing in his life?"
This was what was making things so damn complicated now. Because right now, she knew she was the most important thing in his life. He looked to her every time he was unsure, he clung to her while he slept and she had seen the way his eyes followed her about the room while he was awake. But deep down she knew as he got stronger, all of that would change. Sam knew it, too. He had tried to warn her before Michael was kidnapped, before Harlan turned out to be such a traitor.
"So, what do you think Michael will do now he is just a Miami resident?"
"Well he's still burned and he's still Mike, so he's not just a Miami resident... I think he'll try to get back in," Sam had reluctantly replied and, when she had complained, he had continued to stand up for his friend. "Fiona, he did his government work, as you call it, for a reason."
"For what? His country? And what have they done for him recently, apart from betray him? Leave him for dead, ruin his life?" Between the three of them, she had been convinced she was the only sane one in the group.
"The fact you have to ask means you are never going to get it, Fi."
He was right; she never would get it... It was ridiculous really. When somebody or something tried to kill you, it was time to accept the relationship was over.
Michael had let the CIA end their relationship back in Ireland, why couldn't he do the same for her?
"Sam and I worked because she was like me. She didn't mind that my job was lying to people. She loved it. She did the same thing. It made being with her easy. And then I met you. It was- it was different. It was never easy. You knew a part of me she never did. And I left her because you don't marry someone when you love somebody else."
Hell, he broken it off with his fiancée, Samantha Keyes, because she meant more to him than the brunette thief had, so why was it so hard for him to quit chasing after his old life in the Agency? They hadn't done anything but turn their collective backs on him and leave him out in the cold. Who had been there for him from the moment he woke up in that seedy hotel room?
Maybe this time he would finally get it. Maybe when he was feeling a bit better he would realize his beloved agency had done nothing to get him out of the clutches of a sadistic Russian interrogator. It had been her and Sam, who had rescued him, and it had been her friends who had kept him safe.
Maybe Michael would finally figure out why, when his defenses had been stripped bare and he had no resources left, she was the one he clung to, that she was the one who gave him strength, her strength, and why she had come back to him, again and again, despite what he'd done to her.
She only hoped it was enough.