Show: The Agency

Title: The American Family Chapter 19

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

A/N: Thanks for all the great comments; I really appreciated each and every one
of them. I'm sorry about the delay, but it took a while to get my thoughts together.
This chapter will be a filler of sorts… giving you a little more background
information on just who Fiona O'Brien is.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Terri wasn't sure how quite to take that announcement either. Good thing she
was already sitting because, if she'd been standing, her legs certainly would
have given out on her. Her breath was expelled sharply, as if she'd punched in
the gut.

Stiles felt as though he were drowning… drowning in his guilt, drowning in this
feeling of being helpless, drowning in this feeling or waiting in the near silence for
Terri to continue.

Terri took a deep soul-cleansing breath and sighed. Everything was suddenly
forced into perspective. "Are you going to do it?" Stiles said nothing. "You're not
going to do it?" she asked incredulously when he still hadn't replied.

"What do you want me to do, Terri?" he scrubbed at his face with the heels of his
hand. "John-boy forced my hand –"

"But we're here, Stiles. Alex and I, we're here, and we're safe," she broke in, on
the brink of hysteria. She was grasping at straws – she knew it, they both knew it
– but she couldn't help it. What John-boy meant for Stiles to do was commit
treason by assassinating a US Government official – a crime punishable by
death!

"What's to stop John-boy from coming back? Why are you even here? I don't
know anything Terri…. But I *do* know that if I don't do what he wants we all
probably be dead before the sun sets on the day Martin Archer's plane takes off
for Ireland." He turned to her and caught her hands in his, settling himself beside
her on the couch.

Terri wanted to weep. "Let's just take Alex and leave, Stiles. Go anywhere…
anywhere but here."

Stiles wished he could, but his hands were tied. John-boy would never have
given his family back if he hadn't had a backup plan. For once, he needed to be
the voice of reason. He shook his head silently.

That was all the answer she needed.

She took another deep breath and pulled her hands away. Her lashes lifted and
she met Stiles' blue-eyed gaze. "Well, you're gonna need some help…."

Stiles' eyes narrowed and he shook his head emphatically. "No way, Terri! I don't
want you involved in this any more than you all ready are. This is *my* burden! I'll
be the one to do what needs to be done and deal with the consequences!"

"Jonathan O'Brien took my *son*, A.B. Stiles; Michael O'Leary…"she couldn't
bear to continue. "I'm already involved! I became involved in this sick plan of his
the second they decided to get to me through you, so don't you dare suddenly
develop this cave man complex… we'll protect this family *together*."

The two fell silent, flashing brown eyes battling with startlingly blue orbs.

"Mommy?" they heard a small voice from the landing of the apartment's short
flight of stairs.

Immediately both parents' heads whipped towards the sound to find Alex
standing there, sleepily wiping the unexplained sleep from his face. CIA textbook
fashion, all signs of anger and distress dropped from their visage as their son
wobbled toward them and wiggled between them on the couch.

"What are we doin' here, mommy?" he asked, settling himself into the cradle of
his mother's arm and resting his head on her chest. "Weren't we supposed to go
on an adventure?"

Terri's eyes widened and her gaze immediately crashed into Stiles' mirrored
shock.

**What the hell?** both parents thought simultaneously.

But before Stiles or Terri could bend to ask him what he remembered about this
weekend, A.B.2's face scrunched up and turned green. He barely angled his
head away and mumbled a jumbled, "Idon'tfeelsogoodmommy," before her
retched on the floor.

*~*~*~*~*~*

She was the most beautiful bride in the world.

Even with her attire of faded jeans, a pink T-shirt and a drooping handful of wild
daisies for her bouquet instead of the flowing white dress and thirty rose bouquet,
he *still* thought she was the most beautiful bride in the world with her bright
mane of red hair cascading down her back, flashing emerald eyes and the
scattering of brown sugar freckles across her nose which scrunched
pugnaciously as she smiled at him, walking down the stairs of the rundown pub
to meet him and the priest at the bottom by the bar.

**Look at that!** he mused. **A pug-nosed chit of an eighteen-year-old girl
reducing a grown man to quaking knees and sweating palms.**

If possible, Fiona's smile grew even wider as her brother handed her off and she
took Michael's trembling palm in her own.

They turned to the priest as one, but he doesn't remember much about the
ceremony, only that when the priest announced they were husband and wife and
he could kiss the bride, he'd been filled with such joy looking in her face; she was
his light and he she was gone, he would die.

Nineteen years later, Michael jerked from his dream, his body awash with cold
sweats, the sweet sound of her laughter reverberating in his ears. He started to
weep; his light was gone.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Stiles and Terri were filled with such panic as they watched their son heave what
little he had in his guts. But the second he lifted his head, the pain faded and he
looked at them with a wobbly, though embarrassed, smile.

"I feel betta now, mommy," he announced.

Such relief suffused her, she thought she would keel over. Instead, she grabbed
her son and crushed him to her body. A.B2 squirmed in her arms. "Mommy!" he
exclaimed. "Lemme go!"

A tremulous laugh escaped Terri's lips as her gaze met Stiles' over Alex's head.
His own relief was mirrored in his eyes. Pasting a smile to her face, she swept
her son in her arms at up the stairs, asking good-naturedly of her cooking was
*that* bad.

Stiles watched them go before releasing a breath he hadn't even known he'd
been holding.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Watching across the table, the now empty bottle of whisky between them, the
soldier in him goaded him to scold, "Pull yerself t'gether, man!" Even now, he
could feel the words forming at the back of his tongue, but he kept his mouth
shut.

He knew for whom the man was weeping. He had wept for her and his brother so
many times in the past himself. He allowed the quiet weeping to continue for a
few minutes more before he laid a heavy hand on the shoulder of his sister's
widower. He sought to give comfort from the grief the only way he knew how: "Ye
need another bottle."

Hell's bells, if this weeping kept up, he'd need one too.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The vomit removed from the floor, and a small sampling secured (simply
because he could not satisfy his curiosity), Stiles collapsed exhausted on the
couch. He checked his watch – minutes to three – but sleep was not his friend.
Hearing light footsteps coming down the stairs, he looked back to see Terri
heading towards him again. She had pulled her hair back and had twisted it into
a lopsided French braid and he could see the burning questions in her tired eyes.

But, as she settled next to him on the couch, she did something he never thought
she would do again. Instead of firing off the questions she obviously harbored,
she scooted to his side of the couch and, settled her legs over his and burrowed
into the warmth of his body.

"Hold me," she whispered softly.

Stiles was frozen in shock before his arm surrounded her shoulder and wrapped
around her waist. Terri sighed and turned her nose into his chest and fell into a
deep sleep.

Captivated by her beauty and the strange aroma of the scent that was uniquely
Terri's intermingled with his Irish Spring soap and the Gain he washed his
clothes with tantalized his nostrils. He tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear and
kissed the top of her head reverently.

He didn't how long he watched her before he fell into slumber. He would only
remember the dream….

*~*~*~*~*~*

She was a temptress.

Any stouthearted good Catholic altar boy would have recognized that and likened
her to a redheaded Succubus, tempting them towards everlasting damnation with
her body.

But not Stiles.

When he'd first met her, she'd been an annoying thirteen-year-old know-it-all who
couldn't have cared less for John-boy's "foul-mouthed American friend." Over
time, he'd grown to accept her as the little sister he'd never had, for puberty had
been more than kind to her, lovingly shaping each curve until she was endowed
beyond many a grown man's fantasy, and he had been involved in more than his
share of fisticuffs over her honor.

He hadn't recognized the signs, hadn't read anything into the special smile she
bestowed on him every time she saw, the way her skirts got shorter and the
necks of her T-shirts droopier whenever she knew he was coming around for
supper or when she hung around the pub waiting for Niall to get off from work.

But he'd certainly known Fiona didn't just see him as a big brother when she
kissed him soundly on the lips.

That spring, they'd been a surprise heat wave and it had been abominably hot,
especially by Dublin standards. Grandpa had been reduced to his undershirts
and it wasn't alien to see men walking down the streets their chests and armpits
soaked with sweat. One night, the fans in the pub had stopped circulating and
he'd been dispatched to see about the problem. He'd taken Fiona as a
companion and, problem solved, he had been bounding back up the stairs to the
pub when she grabbed his arm with surprising strength, pushed his back to the
wall and planted her lips over his.

He had been frozen in shock, his wrists pinned to the wall beside him as her
inexperienced lips roved his in the dim basement. But when his mind finally
caught up with him, he hadn't been filled with disgust to be kissing his 'sister',
instead, as many a horny teenage boy would, he had felt only her soft curves
pressed into his angles as she pressed her body closer to his. His instinct had
kicked in then and he found him kissing her back, taking control of the kiss,
schooling her in the art of the French kiss, his tongue lightly stroking the roof of
her mouth causing him to whimper and press closer to him.

When she felt the hard evidence of his arousal poking her in her belly she pulled
away abruptly. She was shocked and her face flushed in the dark as Stiles' chest
heaved in exertion and the sudden shocking desire to touch her.

She'd turned and fled and Stiles, who'd not been a virgin even when he'd first
arrived in Ireland was reduced to waiting below in the dark for his ardour to cool.

That night, laying asleep to Danny he'd heard the tiny spray of gravel rocks
outside his window. He was used to this – John-boy did it often when he needed
to talk, often in the middle of the night. He thought nothing of it when he got out
of his bed, clad only in his boxers and opened the window. Imagine his surprise
when he looked out to see Fiona, still clad in the clothes she'd been wearing
earlier, staring up at him.

"Fiona, are you crazy?" he whispered heatedly, checking behind him to see if
Danny was still asleep. Of course he was… Danny slept like the dead. "What are
you doing here? Go home, now!"

She simply shook her head. "I want t'talk t'ye, A.B."

"Are you daft? It's the middle of the night. Go home. You can talk to me in the
morning."

Fiona shook her head and crossed her arms militantly across her chest.

Stiles cursed. He knew that stance – she wouldn't be budging until she got her
way. "Hold on a second. I'll be right there, then I'll walk you home." He turned
around, reaching for his pants and a T-shirt he dressed quickly, shoved his feet
in his trainers and casting one more hapless look at Danny, cursing him for his
sleeping habits, he climbed out the window.

Joining her in the small garden at the back of the pub, he looked at her crossly
but she simply grabbed his hand and started hurrying away.

"What has gotten into you, girl?" he asked, whispering softly so they wouldn't
wake anyone as he hurried to keep up with her.

Before long, they arrived at the train tracks and she ducked into a boxcar that
they had adopted as theirs a year ago. Fiona stopped and turned to him.

Looking at his surroundings, he realized that talking was the furthest thing from
Fiona O'Brien's mind. The cot in the corner had on fresh sheets and there was
candles strewn about the room.

He should've backed away and ran like hell. But the stupid testosterone junkie in
him did nothing. She stepped into his space and kissed him….

It all went downhill from there.

He had taken her virginity… his bestfriend's sister. Right there on the paper-thin
mattress in the abandoned train station. He hadn't been thinking about anything
but the softness of her skin, the sweetness of her mouth, the warmth of her
body…. John-boy and all of Dublin could've descended on them right then but he
would've died willing because nothing had ever seemed so sweet as when she
had cried out his name in her first taste of pleasure.

But the next day he'd done her wrong, he couldn't look her in the eyes. He
wouldn't stay in the same room alone with her. He'd felt guilty and eventually,
he'd cornered her and explained what they did while beautiful, shouldn't have
happened.

She'd told him she loved him.

He told her he loved her too, just not the way she'd deserved to be loved.

She'd been heartbroken… but the next day, she'd been flirting with Ben
McKenzie, right in front of him…. But had chucked him away the second she
thought he wasn't looking.

Stiles' eyes snapped open… he now knew what Michael O'Leary's part in this
whole mess was….

TBC…

A/N: I hope you enjoyed. This story has totally gone off on a tangent to what I
had planned. I hadn't expected to be writing this sort of story filled with danger
and betrayal – I had been planning a light witty piece filled with the 'joys' of
parenthood – but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless. Leave a review telling me
what you think so far.

Cara