Burn Notice - The Man He Is
A/N: Thank you guys so much for the reviews!
Guesttt: Thank you for your reviews! & for making me aware of the need to address whether or not "The Questioner" was someone to take notice of :)
bogey174: Thank you for the review! Yes, this story is complete! I just haven't posted all the chapters yet :)
"Hello, Mr. Westen." The Questioner said as Michael struggled to figure out whether or not he knew who exactly was torturing him. After struggling to clear his head enough to decide, he realized that, in his fevered state, he didn't really care. He knew they were Serbians and he knew Djovic, but beyond that, he didn't have the energy to spare.
Deciding to refer to the man who would most likely be bringing him a rather large amount of discomfort as 'Q', Michael found himself thinking about how Jesse would have enjoyed that code name, as Jesse had a rough time coming up with original names.
Stopping his thoughts from going further into his friendship with Jesse, Michael ironically noted that thoughts of Jesse and how he had failed Jesse were more painful than the burning, most likely infected hole in his shoulder.
Code name decided, Michael pulled himself away from painful thoughts and focused his energy on taking stock of where they had moved him.
He was now lying on a cold table, strapped down to its unforgiving surface.
"That is a nasty shoulder wound you have there. You know, if you answer our questions, we can alleviate some of your…discomfort."
Michael just gave him his prettiest smile, the fever from the infection making him somewhat delirious.
"Where is Zivko? We know he helped you and we do not appreciate traitors. Where is he hiding?"
"Z-ssco?" Michael stuttered, eyes fluttering.
"Please do not insult my intelligence, Mr. Westen." Q motioned to someone in the corner and suddenly Michael was covered in water before an electric shock ran through his body.
Screaming, Michael fought to control his seizing muscles. Finally, his muscles relaxed, and he struggled for breath.
"We wouldn't normally touch you, as you are a powerful man; but when your friend presented us with the opportunity, we couldn't resist," Q chuckled, apparently he was enjoying this, "Now, Mr. Westen, where is Zivko?"
"You ha-ave a ve-rr-y nice f-face, h-have we me-t b-before?" Michael grunted, the pain intense, wanting to make Q lose his temper a little so that Q would let any information slip that might be helpful.
In pain or not, Michael had had years of training and was not about to let them go to waste because he was in more pain than he'd been in since arriving in Miami, both emotionally and physically, although he'd never admit the former to anyone.
"You know, Mr. Westen, I have heard that you have family here. People you care about. Are their lives worth more to you than your own?"
"Maybe I-I met y-your s-siste-r o-nce." Michael gritted out, again smiling up at his interrogator, already tensing before more water hit his shivering body.
Q was tightlipped, anger clouding his expression, but Michael was disappointed when Q simply stepped back.
Bracing himself, Michael tensed as the electric shock hit his body, lasting longer this time. Despite his best efforts, his screams could be heard throughout the warehouse.
"You do know that Michael's enemies are deadly, right?" Sam asked when Fiona was out of earshot. "That they want information from him about other people, people he helped. People that are innocent."
Jesse looked at the ground. He was still angry, but he knew deep down that he'd done the wrong thing.
"Michael didn't mean to burn you. He was trying to find the people who burned him. He also put his own neck on the line for you, pal, knowing that if you found out the truth, you'd kill him. Do you even know who Mike is? Or are you so blinded by your anger and selfish, pointless desire to get revenge?" Sam wasn't pulling any punches, his tone incredulous and deadly.
He understood Jesse's anger, but also knew that acting out of anger was deadly and the consequences could be more than you bargained for and Jesse should know that.
"I don't care. I didn't care." Jesse muttered, glaring at Sam, his stubborn streak showing through, "I was angry. I finally had a tangible target. It didn't matter what he'd done for me, I thought he'd been playing me," Jesse said, stepping away from Sam and throwing his hands in the air.
"You were all playing me!" he yelled as he turned around and faced Sam with an accusing finger.
"No, we weren't," Sam threw his own finger in Jesse's face, "We were protecting you and trying to hold everything together until we could right the wrong!"
"That's what you keep saying and maybe one day I'll believe you," Jesse dropped his finger before continuing, "But I trusted Mike. I respected him and the whole time, it was his fault that I lost everything."
Also taking a step back, Sam responded, "I know."
Looking back at Jesse's face, Sam asked the one question that he needed to be answered before he would trust Jesse, "Why did you have to shoot him and sell him to the Serbians?"
Pausing, Jesse again looked at the ground, "Because I couldn't kill him myself and I needed him to pay. I…I was wrong. I should have given it time. I am sorry, Sam." Jesse said, remorse and guilt tangible in his body language.
Before Sam could say anything more, Fiona was back.
"I found a lead on Zivko. But there is chatter about a specialty item being negotiated between the Serbians and the Russians. Michael is running out of time." Fiona said, her unwavering glare never leaving Jesse's downcast face.
Alone in a different room, not tied to anything this time, Michael laid motionless on the floor against the back wall where they had dumped him.
Everything hurt. He couldn't think straight. They had threatened those he loved, then they had taunted him about being abandoned. They brought up Jesse and how Michael had been betrayed by someone who was supposed to be a friend. They had done their research as thoroughly as they could, some of their details were off, but there was still truth in their words.
Michael's jumbled mind wandered to his friends. To what they thought of him. To what Jesse must think of him, to how he had brought this on himself. At some point, delirium took over and in his fevered state, he saw all of them. At some point, water was brought and some type of broth.
He had a few more sessions with Q, all of which led nowhere and left him in worse shape than before. Q was a hard guy to crack and Michael was definitely not at the top of his game at the moment.
At some point, they had done more clean his shoulder, after which Q had taken it upon himself to cauterized the wound in one of his sessions. However, Michael's fever had yet to break and the chills made everything more agonizing.
Finally, they had dumped him back in this small, freezing room and left him here.
He didn't have the strength to move, let alone attempt another escape. Faintly, through his fever-ridden mind, it registered that he was going to have to play the long run, build up his strength, and bide his time if he was going to survive this.
As the hours passed, he once again found himself face to face with the mental versions of his family and friends.
His mom kept looking at him with disappointment, her words about him lying ringing over and over again. Then she would just walk away. It didn't matter what he said, what he promised, she never turned around.
Somewhere deep down he knew that she would have turned around in real life, but as he was now, real-life seemed irrelevant.
When he saw Fiona she yelled at him, kissed him, and then was abruptly torn away from him. He could hear his voice going hoarse as he called her name again and again and each time she came back to him before the cycle repeated.
Then Jesse would show up, the gun shaking in his hand before he shot Michael. Michael flinched every time, the pain in his shoulder flaring up. No matter what he said, Jesse kept shooting him. Over and over again. Jesse's eyes were always full of the pain of betrayal and he wouldn't be reasoned with.
Michael kept trying to explain, but he couldn't get Jesse to listen before the shot rang out.
When he would see Sam, Sam would tell him to hold on, to trust them. However, Michael would just shake his head and turn away from Sam's image. His mind kept Q's words back to the forefront of his mind and he found himself repeating the mantra that he had been sold, abandoned, and was now trapped alone with no hope because his friends had no hope in him.
Eventually, the cold and exhaustion took over, forcing his hallucinations to be quiet and he succumbed to unconsciousness.
When he woke again, he heard Russian voices arguing with Serbian voices.
Dully it registered that the Serbians weren't going to kill him, they were going to sell him to the Russians. Being sold again would not be a good thing. If his friends were looking for him, they'd have no hope of finding him if he changed hands.
Faintly his mind registered that once the Russians had gotten their chunk of skin from him, they would try to make a little money themselves. As Michael had no short supply of enemies who would be willing to pay to have time with him, he did not like where that would lead.
Attempting to fall back into a less responsive state, he regrettably knew that he didn't have the energy to worry about it now.
However, nothingness wouldn't come, his instincts screaming at him that if he went to sleep he would wake up in a different place in the Russian's possession. With a grit he had to reach deep inside to get, he gathered what strength he could and attempted to stifle his groan as he shifted his body from his back to his stomach.
Once on his stomach, he struggled to push himself up with one hand, his other arm unable to bear any weight without his vision blackening.
Finally, after almost dry heaving and passing out, he managed to get his feet under him. Staggering, he fell heavily against the wall, cringing at the thud and hoping against hope he hadn't been heard. Reaching deeper still, he tapped into a strength that most men didn't have, a strength he himself wouldn't have had save for the direness of the situation should he fail to escape.
Just as he made his way to the door, he heard shouting, and then gunfire broke out. Raising his eyebrows in a fever riddled expression of surprise, he could only hope that the Russians and Serbians had come to a disagreement. Shoving aside the fog, pain, exhaustion, and bloodloss, he began working on the hinges on the door.
Finally freeing the door of the hinges, he gave the door a shove, just managing to catch himself on the wall as the door fell. Cursing under his ragged breathing, he hoped the noise would be covered by the continuous gunfire. Whatever was taking place was not pretty.
His head was pounding, he stumbled as he fought to keep his balance and the meager contents of his stomach from spilling out onto the floor. His ribs couldn't handle an upchuck of the poorly cooked broth he'd been given twice since he had arrived here.
Turning a corner, he thought he was hallucinating again when he stumbled right into Fiona. Unable to hold himself up any longer, he couldn't stop himself from falling.
Now lying on his back, he found himself staring into her eyes. She was beautiful and he was thankful that, even if she was a hallucination, he could see her one last time. So sure he was that everything was over, he just hoped that whoever he'd really stumbled into would just put a bullet in him and be done.