Potential minor spoilers alert - A few minor details regarding scene settings were pulled from clips of 6.01 and an S5 deleted scene now out on DVD was used, but I haven't revealed any new characters or plot elements or upcoming dialogue. The rest is all my own speculation. Thank you very much to LaLavande for reminding me to do that. While we're here thanks to the lovely ladies in the PCC for reading through parts of this and to everyone who reviews, fav's and alerts! Listen to "Gone" by Daughtry while reading for the full effect, but bring tissues.=)
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His.
Betrayal.
In the whirlpool of thoughts and emotions that swirled around him, threatening to engulf him and take him under, that word kept rising to the surface. The more he was mentally pummeled by the myriad of feelings he didn't know how to process, the more still he became and more that concept kept reiterating itself.
He sat in his father's black muscle car, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest and the flexing of jaw muscles made taut by clenching teeth. It had been his car, the Charger, but just now, for some damned reason he couldn't even begin to explain, psychological ownership had reverted to his father.
He briefly remembered the first time he'd ridden in this car. Another trip to the hospital, dislocated elbow that time. It was also the first time he'd had to do the lying himself when the medical personnel asked about what had been done to him instead of his mother handling that duty once they'd arrived in Frank's new car. He had been six.
Betrayal.
He'd felt it early and often in his life. Growing up in an environment of danger and paranoia was the perfect preparation for being a covert operative, though it made for a complex relationship with the past under the best of circumstances. Once again, he resorted to filtering his past through the lens of the benefits of future career training. It made it more bearable.
The image of his mother's smoldering cigarette butt lying on Frank Westen's grave kept flashing through his head and, as it was one of the least objectionable things his mind had presented him with so far, he went with it.
When he let himself think about it at all, which was unusual and bespoke of how bad his other contemplative choices were at the moment, there was an ongoing internal debate over whom he was angrier with: his father for being the drunken asshole or his mother for continuing to subject them all to him.
A tiny part of him still felt betrayed that she had never left his father.
"He was a bad man, Michael. But even he had his moments."
But, in all that time, over all those years, she'd never once laid a hand on him. That had been his Dad's job.
"I didn't want you to get hurt."
Paradoxically, his attempts to shield people from harm were generating quite a bit of it for himself lately. Truthfully, it was shock of it, not the slap itself, which had hurt. He'd been hit harder by Fi-
He refused to think about her. Thinking about his mother's unexpected blow was surprisingly less excruciating.
"Get out. You had no right to keep that from me. Get out! Get the hell outta my house!"
How ironic that after all those years of begging him to come home that she'd thrown him out of the house that day too. Well, his mother never was one for doing things in half measures. Two "first times" in one day somehow seemed appropriate.
Still, it was odd that they would have patched things up at the cemetery, but then again when was anything in the Westen household or his life ever normal?
His brother had rented a place in Daytona Beach without his direction and his mother was voluntarily leaving town for a week to work things out, while he was working things out in Miami.
"How do you get used to this?" He'd meant it on more than one level.
His mother had reaffirmed again how different their relationship had become while he was sighting in the sniper rifle in her garage just a few days ago. Somehow, right now, it seemed like a lifetime ago. Her lifetime.
He expertly pushed the thought aside.
"All those years I was gone, when I never called, part of the reason was so something like this couldn't happen. So the people I loved couldn't be used against me."
"For a long time, I didn't understand that. I apologize, honey."
So it had only taken twenty eight years to get him and his mother on the same page. Of course, she couldn't just let it go at that.
"Michael, one more thing. You can't always save everybody."
But it wasn't an "everybody" he'd been trying to save this time. As he considered whose sniper rifle he had been adjusting and where he had taken it next, another thought slipped past his defenses and launched a front assault.
Would it take twenty eight years to get on the same page with Fiona?
If she only got a ten year prison sentence, maybe so. If he'd let her shoot Anson, maybe not.
Or maybe this whole sorry mess would all be over right now if he had.
Like a dragon without its head, would the organization fall?
Or, like a hydra, would it grow two in its place?
It certainly had seemed that way as he had fought against the machine these last five years.
Betrayed.
He'd felt betrayed by his government, by the people he worked with, by the people he worked for. This was his reward for twenty three years of loyal service to his country? He couldn't, he wouldn't, believe that. For so long, he had chased the answers to his questions:
"Who did this to me? Why was I burned?"
Now he knew exactly who had burned him, how they had accomplished it, what they wanted from him and why they had done it. Anson Fullerton had explained it to him in exacting detail.
That knowledge had not brought the closure he had expected or even hoped for.
Now he knew. He had all the answers and it still wasn't over.
Be careful what you wish for...
He'd faced down Phillip Cowan and they shot him. He turned Victor into an ally and they had shot him. Carla had become his enemy and Fiona had shot her. Simon was more creative, he blew up Gilroy's car and Gilroy along with it. He'd tried to convince Max it wasn't over, that it hadn't died with Kessler.
And they had shot him, too.
All he wanted was his life back. All he wanted was to know that his sacrifices had meant something. He wanted someone to tell him that the nightmares he saw when he closed his eyes helped other people sleep at night. He just wanted his world to make sense again.
He could still feel that smarmy bastard standing behind him, taking it all in, all his weakness that he had shown to only one other person.
"If he does come in, what then?"
"I think you have the answer to that in your right hand."
He took a deep stuttering breath and looked from her note in his left hand to his SIG in his right. So much death, so much adversity, so much tribulation, so much pain….
So much betrayal.
That was the look on Dani's Pearce's face when he turned around after seeing the surveillance video when she thought that he had murdered Max.
He couldn't bring himself to think about what her expression would have been when Jesse destroyed her laptop and Agent Pearce found out what he'd done this time, how he'd sabotaged the Agency, how he'd lied to her again.
Because he couldn't bring himself to care.
Because as hard as he tried not to think about the fiery redhead, she does just what she wants to again, and shes pushes her way into his consciousness just like she pushed her way into his heart, into his soul, into his very being.
"Ruined your life? I gave you a life, Michael. You were alone. You hadn't talked to your family in years; the love of your life was lonely and abandoned in Ireland, not sure if you were dead or alive. Look at what you have now. Wanna throw it all away? Can you throw it all away?"
He couldn't.
Betrayed.
She'd let him know in no uncertain terms that's how she'd felt when he'd shielded Anson. There was a part of him that couldn't believe he'd saved that sonuvabitch either, a part of him that was just as repelled as she was by what he'd done, but the part that was frantically trying to keep her safe had won out.
Betrayed.
That's what her expression had said in the loft. It had started as confusion as she tried to comprehend what he was doing and then disbelief as he had explained it to her and finally, as he went to the door bidding her goodbye, it was plain on her face: betrayal. It reverberated in the air and cut through his heart as she alternated between screaming denials and screaming his name.
He pushed those thoughts away with a violent shake of his head.
No, she had betrayed him.
She hadn't trusted him, hadn't given him the time he'd asked- no, begged and pleaded for- to work things out. All he needed was a little more time. All he ever needed was a little more time... She hadn't believed in him when he promised her he would find a way to fix it. She hadn't believed him when he said he could make it right.
"There's a reason you have to be everyone's White Knight, Michael. You left because you thought if you saved the world, you'd be safe at home."
He'd left home to save his sanity. If he got to save the world in the process, was that so bad? Was it such a bad thing to never give up, to never give in?
To never surrender yourself?
He'd told her. She hadn't heard him. She couldn't have heard him or she'd still be here with him now, trying to figure out how to make right, instead of giving up on him.
"I should disappear and you'll be able to bring Anson down."
"And you'd keep running for the rest of your life. Not after all this. I am not losing you, Fi."
It wasn't saving the world that made him safe. Hadn't she been listening when he told her he needed her, needed her to be his safe place, the place where life made sense? How could she have heard him and still taken that away with her, away from him?
Except he'd told her with his eyes, with this hands, with the way he had touched her, loved her, but he'd never actually said it, had he? But she had known how he felt even if he hadn't said it. He had the proof in his hands.
I love you, Michael. Forever.
He'd given her his heart, just like she wanted, just like she had asked all those years ago. All those times he had left her behind, to chase his answers, to protect her, to protect himself, all those times he had walked away from her had come back to haunt him because now, NOW that she WAS the most important thing in his life just like she'd wanted,
She had left him behind.
Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
It was so much easier to be angry with her than miss her. Being angry with her was familiar, almost comforting by comparison. Her breach of faith, her betrayal he could deal with, hadn't he done the same to her in the past? But her loss, her absence, her non-existence in his life for the foreseeable future, that he could not deal with.
He looked again from her note to his 9mm. He hadn't felt so lost or hopeless since Chechnya. Larry's latest visit had succeeded in resurrecting that long banished demon. But as bad as that had felt at the time, part of him thought breaking free of Larry Sizemore was child play's compared to just trying to function without her.
No need to thank Larry for that. She had done that for him with a block of RDX. She had finally done what he could never bring himself to do. Dead Larry was finally dead Larry. He swallowed reflexively, remembering the utter relief of holding her in his arms again when he expected to be dead, despite what he'd just seen the lobby, despite what he thought she'd done.
He shoved that feeling away with all his strength, biting his bottom lip and screwing his eyes closed.
Betrayal.
There was one more betrayal, one bitterer than hers. They'd been at odds enough in their lives that, even though what she'd done shattered him to the bottom of his soul, there was a tiny part of him that felt she'd done it just to be obstinate, just to oppose him. So, while utterly devastating, once it had happened, it was not completely unexpected.
But this...
"Fi, we gotta leave, we got... Sam! Sam, what happened? Where's Fi?"
This!
"Mike, I came back. I saw what you did with Fi. She wanted to call ya. She begged me, said she just wanted to use the phone for a minute. Eventually I gave in and took her purse over to her and she, she clocked me with a bottle."
He'd been too busy that the time calculating what had to be done to prevent her from turning herself in. Subconsciously, he knew things didn't add up. He'd been a covert operative too long to miss all the little details that were wrong; details that had coalesced into a portrait of collusion, though he had been too laser focused on getting to the courthouse in time to stop to her for it to matter then.
Sam's betrayal had hurt the worst because he'd thought his friend understood. He had trusted Sam, not only with his life over the years, but with the love of his life. Hadn't he left the two of them together, time and time again, while he was gone to look out for one another?
Hadn't he just asked Sam to keep an eye on her one more time, to keep her from doing just what she'd done? How could Sam let her get the drop on him like that and let her escape after all he'd done to prevent her from surrendering to the FBI?
The accusations died away as his brain suddenly hit the rewind button.
Hadn't he left the two of them together, time and time again, while he was gone to look out for one another?
Who had betrayed who?
"Don't look at me, I don't get it. I don't get why you're so dead set on getting back it. Why go back to work for the people who've put you through all this?"
"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."
…Because you just might get it.
He'd wanted his answers, he'd wanted his job back, but the one thing he needed more than anything had just slipped through his fingers and left him behind.
And now he knew her pain. And she knew his.