"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." Anatole France
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Andreani Estate, outside of Kildare, Ireland, December 2015, 13:57 GMT
As he sat in a finely appointed office awaiting the head of the criminal enterprise that had apparently finished off the organization that had burned him, Michael was reminded of finding himself in Vaughn's sumptuous office after being removed from the custody of the FBI, as the dark skinned man had felt constrained to remind him then who'd been in charge of his life.
~~Tell me what you need and I will find a way to stop the bleeding; No, don't add to my mistakes. ~~
But taking down that cabal of corrupt agents, burned spies and their power mad bosses had been child's play compared to battling the feelings that threatened to utterly overwhelm him as he awaited the culmination of sixteen years of arduous pursuit and deferred hope.
~~Tell me you're not leaving and I'll tell you everything you need to know.
Michael knew he should be concentrating on what he was going to say during this upcoming meeting but somehow, all he could think about was what he was going to say to Fiona once he was reunited, however briefly it might be, with the woman who still haunted his dreams.
~~Don't throw it all away. Don't say my words are just too late.
The dark haired man wondered briefly if he could just quote the song that was running through his head instead of whatever woefully inadequate explanation for his inexplicable absence he might come up with. Because coming up with a reason that could make sense of this situation was a daunting task at best and one he was almost certain to fail at by his own estimation.
~~I don't want to be left behind. I've been so blind to all that I have broken.~~
But now the unsettled spy was finding his head and his heart clashing, at odds over what McBride wanted with all his being while Westen was constrained to remember the realities of their situation. Having overcome the insurmountable obstacle of her now deceptive death, Michael could not reconcile himself to losing her over her presumed marriage to his host.
~~Can we put this back together?~~
Or worse yet, to Fiona's potentially devastating but wholly reasonable reaction to what he had done and who he had been truly once she had finally heard the unvarnished truth. It was the ultimate gamble, but with everything on the line, it was only move on the board left to make.
~~No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.
The American got up from the expensive leather chair and began to examine the waiting room again, although he was certain he had memorized the expensive contents during his first circuit. His eagerness for a resolution was totally at odds with his dread of that same event.
~~I know this will take time. Can you give me one more chance to make it right?~~
His head had been spinning, bursting with a hundreds of questions and a thousand unnamed untamable emotions as he'd rushed to keep pace with Sean Glenanne, his former comrade in arms who'd strode purposefully towards the suite of offices hidden behind the tree line that separated them from the stone mansion which served as their family residence. Once again, he'd found himself chasing that man in search of his answers while the Irishman sped away.
The anxious agent had expected to trudge through the snow, the white flakes tumbling rapidly from the grey skies overhead, over the relatively short distance between the two structures that had seemed miles away to him and could not be traversed quickly enough to satisfy his need.
But the youngest of the brothers had surprised him by turning towards the back of the house and slipping back inside before coming to a heavy metal door with a keypad. Once opened, the entrance to a descending staircase had been revealed and the redhead had held a finger to his lips and then he had nodded his understanding as they had slipped through a garage area.
Sean had continued to caution silence with his hard eyes looking hazel in the fluorescent lighting of the ascending stairway before they came to a halt in a space that looked more like a glorified mud room than a secret entrance to the offices of an international merchant of war. His friend had pressed an alpha-numeric sequence into a panel and then had visibly relaxed.
"The cameras ar' off now, so ya can ask yar questions or I can take ya t'Fiona, whotever's yar pleasure, boyo. But if tis a fight yer wantin' then be warned, I'll not be holding back."
The questions had all crashed together in his mind, in his mouth, and nothing had come out.
"D'ya have any idea whot ya put us through, man, wit' all yar lies an' all tha conspiracies we've had ta deal wit'? We had enough problems o' our own wit'out yar bloody spy games ya know!" Sean had all but shouted.
Michael remembered the feeling of weariness that had washed over him at the Irishman's offer to throw hands. There was only one thing he desired to fight for now. He had shaken his head slowly, the disorientation and the dizziness threatening to overcome him.
"Ya made a liar outta me, d'ya know thot, not thot I suppose it bothers ya at all. I had ta tell har ya wa' arrested, thot ya wa' thrown inta a Brit high security prison ta keep har from chasin' after ya an' fer years she believed me, even after thot bastid hooligan O'Neill outted ya. D'ya have any idea whot thot felt like when me own twin sister realized I'd lied ta har fer all those years?"
Sean had begun to pace then, clenching and releasing his fists in an attempt Michael knew from previous experience to keep himself under control, though he would have richly deserved any beating the Irishman would have chosen to mete out.
"Whot happened ta ya, man? I trusted ya! I trusted ya wit' me sister's life. Ya promised t'get har out o' this shite and so I lied fer ya, ta me own flesh and blood. Why did ya nae come back like ya said ya would? Did ya truly not know ya'd abandoned yar family t'fend fer themselves amongst a pack o' wolves?"
He had seen Sean's expectant stare and the former operative's own inability to form a coherent response to the query was truly all the answer his former compatriot had needed, as the dark haired man reluctantly remembered his parting promise to get Fiona out of Ireland for good.
"She almost died giving birth t'yar children, ya know. She refused t'go t'hospital until it wa' almost taa late fer all o' tham. She wa' afraid they'd come fer har and take the bairns. Turns out she'd been right about thot all along, even though it damned near killed her."
Michael had managed to piece together some of what had happened. His and their enemies' inability to locate Fiona had kept him in the employ of the Agency for the first phase of behind the scenes maneuvering, the game within the game that had marked his entrance into the darkest hall of mirrors in the world of covert operations.
"Eight years I kept up thot lie. Eight damn years I had ta listen ta har tellin' stories o' ya ta tha wee ones, listening ta har lie fer ya, never knowing it...Right up ta tha day she found out who ya really war."
"You told her-" he had stammered, the bitterness of his betrayal of his beloved being revealed had caused the query to get stuck in his throat.
"I dinnae have ta. She knew. Thot bastid must have told her straight away as soon as he'd found out. Ya'd gotten burned so she'd said an' ya'd been grassed by yar own people."
His inability to mask the anguish that the knowledge that he had almost lost the family he never knew he had must have been written plainly on his face because the younger man's expression had softened then. Outside of Sam Axe, only the Glenanne twins had ever been privileged to see the real man behind the spy's façade until today.
"When ya saw thot headstone, d'ya really think thot she wa' dead?"
He hadn't wanted to believe it; his heart had refused to encompass it. But the possibility that it had happened without his knowledge had been eating away at the once stoic spy's composure…Those cold words on that unforgiving stone had utterly obliterated his reason for breathing. She had been another man's wife and she was lost to him forever…
Or so he had thought kneeling there on the snow covered ground in that frozen apple grove, bleeding from the cut to his head and the cavernous hole in his heart simultaneously…
The memory of it threatened to overcome him once more while he shuffled around the small library that was serving as a waiting room, just as it had when he had stood with her brother in the alcove in front of the entrance between his recently revealed past and his unknown future.
When he's tried to turn the conversation to Armand Andreani, more accurately the status of his relationship with Fiona, Sean had refused to answer. Further attempts at getting information as to how Fiona regarded him were equally futile. His companion had told him bluntly that he'd spent too many years in between the dark haired man before him and his closest sibling. He needed to address his questions to the head of the crime clan personally and that was that.
And so as Michael had found himself in standing an space which had cost more than he'd made in his first years as a Ranger to decorate, waiting for the penultimate meeting before the most important conversation of his life could begin, he couldn't help but wish he'd taken a minute to get up to speed with Sam before taking off or better yet brought the SEAL along.
Thinking about his steadfast compatriot of the last twenty five years had the leader of Team Westen considering at that moment how his actions in the next few hours would affect the other members of his band of brothers, with the two members of his squad who'd been tasked with investigating Anson's demise in the south of France due to meet up with the other pair who might have made their way to Berlin by now. He had no way of knowing for certain how long he had been unconscious or what had transpired in the passage of these last days.
Perhaps it was the revelation that he's unknowingly abandoned a family of his own that had Michael thinking about his mother and brother as he'd settled into the same high backed over stuff leather arm chair again. It seemed that everyone in his life had paid the price for being associated with him. Rebecca Lange, the agent who'd been in charge of escorting them into protective custody, had turned out to be another of the organization's minions and had nearly succeeded in completing Dr. Fullerton's plan to have leverage over him for the rest of his life.
Michael took another moment to be utterly appreciative that the smarmy DIA psychologist he'd been forced to speak to when he'd asked about bringing his asset out of the field with him had never been able to lay his calculating clutches on the only woman he'd ever truly cared about.
The more important question was: did she still care for him? From the intel they'd gathered and her brother's remark, the marriage seemed to be one of convenience, something she had been forced into as a means of survival when he hadn't been able to return to get them out. Did she hate him now, for being a spy as much as for abandoning her and their babies?
No, Michael was still convinced that she'd come for him when he'd been burned. But if that was true, why had she rescued him, nursed him, saved him from the FBI only to desert him?
The former covert operative closed his watery eyes then, as a sudden mixture of guilt and despair vied for control. The women he had slept with, whether they had been aimed at him by the organization, as Carla and Rebecca had been, or by his former partner in Evelyn's case, or by his friends, like the brunette from the airport, none of them had touched his heart, merely his body. Only Lucy had been more than a meaningless one night stand or a strategic objective and even then it had been nothing but mutual need between friends.
Was it the same with her? Or was she truly Armand's wife in heart as well as name? Was there any hope left that everything he had fought for these last sixteen years hadn't already passed him by? That he'd lose the children he'd just come to know as well as his only love?
~~You say the story's ending but I think it's time we stop pretending;~~
That's when he heard it, the footfalls in the hallway and the cadence of boot heels on a marble floor that was so familiar despite the expanse of years since he'd heard that sound last. While the spy knew he was supposed to be waiting to meet the person in charge, as Sean had said when he'd escorted him into the glorified holding tank, Michael now refused to wait quietly.
~~No, can't let you turn the page.~~
Crossing the room in five long strides, he was at the entrance, his slightly shaky hand closing about the polished brass knob before turning it quickly to remove the ornate wooden obstacle between himself and the sounds of an entourage moving purposefully down the passageway.
Michael's breath caught in his throat and he was certain his heart had stopped beating as she came into view at the intersection of corridor where he stood transfixed and the one the group was moving through. She was swathed in winter outer wear, but he was certain it was her and not their daughter now that he was fully conscious and he called out for her to stop.
~~ Does your heart remember when we used to say forever, don't let go~~
The dark haired man couldn't say for certain whether he had whispered her name or shouted it, the blood roaring in his ears masking out every other sound now that she was in his sight.
The figure at the end of the walkway stopped and turned towards him. She was wearing a heavy coat and a wide brimmed hat of the same fur that made it hard to see her features over a dark designer dress that swirled about her Prado boots as her body angled in his direction.
~~Don't throw it all away; don't say these words are just too late.~~
The men beside her trained their weapons upon him the moment he'd spoken and even at that distance, the operative was able to spot the flash of what he was certain was her favorite pistol in her hand. She slowly lowered her arm, but the burly bodyguards did not follow suit.
…As the song came to end, Fiona's hand had drifted down until it'd rested just above his back pockets. Then she'd reached up under his sweater and removed his automatic from the waistband of his jeans, her eyes never leaving his, her smile never wavering…. She'd kept that CIA issued sidearm all these years…
Unheeding of the Uzi submachine guns still pointed directly at him, Michael moved quickly across the distance separating them, elated at the sight of her and simultaneously terrified that she did in fact despise him and would walk off and leave him behind with her men.
~~I don't want to be left behind, I've been so blind to all that I have broken.~~
Her auburn hair, redder, longer and fuller than he remembered tumbled about her shoulders and tangled in the thick scarf swathed around her neck. The dark glasses hiding her eyes and the slightly parted full red mouth commanded his focus, but the spy didn't need to turn around to know that two more heavily armed guards had joined the duo defending his love, the sound of heavy boots rushing towards him followed by the twin poke of gun barrels in his back being all the confirmation he needed that she was well protected from everything including himself.
~~Can we put this back together?~~
Fiona Glenanne was perfectly still, in a way that she would normally have only be capable of while staring through a sniper scope. He halted a few feet from the petite vision of perfection, irrationally uncertain of himself now that she was standing right in front of him, albeit with a deadly escort. Nonetheless, he found himself totally incapable in that moment of capturing coherent thought and translating it into to speech. Would she really let them shoot him?
"Michael…"
The sound of her voice, of his name leaving her lips with a mixture of adoration and sorrow left him rooted to the spot and even more powerless to think, much less speak, than before.
"Come with me," she instructed quickly and the entourage moved off in the direction she'd originally been heading and he had followed, penned in between enormous men in body armor before and behind them, cursing himself internally for not falling to her feet and begging her forgiveness the moment he'd been close enough to touch her, despite the fact that the action would have likely left him dead or disabled.
~~No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.~~
The pair at the head of the column opened the door to what turned out to be an enormous office, sweeping the room with their Uzis before going to stand in the far corners, giving themselves full view of the area and the additional two exits at the other end. Michael stopped in the center of the space, taking a moment to observe the other duo and their HK 416's assault rifles as they also made a quick assessment of their environs before shutting the door.
Had he been in full possession of his faculties, the agent extraordinaire would have thought more about it, as he noted the chair and the rug behind the large lavish mahogany desk were out of place with the décor in the remainder of the room. Additionally, the credenza left of the desk didn't match either and the art work was oddly off center. But Michael's attention was fully focused on Fiona's demeanor, her body language creating a cold chasm between them.
~~I know this will take time, can we put the past behind us?~~
The mother of his children who was apparently another man's wife gestured towards the set of semi-circular chairs composed of the same dark wood and plush leather padding as what was still visible of the chair on the opposite side of the desk. She tried to take several deep breaths, using the soft cashmere around her neck as a mask before she seemed to recover her wind.
Fiona went to the nearby coat tree, removing her heavy hat, thick coat and scarf, briefly glancing at him over her shoulder while offering him refreshments which he managed to decline, and then hanging up her garments. Her movements were slow and hesitant now.
The Irishwoman's soft sigh before she turned back around to face him sent another ice cold dagger of fear through his heart. The aura around her was bittersweet and spoke of love lost and Michael found himself sitting down heavily in the proffered seat lest he fall into it.
~~Tonight I'm gonna fight for you.~~
She hadn't removed her black leather gloves and it stirred an odd memory at that moment: he hadn't see any pictures of her in all of the intel where she wasn't wearing some sort of hand covering, ranging from thick woolen items to expensive linens to intricate laces .
…Her hands went from striking and slapping him to caressing and holding him, clinging to him tightly…
But the observation just made his heart hurt that much more, wondering what had caused all the changes in her and all the changes in her habits as well. He longed again to apologize immediately, but her air of resignation held his tongue… as well as the two armed individuals who were still standing in the room, never mind the pair behind the other door.
~~Just give me one last chance to make it right.~~
"Sean said you wanted to meet with the head of our organization?" Fiona asked at length when he had failed to complete a sentence, staring at her helplessly while she cocked her head and finally removed the shades from her face. The heavy makeup she wore was as foreign as the upper class accent she now used, an odd mixture of refined British with French overtones.
…She'd walked sinuously towards him, her standard uniform of jeans, jumper and heavy boots doing nothing to detract from her feral femininity. The gleam in her eye had been predatory, but the slow smile blossoming over her clean beautiful features that needed no makeup said that she'd been intrigued by his audacity…
The dark Dior dress flowed around her ankles and arms as she walked slowly towards the desk, the full length skirt and long sleeves covering her limbs did not hide her poise, but almost covered the slight stiffness of her gait, as did the gold braided chain hanging from the neckline. Fiona settled herself, putting the wooden barricade between them and his heart clenched.
…Her tiny perfect frame, once only swathed in heavy clothes and fatigues, became wrapped in robes and towels, wrapped in sheets, then blankets or thick quilts, them lying together beneath them, wondrously wrapped in nothing but each other's arms… her face that softened only for him…the love in her eyes…
Touching some unseen switch on the desktop, the sliding doors to either side of her opened.
"Prótacal slándála daichead a dó," she ordered without taking her eyes off Michael, the blue green orbs warming for just a moment, before turning to the bodyguard on her left. "Tagann aon duine trí ann," and the tone was harsh, an echo of their early days in the Provo together.
~~Last chance to make it right.~~
They both watched as the two men backed out of the room, the automatic doors closing with a slight hiss until they were alone together, the atmosphere now heavily charged with quiet anticipation. Michael found himself staring at her once more, caught between the desire to confess his sins and beg her forgiveness prostrate at her feet or doing whatever it would take to make things right for her, except he only had the vaguest of inklings as to what that was...
"We won't be disturbed," Fiona assured him, the return of her previous accent jarring after hearing her speak Irish. There was a raspy quality to her voice that also seemed off to him. Perhaps it was the cold weather… "You said you had questions for le chef de l'organisation?"
"I did," he agreed hesitantly, multiple images of the Frenchman flashing through his head.
"So ask…"
Michael stared dumbfounded again, frustrated at his apparent lack of proper intelligence and his inability to put together all the little clues that were screaming at him that he was missing something of tremendous importance and the overwhelming emotions that were impeding him.
"Ah, mo sheanchara," she said softly. "Fhéachann tú cosúil tá tú ag feiceáil a bheadh taibhse."
His Irish was very rusty, but he thought he understood enough of her remark to respond.
"I feel like a ghost," he answered. "And I hope I am still more than an old friend to you."
Her smile was sad and it tore at his very soul. "You will always be my immediate family."
…For tonight she wanted to be with just her immediate family. He'd taken the hint and booked a room…
"But there's more in your life than your family now…?" he asked, not wanting the answer.
"My family is everything to me, mo chroi. There is nothing I would not do, nothing I have not done, for them…" She swallowed thickly. "So you have met them, our children, yes?"
"They're beautiful, Fi…" and it was his turn to hold back the feelings that surged at the memory of hugging them both, his nearly adult offspring that he had known nothing about his daughter accepting his embrace, his son fighting him momentarily before surrendering as well.
"Yes… they are my light… guiding me through the darkness…" her gaze became unfocused, distant and obviously somewhere in the past and Michael couldn't stand it anymore.
"I'm so sorry, Fiona," he blurted out.
"Don't be," she countered. "They were your gift to me. You left a piece of yourself with me."
The dark haired man bit down hard on his bottom lip, his eyes tearing at the memory of their last night together, of slipping out of their apartment into the cold Irish winter night, the pain of separation stealing his breath away as surely as the frosty air had burned his lungs too…
"It wasn't supposed to happen like that. I tried… I tried to come back for you, to get you out… but… I couldn't find you…God, it was like you'd vanished into thin air… and then…"
"And then O'Neil grassed ya t'tha world an' then ya could nae come home," she finished for him as Michael was unable to go on. Fiona sighed deeply and shook her head as if to clear it.
… It wa' true! Every fookin' word thot bastid said wa' true! I killed a man fer tellin' me the truth about ya…
"I found that out later," she continued, returning to her businesslike tone, distancing herself from him. "If I had known it then, I'm not sure if I would have killed you, Tommy or both."
The one-time Company man nodded mutely, feeling the weight of his initial deceit as well as the remembered rage of his offspring when he'd learned his father truly had been a spy.
"But I was already in hiding. Too many people would have tried to use them... I was so surprised when I found out. An Bean Chabhrach said I would never be able to have children."
"Sean said you almost died when they were born," he whispered, the guilt crushing him.
"I'm much harder to kill than everyone thinks." Fiona responded evenly, apparently dismissing her suffering as well as his shame.
"I never wanted any of this for you… for them…"
"Ah yes… But needs must when tha devil drives, mo ghrá."
…If Armand warn't the devil himself, he wa' his favorite friend… He'd heard that somewhere…
"Sean said I'd have to take all my questions to le général," Michael repeated slowly, still trying to reconcile the intel he'd been given with the new facts trickling into his conscious mind.
"And so you have," she agreed with a chuckle that had a nasty edge to it. "There's been a change in management since you scheduled your meeting with Armand several weeks ago."
And everything that was out of place in the office came together at that moment.
…Aye, tis thot, but didja have t'kill him, ya bloomin' idijit…?"
All the mismatched furniture, the haphazard décor, it was a hastily covered crime scene.
"Sean Michael killed him… the same as he killed O'Neil," his father stammered.
"No, not precisely the same… Keevan shot Armand; he blew up Tommy and his boys."
…But ya needn't worry, Mammy taught me well. I came prepared thot night, thot I did… So maybe they'll put thot on his headstone, if they can find enough pieces o' him t'bury thot is…
Michael was caught between hating what his son had been involved in and remembering he too had also killed at the almost same age, though he hadn't intended to commit a homicide when he had intervened with a drug-addled pimp brutally beating a girl in the wrong business.
"For a man who came seeking answers, you're oddly quiet," Fiona observed. "Why are you here now, Michael? Was it just to meet with Armand or did you have something else in mind?"
~~I don't want to be left behind, I've been so blind to all that I have broken.~~
Looking into the blue green eyes of his precious love, he felt the enormity of the last sixteen years settle upon him once more. He'd left the States with no plan other than making sure the people who'd burned him were no longer a threat and going home to beg for her forgiveness.
~~Can we put this back together?~~
And now at long last, he had Fiona in front of him and now she was a widow, free to be with him. He had two children he never knew about. He had it all in front of him, his beloved, his family and yet the woman he loved could snatch everything away from him if she rejected him.
~~No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.~~
"I couldn't come back until I was sure that the people who burned me, the people who had tried to find you, to use you to control me, that they couldn't hurt you anymore. I'm so very sorry, Fiona. I was trying to protect you and I failed. I failed you and I failed my family and I'm sorry."
The moisture gathering his eyes was mirrored in the mistiness of hers and it gave him the strength to continue, to hope that she did still care for him and would not send him away.
~~I know this will take time, can you give me one last chance to make it right?~~
"Sean found out I was a spy, but he knew we were on the same side, that I was there to help the cause, to help stop bastards like O'Neil from killing kids and he knew I loved you. I was trying to meet with them to get you out when you found me in that safe house in Harrow."
The former terrorist turned mafiosa cracked a smile. "Put a spanner in the works, didn't I?"
"Thot ya did, luv," he agreed, slipping into McBride's voice at the memory. "Sean said you knew, that Armand had told you when I was burned…" and he couldn't hide the tremor in his voice. "You came for me, back in Miami. You were there, weren't you? You came back for me even though Sean had lied and told you I was in prison, even though you knew I was a spy."
A tiny teardrop broke free and cut a thin path through the thick cosmetic cover on her face.
"You came for me, but then you left me behind. Why?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. How could he possibly question her for doing exactly what he had done to her albeit with the best of intentions years before? But he had to know; his sanity depended on it.
She sniffled and then straightened in her chair, clearly trying to regain her composure.
"I could ask you the same question, Michael," Fiona returned evenly.
~~Give me one last chance to make it right…~~
"When I left Ireland, I promised Sean I would get you out, take you away from all the violence, all the killing. I only left because my cover was about to be blown and you would have been executed as a tout. I went to the CIA, begging them to let me get you out, that you were too valuable to be left behind. For months they had me meeting with people, trying to arrange it."
"And that's when you were introduced to Dr. Anson Fullerton?" she inquired.
Michael couldn't help it, his jaw dropped and he stared at her wide eyed and open mouthed.
"How did you-?"
"I have my own resources, which are far superior to those of your employers I might add, and I've had my own conversation with the good doctor. It was very enlightening."
Fiona rose from her seat, standing slowly before starting to move about the room, her hand straying to fiddle with the gold chain hanging from the neckline of the dress as she paced.
"After you left," and there was a small hitch in her voice as she said those words. "As soon as I realized I was pregnant, we went into hiding. I had my own enemies who would have taken advantage of my condition. Even so, the rumors spread quickly enough. They war all talkin' about how I'd got meself up tha pole messin' around after ya dumped me an' ran off."
"And that's when Sean told you that I'd been arrested and was being held in a high security British prison," the American operative guessed, wincing as he repeated the other's lie.
"So twas," she agreed. With a shake of her head, her posture and her accent shifted again. "Your inquiries into bringing your female asset out of the field piqued the interest of the DIA psychologist with whom you had been forced to review the matter, who after your many conversations was practically salivating at the opportunity to bring such a world class agent into their talent pool of burned spies."
Having had the misfortune to speak far more extensively than he wanted to with the odious Anson Fullerton, he could almost hear his beloved's words coming from the man's mouth.
"He told you that?" Now the thought that he had set that monster after her while he had been trying to save her took hold and made him absolutely sick. The knowledge twisted in his guts, threatening after so many momentous revelations these past few hours to destroy him.
Michael dropped his head into his hands, unable to face what he had unintentionally done.
"This is my fault," he groaned, swallowing back the bile rising up in his throat. "Everything that's happened to you—"
…It wa' nae his fault the whole world wa' conspirin' against ya bringing him home…
"Au contraire, mon amour," he heard her say and felt her leather-shod fingers begin to gently card through his raven hair. "This little tragedy of ours has a few other villains in it."
…Whot kind o' man goes off and abandons his family t'the likes of Armand Andreani t'care fer them…?
Now he was now caught up in the sensation of her touching him with tenderness and the desperate hope that she wasn't merely being ironic as she continued to refer to him with endearments he surely didn't deserve. It had been so long and he didn't want her to stop…
"And the first ones to die was the team that tried to take them from me in hospital…"
Michael managed to hold back the low moan that longed to escape at her frank declaration, continuing to stare at the floor. As the Irishwoman described how she'd spent her time in hiding recovering from their birth and then caring for their babies, the memory of his handler pronouncing her fate hit him hard.
…I'm sorry, man, but it's over. I got orders from the Director himself to send you to the Middle East. Look, Mike, think about it. Your cover's blown. You were outted. It's been months. If you can't find her, it's cuz she's joined the ranks of the disappeared. You know what they do to traitors. Let it go, Mike, just let it go…
"It wasn't until Keelin's hair came in as fine and black as yours…" and the hand stroking over his head tangled into strands at the base of his neck, sending chills down his spine. "That we knew we couldn't hide whose children they were for much longer."
…Hiding out in Marseilles wa' probably better'n prison, I'd suppose, but some days it warn't...
"And that's when Armand helped you hide in Marseilles," the American operative concluded, his son's words and the intel they had reviewed on the plane ride over all falling into place. He slowly lifted his head and Fiona's hand slid onto his neck as she straightened up slightly.
"Et viola, Laramire Descoteaux and her children Rene and Josephine were joined by their grandmother and their Uncle Liam in the south of France while their father was in prison."
This time Michael couldn't stop the small tortured sound that erupted and her fingers slipped onto his shoulder, squeezing gently before the slick glove encompassed his cheek. The miserable man leaned into her touch, desperately needing her acceptance in that moment.
…So ya say thot McBride wa' nae in a cell, but thot he wa' bein' coerced into doin' the biddin' o' those thot we war hidin' fram all those years in France, while he wa' tryin' t'find a way t'get the family outta the country…?
"I don't know what I can say…" he lamented, laying his hand over hers. "I'm so sorry…"
But Fiona pulled hers away as he tried to take it into his, stepping back from his intense gaze and folding her arms across her waist. "Thar war more than one hand stirring tha pot."
Things were not adding up again as his overwrought senses attempted to catalogue not only the questions to which he still needed answers but details of her appearance that puzzled him.
…Ya both know whot happened t'her when she did go after yar da…
"What happened, Fi? Why did you come back to Ireland? Weren't you safer in France?"
"Hmmm and thereby hangs a tale," the redhead backed away from him again, resuming her circuit of the office space that had once belonged to the son of Jean Baptiste Andreani.
And the nausea swept through him again as it had when he'd first realized that the woman named Renata Andreani in the picture Spencer had obtained for him was actually Fiona.
"That's when you married Armand?" he guessed while the queasiness continued to plague his efforts to concentrate. Fiona Glenanne… Loving Wife… 1970 – 2007… It didn't make sense.
"Not exactly," she amended, fingering the chain on the front of her garment. "Once I—"
Michael watched with concern as she shuddered and took a deep breath. "What is it, Fi?"
"After I returned from Miami, after Sean almost died trying to bring you back, I realized that Armand was using his resources to, shall we say, covertly contact not only my various enemies, but the people that had burned you as well. That's when I decided the best use of my resources was to assist you in eliminating our mutual enemy."
The spy stood up slowly. "That was you? You were the one that—"
"It was a simple matter to point Simon Escher in the direction of the man he wanted to kill. They were more than happy to finish one another off. All it cost me was a small shipment-"
"You tracked down Simon and led him to Management?" and his thoughts immediately went to his team awaiting his instructions in Berlin, the site where his crazed frenemy and the man in charge had apparently been encouraged to mutually eliminate each other.
She shrugged, wandering the room and creating space between them. "I somehow doubted your CIA was capable of containing either of them if arrested, so I simply saw to it that there was no need. Nothin' ya cannae solve wit' tha right amount o' C-4, eh, mo ghrá amháin?"
She saw the concern in his eyes, the question in his expression before he could give it voice.
"Your people in Berlin are safe… My people are keeping an eye on them and on the CIA team that is monitoring them as well…The people who burned you are no more and the people within your intelligence service who were working with them have met the end they deserve."
"Anson…" he ground out the hated name and tried to close the distance between them.
Fiona laughed. "Yes… Anson and his desire to use you and Armand and his desire to have me… Their arrogance was truly their undoing," and there was great satisfaction in her tone.
"You said you had a conversation with Anson…" he prompted as she drifted away from him.
"He was quite eager to tell me everything when he thought he had captured me."
The covert operative could see it all in a flash, the realization of what she'd done made him weak in the knees and he found himself sitting down heavily in the chair once again.
"You used yourself as bait to lure him to Marseilles…" Michael whispered, almost choking on the words as he remembered the gruesome details of Dr. Fullerton's autopsy report.
"The news of his partner's demise made him desperate and reckless. The opportunity to finally get his hands on me was too much to resist and that was when I got my hands on him."
And although he had wanted to personally beat the blonde troll to death with his bare hands himself, the amount of venom in his beloved's voice still managed to startle him.
"You interrogated him…?" Broken knee caps, broken fingers, broken nose… those only someof the injuries that had been visited upon the man who had ruined his and his family's lives.
"You could hardly call it an interrogation… he'd already told me what I wanted to know… bragged on it actually while he had me tied to a chair… He was a lot less comfortable when we swapped places."
Fiona began to pace again and again he tried to put together all the odd things about the way she looked, the way she walked, the way she moved, the way she spoke which disturbed him.
However, what she was saying was completely distracting him from his intelligence gathering.
"I'm afraid I got a tad carried away… I'm fairly certain I broke a few of his ribs before I hurt my wrist taking that metal bar to his nose, after which the boys took turns breaking his knee caps with it... I let Liam handle breaking his fingers. He has a surgeon's touch…. I believe he broke every single bone in that monster's hands." There was an unsettling sing song quality to her voice as she continued to circle the room, her words punctuated with an occasional cough.
"The beating… that was just round one… it seemed appropriate to break things. After all, he had broken my family apart. Round two, well… losing you had felt like I was bleeding from a thousand cuts so it was only fair that he got to experience that as well… Liam showed me where to make the incisions and how deep to go for maximum pain yet not to kill."
She paused to suck in a breath; her eyes briefly gazing down upon him as if challenging him to comment. "He went into shock several times. It is amazing how much pain a man, even one like Anson, can take and not die. I considered letting him bleed out…" Fiona commented calmly and then in a flash her expression changed to one of murderous fury.
"But thot seemed taa kind a fate fer someone thot had promised t'use me children as pawns in his sick game... I showed ham all about sick games an' tha consequences o' playin' tham on tha wrong one." That fast, the refined lady was gone and the woman before him now was pure Provo at her very worst. ""He should nae o' said whot he war plannin' t'do t'our babbies…"
There was more than a fanatical gleam in her eyes now, something that Michael had seen before... This wasn't just the conviction of a true believer dedicated to their cause; it was the soul shattered look of someone who had been pushed too hard… too far….
"In tha end, he shoulda kept his feckin' mouth shut an' I mighta jus' finished ham off then, ya know, filled tha bastid fulla lead tha same way O'Neil's boys hadda done Sean. But then he said sommit an' I thought abou' whot happened when ya war burned, whot tha bastids did t'ya, whot they did t'me an' it seemed thot thar wa' only one way t'finish it good and proper..."
Fiona laughed again, but it was a shaky sound and deeply disturbing to the man before her.
"Twas quite tha puzzle… deciding how much accelerant t'use and how t' apply it. It took me a coupla goes t'get it jus' right. Burnt a few o' tham broken fingers an' toes off taa befer I wa' happy wit' tha mix…" and her delight in torturing her hated nemesis was plain to hear.
The dark haired man closed his eyes, the tears squeezing from the corners and running freely down his face. Never one to express his personal feelings well, he was completely and utterly bereft of the language needed to give voice to the depths of his regret, his agony at her words.
"Then o' course thar wa' tha small matter o' making sure thar wa' enough body left ta be identified. A warnin' sign is nae good after all if yar enemies cannae read it."
As her tone had morphed again to one he'd heard her use many times during their strategy sessions discussing PIRA operations, the former undercover operative couldn't help but wonder what could have possibly happened to drive her so close to the edge of sanity.
But Michael wasn't sure he could bear to hear what had taken his former paramilitary lover, whom he had encouraged to turn away from her terrorist ways, and turned her into the vicious leader of a powerful international criminal cabal far more dangerous than his previous foes.
…My family is everything, mo chroi. There is nothing I would not do, nothing I have not done, for them…"
He felt her hand on his cheek, thumb caressing the wetness on his face. He opened his eyes.
"Come with me, mo ghrá amháin," she requested, turning away quickly before he got a good look at the ruined makeup, now blotchy and discolored, from the salt water on her own face.
She marched briskly to the desk and hit the touch panel which caused the door to open on her right, brushing past the startled guard and not waiting to see if Michael was following her.
"Prótacal slándála seasca naoi!" Fiona barked without turning to look at either of them or breaking her stride as she continued quickly, almost but not quite breaking into a run. The spy increased his pace until he was right behind her, the flowing hair and fabric rustling as she went. He was tempted to halt her flight but decided it was best to follow along for now.
Passing rapidly through several security checkpoints, they turned down a corridor that took them into an empty hallway, though he spotted the security cameras and hidden doorways. The farther they went, the differences in the woman he recalled and the one in front of him became more pronounced, as she seemed to be having more difficulty moving and breathing.
Pausing behind his beloved as she halted before another massive and ornately carved door, Michael realized with a start that she was stopping for a retina scan. He was even more startled when the door opened to reveal an extravagantly decorated apartment of sorts.
The sitting area consisted of an embroidered settee and two matching arm chairs on either side of a gleaming cherry wood coffee table in the center of the lavishly appointed space and he could see the large four-poster bed complete with gauzy silk curtains in the adjacent room.
The Irishwoman passed through the bed chamber with its enormous walk in closet directly into a bathroom that was as large and well stocked as a hospital room, though certainly more elaborately done up in painted porcelains, marble countertops and gleaming brass fixtures.
Fiona stopped, looking at him standing behind her in the reflection of the massive mirror that spanned the entire back wall of the room. She was breathing heavily while doing everything in her power to keep from crying it seemed. He could see the redness in her eyes and the places where the thick cosmetics had smeared and eroded. Never breaking eye contact with him in the looking glass, she slowly removed her leather gloves and laid them on the stone surface.
Reaching out with hands that were covered with rough looking skin that was crisscrossed with streaks of white and pink, a bizarre patchwork of color and texture that almost appeared as if she were still wearing some kind of covering or had the most unnatural of tattoos, the petite woman reached for a thick wipe from a silver box to her right.
As he continued to stare at image of her, Fiona removed the heavy makeup, revealing much of the natural beauty of her face that he remembered, but also scars he'd never seen before. She swallowed noisily and then moved to her left, finally dropping her eyes. Opening a wooden bi-fold door, she turned towards him now standing in front of a space lined with shelves, each holding a variety of hair pieces in all manner of styles and colors, her own personal wig shop.
She was keeping her gaze firmly on the granite floor between them and his beloved's voice sounded hollow, reedy and breathless as she finally began to speak. His eyes were locked on the damaged flesh of her hands, injuries he was certain were a decade old at the least. .
….A small hand laid itself over his. The touch was gentle, but the skin was rough. It was simultaneously recognizable, but wrong somehow. Another hand caressed his cheek and again the feeling of familiarity and strangeness caused him to almost shy away…
"When Armand told me that you weren't locked away in a British high security prison but that you were a spy, I think he was hoping I'd kill you myself. There was a part of me that was so angry I think I could have if I'd have gotten my hands on you at that moment. Of course, once I had gotten my hands on you in Miami, it was plain someone else had tried to beat me to it."
...He had been on a plane from Nigerian, passing out from the pain… A dim memory of an altercation, of being grabbed and pulled and then dropped, but he remembered quite clearly screaming as his battered body met the pavement and it had been a very long time since he had allowed pain to make him cry out like that.
"Liam patched ya up, but ya war still a bloody mess. He wa' watching over ya when I left t'fetch our ride, but they war waitin' fer me… Thar war taa many o' tham an' they war ready."
She started to shake then, just like she had in that hotel room in Harrow the night she'd confessed how she'd been raped and her baby sister Claire had been murdered all those years ago. Michael could already guess what was coming as he took a hesitant step towards her.
When Fiona finally raised her head, her red rimmed blue green eyes were full of unshed tears.
"Do you know what Dr. Fullerton said that finally sealed his fate? He was trying to bargain with me, telling me it was Armand who'd set me up, that the reason I had been given a plane full of medical equipment to take to Miami wasn't for you… Nae, tha whole feckin' thing wa' a trap thot wa' supposed ta end with ya on his leash and me bloodied up but gratefully in his arms."
She reached up then grasping what he had finally discerned was a hair piece by the bangs and slowly pulled the auburn wig away from her scalp, trembling as she removed the mane.
…He felt rather than heard the sigh. Then a weight was laid over his heart… Someone's head was on his chest. The hair on whoever's head was closely cropped and oddly textured.
Her hair was white, short and spiky, like a bad bleach job gone horrible wrong that had ended with a near buzz cut. Now that the faux tresses were gone, he could see the scars that covered her scalp beneath the fine fuzz, the visible bit of her neck and the remnants of her ears.
"You were there… you came into the room, but then you left…" he stuttered. "I thought—"
Drawing in a shuddering breath, her voice was rough with emotion when she answered him.
"There was business to attend to…" Fiona shook her head sadly, letting the expensive wig slip from her damaged grasp, and sighed. "There's always business to attend to, mo chroi."
Stepping into her personal space, the dark haired man reached up, his own fingers shaking as he undid the gold chain fastened at her throat and dropped it to the ground as well. Based on what he'd seen of her hands, of her head, on what he'd heard in her voice, Michael wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he asked the question anyway.
"What happened to you, Fi?" he whispered softly before biting down hard on his bottom lip.
The once nimble digits that could pick any lock haltingly unfastened the hidden clasps holding the dark dress together, all the while staring intently into his agonized blue orbs. With a shrug of her shoulders, the expensive apparel fell to the floor and her gaze dropped along with it.
Stepping out of the garment, Fiona turned and edged away from him to stand in front of the mirror again. Underneath her outer clothing, she was wearing a sheer slip which extended down her arms and across her back, the hem of it ending just above her knees. It was so thin he could see her French cut panties and the taut, crinkly skin, a mishmash of white leathery stripes intersecting with what once had no doubt been livid red burns that had faded pink.
The evidence of the third degree burns ran from the base of her scalp across her upper limbs and down to her lower back. Her legs didn't appear to have been burned, but the raised seams were undoubtedly the edges of the grafts taken in an attempt to repair the horrific injuries.
Keeping her back to him, she coughed and then began to speak. He knew just from the hoarse quality of her voice that she not only had some sort of lung damage but that she was crying.
As she described being held, the lies her captors had spun, the pain they'd inflicted upon her, Michael's fists clenched at his sides and his entire body quivered with the want, no the need, to dig up the bodies of Vaughn Anderson and Armand Andreani and murder them himself personally in the same manner that his beloved that taken Anson Fullerton out of this world.
"…I dinnae take tha time t'get tha mix right an' I damned near dropped tha whole buildin' on me head when I set it off. It war burning down around me while I wa' tryin' t'make me escape."
…a massive fireball had erupted, rattling the windows and he had looked out in time to see his FBI tail screeching out of their parking space towards the blazing inferno that had previously been a warehouse along the waterfront…
"Sommit hit me fram behind, knocked tha wind out o' me an' pinned me t'tha ground. Part o' tha ceiling collapsed on me… burnin' me, setting me hair on fire… I tried t'put it out wit' me hands… I thought I wa' already burnin' in hell fer me sins…" She paused and gulped.
Michael moved up behind her, wanting desperately to comfort her, but afraid to touch her.
"Then it wa' like tha angels themselves war crying o'er me. Twas one o' yar Miami thunder storms, so Liam told me later. He figured tha down pour came in through tha hole in tha roof and put out tha fire. Covered our escape taa… He took me back t'tha plane an' then he hadda leave befer he could come back fer ya… The Gard wa' on thar way and he had me t'tend ta."
Nothing even approaching adequate, never mind acceptable, could be said to convey the kaleidoscope of emotions surging through his mind, his heart, his very soul from her words.
The departure of his mother and his hated childhood home had silenced him for three days.
Three lifetimes wasn't long enough to process how he felt right now…
"I don't want your pity, Michael," Fiona declared angrily, her voice breaking, and he knew instantaneously that she was clearly mistaking his stunned silence for something else.
"Pity…?" he echoed, reaching out to gently take hold of her elbows from behind when she started to storm away from him. "No… Fi… Fiona," Michael held onto her, both in an effort to halt her flight but also to keep those so deadly appendages from impacting his ribs or nose.
Turning them both so they faced one another in the mirror once again, the man once known as McBride slowly leaned forward, pressing his lips ever so softly to a spot at the base of her neck that had once held the Claddagh tattoo she'd gotten for him which was no longer visible.
"No, I don't pity you… I'm in awe of you, Fiona… My wild Irish rose…"
He backed her towards him, easing her against his chest carefully, aligning their bodies so that they met with the lightest of touches, placing another gentle kiss into her ruined hair. Staring at her reflection in the glass, watching the water flow from her eyes, his own tears began to fall anew.
"You fought… so hard… to protect your children, our children… You came back for me when I didn't deserve it… After I'd left you behind, you nearly destroyed yourself... For me, for love…"
Urging her to turn around, Michael cradled her face in his two rough hands, thumbing away the streams of salt water as he tried to put every ounce of devotion he felt into his expression.
"You are the strongest, bravest, most beautiful woman I have ever known and it's me who should be pitied for spending the last sixteen years without you… without us… without them…"
And then he kissed her… He knew it wasn't possible to erase all the pain and loss they had endured with one kiss, but so long as she accepted it, accepted him again, it was a good start.
~~No more empty promises, they don't exist; just me out in the open.~~
~~I know this will take time, can you give me one last chance to make it right?~~
A/N: I cannot believe it was a year ago yesterday that I last updated this story! It was supposed to end here with a brief epilogue, but my writing partner, the amazing Purdy's Pal, talked me into expanding the ending! So, a huge shout out and much gratitude to her for all her many contributions that help make this Twilight Zone version of Michael and Fiona as realistic as possible given their altered circumstances. Belated birthday wishes to the marvelous Barb D as well. Here's hoping you win that lottery soon! Thank you to everyone that's asked about this story and your continued patience with lags between chapters.