He kept his word. He found a way. Michael would say that he didn't, but Fiona disagreed. She had made sure he'd kept his word.
She knew he wouldn't have left if he knew what she'd done. She didn't tell him how she'd meticulously counted as she stared at the calendar in the days before he'd spoken to Marv. . He didn't know about how she'd googled and read 'How to get pregnant: THIS MONTH!' over and over again while he and Jesse went to DC. He didn't know that she'd bought the three pack of the First Response ovulation testing kit that came with two complementary pregnancy tests right after Sam called her to tell her it was done. They were back in. He was going back in.
When the black helicopter turned out to be a plane ticket and a telephone number followed quickly by a hand delivered dossier of what ever super spy task Michael was off to preform now she'd excused herself and gone into the bathroom to switch the spermicide riddled condoms with the non poision ones she'd poked holes in with the tip of the safety pin she'd pinned to the hem of her skirt.
By the time Michael left for wherever, Fiona was readily hunched over the toilet bowl by eight am each morning.
On the third day she passed up Sam's freshly purchased coffee before shakily drinking her body's liquid weight in water he'd sighed softly and asked her how far along she was.
He swallowed hard when she answered before nodding and grabbing a box of saltines from the pantry and taking his phone into the bedroom. Madelyn was home by New Years Eve.
By Easter they'd renovated and painted a nursery in the sun room and Sam had moved into the garage apartment. On her birthday Fiona received a single white rose pierced through the top of a blueberry yogurt on the doorstep of the house. Sam had held her arms behind her back to keep her from hurting herself as she'd kicked out the windows in the Charger. Screaming at her absent lover at the top of her lungs until she'd dropped like a stone and started to sob. He'd scooped her up like a child and started back towards the house.
"Hormones!" He'd quipped with a smile to a concerned neighbor who'd stuck his head around the fence to see what all the commotion was about. "You know what they say about Pregnant women!"
It had been when Jesse came around about help with a job that the secret had been revealed. Porter paused long enough to replace the glass in the Charger while Sam used a shop vac on the driveway and Madelyn took Fiona shopping for baby clothes.
Sam knew by the uneasy awkwardness of Jesse's good bye that Michael would quickly find out that his trigger happy ex-girlfriend was seven and a half months along.
Sam had briefly wondered if he'd sent a baby name book cipher or just an encrypted message. Either way Michael had called her right away.
"Fi." He'd whispered mournfully, sorrowfully into the shoddy crackling phone connection. "Jesus Fiona what did you do?"
"I gave my self a reason Michael." She'd whispered harshly. "A reason to wake up in the morning."
"I'll be there as soon as I can." He'd said sharply.
"Don't bother. We don't need you." She'd said coolly, handing Sam back the phone. He watched her march out of the room and into the nursery before he sighed longingly into the receiver.
"Oh..bother." He almost ordered. "We need you, Mikey."
…...
They held a baby shower, complete with pink and blue balloons. Nate and Ruth and baby Francesca flew in from Vegas to celebrate Francie's cousin.
Fiona had cried when Madelyn had handed her a container of little green army men with a note that said, Just be yourself.
Sam installed a baby seat in the Charger and Jesse had come around to help him 'baby proof' the weapons shed and put doors and child locks on the metal shelves Fiona kept the chemicals on.
They debated a long time the fate of the C-4 before deciding to bury most of it in an air-tight box behind Sam's garage apartment with a very heavily pregnant Fiona balking about the lack of access until Jesse bought her a fire safe big enough for one or two bricks for under her bed.
When Sam was sure the house was no longer a gun packed tinder box, he turned to Fiona with a wide gesture of his arms and a smile.
"You may now give birth."
She kicked him in the shins.
…...
Fiona locked herself in her bedroom when Michael showed up at five am on a Sunday morning looking every bit the secret agent he'd been so desperate to re-become. Sam had almost shot him by accident, but the safety locks he'd installed on his pistol still confused him when he wasn't fully conscious. He was pretty sure Fi was wide awake when she smacked him in the back with the Louisville Slugger Nate had given her for the baby.
Madelyn doted, smoothing her hands repeatedly down his shoulders and hugging him. Sam had said wordlessly in a chair drinking a beer and casting glances at Fiona's door. Michael lowered himself gingerly to the table in front of his friend. They stared wordlessly for a long uncomfortable second as Axe fought down the faint hints of anger over his own abandonment before he could even turn his thoughts towards Fiona's.
"I can't thank you for what you've done here Sam." Michael whispered slowly. "How you've taken care of them."
The old Navy Seal took a long slow breath and handed his buddy his half drunken beer before standing up. He dropped his hand firmly on the younger man's shoulder with a loud clap.
"We've taken care of each other." He sighed. "The key to her door is in the cabinet over the microwave. Be careful though, she's faster with the safety than I am."
…...
She'd been sitting Indian style in the corner of his old bedroom when he found her. Her hands folded neatly and gun free over the round protruding mass that her stomach had become. He'd been on his knees after her batting practice and hadn't gotten a good look at her in the living room. She was breathtakingly beautiful and he couldn't remember any of the lines he'd rehearsed on the four flights and six days he'd spent trying to get here.
I have a situation at home. He kept telling every one who would listen for nearly two months. His handlers, his assets, his clients, his cabbies.. anyone. I have to get home.
Now he was here and the reality of his situation was looking up at him with large, round, glossy eyes.
"Fiona." He finally muttered dropping to the bed like his strings had been cut.
"Don't think these tears are for you." She sniffled. "It's the hormones. I cry over anything. I cried over plastic toy soldiers and yogurt and a little girl chasing a piece of paper down the street when it blew out of her hand." She sniffed again, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "I'm not crying for you Michael. Don't you dare think that I am."
He slid off the bed and onto his knees until he could sit beside her against the wall.
"They're not for you." She choked quietly. "None of this is for you."
"Okay." He soothed, reaching out carefully like she might explode and laying his hand on top of hers. "Okay."
"I told you not to come." She hissed. "I told you-."
"I had to." His monotones emotionless droll voice broke something in her and she started to yell.
"That is exactly why I told you not to. I am not something you have to do Michael! I am not a chore! I am not an obligation!"
"I WANTED to." He said loudly, his eyes squinting shut and opening moist and full of the things that made her love him. The very things that had gotten her to this point, pregnant and sobbing on the floor of his mother's house. "I wanted to be here with you!" She stopped cold and he lifted his other hand to her face, his expression nearly breaking for half an instant when he remembered how soft and perfect it felt against his palm. "I want to be here for you." His eyes dropped to her midsection, poking out from beneath the pale peach pearl colored silk of her nightshirt. "Both of you." His voice did nothing to hold back his sudden realization of the other person in the room. The baby, seeming to know the importance of the moment, shifted inside it's mother. "Both of you."
"Michael." She whispered, pleaded like she had almost nine months before, slowly creeping onto his lap until he could cradle her against his chest and tuck her head beneath her chin where it belonged. His eyes clamped shut and he held on for dear life.
…...