Disclaimer: The song "With Me" sung by Sum 41 does not belong to be. I have just borrowed the lyrics to enhance this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I am sorry for the delay to posting this chapter. I had hoped to get it up on the boards a month ago. Unfortunately, as my Facebook friends already know, my granddaughter fractured her spine four weeks ago and knocked all of my family for six. Thankfully the doctors believe she is going to make a full recovery in time.
I am now back writing but obviously all my stories, including those I am writing with my good friend and BETA, Jedi Skysinger under the title of Jedi's Pal, are now a little behind. They will all be completed but you'll just have to be patient with both of us for a little while.
So without further ado, thank you all for the reviews, favorites and alerts for this story and here is the first part of the long awaited for epilogue.
BEHIND BLUE EYES
Part Nine
With Me
Nine months later…
The voice in his ear was soft, the educated southern drawl seductive in its tone.
"Let me ask you something. In your career, how many times have you had to execute an action that you knew was morally wrong?"
A myriad of images sprung to life, swirling through his mind, offering brief glimpses of things he had kept locked away for years, so many very bad things done for what he had believed at the time were very good reasons. Things he had done for the greater good… Because there was no other way to get the job done or maybe because at the time he just wanted the assignment to be over... Chechnya… Vedeno... The DR...
He was there in an instant, in the dark, standing over an innocent sleeping child, holding a silenced weapon inches from her head ready though not willingly awaiting the order to end her life.
"I can't do it," he had pleaded, but to no avail.
"You can't? You have to. You and I both know it is not just your ass on the line if this thing goes south... Do you understand?" The smell of strong spirits assailed his nostrils and the sound of a shot glass shattering as he threw it against the wall made him flinch and shudder.
"You make a deal with someone you know is a monster because you have to follow orders," the soft hypnotic voice of his own personal demon continued to torment him.
"Your orders are to make contact with him, tell him you're in town and want to visit. We go in, scout the security then come up with a plan." Now the faint trace of a Russian accent tinged the words of yet another order he didn't want to complete.
"And then?"
He swallowed thickly, the taste of bile in his throat not part of the nightmare he was trapped inside.
"And then we kill him."
The blonde told him dispassionately what deep down he already knew was coming.
"You're asking me to kill a friend." Again he asked for a reprieve, though back then he had been naïve to think he was dealing with a honorable organization.
"He's in the game he knows how it's played..." His hated handler had been more cold and uncaring than the so-called terrorists. "Look, when I gave you this assignment, when I said I needed the Michael Westen who was willing to do what?"
"Whatever it takes…"
He had been a fool to think that Andrew Strong cared about anything but the mission, what in truth had turned out to be the man's personal vendetta.
"Well, this is what it takes."
But he had learned fast…Hell, he had even been exactly that kind of agent himself once before…
"Then one day I was done with that…" The ghost of James Kendrick echoed his own thoughts that day and a whimper escaped from the sleeping spy's lips. He knew what was coming next...
"When we find a monster we don't make a deal with it. We destroy it. Is that something you would be interested in?"
What always came next, when the demons came, along with the monsters which were always following close behind.
"You're done pal, you give new meaning to the word despised..." Those words, the ones that he had repeated back to the broken man lying in a hospital bed…who had been the bane of his existence.
"Just like me…"
"The CIA, the NSA, the NCTC, everybody, every intelligence organization is calling for your head on a pike..." the bastard continued his recruitment speech and once again he was forced to listen.
"Just like me, just like me, just like me, just like me…"
"Guess what? It's your lucky day. Because I just happen to be in the market for someone just like you."
"Just like me… oh, he owns you now, boy," crowed the biggest monster of them all.
And in his mind's eye, the idiot who had set him free faded into the background, leaving only…
"Relax, Michael, we're on the same side."
The fiend had offered his hand in, if not exactly in friendship, then as a brother in arms…
"They got me out of the box almost as soon as you put me in it. They drop me into hotspots when they need somebody to get their hands dirty."
"There is no way they would let you out of prison, not after everything you've done."
He twisted the knife, feeling the warmth of his enemy's life blood covering his hand and he had loved it. But even as he slew the beast which inhabited his nightmares, it had one more truth to reveal, one more cruel reminder, one final straw that had broken his back, shattered his faith….
"Wake up, Michael... Guys like us, we're weapons. As long as we're useful someone is always going to want to take us out to play."
"Wake up, Mi- Daniel, mi amor, Daniel…"
Blue eyes fluttered open and looked frantically about the large airy bedroom. Only the slender hand resting on his arm stopped him from lurching out of bed, searching out the nearest weapon…
"It was just a bad dream, Daniel. Go back to sleep. Nous sommes tous sains et saufs…"
"Sorry, Cherie," Daniel Germaine murmured.
Unwilling to risk returning to the dreamscape which he knew awaited him, but not wanting to disturb the woman next to him any more than he already had, the finally retired covert operative reluctantly rested his head back on the pillow, stared up at the slowly turning ceiling fan above the bed, waiting for the sun to come up.
Then the digital clock at the side of the bed told the man who had once been known as Michael Westen that it was six AM and by his own reckoning, he had been wake and staring up at the ceiling for at least two hours.
He sighed heavily and rolled over to face the sleeping woman at his side.
It had been several months since he had last been tormented by the twin ghosts in his head.
The devil in the form of James Kendrick, offering him just what he thought he wanted most… He could still feel the pull even now, the adrenaline rush of being offered that much power... The good he could have done with James' organization under his control… The ability to remake the world the way he wanted it to be…the resources that would be at his command...
"You're not just helping them, you're one of them."
His best friend had looked at him with such disgust that he had felt the urge to justify his actions and, when that hadn't worked, he had turned against the one man who had always had his back regardless of what he had done in the past.
"What about Nate?" Sam's accusation had cut him deeply, but hadn't been strong enough to slice through the bonds which tied him to James and Sonya and the power of life they were offering him.
It had taken the full fury of Fiona Glenanne to make him see what he had become.
"What are ya gonna do, Michael? Will ya stand and watch as he does it, the way ya did when he murdered Ben Snyder? Or will you pull the trigger yourself this time? I mean, you hate us enough to risk having us all thrown in jail... You could say it would be a kindness to put us down like dogs."
He would never, he couldn't... The troubled former spy swiped a hand over his eyes.
James Kendrick and Sonya Lebedenko were both dead, their organization still being dismantled by the CIA, the tendrils stretching all over the world and through all aspects of life: finance, communications, weapons, logistics…
Just thinking about the CIA brought about other fears, his old agency had freed Simon Escher….that they made a deal with a monster and that monster's words still reverberated through his head...
Did the CIA still see him as a weapon? Was it just a matter of time before there was a knock on the door and everything he loved was put in danger again?
"You might be able to survive in a concrete box, but do you think they can? They'll never see the sun again."
"You think I haven't done worse for the CIA? They'll probably pin a medal on my chest for this."
He'd got a medal too, years ago... A medal which he had never shown to another person, a reward for standing back while his partner had murdered a whole family... Chechnya...
He blinked away the moisture building in his eyes... That was a place he kept so securely locked away, he had even managed to hide the details from James during his chemical enhanced introduction to the leader of the terrorist group he'd been hunting.
There was only one other person left alive who knew what he'd done in that farmhouse in the Caucus Mountains. His best friend even then, though he hadn't fully known that at that time, had pulled him back from the brink, just like Sam had tried to on that bridge back in Miami...
Tried and failed... James Kendrick's siren song had been more powerful than even the pull of his long-time partner and surrogate father.
If it hadn't been for her... The troubled former spy shivered and reached out to the one person who anchored him when the ghosts came. Turning onto his side, he draped an arm about Fiona's waist and snuggled against her, burying his face in her long, sleep-tousled hair breathing in her comforting scent; gunshot residue mixed with the soft floral undertones of her new cover's, Josephine St. Clair, favorite eau de parfum.
But the memories of his despicable actions continued to swirl through his mind, sharply reminding him that he didn't deserve the woman in his arms or any of the other trappings of the normal life he was leading.
"What, do you wake up three or four times in the middle of the night...? I could tell you it gets better, but I'd be lying. After a while you just start collecting ghosts. I find rum helps, a lot of rum."
He'd tried that, drowning his misery in hard liquor. But it wasn't who he was or who he wanted to become... He was not Paul Anderson and he definitely wasn't Frank Westen either...
No, he would make this work… The CIA believed him beyond redemption and too unstable to risk out in the field, even under close supervision. Besides, after Tom Card, Olivia Riley and Andrew Strong, it would take a brave or more likely a desperate fool to come around and try dragging him back into the service of Uncle Sam.
Tossing and turning, the dark haired man was on the verge of giving up on sleep and getting up.. Maybe a long run before the humidity of the day set in would clear his head and send his demons back to depths where they belonged…
"Daniel, il est trop tôt, reste avec moi."
His mate's husky sleep laden words made him hesitate and then turn back to hold her in his arms. She was his strength at times like this. If it hadn't been for Fiona he would have been truly lost, a figure filled with no thoughts other than making all those monsters and the men who had freed them pay dearly for their betrayal of what had been his well-ordered world.
()()
I don't want this moment to ever end
Where everything's nothing without you
I wait here forever just to, to see you smile
'Cause it's true, I am nothing without you
()
Watching his goddess sleeping so soundly, feeling the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest under his arm began to ease the troubled mind of the former covert operative. Unable to resist the urge, he captured a few strands of the red gold hair splayed across the pillow, curling them about his fingers. At that moment, it was so tempting to wake her with a hundred soft kisses on her back, her shoulders, before capturing her lips while his hands rubbed and caressed her lithe body...
But he refrained. It was early and they hadn't gone to bed until late and it had been later still when they had finally fallen asleep. The thought of their earlier activities brought a smile to his lips and chased away the last of the lingering guilt which had clouded his mind and allowed the demons to come out of the dark parts of his subconscious.
Josephine St. Clair, as his beloved was now known, had been most put out at not being allowed to enter the shooting competition they had hosted the day before. The one-time Irishwoman had become more irritated as the day had gone on… As lesser marksmen and women had taken the prizes which she had help purchase, polish and set out on display at the beginning of the day.
During the early days of their ownership of the gun club, it had been hard for Fiona to accept that she had to down play her skills, walking that fine line between being good enough to instruct others yet not so good that her skills honed as a paramilitary and later as a premier ranking gunrunner drew unwanted attention.
It takes a good marksman to shoot you at 50 feet from a moving car, but it takes a great marksman to miss... while making it look like they are trying to hit you... or markswoman as the case may be.
His lips twitched at the long ago memory of a crazy Irishwoman leaning out of a fast moving car, her hair whipping about her face and in her eyes as she fired a gun which sent a bullet into the concrete between his feet.
For him, it had been easier. As a spy he had learned a long time ago it paid to have people underestimate his abilities. But as a gun runner, especially as a female in the macho world of weapons and explosives, Fiona's reputation had saved her life on more than one occasion.
"I could have bested that shot using my left hand and standing on one leg. I could have taken every one of those little cups," She had pouted and then hidden her pique behind a sunny smile and shook the hand of the new ladies champion at the inaugural annual club competition at the Audubon Indoor Shooting Range. He had been against the idea at the time for just that reason among others.
"I'll make it up to you later, I promise," he had whispered into her ear.
"Yes, you will Daniel Germaine," she had purred back.
His smile widened in to a full blown grin. He must have lived up to his promise for his lover to still be sleeping so soundly. For even now, in the safety of their new lives as the owners of a popular new gun range, the love of his life was still a notorious light sleeper, a habit of a lifetime.
He took a moment to feel guilty for all the times he had disturbed her rest while he wrestled with his conscience before returning to feeling great gratitude for her continued presence in his life.
()()
Through it all I've made my mistakes
I stumble and fall but I mean these words
()
He really didn't deserve the depths of her love for him... But then again, he never had.
Michael heaved a sigh. Despite his frustrations with his situation sometimes, he was happy that he was finally able to do the things that made her happy... Even if she had her own frustrations with their new life, they were together, just them, side by side, like she had asked in that junkyard in Panama what seemed like more than a lifetime ago...
A faint click of a door knob being turned followed by the creak of a purposefully loosened floorboard alerted Michael a presence on the other side of their bedroom door. Rolling off the bed, his fingers were reaching for the gun he kept in a drawer next to the bed when he snatched his hand away. Rising up off of the mattress and setting his feet onto the carpeted floor, he reached for a T-shirt hanging off the end of the bed and quietly padded bare-foot across the room to the door.
He had a good idea who it was sneaking along the hallway.
The last nine months had brought about a lot of changes, some of them easier to cope with than others. With his T-shirt in place, Michael twisted the door knob and stepped out into the hallway to take care of what had to be the biggest upheaval to his life.
He had known that he was facing big changes right from the moment he had made the agreement with Raines: a new life far away from his home town and his two closest friends under the watchful eye of the CIA, which had started as soon as they had rappelled down the side of the hospital, where he had said his final goodbye to Sonya and then driven away under cover of darkness.
Just thinking about the blonde caused him to turn back to the sleeping woman in his bed again.
If it hadn't been for her love and determination to keep him alive, he would have broken the deal the instant he knew his friends were safe and protected.
That night as they had ridden away from Miami on the backs of two bright red Kawasaki ZXR motorcycles, heading westwards, she had broken every traffic law along the way, riding at highly illegal speeds, dangerously weaving their way in and out of the traffic along the Tamiami Trail.
"What the hell are you doin', Fi?" He had pulled up alongside of her at the first red light she had deigned to obey. "You're gonna alert Raines and every law enforcement department-"
She had raised the visor of her crash helmet and stared into his eyes, while her right hand had tightened and twisted on the throttle of her ride, making the highly tuned engine roar.
"Wer free, Michael... Free until we reach New Orleans an' if we wanta be free after thot, we need ta get thar befer Raines' men realize we've doubled back."
But before he'd had a chance to answer, she had snapped her visor back down and, as the light turned green, she had shot forward so fast her motorcycle had reared up onto its back wheel.
After that, he had stuck close to the crazy woman with the unruly wisps of her long red hair trailing out from beneath her crash helmet, desperate to keep up with her as she lead them passed Naples, Sarasota and Tampa, only stopping for gas and quick bathroom breaks before getting back on the road. Traveling through Florida length-wise first north and then west had made seem as though he would never put his home state behind him. By mid-morning, they had finally crossed over into Alabama and taken refuge at the Wind Chase Inn near the small hamlet of Loxley after their wild all night drive, fleeing the hospital and their troubled pasts as well.
He had fallen into an exhausted slumber, as she had no doubt also intended with the blistering pace she had set for their ride to freedom, though he had been just as eager to put Miami and all that it now represented behind him for good.
That night he had awaken slowly and reached out to find warm sheets and no Fiona, which had caused him to panic momentarily and call out her name. His angel had emerged from the bathroom and then come quickly to his side, enfolding him in her embrace, holding him close as the years had fallen away while they had made love long into the night. It had been hesitant at first, but then slowly and tenderly, her touch gentle and soothing, they had apologized to one another without words, healing all the past hurts they had inflicted on each other, especially during the past year…
He had fallen asleep in her arms with his head resting upon her chest, cradling her naked form against his partial clothed frame while the steady rhythm of her heartbeat lulled him into the another deep sleep, allowing him the first decent rest he had had in months.
He held her closely, letting her warmth penetrate his whole being as he lay snuggled up against the one woman had always kept him grounded. It had been because he had lost her that he had lost his way. Michael recalled what had happened as they had packed up their bags and prepared for a few more hours in the saddle. He had broached the subject of forgetting the deal they had made...
"Sam and Jesse are safe now. You heard Raines. They've signed their deals and if I know Sam at all, he's already made sure there're copies are being kept somewhere safe and secure. The CIA won't renege on the deal if they know it will bring the whole sorry mess out in to the open."
He had warmed to his theme, talking faster and faster. "We could run, go our own way. We don't need the CIA to protect us. You know that we can't trust them not to -"
She had placed her fingers over his mouth, halting his words and then standing closer, she had reached up to capture his lips in a passionate kiss scattering his thoughts. Only when he had calmed down did she draw away, taking hold of his hands she had stared deeply into his eyes.
"Let's get to New Orleans before we decide on our next move is. You have to see your mother before we do anything else. You need to let her know we're all safe and she doesn't need to spend the rest of her life in hiding... You owe her that much, Michael."
The determined glint in her blue-green eyes had told him then and there that she wouldn't agree to do anything else until he had made peace with Madeline, so he had nodded and acquiesced.
()()
I want you to know with everything I won't let this go
These words are my heart and soul
I'll hold on to this moment you know
'Cause I'd bleed my heart out to show and I won't let go
()
Smiling, Daniel Germaine now turned back to face the figure who was slowly emerging from the family bathroom at the far end of the hall and instead of staring down his recent past.
"Ya should still be in bed. We've gotta big day aheada us, champ," he whispered as he carefully shut the door behind him.
"I can't sleep, Unca Mike…" His four year old nephew ran toward him and grabbed hold of his hand in an attempt to pull him towards the family room. "Can we have breakfast now?"
"Sure thing, Charlie but yer gonna have to be real quiet like. Yer Auntie Fifi is still asleeping... And Charlie, remembuh, muh name's Daniel now, ya hear? Uncle Dan." Picking up his nephew, he swung little boy onto his back and made his way into the large lounge at the front of the single storey house.
Part of him wanted to laugh at the quizzical looks his nephew gave him every time he corrected the boy, emphasizing his newly acquired southern accent to reinforce his cover. He'd been very nervous at first about the toddler remembering to stick to their story. It had been one of his many objections to his mother's request. But he had been foolish to think that his mother would make it easy for him to run away again or that William Raines didn't know his former recruit well enough not to make damn sure the CIA's most unreliable asset didn't get a chance to permanently disappear off the grid.
As he looked around the home the CIA had provided to Daniel Germaine and Josephine St. Clair, he remembered when they had finally arrived in New Orleans late in the afternoon of their second day on the run and booked into a bed and breakfast establishment close to the bus terminus on Loyola Avenue. They had both agreed venturing out into the bayous in search of Sam's old navy buddy's cabin was going to be a waste of their time, as only the ex-SEAL had the exact coordinates.
Instead, after a restless night for both of them, they had taken up surveillance posts in the massive Union Passenger Terminal, a bustling building which was filled with a constant sea of people either coming into or leaving the city. Luckily for them, as they knew where their target was travelling to, it wasn't too much of chore to keep an eye on all the buses heading to Atlanta.
However, after a disappointing and frustrating first day, they had woken up on the second morning with a feeling of dread at having to spend another hot sultry day in a packed building and with an overlay of only partially suppressed panic as to what could be delaying his mother... That was when two men dressed in open necked shirts and lightweight suits had entered the guest house dining room and boldly sat down beside them at their table.
"Thar y'all are..." The taller and older of the two men had beamed as he grabbed a vacant chair from a neighboring table and joined them. "Muh name's Matthew Nixon, no relation t'the President in case y'all were wonderin' and this here is Agent Aaron Metzel. We thought we'd lost y'all around Fort Lauderdale, but Mister Raines, he assured us that if we just hung around long enough, ya'd turn up and dammed if he wasn't right... Here, I have something fer y'all." The CIA agent had handed a folder to Fiona and then passed another over the table to where he sat.
As soon as the two men had announced their presence, his first instinct had been to knock over the table, grab Fiona's hand and make a break for freedom. But the logical part of his brain instantly quelled the desire to flee. He had seen this act before, the dazzling smile and easy charm. Hell, he'd used the same approach himself more times than he cared to remember when working on gaining the trust of a skittish asset...
So, instead of causing a scene, he had forced himself to relax back in his chair and bar his teeth in that same professional smile before promising the two agents that he'd look over the files as soon as he had the time.
"Oh, I reckon ya might wanna reconsider that thought, Mike. It's alright if I call you Mike, isn't it?" Agent Nixon had used the same fake charming smile back at him. "Seems like we already know each other after all the time me an' Metzel there spent watchin' of footage of ya'll hanging out in the station yesterday. Ya were looking fer yar mama, right? Well, ya should know yer wasting yar time. Here, lemme save us all some trouble..."
The agent had pushed some surveillance photos of a quaint looking building with a bougainvillea decorated balcony above a busy café below. "She's staying over in an apartment on Barrack Street in the French quarter. Seems like she hadda little accident and then made a new friend about the same time as you were finishin' off Operation Midas and Mr. Raines wanted me t'let ya know that the clean up's goin' real good, too."
"Unca Dan, can I watch Bubble Guppies?"
The little boy's question had interrupted his distracted reverie, forcing him to focus on the present.
Charlie had the TV remote in his hand, his brown eyes staring up at his uncle expectantly. "Auntie Fi, let's me watch what I want in the mornings," he assured his relative as he began to expertly operate the controls.
"Bubble Guppies...? His words faded away as the large flat screen TV began to show what appeared to be mermaid boys and girls chasing after a giant clamshell. "I reckon Auntie Fifi doesn't let you watch just anything…" The program seemed innocuous enough. " Okay, sure thing, but not too loud, ya hear? We don' wanna wake up Auntie Fifi when she's sleepin' sound like."
Yawning and stretching, the dark haired man left his nephew to watch his show and made his way into the open plan kitchen. Switching on the coffee maker and then turning on the oven, the former spy then brought out a six pack of ready to bake croissants from the freezer.
Even though Michael Westen still craved Brenner's blueberry yogurts, Daniel Germaine, after years of living in a small town in Northern France with his French wife, had grown used to eating the buttery pastries for breakfast. Charlie seemed to love them as well. The boy never had acquired his uncle's taste for the sweet yet slightly bitter creamy treat the man still dreamed of on occasion.
()()
Thoughts read unspoken forever and now
The pieces of memories fall to the ground
I know what I did and how so, I won't let this go
'Cause it's true, I am nothing without you
()
Listening to the sounds of the TV coming from the other room and breathing in the faint smell of brewing coffee, the man once known as the Terror of Russia leaned back against the counter top and wondered when exactly he had gotten used to being a surrogate father to his brother's only child.
Which had him remembering once again how he'd come to this place in his life, thinking back on the two agents sent by Raines who had insisted on taking them on the short drive over to the French Quarter while they had sat in the backseat going through their new identities, including the details of the house they were now living in and more intelligence on the life of one Adelaide Germaine.
And in a surprisingly large and airy apartment above a Cajun seafood café, they had been reunited with his mother and nephew with their unwelcome chaperons hovering on the other side of the door, waiting to escort them to their apparently permanent destination.
"I tripped getting off the airboat and dislocated my knee," Madeline had explained. "We were trapped on that old porch overnight, Michael. I couldn't get up, and Charlie wouldn't leave my side. He was so frightened. We were lucky we weren't eaten by alligators or carried off by those damned mosquitos. But then Jacques and his cousin, Henri, found us." She had smiled fondly at the elderly man sitting next to her on a wicker couch. "This is Henri Devereaux and he has been kind enough to let me and Charlie stay with him."
At the time he had viewed the retired shrimp fisherman with a great deal of suspicion. After all, history had taught him all about Madeline Westen's bad taste in men: Frank, Virgil, Benny... But as the months had gone by, Michael was forced to admit Henri was good for his mother.
But back then he had pointedly glared at the couple's entwined fingers until their elderly host had reluctantly let go of his mother's hand. "Ma, we need to speak in private, so if -" He had narrowed his eyes and been impressed at how quickly the new man in his mother's life had gotten the message.
"You must have a lot to talk about, cher." Henri had kissed his blushing girlfriend on the cheek and then gotten to his feet. "How about me an' Charlie go buy us some strawberry ice cream?"
Letting a stranger take his nephew anywhere had set all sorts of alarm bells ringing. But before he'd had a chance to react, the young boy had leapt to the older man's side and his mother had spoken up.
"You can trust him, Michael. Henri has been a complete gentleman the whole time we've been here... Besides, your two government friends have already checked him out."
"My government friends?" he had asked in a flat tone, though he had already guessed the answer.
"Some slick sonuvabitch named Nixon and another one called Merkel or something. –" She had waved a dismissive hand, which he suddenly noticed had not been clutching a cigarette the entire time they'd been talking. "They said they were here to make our relocation as smooth as possible, whatever that means... They gave me this." She had awkwardly reach around to where she had left a folder very similar to the one Agent Nixon had given him and Fiona.
"They said I've been cleared of all the charges your former boss had trumped up against us, but there are still people out there who would want to hurt me and Charlie if they knew where we were. Then they told me I had to learn this –?" She had thrust the plain manila folder at him. When he had taken the file and opened the cover, the white haired woman had begun to list her grievances while he had read through the details which the Company had provided regarding her new life.
"Adelaide Germaine, Adelaide, Michael. That's the name some genius somewhere picked for me and they've also changed Nate's name too. I can't even call my baby boy by his name any more. Now, he's Jake and he and his wife Ruby died in a fire." Her brightly painted fingers moved to her mouth as if holding a cigarette. "I don't know that I can do this," she sniffed.
He had dropped down in front of her, the guilt almost as bad as it had been when he'd realized his friends were still willing to sacrifice themselves to save his soul. Taking her hands in his, he had looked deeply into her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Ma... Raines probably chose those names to make it less scary for Charlie. He won't understand what's going on, but at least this way it'll be easier for him. Any mistakes he makes will just sound like mispronunciation. Maddy, Addy… Fi, Fifi, well, Josephine, but Fifi for short. It'll help him adjust…"
"And Jake and Daniel, how's that supposed to work, Michael?" his mother had demanded.
"Look at the birth certificates…" he had requested with a sigh. "Daniel Michael and Jacob Nathaniel Germaine…everyone in the south goes by their middle name half of the time. It's for Charlie's benefit, Mom." And he remembered thinking at the time that Raines' thoroughness was a clear indication of how serious the man was about them staying put and on the CIA's radar.
The situation had reminded him sharply of the day he, Fiona and his mother had stood in a kitchen as he took every piece of identification belonging to Madeline Westen and dropped each item into fire burning in the bottom of a pan in the sink. They were fugitives then, fleeing from the CIA.
In the intelligence world when an operation demands that you disappear, it's understood that you will disappear entirely. You can't have anything that links you to your former life – no credit history, no communication with friends and nothing with your old name on it. That's hard enough for an intelligence professional to deal with. For a civilian, it's nearly impossible. But for a child it would have to be the most difficult thing imaginable to accomplish.
"What will everyone think?" she had asked as she had clutched her treasured address book to her chest.
"Well, with any luck they'll think you died,"Fiona had supplied the answer to her question when he had been unable to utter the words.
"And my grandson? Nate's little boy has already lost his father."
He remembered her hurt back then and that this time it had to be a thousand times worse as he was dragging a child into his problems, a child she'd sworn to protect at all costs.
As Michael looked over at his brother's son staring at the bright images on the TV screen, he thought about how his mother had pulled herself together, both when they were looking at going on the lam forever and in that tiny apartment above the café. Both times he had noticed the stubborn glint in her eyes, but that time the former spy had known he was in even more trouble than before.
()()
All the streets where I walked alone
With nowhere to go have come to an end
()
Removing the croissants from the oven, Michael carefully transferred the hot pastries onto a plate and then pulled open one of the drawers under the counter top in search of a butter knife.
"Charlie, yer breakfast is ready. Turn off that thar squawk box and git on in here, kid," he called out to the dark haired boy who was busy jumping up and down on the couch.
"Aw, Unca Dan, pleeeeaaassseee, can we eat in here? I wanna watch TV. Auntie Fifi lets me -"
"I ain't buyin' what yer sellin' thar, boy..." Then Michael sighed, not wanting to fight with the four year old, especially not today. "Just this one time, ya hear?"
This was one of his biggest problems, or so Fiona was forever telling him. "You let him walk all over you, Daniel. Charlie has been through so much. He needs structure."
"Said the woman who's thrived on chaos most of her adult life…"
That comment, while true, had earned him a punch nonetheless.
But all Michael could think about at the moment was how much like Nate the child bouncing from one end of the couch to the other looked and acted like his kid brother. That alone should have been enough to alert him to the fact that his nephew required a firm but loving hand. Like his mother, Michael had resolved to do a better job at watching over Charlie than he had watching over Nate.
"And only if Ah git ta pick the show," Daniel added the proviso. It wasn't much of an attempt at discipline, but then he was suddenly hit by a bout of nostalgia, something foreign to him before in his life as an operative. Sentiment, like attachment, was a complication he couldn't afford then.
Of course, he had still been in grade school when he'd been left on his own to tend to his brother. Hopefully, despite a lack of any practical experience in child rearing, he was bound to do a better job by default or so he kept reassuring himself daily as he immersed himself in living his new life.
"But I wanna watch -"
"Ah-huh, it's my way or the highway, buddy." With two of the pastries buttered up and a jar of blueberry jam placed on a tray, Michael made his way back into the family room. "Them's the rules. This thing here's done made me sea sick tryin' to keep up with it."
Sitting down next to his nephew and with the tray balanced on his lap, Michael picked up the remote control and began to flick through the channels searching for something to watch which would satisfy his nephew's taste for bright colors and lots of action and his own need for something which wasn't going to drive him completely insane. He was sure he'd spotted something familiar when Charlie had first switched on the TV and flicked rapidly through the channels.
"Everything's A-OK... Friendly neighbors there...That's where we meet... Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street"
And there it was… what he was searching for. As the theme song continued, he pulled Charlie closer. "Did I ever tell ya I used t'watch Sesame Street with yer daddy?"
"But I wanted to watch Power Rangers next." The little boy crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his bottom lip, a mirror image of Nate's stubborn visage at that age. That is until Frank Westen would wipe that look off his youngest son's face with an expertly placed backhand.
"Oh, this is bettuh than Power Rangers, Charlie. This here was yer daddy's favorite show. We used t' watch it together on a Saturday morning while your gramma was -" He stopped, choking on the words as he remembered all those cozy early mornings with Nate, sitting in front of the small black and white TV, laughing quietly at the activities of Big Bird and company.
And it wasn't long before Charlie, just like his father before him, was engrossed in the mixture of humor and learning. Only this time, there would be unhappy intrusions on their quiet moments.
Back then Michael had used the show as a way of keeping his younger brother out of trouble while their parents spent the morning in bed sleeping off their hangovers. Even after he had moved into middle school and was well past the age for learning his ABCs or how to count with the Count, he had looked forward to the few hours of being able pretend they lived in a happy household until their mother would walk into the room with a fresh black eye or busted lip and ruin the illusion.
Smearing blueberry jam over a piece of croissant, the one-time secret agent rested his head back and let the giggles of his young nephew wash away the last of the uneasiness caused by his earlier bad dreams.
()()
I want you to know with everything I won't let this go
These words are my heart and soul
I'll hold on to this moment you know
As I bleed my heart out to show and I won't let go
()
"Bonjour, et ce sont mes deux garçons préférés trop?"
Michael barely contained the flinch as long slender fingers combed through his untidy black hair and soft lips pressed a kiss to his stubble covered cheek.
"A bad night, cherie?" Josephine whispered into his ear, her soft lilting accent and the tickle of her breath on his neck sending a shiver down his spine. Even when she was working her new identity as the foreign wife of a retired US Army master sergeant, Fiona Glenanne always enjoyed proving she was still the only one who could sneak up on her hyper alert husband.
"Auntie Fi!"
Charlie sprung up, causing Michael to hastily grab at the tray before it could tumble to the floor.
"We're watching Sesame Street... Unca Mike – Unca Dan says it was my daddy's favorite show like when he was little like me."
"I'm sure you're right, Charlie. It was my favorite, too." Fiona ruffled the little boy's hair and then looked critically between uncle and nephew. "I have to go to the range for an hour this morning and then go and pick up a few things for the picnic this afternoon. Do you think you have time to take Charlie for a haircut?"
"Sure thing, darlin'," Michael replied, easily slipping back into his new persona now that he realized there was no threat.
"It wouldn't hurt for you to have a couple of inches taken off too." She smiled down at her lover, while pulling her own hair back out of the way of the sticky fingers of the little boy, who was now trying to scrabble over the back of the couch to climb into her arms.
Glancing at his watch, Michael quickly ran some time calculations. The barber he liked to use was across town and he had his own preparations to make before they disappeared for the afternoon.
"I tell you what, sweet thing, how about you get this lil terror ready to go while I get cleaned up? Then we'll be outta yer hair 'til lunchtime?"
He suppressed the urge to laugh at his woman's expression. On the face of it, this was a very generous offer. Only they both had learned over the last few months how picky and hard to get dressed the young Mr. Germaine could be when the mood took him.
"Oh, vous allez payer pour que, Michael," Fiona murmured softly, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
"Je suis impatient à elle, ma chérie," the former Mr. Westen replied with a mischievous smirk.
"Auntie Fifi, you got it wrong... You called him Michael. It's Unca Dan," the pre-schooler stated sternly, pleased to be able to correct one of the adults. The dark haired boy clinging to his aunt's side had broken the spell, though the two adults continued to stare into each other's eyes.
"That I did, ma petite," Fiona laughed. "You want to have another croissant with me while Uncle Daniel has his shower?"
Leaving Charlie in the capable hands of the one time bomb-maker turned housewife and business partner, Michael made his way back to their bedroom and the en-suite. Stripping off his T-shirt and pajama pants, he crossed to the large double sized shower compartment and turned on the water, which unlike the ancient heating system in his old apartment back in Miami, ran hot within seconds.
"I gotta tell ya, I'm a lil bit jealous of the package Mister Raines has set up for ya'll," Agent Nixon had spoken over his shoulder as his partner had driven them the short distance to where his mother apparently had been staying. "If you check out page four I think it is, you'll see yer the new owner of a mighty fine four bed, two bath single storey place over in Audubon... We're having bullet resistant glass fitted to all the windows as we speak and panic alarms in every room... We'll run you over thar as soon as yer finished up speaking with your mama."
At the time he had been more concerned with finding out how badly his mother had hurt herself to show the slightest bit of interest in why the CIA was giving them a large modern family-sized home in a good area with a selection of excellent private schools nearby. However, once Madeline had finished complaining about government agents upending her life yet again, he had been left stunned at the lengths his old employer was apparently willing to go to keep him in line.
Once he had washed away all the sweat caused by his nightmare-filled sleep, the former spy switched off the shower and wrapped one towel about his waist while using another to remove the worst of the moisture from his hair.
Stopping in front of the white porcelain sink, he wiped the condensation away from the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet and stared at his reflection in the glass.
Now that he was no longer under the threat of death or imprisonment for him and his friends, the taunt haunted look had faded from his expression, leaving him looking younger and less jaded. His black hair was longer now too, long enough that the natural waves and curls had returned, a style that Fiona frequently commented reminded her of her first true love, one Mr. Michael McBride.
Pursing his lips, he ran a hand over his jaw, feeling the scrape of stubble as his eyes narrowed at the grey which was creeping into his beard. Luckily, a beard was no longer necessary for his cover, especially as it was a hated reminder of his last assignment for the CIA. No, longer hair and frequent five o'clock shadow was now just indicative of how much more relaxed Daniel Germaine was than Michael Westen had been, despite or perhaps because of the new additions to his life.
Reaching for the can of shaving foam on shelf of the vanity unit, he sprayed a generous amount of the foam into the palm of his hand, pausing just for a moment to listen to the boyish squeals laughter coming from the other end of the house.
The last time his uncle had tried to dress the boy had been three days ago. It had taken him, a man who in the past had brokered deals between Afghani warlords, twenty minutes to convince a four year old that he couldn't wear shorts as it was raining outside. He had subsequently learned that, as in the military, orders were frequently more successful than logical suggestions.
Barring his teeth in a grin, he felt a sudden and unexpected surge of joy as he heard Fiona raise her voice in exasperation.
"Charlie Germaine, ya put those clothes on this instant! Ya cannae run around naked." The fact his beloved was letting her accent lapse was a sure sign his nephew was doing his best to try the patience of his surrogate mother.
Slowly his smile faded, remembering how he had reacted when he had first realized that he had fallen for his mother's and William Raines' manipulation.
"Michael, sit down." As his mother had patted the spot recently vacated by the new man in her life, her blue eyes flickered briefly towards the door and then across the room to where Fiona was admiring the view out over the balcony. "Fiona, this concerns you too. Come and sit down."
"Ma?"
From her tone and her expression, her son had expected his mother to announce she was dying of lung cancer or some equally grave condition. At the time, what she'd said next seemed even worse.
"That night I spent out in the open, it gave me plenty of time to think about my life and all the mistakes I've made along the way. It made me realize - -" Madeline had sighed heavily, clearly upset but equally determined to continue. "I'm sixty seven years old, Michael. Even if that thing says I'm sixty one." She had paused long enough to glare at the manila folder he had still been holding in his hand. "What I'm trying to say is that Charlie needs you. He has already lost so much. He needs to be raised by somebody who is still going to be around when he graduates high school."
He recalled kneeling there, waiting expectantly to hear her announce the name of Charlie's future guardian which he was expected to watch over and ensure that said person raised his nephew properly when it had suddenly dawned on him what his mother had been actually expecting of him.
"Me?"
The rush of adrenaline had almost caused him to bolt out of the room at the mere thought of being made responsible for raising his deceased brother's son, a boy who'd been made fatherless because of his actions. But somehow he had managed to quell the urge.
Instead he had sucked in a breath, calmed his nerves and while he had tried to come up with the best way to tell his mother she was utterly crazy to think a child would be safe in his care, he'd had to rely on Fiona to fill the silence created by Mrs. Westen's announcement.
"Madeline, you've just had a scare. I'm sure once -"
"No! Now, you two listen to me..." His mother had cut his girlfriend off with the jab of her brightly painted fingernail. "That boy has been dragged from pillar to post, he has lost both his parents, he was there when Fiona burned my house down and going by what that man Nixon said, he is going to have to spend the rest of his life pretending to be somebody else."
"Mom, I don't think -"
"You're capable of looking after a three year old?" It was at that moment she had smiled softly, her hand cupping his cheek gently. "You have always looked after us all. We haven't always appreciated or understood why you did what you did, but you always did it to keep us safe. You have a good heart, Michael. I trust you to do this - and if you look in the back of that file you're still holding onto, you'll see your friends in the CIA agree with me."
In the back of the folder, hidden behind all the details of Adelaide Germaine's life, were two official documents. One named Mrs. A. Germaine as the legal guardian of Charles Jacob Germaine and the other document was identical in every way including the official stamp of the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services, except for the name appearing in the space for the appointed guardian.
"I was told we had a week to decide who was going to take Charlie. But I don't need a week to work out what's the right thing to do." Shifting in her seat, the matriarch of their small family grimaced at the pain that miniscule amount of movement had caused, but nevertheless had taken hold of her son and future daughter in law's hands, linking them together. "You two, working together... I can't think of anywhere my grandson would be safer than in your care."
He had done his best to convince Madeline she was wrong. Neither he nor Fiona had any experience with raising a child and, as far as he was aware, they were both in agreement that children had no place in either of their lives. It was just too dangerous. No, Charlie was far better off in the care of his grandmother and besides, he had reassured, his mother she was going to outlive them all. But it was too late; he had already walked into the trap, the ambush completed.
As he finished scraping away the last of the foam, cleaning his razor under the running water before patting his face dry, Daniel Germaine shook his head, chuckled mirthlessly about the complete ineffectiveness of his bid to convince his mother that Charlie's place was with her. Listening to the voices carrying through their spacious home, he headed to the bedroom to get dressed for the first part of the most important day of his new life.
"Why can't I wear my new pants?" From the tone of his nephew's voice, Michael could imagine the sulky pout on the young boy's face.
"Because those pants are for this afternoon, not for wearing out to get a haircut and maybe playing in the park later, if you get back in time," came Fiona's weary reply. "Now, how about these jeans and the Scooby Doo T-shirt?"
Smiling broadly to himself now, Michael eyed the dark grey Armani suit and crisp white linen shirt hanging up on the door of his wardrobe. In a few hours time, they would be all dressed up in their finest for the special picnic which had taken months to arrange. But for now, just like Charlie, he had to settle for more casual attire.
After pulling on dark cotton cargo pants, a pale blue T-shirt, and slipping his feet into flip flops, the man of the house left the bedroom and followed the sounds of a now giggling little boy and the soft laughter of one of the two women who had saved his life.
He had been so angry at first, even going so far as to accuse his mother of working hand in glove with the CIA in an effort to control him. By his own reckoning, it had taken him three months to come to terms and accept his new place in the world.
He was no longer a spy, but now a father figure and role model to his brother's only child and though it was hard to admit, his mother had been right. Having Charlie in his life had given him something good to focus on rather than trying to escape all the ghosts from his past.
"Okay, buddy you ready to get going?" He reached the family room just in time to sweep the little boy up into his arms as Charlie attempted to dodge past him.
"Merci beaucoup, mi amor." Fiona caught up to them as he sat down on the couch holding the wriggling child on his lap.
"Shoes?" Michael gestured with a tilt of his head to the tennis shoes his beloved held in her hands.
"He wanted to wear the new shiny ones you promised him he could wear today," the faux Frenchwoman accused her lover. "Then he got away when I answered a text."
"A text?" While he kept a tight hold on his nephew's squirming frame, Fiona caught hold of a kicking leg and managed to get first one shoe and then the other in place.
"Our guests are on their way." She smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. "So now all that's left is for us to get ready."
Getting to his feet, the former top flight covert operative maneuvered his nephew on to his back. "Before we head on out and spend money and then get all duded up, ya sure ya don't wanna t'change yar mind about this now, darlin'?"
"Not a chance, you're not getting out of this that easy. Now get going... This is one occasion where we can't be late." He laughed lightly before giving her a good bye kiss. He'd been accused of many things in his life, but being tardy was not one of them, though being only fifteen minutes early was considered late in the shadow world of covert operations.
Heading out of the front door with Charlie's arms holding on tight about his neck, the last of Michael Westen's ghosts retreated back into the deep recesses of his mind. Daniel Germaine had to admit that taking on his orphaned nephew had not only been the right thing for the little boy, but for himself as well. As the months had passed by and the toddler had settled into his new life, coming further out of his shell, Michael knew he would have undoubtedly run Madeline ragged.
Stopping beside the family vehicle, an armored Jeep Cherokee, the dark haired man paused just long enough to scan the whole length of the pleasant suburban street before assisting his nephew inside and buckling him into his car seat. While he was no longer a spy or the potential leader of an international terrorist organization, that didn't mean he was completely retired either.
Michael Westen had a new mission in life and it was one he was definitely not going to fail at. Daniel Germaine's family was depending on him and he wasn't going let them or himself down.