Stretched out on the California king bed in their suite, Michael watched Fiona dig through the suitcase and retrieve a turquoise bikini. Charlie had trotted happily with Sam and Elsa from the elevator to their suite, barely waving a goodbye to the adults he'd practically glued himself to not six hours earlier, leaving Michael and Fiona to their own devices.
"You wanna lie down for a bit first?" Michael asked.
Fiona stared at him. "To do what?" she asked after a moment.
"I don't know what answer you want to hear."
"Are we supposed to lie there and not say anything? Lie there and talk? Have sex? What?"
Michael propped himself up on his elbows. "I still don't know what answer you want."
She groaned in exasperation. "Forget it." She turned to walk to the bathroom.
"Fi."
"What, Michael? I want to know what it is you're thinking. I've wanted to know for a month now. And if you can't even answer a goddamned multiple choice question, I don't see any point in sitting up here in silence when I could be sitting poolside in silence." She stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door.
Michael followed her. He knocked once on the door. "I'm coming in." He pushed the handle down, crossed the floor in two broad strides, and sat on the toilet lid. "Might be a record for you, Fiona, slamming the door on me in under two minutes," he said loudly. "What do I want? I want to feel happy around you again. I don't know how to do that, but I assume it requires us to be in the same room."
"I want to feel happy around you, too, but I can't do it when you go radio silent on me. That's what you've done. It's what you do every time." Fiona lifted and dropped her arms, letting her hands hit her thighs. "I suppose I shouldn't expect this time to be any different. You're a snail, Michael. Any time your personal life gets the least bit challenging, you retreat into your shell."
"This isn't exactly familiar territory, Fiona. Unless I'm forgetting about some other kid I inherited because I got one of his parents killed and the other one committed suicide from grief."
"So talk to me, then! Let me help you!" Fiona shouted. She leaned against the sink and took a few moments to collect herself. "Let me help you deal with this, Michael," she said softly. "I can't help you if you won't talk to me."
Michael took and released a big breath. "I'm not trying to be difficult, Fi. I'm genuinely asking. What am I supposed to say? How does my reciting the situation help matters?"
"Michael, I – do you – do you seriously not understand the benefits of talking about problems?"
He thought for a moment. "I guess I don't. I've never experienced any benefit."
She looked at him incredulously. "What about me? You don't think my presence in your life has had a benefit?"
"That's not what I said. Of course your presence has had a benefit. You asked about the benefits of talking about my problems."
"Michael, I'm – it's – it's not like it has to be that on March 20 we talked for thirty minutes and the benefit was X. We have a relationship, and as part of that relationship we talk about our lives, the ups and the downs, and I'd like to think that my being the person you talk to the most intimately has benefitted you in some way." She was quiet, then shook her head. "This isn't complicated, Michael. Don't overanalyze what it means to talk about a problem. Just talk to me. Whatever you're thinking about all this, say it to me. Say it, out loud, to me. That's all you have to do."
Michael looked at her face for a while before he spoke. "I feel guilty because I made Charlie an orphan and I feel guiltier because I don't want to be his dad."
Fiona swallowed hard. "Good. That I can work with." She took his hand. "Now let's go lie down."
So they did.
"Tell me how you made Charlie an orphan," she said a few minutes later.
"I got Nate killed."
"How so?"
"Fi."
"Say it."
"I put him in an incredibly dangerous situation and he was killed as a result." Michael's voice cracked.
"Point of fact, Michael, you didn't. You told him not to approach Anson. Right? Jesse said you made it absolutely clear that he shouldn't approach. But he did. He ignored your instruction, just like he ignored your instructions for most of his life."
Michael was silent as he stared at the ceiling.
"I'm furious at him, Michael. I'm furious that he didn't do the one goddamned thing you told him to do, and now he's dead. I'm not saying he's solely responsible for his death. Gray pulled the trigger and Card ordered him to. They're the most responsible of anyone. But the fact is that Nate put himself in that situation. You didn't put him there. Nobody put him there but himself."
"I was supposed to protect him."
"You tried."
"I failed."
"He wasn't a child, Michael. He actively refused your protection. That can't be on you." Fiona sat up and looked right in his eyes. "You're allowed to be mad at him, too, Michael. It's easier for you to be mad at yourself than at Nate, but it's Nate you're truly mad at. And I know you can't say that to your mother, but you can say it to me and you can say it to yourself."
"What good does it do for me to be mad at him?" Michael asked.
"What good do for you to be mad at yourself?" she countered.
He didn't answer.
"It's not a question of what good it does. It just is. You are mad at him. Acknowledge it. It doesn't mean you love him any less or miss him any less. It's just one of the many things you feel about him. It's a fact. You're mad."
Michael ran his hands back through his hair, then shook his head. "Why the hell did he go near him?"
"I don't know," Fiona replied. "I have my theories, but I don't know and we'll never know."
"His whole life, he never could see more than ten minutes into the future." Michael laughed half-heartedly. "I ever tell you about the time he treed a cat?"
"I'm afraid to ask."
"I was in eighth grade, so he was in . . . fifth. There'd been this scrawny, stray cat in the neighborhood for a week or two. Mean looking thing. And for whatever reason, this cat loved our yard. He could probably smell the dysfunction. Thought he was at home."
Fiona chuckled.
"Anyway, one day Nate decided it'd be funny to scare this cat. He got one of our cap guns and shot it right near the cat's head. He wasn't even trying to hurt it; just scare it with the noise. So the cat hauled ass up that big live oak in my mom's backyard. Now, for just a regular idiotic kid, that would've been enough. But Nate was a special kind of idiot. He decided to climb the tree after the cat to make the cat go higher. He got, oh, maybe 10 feet up the trunk. The cat was high in the branches somewhere. But then Nate remembered he was scared of heights."
"Oh, god."
"Yeah. He just froze up there and started screaming for me to get him down. And right then, the cat seized the opportunity and jumped on his head. Clawed the shit out of his face. That's actually how he got that scar on his lip. Cat split it in two."
"Wow."
"Yep. Good times." Michael looked away before continuing with the story. "My mom ran out right after Nate started screaming, and then she started screaming. Meanwhile, the cat was still all over Nate. He . . . ." He trailed off.
"What?"
"Didn't seem like he was going to stop, so I got my dad's Winchester and I shot him."
Fiona could see Michael tense at the memory. "Oh, Michael." She rested her head on his chest. "How old were you?"
"Fourteen." He sniffed. "First time I killed anything."
"And you did it to save your brother."
"That cat probably would've found a home eventually, you know? Some old lady would've taken it in. And instead, I killed it because my brother ran up a fucking tree."
Author's Note: I looked for the funny for this one, but it's not time yet. Soon. Poor Michael. He's got so much baggage. I look forward to your comments!