Fic - For Those Who Try Again (Fiona, Jesse/Fiona) R, 1/1
Title: For Those Who Try Again
Summary: Things, as it turns out, don't change all that much after. Everything is just a means to an end.
Rating: r
Author's Notes: 1,866 words. Spoilers for everything up to date. Set after 4x18 Last Stand. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
They never see Michael again.
No cryptic messages to decipher, no attempts at contact are ever made.
For anyone else the loss would have been surprising, would have been profound in some epically poetic way. It would have knocked them right off their feet and into some sort of absolute despair that could rip anyone apart if they weren’t strong enough to fight it off.
The difference between Fiona and everyone else is that she's never been naive enough to think this would end any other way.
Eventually, she just became too tired of fighting the inevitable.
There are rumors of course. Aliases she recognizes, mentioned by that friend or this colleague she knew way back when. Contact is initiated only by Fiona and only when it's convenient or merely a means to an end. Knowing how to play the game and play it well is something you can never truly forget.
In the back of Fiona's mind she keeps a tally, a running list of cities and countries, dots on a map forming long lines that cross and intertwine and lead everywhere but back to her.
Madeline quits smoking and starts drinking. Stops drinking and starts smoking. Gets a job to fill her time and repaints the house. Finally manages to go through all the things Michael had left behind the first time, which serves as a cleansing of sorts.
Nate moves back home, new wife and baby in toe, one son returning to fill the void of the other. It's always a vicious circle of sorts.
Sam doesn't bother to change, never seems to miss a beat. He keeps the loft, just in case, forever waiting for something that will never come.
Fiona stays away from the water, away from the loft, buys a new apartment and hides her explosives under floorboards and inside crawlspaces. Has dinner with Madeline once a week in an effort to allow the older woman to hold on to one of the only reminders she has left of her oldest son. Makes a play at moving on and finds everything really is easier with practice.
And Jesse… well, Jesse stays.
Things, as it turns out, don't change all that much after.
Same cases, different people. Same people, different problems.
Jesse picks up right where Michael left off - takes cases and saves lives, helps put the bad guys away by calling in favors and using old contacts to establish new ones. To establish himself as a completely separate entity from Michael Westen and all that entails.
Together, the three of them do the best they can for as long as they can and hope that is enough to right all the wrongs they've managed to accumulate along the way.
Madeline has a cigarette between her fingers, something that burns on the way down in her glass and Fiona watches her stub what's left of her cigarette out just so she can busy her hands with lighting another.
There are good days and there are bad days - a universal truth that applies to everyone, but always more with some than others. This is one of Madeline's not so good days, the ones where she wakes up late and is slow to remember, fingers pictures and plays back memories more than she should. Wishes for things so impossible.
"You think he'll ever come home?" she asks quietly in-between puffs of smoke.
Fiona smiles as sweetly as she can manage. "Yeah," she says, "someday."
It's the nicest thing Fiona can ever remember doing for anyone, but in the end it doesn't even matter.
Madeline's smile is bitter because like mother, like son she doesn't ask questions she doesn't already know the answers to.
She lights another cigarette and Fiona watches in silence.
"I would have chosen the girl," Jesse says offhandedly while she has a q-tip full of antiseptic to the gash above his eyebrow, her messily placed stitches in his arm.
In the back of her mind, Fiona notes this running theme, this constant occurrence of the men in her life needing her to sew them back together.
With steady fingers she replies, "You aren't Michael."
Jesse smiles something genuine, something soft, and Fiona pretends not see it. "No. I'm not."
This is just a few months in.
The sentiment never manages to fade away.
Explosions always remind her of Michael.
Gunfire and C4, the heady scent of fire filtering through the air, that brief stretch of time filled with silence that rings in her ears after she presses a button and sets the world upside down for a moment, they all remind her of Michael. Probably always will. With him it was always give and take, one step forward and three steps back, explosions crackling in the background, fireworks sizzling and dying as they let their guards down and called a momentary truce.
It was frantic and messy, lovely in a way only she can truly appreciate.
It was also the most exhausting thing she's ever done.
The displacement had hurt something terrible inside her chest, something that had tightened and released and subsided only to reappear when she thought the moment had passed. The adjustment was hard to swallow, his absence took some getting used to, but the sharp ache eventually dulled, the hurt eventually ebbed away.
Theirs was a love story for the ages, sure, but it was never meant to have a happy ending.
Fiona has always known that.
Jesse tastes like tequila the first time he kisses her.
It burns the tip of her tongue as she presses her own against the roof of his mouth, her tiny skillful fingers fisting and pausing in the cotton of his shirt. She's not sure whether to push him away or pull him towards her so she just opens her mouth wide for him, tongue slipping against his as his hands press themselves deep into her back, digging into hips.
He kisses her like he's dying, like he needs this and Fiona finds herself holding her breath the entire time.
They were too late, underestimated their opponent in the worst possible way, and there is a kid, dead too soon, somewhere in south Miami.
None of them have ever dealt well with failure.
When he pulls away his eyes are wide, hand reaching up to wipe at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm sorry."
Fiona just breathes and watches his back until it's out of her line of vision.
There are things they don't say. Confidences they don't break. There's Sam and the team and Madeline too, this faulty foundation they've managed to rebuild and there are certain boundaries that are only meant to be crossed carefully. Certain boundaries that are only meant to be crossed with absolute certainty.
It's always been there though, this thing between her and Jesse.
During Michael, after Michael, the timeline isn't as significant as the fact that everything just seemed to be constantly surrounded by Michael - his presence and absence, then and now, his name breathing like an undercurrent between them, binding them together.
The knowledge is constantly leaving something bitter in her mouth, something that tastes like copper and is smooth like blood. Almost as if from a half-a-world away, from whatever hole he's managed to find himself in, Michael is still managing to draw blood, still managing to take these things away from her.
"He's going to come home," Sam says.
Fiona laughs something low and bitter, eyes cold behind her sunglasses. "He’s a company man, Sam. You know that's not true."
Only she's beginning to suspect he doesn't.
The first time they fuck it is in the heat of summer, Fiona's sweat pooling at the base of her spine as she watches him from the doorway, traces the smooth line of his back.
Jesse is messing with her explosives, wiring up some C4 with a carefully constructed trigger - just the way she had taught him. When she nears him he doesn't look up, lost in the type of world she feels most at home in, and she smiles at the smudges of molding on his left cheek.
"Do you want to sleep with me, Jesse?" Is all she says, so softly, so quietly it takes a moment for his hands to still and eyes to slip upwards towards her. Fiona's lips twist into a smile.
He is so stunned that all he can do is kiss her.
It's been so long since she's done this with anyone but Michael that for a moment, when her back hits the mattress and Jesse settles between her thighs, that is all she can think about. She contrasts and compares, marks the differences in the back of her mind - dips and scars that feel foreign beneath her nimble fingers. Jesse works his mouth against hers, firm and certain and slick as she kisses him back and her hands find warm flesh and trace the hardness of bone, the line of his jaw, tighten around the smooth curve of his scalp.
There is a moment, sometime soon after, when he pulls back to look at her, eyes lidded and chest heaving as his eyes scan her face for something significant. After a moment, when he kisses her again, there is a sharp bite to her lip, tongue taking full control of her mouth and Fiona moans something low and gorgeous, digs her nails into the skin at his shoulders and doesn’t let go.
Lust is easy, she knows, love easier, and this, this hunger and raw need in the way Jesse gives and takes, parting her legs with his shoulders, spreading them wide, is darker, harder, almost better in some ways. He skims her skin with ease, but without precision, eyes dark as he watches her, as his mouth works against her, writing his name into her body until her hands claps around his headboard, body arching into his touch, into him, begging with her sheer need.
Jesse fucks her without precision, movements harsh and needy, possessive as he pins her hands above he head and smiles against her mouth as she writhes and fights against him for control. It's only when she wraps her legs around his waist so tightly that her thighs ache from the strain that he gives in, lets her arch up and into him, both of them pulling away to gasp at the stretch, at the tightness, at the fit. When Fiona's eyes slide open she finds him watching her, jaw tense, eyes wide and she nods, just once, just barely, and he begins to move.
Teeth sinking into his shoulder, moan low and guttural and she whispers his name Jesse Jesse Jesse just to anchor herself, just to keep herself from falling apart completely.
He kisses her, tongue pushing into her mouth, opening her wholly, hallowing her out completely as she comes.
In the morning, Fiona's thighs will ache over coffee while Jesse sits across from her in his too-small kitchen.
Eventually, the phone will ring. "It's Sam," Jesse starts, thumb outstretched as he motions towards the door. "There’s a thing. We gotta go."
Fiona laughs, mumbles isn't there always behind her mug and Jesse will smile, relieved.
She forgets to think about Michael.