Fic: Life [Burn Notice]
Title: Life
Fandom: Burn Notice
Summary: "I remember the first time I realized that life with Michael Westen was not a normal life." Fi reflects back on her life with Michael. Fi's POV.
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Michael/Fi
Length: 1,900 words
Genre(s): angst, romance
A/N: Haven't written Burn Notice fic for a while! Well, haven't written much period other than NaNoWriMo recently (thank GOD November's over... I was about to die). But I do love my Burn Notice fic, and it's back on right now so YAY. :) A little bit different kind of piece for me. I don't usually write stuff like this, but I do like writing reflective-type fics and examining characters. The idea just hit me the other day, watching an episode, that Mike and Fi? They'd never be normal. Hence, Life.
I remember the first time I realized that life with Michael Westen was not a normal life.
It was in Miami, when he was still trying to figure out who burned him and how to plan an appropriate revenge.
We were, I suppose you could say, together. But we had both been too busy - lazy, afraid - to define boundaries or even what exactly it was. There was the emotional backup when needed, the kisses, the occasional though by no means regular night spent at the other's place.
I was thinking, as I sat in the loft, waiting for him to come home from somewhere it was entirely possible he wouldn't return from.
Did I love Michael? That question kept repeating itself in my mind, begging for an answer. Since we'd been together this time, I had never in so many words told him that I loved him. And he had never said it to me.
So the question lingered: Did I love Michael? Eventually, I answered myself: Yes, I loved Michael. I have always loved Michael. Since Ireland.
But loving Michael was not the same as loving any other man.
Michael is the kind of person that you have to give space. And a lot of it.
A man who at 40 years old can't admit that he's getting older, that he's not the same spritely young operative that he was 20 years ago, is not a man that you can box in. Michael was always a man in denial, yes, but I realized that I loved him anyway.
The problem is, a man like that is a man that you can't love in the way you normally would if he was anyone else. A man that behaves like that is a man you can grow old with only if he lets you, and even then, it's never easy. And a man who believes that, a man who is that, is not a man you can have children with.
Every woman, in some part of her being no matter how deeply it's buried or how small it is, wants children. It's in our composition that in some point during our life, we want children.
But it's also wired into many of us that you can't bring a child into a volatile, unstable or risky situation. Inbred maternal instincts and some hereditary sense of maternal protectiveness see to that.
I was probably 38 by the time I really realized in the front of my mind that children were never going to happen for me, for Michael. I think by then I had known it in the back of my mind for some time as the years continued to slowly peel away from my biological clock.
But it was 2008 and Michael had been back in Miami for a year. By then, things had begun to set into a sort of rhythm and order, and I was beginning to realize that I still loved Michael, no matter how hard I tried to love someone else. No one else was the same.
It's not easy to love a man who's distant 90 percent of the time, to work so hard all the time to bring him back to that 10 percent of the time when he's tangible and real.
But after you've loved that kind of man with your whole heart, it's impossible to love anyone else. Love isn't easy, never is, and you find when you've worked so hard at one love, you can't take the easy way out. Even when you try. And believe me, I tried.
I grappled with that knowledge for a long time, and I even tried to run from it. But it didn't happen. Some things, you find out, you can't outrun even if you try.
I also tried for a time to reason with myself that children were never outside the realm of possibility. Things happened. People changed.
But again, reality caught up with me when I tried to run. People sometimes change, yes, but Michael was not people. Michael was one of those types of people that just existed, like a stone, unchanging through the ages. You could no more change him than you could move Mt. Everest.
Michael was always going to be the same. He was always going to be a spy. It was hardwired into his being. No matter how many times they burned him, discarded him, left him for dead, he was going to come back.
And Michael had the potential to be a great father. I saw it in him often. But if he had the potential to be a great father, Michael lacked the ability and the opportunity to be a great father. He had in him the loving qualities, the stalwartness, but he also had in him the spy, the too-narrow focus, the always alone lifestyle.
And I realized when I stopped running that this was the truth, the case. Reality caught up with me then, when I was 38.
It took me a little longer to realize something else about life with Michael. I was about 42 when I finally realized that he was never going to marry me.
The official paper of it all was too binding for him. If they ever sent him home in a wooden box - I always imagined they would still give him that honor if nothing else - the folded flag would go to the only Mrs. Westen - his mother.
I never doubted that he loved me - or at least I rarely did. I learned through the years to read it in his eyes even when he could never say it. And it was always there, in his eyes, even if it was rarely, rarely on his lips. "I love you."
I don't know if then, when I realized that he was never going to marry me, if I understood his reasons. I don't know if I do now. I'm not sure if he did it out of love, acting on some misguided idea about how he had to protect me, or out of some odd inability to commit.
All I knew was the realization had happened one particular day, had begun sitting in the loft watching as he robotically tied his tie and straightened his tux for Nate's wedding. I had been wondering what was running through his mind, what he thought of the fact that his younger brother was getting married that day.
Was he wondering if he would get married too, one day? We had been together again for about four years at that point. I remember realizing for the first time that that was long enough to warrant a ring, especially considering that this was round two of our relationship; we'd been together for years before that, too.
I knew, sitting there, watching him, that he'd been engaged once before. Not married, but he had been engaged. To a woman he'd been with a lot less than he had with me.
And I wondered briefly in that moment, as I watched him examine himself in a mirror - making sure that the days-old gash under his jaw was sufficiently hidden by makeup and that the bandages wrapping around his ribs didn't cause bumps under his shirt - if he was contemplating proposing.
The thought lingered oddly on my mind as we rode silently in the Charger.
It was in the middle of the wedding, as I was sitting beside Madeline and watching Michael, who was standing at his brother's side as best man, that I realized it. It was written in the small, strained smile on his face.
He was uncomfortable there. He was watching the motions critically.
And I don't know how, but it hit me then that he was never going to be married. Subsequently, that meant that he was never going to marry me.
I cried then - I don't know why. Reality had caught up with me, but it had never brought me to tears before. Luckily Madeline was already crying beside me, and my tears were interpreted as ones shed for the beauty of the ceremony.
I teared up more when the preacher presented the new Mr. and Mrs. Westen, when I realized that I was always going to be Fiona Glenanne.
The fantasy that every girl grows up with - at least a little - of what constitutes a successful and happy life had just evaporated in front of me. I was never going to have children. I was never going to be married. I was already 42. Even if I wanted to start over, I was already middle-aged. I was already past my mothering years. I was already in love with Michael.
At the reception, he pulled me to the dance floor, much to my surprise. It was one of those rare moments between us of "just us." He danced well, with a smooth economy of movement that one would expect from Michael Westen.
He smiled at me. I smiled back. It was rare to see him smile - just smile.
His eyes apologized to me. I knew what for. Somehow, in his Michael Westen way, he knew what I had realized during the ceremony.
I shook my head at him and took the opportunity to lean in and kiss him.
I dreamed sometimes, through the years, of little children with dark hair and blue eyes and maybe Michael's ears - they would be cute on a baby. I dreamed sometimes of grandchildren who looked just the same because our genes were strong, running between the legs of tall, now-grown children, the men with Michael's firm jaw and the women with my good cheekbones. And I dreamed sometimes of men who were other than Michael, the ones who had come before, the ones who had occasionally interrupted, and sometimes the ones who were faceless.
Mostly it happened during the times that he was gone, sometimes missing, sometimes I knew where he was. But sometimes I dreamt when he was physically right there beside me.
And always, I wondered if he knew.
I was 71 the day that I woke up to find him staring at me. I wondered then for the first time - the first time in the nearly 40 years we'd been together - if I talked in my sleep.
He had just turned 73 and was about as retired as Michael Westen was ever going to be. I woke up more and more days to find him right there beside me. I had already begun to be less and less active myself.
I watched him for a moment then while he watched me, before he spoke.
"Do you regret it?" he asked me.
I thought then about the things usually reserved for sleeping hours. I thought of the children, with dark hair and blue eyes, with Michael's ears and my cheekbones. I thought of the grandchildren who looked almost exactly like the children. I thought of the other men, most of whom would be married with kids and grandkids.
And I thought too of all of his distance - of the 90 percent that I had resented, tried to run from, all those years ago. Of the time he spent in other countries, of the time he spent in prisons, of the time he spent in places I would never ask about.
And I thought too of the 10 percent. Of the few times when he spoke, when he said he loved me. Of the days when I remembered why I loved him. Of the days I would have died if anyone other than Michael Westen had had my back.
And so, having taken my time, I answered him:
"No."
Finis
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