(FIC) (Burn Notice) "Just Plain Love" (1/1) (PG) (Sam/Mike/Fi)
Title: Just Plain Love
Parts: 1 of 1
Author: Missy AKA rise_your_dead
Fandom: Burn Notice
Pairing/Characters: Michael Westen, Sam Axe, Fiona Glenanne; Sam/Fi/Mike
Rating/Category: PG; language; friendship/humor/family
Spoilers: Set post-series 4; general series spoilers.
Summary: Sam must figure out if he’s willing to come out of the closet when an obnoxious friend comes to town to meet his family.
Notes/Warnings: This is a sequel to “Better with three”, written by bluerosefairy, originally written for a queer_fest prompt. Thank you to Amber for betaing this!
Sam had been in the middle of an intense conversation when the passenger side door flew open. “Sorry, buddy - I’ve got a visitor…yeah…right…okay…see you, bye.” Sam hung up his cell and turned toward little Claire, who was already holding out her arms for a hug.
“Pop!” He caught her mid hug and hauled her up to his chest.
“There’s my favorite girl!” He swings her around once, placing her between the steering wheel of his baby blue Cadillac and his chest. “How was school?”
“Good,” she declared, her little arms wrapped around his neck. Looking down at her, he was stricken anew by how closely she resembled Fiona. There remained flecks of Michael in her appearance; her determined eyes, and that way she had of curving her lips that screamed I-know-everything. She was grinning, displaying the gap left behind by her first lost tooth. “I got a sticker for winning the spelling bee!”
“Let me see!” Claire pointed to the tiny smiley-face sticker pressed to the back of her hand. “Wow, that’s groovy.”
“It smells like grape when you scratch it. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They’re working.” Which was Glenanne/Westen/Axe family code for ‘doing recon’. Since Mike and Fi didn’t need Chuck Finley to plant a couple of bugs in their client’s house, Sam had been delegated to get-Claire-from-Maddie’s-house-duty. Since he was also the designated homework guy, it just made the afternoon at large run more easily. “Dad promised me they’d be home for dinner.”
“Okay!” she pressed a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek and climbed off his lap, strapping herself in.
***
The afternoon passed along smoothly. He got her a snack; she had her Hawaiian Punch and he had his beer, and together they made it through her homework (She can’t quite remember how to multiply nine and eight, but she breezes through the reading portion without his help.) Somewhere in the middle of her favorite cartoon, Sam’s phone buzzed to life again, and he took the call in the kitchen.
It was Bob Pasternack again, his big, beery laugh pouring over the line. “Why’d you hang upon me so fast, man? Your newest lady come home?”
“Yeah,” Sam laughed, half-choking on his tongue. “You could say that.”
“Lucky son of a bitch. You always had a horseshoe jammed up your ass when it came to broads. How’s that Veronica chick doing?”
“Me and Ronnie are ancient history,” Sam replied. “At least six houses ago.” He looked around himself, at the homey confines of the suburban house Fiona had insisted they buy six years ago when she was nesting (and you did not question the whims of a nesting Fiona Glenanne).
“You dog!” He laughed. “Have a new sweetheart?”
“I’m married,” Sam said. And they were, civilly so.
“MARRIED?!” He cackled. “Sam ‘Loverboy’ Axe, married?!”
Sam shrugged. “I ain’t getting any younger, pally. And we had a baby on the way…”
“You’re a father. A DAD…”
Sam considered hanging up on his cackling friend. If he didn’t stop cackling like an idiot, Sam was going to hang up on him. “Right. We’ve got a girl, and one on the way.” He pressed a hand over the receiver and shouted, “Hey Claire, say hi to uncle Bob!”
“Hi,” Claire said - as she drew on the floor, she could have cared less about ‘Uncle Bob’.
“I’m glad I’m coming over to see this for myself. Otherwise I’d never buy it.”
He stared at the phone and wondered what he’d gotten himself into. “Right. Sunday dinner, huh?”
“That’s right, pal! Six o’clock. Bring some chips.”
“Chips! You always were priceless, Axe!”
Sam hung up and groaned. He needed to have a talk with Mike and Fi. A long and likely sad talk.
“Do you want a hug?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he held out one arm.
And dumped the rest of his beer down the kitchen sink with the other.
***
Mike and Fiona were atypically late, arriving through the back door somewhere past ten. They’d called Sam to warn him, and he had prepared Claire’s dinner and bedtime routines as per usual. Naturally, she had tried to sneak an extra hour up, but instead had fallen to sleep watching TV with her head on his knee.
“…Won’t argue about why that went so wrong, Fiona.” He was wearing something two inches from being a leisure suit, complete with a floral shirt and a wide lapelled jacket.
Fiona sported a sundress, a white hat, and a burgeoning stomach in the sixth month of her pregnancy. “You need more of an imagination! A little C4…”
“…The entire situation needed LESS C4,” Michael declared.
“A little C4 solves everything.” She pecked Sam on the lips. “Hello Sam.”
“Hey,” Michael said, wrapping an arm around him briefly on his way to the refrigerator - as always slightly less demonstrative but no less loving than Fiona. “How’s Claire?”
“Sleeping. She missed you both.” He pecked the top of Michael’s head and grinned. “Have I ever told you two how much I love you both?”
Fiona and Michael shared a pointed look. “What do you need from us?” Michael asked.
“Ha ha, who said anything about a favor?” Sam asked, grinning hard.
“He’s forgotten how well we know him,” Fiona declared, separating herself from his embrace and heading to the refrigerator. Sam had made extra macaroni and cheese deliberately, as a failsafe against times like these; Michael and Fi went about preparing themselves two plates.
Silence reigned until Sam decided to open his mouth. “An old SEAL buddy of mine’s coming into town on Sunday. I…kind of told him we’d have him over for Sunday dinner.”
Michael and Fiona shared yet another pointed look, and then shrugged. “How is this is going to be different from the last ten buddies
Sam was on the ropes, and he knew it. “We were on the teams together, men and Bob. He’s a good guy. Mostly. He saved me from some ugly stuff that went down in Beirut on my first mission…” He sighed. “But the guy’s got some virtues that can be big faults.” Sam leaned against the counter. “He’s really religious.”
Michael and Fiona knew what that meant - they had encountered disapproval in a few places, of course, among the parents of Claire’s friends, among Madeline’s social group. No close friends, however, had provided an obstacle.
Fiona, bless her, spoke out first. “Why would you want to spend time with a bigot?”
Sam immediately began gesturing. “The man pulled shrapnel out of my arm with his bare hands, Fi - I can’t just lie and say I’m gonna be out bowling when he wants to have a beer.”
“What do you suggest we tell him when he shows up and finds out you have two roommates and a child?”
Sam had the grace to wince. “That’s the other problem. I kind of told him that I’m just married to Fi. And that Claire is mine.”
There was a heavy silence. “Claire IS yours,” Fiona stormed. “And I don’t want you to touch me until you remember that.” With that, she left her plate on the table.
Sam called after her, “Hey,I get it, baby! And she gets her attitude from you!”
Michael, diplomatically, kept his eyes on the microwave.
“She doesn’t know,” Sam said, turning to his best friend for clemency. “When you have a buddy like Bob you can’t turn your back on him and walk out.”
The microwave beeped. “Remember DC, Sam?”
Sam remembered it. “You had the chance to go back in. And you picked me and Fi over the past.”
“Because you’re my future. You, Fi, Claire, the baby, our clients…my mom.” Michael wrapped his arm around Sam. “Let me quote you,” he whispered in Sam’s ear, making the older man shiver before kissing his neck, “’If they don’t want you, screw them.’”
Sam smiled, but persisted stubbornly. “I can’t just cancel on him…”
“Fine. But you’re making dinner. And don’t expect Fi to smile.”
“I ain’t asking for miracles,” Sam replied tartly.
***
The visit had started so well - Claire was charming, though Sam could see the falseness in her smile as she pretended to enjoy Bob’s teasing. Fiona was subtly cutting and stunning as she glared at Sam between jokes and rum dingers. And Mike - clever Michael - was Sam’s buddy. They sat down to a pot roast Sam had carefully and judiciously put together.
That was when Bob noticed the picture Sam had left hanging on the kitchenette wall.
“Who’s that, kiddo?”
Claire squinted at the picture, then at Sam. “That’s mommy, pop and…Uncle Michael,” she said, nailing Sam right to the wall with her steely eyes. Sam winced and choked on his Pepsi.
“Woah, you all right tiger?” Bob slapped Sam on the back, then turned to Claire and grinned. “Has your Pop ever told you what a terrific guy he is?”
“Oh, lots,” Claire deadpanned.
Bob brayed out a laugh. “Chip off the misses, eh?”
“You can say that again,” Sam replied. Fiona glared at him.
“Would anyone like dessert?” Fiona asked, getting up.
“Yes. Please,” Sam requested.
Fiona squeezed his fingers a tad too tightly when she got up. “Oh Sam…shouldn’t you be watching your sugar intake?”
“Uh…no?” Sam gave her a quirked brow and a confused look.
“Well, you certainly won’t be getting any from me until you take out the trash.” Then it hit him, and he went quiet and still. Only Fi would use their pet name for sex in front of Bob. A drop of sweat drizzled down his face, but he covered beautifully with a nervous grin. Michael, smirking into his drink, was no help in his silence.
“Heh heh…that’s my Fiona.” She rolled her eyes and headed to the sink with their dishes.
“So, the legendary Michael Westen and the legendary Sam Axe work together now, eh?” Bob leaned back in the chair, his paunch exploding over the edge of his brown belted pants. He scratched his thinning grey hair and belched.
“Yep. It’s quite a strain sometimes, but I manage,” Michael said, watching Sam with a Claire-worthy glare.
“Speaking of old times,” Sam said, desperately trying to divert conversation, “how’s Tom Fleckenstein? Last I heard, the lucky SOB had landed a guarding job in Tikrit.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Bob asked, his eyes narrowing piggishly, making his once-handsome face look somewhat cruel. “He’s off the teams. DADT.”
“Tom’s gay?” Sam wondered.
“He’s been out for six years. Jesus, Axe, get with it! You could tell just by looking at him that he was a pansy the whole time. The way he bounced around like he owned the whole unit…”
“I never noticed,” Sam declared through his teeth.
“Turns out he went to Bible Camp to pray the gay away. Got caught with his sobriety buddy. I could’ve told him it was a waste of time - there’s no redemption for people like that. Once a faggot, always a faggot, right? Either way, you’re gonna burn in hell.”
Sam - standing up to tell Bob that he’d gone too far - saw it happen out of the corner of his eye. First, Claire’s face turned red. Her little hand tightened on her dinner knife. Michael gave her a warning look, but was countermanded by Fiona’s face over his shoulder, and her approving smile. Before any of them could react, she’d stabbed the fob of Tom’s watch right through its cheap leather band, pinning him under her minimal grip.
“MY POP AND DADDY AREN’T GOING TO HELL!” she boomed, as only an outraged six year old that embodied half of Michael Westen’s genetic material could. “YOU TAKE IT BACK!”
“CLAIRE MARGARET WESTEN!” Fiona blurted out, her tone going from scolding to fond. “What a genius thing to do!”
Bob was halfway in the bag, to Sam’s eternal gratefulness - that meant he wouldn’t try to hit Claire back. “It’s time for you to leave, Bob.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Bob asked, his glance flicking from Sam to Michael. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Just go.” Sam said. “And don’t bother to call or write. Or send smoke signals.”
“Just what the hell is going on here, Axe?!” the man grunted, standing up. “One minute you’re fine, the next your little hooligan’s trying to kill me!”
There was a discernable clicking noise from the kitchen. “What did you just say about my daughter?”
Their heads swiveled toward Fiona, whose disapproving stare spoke volumes more than the gun she held just out of Bob’s line of vision. Sam, however, could see it quite clearly. He didn’t have to react- Bob was slamming down his napkin and pulling his watch out from Claire’s knife.
“Your whole family’s bugfuck, sailor! Shame such a pussyhound like you’s gone soft.” He turned around in the doorframe to glare at them both.
Michael grabbed Sam, dipped him backward, and kissed him far more daringly than he normally would in Claire’s presence. He let Sam go, reached across and then grabbed the door frame. “Doesn’t feel soft to me,” he declared, closing the door.
Sam stared up at Michael. “Not bad for an angry man.”
Michael answered by letting go of Sam, and he fell to the floor in a heap. He let Sam sit there and rub his sore ass for a minute before helping him up and walking with him to the kitchenette.
As Michael and Sam re-entered, Fiona was serving Claire the biggest slice of chocolate cake either men had ever seen.
***
The following morning, Sam awoke in a tangle of forgiving limbs. Gently disengaging himself from Fiona and Michael, he stumbled to the bathroom, prepared himself to face the world, and emerged from the house with a squeegee in his hand.
It was Fiona’s turn to get Claire up, and by the time he was out washing his Caddy his daughter had emerged, complete with backpack.
“Hi, Pop,” she said, a vague note of gloom in her voice.
Sam patted her. “The man catch up with you?” he teased.
“Mom says I’m grounded for two weeks and I can’t go to Dakota’s sleepover.” She plopped down on the hood of the car and let out a dejected sigh.
“Your mom’s right. That’s what happens when you lose your temper,” he scolded gently.
“I know…I just didn’t like it when that guy was mean to you,” she confessed.
“And that’s why I love you. You’re one loyal girl.” He knelt down. “Do you know why this car’s so special to me?”
“’Cause it’s expensive?” Claire guessed.
Sam shook his head. “This is the first car I bought all by myself,” he explained.
“Ooh,” Claire remarked. “You mean a rich lady didn’t buy it for you,” she elaborated.
Sam winced. “Right. Actually, I bought it so we could take you home from the hospital.” Fi had kind of wrecked his previous ride by crashing it into a lamppost during a high speed chase. “That’s when I realized someone important was coming into the world, someone that needed me to look after her. You’re my blood, baby,” he declared. “And I promise I won’t ever forget that.” He kissed her forehead.
She regarded him seriously, with those Westen eyes of hers. “I’m sorry I made your friend go away,” she said.
“It’s all right, darlin’. He’s not my friend anymore, anyway,” Sam declared, kissing the girl between her eyes and letting her go with a pat to the back. “Now, how about getting Pop a beer?”
The End
Parts: 1 of 1
Author: Missy AKA rise_your_dead
Fandom: Burn Notice
Pairing/Characters: Michael Westen, Sam Axe, Fiona Glenanne; Sam/Fi/Mike
Rating/Category: PG; language; friendship/humor/family
Spoilers: Set post-series 4; general series spoilers.
Summary: Sam must figure out if he’s willing to come out of the closet when an obnoxious friend comes to town to meet his family.
Notes/Warnings: This is a sequel to “Better with three”, written by bluerosefairy, originally written for a queer_fest prompt. Thank you to Amber for betaing this!
Sam had been in the middle of an intense conversation when the passenger side door flew open. “Sorry, buddy - I’ve got a visitor…yeah…right…okay…see you, bye.” Sam hung up his cell and turned toward little Claire, who was already holding out her arms for a hug.
“Pop!” He caught her mid hug and hauled her up to his chest.
“There’s my favorite girl!” He swings her around once, placing her between the steering wheel of his baby blue Cadillac and his chest. “How was school?”
“Good,” she declared, her little arms wrapped around his neck. Looking down at her, he was stricken anew by how closely she resembled Fiona. There remained flecks of Michael in her appearance; her determined eyes, and that way she had of curving her lips that screamed I-know-everything. She was grinning, displaying the gap left behind by her first lost tooth. “I got a sticker for winning the spelling bee!”
“Let me see!” Claire pointed to the tiny smiley-face sticker pressed to the back of her hand. “Wow, that’s groovy.”
“It smells like grape when you scratch it. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They’re working.” Which was Glenanne/Westen/Axe family code for ‘doing recon’. Since Mike and Fi didn’t need Chuck Finley to plant a couple of bugs in their client’s house, Sam had been delegated to get-Claire-from-Maddie’s-house-duty. Since he was also the designated homework guy, it just made the afternoon at large run more easily. “Dad promised me they’d be home for dinner.”
“Okay!” she pressed a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek and climbed off his lap, strapping herself in.
***
The afternoon passed along smoothly. He got her a snack; she had her Hawaiian Punch and he had his beer, and together they made it through her homework (She can’t quite remember how to multiply nine and eight, but she breezes through the reading portion without his help.) Somewhere in the middle of her favorite cartoon, Sam’s phone buzzed to life again, and he took the call in the kitchen.
It was Bob Pasternack again, his big, beery laugh pouring over the line. “Why’d you hang upon me so fast, man? Your newest lady come home?”
“Yeah,” Sam laughed, half-choking on his tongue. “You could say that.”
“Lucky son of a bitch. You always had a horseshoe jammed up your ass when it came to broads. How’s that Veronica chick doing?”
“Me and Ronnie are ancient history,” Sam replied. “At least six houses ago.” He looked around himself, at the homey confines of the suburban house Fiona had insisted they buy six years ago when she was nesting (and you did not question the whims of a nesting Fiona Glenanne).
“You dog!” He laughed. “Have a new sweetheart?”
“I’m married,” Sam said. And they were, civilly so.
“MARRIED?!” He cackled. “Sam ‘Loverboy’ Axe, married?!”
Sam shrugged. “I ain’t getting any younger, pally. And we had a baby on the way…”
“You’re a father. A DAD…”
Sam considered hanging up on his cackling friend. If he didn’t stop cackling like an idiot, Sam was going to hang up on him. “Right. We’ve got a girl, and one on the way.” He pressed a hand over the receiver and shouted, “Hey Claire, say hi to uncle Bob!”
“Hi,” Claire said - as she drew on the floor, she could have cared less about ‘Uncle Bob’.
“I’m glad I’m coming over to see this for myself. Otherwise I’d never buy it.”
He stared at the phone and wondered what he’d gotten himself into. “Right. Sunday dinner, huh?”
“That’s right, pal! Six o’clock. Bring some chips.”
“Chips! You always were priceless, Axe!”
Sam hung up and groaned. He needed to have a talk with Mike and Fi. A long and likely sad talk.
“Do you want a hug?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he held out one arm.
And dumped the rest of his beer down the kitchen sink with the other.
***
Mike and Fiona were atypically late, arriving through the back door somewhere past ten. They’d called Sam to warn him, and he had prepared Claire’s dinner and bedtime routines as per usual. Naturally, she had tried to sneak an extra hour up, but instead had fallen to sleep watching TV with her head on his knee.
“…Won’t argue about why that went so wrong, Fiona.” He was wearing something two inches from being a leisure suit, complete with a floral shirt and a wide lapelled jacket.
Fiona sported a sundress, a white hat, and a burgeoning stomach in the sixth month of her pregnancy. “You need more of an imagination! A little C4…”
“…The entire situation needed LESS C4,” Michael declared.
“A little C4 solves everything.” She pecked Sam on the lips. “Hello Sam.”
“Hey,” Michael said, wrapping an arm around him briefly on his way to the refrigerator - as always slightly less demonstrative but no less loving than Fiona. “How’s Claire?”
“Sleeping. She missed you both.” He pecked the top of Michael’s head and grinned. “Have I ever told you two how much I love you both?”
Fiona and Michael shared a pointed look. “What do you need from us?” Michael asked.
“Ha ha, who said anything about a favor?” Sam asked, grinning hard.
“He’s forgotten how well we know him,” Fiona declared, separating herself from his embrace and heading to the refrigerator. Sam had made extra macaroni and cheese deliberately, as a failsafe against times like these; Michael and Fi went about preparing themselves two plates.
Silence reigned until Sam decided to open his mouth. “An old SEAL buddy of mine’s coming into town on Sunday. I…kind of told him we’d have him over for Sunday dinner.”
Michael and Fiona shared yet another pointed look, and then shrugged. “How is this is going to be different from the last ten buddies
Sam was on the ropes, and he knew it. “We were on the teams together, men and Bob. He’s a good guy. Mostly. He saved me from some ugly stuff that went down in Beirut on my first mission…” He sighed. “But the guy’s got some virtues that can be big faults.” Sam leaned against the counter. “He’s really religious.”
Michael and Fiona knew what that meant - they had encountered disapproval in a few places, of course, among the parents of Claire’s friends, among Madeline’s social group. No close friends, however, had provided an obstacle.
Fiona, bless her, spoke out first. “Why would you want to spend time with a bigot?”
Sam immediately began gesturing. “The man pulled shrapnel out of my arm with his bare hands, Fi - I can’t just lie and say I’m gonna be out bowling when he wants to have a beer.”
“What do you suggest we tell him when he shows up and finds out you have two roommates and a child?”
Sam had the grace to wince. “That’s the other problem. I kind of told him that I’m just married to Fi. And that Claire is mine.”
There was a heavy silence. “Claire IS yours,” Fiona stormed. “And I don’t want you to touch me until you remember that.” With that, she left her plate on the table.
Sam called after her, “Hey,I get it, baby! And she gets her attitude from you!”
Michael, diplomatically, kept his eyes on the microwave.
“She doesn’t know,” Sam said, turning to his best friend for clemency. “When you have a buddy like Bob you can’t turn your back on him and walk out.”
The microwave beeped. “Remember DC, Sam?”
Sam remembered it. “You had the chance to go back in. And you picked me and Fi over the past.”
“Because you’re my future. You, Fi, Claire, the baby, our clients…my mom.” Michael wrapped his arm around Sam. “Let me quote you,” he whispered in Sam’s ear, making the older man shiver before kissing his neck, “’If they don’t want you, screw them.’”
Sam smiled, but persisted stubbornly. “I can’t just cancel on him…”
“Fine. But you’re making dinner. And don’t expect Fi to smile.”
“I ain’t asking for miracles,” Sam replied tartly.
***
The visit had started so well - Claire was charming, though Sam could see the falseness in her smile as she pretended to enjoy Bob’s teasing. Fiona was subtly cutting and stunning as she glared at Sam between jokes and rum dingers. And Mike - clever Michael - was Sam’s buddy. They sat down to a pot roast Sam had carefully and judiciously put together.
That was when Bob noticed the picture Sam had left hanging on the kitchenette wall.
“Who’s that, kiddo?”
Claire squinted at the picture, then at Sam. “That’s mommy, pop and…Uncle Michael,” she said, nailing Sam right to the wall with her steely eyes. Sam winced and choked on his Pepsi.
“Woah, you all right tiger?” Bob slapped Sam on the back, then turned to Claire and grinned. “Has your Pop ever told you what a terrific guy he is?”
“Oh, lots,” Claire deadpanned.
Bob brayed out a laugh. “Chip off the misses, eh?”
“You can say that again,” Sam replied. Fiona glared at him.
“Would anyone like dessert?” Fiona asked, getting up.
“Yes. Please,” Sam requested.
Fiona squeezed his fingers a tad too tightly when she got up. “Oh Sam…shouldn’t you be watching your sugar intake?”
“Uh…no?” Sam gave her a quirked brow and a confused look.
“Well, you certainly won’t be getting any from me until you take out the trash.” Then it hit him, and he went quiet and still. Only Fi would use their pet name for sex in front of Bob. A drop of sweat drizzled down his face, but he covered beautifully with a nervous grin. Michael, smirking into his drink, was no help in his silence.
“Heh heh…that’s my Fiona.” She rolled her eyes and headed to the sink with their dishes.
“So, the legendary Michael Westen and the legendary Sam Axe work together now, eh?” Bob leaned back in the chair, his paunch exploding over the edge of his brown belted pants. He scratched his thinning grey hair and belched.
“Yep. It’s quite a strain sometimes, but I manage,” Michael said, watching Sam with a Claire-worthy glare.
“Speaking of old times,” Sam said, desperately trying to divert conversation, “how’s Tom Fleckenstein? Last I heard, the lucky SOB had landed a guarding job in Tikrit.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Bob asked, his eyes narrowing piggishly, making his once-handsome face look somewhat cruel. “He’s off the teams. DADT.”
“Tom’s gay?” Sam wondered.
“He’s been out for six years. Jesus, Axe, get with it! You could tell just by looking at him that he was a pansy the whole time. The way he bounced around like he owned the whole unit…”
“I never noticed,” Sam declared through his teeth.
“Turns out he went to Bible Camp to pray the gay away. Got caught with his sobriety buddy. I could’ve told him it was a waste of time - there’s no redemption for people like that. Once a faggot, always a faggot, right? Either way, you’re gonna burn in hell.”
Sam - standing up to tell Bob that he’d gone too far - saw it happen out of the corner of his eye. First, Claire’s face turned red. Her little hand tightened on her dinner knife. Michael gave her a warning look, but was countermanded by Fiona’s face over his shoulder, and her approving smile. Before any of them could react, she’d stabbed the fob of Tom’s watch right through its cheap leather band, pinning him under her minimal grip.
“MY POP AND DADDY AREN’T GOING TO HELL!” she boomed, as only an outraged six year old that embodied half of Michael Westen’s genetic material could. “YOU TAKE IT BACK!”
“CLAIRE MARGARET WESTEN!” Fiona blurted out, her tone going from scolding to fond. “What a genius thing to do!”
Bob was halfway in the bag, to Sam’s eternal gratefulness - that meant he wouldn’t try to hit Claire back. “It’s time for you to leave, Bob.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Bob asked, his glance flicking from Sam to Michael. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Just go.” Sam said. “And don’t bother to call or write. Or send smoke signals.”
“Just what the hell is going on here, Axe?!” the man grunted, standing up. “One minute you’re fine, the next your little hooligan’s trying to kill me!”
There was a discernable clicking noise from the kitchen. “What did you just say about my daughter?”
Their heads swiveled toward Fiona, whose disapproving stare spoke volumes more than the gun she held just out of Bob’s line of vision. Sam, however, could see it quite clearly. He didn’t have to react- Bob was slamming down his napkin and pulling his watch out from Claire’s knife.
“Your whole family’s bugfuck, sailor! Shame such a pussyhound like you’s gone soft.” He turned around in the doorframe to glare at them both.
Michael grabbed Sam, dipped him backward, and kissed him far more daringly than he normally would in Claire’s presence. He let Sam go, reached across and then grabbed the door frame. “Doesn’t feel soft to me,” he declared, closing the door.
Sam stared up at Michael. “Not bad for an angry man.”
Michael answered by letting go of Sam, and he fell to the floor in a heap. He let Sam sit there and rub his sore ass for a minute before helping him up and walking with him to the kitchenette.
As Michael and Sam re-entered, Fiona was serving Claire the biggest slice of chocolate cake either men had ever seen.
***
The following morning, Sam awoke in a tangle of forgiving limbs. Gently disengaging himself from Fiona and Michael, he stumbled to the bathroom, prepared himself to face the world, and emerged from the house with a squeegee in his hand.
It was Fiona’s turn to get Claire up, and by the time he was out washing his Caddy his daughter had emerged, complete with backpack.
“Hi, Pop,” she said, a vague note of gloom in her voice.
Sam patted her. “The man catch up with you?” he teased.
“Mom says I’m grounded for two weeks and I can’t go to Dakota’s sleepover.” She plopped down on the hood of the car and let out a dejected sigh.
“Your mom’s right. That’s what happens when you lose your temper,” he scolded gently.
“I know…I just didn’t like it when that guy was mean to you,” she confessed.
“And that’s why I love you. You’re one loyal girl.” He knelt down. “Do you know why this car’s so special to me?”
“’Cause it’s expensive?” Claire guessed.
Sam shook his head. “This is the first car I bought all by myself,” he explained.
“Ooh,” Claire remarked. “You mean a rich lady didn’t buy it for you,” she elaborated.
Sam winced. “Right. Actually, I bought it so we could take you home from the hospital.” Fi had kind of wrecked his previous ride by crashing it into a lamppost during a high speed chase. “That’s when I realized someone important was coming into the world, someone that needed me to look after her. You’re my blood, baby,” he declared. “And I promise I won’t ever forget that.” He kissed her forehead.
She regarded him seriously, with those Westen eyes of hers. “I’m sorry I made your friend go away,” she said.
“It’s all right, darlin’. He’s not my friend anymore, anyway,” Sam declared, kissing the girl between her eyes and letting her go with a pat to the back. “Now, how about getting Pop a beer?”
The End