Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Grand Gestures and Day To Day Life: 6.10.1

A/N: Michael, Fi, more romance-y goodness. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.



6.10.1

"I hope you know, I miss that time, too."

"Michael, I don't need Ireland. All I want is this."

"A junkyard in Panama?"

"You and me working together. Just us, the way it used to be. At the end of the day, this right here, is how it should be.

He realizes this is the second time she's said something like that. And he also realizes what he meant to say? Wanted to say? Whatever that thought lurking in the back of his mind, prompting him to mention Ireland as they build their own bulletproof glass breaching shells, is based on that idea.

You and me working together. That's always when he's been happiest. That's when he's been filled with the sense of satisfaction that comes from doing what's right.

When he's with her, he's not selling his soul. He's not doing bad things for the sake of some nebulous greater good.

When he's with Fi, life is pretty clear. There's right and wrong, good guys and bad guys, and he knows which side he wants to be on.

And he knows that for the last thirteen years there's always been something standing between him and her and working together.

He knows that's why they were so unhappy in Ireland.

He also knows why he's been cagy about long term commitments. Why he'd never said he loved her before three days ago.

And that was always the problem for them. Not a lack of love. There's always been love. Love is the easy part.

The lack has been commitment. The CIA owns Michael. He spent years trying to get back to them, but now that he's there...

Jesse had it right. Too much red tape. Too much compromise. Too much...

He's spent thirteen years torn between a demanding wife, who's given him less and less in the way of respect, attention, and affection, and a mistress he's adored.

It's time to ditch the wife, and marry the mistress.

It's time to make Fi his number one commitment.

In a junkyard in Panama, he's having an epiphany moment, one that he probably should have been self-aware enough to have already had, but well, he's not good at this sort of thing.

He's not good with people. Not good with relationships. And he's not good with them because it's easier to be bad at them, safer. His walls can stay in place, and he can keep his heart from being trampled if there are no real people in his life.

So he married his job. He gave himself to it body and soul, and it was more than happy to have him.

But he's not the same man who signed up for the CIA all those years ago.

And there are people in his life now.

And if he wants them, more importantly, wants Fi, then it's time for a divorce.

It's time to take his body and soul back from the CIA, because he can't give it to anyone else as long as they hold the papers on it.

As he thinks that, he feels the hold the CIA had on him break. He's well and truly done.

He looks at Fi, and he could say, "I love you." But that's not the important part here. He loved her in Ireland, and he left anyway. He loved her in Miami, and he still put the job and the Burn Notice first. So, no, those aren't the right words, not now.

He could say, "Let's get married." Which would please her, and would cover what he's thinking, but right now he's still not entirely his own to offer to her. And before he says anything like that to her, he wants to be able to make good on the promise. A proposal from a married man is meaningless.

So instead he says, "After I get Grey, I'll leave. I'm out."

"The CIA?" she asks, not sure if she's followed his train of thought.

"Out of all of it."

"Don't say that if you don't mean it."

"I do." He pauses for a beat. He sees it in her eyes. She knows this is worth a thousand I-love-yous. And he can see she doesn't quite trust it. But his sense is that has more to do with a sense of foreboding on what catastrophe will come next, as opposed to him not being sincere.

And he can see, from the way she's looking at him, that this is what she's wanted to hear for years.

"How does that sound?" he asks.

"Well, if we live long enough to see that happen, it sounds really good."

Fair enough. He looks at her and makes a silent promise to himself, to her, that they will live long enough for him to make good on this. And she looks back, accepting his promise, and adding her own to it. They don't touch, because, well, they're just not touchy-feely, cuddly types, especially in a junkyard in Panama where someone could come walking in any moment.

But he knows the next moment they have really alone, when no one is within ear shot, and the world isn't about to fall apart around them, that he'll tell her he loves her and lay his soul at her feet, knowing that she'll take it and cherish it, and finally give him the home he's always wanted. And he'll finally be able to accept it, and give it to her in return.

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