38 Weeks: The Thirty-Eighth Week

A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

On the first day of the thirty-eighth week, Elise Westen came home, as babies often do, carried by her father.

Her mother got in the house, sat on the sofa, and promptly fell asleep. Between the pain meds and the fact that Elise seemed to be under the impression that meals should be served every two hours, Fi was beat.

So, it was three days after she was born, that Michael got his first moments really alone with his daughter.

Moments being the operative word because both his mother and Fi's showed up within minutes of each other, and him, and whisked Elise out of his arms, while tutting over Fi and making sure that she was properly comfy.

Then his mom shoo-ed him into his room, told him to get a nap, because he'd be on baby duty that night, and he'd need the sleep.

So he did.

Seven hours later, as he walked Elise around the house, through the blue-lit gloom of midnight, trying, praying, begging her to go to sleep, he was actually pretty glad he had gotten the nap.

And when she did fall asleep, all seven pounds of her curled between his collar bone and sternum, he very carefully lay down next to Fi, and got a quick nap as well, both of his ladies by his side.

 

38 Weeks: The Nineteenth Week

A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Week Nineteen:

"Sean's coming for the wedding," Fiona says while brushing her teeth. It's Wednesday night, and they're getting ready for bed.

"That's good." Michael says, stepping out of the shower.

Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.org

Of all of Fi's family, and yes, he met most of them during the years he was in Ireland, Sean's the one he likes the most, gets along with best. Sure there's the whole saving each other's lives things, but when it came down to it, even before bullets and bombs and the glorious cause, he just liked Sean. Sean has that same devil-may-care attitude Fi does, and while it's annoying on ops, it can also be a lot of fun.

As Sam said, "How many times do you have to touch the flame before you'll know it burns?" Well, Sean's the same sort of fire Fi is, and Michael likes that sort of fire. Sometimes, deep down, he wishes he could just be all fire. It seems a whole lot easier, more restful.

"My mom wants to, too."

He stops toweling off. Michael supposes it shouldn't be a surprise that Katherine Glenanne might want to come to her daughter's wedding. "Okay," he says, thinking that's a somewhat less welcome addition to the guest list.

"Okay?" Fi's a little surprised to hear that. It's not that her mom didn't get on well with Michael when he was in Ireland; it's just that since the whole leaving thing, she's loathed him and hasn't made much of a secret of that fact. Finding out why he left, when Sean got home again, didn't do anything to make that better. Fi generally thinks it's a good thing her mom's been a on the other side of the Atlantic this whole time, because she's very aware of Michael's flaws, and is not his biggest fan by any stretch of anyone's imagination.

"Do you want her there?" he asks.

"Yes." And she does. She's sure this is going to be awkward, to say the least, but especially since she's been pregnant, she's wanted her mom nearby.

"Then it's okay. I'm not going to tell you your mom can't come to our wedding."

"It just might be a little tense." Fi sits on the edge of the tub, facing Michael, who's leaning against the sink, toothbrush in hand.

"You mean having the woman who, after all five of your brothers had a wee chat with me about how, if I hurt you, they'd kill me so dead I'd come out the other side alive again and then they'd do it all over, said to me that I had nothing to fear from her lads; they'd never get to me in time, because she'd hunt me down, cut my balls off, and choke me with them if I got her good Catholic girl pregnant without a wedding band on her hand, might be tense."

"She said that to you?" Fi looks stunned at that idea.

"First time you brought me home. You were in the kitchen helping Thomas and Pat's wives with the washing up. She pulled me aside, took a long drink of her whiskey and said, 'There's a proper order for the doin' of these things, and if you think you can get to the fuckin' without puttin' a wedding ring on my daughter's finger, you're sorely mistaken.' And then proceeded with a very detailed description of what was going to happen to me if I did not heed her words."

Fi grins at the idea of it, laughing a little at the idea of her mother staring up at Michael, cussin' him out properly. "What did you say to that?"

"I think I blushed." He slips into his Irish accent, leans forward, and whispers into her ear, "If ya remember, that was about six months after the fuckin' had started." 

She laughs. "It was my Da's line. He said that to all of my boyfriends while he was alive, usually while sharpening his hunting knife."

"Did it work?"

She looks at her bulging stomach. "Apparently not." She places her fingers on their child, feeling it squirm and kick. "I haven't told them I'm pregnant."

Michael closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them slowly, while sitting on the edge of the tub next to her. Telling his mom was one thing. Telling her family, who had already promised numerous levels of extreme bodily harm in the event of this, was another thing all together. Not that he thinks they're going to physically hurt him, much. Still, he doesn't enjoy spending time with people who are pissed off at him. On the upside, they live on the other side of the planet and won't spend all that long in Miami.

"Fi—"

"The last time I talked to them we hadn't decided if we were keeping him or not. And I didn't want to tell them if we weren't keeping him."

Michael understands that. He would have happily not told his family either. But the whole living less than half an hour away thing made sure that was impossible.

"And now we're keeping him, and it didn't seem like something to tell them over the phone."

"Because in person, picking them up at the airport, shocking them with this," his hand caresses over her very visible tummy, "is going to be that much easier."

"Think of it this way, if we get them before they get their luggage, they won't be armed."

"Your bother carries a ceramic knife when he travels commercial."

Fi winces. "Forgot about that. Maybe he won't get it through the sensors."

Michael thinks about that. Those full body sensors might be the end of... "He'll have a garrote, at least."

"Yes, but he's coming for our wedding, so he probably won't be too interested in making me a widow. Just, wear a cup when we get them."

"Great." He stands up and brushes his teeth, headings into the bedroom, finding a pair of his pajama pants a moment later. "Any new name ideas?" he asks as he sits on the bed putting his pajama pants on.

"How about Dan?" Fi says as she pulls back the sheets and slides into their bed.  She fluffs a pillow and settles down on her side.

"You're thinking it's a boy today?"

"Today. Maybe not tomorrow, but today I'm thinking of a son. A little boy with your eyes and build, but my smile."

Michael grins at that idea and lies down beside her, resting his hand on her tummy. "Isn't one of your cousins named Dan?"

"Good memory. He was my favorite when we were little."

"Dan... I like Dan."

"Daniel Westen. That sounds good."

Michael thinks about Dan as a name for a moment. "Who in your family thought Dan Glenanne was a good name?"

Fi gives him an exasperated look. "No one. Dan McKiernan. He's my mum's nephew. No one in my family is so tone deaf as to name a child Dan Glenanne."

Michael thinks about that for a moment, too. "I was hoping, if it's a boy, to use Nathaniel as a middle name."

Fi nods; she's been expecting that. "And you don't think Daniel Nathaniel works?"

"Not really."

"So, not Dan then."

"Not Sam, either."

"Not a good idea anyway, we'd never hear the end of it if both Westen boys ended up named after him." Michael looks momentarily confused. "You didn't know that was the reason behind Charlie?"

"No. I didn't even think about it until now. For Sam, really?"

"Really."

 He shakes his head. He didn't know Sam and Nate were even that close. He wonders if Sam knows, but judging by Fi's comment he must.

Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.org

He thinks that's something he'd have liked to talk to Nate about. Thinks all of this is something he would have liked to have talked to Nate about. Not that they really would have talked, more like sat near each other and worked on something, like the Charger, or with this new house, furniture. But at least a few words would have gone by, mostly Nate's, and he finds himself wondering what Nate would have had to say about this.

He guesses Nate would have been mostly smugly pleased, amused to see Mike not knowing what to do next. He absolutely knows Nate would have laughed at the idea of Mike having a huge collection of angry in-laws.

He tries to smile, to conjure up Nate's amusement, and feel it for himself.

And it works, a little.

 

38 Weeks: The Eighteenth Week

A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

During the eighteenth week, they met with seven couples interested in adopting their baby and turned them all down. None of them were right.

It worked out pretty well for Michael. He never had to voice his doubts about putting the baby up for adoption. He didn't have to admit that he changed his mind, and that exactly what Ellen said would happen had happened. He didn't even have to voice his doubts about the couples they met. Fi shot them all down, and he just tried not to agree too enthusiastically.

Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.org

After saying no to the seventh couple, Fi and Michael got some take out and went home.

"None of them are ever going to be good enough," Fi says as she chews a bite of her fish taco.

"I know." After the beach, he promised himself he'd at least meet the potential adoptive parents. Maybe, if he could put a face and name to the idea of a different family for the baby, he could get back to the idea of it being right. Because he knows, in the hard, rational part of his mind, that giving the baby up is safer, but safer or not, he just doesn't care. He sat there and watched people, perfectly safe, normal, fine people talk about how much they'd love to provide a perfect 1950s-Hollywood-fantasy family for their child, and he couldn't make himself say yes to any of them. "We can move. Start over, new life, new city, new names."

"Fake our deaths?"

Michael perks up a little. "That's got potential. Big car accident, lots of fire, and then vanish."

"Shoot some bullets into the car, spatter some blood around, Jesse and I have done that before. It's not too hard."

"I'd prefer all of your blood stay inside you right now."

"I'd prefer all of my blood stay inside me all the time, but if you've got to sell a dead person when you've got no body, you need blood, with the right DNA."

"I know." Michael takes a bite of his taco, not really tasting it, just chewing to keep himself fed. "How are we set for cash, if we're going to do this?"

"I've got enough tucked away in a few different names, untraceable to me, to set us up comfortably, but not much more than that. Call it a year of savings." Mike thinks about that. For him, a year of savings could be as low as ten thousand dollars, as long as he's got one decent suit and a pair of shoes, he's good to go. But he knows Fi prefers a higher standard of living than he does.

"I can shift some of mine around, but most of it'll have to get left."

That stops both of them dead. Normally they aren't the kind of people who worry about that. Both of them are pretty good at squirreling money away, but when you fake your death, if you want it to stick, to look like you really died, especially if there's no body, most, if not all, of your assets get left behind. Enough to set them up comfortably is one thing, but a baby on the way means big expenses coming soon and lasting for the next twenty years.

Likewise, the jobs they're both best suited to do require a web of trust and people who know you. Fake your own death, and suddenly that web of job referrals vanishes, making it that much harder to make new money.

The stupid thing is they've got enough to retire, comfortably, if they stay alive. Michael did finally get his assets unfrozen, and Barry moved them outside of any banking system that would work with US authorities less than ten minutes later. Six years of compound interest worked out pretty handsomely. So, he's got money.

But it's still in his name. If they "die," they've got to leave it behind, which means they'll need to work, and the kind of work you can get when you know no one and have no reputation is very dangerous and pays lousy.  

Catch-22. Stay "alive" and be a target. "Die" and end up a target all over again trying to get enough work to keep living.

He shakes his head. "Five years from now, we can fake our death. That's enough time to hide the assets slowly. For now we'd be better off on the run. New town, new name, have Barry keep a trace on all of our information so that if anyone tries to use it to track us, we'll get a heads up. We'll still have our money. If we do it right, we'd even get to come back here on occasion, see everyone."

"I'd like that. Your mom would, too."

"Yeah, she would. And Sam would miss us if we completely vanished." Michael puts his food down and takes her hands. "We're going to do this, keep the baby and run?"

She half-smiles, half-cries a little, "Yes."
"Then I guess we're going to need a name."

38 Weeks: The Seventeenth Week

A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Image from http://shecapsthat.fanfusion.org

Monday evening, and Michael and Fi are out on Romantic Date Night: Part II.

After weeks of Fi not eating, Michael may be going a bit overboard on trying to feed her.  They've finished dinner, with dessert, over an hour ago, and he's trying to get her to have some frozen yogurt as they walk along South Beach.

"You do know I don't actually need four thousand calories a day," she says as she notices he's easing them in the direction of a frozen yogurt shop.

"Yes. But you do need 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day, and if you split one with me, you'll be at 1,200 for the day."

"You're keeping track of my calcium intake?" She looks horrified by that.

He smiles, looking slightly guilty. "Not usually. We ate all of our meals together today, so I noticed."

"Well, stop it. It's unnerving to know you're paying that close of attention to what I'm eating."

"Fine. No yogurt, then?"

"I didn't say that." Ten minutes later, they exit. He's got a small, plain tart yogurt with fresh blueberries. She's got a slightly larger chocolate with peanut butter sauce and Reese's Peanut Butter cup pieces.

They head for the sand. It's been almost a year since they've been to this beach, since the night after Nate died and Fi got free.

They sit there, watching the waves, feeling the sun on their backs as it creeps behind the Miami skyline. No sunset on this beach, but it's a good place for moonrise and watching the stars.

Michael realizes as he sits there, eating his yogurt, that he doesn't really remember that night. For example, he knows they had a blanket, but he can't remember where or how they got it. He knows they were on the beach but not why. He knows they talked, but he doesn't really remember what about.

He does remember the all-pervasive feeling of crushing loss, and the image of Nate dying below him. He remembers feeling happy, grateful Fi was there, and guilty for it.

He knows they spent a very long time staring at a black, star-free sky, her hand in his, and the sound of the waves and wind the only thing in his mind.

Fi brushes his cheek, bringing him back to now. "Where are you, Michael?"

"Remembering the last time we were here."

She gives him a small, half-sad smile. "I thought so. Do you want to leave?"

"No. If I avoid every place that makes me think of him, I'll never go anywhere."

"It's good to remember the ones we've lost. It helps—"

Michael never found out what that helped because Fi suddenly looked very startled and stopped speaking.

"What?"

"I just—" She stopped, grabbed his hand, and pressed it low on her belly. "Can you feel it?"

He wanted to feel it. Willed himself to feel something, and maybe he did. Possibly there was a very faint, tiny, almost fluttering under his palm. Or he could have imagined it. Either way, Fi was grinning hugely at him.

"She's moving."

Michael put down his yogurt, and scooted so he was sitting a bit behind Fi, her between his legs, and both palms resting against her stomach.

"You think it's a she?"

Fi leaned against his chest, her head on his shoulder. "I do right now."

Then it happened again, and he knew he felt it. There was an almost sliding sensation under his hand, followed by a fast fluttering. He has no idea what their child might be doing in there, but it certainly feels fast.

"Maybe she likes yogurt."

"Or chocolate."

He holds Fi and their baby close and knows that he's lost too many people over the last year, lost too much of who he had been. He feels that fluttering under his hand again, and tries to summon the certainty he had the week before that giving the baby up is the right thing to do, the only thing to do, the sane, rational, right thing.

And he can't find that part of himself anymore.

Michael kisses Fi's ear, sits on the beach with her, and wonders how to tell her he's changed his mind, wonders if she'll go along with it, and wonders if there is something greater than them that's put them here for this moment.

*****************************************

On Saturday of the seventeenth week, at dinner, Fi asks the others, "What are you all doing five weeks from today?"

Jesse and Sam seem to think about it.
Maddie says, "Nothing."

"I'm free," Jesse answers.

"Can't think of anything," Sam replies.

"Good." She smiles. "The church is free that afternoon, and the back room at The Forge is free, too. Feel like coming to our wedding?"

 **********************

With the right frame of mind, wedding planning is pretty easy.

First of all, be the groom. Wedding planning is a breeze if you're the groom. Even if you have the sort of bride who wants you to pay attention and have opinions, it's fairly easy to fake that. Look alert, ask questions, and even if you couldn't care less about whatever it is, be decisive. Michael is good at all of these things. Sure, he's never going to care if the napkins are hunter green or teal, but as long as he picks a color quickly and keeps up eye contact, no one will know.

Not that he'll have to do that, though. Because the real secret to easy wedding planning is having a bride who doesn't much care about this stuff either.

Fiona's got wedding planning down as easy as possible. Get a dozen or so of your nearest and dearest. (Okay, half a dozen.) Find a restaurant they all like. Grab the back room and flash around extra cash for bar service and them to move some of the tables out of the way so there's room to dance. Voilà, a location is set.

Then go find whichever church has a priest who isn't doing anything that afternoon. Once again, planning a wedding with a half-dozen people means that if, say, there's no room in the church, it's not too hard to suggest the pretty garden in the back, and when any priest with a pulse will do, it's not hard to find one.

Generous donations to whichever charity the church runs don't hurt. (This is also helpful in case the church in question wants you to attend pre-marital counseling, though being visibly pregnant is a pretty good way to get that waved, as well. While it's true that Catholic Churches wants to encourage people to make good decisions about which spouse to choose, they also want mom and dad to be married, to each other, before the baby shows up.)

For music, grab a laptop and get one of your buddies with sound equipment to make sure it's got good speakers. Set the play list up days before the wedding and have it ready to go.

Let the restaurant take care of the tables, centerpieces, chairs, and linens.

You're already in the beautiful garden at the back of the church, so no need to decorate that. After all, there is such a thing as overkill, and trying to improve on the natural beauty of a space kept for the contemplation of the divine certainly qualifies as overkill.

This leaves getting a dress, shoes, some flowers, and some sort of outfit for the guys.

Mike, being in charge of the guys, pretty quickly decided that since this was an outdoor wedding in Miami early summer, going casual seemed like a good plan. Nary a tie nor tux will be allowed anywhere near this wedding.

Which pleases Fi because she's not finding anything in the way of particularly attractive formal wedding dresses for a lady in her shape.

Though both she and Maddie were quite taken with the one they did find. It's white, with a mid-thigh to knee length hem, a deep v neckline, and three quarter length sleeves.

All in all, it took six days of fairly lackluster effort, but by the end of it, they had a wedding ready to go.

At which point Michael found out there was one other job he was supposed to be in charge of. Lucky for him, Jesse mentioned it because it wasn't something he was even aware of on his own. But apparently the groom is in charge of honeymoon planning.

One of the few good things that came out of the last year is that he can once again travel. And he does remember there is somewhere Fi's mentioned going to about four times in the last few years. The downside is that it's awfully difficult to set up a trip to the Riviera without a credit card.

For the first time in years, as he's handing Jesse a wad of cash to book him a trip online, he's thinking that maybe getting a credit card might be a good idea. He adds it to the list of things to talk to Barry about. Supposedly the shell corporation they're setting up is coming along, and maybe it'd be a good idea for that corporation to have a few corporate cards.

Ten minutes later it's all set, and while it's true the concept of being married has been very real for him since he bought the rings, this is the first time the concept of wedding has been solidly in his mind. He's mildly surprised to see that it's a good feeling, after all, it's not like parties are really his thing, but this party,  he's looking forward to.

38 Weeks: The Sixteenth Week

A/N: Burn Notice romantic fluff with a side of angst. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.



On Friday of week sixteen, they went to a second adoption agency. This time, Michael didn't wear Armani. Fi dressed down, too, taking off her engagement ring, and though they both used their real names, they added thick southern accents.

By the time Michael was talking about having been laid off from his construction job three years earlier, and how he and Fi were the only support for his mother, who had dementia and tended to violent outbursts, the lady at this agency was very willing, eager practically, to sign them up as birth parents and let them start looking at prospective adoptive parents.

They spent seven hours looking at names and files and created a list of people they were deeply unenthusiastic about meeting.

Walking toward the Charger, appointments to meet with prospective adoptive parents set, Fi said, "Ellen might have been on to something."

"Of course she was. But that doesn't mean this is the wrong decision."

"I know. I just..."

"I know, Fi. Trust me, I know." And he does. He knows in his bones that given half a chance and any plausible excuse at all, he'll change his mind about this.

As he drives home, he thinks about the fact that apparently both Brennan and Management were able to keep families safe, despite very dangerous jobs.

But he also knows that he found, or at least guessed well, about Brennan's daughter, and if he could do it to Brennan, then someone else could do it to him.

And if someone can do it to him... That sends a chill through Michael. And that chill pierces through his desire to keep this child. Once upon a time, he was sure he was the smartest man in the room, that no matter the challenge, he was up to conquering it. Now, he knows better.

No, he doesn't want to meet with the couples they've picked out. No, he doesn't want to give this child away. But if this last year has taught him anything, it's that it doesn't matter how good he is, there's always someone better, someone coming from the angle he can't see, and all it takes is a few seconds to stop a heart.

And he knows, driving home with Fi, that he can give this child away. She can, too. It won't be easy. They won't like it. But they will survive, and go on, and know they did the right thing.

But if they keep this child and if something happens to it, it'll break him. It'll be the final trauma he won't be able to come back from. And he's awfully sure losing a child would destroy Fi, as well. So, no matter what Ellen may say, he's not going to change his mind, because he's sure he can't live with the consequences of changing his mind.