Miliverse/Canon: Loose Ends
Sep. 8th, 2012 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luvs_yogurtThe last trip to Miami with Emma had felt like walking on eggshells, but he knows the cattle drive with William and Jack as well as stomping around on survival training with Sam Anders were nothing more than stalling for time under the guise of helping people. He didn't want to go back to Miami, as much as he wants to get his life back together, a growing part of him is already feeling the pull of something different... what, he doesn't know but the little tiny voice in the back of his mind keeps telling him something is wrong.
It’s been three days, three days of waiting for something to happen – be it another assassin, an explosion, a call… anything. For all intents and purposes it seems like Phillip Cowan has dropped off the face of the planet. So, he waits.
He becomes best friends with his gun again, itchy to pull it with his finger on the trigger at the slightest sign of anything. He trains; sit-ups, pull-ups, the heavy bag, drills. He isn’t eating enough or sleeping enough and thinking entirely too much. Dwelling.
The text comes when he least expects it, as Sam’s giving him the spiel on some job for a friend.
Bayshore Park Fountain 1:00
They could have ended it then, but Michael thinks ahead and brings Sam and his bucket of chicken just in case things go south fast. Cowan disapproves and disappears again, but it gives Michael time to decipher a message Cowan leaves behind – and gives Sam a chance to work his case.
The next message comes as a call to his mother’s house, where she’s shaking and nearly frantic with worry. Vanburen Avenue, not even a time or an idea of where to meet, but the other message is loud and clear despite not being said; they know where he is and where his loved ones are. Michael can’t help thinking she’s in danger and grilling him while she chain smokes circles around Nate isn’t making it any easier. Still, he feels safer knowing that his little brother and a gun are there to watch over her.
Vanburen Avenue is mostly a strip mall, little shops where he finds a guy that was paid to deliver a greeting card with another message inside.
Thursday 6pm
Alone
More time to wait and another newspaper clipping about a mission Michael’s responsible for are all Cowan has to offer him again. He wants to meet at city hall this time. At least it gives Michael time to get the Charger back up and running… mostly.
When his mother slams her way into the loft demanding answers, Nate trailing behind her, he’s all too aware of just how much he’s hurting her. Part of him wants her to know who her oldest son really is; that he’s a spy, that he’s not just the reason everyone he knows is in danger but that things are much worse than she’ll ever know.
“It’s complicated.”
“We’re your family, Michael. I’m asking that you trust us.”
“And when would I have learned how to do that?” It’s a low blow and he knows it, he wants her to drop the subject and just leave things be… bringing up the past usually does a good enough job. But when he sees her jaw set as she holds back tears it’s all he can do not to back down.
“You were gone for a long time, Michael. And you were the one who left us.”
His mother’s words cut worse than any blade, because they’re true – he left. He can’t do it, he thinks. He can’t do it right now. Maybe when it’s all done with and he has his life back he can afford the luxury of telling her all the pain was for something worth hurting for. Not now.
“I have a meeting to get to. So if we could wrap this up…” He offers a fake smile she knows means that he’s done, and if he didn’t know her, he’d be sure she’s going to cry.
“Let’s go, Nate.” Her voice is defeated, and her face turns to stone; “He’s got a meeting.”
***
Helping Sam on a job means a gun to his head, but he’s free to do what he knows best. Disarm, break the guy’s hand and then lose another windshield on the Charger getting away when it all goes south for him. It’s a distraction, an unwelcome one, and someone else to add to the list of people that want him dead. Another chance to be face to face with Cowan is lost because of Sam’s ‘bit part’ for him, but he has a chance to leave a message of his own; John 3:16.
Saint John’s cathedral at 3:16pm – and Cowan calls to meet back at the top of the parking garage. Michael knows deep down that Sam’s in over his head with this job and needs him on the case, but he can’t do it. He has to end this. He has to run to get to Cowan on time and clear his name. He needs to get his life back.
He doesn’t even find out Sam’s in trouble until it’s too late. All he knows is that Phillip Cowan, the man whose signature ruined his life is standing right in front of him.
“I want to know why you burned me.”
“You think I burned you?”
“I know you did.”
“Why? Because you read it on a file? Wow! You really unraveled that little mystery, didn’t you? You think this is about me? One man watched you, targeted you, burned you? Froze your accounts? Cut off your travel? One guy did all that, and then he decided to come to Miami and explain himself?”
“You tried to have me killed.”
“Nothing personal. You’d do the same in my position. Michael, you keep thinking this is about me. Banish that thought. You’re on the edge of something much, much bigger than us, my friend. People I work for, they have plans for you.”
“People you work for?”
“Powerful, dangerous people. And, man, are they upset with me. I misread you, Michael. Didn’t expect you to buck quite so much. You’re making everyone nervous.”
A gunshot rings out and blood is spattered across his face and chest. He was right, only one of them would be walking away, but he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger and neither was Cowan. It was a setup, maybe.
And just like that, he’s almost back where he started. Cowan said a lot, but it doesn’t tell him more than that it’s a far bigger, far worse situation than he’d feared. It’s time to try damage control, to get Nate and their Mom out of town, to close Sam’s case and maybe get him out of town too.
Only Sam’s case has gone from bad to worse and a group of heroin smugglers nabbed him when things went sour. They’ve already killed two people and they’ve got the closest thing to a best friend Michael could have.
Still wearing Cowan’s blood on his gray suit and smart shirt, he lets Nate pick him up and drive him to the scene even though he knows that’s one more loved one he’s putting in danger. Nate’s truck is another necessary casualty in the process of trying to find out where Sam’s being held.
There’s no time to think about Cowan, but what he said lingers in the back of Michael’s mind as they retreat to Nate’s place and tap weapons stashes Michael has left all over Miami. Nate’s in charge of Mom, and he’s in charge of getting Sam back.
A phone call from Sam’s captors provides the first opening, setting a meet to arrange an exchange one business man to another. And more importantly, it provides photographic proof that Sam’s still alive. Very alive, beaten and bloody, but sending a coded message telling them to stay away and that he’s not going to get out alive.
“Not on my watch, brother.”
***
They don’t have time for this, but Michael can’t let it go. Covert intelligence agencies don’t call you up and tell you why they’re hunting you… he has to know who’s after him. Who killed Cowan. Who ‘they’ are really worrying about. So he makes a trail to flush out a little information in a crowded area, he calls his old handler with a very obvious message for them to come looking for him. Soon enough, guys in suits with armored cars come pouring out of the alleyways and backstreets. It’s enough to take back to the hideout and consider while he waits for Sam’s captors to call and negotiate terms, at least.
He knows they need more information if they’re going to get Sam back and information on drug dealers in the Miami area with lots of money to be moved falls back to one guy. He hates doing it, and knows it’s the sort of thing nobody wants to do to a friend, but Barry’s all he’s got to work with.
“It’s not a favor.”
“No, it’s not. Favors don’t get you killed. I give you a name, it gets back, we’re in a ‘Barry face down in the river’ situation.”
“I’m not asking, Barry. We’re friends or we’re enemies here.”
“Well, if you put it that way.”
“I put it that way.”
He sighs and for a minute, Michael’s worried that things are about to get really, really ugly. “You want the biggest heroin dealer in Miami? This guy’s as big as you say, they’re probably working together.”
“No. Who’s the second biggest.”
Two rivals against each other makes things a lot easier for they guy on the outside waiting to see the spoils of their fight. Finally, Barry gives up a name, but not without a curious turn following it up. Michael’s looking for a heroin dealer named Carmello, but a strange woman on the other end of Barry’s cellphone is looking for him.
“Come out, come out wherever you are. We need to talk, Michael. We’ve been trying to bring you in.”
“Talk about what?”
“Your past, your future.”
***
For the first time in a long time, Michael Westen is willing to admit he’s afraid. Afraid for his family, for Sam.
Getting Carmello to cooperate is easy enough, some small explosive devices wired with remote detonators on a kill switch in Michael’s hand – he dies and so does everyone else. A few threats on his life and his business bolster the effort, but it buys him a name that gets a location that leads him to Sam.
He’s being held in a heavily guarded barge, of all the places to end up – and not in the marina that his captors say he’s being held at. It’s enough information to go back to the hideout again and make sure his family’s safe and maybe that they understand.
“Mom, I’ll call you when – if it’s safe to come back. Take this, it’s a new phone. It hasn’t been used, so it’s untraceable. It’s for emergencies only. We want to keep communication to a minimum.”
“We’re not taking your car from you, are we?”
“No. Whoever’s coming after me might have eyes on it. So, I’ll drive you and Nate up to Fort Lauderdale and that’s where I’ll ‘find’ you another car.”
She laughs, still keeping the shreds of her sense of humor in all the mess of the last few days… the last year. “I remember the time you stole your first car. Dad was off God-knows-where and I had to get Nate to the doctor. You must have been what, twelve?”
“Ten. I remember it. You were pretty angry.”
“Yeah. I was also proud. You did lots of things I didn’t understand, but you did ‘em for the family. You know, Michael… I did too.”
“I know, Mom, I know.”
***
They’re predictably followed out of Miami, Madeline didn’t mean to tip the off, but she also didn’t know that calling a tapped phone is all it takes to send up a signal to let the people looking for you know exactly where you are. In the end, getting Mom and Nate out of the situation safely means turning himself in to the people that are hunting him.
“I know this line is tapped. I know you’re listening. I don’t know who you are, but I know this – you want me to come in alive, you call me now or I will end this right here.” He presses the barrel of his gun against the bottom of his chin and believes it. He hopes he’s only bluffing, but if that’s what it takes to make all of this stop…
“Michael. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I have a proposal I’d like to discuss.”
“I’m listening.”
“I have a job to do.” A friend to rescue. “I need twelve hours. You give me that, I will come in alive. If you don’t – if you even come near me before that – I will put a bullet in my head.”
“You wouldn’t do that, Michael. You’ve got such a bright future.”
Does he? A future of running away and hiding? A future of slipping off to Milliways to pretend Miami isn’t still waiting for him? “Maybe, maybe not. You give me twelve hours, you don’t need to find out.”
Silence. Michael’s heart races and his finger slides over the trigger. One pull and it’s all over. Just when he’s ready to try his own resolve, her agents back down. “I believe we have a deal.”
***
Busting Sam out is a matter of more explosives and fighting a guy just as well trained as he is – killing him just to get to his friend.
“I thought I told you to stay away, Mikey. I tried to warn you.”
“I was never good at taking orders, Sam. That’s why you were a soldier and I was a spy.”
“Fair enough.”
The explosives are set to go at any minute and sink the barge, taking down the smuggler’s operation for good, and they can’t move fast enough across the deck and over the side to the waiting dock – the last thing Michael remembers is tucking in tight against Sam as the concussive blast sends them airborn and through a door.
When he opens his eyes, he’s not in Miami anymore. He’s not sure exactly where he is, the blast and hitting a hard floor at high speed have knocked him hard enough he barely remembers his own name, but he’s not home.