Title: Family: Interlude
Author: Shadowscast
Fandom: Once A Thief
Pairing: Mac/Michael (parts 1 and 2), Mac/Li Ann (part
2), Mac/Vic (part 3)
Genre: drama
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: You know me. Sex, violence.... Parts 1 and 2
have some borderline n/c. There's m/m sex in all parts. Part 2 has some graphic
het sex. Also, this is a WIP. I give you fair warning now, it'll be at least a
month before part 3 comes out.
Archive: Anywhere you want! Just let me know.
Spoilers: the Pilot, Trial Marriage, Mac Daddy,
Politics of Love, Family
Disclaimer: Characters belong to
Notes: This fic was inspired by a couple lines in
"Mac Daddy" which didn't quite make sense to me in the context of the
rest of the show's backstory. I started trying to resolve those lines in terms
of the rest of the series, and this story grew from there.
Thanks to Lorie for the beta!
Feedback always welcome. Always
Interlude
by Shadowscast
The escape was a horrific failure. When Mac and Li Ann
arrived at the safe in the flour mill, intending to steal some money and run,
Michael was waiting for them with backup and guns.
They almost made it out together, but Mac got trapped
on the wrong side of the laser beams in the corridor connecting the gun room to
the flour mill.
"I know I made you wait too long for this,"
he said desperately to Li Ann, "but I love you. Go."
Li Ann disappeared from his view, and he waved his
hand through the laser beam to shut the doors at either end of the corridor.
Moments later, he felt the building rock in a massive
explosion. The corridor he was in was essentially a thick steel box; it saved
his life.
A couple hours later he was rescued, and arrested.
After eighteen long months in jail, Mac was visited by
a red-haired woman who offered to get him out of jail if he'd work for her -
and threatened to let him out anyway if he wouldn't work for her, knowing that
he'd be dead within a day on the streets. His will to live was relatively
strong that day. He agreed to work for her.
Mac had been at the Agency in
He went to Li Ann's apartment to surprise her. He was
surprised first, by another man. He thought that the man had been sent by the
Tangs to kill him - until, in the middle of fighting him, Mac glimpsed a photo
of Li Ann and that man, embracing.
Li Ann came home and interrupted the fight. "Mac,
you're alive," she gasped.
"Yeah, well, for the time being," he said,
on the floor with the other man and a couple of guns.
"You know this guy?" the stranger asked Li
Ann.
"What are you doing to Victor?" Li Ann asked
Mac.
"Victor?" Mac repeated. "Who's
Victor?"
"He's my fiancé," Li Ann said.
***
The Tangs were trying to expand into
In the final confrontation on a Vancouver pier,
Michael drove his car off the dock rather than run into Li Ann. Mac and Li Ann
grieved for him, despite and because of everything that had happened between
them.
Vancouver, Canada, March 1998
The Director walked into the briefing room and clapped
her hands twice. "Time to pack your bags, children," she said.
"I'm taking you back to Toronto."
"About time," Vic muttered under his breath.
"Whoa, wait," Mac said. "Toronto?
Ontario?"
"Good knowlege of Canadian geography," Vic
noted. "I'm impressed. And shocked. Mostly shocked."
The Director arched an eyebrow in Mac's direction.
"Do you have an objection to Toronto?"
"You said we'd be working on the Pacific
Rim," Mac reminded her. "Last I checked, Toronto was not on the
Pacific Rim."
"Oh, damn," the Director said mildly.
"Did I lie to you again? I really am compulsive."
Toronto, Canada, May 1998
Li Ann and Mac had to pretend to be married, for a
case. It was like a dream come true for Mac - except that it sucked. They
bickered constantly.
Li Ann hated the experience so much that she decided
marriage was a bad idea in general, and she broke off her engagement to Vic.
Toronto, Canada, June 1998
Mac came home one day and found William Ramsey looking
through his kitchen cupboards.
Mac wasn't going to trust him, not this time. And then
he did. Of course. It was like six years ago, all over again. And William lied
to him again, and left again. He left Mac a good-bye video, care of the
Director. Mac watched it alone. It didn't say much.
Toronto, Canada, November 1998
Mac thought he was over Li Ann. He really did. He'd
even tried to marry someone else (it hadn't worked out). Then he nearly died of
poisoning, and in the moments when he thought he was dead, all he could think
of was Li Ann.
He still loved her. Desperately.
Toronto, Canada, December 1998
Michael was alive.
The godfather had plans to dismantle the Tang family's
criminal holdings. Others in the family did not like these plans. Tang soldiers
assassinated the godfather right before Mac and Li Ann's eyes. They were reunited
with Michael at the side of their dying father.
Following the Director's orders, Vic, Mac and Li Ann
helped Michael regain control of the Tangs. Then the Director asked Michael for
help on another case, involving an assassin named Pucci.
Michael seemed to have reformed - but he had his own
agenda. He needed Mac to trust him so that he could betray Mac as deeply as Mac
had betrayed him. When Mac finally said that he trusted Michael, Michael
sucker-punched him, shot a light fixture down on top of him, and left him to
die in a warehouse that was about to explode. Then Michael tried to rewrite the
past by running down Li Ann with his car. This time, she saw that he wouldn't
turn away at the last minute, so she shot him. The car swerved and crashed and
exploded. Michael did not survive.
Vic and Li Ann managed to pull Mac out of the
warehouse, seconds before the explosion. They were singed and bruised, but
otherwise unhurt. When they reached the Director, she greeted them calmly,
hiding the pain she was in from her gunshot wound. She didn't let them know
she'd already been grieving their deaths.
She told them that she expected them in the briefing
room as usual at 9 am the next day, and she sent them home.
end
interlude