Would You Know My Name...

AC: Michael let the papers stay where they'd fallen. All he wanted was to be left alone for ten minutes but alone wasn't something a hot topic public figure was going to be. The phone rang incessantly. It felt like he'd practically moved to Washington. If anyone asked him, he just wanted to go home to New Jersey and spend some quiet time in his little section of Morris County. He laughed self-derisively as his mind called up the fact the entire county was once Wallace Barony. He sat up straight as the British Consul walked in. He took the rolled up, sealed missive with interest. This attache was new. She introduced herself – Elisabeth Soames, but asked to be called Beth. He nodded in response, while standing up to shake her hand. “Has the State given any suggestion or hint that I'm to change my stance?”

“No, no indications, Lord Wal-, er....”

Michael sighed and shook his head. “Mr. Wallace will do. And I retain CMG, hopefully... still.” He'd been waiting on a response to that issue.

“The state did indicate that you were permitted to continue using the title Lord as a courtesy title.”

“Courtesy title?”

His hands broke the seal and unwound the scroll. His eyes went wide. He sat down to circumvent falling over. The scroll fell from his hands and bounced on the floor, winding itself back up.

Beth looked at him in shock. “What is it, sir?”

“It's a writ of summons to Parliament. I've been raised to a baronetage.”

“What? That's unusual.”

Michael laughed. “Baronet of New Morris.”

“You made that up. You don't get summoned to Parliament for a baronetage.”

“I wish I could say that. They made it up. I don't think I should actually be so ungrateful, though, as not to show or not to accept.”

~~~~~

The plane ride gave him a rare few hours to sleep. Margaret met him at Dulles with the family insignia, his Order's regalia, and his best suit. Fitzroy would be waiting to meet them at Heathrow.

Michael boarded and headed straight for the plane's bedroom. And his dreams merely revisited the trauma that started this bureaucratic mess...

Taking the young tenth generation baron to Washington, D.C. was meant to be an educational experience and his first taste of diplomacy. Michael exhorted ideology that was oft-forgotten in the modern milieu of political wrangling. “Here you are merely Charles Wallace, special as an individual but equal to all others by the founding manifesto. Ideally, Americans all have a right to an equal voice and equal representation in Congress.”

Charles Richard Harold Wallace was enjoying the experience and was looking forward to the evening's arts performance. Michael looked up at his daughter Elizabeth who was waving to him from further down the mall. He returned her greeting when two shots rang out. He turned around quickly as the crowd panicked and fled in myriad directions from the area. He managed to single out one figure that wasn't fleeing and looked about for an obvious target, a congressman or diplomat. Not seeing one, he called to his son. He didn't hear an answer. Michael called the ground up under him and used it to trip up the suspicious figure. He then slowly sucked the body in to waist level and held it fast.

He looked about again for his son and his eyes locked on a small body face down on the pavement. Running over, he discovered both shots were to Charles's head. When police arrive, he was kneeling over the dead body. Margaret was hugging their daughter, who was screaming, as Michael cradled his son's limp body. The gunman didn't get away, though. He'd captured the daughter of Senator Augustus Finley.

His mood at the time was the genuine grief of a father losing a child. Replayed through the lens of superconscious, Michael saw his family's work of ten generations and three hundred years bleeding out on the National Mall walkway.

Finley tried to ramrod a bill to take back the Wallace holding using eminent domain while Michael was back in New Jersey placing his son with the others who had held the title of baron in the family masoleum. Nicole, who majored in business law, immediately flew down and shoved the bill down Finley's throat. Michael followed a day later with several reams of old, historic documents and a declaration by Parliament that the barony was in abeyance. Michael, having returned to the living, could realistically produce another son and continue the 'heirs male of the body,' so it was not extinct unless Michael expired without producing male issue.

~~~~~

Michael awoke drenched in sweat. His stomach churned painfully. April was almost over, marking nearly two months of bureaucratic torment. Two months since his son died. And four months since...

Michael bolted to the lavatory and emptied his stomach violently. He rinsed his mouth out and proceeded to cough up another mouthful in the sink. Not a good sign. He grabbed a calander and counted out the days since mid-December. He tossed it aside without finishing. Probably just his nerves. God knows he was fine physically up to this point. And he hadn't dreamt about Charles until now.