Fic - Finding Flaws in Silence (Sara, Michael/Sara) pg-15, 1/1
Title: Finding Flaws in Silence
Summary: The darkness is what she remembers most.
Rating: pg -15
Author's Notes: 1,100 words. Post season three (with a lot of speculation concerning what happened to Sara). I have absolutely no idea where this came from or if it's even any good. It makes me sad how rusty I am when it comes to this fandom and these lovely characters, so take everything with a grain of salt? All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not. Feedback is greatly appreciated.
The feel of the uneven concrete against her back is hard to forget.
The way the rope had bit at her wrist for the first few days - before the guard had committed a rare act of generosity and removed it - is too, and years later, after all of this is said and done, she’ll trace those scars like braille (they blend and mold together with her old ones, both hidden and seen) and remember.
___
On the first day she wakes to a mouthful of concrete, taste of dried copper on her lips. It had taken forever for her eyes to adjust to the dark abyss of what would become her own prison and she’d screamed for hours, days maybe - time blended and merged into one, vast endless span and and a signle hour felt like an eternity to her - kicking so hard against the hard concrete walls that her bare feet bled.
To pass the time she’d close her eyes and picture his face, all the lines and freckles, the curve of his smile and wish to go back to that day in April, his lips against hers, so soft and tender, making promises he could no longer keep. Sara would think of her father’s face and the way her mother’s arms fit so snug around her small, eight-year old frame.
She would long for the feel of a glass tumbler in her hand just one last time, smooth and sleek against her slim fingers.
Long to feel his lips against hers, just one last time, too, because most addictions happen without you even realizing it.
___
There was a bucket in the corner and a single slot in the door that the guards would use to push bread and water through when they deemed it fit. She’d sit underneath it for days, and wait for them to push it open and gaze longingly, wistfully at the stream of light that entered the room, dancing off the concrete.
Sometimes, Sara would hold her hand up in the light for the smallest fraction of a minute it was there and marvel at the bloody and dirty hand in front of her that she didn’t recognize.
___
Often, Sara would find herself tracing the letters of her name into the floor with her right index finger, over and over, as if it would somehow leave a mark, wear down the stone. A fruitless effort to leave something of herself behind. Something that said she was there long after she’d gone, that she’d fought, even if it was for just a little while.
Her second chance had been cashed in years before, but she still wished for another one to set her mistakes right - old and new, because she’d racked up quite a few along the way and she hated herself for a lot of things, but most of all for not being able to remember the last time she told her father she loved him.
Some things are irrevocable, she knew, but she just couldn't help but wishing.
___
The resignation, she remembers, too.
The moment she stopped screaming, stopped praying, stopped bargaining with a God she gave up on a long time ago (long after he’d given up on her) for a way out of that dark room with its cold walls and gave into the darkness.
___
The darkness is what she remembers most.
And the first time she saw sunlight after months of gazing into her own dark abyss, her eyes burned and she had crossed her arms tighter across her chest and counted her ribs with the tips of her fingers. She was cold, despite the hot Panama sun beating down on her pale skin and Sara wasn’t quite sure if she’d ever experience warmth again. She threw up twice in the back of the SVU of the men who had found her, another when she had tried to swallow down something that strayed from her accustomed diet of bread and water.
Sara was thankful for the salvation she had been given, but when she closed her eyes all she saw were those concrete walls and she was deathly afraid that she’d lost too much of herself inside them to ever be able to make use of the chance at redemption she’d been given.
___
After, that first night in the finest hotel Panama has to offer, she slept on the floor, with all the lights in the room turned on. The mattress was too soft against her back, and she dreamt of the hard concrete underneath her and even in her sleep she still smelt the heady scent of that room, the smell of her sweat and urine mixing with the musty air, and she woke in a cold sweat that soaked her shirt right through.
When she showered, she scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin was raw, but it was never to her satisfaction. The dirt and the grime and the memories never seemed to leave her, no matter how hard she tried.
___
“Sara.”
His arms were around her before she could think twice, his grip fiercely tight and her fragile body welcomed the pressure of his body against her own. Michael smelt exactly like she remembered- like soap and spice, so purely male - and Sara closed her eyes and breathed him in. When she opened them again she traced the lines of his face that she knew by heart, embraced the warmth in his eyes, the heat in his embrace.
“I thought you were dead,” he said softly, thick with emotion and when his lips slid against hers, so soft and tender, he tasted of tears (his, hers, she didn't recognize the line that distinguishes them as two separate entities anymore) and the bittersweet essence of renewal.
“Oh, Michael,” she whispered, voice hoarse from lack of use, and she held him to her tight, desperate, like he was her lifeline, the last thread of the person she used to be. His lips pressed against her hair, and hers against his neck and she made a memory of the feel of him against her, of that moment, and let his touch heal her the best it could, let the moment erase an old one and wished for a million more like it.
___
Years later she will sometimes rub her index finger against the pad of her thumb and feel the hard, calloused skin there and count it amung the many scars and reminders she has that the person she is now is fully dependent on the person she was then.
Sometimes, through darkness there is light.