Prison Break Fic: Romancing the Stone
Summary: He can't call it love. Admiration born of a single moment of affinity, yes, but not love. It's not love, he says to himself, it's not. Not at all. Not even close.
Author's Note: Written for the
pbhiatus_fic 's 2008 Hiatus Fic Challenge #3, Do You Like Pina Coladas? This is an S2 fic prompted by the cliche, "It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Dialogue and scenes taken from First Down, Bolshoi Booze, Bad Blood, and Sona. Title taken from a 1984 Robert Zemeckis film. The usual disclaimers apply.
Length: ~ 950 words Characters: Paul Kellerman, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows Rating: PG
Title: Romancing the Stone (1/1)
Author:
burntcircles
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Paul Kellerman, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows
Rating: PG
Length: ~ 950 words
Summary: He can't call it love. Admiration born of a single moment of affinity, yes, but not love. It's not love, he says to himself, it's not. Not at all. Not even close.
To succeed in his job, Paul Kellerman relies on two, closely related tenets: the infallible predictability of the human being, and the almost universal human tendency to typecast other people, to break up the world into neatly-labeled boxes into which everybody must ultimately fall.
For example, make a claim so blatantly wrong in the presence of an expert and more likely than not said expert will call you out. Specifically, say some bullshit about multiple sclerosis in an AA meeting, and Dr. Sara Tancredi, formerly physician of Fox River Penitentiary, recently drug overdose case, and presently the key to Michael Scofield’s whereabouts, will snap out of her torpor to correct you. You will then react defensively, virtually calling her an egghead. Offense will be taken. You will apologize, she will relent. You will then suggest dinner, and of course she will hesitate, at which point you pretend to be gay, saying that “Danny” is out of town in a tone that just hints at loneliness. Mortified at jumping to conclusions, she will yield.
And this is exactly how it happens; it proceeds like clockwork. It matters not that a gay operative, from his experience, is just as vicious as the next man, or that “Danny” was a partner (work, not romantic) turned traitor who promptly repaid for his duplicity by getting one in the head from him; invariably, women think that being gay makes a guy safe.
By the time he’s sitting in her apartment eating dinner, the triteness of it all nearly bores him. He’d half-expected getting on the doctor’s good graces to be a challenge, and the effortlessness is a disappointment.
oOo
The disappointment doesn’t last. In the days that follow, the doctor foils multiple attempts on her life, stays under the radar, and manages to rendezvous with Scofield. Now here he is, a seasoned secret agent in some motel in Gila unable to crack her after torturing her. His patience is wearing thin--because she knows what he wants (by God, she knows, he can see it clearly on her face as she looks him in the eye) yet she refuses to break with a newfound courage.
“Go to hell,” she spits out, even as she shivers, arms tied behind her back, her face pale but quietly furious. He sympathizes. She feels so strongly about her father and about the greater truth that she is willing to die for them, and having lived most of his life this way, he reads her so easily.
He feels a strong surge of admiration before he pushes her whole body into the tub. It dulls the guilt a bit. Just a little bit.
oOo
Once again, she escapes; once again, she meets up with Scofield. Days later, as he watches the entrance to the cigar club from the roof of a building across the street, he tells Lincoln, “All I see is a black hole. And sooner or later, they’re going to suck each one of us into it. But when they come for me, I’ll take as many of them with me as I can.”
Lincoln throws him a sidelong glance. “She must have really broken your heart, Paul,” he tosses back wryly.
He’s talking about Caroline, of course, and there’s no reason for the panic that suddenly floods him other than pure and simple paranoia. Because earlier he said, “One way or another, you and I, we die. Your brother too,” and he didn’t include Sara. He couldn’t bring himself to.
He feels his face go hot and checks himself. Lincoln doesn’t seem to notice. She reminds me of Kristine, he tells himself. She just reminds me of Kristine.
oOo
“What I’m about to divulge to you will in all likelihood get me killed. Actually, I guarantee it,” he states steadily to a courtroom full of people as soon as he takes the stand, and the moment he does he knows that he’s reached the end.
He talks impassively but efficiently. Every now and then he would glance at her where she sits straight, impeccably dressed, her hair perfectly in place. Her hands are free but her eyes are as unwavering as when she sat staring death in the face in Gila, and he suddenly grasps the depth of her courage. Lucky son of a bitch, he thinks. Lucky, lucky bastard.
It’s all over too quickly. The officer takes him away, but for a few moments he is close enough to her to be heard. “I literally don’t know what to say to you,” she says, visibly thrown. This time, his hands are tied, and strangely he welcomes the vulnerability with which he faces her.
From his testimony at the stand to what he knows are his last words to her, he’s said nothing but the truth today, and he couldn’t have done this swan song more magnificently. “It was good knowing you, Sara.”
The stark reality of what awaits him makes him honest. He can’t deny what has happened. It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, he thinks, and it’s all he can do not to laugh out loud. Early on, Caroline taught him the truth behind these hackneyed words. So has Sara Tancredi taught him anything new? No, not really.
Besides, he can’t call it love. Admiration born of a single moment of affinity, yes, but not love. It’s not love, he says to himself, it’s not. Not at all. Not even close.
He wishes for the triteness of it all to bore him, to distract him from what he knows lies ahead; it does not.
In the end, he wishes them luck.
(End)