Five Times Lincoln Got Over Veronica
Title: Five Times Lincoln Got Over Veronica
Author: domfangirl
Characters/Pairings: Lincoln, Linc/Veronica, Linc/Jane, Linc/Lisa with appearances by Veronica, Lisa, Michael, LJ and Jane
Category: One-shot
Rating: PG-13 (language and implied sexual situations)
Summary: I think the title sums it up nicely. Lots of angsty Linc for those that like him that way.
Author’s Notes: The only name we’ve ever heard for Lincoln’s ex and LJ’s mother is Lisa Rix, but lately, it occurred to me that Rix must have been her married name (Adrian Rix was LJ’s step-dad). As I thought about that, I decided to give her a maiden name of Wesley for the purpose of this fic. The last portion was written in conjunction with pamalax’s September Time Warp challenge. I chose Lincoln, five years in the future, but it’s actually Lincoln five years since the escape from Fox River, (and I’ve always thought they escaped in 2005) and it's only the last portion of the fic that is five years in the future. The entire fic is based on the song More Than a Memory by Garth Brooks and I strongly encourage you to find it and listen to it, at least if you read this fic. Here's a link to an upload that xxpap3r_cran3s did for me. It currently still works, though she fears multiple users may make it shut down, so get it while you can!
~*~
When you're talking out loud and nobody’s there
You look like hell and you just don't care
You're drinking more than you ever drank
And sinking down lower than you ever sank
When you find yourself falling down upon your knees
Praying to God, begging Him 'please'
That's when she's more than a memory
~from More Than a Memory by Garth Brooks
~*~
Veronica Donovan spied Lincoln Burrows the minute he walked into Derek Sweeney’s house. She made a beeline for him, and because she feared it would get loud between them before it got quiet, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and dragged him, willingly, into the pantry off Derek’s mother’s kitchen.
“What’s up, Vee?” Lincoln asked, a smirky smile on his face that infuriated her.
“Quit driving by my house!” she said forcefully. When he wobbled a little, though he was firmly planted on both feet, she realized he was already drunk, which meant this conversation would be moot by morning.
“What?” he asked, still possessed of the ability to act like he didn’t know what she meant, although Veronica had always been able to tell when Lincoln was lying at twenty paces.
She punched his chest with one tiny fist. “Quit driving by my house all the time. We are broken up, remember? I don’t need you coming by and scaring guys off.”
While he reached a hand up and pulled the chain of the overhead light bulb, he asked, “Even if I did go by your house, once or twice, and this is still a fuckin’ free country-how would that scare anybody off?”
As the sudden illumination in the small room afforded her a good view, Veronica almost slapped his face right then because his eyes sparked with challenge, and beneath that lay the confidence of someone who knew that with the right look, he could command people quite easily. “Lincoln…” she started to reprimand him some more, but she knew it was pointless. If he didn’t want her dating anyone else, it was entirely likely he could get his way.
“If they don’t have balls enough to stand up, they aren’t good enough for you.” He reached behind her and pushed the partially closed pantry door all the way open, brushing up against her as he did so. It forced her to step back and to the side, otherwise he’d have easily pinned her to the door, and from the look in his eyes he was definitely considering it.
As he walked out of the small closet, Veronica turned and said plaintively to his back, “Leave me alone, Linc.”
He looked over his shoulder, shrugged, and muttered, “Would if I could,” before being swallowed up by the crowd of people in the living room.
She lost sight of him quickly and pulled the door shut, secluding herself with the peanut butter and macaroni and cheese boxes for a few more moments. Not long into the future, they’d have a word for Lincoln’s behavior-stalking-but in that dark closet with nothing and nobody to see her, Veronica reveled in the knowledge that Lincoln loved her so much he couldn’t let her go.
~*~
Lisa Wesley rolled over in bed, her arm reaching out for her soon-to-be husband. Lincoln had ‘proposed’ just that evening, though it had been more of a ‘well, we might as well, if you’re really pregnant’ kind of statement. Though they’d gone to bed hours earlier, he wasn’t lying next to her now, and being alone had caused her to wake up. She had grown accustomed to his big, warm body next to hers, though they’d only been living together for a few weeks.
She found him at the kitchen table, working on a model airplane that he and his brother had been fiddling with earlier that day. “I thought you were supposed to wait to finish that until Michael could come over again.”
Lincoln’s head didn’t even turn, which indicated to Lisa that he must have heard her walk into the room. “I just wanted to finish it for him, surprise him,” he said. When she sat down in the chair next to him, she ran her hand up his bare thigh softly. He glanced at her, giving her a smile before concentrating again on the small propeller he was currently working on, his fingers looking much too big for the job.
“Linc, it’s like 3am. Come back to bed,” she said invitingly, her fingers skimming up his leg and across the crotch of his boxers.
He gave her a regretful look, as though it really pained him to turn her down, though there was no reaction in his shorts. “But I’m almost done, Lees,” he said softly.
She lingered for a few more minutes, trying to be seductive, trying to illicit a response, but he only kissed her mouth without passion and patted her butt like he was her father when she said she was going back to bed. She snuggled down into his pillow a few minutes later, telling herself how sweet it was that Lincoln wanted to surprise Michael with the completed project the next time his brother could catch the train down from Joliet. He only came to visit a few times a month because the Foster home he lived in was an hour away by train, and expensive for a kid with no job; he came when Linc had enough extra money to buy him a ticket, which wasn’t too often, and would probably be even less regularly when the baby came.
Trying to focus on thoughts of her pregnancy, and Lincoln’s brother, whom she knew wanted to come live with them, she tried not to think about the pictures she’d found in a shoebox in the closet the day before of a beautiful brunette girl with pale green eyes. She tried not to think about the letters that were with the pictures. She tried not to think about the times she’d heard Lincoln mumbling in his sleep, or the fact that when Michael had been there earlier she’d overheard him say a name she’d only heard before on Lincoln’s restless lips. Vee.
~*~
Michael Scofield watched silently as Lincoln used the end of his cigarette to light a sheet of paper on fire. “You’re probably going to regret doing that,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Probably,” Lincoln said as he stuck the cigarette back between his lips, fascinatedly watching as the paper curled up towards the left corner he held between his thumb and forefinger.
“How many times have you gotten back together with Veronica?” Michael asked sharply, realizing that his brother had no intention of stopping his pyromaniac activities. “You know you’ll just get back together.”
Lincoln’s eyes cut to Michael’s face from the flames that leapt ever closer to his hand. “Shut the fuck up, would ya? She’s going to fucking Texas, Mike. She’s purposely going far away to school. She could totally stay here and be with me, I’m finally free of Lisa, and we can be together, but no, she has to go off to some backwards-ass place for school.” The cigarette in his mouth flicked dangerously with his angry words.
Michael glowered at his older brother. “Baylor is a good school. The fellowship she applied for specified that school, and they offered her an internship. Was she supposed to turn that down?”
Lincoln flung what was left of the burning paper into a metal wastebasket sitting atop the coffee table in front of him. “No. No she wasn’t. And she didn’t.” He jerked the cigarette from between his lips as he picked up another piece of paper containing Veronica’s handwriting. “So I’m going to burn her fuckin’ letters. You can sit there, shut up, and watch, or you can get the hell out. Your choice.”
Michael slumped off into the kitchen to distract himself, but ten minutes later he smelled something truly awful. Lincoln had finished with the letters, but had now moved on to the photographs that were also in the shoebox on the floor near his feet. “Lincoln!” Michael exclaimed running over to grab the box before he could snag another photo for the fire.
“Give it to me,” Lincoln said, getting to his feet and glaring menacingly at Michael.
“Forget it,” Michael said, waving Lincoln away when he made a move towards him. “I’m going back to my dorm. And I’m taking these with me. You don’t want to burn these. I don’t care if you’re mad at her, you love her, and this is your life, and I’m not letting you destroy it.”
He heard Lincoln shouting at him as he walked out the door and then ran down the four flights of stairs to the street, until he was sure Lincoln wasn’t following him. He knew, deep down inside, Lincoln would regret it. He would keep the pictures safe until his brother wasn’t so mad at Veronica.
In the middle of the night his roommate Steve shook him awake, and Michael was totally disoriented until he heard his brother’s voice, “Where are the pictures? Michael, where are they?”
Wiping the sleep from his eyes as Steve flipped the overhead light on, Michael moved his legs quickly when an obviously drunk Lincoln landed heavily on the foot of his bed. “They’re safe and sound, Linc,” he said. “I’m not giving them to you so you can ruin them.”
“I just want to see them,” Lincoln said, his voice throbbing with alcohol and sorrow, so much so that Michael felt inclined to wrap an arm around Lincoln’s shoulders. “Please,” he whispered. “I just need to see her face.”
Carefully, Michael pulled the box out from under his bed, but his surprise that Lincoln wasn’t just saying whatever he had to, to get his hands on the pictures changed to pity as his brother’s sad blue eyes focused on one picture. It was his favorite, Michael knew, one that Veronica had bought a frame for and given to him as a Christmas gift a few years previously. It was of both Lincoln and Veronica and they smiled warmly into the camera. The picture was crooked and a little too close to both of their faces, but that’s because Lincoln loved to hold the camera at arm’s length and click the shutter. When a sob sounded in the room, abruptly ripping from Lincoln’s throat and startling Michael with its intensity, Steve said, “I’m going to go sleep in Ben’s dorm.”
Michael looked up at his roommate and mouthed, “Thank you,” before wrapping his other arm around his broken brother. He put his chin on Lincoln’s shoulder, urging his brother’s face into a matching position on his own shoulder, and whispered, “It will be all right, Linc. You’ll see. Three years isn’t that long.” It was a giant lie, something he didn’t believe at all, but at that moment, there was nothing else he could say. In the silent depth of night, Lincoln cried, his chest heaving in the thin grasp of Michael’s arms, clutching a photograph in his hand until it crumpled under the pressure of his fingers.
~*~
Jane Phillips watched the man sleeping in her bed. He’d been aggressive, demanding, even overpowering, just as she’d suspected he would be if they ever got naked together.
But he hadn’t been thinking about her at all.
In the months that had just bypassed them, so much had been going on. In fact, from what Jane could determine, the last nine months of Lincoln’s life had prevented him from thinking, or being still, or contemplating all that had happened within those nine months. Ever the intuitive woman, she had felt out this situation long before she’d gotten into it, but it had been Lincoln’s brother who had clued her in to the cause of the turmoil he might be going through, but obviously wasn’t dealing with. And it had been Sara, Michael’s girlfriend, who’d made it even clearer for Jane, whispering details to her as she gleaned them from Michael during private moments.
Lincoln had lost the love of his life to The Company. The one girl he’d ever loved had been sacrificed in the middle of a mess he’d never asked for; a mess he’d been thrust into the heart of with little time to prepare. Even more terrible, he’d heard her get killed over the phone his first day out of prison. Since then, he’d had little time to think of it, less time to deal with it, and now that it was over and there was nothing else to be done, he’d jumped headlong into bed with her, no doubt because they had enough heat between them to singe the sun, but also because fucking Jane meant not dealing with his heartache.
And that’s what the sex had been like. Hot, rough, completely mind blowing, but at the same time, there had been a sense of loneliness, an emptiness, a disconnection between the frantic movements of his body and the heat in his eyes. At the pinnacle, Jane had even trapped his face in her palms, forcing his eyes to meet hers, but she might as well have been alone for all that he didn’t see her, didn’t enter her mind the way he entered her body.
He’d promptly gone to sleep next to her, rolling off of her before he did so. Now as she considered her next move, she felt an infinite sadness invade her chest. Lincoln was much like his father, though he’d probably revolt at such an assessment. Jane had worked with Aldo Burrows for a long time, and being a female, had invited a certain confidence and intimacy that allowed her superior to reveal the aching love he’d felt for the mother of his children for most of his life, but even more acutely during the years he’d been separated from her, first because of his need to protect his family, but later of course by her own death. Jane knew enough about Lincoln’s temperament to understand it precluded a self-analysis of what he was going through, or even of what he would put her through if she allowed him to do it. But she also knew heartsick when she saw it, and though she might try to help him heal, there was no guarantee that her love would compare to that of a dead, angelic lover who had been a part of Lincoln’s life longer than anyone else besides his brother.
Jane wasn’t whimsical or spontaneous. She looked at the calendar. He had two months to snap out of it. If he hadn’t surfaced by then, she had little hope that he ever would.
~*~
May 28, 2010
Lincoln Burrows got up that morning knowing every day leading to this one for the last week had been filled with pre-emptive strikes from those in his life that cared about him. Michael, LJ, Sara, even his old buddy Derek Sweeney. They’d all called him, or come by his apartment, trying to gauge how he was doing, knowing that this time of year served nothing but to wipe Lincoln out, make him more useless than his normal uselessness.
But he actually put on clothes and walked the five blocks from his place to the cemetery where she was buried, to sit at her grave for a good portion of the morning. He brought her a bouquet of carnations, her favorite flower, but their sweet smell was almost more than he could bear. Laying them aside, he pressed his fingers to the marbley-looking concrete, tracing the letters of her name, her birthday and the day her life and been stolen away from him, right where he could hear everything but do nothing to stop it. Five years had passed since that horrible day, but only three and a half since they’d had her buried here. Lincoln and Michael had paid to have her buried near their mother and father; they were experts at getting the remains of loved ones put where they wanted, since they’d gone through a similar thing when moving their father.
Jane had helped both times, using her connections to make it happen with as little red tape as possible. Both of those incidents had occurred after she’d left Lincoln (not that he’d done much to stop her), but each encounter had not come to a conclusion until they ended up in bed together, again. Every time it happened, even during the six months he’d slept regularly with Jane before she left, he’d felt a sense of guilt in the aftermath. After she’d taken off, he’d sworn off women as it had seemed to serve no purpose, but then each time she’d come back into his life, however briefly, he’d been possessed of the urge until it overtook his brain and his common sense. Swimming in the guilt afterwards only reinforced his no-woman-in-his-life policy.
As his fingers etched over the words We’ll never forget you, Vee he allowed Veronica’s memory to push out everything else, much like he did whenever a situation got to be too much for him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what he was doing; it was them-none of them-that truly didn’t understand. He’d done everything, so many times, to move on. But because he’d gone through the motions for years before, this was only another prolonged moment of killing time until he and Vee got back together. His brain understood that they never would, that they never could, but his heart seemed unwilling to comprehend the harsh reality of a world without Veronica, of a world that would never see her, or feel her, or taste her again.
He’d tacked all the pictures he had of her up on a bulletin board in his kitchen, and every day, whether he spent time looking at them or not, she watched him, she was with him, she was still there, and he could almost feel her, almost hear her, almost believe she was just across town, and sooner or later one of them would give in and she’d be back where she belonged.
Jane had been the antithesis of Veronica, blonde and tall, harsh sometimes to the point that Lincoln felt himself flinch under her words, under her hands. When she’d walked away, he’d believed her when she said it was for good, unlike the times Veronica had left. He’d rarely doubted that Vee would come back, and even when he had doubted, she always came back anyway. Every time. The last time she’d come back, she’d come to Fox River.
The fact that he and Jane had relapsed twice only proved that Lincoln was lonely, and needy, but he never went looking for it. Jane had come to his door both times, and he’d let her in because, like it or not, he knew she’d be okay when it was over. Because it always had to be over. It was something he suspected even Jane knew as he slid inside her; even if they fucked all night, which they had the two times that had happened, when she left there was no danger she’d call again. She had too much pride; she wasn’t Veronica, and Veronica was the only one he really wanted, and Jane knew it. But needs and wants weren’t the same, and though his brain knew his wants would never be fulfilled, his heart couldn’t live with the needs being met. So Lincoln lived in a vicious cycle that never found repose, and even now, it had been years since he’d seen Jane, and she felt almost as illusive as Veronica, though he worked very hard to keep Veronica tangibly in his life.
He’d loved Veronica for so long-though often, it had been badly-so it seemed the least he could do now was let that love live on. In fact, loving her seemed like the only thing he could do, so he did it, everyday, with all of his heart. He loved Veronica, and he stayed loving her, no matter what else happened in his life. Michael wanted him to move on, Sara wanted him to see that loving Veronica and loving someone new were things that could peacefully co-exist, LJ wanted him to be happy, because, “Dad, what is the point of everything that’s happened if you’re not happy?”
LJ had graduated from college the year before and then applied to law school; Lincoln had been drunk for a week straight, not because he was celebrating LJ’s achievements, but because the words law school had the same effect that her last recorded words, left on Nick Savrinn’s answering machine, led us to Blackfoot, Montana, and found in three separate garbage bags, and oh, that apartment had to be reconstructed after an explosion destroyed it had. The last item, which the building Super had told him when Lincoln had found himself outside her old apartment, staring up at it stupidly, the same place she’d lived ever since she’d returned to Chicago from Texas, knocked him nearly senseless. He’d never realized how close to dying she’d come before she made that last reckless journey to Montana. He’d even had several hours of being flat out pissed at her for taking so many risks for him-for someone so completely unworthy of her sacrifice, but in a short amount of time that anger turned inward for being the unworthy one as opposed to holding her responsible for something she couldn’t know was so much bigger than any of them. If they had had a clue about what they were up against, everything would be so different now.
She’d be here with him, they’d walk through the park together, maybe with a baby in a stroller, the way Michael and Sara sometimes did with their twin girls. They would live in his apartment together, and there would be new pictures up with the old ones; and they’d eat pancakes on Sunday mornings, and LJ would call her with questions about his classes, and they’d make love all night even though they’d been together so long the fire should have long burned out by now.
He knew just what it would be like; he would be happy if that’s how it was.
By the time he got back to his place, he’d passed by a liquor store, stocked up, and had a very finite plan for the next few hours. He would drink to the memory of Veronica, jack off thinking about her, and undoubtedly pass out some place other than his bed. Tomorrow he’d feel like shit, but at least he’d really have a reason to feel like it, not just live the same day over and over again.
The fact that a blonde woman leaned against his door waiting for him startled him almost as much as it pissed him off. Clutching the brown paper bag in his fist tightly, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
She took the question just like she had his head butt when he’d first met her almost five years ago-stoically and with a brief flare of anger in her blue eyes. “Nice to see you, too, Lincoln,” she said dryly, pushing off the door with one booted foot. “Going to invite me in, or is that bag a one-man party?” She nodded towards his white knuckles, which caused him to relax his hand so he didn’t look quite as pathetic as he felt.
He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and then moved past her to unlock the door. He didn’t want to invite her in. Today was not a day for company, and especially not company he normally couldn’t keep his hands off of. But he said, “Come on in,” even though he didn’t want to, and Jane followed him inside, even though he knew she knew he didn’t want her too.
He set the paper bag down on the kitchen table and moved into the living room, catching her eye over his shoulder as he went. “What brings you to town?” he asked, gesturing towards his sofa before leaning down to scoop up the crap that lay there, dirty socks, a car magazine and an email from LJ that Michael had printed out and given to Lincoln.
“You,” she answered tersely, the truth of her words beating at Lincoln’s senses.
He threw the crap from the sofa onto the coffee table, but then Jane sat down on the EZ-Boy chair anyway, which further irritated Lincoln. He didn’t know why, but he wanted her to sit on the sofa next to him. He just lifted his eyebrows at her, in response to her answer to his question. A faintly challenging look crossed her face, and he thought that maybe if she’d still been standing, she might have head-butted him for the hell of it. Finally flopping down on to the now-clean sofa, he still didn’t say anything; she had come to see him, she had an agenda. His only agenda was intended for when he was alone, and he wasn’t going to start drinking until he got rid of her.
“Today’s a pretty big anniversary,” Jane said, all pretense gone from her face. She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “You shouldn’t be alone today.”
“So Michael sent for reinforcements, huh?” Lincoln asked. He’d told his brother, his brother’s wife, and his son that he didn’t need them to hold his hand through anything. He was perfectly fine on his own. On his own being the key words.
Jane blinked, and shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to your brother,” she said. “I came here on my own.”
There were those words again. On my own.
“I just wanted to see you. See how you were,” she clarified.
“Well, you’ve seen me. How do I look?” he asked, smirking at her.
“Like shit, but that’s not surprising,” she responded, her gaze moving over his face, which was shrouded in stubble, then dropping to the grungy t-shirt and jeans he’d thrown on before he walked to the cemetery.
Lincoln tensed, and dug deep for the quickest route to being alone. “Look, if you came here to fuck me, get on with it or get out.”
Jane actually snorted. Then she laughed out loud. Then as she sat back on the chair, she lifted a leg so that it hooked around the leg of his coffee table, yanking it towards herself before planting her feet on it. “You’re trying to be funny? That’s so unlike you, Lincoln.”
Now that he was being teased, his anger flared to full potency. “No, I’m not kidding. I’m serious. Strip or leave, it’s your choice.”
Jane shook her head, still laughing. “No, I’m thinking you have to be kidding, because who in the world would want to fuck a self-pitying drunk wearing clothes from 1999?”
“Okay, that’s it,” he said, standing up. He moved over to her and grabbed her by the arm. “Get out of here. I don’t want you here, and I can’t really figure out why you’d want to be here either. Time to go.” He hoisted her out of the chair and pushed her towards the front door, but she spun out of his grasp, evaded him and planted her feet in such a way that he braced himself, waiting for the first blow to land. He even saw her hands clench, fists prepared to batter him. Suddenly, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather feel right then, someone beating the holy shit out of him, someone who could bring his pain level from the inside out. When he reached up and slapped her face with his open hand, he hadn’t even thought about it.
It wasn’t a hard slap, it wasn’t even a slap, really; it was more like his fingers spread wide against her jaw and then his hand shoving her face the side. But her arm flew up, blocking the move, and she twisted until she had him in a half nelson and then she jerked him back, laying him flat out on the living room floor. “You are such a fucking asshole,” she muttered, vaguely breathless. “Why can’t I just let you go?”
Lincoln closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of her pacing away from his prone body. How many times had he asked himself the same question?
“You know what this is, don’t you?” Jane’s voice asked from somewhere above him. “The irony of it? You’re my fucking Veronica, Lincoln. Only you’re not dead, but I wish to hell you were, because if you were dead, maybe I could get over you!” She kicked him then, her foot planting into his side without brute force, but still with enough impact to cause him to grunt because of it.
He reached down, wrapping his hand around her ankle. “There’s no guarantee that would make it better,” he murmured, an expert on that topic.
“Oh, I think it would, I’m not as hard headed as you are.”
“The hell you say, woman.” He tugged on her leg until she sat down next to him. Opening his eyes to look at her-really look at her, he felt something he’d never felt before, or at least not for a very long time, engulf his chest. “You’re the only person I’ve ever head butted that stayed on their feet.”
“I doubt that,” she said softly, as he used his free arm to push himself up into a sitting position.
“It’s true, honest,” he said. Pausing awkwardly, he began, “Jane, look…”
“No, Linc, don’t. This one is all on me. In fact, it’s all, all on me. You’ve made it clear that you don’t want me, but I can’t seem to believe you. Just like you can’t believe Veronica’s dead. You think she’ll just turn up one day, right? Because I have this recurring fantasy where you show up on my doorstep and throw me down and tell me you can’t live without me.” She touched his face gently, skimming her fingers over the rough stubble on his chin. “And you do look like shit, but I don’t care. I love you, anyway.”
Lincoln’s throat closed off with sudden emotion. “Why? Why do you love me?” he asked, choking on the intense need he had to pull her into his arms. It had been so long since he’d felt that-love. Not because people weren’t trying to give it to him, but because until this moment, he’d been incapable of receiving it. He could give out all day to the universe of Veronica, but receiving it in any form was unthinkable.
“Oh, baby, too many reasons,” she said, her fingers brushing against his lips. “Truthfully, a big part of it is your devotion to her. Your insanity is endearing. If only you could love me like that.” She stared at him for a long time, and Lincoln, who had no words, just stared back at her. He wished, quite desperately at that moment, that he could, that he would love her like that. She was here, she was real, and she was everything Veronica had never been. She didn’t take his shit, she didn’t stay when she knew he would never change, she didn’t just forget all the crap he’d done that could never be rectified.
And yet, strangely, the only difference was her approach to things. Ultimately, it was the same; she had been with him just as much, just as strongly as Veronica had these last five years, but now he could actually appreciate it.
He wanted to hold on to her, and beg her not to go, but he had no idea what he had to offer her. Inside five minutes he’d had a reversal of fortune, but it was all too quick for him to know if it would stick or if it was temporary insanity from his long-term insanity.
She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his softly, almost in a motherly way. “I’ll stay here with you if you want me to, help you get through today. If you’d rather settle it with whatever’s in that bag, I’ll leave you to it.” She drew back from him, running her hand from his face down over his chest and before gently squeezing his shoulder she used it to push herself to her feet.
Lincoln looked up at her. She was giving him another chance. Somewhere inside her, there was some Veronica-like vacuum that left him room to get it together.
It was probably the most momentous decision he would ever make.
“Stay,” he said simply. Lifting his hand, he wrapped his fingers around hers and brushed his lips over the soft skin of her knuckles. “Please, stay,” he reiterated.
Jane only nodded, because there were tears in her eyes.
Author: domfangirl
Characters/Pairings: Lincoln, Linc/Veronica, Linc/Jane, Linc/Lisa with appearances by Veronica, Lisa, Michael, LJ and Jane
Category: One-shot
Rating: PG-13 (language and implied sexual situations)
Summary: I think the title sums it up nicely. Lots of angsty Linc for those that like him that way.
Author’s Notes: The only name we’ve ever heard for Lincoln’s ex and LJ’s mother is Lisa Rix, but lately, it occurred to me that Rix must have been her married name (Adrian Rix was LJ’s step-dad). As I thought about that, I decided to give her a maiden name of Wesley for the purpose of this fic. The last portion was written in conjunction with pamalax’s September Time Warp challenge. I chose Lincoln, five years in the future, but it’s actually Lincoln five years since the escape from Fox River, (and I’ve always thought they escaped in 2005) and it's only the last portion of the fic that is five years in the future. The entire fic is based on the song More Than a Memory by Garth Brooks and I strongly encourage you to find it and listen to it, at least if you read this fic. Here's a link to an upload that xxpap3r_cran3s did for me. It currently still works, though she fears multiple users may make it shut down, so get it while you can!
~*~
When you're talking out loud and nobody’s there
You look like hell and you just don't care
You're drinking more than you ever drank
And sinking down lower than you ever sank
When you find yourself falling down upon your knees
Praying to God, begging Him 'please'
That's when she's more than a memory
~from More Than a Memory by Garth Brooks
~*~
Veronica Donovan spied Lincoln Burrows the minute he walked into Derek Sweeney’s house. She made a beeline for him, and because she feared it would get loud between them before it got quiet, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and dragged him, willingly, into the pantry off Derek’s mother’s kitchen.
“What’s up, Vee?” Lincoln asked, a smirky smile on his face that infuriated her.
“Quit driving by my house!” she said forcefully. When he wobbled a little, though he was firmly planted on both feet, she realized he was already drunk, which meant this conversation would be moot by morning.
“What?” he asked, still possessed of the ability to act like he didn’t know what she meant, although Veronica had always been able to tell when Lincoln was lying at twenty paces.
She punched his chest with one tiny fist. “Quit driving by my house all the time. We are broken up, remember? I don’t need you coming by and scaring guys off.”
While he reached a hand up and pulled the chain of the overhead light bulb, he asked, “Even if I did go by your house, once or twice, and this is still a fuckin’ free country-how would that scare anybody off?”
As the sudden illumination in the small room afforded her a good view, Veronica almost slapped his face right then because his eyes sparked with challenge, and beneath that lay the confidence of someone who knew that with the right look, he could command people quite easily. “Lincoln…” she started to reprimand him some more, but she knew it was pointless. If he didn’t want her dating anyone else, it was entirely likely he could get his way.
“If they don’t have balls enough to stand up, they aren’t good enough for you.” He reached behind her and pushed the partially closed pantry door all the way open, brushing up against her as he did so. It forced her to step back and to the side, otherwise he’d have easily pinned her to the door, and from the look in his eyes he was definitely considering it.
As he walked out of the small closet, Veronica turned and said plaintively to his back, “Leave me alone, Linc.”
He looked over his shoulder, shrugged, and muttered, “Would if I could,” before being swallowed up by the crowd of people in the living room.
She lost sight of him quickly and pulled the door shut, secluding herself with the peanut butter and macaroni and cheese boxes for a few more moments. Not long into the future, they’d have a word for Lincoln’s behavior-stalking-but in that dark closet with nothing and nobody to see her, Veronica reveled in the knowledge that Lincoln loved her so much he couldn’t let her go.
~*~
Lisa Wesley rolled over in bed, her arm reaching out for her soon-to-be husband. Lincoln had ‘proposed’ just that evening, though it had been more of a ‘well, we might as well, if you’re really pregnant’ kind of statement. Though they’d gone to bed hours earlier, he wasn’t lying next to her now, and being alone had caused her to wake up. She had grown accustomed to his big, warm body next to hers, though they’d only been living together for a few weeks.
She found him at the kitchen table, working on a model airplane that he and his brother had been fiddling with earlier that day. “I thought you were supposed to wait to finish that until Michael could come over again.”
Lincoln’s head didn’t even turn, which indicated to Lisa that he must have heard her walk into the room. “I just wanted to finish it for him, surprise him,” he said. When she sat down in the chair next to him, she ran her hand up his bare thigh softly. He glanced at her, giving her a smile before concentrating again on the small propeller he was currently working on, his fingers looking much too big for the job.
“Linc, it’s like 3am. Come back to bed,” she said invitingly, her fingers skimming up his leg and across the crotch of his boxers.
He gave her a regretful look, as though it really pained him to turn her down, though there was no reaction in his shorts. “But I’m almost done, Lees,” he said softly.
She lingered for a few more minutes, trying to be seductive, trying to illicit a response, but he only kissed her mouth without passion and patted her butt like he was her father when she said she was going back to bed. She snuggled down into his pillow a few minutes later, telling herself how sweet it was that Lincoln wanted to surprise Michael with the completed project the next time his brother could catch the train down from Joliet. He only came to visit a few times a month because the Foster home he lived in was an hour away by train, and expensive for a kid with no job; he came when Linc had enough extra money to buy him a ticket, which wasn’t too often, and would probably be even less regularly when the baby came.
Trying to focus on thoughts of her pregnancy, and Lincoln’s brother, whom she knew wanted to come live with them, she tried not to think about the pictures she’d found in a shoebox in the closet the day before of a beautiful brunette girl with pale green eyes. She tried not to think about the letters that were with the pictures. She tried not to think about the times she’d heard Lincoln mumbling in his sleep, or the fact that when Michael had been there earlier she’d overheard him say a name she’d only heard before on Lincoln’s restless lips. Vee.
~*~
Michael Scofield watched silently as Lincoln used the end of his cigarette to light a sheet of paper on fire. “You’re probably going to regret doing that,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Probably,” Lincoln said as he stuck the cigarette back between his lips, fascinatedly watching as the paper curled up towards the left corner he held between his thumb and forefinger.
“How many times have you gotten back together with Veronica?” Michael asked sharply, realizing that his brother had no intention of stopping his pyromaniac activities. “You know you’ll just get back together.”
Lincoln’s eyes cut to Michael’s face from the flames that leapt ever closer to his hand. “Shut the fuck up, would ya? She’s going to fucking Texas, Mike. She’s purposely going far away to school. She could totally stay here and be with me, I’m finally free of Lisa, and we can be together, but no, she has to go off to some backwards-ass place for school.” The cigarette in his mouth flicked dangerously with his angry words.
Michael glowered at his older brother. “Baylor is a good school. The fellowship she applied for specified that school, and they offered her an internship. Was she supposed to turn that down?”
Lincoln flung what was left of the burning paper into a metal wastebasket sitting atop the coffee table in front of him. “No. No she wasn’t. And she didn’t.” He jerked the cigarette from between his lips as he picked up another piece of paper containing Veronica’s handwriting. “So I’m going to burn her fuckin’ letters. You can sit there, shut up, and watch, or you can get the hell out. Your choice.”
Michael slumped off into the kitchen to distract himself, but ten minutes later he smelled something truly awful. Lincoln had finished with the letters, but had now moved on to the photographs that were also in the shoebox on the floor near his feet. “Lincoln!” Michael exclaimed running over to grab the box before he could snag another photo for the fire.
“Give it to me,” Lincoln said, getting to his feet and glaring menacingly at Michael.
“Forget it,” Michael said, waving Lincoln away when he made a move towards him. “I’m going back to my dorm. And I’m taking these with me. You don’t want to burn these. I don’t care if you’re mad at her, you love her, and this is your life, and I’m not letting you destroy it.”
He heard Lincoln shouting at him as he walked out the door and then ran down the four flights of stairs to the street, until he was sure Lincoln wasn’t following him. He knew, deep down inside, Lincoln would regret it. He would keep the pictures safe until his brother wasn’t so mad at Veronica.
In the middle of the night his roommate Steve shook him awake, and Michael was totally disoriented until he heard his brother’s voice, “Where are the pictures? Michael, where are they?”
Wiping the sleep from his eyes as Steve flipped the overhead light on, Michael moved his legs quickly when an obviously drunk Lincoln landed heavily on the foot of his bed. “They’re safe and sound, Linc,” he said. “I’m not giving them to you so you can ruin them.”
“I just want to see them,” Lincoln said, his voice throbbing with alcohol and sorrow, so much so that Michael felt inclined to wrap an arm around Lincoln’s shoulders. “Please,” he whispered. “I just need to see her face.”
Carefully, Michael pulled the box out from under his bed, but his surprise that Lincoln wasn’t just saying whatever he had to, to get his hands on the pictures changed to pity as his brother’s sad blue eyes focused on one picture. It was his favorite, Michael knew, one that Veronica had bought a frame for and given to him as a Christmas gift a few years previously. It was of both Lincoln and Veronica and they smiled warmly into the camera. The picture was crooked and a little too close to both of their faces, but that’s because Lincoln loved to hold the camera at arm’s length and click the shutter. When a sob sounded in the room, abruptly ripping from Lincoln’s throat and startling Michael with its intensity, Steve said, “I’m going to go sleep in Ben’s dorm.”
Michael looked up at his roommate and mouthed, “Thank you,” before wrapping his other arm around his broken brother. He put his chin on Lincoln’s shoulder, urging his brother’s face into a matching position on his own shoulder, and whispered, “It will be all right, Linc. You’ll see. Three years isn’t that long.” It was a giant lie, something he didn’t believe at all, but at that moment, there was nothing else he could say. In the silent depth of night, Lincoln cried, his chest heaving in the thin grasp of Michael’s arms, clutching a photograph in his hand until it crumpled under the pressure of his fingers.
~*~
Jane Phillips watched the man sleeping in her bed. He’d been aggressive, demanding, even overpowering, just as she’d suspected he would be if they ever got naked together.
But he hadn’t been thinking about her at all.
In the months that had just bypassed them, so much had been going on. In fact, from what Jane could determine, the last nine months of Lincoln’s life had prevented him from thinking, or being still, or contemplating all that had happened within those nine months. Ever the intuitive woman, she had felt out this situation long before she’d gotten into it, but it had been Lincoln’s brother who had clued her in to the cause of the turmoil he might be going through, but obviously wasn’t dealing with. And it had been Sara, Michael’s girlfriend, who’d made it even clearer for Jane, whispering details to her as she gleaned them from Michael during private moments.
Lincoln had lost the love of his life to The Company. The one girl he’d ever loved had been sacrificed in the middle of a mess he’d never asked for; a mess he’d been thrust into the heart of with little time to prepare. Even more terrible, he’d heard her get killed over the phone his first day out of prison. Since then, he’d had little time to think of it, less time to deal with it, and now that it was over and there was nothing else to be done, he’d jumped headlong into bed with her, no doubt because they had enough heat between them to singe the sun, but also because fucking Jane meant not dealing with his heartache.
And that’s what the sex had been like. Hot, rough, completely mind blowing, but at the same time, there had been a sense of loneliness, an emptiness, a disconnection between the frantic movements of his body and the heat in his eyes. At the pinnacle, Jane had even trapped his face in her palms, forcing his eyes to meet hers, but she might as well have been alone for all that he didn’t see her, didn’t enter her mind the way he entered her body.
He’d promptly gone to sleep next to her, rolling off of her before he did so. Now as she considered her next move, she felt an infinite sadness invade her chest. Lincoln was much like his father, though he’d probably revolt at such an assessment. Jane had worked with Aldo Burrows for a long time, and being a female, had invited a certain confidence and intimacy that allowed her superior to reveal the aching love he’d felt for the mother of his children for most of his life, but even more acutely during the years he’d been separated from her, first because of his need to protect his family, but later of course by her own death. Jane knew enough about Lincoln’s temperament to understand it precluded a self-analysis of what he was going through, or even of what he would put her through if she allowed him to do it. But she also knew heartsick when she saw it, and though she might try to help him heal, there was no guarantee that her love would compare to that of a dead, angelic lover who had been a part of Lincoln’s life longer than anyone else besides his brother.
Jane wasn’t whimsical or spontaneous. She looked at the calendar. He had two months to snap out of it. If he hadn’t surfaced by then, she had little hope that he ever would.
~*~
May 28, 2010
Lincoln Burrows got up that morning knowing every day leading to this one for the last week had been filled with pre-emptive strikes from those in his life that cared about him. Michael, LJ, Sara, even his old buddy Derek Sweeney. They’d all called him, or come by his apartment, trying to gauge how he was doing, knowing that this time of year served nothing but to wipe Lincoln out, make him more useless than his normal uselessness.
But he actually put on clothes and walked the five blocks from his place to the cemetery where she was buried, to sit at her grave for a good portion of the morning. He brought her a bouquet of carnations, her favorite flower, but their sweet smell was almost more than he could bear. Laying them aside, he pressed his fingers to the marbley-looking concrete, tracing the letters of her name, her birthday and the day her life and been stolen away from him, right where he could hear everything but do nothing to stop it. Five years had passed since that horrible day, but only three and a half since they’d had her buried here. Lincoln and Michael had paid to have her buried near their mother and father; they were experts at getting the remains of loved ones put where they wanted, since they’d gone through a similar thing when moving their father.
Jane had helped both times, using her connections to make it happen with as little red tape as possible. Both of those incidents had occurred after she’d left Lincoln (not that he’d done much to stop her), but each encounter had not come to a conclusion until they ended up in bed together, again. Every time it happened, even during the six months he’d slept regularly with Jane before she left, he’d felt a sense of guilt in the aftermath. After she’d taken off, he’d sworn off women as it had seemed to serve no purpose, but then each time she’d come back into his life, however briefly, he’d been possessed of the urge until it overtook his brain and his common sense. Swimming in the guilt afterwards only reinforced his no-woman-in-his-life policy.
As his fingers etched over the words We’ll never forget you, Vee he allowed Veronica’s memory to push out everything else, much like he did whenever a situation got to be too much for him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what he was doing; it was them-none of them-that truly didn’t understand. He’d done everything, so many times, to move on. But because he’d gone through the motions for years before, this was only another prolonged moment of killing time until he and Vee got back together. His brain understood that they never would, that they never could, but his heart seemed unwilling to comprehend the harsh reality of a world without Veronica, of a world that would never see her, or feel her, or taste her again.
He’d tacked all the pictures he had of her up on a bulletin board in his kitchen, and every day, whether he spent time looking at them or not, she watched him, she was with him, she was still there, and he could almost feel her, almost hear her, almost believe she was just across town, and sooner or later one of them would give in and she’d be back where she belonged.
Jane had been the antithesis of Veronica, blonde and tall, harsh sometimes to the point that Lincoln felt himself flinch under her words, under her hands. When she’d walked away, he’d believed her when she said it was for good, unlike the times Veronica had left. He’d rarely doubted that Vee would come back, and even when he had doubted, she always came back anyway. Every time. The last time she’d come back, she’d come to Fox River.
The fact that he and Jane had relapsed twice only proved that Lincoln was lonely, and needy, but he never went looking for it. Jane had come to his door both times, and he’d let her in because, like it or not, he knew she’d be okay when it was over. Because it always had to be over. It was something he suspected even Jane knew as he slid inside her; even if they fucked all night, which they had the two times that had happened, when she left there was no danger she’d call again. She had too much pride; she wasn’t Veronica, and Veronica was the only one he really wanted, and Jane knew it. But needs and wants weren’t the same, and though his brain knew his wants would never be fulfilled, his heart couldn’t live with the needs being met. So Lincoln lived in a vicious cycle that never found repose, and even now, it had been years since he’d seen Jane, and she felt almost as illusive as Veronica, though he worked very hard to keep Veronica tangibly in his life.
He’d loved Veronica for so long-though often, it had been badly-so it seemed the least he could do now was let that love live on. In fact, loving her seemed like the only thing he could do, so he did it, everyday, with all of his heart. He loved Veronica, and he stayed loving her, no matter what else happened in his life. Michael wanted him to move on, Sara wanted him to see that loving Veronica and loving someone new were things that could peacefully co-exist, LJ wanted him to be happy, because, “Dad, what is the point of everything that’s happened if you’re not happy?”
LJ had graduated from college the year before and then applied to law school; Lincoln had been drunk for a week straight, not because he was celebrating LJ’s achievements, but because the words law school had the same effect that her last recorded words, left on Nick Savrinn’s answering machine, led us to Blackfoot, Montana, and found in three separate garbage bags, and oh, that apartment had to be reconstructed after an explosion destroyed it had. The last item, which the building Super had told him when Lincoln had found himself outside her old apartment, staring up at it stupidly, the same place she’d lived ever since she’d returned to Chicago from Texas, knocked him nearly senseless. He’d never realized how close to dying she’d come before she made that last reckless journey to Montana. He’d even had several hours of being flat out pissed at her for taking so many risks for him-for someone so completely unworthy of her sacrifice, but in a short amount of time that anger turned inward for being the unworthy one as opposed to holding her responsible for something she couldn’t know was so much bigger than any of them. If they had had a clue about what they were up against, everything would be so different now.
She’d be here with him, they’d walk through the park together, maybe with a baby in a stroller, the way Michael and Sara sometimes did with their twin girls. They would live in his apartment together, and there would be new pictures up with the old ones; and they’d eat pancakes on Sunday mornings, and LJ would call her with questions about his classes, and they’d make love all night even though they’d been together so long the fire should have long burned out by now.
He knew just what it would be like; he would be happy if that’s how it was.
By the time he got back to his place, he’d passed by a liquor store, stocked up, and had a very finite plan for the next few hours. He would drink to the memory of Veronica, jack off thinking about her, and undoubtedly pass out some place other than his bed. Tomorrow he’d feel like shit, but at least he’d really have a reason to feel like it, not just live the same day over and over again.
The fact that a blonde woman leaned against his door waiting for him startled him almost as much as it pissed him off. Clutching the brown paper bag in his fist tightly, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
She took the question just like she had his head butt when he’d first met her almost five years ago-stoically and with a brief flare of anger in her blue eyes. “Nice to see you, too, Lincoln,” she said dryly, pushing off the door with one booted foot. “Going to invite me in, or is that bag a one-man party?” She nodded towards his white knuckles, which caused him to relax his hand so he didn’t look quite as pathetic as he felt.
He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and then moved past her to unlock the door. He didn’t want to invite her in. Today was not a day for company, and especially not company he normally couldn’t keep his hands off of. But he said, “Come on in,” even though he didn’t want to, and Jane followed him inside, even though he knew she knew he didn’t want her too.
He set the paper bag down on the kitchen table and moved into the living room, catching her eye over his shoulder as he went. “What brings you to town?” he asked, gesturing towards his sofa before leaning down to scoop up the crap that lay there, dirty socks, a car magazine and an email from LJ that Michael had printed out and given to Lincoln.
“You,” she answered tersely, the truth of her words beating at Lincoln’s senses.
He threw the crap from the sofa onto the coffee table, but then Jane sat down on the EZ-Boy chair anyway, which further irritated Lincoln. He didn’t know why, but he wanted her to sit on the sofa next to him. He just lifted his eyebrows at her, in response to her answer to his question. A faintly challenging look crossed her face, and he thought that maybe if she’d still been standing, she might have head-butted him for the hell of it. Finally flopping down on to the now-clean sofa, he still didn’t say anything; she had come to see him, she had an agenda. His only agenda was intended for when he was alone, and he wasn’t going to start drinking until he got rid of her.
“Today’s a pretty big anniversary,” Jane said, all pretense gone from her face. She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “You shouldn’t be alone today.”
“So Michael sent for reinforcements, huh?” Lincoln asked. He’d told his brother, his brother’s wife, and his son that he didn’t need them to hold his hand through anything. He was perfectly fine on his own. On his own being the key words.
Jane blinked, and shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to your brother,” she said. “I came here on my own.”
There were those words again. On my own.
“I just wanted to see you. See how you were,” she clarified.
“Well, you’ve seen me. How do I look?” he asked, smirking at her.
“Like shit, but that’s not surprising,” she responded, her gaze moving over his face, which was shrouded in stubble, then dropping to the grungy t-shirt and jeans he’d thrown on before he walked to the cemetery.
Lincoln tensed, and dug deep for the quickest route to being alone. “Look, if you came here to fuck me, get on with it or get out.”
Jane actually snorted. Then she laughed out loud. Then as she sat back on the chair, she lifted a leg so that it hooked around the leg of his coffee table, yanking it towards herself before planting her feet on it. “You’re trying to be funny? That’s so unlike you, Lincoln.”
Now that he was being teased, his anger flared to full potency. “No, I’m not kidding. I’m serious. Strip or leave, it’s your choice.”
Jane shook her head, still laughing. “No, I’m thinking you have to be kidding, because who in the world would want to fuck a self-pitying drunk wearing clothes from 1999?”
“Okay, that’s it,” he said, standing up. He moved over to her and grabbed her by the arm. “Get out of here. I don’t want you here, and I can’t really figure out why you’d want to be here either. Time to go.” He hoisted her out of the chair and pushed her towards the front door, but she spun out of his grasp, evaded him and planted her feet in such a way that he braced himself, waiting for the first blow to land. He even saw her hands clench, fists prepared to batter him. Suddenly, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather feel right then, someone beating the holy shit out of him, someone who could bring his pain level from the inside out. When he reached up and slapped her face with his open hand, he hadn’t even thought about it.
It wasn’t a hard slap, it wasn’t even a slap, really; it was more like his fingers spread wide against her jaw and then his hand shoving her face the side. But her arm flew up, blocking the move, and she twisted until she had him in a half nelson and then she jerked him back, laying him flat out on the living room floor. “You are such a fucking asshole,” she muttered, vaguely breathless. “Why can’t I just let you go?”
Lincoln closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of her pacing away from his prone body. How many times had he asked himself the same question?
“You know what this is, don’t you?” Jane’s voice asked from somewhere above him. “The irony of it? You’re my fucking Veronica, Lincoln. Only you’re not dead, but I wish to hell you were, because if you were dead, maybe I could get over you!” She kicked him then, her foot planting into his side without brute force, but still with enough impact to cause him to grunt because of it.
He reached down, wrapping his hand around her ankle. “There’s no guarantee that would make it better,” he murmured, an expert on that topic.
“Oh, I think it would, I’m not as hard headed as you are.”
“The hell you say, woman.” He tugged on her leg until she sat down next to him. Opening his eyes to look at her-really look at her, he felt something he’d never felt before, or at least not for a very long time, engulf his chest. “You’re the only person I’ve ever head butted that stayed on their feet.”
“I doubt that,” she said softly, as he used his free arm to push himself up into a sitting position.
“It’s true, honest,” he said. Pausing awkwardly, he began, “Jane, look…”
“No, Linc, don’t. This one is all on me. In fact, it’s all, all on me. You’ve made it clear that you don’t want me, but I can’t seem to believe you. Just like you can’t believe Veronica’s dead. You think she’ll just turn up one day, right? Because I have this recurring fantasy where you show up on my doorstep and throw me down and tell me you can’t live without me.” She touched his face gently, skimming her fingers over the rough stubble on his chin. “And you do look like shit, but I don’t care. I love you, anyway.”
Lincoln’s throat closed off with sudden emotion. “Why? Why do you love me?” he asked, choking on the intense need he had to pull her into his arms. It had been so long since he’d felt that-love. Not because people weren’t trying to give it to him, but because until this moment, he’d been incapable of receiving it. He could give out all day to the universe of Veronica, but receiving it in any form was unthinkable.
“Oh, baby, too many reasons,” she said, her fingers brushing against his lips. “Truthfully, a big part of it is your devotion to her. Your insanity is endearing. If only you could love me like that.” She stared at him for a long time, and Lincoln, who had no words, just stared back at her. He wished, quite desperately at that moment, that he could, that he would love her like that. She was here, she was real, and she was everything Veronica had never been. She didn’t take his shit, she didn’t stay when she knew he would never change, she didn’t just forget all the crap he’d done that could never be rectified.
And yet, strangely, the only difference was her approach to things. Ultimately, it was the same; she had been with him just as much, just as strongly as Veronica had these last five years, but now he could actually appreciate it.
He wanted to hold on to her, and beg her not to go, but he had no idea what he had to offer her. Inside five minutes he’d had a reversal of fortune, but it was all too quick for him to know if it would stick or if it was temporary insanity from his long-term insanity.
She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his softly, almost in a motherly way. “I’ll stay here with you if you want me to, help you get through today. If you’d rather settle it with whatever’s in that bag, I’ll leave you to it.” She drew back from him, running her hand from his face down over his chest and before gently squeezing his shoulder she used it to push herself to her feet.
Lincoln looked up at her. She was giving him another chance. Somewhere inside her, there was some Veronica-like vacuum that left him room to get it together.
It was probably the most momentous decision he would ever make.
“Stay,” he said simply. Lifting his hand, he wrapped his fingers around hers and brushed his lips over the soft skin of her knuckles. “Please, stay,” he reiterated.
Jane only nodded, because there were tears in her eyes.