Prison Break fic: A Walk-On Part in the War 15/20
TITLE: A Walk-On Part in the War
RATING: This chapter is rated NC-17.
PAIRINGS: Michael/Alex, Michael/Sara, Lincoln/Jane
SPOILERS: It goes AU immediately after ‘Rendezvous’, but select elements from the rest of the season wound up finding their way into the work, great, sprawling thing that it grew into.
SUMMARY: A conscience is a hard thing to get rid of.
Part Fifteen
Alex continued to stare down at Cameron’s sleeping form for several moments after Tancredi had excused herself into the kitchen. It was barely past sunrise; in Durango, Cameron would have slept for another two hours, at least, before he got up and ran down the hallway towards the living room so that he could watch his cartoons. Maybe he would climb onto the kitchen counters first so that he could make himself a bowl of cereal. It was more likely, though, that he would soon go running down the hallway again and into the master bedroom so that he could take a flying leap into the center of the bed and demand either pancakes or French toast out of his startled and sleepy parents. It had been a long time since Alex had lived in the same house as his family. He wondered if Cameron still did that.
Cameron muttered something in his sleep and rolled over. Alex’s breath caught in his throat, never mind that Tancredi had said that the amount of sleeping that Cameron was doing did not mean that anything was wrong yet. His breath exited his lungs on a long, whistling sigh as Cameron settled down again, and suddenly he could not be in the room any longer. He exited for the nearest hallway, or which the spider’s web of the house thankfully seemed to have plenty.
Alex had been seeking a moment alone in which to deal with his own family issues, certainly not to intrude upon another man’s. He walked into Burrows and his son having an angry conversation with one another and took a reflexive step back, wondering how it was that he had managed to pick the single hallway that was occupied when he had been thinking moments before that he was lucky to be in a house that had more than its fair share. A second later he thought wryly that it was only fair that he be part of everyone else’s family issues, when they all seemed to know the intimate details of his. Alex was giving in to his better instincts and turning to go all the same when Lincoln snarled, in a voice that still carried down the hall, “Absolutely not.” Alex was beginning to understand more and more why Scofield was the mastermind behind the Fox River escape. Burrows’ talents for subtlety and the ability to lie low actually seemed to run into the negative numbers.
LJ was leaning back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, not meeting his father’s eyes. Alex had seen more than a few other angry teenagers standing with that exact posture. Juvenile offenders all, as Alex’s own kid was still small enough that he was much more likely to express his displeasure by throwing himself to the floor.
“I can help,” LJ insisted, even though his defiance was somewhat mitigated by the fact that he was speaking in a low and sullen mumble. His sneakers were probably very impressed; with his head dipped down like that, they were the primary audience.
“By getting yourself arrested again?” Burrows glanced up once, made a face when he saw that Alex was leaning his shoulder against the wall and making no moves to leave, and turned back towards his son. Alex did not take the hint and exit as Burrows clearly wanted him to. “You’re safer here.”
LJ’s head snapped up. “Like I was safer at the last place?” A shrill adolescent note had entered his voice. Alex much preferred the adult to the juvenile offenders, never mind that they’re tended to be much more hope for the juveniles as a whole. “That guy could have killed all of us.”
This was a story that Alex had not heard. He shifted from one foot to the other, his mind going back to Cameron on the living room couch. The boy could not possibly go to Montana with them, but Alex was not about to leave him behind without knowing whether or not he was going to be safe.
Burrows looked up again and let out an angry sigh when he saw that Alex had still not taken himself elsewhere. “You mind giving us a minute here, man?” he growled in Alex’s direction. Burrows’ voice tilted up at the end, but his expression still denied that it was a question. Wasn’t this going to be fun. Alex had six months of Company employ in the back of his head that he could not stop poking at like a sore tooth, a dead wife, and a man that he could still taste. Playing nicely was the last thing on his mind.
“The boy could help,” Alex said, still with his arms folded over his chest and with his body leaning up against the wall. “He’s old enough to make it his fight, too.”
LJ turned and stared hard at Alex, as if stunned to hear that Alex would actually put himself out on a limb from him. “That’s for kicking you against the wall.”
“Oh.” LJ considered for a moment and then gave Alex a sweet smile, born of the sort that only an adolescent could pull forth after being on the verge of a tantrum mere seconds before. “I’m sorry that I punched you with those cuffs.”
Alex’s mouth twitched in spite of himself and in spite of the fact that Burrows looked as if he would not mind putting his fist into it. “Apology accepted.”
“Don’t tell me how to parent my kid,” Burrows said to Alex. He made a short gesture to LJ indicating that his son should go further down the hallway and let the adults speak amongst themselves. For a moment it looked as if LJ was prepared to argue further until he abruptly decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He drifted down the hallway by several yards so that he could cross his arms over his chest and resume glaring down at his shoes. Alex hoped that they were very bit as impressed now as they had been moments before.
Burrows exhaled when he and Alex were alone again. Alex had not known that Burrows was the type who would even attempt anger management, and was duly impressed. That ran into some tarnish when Burrows followed it up by immediately saying afterwards, “I don’t know what you have going on with my brother.” Alex leaned backwards slightly, and Burrows eyeballed him. “Yeah, that. Michael’s a big boy, that’s his business. I think we can both leave what I’ll do to you if you dick us over implied, you got me?” Burrows offered him a tight, glittering smile. “Your reasons for being in this fight are your business.”
“How generous of you.” Burrows’ bulk, which Alex was at least willing to grant that he did not think Burrows was using to consciously intimidate, caused him to lift his eyebrows as Burrows pushed close.
Burrows barely rolled his eyes. “But this is about my family now. My kid’s not a man,” he told Alex. “Not yet. He’s not going to run into a man’s job before he’s ready.” There was a raw note, not hidden nearly well enough, in his voice that made Alex pulled back. It softened the eager, bitter need to do that was eating him from the inside out, at least for a few seconds, and nearly changed his mind about whether he ought to push forward at all.
“Might be too late for that,” Alex said. He was not thinking about LJ, either, at least entirely; Burrows’ shrewd glance knew it. This whole job would have been a lot easier if Burrows could have only been the complete idiot that he was rumored to be. “But I’ll lay down money that he will last being left behind for about five minutes before he throws your plan out the window and does whatever he wants.” That was a certain family trait, Alex was willing to bet, and had this confirmed for him when Burrows winced. “Finishing up this job doesn’t mean that he’s going to grow into you, either.” A private fear that Alex had not even realized that he had until that moment, that Cameron might grow up to do the same now that the Company had officially placed him within their sights.
It was a spontaneous, uncalculated thing to say, only allowed to slip past Alex’s mouth because he had not slept more than three hours over the previous two nights, and he knew as soon as he spoke that it was a mistake. Burrows’ eyes blazed at the same time that his lips pressed themselves into a line so thin that they nearly disappeared altogether. If he was going to punch Alex in the mouth, then that was going to be the moment. Alex gave a wry thought towards what that would do to the tenuous alliance that no one seemed to know quite what to do with before Burrows flashed Alex a more dangerous smile than any that he had given before. He said, “At LJ’s age, it would not have occurred to me to put my ass one the line for anyone except for Michael or myself at all. He ain’t going to turn out like me.” Burrows didn’t bring Cameron into it, which was nice of him, even though Alex had to admit that he had left that door wide open by bringing up LJ first. Or maybe it was only enlightened self-interest; Alex was so keyed-up that he was not sure what he would have done if Burrows had crossed that line.
“LJ!” Burrows turned and bellowed at such volume that Alex would be amazed if the entire house did not hear him. LJ came back, still wearing that particularly adolescent blend of nervousness and defiance. “I won’t even be over the horizon before you’re running off, will I?” Burrows asked him. When LJ’s response to look down at his shoes again-frankly, Alex thought that Burrows should be heartened that his son was such a bad liar-Burrows sighed from deep within his chest. “Do everything that Jane says.” His tone did not allow any room for LJ to argue with him even if the boy had been so inclined. “Everything. She knows what she’s doing.”
Alex had not actually expected any of his arguments to work, and he blinked. It would appear that Burrows and Jane had a closer bond between them than Alex had guessed, given the level of trust that Burrows was bestowing upon Jane with very little effort on her part. Alex had been expecting a response more along the lines of Burrows telling him to go fuck himself and that he was not going to let LJ out of his sight again until the boy got married and forcibly ejected his father from the limousine so that he could go on his honeymoon.
“Okay,” LJ said, nodding with a little too much eagerness given that he was about to put his life into danger. “Thank you,” he said to Alex.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Alex said in a quiet voice as they headed for the kitchen that seemed to be the house’s principle gathering place.
Burrows closed his hand around Alex’s bicep before he could go more than a few steps. Suddenly it was becoming hard to remember why brawling with allies was such a bad idea in the first place. Alex pinched at bridge of his nose with his free hand and sighed instead. “What?” he asked.
Burrows flashed one of his smiles again. Must hurt a man’s face, smiling that much. “If you fuck over me or my brother, or if you turn on us, they’ll never find your body,” he said.
Alex removed his arm from Burrows’ grasp with a deliberate care. “I thought that you were content to leave that part implied,” he said.
“Suddenly I’m in a different mood,” Burrows said. Alex’s snort turned into a laugh halfway through. It still hurt his throat.
“Fair enough.” Alex looked Burrows in the eye and said calmly, “I won’t convince you that I’m on your side because the goodness of my heart won’t let me be anything else. Once you do murder, you lose the right to make that kind of appeal.” Burrows blinked in surprise. “But the only thing I have left that the Company could hold over me is here. I won’t turn.”
Burrows leaned back, studying Alex for a moment before he nodded. There might have been a kind of respect there, probably because Burrows could not imagine himself doing any differently if LJ had been in Cameron’s place. “So long as we have all of the cards on the table.” Burrows clapped Alex on the shoulder in a way that was hard enough to sting and still not hard enough to make Alex jump. “Welcome to the team.”
Alex had thought that he had crossed that line the day before, but he guessed that it was hard to take anything that a man said seriously when he was also holding a gun close to one’s head. Surely the fact that he had lowered it of his own volition counted for something, though. “Glad to be aboard,” he answered, drier than any martini, before he followed Burrows down to the hall and towards the kitchen. Burrows’ mood was clearly something less than sunshine, and LJ watched him carefully as if he was sure that he was going to be banished back towards a life of safety and boredom at any moment. The glances that he gave Alex when he thought that Alex could not see him suggested that he was not quite sure what to make of his unexpected advocate and was half-waiting for Alex to do an about-face and side with Burrows again.
They reached the kitchen, where most of the house had already gathered and where the final details of the strike were being ironed out. Alex hardly listened to any of them, though the soldier and the agent in both knew that this could prove to be a mistake. He watched Michael instead, watched the way that Scofield-his identity was so slippery to Alex now, so difficult to determine in more ways than one when before it had been so bright and clear-stared back. His face was so still and calm that on anyone else Alex would have said that there was no way for it to be real. Scofield was so different from other men, though, and capable of such a deep and abiding stillness with what seemed like no effort at all that Alex could not be sure. Whatever thoughts were going on behind those clear blue eyes were kept shuttered and for private consumption only, frustrating Alex by being the rare puzzle that he could not crack. He had grown comfortable in this own bisexuality decades before. The men that he had been involved with before his marriage or during the necessary moments when he had sought physical release in the months afterwards had not always possessed that same comfort. If Michael was troubled and wanted it to be over, or if he was the exact opposite and thought that it was just beginning, then he was keeping his own counsel and giving nothing away. Damn him.
Aldo and Jane made the final preparations amongst themselves for the half that was returning to Chicago, and Jane began to leave with Tancredi and LJ close behind her. She was stopped momentarily by Aldo touching at her elbow.
“We’ll probably be done before you are,” Aldo told her. “Wait for my call.”
Jane dipped her head. They left. Scofield watched Tancredi go with the first hint of a crack in the deep calm with which he had covered himself.
“Daddy?” The first sign that Alex had of Cameron being awake was his voice and his hand fisting into the leg of Alex’s pants. He put his hand down onto the top of Cameron’s head and felt how silken his hair still was as Cameron peeped around his thigh at the kitchen’s assembled crowd. He had not been so shy around strangers since he was a toddler.
“Hey, buddy. Did you sleep well?”
“I slept fuzzy.”
“Ah.” Aldo gave Alex a significant look before he inclined his head towards the front door. He might have a point, but hell with him if he thought that Alex was going to leave before he had a chance to say good-bye to his son.
Alex turned and knelt down at Cameron’s level, ignoring the assembled kitchen behind him. Cameron rubbed at the crusts of sleep in the corners of each eye and regarded him with a solemn expression. Alex remembered how Tancredi had told him that it was too early to tell how traumatized Cameron had been by what he had been through, and that the only option would be to get him back into a stable environment as soon as possible. Alex had no problem following that prescription to the letter. As soon as this matter was settled so that he knew that Cameron was not going to be gunned down in the middle of the street for sharing one half of his father’s DNA, Alex’s first order of business was going to be his son.
“Listen, I have to go away for the next couple of days, but I-“ Alex began, only to halt when he felt Cameron go rigid beneath the hands that Alex had placed on his shoulders. “What is it?”
“Mommy said that she might have to go away, too,” Cameron whispered.
Oh, Pam. Alex missed his ex wife so much in that moment that it was a physical ache in his chest, as if some cruel son of a bitch had turned a part of him into lead without informing him first. “I’m going to come back,” Alex told Cameron in a tone that tried to be soothing, only to miss its mark and come out fierce instead. “I’m going to come back, okay? There is just one more thing that I have to do, and then I promise you that I’m going to come back.” Alex could sense that both of the other fathers in the room chose that moment to swiftly look at the floor just as he could sense that Michael was watching him, and he cared about as much for either. He would break every single law of heaven and hell, if that was what it took, in order to keep this promise. The laws of earth were nothing in comparison.
Cameron nodded slowly, though he had transferred his grip from Alex’s pants to the sleeves of his shirt and was hanging on so tightly that Alex was sure that if he stood Cameron would continue to dangle there without slipping an inch. He looked only seconds away from tears.
“These people.” Alex had to pause around a lump that rose in his throat without warning and was not nearly so obedient when it came to departing again. “Ah, these people are going to look after you until I can get back, okay? They’re very nice, and they’re going to make sure that you stay safe.” Cameron looked over at Monica and Ben, his expression dubious. If Alex had been anywhere smiling at that point, his son’s face would have pulled one out of him.
Monica did not strike Alex as a person who had been around anyone under the age of twenty-five since she had been a child herself, but she smiled gamely. Ben knelt down so that he was also on Cameron’s level and said, “Hey, Cameron, do you like computers? Because I have some great games on mine.” Ben noticed Aldo stiffen and added, “All of the security protocols are in place.”
Cameron turned back to his father. The way that his eyebrow quirked up was suddenly, shockingly similar to the way that Pam’s had done the same whenever she was telling Alex, sure, try to tell her another one, maybe I’ll buy that Arizona beach house this time around. Alex had to take a breath and collect himself before he could continue. “See? Everything is going to be fine. I’ll come back in a few days, and then we can go home.”
“But I want to go home now.” The tears that Cameron had stayed in control of until that point spilled over at last. His lower lip came out to match it, and he had begun to shake. “Why do you have to leave?”
Alex pulled Cameron against his chest and held him there while he stroked at his son’s hair with his free hand. Cameron’s shaking lessened. It did not stop altogether. “I know, buddy, I know,” he whispered. “I know you don’t want me to go. I don’t want to know, either. I just have one more thing that I have to do. Then everything can be normal again.” Alex had been promising himself that it would be only one more thing and then everything would be normal again for the past several weeks. He hoped that Cameron believed it more than Alex himself did at this point.
Cameron made a snuffling sound and did not want to let go. Alex had to be the one to end the embrace, and even then Cameron took the hand that Monica held out reluctantly and as if he thought that she really intended to bite him. “I’m going to be back in a few days,” Alex told Cameron. His voice was shaking, and everyone else in the room had averted their eyes. “You have my word.” Cameron nodded, but he still watched Alex go as if he was sure that he would never see him again and wanted to commit every detail to memory. He did not cry, as Alex had expected him to cry, or cling to Alex and beg him not to go. Cameron stood like a small soldier instead, stoic in ways that he certainly had not when Alex had left him last.
Alex hated himself, the universe, and the Company in equal measure as he strode from the house and towards the vehicle that was waiting for them. Michael and his brother were wise; they remained silent, though Alex could still feel Michael watching him.
“It’s best if you don’t make promises that you’re not sure you can keep,” Aldo said to Alex in a low voice. Michael had clearly gotten that intelligence of his from his mother.
Alex wanted to strike out. He said instead in a voice that was every bit as low as Aldo’s, and so much colder, “You don’t know how much I’m willing to do to keep this one.” It was a sentiment that Aldo seemed to understand, for he did not try to speak on the subject again.
Alex was sure that he would have lashed out and figure out how to deal with an enraged Lincoln Burrows after the fact if Michael told him again how sorry he was that things had twisted sideways. When Michael instead only let his hand fall onto Alex’s shoulder for the briefest of seconds before he got into the vehicle, all of the air ran out of Alex’s lungs on a long sigh.
They drove off into the sun. Alex could not stop thinking of desperadoes as they did so, heading for a conflict where the outcome was entirely uncertain.
End Part Fifteen
RATING: This chapter is rated NC-17.
PAIRINGS: Michael/Alex, Michael/Sara, Lincoln/Jane
SPOILERS: It goes AU immediately after ‘Rendezvous’, but select elements from the rest of the season wound up finding their way into the work, great, sprawling thing that it grew into.
SUMMARY: A conscience is a hard thing to get rid of.
Part Fifteen
Alex continued to stare down at Cameron’s sleeping form for several moments after Tancredi had excused herself into the kitchen. It was barely past sunrise; in Durango, Cameron would have slept for another two hours, at least, before he got up and ran down the hallway towards the living room so that he could watch his cartoons. Maybe he would climb onto the kitchen counters first so that he could make himself a bowl of cereal. It was more likely, though, that he would soon go running down the hallway again and into the master bedroom so that he could take a flying leap into the center of the bed and demand either pancakes or French toast out of his startled and sleepy parents. It had been a long time since Alex had lived in the same house as his family. He wondered if Cameron still did that.
Cameron muttered something in his sleep and rolled over. Alex’s breath caught in his throat, never mind that Tancredi had said that the amount of sleeping that Cameron was doing did not mean that anything was wrong yet. His breath exited his lungs on a long, whistling sigh as Cameron settled down again, and suddenly he could not be in the room any longer. He exited for the nearest hallway, or which the spider’s web of the house thankfully seemed to have plenty.
Alex had been seeking a moment alone in which to deal with his own family issues, certainly not to intrude upon another man’s. He walked into Burrows and his son having an angry conversation with one another and took a reflexive step back, wondering how it was that he had managed to pick the single hallway that was occupied when he had been thinking moments before that he was lucky to be in a house that had more than its fair share. A second later he thought wryly that it was only fair that he be part of everyone else’s family issues, when they all seemed to know the intimate details of his. Alex was giving in to his better instincts and turning to go all the same when Lincoln snarled, in a voice that still carried down the hall, “Absolutely not.” Alex was beginning to understand more and more why Scofield was the mastermind behind the Fox River escape. Burrows’ talents for subtlety and the ability to lie low actually seemed to run into the negative numbers.
LJ was leaning back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, not meeting his father’s eyes. Alex had seen more than a few other angry teenagers standing with that exact posture. Juvenile offenders all, as Alex’s own kid was still small enough that he was much more likely to express his displeasure by throwing himself to the floor.
“I can help,” LJ insisted, even though his defiance was somewhat mitigated by the fact that he was speaking in a low and sullen mumble. His sneakers were probably very impressed; with his head dipped down like that, they were the primary audience.
“By getting yourself arrested again?” Burrows glanced up once, made a face when he saw that Alex was leaning his shoulder against the wall and making no moves to leave, and turned back towards his son. Alex did not take the hint and exit as Burrows clearly wanted him to. “You’re safer here.”
LJ’s head snapped up. “Like I was safer at the last place?” A shrill adolescent note had entered his voice. Alex much preferred the adult to the juvenile offenders, never mind that they’re tended to be much more hope for the juveniles as a whole. “That guy could have killed all of us.”
This was a story that Alex had not heard. He shifted from one foot to the other, his mind going back to Cameron on the living room couch. The boy could not possibly go to Montana with them, but Alex was not about to leave him behind without knowing whether or not he was going to be safe.
Burrows looked up again and let out an angry sigh when he saw that Alex had still not taken himself elsewhere. “You mind giving us a minute here, man?” he growled in Alex’s direction. Burrows’ voice tilted up at the end, but his expression still denied that it was a question. Wasn’t this going to be fun. Alex had six months of Company employ in the back of his head that he could not stop poking at like a sore tooth, a dead wife, and a man that he could still taste. Playing nicely was the last thing on his mind.
“The boy could help,” Alex said, still with his arms folded over his chest and with his body leaning up against the wall. “He’s old enough to make it his fight, too.”
LJ turned and stared hard at Alex, as if stunned to hear that Alex would actually put himself out on a limb from him. “That’s for kicking you against the wall.”
“Oh.” LJ considered for a moment and then gave Alex a sweet smile, born of the sort that only an adolescent could pull forth after being on the verge of a tantrum mere seconds before. “I’m sorry that I punched you with those cuffs.”
Alex’s mouth twitched in spite of himself and in spite of the fact that Burrows looked as if he would not mind putting his fist into it. “Apology accepted.”
“Don’t tell me how to parent my kid,” Burrows said to Alex. He made a short gesture to LJ indicating that his son should go further down the hallway and let the adults speak amongst themselves. For a moment it looked as if LJ was prepared to argue further until he abruptly decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He drifted down the hallway by several yards so that he could cross his arms over his chest and resume glaring down at his shoes. Alex hoped that they were very bit as impressed now as they had been moments before.
Burrows exhaled when he and Alex were alone again. Alex had not known that Burrows was the type who would even attempt anger management, and was duly impressed. That ran into some tarnish when Burrows followed it up by immediately saying afterwards, “I don’t know what you have going on with my brother.” Alex leaned backwards slightly, and Burrows eyeballed him. “Yeah, that. Michael’s a big boy, that’s his business. I think we can both leave what I’ll do to you if you dick us over implied, you got me?” Burrows offered him a tight, glittering smile. “Your reasons for being in this fight are your business.”
“How generous of you.” Burrows’ bulk, which Alex was at least willing to grant that he did not think Burrows was using to consciously intimidate, caused him to lift his eyebrows as Burrows pushed close.
Burrows barely rolled his eyes. “But this is about my family now. My kid’s not a man,” he told Alex. “Not yet. He’s not going to run into a man’s job before he’s ready.” There was a raw note, not hidden nearly well enough, in his voice that made Alex pulled back. It softened the eager, bitter need to do that was eating him from the inside out, at least for a few seconds, and nearly changed his mind about whether he ought to push forward at all.
“Might be too late for that,” Alex said. He was not thinking about LJ, either, at least entirely; Burrows’ shrewd glance knew it. This whole job would have been a lot easier if Burrows could have only been the complete idiot that he was rumored to be. “But I’ll lay down money that he will last being left behind for about five minutes before he throws your plan out the window and does whatever he wants.” That was a certain family trait, Alex was willing to bet, and had this confirmed for him when Burrows winced. “Finishing up this job doesn’t mean that he’s going to grow into you, either.” A private fear that Alex had not even realized that he had until that moment, that Cameron might grow up to do the same now that the Company had officially placed him within their sights.
It was a spontaneous, uncalculated thing to say, only allowed to slip past Alex’s mouth because he had not slept more than three hours over the previous two nights, and he knew as soon as he spoke that it was a mistake. Burrows’ eyes blazed at the same time that his lips pressed themselves into a line so thin that they nearly disappeared altogether. If he was going to punch Alex in the mouth, then that was going to be the moment. Alex gave a wry thought towards what that would do to the tenuous alliance that no one seemed to know quite what to do with before Burrows flashed Alex a more dangerous smile than any that he had given before. He said, “At LJ’s age, it would not have occurred to me to put my ass one the line for anyone except for Michael or myself at all. He ain’t going to turn out like me.” Burrows didn’t bring Cameron into it, which was nice of him, even though Alex had to admit that he had left that door wide open by bringing up LJ first. Or maybe it was only enlightened self-interest; Alex was so keyed-up that he was not sure what he would have done if Burrows had crossed that line.
“LJ!” Burrows turned and bellowed at such volume that Alex would be amazed if the entire house did not hear him. LJ came back, still wearing that particularly adolescent blend of nervousness and defiance. “I won’t even be over the horizon before you’re running off, will I?” Burrows asked him. When LJ’s response to look down at his shoes again-frankly, Alex thought that Burrows should be heartened that his son was such a bad liar-Burrows sighed from deep within his chest. “Do everything that Jane says.” His tone did not allow any room for LJ to argue with him even if the boy had been so inclined. “Everything. She knows what she’s doing.”
Alex had not actually expected any of his arguments to work, and he blinked. It would appear that Burrows and Jane had a closer bond between them than Alex had guessed, given the level of trust that Burrows was bestowing upon Jane with very little effort on her part. Alex had been expecting a response more along the lines of Burrows telling him to go fuck himself and that he was not going to let LJ out of his sight again until the boy got married and forcibly ejected his father from the limousine so that he could go on his honeymoon.
“Okay,” LJ said, nodding with a little too much eagerness given that he was about to put his life into danger. “Thank you,” he said to Alex.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Alex said in a quiet voice as they headed for the kitchen that seemed to be the house’s principle gathering place.
Burrows closed his hand around Alex’s bicep before he could go more than a few steps. Suddenly it was becoming hard to remember why brawling with allies was such a bad idea in the first place. Alex pinched at bridge of his nose with his free hand and sighed instead. “What?” he asked.
Burrows flashed one of his smiles again. Must hurt a man’s face, smiling that much. “If you fuck over me or my brother, or if you turn on us, they’ll never find your body,” he said.
Alex removed his arm from Burrows’ grasp with a deliberate care. “I thought that you were content to leave that part implied,” he said.
“Suddenly I’m in a different mood,” Burrows said. Alex’s snort turned into a laugh halfway through. It still hurt his throat.
“Fair enough.” Alex looked Burrows in the eye and said calmly, “I won’t convince you that I’m on your side because the goodness of my heart won’t let me be anything else. Once you do murder, you lose the right to make that kind of appeal.” Burrows blinked in surprise. “But the only thing I have left that the Company could hold over me is here. I won’t turn.”
Burrows leaned back, studying Alex for a moment before he nodded. There might have been a kind of respect there, probably because Burrows could not imagine himself doing any differently if LJ had been in Cameron’s place. “So long as we have all of the cards on the table.” Burrows clapped Alex on the shoulder in a way that was hard enough to sting and still not hard enough to make Alex jump. “Welcome to the team.”
Alex had thought that he had crossed that line the day before, but he guessed that it was hard to take anything that a man said seriously when he was also holding a gun close to one’s head. Surely the fact that he had lowered it of his own volition counted for something, though. “Glad to be aboard,” he answered, drier than any martini, before he followed Burrows down to the hall and towards the kitchen. Burrows’ mood was clearly something less than sunshine, and LJ watched him carefully as if he was sure that he was going to be banished back towards a life of safety and boredom at any moment. The glances that he gave Alex when he thought that Alex could not see him suggested that he was not quite sure what to make of his unexpected advocate and was half-waiting for Alex to do an about-face and side with Burrows again.
They reached the kitchen, where most of the house had already gathered and where the final details of the strike were being ironed out. Alex hardly listened to any of them, though the soldier and the agent in both knew that this could prove to be a mistake. He watched Michael instead, watched the way that Scofield-his identity was so slippery to Alex now, so difficult to determine in more ways than one when before it had been so bright and clear-stared back. His face was so still and calm that on anyone else Alex would have said that there was no way for it to be real. Scofield was so different from other men, though, and capable of such a deep and abiding stillness with what seemed like no effort at all that Alex could not be sure. Whatever thoughts were going on behind those clear blue eyes were kept shuttered and for private consumption only, frustrating Alex by being the rare puzzle that he could not crack. He had grown comfortable in this own bisexuality decades before. The men that he had been involved with before his marriage or during the necessary moments when he had sought physical release in the months afterwards had not always possessed that same comfort. If Michael was troubled and wanted it to be over, or if he was the exact opposite and thought that it was just beginning, then he was keeping his own counsel and giving nothing away. Damn him.
Aldo and Jane made the final preparations amongst themselves for the half that was returning to Chicago, and Jane began to leave with Tancredi and LJ close behind her. She was stopped momentarily by Aldo touching at her elbow.
“We’ll probably be done before you are,” Aldo told her. “Wait for my call.”
Jane dipped her head. They left. Scofield watched Tancredi go with the first hint of a crack in the deep calm with which he had covered himself.
“Daddy?” The first sign that Alex had of Cameron being awake was his voice and his hand fisting into the leg of Alex’s pants. He put his hand down onto the top of Cameron’s head and felt how silken his hair still was as Cameron peeped around his thigh at the kitchen’s assembled crowd. He had not been so shy around strangers since he was a toddler.
“Hey, buddy. Did you sleep well?”
“I slept fuzzy.”
“Ah.” Aldo gave Alex a significant look before he inclined his head towards the front door. He might have a point, but hell with him if he thought that Alex was going to leave before he had a chance to say good-bye to his son.
Alex turned and knelt down at Cameron’s level, ignoring the assembled kitchen behind him. Cameron rubbed at the crusts of sleep in the corners of each eye and regarded him with a solemn expression. Alex remembered how Tancredi had told him that it was too early to tell how traumatized Cameron had been by what he had been through, and that the only option would be to get him back into a stable environment as soon as possible. Alex had no problem following that prescription to the letter. As soon as this matter was settled so that he knew that Cameron was not going to be gunned down in the middle of the street for sharing one half of his father’s DNA, Alex’s first order of business was going to be his son.
“Listen, I have to go away for the next couple of days, but I-“ Alex began, only to halt when he felt Cameron go rigid beneath the hands that Alex had placed on his shoulders. “What is it?”
“Mommy said that she might have to go away, too,” Cameron whispered.
Oh, Pam. Alex missed his ex wife so much in that moment that it was a physical ache in his chest, as if some cruel son of a bitch had turned a part of him into lead without informing him first. “I’m going to come back,” Alex told Cameron in a tone that tried to be soothing, only to miss its mark and come out fierce instead. “I’m going to come back, okay? There is just one more thing that I have to do, and then I promise you that I’m going to come back.” Alex could sense that both of the other fathers in the room chose that moment to swiftly look at the floor just as he could sense that Michael was watching him, and he cared about as much for either. He would break every single law of heaven and hell, if that was what it took, in order to keep this promise. The laws of earth were nothing in comparison.
Cameron nodded slowly, though he had transferred his grip from Alex’s pants to the sleeves of his shirt and was hanging on so tightly that Alex was sure that if he stood Cameron would continue to dangle there without slipping an inch. He looked only seconds away from tears.
“These people.” Alex had to pause around a lump that rose in his throat without warning and was not nearly so obedient when it came to departing again. “Ah, these people are going to look after you until I can get back, okay? They’re very nice, and they’re going to make sure that you stay safe.” Cameron looked over at Monica and Ben, his expression dubious. If Alex had been anywhere smiling at that point, his son’s face would have pulled one out of him.
Monica did not strike Alex as a person who had been around anyone under the age of twenty-five since she had been a child herself, but she smiled gamely. Ben knelt down so that he was also on Cameron’s level and said, “Hey, Cameron, do you like computers? Because I have some great games on mine.” Ben noticed Aldo stiffen and added, “All of the security protocols are in place.”
Cameron turned back to his father. The way that his eyebrow quirked up was suddenly, shockingly similar to the way that Pam’s had done the same whenever she was telling Alex, sure, try to tell her another one, maybe I’ll buy that Arizona beach house this time around. Alex had to take a breath and collect himself before he could continue. “See? Everything is going to be fine. I’ll come back in a few days, and then we can go home.”
“But I want to go home now.” The tears that Cameron had stayed in control of until that point spilled over at last. His lower lip came out to match it, and he had begun to shake. “Why do you have to leave?”
Alex pulled Cameron against his chest and held him there while he stroked at his son’s hair with his free hand. Cameron’s shaking lessened. It did not stop altogether. “I know, buddy, I know,” he whispered. “I know you don’t want me to go. I don’t want to know, either. I just have one more thing that I have to do. Then everything can be normal again.” Alex had been promising himself that it would be only one more thing and then everything would be normal again for the past several weeks. He hoped that Cameron believed it more than Alex himself did at this point.
Cameron made a snuffling sound and did not want to let go. Alex had to be the one to end the embrace, and even then Cameron took the hand that Monica held out reluctantly and as if he thought that she really intended to bite him. “I’m going to be back in a few days,” Alex told Cameron. His voice was shaking, and everyone else in the room had averted their eyes. “You have my word.” Cameron nodded, but he still watched Alex go as if he was sure that he would never see him again and wanted to commit every detail to memory. He did not cry, as Alex had expected him to cry, or cling to Alex and beg him not to go. Cameron stood like a small soldier instead, stoic in ways that he certainly had not when Alex had left him last.
Alex hated himself, the universe, and the Company in equal measure as he strode from the house and towards the vehicle that was waiting for them. Michael and his brother were wise; they remained silent, though Alex could still feel Michael watching him.
“It’s best if you don’t make promises that you’re not sure you can keep,” Aldo said to Alex in a low voice. Michael had clearly gotten that intelligence of his from his mother.
Alex wanted to strike out. He said instead in a voice that was every bit as low as Aldo’s, and so much colder, “You don’t know how much I’m willing to do to keep this one.” It was a sentiment that Aldo seemed to understand, for he did not try to speak on the subject again.
Alex was sure that he would have lashed out and figure out how to deal with an enraged Lincoln Burrows after the fact if Michael told him again how sorry he was that things had twisted sideways. When Michael instead only let his hand fall onto Alex’s shoulder for the briefest of seconds before he got into the vehicle, all of the air ran out of Alex’s lungs on a long sigh.
They drove off into the sun. Alex could not stop thinking of desperadoes as they did so, heading for a conflict where the outcome was entirely uncertain.
End Part Fifteen