Feliz Navidad - Michael/Sara
Title: Feliz Navidad (1/1)
Fandom: Prison Break
Genre: Alternate Universe
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows, LJ Burrows, Jane Phillips
Pairing: Michael/Sara, Lincoln/Jane
Length: 8,895 words
Rating: Meanders from G to R, if you know what I mean.
Summary: Christmas is a time when you get homesick, even when you’re at home.
Author's Note:Written for the Holiday Hijinks Challenge at pbhiatus_fic. Part of the Full Circle series, it takes place between the 'end' and 'epilogue' of Safe House and a short time after Sleeping with Ghosts. Anyone who doesn't know what a Christmas cracker is can click here. Many thanks to sarah_scribbles for the Christmas cheerleading and the naughty chatter about mp3 players and to mrs_spleen for not minding that I'm an accidental storyline stealer because she is ace. Happy holiday wishes to all of you, and a very special thank you to the lovely people who have read my scribblings this year. I appreciate you more than I can say.
Christmas is a time when you get homesick, even when you’re at home. ~ Carol Nelson
~*~
It’s the week before Christmas when he starts to dream about his mother and stepfather again.
Maybe it’s because all the talk of Christmas has made him long for his mother with a hunger that hollows out his gut. Maybe it’s seeing his Dad with Jane during her increasingly frequent visits, smiling and laughing as though nothing bad has ever happened to any of them. Maybe it’s his uncle’s talk of turkeys and decorations and fireworks, or Sara’s subtle inquiries as to exactly which scooter he’d coveted earlier in the year.
Maybe it’s because he’s still afraid it’s his fault that his mother and Adrian are dead.
Night after night, he wakes with a jolt in the darkness, his face wet with tears, his heart hammering fast as though he’s still stuck in the middle of the lurid replay in his head. The blood is still soaking through his mother’s blue jacket and her pale gold hair and bursting through Adrian’s chest, just like in a movie. Their mouths are still moving, their last words to him almost identical.
LJ, go!
LJ, get outta here!
He doesn’t tell his father about the dreams. How can he? They’re all here together now, living the life that his Uncle Mike had so painstakingly planned. His dad is happier than LJ can ever remember seeing him and a lot of the time, he feels happy too. He’d even helped his dad build the house where his uncle and Sara live now, just like he had in his dream all those months ago. The rough grain of the wood beneath his fingers felt exactly as he’d imagined it would feel, cool and solid.
Why can’t he still be dreaming about that, he wonders miserably. Why is it only the bad things that his sleeping mind keeps revisiting?
No school until next fall, so he goes surfing every day and works enough hours at the dive shop to grin every time he opens his wallet. He splits his time between their place and the big house - Uncle Mike and Sara’s place - and most of the time, he feels like they’re a family. He’s almost seventeen years old and living five steps away from the beach and he knows he should be happy that he’s safe and far away from the city where he was almost murdered.
He isn’t.
It’s a week until Christmas, and his world is filled with brilliant blue skies and yellow heat, but it’s all wrong. The glittering tinsel is too bright in the Panamanian sun, the words Feliz Navidad niggling at him every time he sees or hears them. He doesn't want sun and the sea. He wants snow and the cold, grey Chicago sky. He wants his mother.
He wants to go home.
~*~
The woman behind the counter of the luggage store gives her a friendly smile as she rings up the small carry-all on the register. “Visiting relatives over the holidays?”
In the middle of reaching for her purse, Jane hesitates, her mind unconsciously analysing the validity of the phrase. “Not exactly,” she finally mutters, and the woman’s cheery expression falters. Feeling an unexpected pang of remorse, she hastily adds, “Friends, actually.”
The saleswoman’s face brightens once more. “Well, sometimes that’s nicer than family, don’t you think?”
Jane hears herself utter something nonsensical about at least being able to choose your friends, then she’s taking her purchase from the woman’s outstretched hand and walking out of the store. It’s only when she’s lost herself in the crowd of milling shoppers that she feels as though she can breathe again.
Nicer than family.
She briefly wonders what the saleswoman would have said if she’d had told her that she’d never had the chance to grow weary of spending time with her family - her John and her Catherine - before they’d been ripped away from her. She allows herself to imagine the shocked discomfort on the woman’s face, then pushes the image away, locking it inside the place in her head where she keeps a tight grip on everything that’s hurt her the most. It’s not that poor woman’s fault that Jane was once stupid enough to believe that serving The Company meant serving her country. Averting her gaze from the lavishly decorated window of the toy store to her right, she heads for the closest coffee bar and orders an espresso she barely sips and a cruller she doesn’t touch.
Come down for the holidays, Lincoln had said a few weeks ago, the low rumble of his voice sliding like warm, dark honey across the phone line. It feels like months since I’ve seen you. The thought of refusing his invitation hadn’t occurred to her, and it’s only now, sitting alone as she watches the families do their Christmas shopping, that she wonders if she’s made the right decision.
She dislikes the holidays. Christmas is a time for families. If you no longer have a family, she thinks as she watches a joyfully hyperactive child dance past at his mother’s heels, what is there to celebrate? She hasn’t acknowledged Christmas since John and Catherine died, making a point of immersing herself in her work every year around this time, something that hasn’t been difficult given her choice of career. But now, for the first time in a very long time, there are no shadows to chase, no lives to save, nothing to distract her from the snow and the carollers and the children and the glittering decorations.
Wrapping her hands around her neglected coffee, she thinks of the slow drive through the thick snow to her empty apartment. Punte Chame will be warm and sunny, and for a moment she imagines she can feel the smooth grit of pale sand beneath her feet. She thinks of Lincoln, how his hands on her always make her forget that she’s spent so many years alone. His passion for her is raw and unashamed, and the depth of her response still manages to shock her every time. She used to be afraid that they were simply living out the cliché of misery loving company, but she knows now that it’s much more than that.
Another family passes by, and Jane finds herself smiling at the fair-haired child holding onto her mother’s hand. Taking a deep breath, she thinks not of everything she’s lost but everything Lincoln’s trying so hard to give her, and she thinks that maybe there’s something to be celebrated, after all.
~*~
“Maybe we should have gone home for Christmas.”
Lincoln blinks as his son’s sudden announcement. “We are home, LJ.”
LJ shrugs. “It’s not Christmas without snow.”
He frowns, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on inside his son’s teenaged head. Four days before Christmas, after six months of apparently being content to call Punte Chame home, LJ seems to have decided here isn’t where he wants to be. “Millions of people celebrate Christmas during summer every year, man.”
“Don’t worry, LJ.” Sara has joined them on the deck, a soda can dangling from her fingers. She’s not working at the clinic this week, and seems to be spending all her free time either cooking or humouring Michael every time he comes up with something else they just have to do or eat or buy this Christmas. “I’m sure Santa will still be able to find you down here.”
Well used to LJ and Sara’s easygoing relationship, Lincoln waits for his son’s smile, but it never comes. He simply shrugs again and picks up his own drink. “Whatever,” he mutters, his face half-hidden by the soda can, and Sara darts a quick glance at Lincoln.
“Uh, I might go see how Michael’s doing with the car?”
When he gives her a grateful nod, she slips away, heading for the carport beside the house where his brother is diligently working on the beat up old car he’d had shipped from Gila soon after they’d come to Panama. Lincoln can’t help thinking that the atmosphere on the deck must be particularly thick for her to willingly hang out in the carport. More than once he’s seen her clean the house from top to bottom to avoid helping Michael work on that wreck of a car, something that seems to amuse his brother greatly.
Left alone with his son, he wishes - not for the first time - that teenagers came with a goddamned instruction manual. LJ has never expressed a particular liking for snow, or winter, for that matter. In fact, Lincoln seems to remember a time when his son would cross off the days until summer on a calendar. “What’s up, man?”
“Nothing.”
Recognising LJ’s mulish expression as one he’s seen in his own mirror many times, he swallows his frustrated retort. “Is it about the shop?”
“No.”
He studies his son’s face, searching his memory for some kind of clue hidden in their recent conversations. Coming up with exactly zilch, he presses on, half-wishing that Sara hadn’t bailed on him quite so soon. “Look, I'm sorry I didn't ask you before I asked Jane to come down on Christmas Day.”
Another shrug, another answer in a voice as flat as the blue water of the bay. “I don’t care if she comes down.”
Okay, that’s enough. “LJ.”
His son looks at him with glittering eyes for a long moment, then takes a deep breath, a harsh sigh that sounds as though it’s been dredged up from the soles of his feet. “I miss Mom.”
Lincoln’s heart sinks. It’s been a few months since LJ talked of missing his mother, and while Lincoln knows there’s still a long road ahead, he can’t deny he’d dared to hope that things were getting better. Looking at his son, he knows there’s only one right thing to say, even if it’s not quite the truth. “So do I.”
LJ turns away to stare at the water, dashing his eyes with the back of his hand. “We were going to go skiing this Christmas.”
The misery in his son’s voice has him on his feet and moving to his side, dropping into the chair beside him. “You hate skiing,” he points out gently, and LJ’s face crumples.
“I know,” he mutters thickly. “We had a big fight about it because I said I didn’t want to go.”
“I think I heard about that one,” Lincoln says lightly, feeling as though he’s watching the lit fuse on a stick of dynamite burn down, knowing what’s coming but powerless to stop it. “What was it you called your stepfather? A pencil-necked asswipe?”
LJ looks at him. “Something like that.” His bottom lip trembles, and he suddenly looks five years younger. “I said some bad stuff to Mom, too.”
Lincoln thinks he might be getting closer to the heart of the problem. “Your uncle and I called each other a lot of names back in the day, you know.” He can’t help smiling as he thinks of some of Michael’s more creative insults. “It didn’t mean we didn’t still love each other.”
LJ’s face tightens, and Lincoln feels his smile dissolve. “I didn’t love Adrian, and he died because of me.”
Swearing vividly in his head, Lincoln slides his arm around his son’s shoulders. “None of this is your fault, LJ.” Feeling a silent sob wrack LJ’s frame, he tugs him closer. “Remember all those talks we had with your grandfather?” LJ nods, his face wet with tears. “This crap started long before you were born. Long before I was born.”
“I remember.” LJ doesn’t try to pull away, and Lincoln can’t help being relieved that his kid still isn’t embarrassed to be hugged by his dad in public. “It’s just Christmas and everything, you know?” Letting out a shaky sigh, LJ stares down at the wooden table top. “I’ve been dreaming about her.”
Lincoln’s chest tightens. “I still dream about Vee,” he says softly, and LJ’s surprised gaze comes up to meet his.
“But what about Jane?”
Oh, kid, that’s definitely a question for another time. Inwardly wincing at the thought of explaining to his son the finer details of his relationship with Jane, he squeezes LJ’s shoulder. “Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting the people you’ve had to leave behind, LJ.” Christ, listen to yourself. You sound just like that damned self-help book Sara gave you after Vee’s funeral. Letting his arm fall away from his son’s shoulders, he leans back in his chair, not wanting to make LJ feel like he’s trying to baby him. “What do you want me to do? What would help?”
LJ looks at him. “Can we go back to Chicago for Christmas?”
“No,” he tells him gently, knowing there’s no point in stringing the kid along. Between Michael’s almost obsessive determination to have the perfect Christmas in their new home and the fact that this place actually makes Lincoln feel as though he can finally breathe again, there’s no chance of jumping on a plane to the States.
“Then why bother asking me what I want?” LJ’s gaze narrows - Christ, he looks like his uncle when he does that, Lincoln thinks, and it always seems that he’s on the receiving end - and he reaches out once more, gently touching his son’s shoulder.
“Why do you want to go back to Chicago?”
His son hesitates, scratching at a whorl in the wood of the table top with his thumb nail. “I want to visit Mom and Adrian.”
Lincoln fights the impulse to punch himself in the head. After everything he’d gone through with Veronica’s death, he should have seen this coming. “You want to visit the cemetery.”
LJ nods. “Yeah.”
He puts his hand around his son’s shoulder, surprised by the strength of the muscle and bone beneath his touch. “What if we went after New Year’s instead?”
“Seriously?” LJ’s eyes widen. “We could really go to Chicago?”
His throat closes up like a fist at the hope in his son’s eyes. “Sure.”
“Cool.” LJ smiles properly for the first time in what seems like days, and to Lincoln it feels as though the sun has just risen for the second time that day.
“Don’t mention it.”
~*~
“Okay.” Slamming the cabinet door shut, she puts her hands on her hips and glares into the living room. “Who drank the rum?”
The air seems to grow still at her words, and Sara can’t help thinking of a herd of wild animals suddenly sensing danger. “Which rum would that be, exactly?” Michael asks warily as he wanders over to her side.
She points an exasperated finger at the large bowl of mixed fruit on the kitchen counter. “The bottle of rum I bought to use in the Christmas cooking.”
“Uh-” Michael looks over his shoulder at his brother, and the two men exchange a guilty glance that immediately makes her want to bounce a measuring cup off their heads. “That might have been us last weekend,” Michael finally admits, his hand lazily wandering up and down the length of her spine, as though that might distract her from his confession.
“Great.” Sara shrugs off the hand, suddenly and irrationally furious, ignoring Michael’s faintly wounded expression. “Just great.”
“I’ll go to the liquor store right now if you want.” Lincoln gives her an apologetic smile that would probably have worked on thousands of other women, then sighs loudly when she merely narrows her eyes at him. Picking up his car keys from the bowl on the sideboard, he looks at them both in turn. “Anyone want anything else while I’m out?”
“Just the rum will be fine,” she mutters, feeling as though her jaw is in danger of becoming permanently clenched.
Silence reigns supreme in the kitchen until they hear the sound of Lincoln’s car reversing up the long driveway. As soon as they’re officially alone, Michael puts both hands flat on the counter and looks at her with such an expression of tender concern that she doesn’t know whether to kiss him or go with her original plan of throwing something.
“Are you okay?”
“No.” She swipes her damp forehead with the back of her hand, trying to dislodge several clumps of hair sticking to her skin. “I’m hot and I’m cranky and you guys drank my rum.”
He grins - laughing at her, of course - and she feels her fingers itching with the urge to reach for the measuring cup. “You don’t have to make fruit cake, you know.”
She snorts, a distinctly unladylike noise that makes his grin grow even wider. “As if I wouldn’t,” she says shortly. “You’ve been talking about it for the last three weeks.”
Michael’s latest Plan had begun the day after Thanksgiving, and it had quickly become clear that he was intent on creating the perfect Christmas, something that had proven to be quite draining for the rest of them. She’d thought she was used to his obsessive habit of planning everything down to the most minute of details, but it seemed that the holiday season had the effect of kicking it into high gear. There is a frozen turkey in their freezer, the crisper is groaning with vegetables to be roasted (not exactly her ideal menu in this heat) and the greenery in the corner of the living room is taller than any tree she remembers from her childhood in the Governor’s mansion.
The sight of the tree never fails to send a hollow pang of longing through her. She and her father may have fought tooth and nail over every Christmas lunch, but she misses him so much that it feels like a physical ache. She always thinks of her mother this time of year, but it’s so much worse now, and she understands why Michael feels the need to make this celebration special. It doesn’t stop her from feeling as though she’s trying to please everyone but herself, though, and she’s spent the last few days teetering on the edge of a genuine, full-blown tantrum.
“Will three days be enough time to soak the fruit?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes.”
He picks a currant out of the bowl of fruit, grinning as she pretends to smack his hand away. “My mom used to do it a few weeks before Christmas-”
Catching sight of her face, he breaks off abruptly, comprehension dawning in his eyes with a speed that reminds her why she loves him the way she does. He’s mentioned his mother several times over the last few weeks, dropped into casual conversation that’s not really casual. God knows she knows why, but she has no desire to take her place in this family’s life, and his faintly horrified expression tells her that he knows that as well as she does. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m not trying to turn you into my mother, I swear.”
He’s so very earnest in his anxiety to explain himself, and she can’t help smiling. “I know.” She shoots him a grin, the tension stiffening her shoulders easing. What she shares with this man is worth any number of irritable squabbles. “Although that might explain the urge I’ve had to spank you and send you to your room lately.”
He laughs, his palm warm on the back of her neck as he bends his head to hers, his mouth smilingly hovering over her lips. “That should sound ten kinds of wrong, you know.”
“Hmmm.”
He brushes his mouth against hers, a maddeningly light touch that’s just enough to make her shift towards him, wanting more. “Just out of curiosity, how many times have you wanted to kill me this week?”
“Are we counting today?”
He kisses her then, hard and fast, leaving her breathless and smiling. “I withdraw the question.”
Her pulse dancing madly, she picks a glace cherry out of the bowl of mixed fruit and pops it into her mouth, scrunching up her nose at the unexpected sticky crunch on her tongue. “Who invented these things?”
“I have no idea,” he murmurs, watching her face. “Sara, do you even like fruit cake?”
“No.”
“So why are you making it?”
She smiles at him. Lincoln had once told her that his brother was ‘a fucking genius, but there were a lot of things he still had to learn’. She’d believed him then, and she believes him now. “I’m making it because you and Lincoln and LJ like it.”
His whole face softens, his eyes glowing, and she briefly wonders if she ever looks like that when she’s watching him. “What else are you making that you don’t like?”
“Nothing.” She grins. “I might be a generous hostess, but I’m not an idiot.”
"Definitely not." His hand is still curled around the back of her neck, and she feels his fingers trace the halter strap of the swimsuit top she’s wearing beneath her t-shirt. “Come for a swim.”
She looks through the open French doors at the blue water that borders their world, then at her to-do list on the refrigerator. His gaze following the line of hers, he shakes his head. “Forget about that.”
It’s the best idea she’s heard all day, but for some reason she feels the need to put up at least the illusion of a fight. “What about Lincoln?”
“I’ll leave him a note.”
Five minutes later, she’s diving beneath the cool, clear water of the bay, a welcome shiver prickling her heated skin, and coming up into the waiting circle of Michael’s arms. Wrapping her arms around him, she savours the soothing rhythm of his heart against hers, the way he holds her steady against the ebb and flow of the waves. “I still love you,” she murmurs against his throat, tasting both the salt of the sea and the salt of his skin, “even though you did drink my rum.”
His chuckle hums through her body, warming her like the sun. “I’m very pleased to hear it.”
Two days later, he holds her steady once more, this time on dry land. He comes with her to the midnight church service on Christmas Eve, chastely holding her hand as they sit in the back pew. The scent of incense fills the air, and while the sound of the children’s choir singing carols makes her eyes fill with tears, it’s the lighting of candles for the dead that almost proves her undoing.
Closing her eyes, she remembers her parents, the tight clasp of Michael’s hand around hers telling her that she’s not alone in her sorrow. When the service is over, they slip out of the church in silence, not speaking until they reach their car. Her hand still in his, she turns to him as he pulls the car keys from his pocket. “Thank you.”
His vivid eyes look very dark in the half-light. “For what?”
She looks at him, knowing that while there are many things she regrets, he will never be one of them. “Everything.”
His hand tightens around hers. “It’s my pleasure.”
They sleep extremely late the next morning, scrambling to find the time to shower and dress before Lincoln and LJ arrive for lunch. “Hope you didn’t buy me anything embarrassing,” she mutters to Michael as she gives their visitors a cheery wave from the deck. “I’d hate to give your brother and nephew an eyeful of saucy lingerie.”
He gives her a slow smile that starts a small glow in the pit of her stomach. “I’ll go hide those ones, shall I?”
A few minutes later, she’s kissing Lincoln hello and hugging his son. LJ’s hair is still damp from the surf, cool against her cheek. Noticing his brand new t-shirt and boardshorts, she teasingly mentions Santa once more, and he gives her a sheepish grin. “Yeah, he totally figured out my new address.”
She studies him carefully, thinking of the tense conversation into which she’d stumbled a few days earlier. “Everything okay?”
He nods, his gaze looking clearer than it has for days. “Yeah.” He glances quickly at his father, then back at her. “We’re good.”
Planning to pick Jane up from the airport later that afternoon, Lincoln waves away Michael’s offer of a beer, rolling his eyes at LJ’s offer to pick up the slack and drink it for him. With Jane not arriving until dinner, lunch is a simple affair consisting of barbecued seafood and fresh fruit. Much to Sara’s relief, Michael had taken over much of the food preparation after her mini-meltdown over the rum, banishing her from the kitchen on several occasions. Sipping the non-alcoholic sangria he seems to be able to make in his sleep these days, she gazes at the white sand and blue water just beyond the deck and marvels at the difference that a year makes.
Halfway through lunch, Michael reaches for one of the Christmas crackers scattered in the middle of the table. Sara had ordered them online, unable to resist the temptation of adding a small piece of her own childhood to this new eclectic life of theirs. Her mother had always insisted on having them at Christmas time and, after her death, Sara and her father had found themselves buying them by unspoken agreement, one of the rare occasions on which they were in perfect accord.
Dangling a bright red cracker from his fingers, Michael shoots a look of challenge across the table at his brother. “Try your luck?”
Lincoln looks amused, but makes no effort to take the other end of the cracker. “As if.”
Michael gives him a knowing smile, then promptly finds a willing participant in LJ. A few seconds later, after a loud crack and the scattering of glitter, Michael promptly hands his winning half to LJ. “Here, you can have it.”
LJ unfolds a gaudy purple paper crown and studies it doubtfully. “Uh, thanks.”
As Lincoln snickers, Sara hears the unmistakable sound of Michael’s cell phone ringing from inside the house. “Be right back.”
When Michael slips through the open French doors into the living room, Sara looks at Lincoln. “Okay. What’s the story with the crackers?”
Lincoln grins. “When Michael was nine, we were fostered with an English family for six months.” He glances towards the door where Michael had vanished. “Spent Christmas with them.”
He picks up another cracker and flips it into the air, catching it before it hits the table. “It took Michael about five minute to work out exactly the right way to hold the damned thing so that he always won.” He points to the torn cracker on the table in front of LJ. “Obviously he hasn’t lost his touch.”
Grinning, Sara reaches out and plucks the cracker from his hand. “But he and I were joking around with these things last night.” She feels heat creep up the back of her neck, remembering the sensation of a smooth paper crown being trailed over her bare skin, then hastily clears her throat. “I won twice.”
Lincoln smirks. “Well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, Doc, but I think my brother might have a crush on you.”
She’s still blushing when Michael reappears, cell phone in his hand, his smile reaching from ear to ear. “It’s Dad,” he announces to the room at large, then hands the phone to Lincoln.
As Lincoln speaks to his father, Michael slides back into his seat beside Sara. “He said he’d like to come down and spend New Year’s Eve with us,” he says as he turns to her, and that’s all he has time to say before she reaches out and curl her hand around the back of his neck, giving him a quick but undeniably thorough kiss. When she pulls away, he’s gazing at her with a wide but faintly dazed smile.
“What was that for?”
“No reason.” Picking up a new cracker, she holds it out to him, grinning, knowing that all the planning in the world can’t prepare you for the best surprises in life. “Best out of three?”
~*~
Wiping the last smear of polish from the chrome fender of the Rambler, Michael sits back on his haunches to admire the effect. When he and Sara had bought this heap from a shonky car yard a lifetime ago, the possibility that he might find himself restoring it to its former glory in a carport a few steps from a Panamanian beach was something he’d never once allowed himself to entertain.
And yet here he is.
Here they are, he amends, catching sight of Sara walking slowly towards the carport, her head down as she watches her bare feet scuff through the sandy grass. Dressed in denim shorts and a pale blue tank top, her bright auburn hair pulled back into a high ponytail, from a distance she looks the same age as the young girls who flirt with LJ over the counter of the dive shop.
He feels a smile spread across his face as he watches her, a faint fluttering of disbelief threading itself through his thoughts. Even now, over three months since she first arrived in Punte Chame, it’s hard to believe that she’s chosen him, that she’s chosen this life. As though feeling his gaze on her, she lifts her head to look at him, one hand raised in a small wave. “Hey.”
He grins at her as she joins him beneath the shaded carport. “To what do I owe this honour?”
She gives him a rueful smile. “Lincoln and LJ are having a moment, I think.”
Knowing that could mean anything from an argument about LJ learning to drive to Lincoln’s habit of not doing the dishes unless company was expected, Michael sighs. Picking up a clean rag from the workbench, he wipes the worst of the grime from his hands. “Want me to evict them from the premises, ma’am?”
She laughs. “No, it’s fine.” Leaning one hip against the workbench, she folds her arms across her chest and studies the Rambler. “Wow, it’s looking really good.”
He manages to suppress the urge to gloat and simply gestures towards the car with a flourish. “Want to take it for a spin?”
Peering through the windscreen to where the steering wheel should be, she looks at him with raised eyebrows, wide mouth curved in a smile. “Maybe later.”
Tossing the rag onto the workbench, he wipes his hands on his battered khaki shorts, feeling sweaty and dusty. “God, it’s hot.”
She gives him a look that speaks volumes. “You think?”
Chuckling under his breath, he curls his hand around her arm, letting his thumb brush the tender skin in the crook of her elbow. “Not exactly a white Christmas in Chicago.”
“No, it’s not.” She shivers a little at his touch on her heated skin, just as he knew she would, then offers him a brilliant smile that impacts in every inch of his body. “But Panama definitely has its charms,” she teases, looking at him as though daring him to ask her to list those charms in bullet point.
The scent of her perfume mingles with the smell of chrome polish, the heat of her skin seeming to pool beneath his touch. He lets his hand slide up her bare arm, smoothing his palm over the delicate curve of her shoulder. “Is that so?”
“Michael!” Lincoln’s shout cuts through the air, and Michael marvels for the umpteenth time at his brother’s uncanny sense of timing.
“What?”
Lincoln and LJ are making their way down to the beach, obviously heading back to their own place. “We’re going for a surf,” Lincoln calls out, then leans across and says something to his son, making him laugh. “Catch you later?”
“Sure.”
As they vanish from sight, he looks at Sara, making no secret of the fact he’d very much like to take advantage of the fact that their constant visitors have made themselves scarce. “Alone at last.”
She rolls her eyes. “God, you’re an optimistic one.” She plucks at her damp tank top, affording him a glimpse of the pale swell of her breasts. “It’s far too hot for those kind of shenanigans, I’m afraid.”
“You’re a doctor,” he tells her, sliding his arm around her waist and drawing her towards the house. “I’m sure you’re well-trained to deal with any ill-effects from heatstroke.”
She laughs, her hand slipping beneath the bottom of his t-shirt to stroke his back even as she starts to demur. “But I’m off duty.”
“You know you can’t use a word like shenanigans and seriously expect me not to have impure thoughts.”
She laughs again, a throaty sound that tells him he’s preaching to the converted. A few minutes later, he’s pulling her into the cool of the house and the pale sanctuary of their bathroom. The shower tiles are slick against his back as she kisses him, the cold spray of water washing away the dust and the heat, and he knows he doesn’t care if he never sees snow again.
The next day, however, he’s almost ready to put forward the suggestion that they cancel Christmas this year. He wants so much for everything to be perfect, and with every passing day, it becomes more apparent that perfection just isn’t going to happen. It’s been a long time since he experienced a family Christmas, but he’s beginning to suspect he may be guilty of the sin of romanticising the past.
The moped he and Sara wanted to buy for LJ is apparently still on a freighter somewhere between Europe and Panama. The temperature soars at exactly the same time that the air-conditioning unit in the main part of the house decides that it's suffering from metal fatigue. LJ and Lincoln are niggling at each other night at day, quarrelling about everything from the hours LJ’s working at the dive shop to the fact that Lincoln didn’t check with his son first before asking Jane to spend Christmas with them.
And then there’s Sara.
For the last month, she’s nodded and smiled every time he's suggested something else they might have for Christmas dinner or brings home yet another string of lights. He knows she’s only doing it to keep the peace, to make him happy, and he can’t help wondering if she’s thinking of all the ways - good and bad - her life has changed since this time last year. She’s comfortable sharing her thoughts with him, but this is one instance where he hesitates to prompt her. Grief is a very strange beast, and while she’s working her way through the loss of her father as best she can, there’s something about the holidays that can make even the smallest pain feel so much sharper.
When she almost loses her cool over a missing bottle of rum, he and Lincoln quickly do what they can to make amends. While his brother heads to the liquor store to replace the rum they’d drunk, Michael convinces Sara to forget the to-do list (the one she’s only following to make him happy, he’s sure of it) and go for a swim instead. It seems that cold water is his solution to everything this week, but he’s not going to argue with results.
The four of them make it through the next two days relatively unscathed by holiday-themed arguments, and Michael starts to think that maybe his plan might just come together after all. He and Sara attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, just the two of them, on a whim more than anything else. He calls Lincoln just after eleven to ask if they’d like to join them, but LJ is already asleep and his brother doesn’t like to leave him alone. He squelches a pang of regret - the last time he and his brother had sat together in a church had been in Fox River - but knowing Lincoln is right where he wants to be, watching out for his son, he smiles and says they’ll see them both in the morning.
The service is simple and heartfelt, the traditional Catholic mass infused with a casual warmth that he often thinks typifies this place they’ve chosen to call home. Sara holds his hand very tightly during the last prayers, smiling through her tears as they light a candle for every soul they’ve lost, and he wonders if she realises her touch is just as much of a comfort to him. There were times when he was so very afraid she would become one of those lost souls, a memory to be mourned for the rest of his life, and the thought of it still has the power to chill his blood.
It’s after one in the morning by the time they return home, but Sara still switches on the Christmas lights he’d painstakingly strung up over the last two weeks. He pours them both a drink, suddenly feeling more awake than he has all day, watching her as she brings out two flat, white boxes from the spare room and puts them on the kitchen counter.
Handing her a club soda, he nods at the boxes. “What are they?”
She grins. “Christmas crackers.”
His jaw feels the sudden urge to drop. “You’re kidding me.”
“No.” She gives him a curious look. “Why?”
Walking to the counter, he trails his fingers along the edge of the cardboard box, trying to remember if he’d ever told her about his childhood obsession with this particular Christmas tradition. “What made you buy these?”
Something dark shimmers in her eyes as she smiles at him. “My mom always liked them.” She looks down at the boxes, then she’s opening one of them and pulling out two of the brightly coloured bonbons. “Want to try your luck?”
He lets her win both times, her delighted grin well worth the effort of suppressing the urge to use his usual technique, knowing that the sight of her laughingly pulling a paper crown over her bright auburn hair will forever be burned in his memory. When she makes to put the second crown on his own head, he takes it from her hand, letting it brush against the pale skin bared by the deep v-neck of her blouse as he touches her face. “Let’s go to bed.”
They make love in the very early hours of Christmas Day, the bedroom windows flung wide open to let in the salt-tinged breeze and the sound of the ocean. Afterwards, the ceiling fan above the bed washes cool air over his sweat-dampened skin, and he falls asleep with the rhythm of Sara’s heartbeat warm against his back, her arm wrapped around his waist.
The next thing he knows are her hands on him once more, but her voice is filled with a different kind of urgency. “Michael.” She’s shaking him awake, sunlight streaming into their bedroom.
“What time is it?”
“Eleven,” she announces as she flings back the sheet and reaches for her bathrobe, “and Linc and LJ will be here in half an hour.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
They barely have time to shower and throw on some clothes by the time the rest of his family arrives, leaving them no chance to exchange gifts in private. Just as he tells himself it doesn’t matter, Sara makes a wisecrack about naughty lingerie, making him smile, and he realises that it really doesn’t matter. They’re all here with him - her and Lincoln and LJ - and that’s a gift he never thought to receive.
His father calls during lunch, and Michael realises with a start that it’s the first time he’s ever had contact with his father on Christmas Day. They talk for a few minutes about Aldo’s plans to visit them for New Year’s Eve, then Michael hands the phone over to Lincoln. Sara seems distracted as he takes his seat beside her, looking as though she’s only half-listening to what he’s saying about Aldo’s intended visit, then she’s kissing him, her mouth soft and warm, her tongue lightly brushing his bottom lip. He gazes at her when she draws away, vaguely conscious of the amused stares from his brother and nephew. “What was that for?”
“No reason.” Smirking, she picks up the Christmas cracker closest to her plate and holds it out to him, her eyes dancing. “Best out of three?”
He glances across the table at his brother. Still talking to their father on the phone, Lincoln’s expression nevertheless manages to convey the news that Michael’s little secret is out. He turns and gives Sara a rueful smile, his hand gently squeezing her knee beneath the table. “There’s just no such thing as a good secret in this family.”
After lunch, they exchange gifts (LJ takes the news about the absent Moped very well, proving he’s capable of seeing the big picture, Michael thinks, amused) and indulge in Sara’s stash of imported chocolates. As drowsiness sets in, he and Lincoln take an unhurried walk on the beach, leaving LJ and Sara bonding over his nephew’s new mp3 player. He watches as Lincoln tries to skim a pebble across the trembling surface of the bay, then clears his throat. “Everything okay with LJ?”
His brother sighs. “It’s Lisa.”
Michael sighs, watching as the water washes over his bare feet, the lingering foam briefly making his left foot look as though it’s still perfectly normal. “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Lincoln considers the question for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, actually.” He looks at Michael. “I’m taking LJ back to Chicago after New Year’s.”
Michael blinks, a sudden chill sweeping through him. He’d taken it for granted that Lincoln and LJ were content to be here. Maybe he’d been wrong. “Uh, for how long?”
His brother is watching the horizon, his gaze narrowed against the glare of the sun. “Maybe a week or so, I don’t know.”
Michael feels his whole body slump with relief. “Right.”
“He wants to visit his mom’s grave.” Lincoln darts a quick look at him. “I thought maybe you and I could do the same.”
Michael frowns, then realises what Lincoln’s trying to say. “You want to visit our mom?”
“Yeah.” Lincoln scuffs his feet through the sand. “What do you think?”
Michael stares at his brother, literally lost for words. They haven’t visited their mother’s grave together for over ten years, and it suddenly occurs to him that no one is immune from wanting to revisit the past at this time of year. Reaching out, he puts his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. “I think that’s a perfect idea.”
Jane’s plane is delayed by two hours. Lincoln calls from the airport thirty minutes after they’re due to have arrived back at the house, and Michael glares at the turkey in the oven as Sara talks to his brother on the phone. “Okay, that’s fine. We’ll see you when you get here.” Gripping Michael’s arm, she pulls him away from his post in front of the oven. “It’s no problem at all, just drive safely, okay?” Flipping the phone shut, she gives Michael a reassuring smile. “Michael, relax.”
“The turkey is done.”
“I know it’s done, I turned off the oven fifteen minutes ago and I’m just about to take it out to rest.”
Her bright smile starts to fray around the edges as she speaks, and he blows out a loud sigh. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” She tosses the oven mitt at him. “But I’ll forgive you as long as you make yourself useful and pull that giant bird out of the oven.”
He does as she requests, his stomach growling indelicately as the smell of roasted meat hits his nostrils. “It looks amazing.”
She looks up from her contemplation of the roast potatoes and parsnips on the lower shelf of the oven. “You sound surprised.”
“Not at all.” He pulls off the oven mitt, then moves to stand behind her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. When he presses a kiss to the top of her head, she leans back against him, her hands coming up to curl around his forearm. “I’ve learned that there aren’t many things you can’t do.”
“Flatterer,” she murmurs laughingly, tilting back her head to rest on his shoulder. “Is it wrong of me to feel as though I’ll be glad when this day is over?”
He grins. “I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel, actually.” Catching sight of the rapidly crisping potatoes through the tinted oven door, he ventures a tentative, “Won’t the vegetables be ruined if they’re-”
“Michael.” Turning in his arms, she puts her hand over his mouth, her voice tinged with exasperated laughter. “Go and sit on the deck with LJ. Take him out a beer, a bowl of peanuts, a packet of pretzels. I don’t care. Just get the hell out of this kitchen.”
He kisses the palm covering his lips, then grins. “If I don’t, will you send me to my room?”
Putting her hands flat on his chest, she pushes him gently in the direction of the deck. “Goodbye, Michael.”
LJ looks at him when he joins him on the deck. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Still grinning, he hands his nephew a light beer, and LJ’s eyes widen.
“Thanks!”
Michael stretches out in a chair across from him. “Don’t get too excited. You’d have to drink a dozen of them before you felt the slightest hint of a buzz.”
“Cool.” Despite the disclaimer, LJ remains impressed. “Sara says that kids younger than me in Europe drink wine at home at the time.”
Michael smiles as he takes a sip of his own beer. “You don’t like wine.”
LJ gives him an injured look, something that quickly vanishes as they fall into an easy conversation about LJ’s grandfather’s plans to visit, and LJ’s hope that they’ll be able to do some serious fishing. Sara joins them a short time later, and the three of them spend a pleasant hour or so talking about everything and nothing, the conversation lazily wandering from one subject to the next. Michael makes an effort not to check his watch or glance towards the driveway any more than necessary, and every time he does, Sara always seems to catch him out.
It’s after eight o’clock when the headlights of Lincoln’s car slice through the darkness. “That’s Dad,” LJ announces needlessly, getting to his feet and waving to Lincoln and Jane as they appear at the end of the driveway.
Wearing a bright red shirt and lipstick to match, her long blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, Jane Phillips looks nothing like the stern operative Michael first met several months ago. “I’m so sorry we’re late,” she apologises as she hugs them all in turn. “The weather in Boston was terrible.” She lightly touches the arm of the man beside her. “I owe Lincoln big time for making him wait so long.”
Lincoln gives her a look that plainly says he would have happily waited another twenty-four in that airport for her, then turns to Michael with a hopeful grin.
“Have we missed dinner? I’m starving, man.”
Michael opens his mouth to reply, only to feel Sara’s foot press down on his. “No, we waited for you,” she says cheerfully. “Why don’t you get Jane a drink, then you can help Michael with the turkey.”
Jane gives them both a complicit grin as she follows Lincoln inside the house, then Michael turns to Sara. “What did you think I was going to say?”
She chuckles. “I don’t know, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Dinner may have been delayed by over two hours, but it’s still close to perfect as far as Michael is concerned. Looking around the table at the faces of the people who mean so much to him, he knows that it doesn’t matter if the food needs to be put in the microwave or he can’t find the Christmas CD he’d bought earlier in the week.
He doesn’t talk much during dinner, content to watch and listen as the others catch up with Jane and discuss their plans for the next day. His hand finds Sara’s beneath the table, and she leans towards him, her shoulder pressed against his. He thinks again of the thick book on South American architecture she’d given him earlier that day, and the urge to snatch another private moment with her takes hold of him. “Thank you for the book,” he murmurs close to her ear, and she flashes him a quick smile.
“You’re welcome.” She glances down at the silver Celtic pendant resting in the hollow between her breasts, the gift he’d had in mind for her ever since she’d told him of her Irish grandparents during one of their late night conversations soon after her arrival in Punte Chame. I’d wondered where the red hair had come from, he’d told her teasingly, immediately filing away the information for later use. “And thank you,” she adds in a low, laughing voice as she touches the pendant, “but where’s my lingerie?”
He knows they’ve only lived together for three months, but he wonders if it’s normal for her to still be able to make him feel like a schoolboy with just a few well-placed words. “I’ve hidden them, remember?”
She laughs, and three pairs of eyes turn to regard them in unison. Recovering with admirable speed, she beams at their guests. “Who wants coffee?”
After coffee and the infamous fruitcake (which is better than anything Michael remembers from his childhood) and Jane promising Sara she’ll call her the following day, the party slowly breaks up. Michael kisses Jane on the cheek and claps LJ on the back, then his brother takes him by surprise by enveloping in him a brief but bruising hug, his voice rough with fatigue and beer. “Thanks, man, for everything.”
Michael feels a sudden sense of déjà vu, thinking of his conversation with Sara outside the church the night before. “You’re welcome.” Lincoln studies him for a moment, as if wanted to make sure they’re on the same page, then slaps him hard enough on the back to leave a stinging handprint.
Laughing, Jane slides her arm around Lincoln’s waist, keeping him steady. “And I’m the one with the jet-lag,” she complains jokingly as they head for the stairs that lead down to the driveway. “It’s a good thing I love you, Burrows.”
Lincoln’s head snaps up, his face split in a broad grin. “You owe me a favour for the ride from the airport, remember?” he shoots back in a teasing voice that tells Michael this is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. He can literally feel Sara bristling with gleeful curiosity beside him, and is very careful not to meet her eyes.
Shaking her head, Jane looks at Michael and Sara. “Thanks for dinner, it was wonderful.”
“You’re very welcome, and good luck,” Michael says with a pointed grin, raising his eyebrows at his brother, who is now telling LJ what sounds like a very bad joke about nuns. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
After watching long enough to see that Jane has successfully commandeered Lincoln’s car keys, they start clearing away the coffee cups and dessert plates, gradually transferring them to the dishwasher, working together in a peaceful, easy silence. When the outdoor table is clean, Sara pulls the French doors shuts and flicks off the light on the deck. “Question?” she says as she follows Michael into the kitchen.
“What?”
“Do you think Lincoln giving LJ an mp3 player the same day Jane comes down to stay is a coincidence?” She slides the last three plates into the dishwasher, then gives him a wicked smile. “You know what the acoustics are like in their place.”
It’s exactly the same thought that had occurred to him, but somehow it sounds so much more obscene coming from Sara’s mouth. “You have a very dirty mind, Doctor Tancredi.”
She laughs, her face turning faintly pink, but she doesn’t deny the accusation. “So, did you have a good day?”
“Of course.” He gazes at her, his hands filled with dirty coffee cups, wondering why she ever feels the need to ask. “I was with you.”
In answer she simply smiles, taking the dishes from his hands and putting them on the side of the sink. He goes to open the dishwasher, and she curls her fingers around his wrist. “Leave them, okay?” She pulls him towards the darkened living room, to where the glittering Christmas tree is glowing beside the long leather couch. “I have a better idea.”
The coloured lights dance over her body as she stretches out on the couch beside him, her pale skin shimmering with all the hues of the rainbow, their clothes lying somewhere on the floor between the bookcase and the tree. “Every tradition has to start somewhere,” she whispers in his ear as his body melts into hers, finding and losing himself in the same heartbeat, and perfection is suddenly easy to find.
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Genre: Alternate Universe
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows, LJ Burrows, Jane Phillips
Pairing: Michael/Sara, Lincoln/Jane
Length: 8,895 words
Rating: Meanders from G to R, if you know what I mean.
Summary: Christmas is a time when you get homesick, even when you’re at home.
Author's Note:Written for the Holiday Hijinks Challenge at pbhiatus_fic. Part of the Full Circle series, it takes place between the 'end' and 'epilogue' of Safe House and a short time after Sleeping with Ghosts. Anyone who doesn't know what a Christmas cracker is can click here. Many thanks to sarah_scribbles for the Christmas cheerleading and the naughty chatter about mp3 players and to mrs_spleen for not minding that I'm an accidental storyline stealer because she is ace. Happy holiday wishes to all of you, and a very special thank you to the lovely people who have read my scribblings this year. I appreciate you more than I can say.
Christmas is a time when you get homesick, even when you’re at home. ~ Carol Nelson
~*~
It’s the week before Christmas when he starts to dream about his mother and stepfather again.
Maybe it’s because all the talk of Christmas has made him long for his mother with a hunger that hollows out his gut. Maybe it’s seeing his Dad with Jane during her increasingly frequent visits, smiling and laughing as though nothing bad has ever happened to any of them. Maybe it’s his uncle’s talk of turkeys and decorations and fireworks, or Sara’s subtle inquiries as to exactly which scooter he’d coveted earlier in the year.
Maybe it’s because he’s still afraid it’s his fault that his mother and Adrian are dead.
Night after night, he wakes with a jolt in the darkness, his face wet with tears, his heart hammering fast as though he’s still stuck in the middle of the lurid replay in his head. The blood is still soaking through his mother’s blue jacket and her pale gold hair and bursting through Adrian’s chest, just like in a movie. Their mouths are still moving, their last words to him almost identical.
LJ, go!
LJ, get outta here!
He doesn’t tell his father about the dreams. How can he? They’re all here together now, living the life that his Uncle Mike had so painstakingly planned. His dad is happier than LJ can ever remember seeing him and a lot of the time, he feels happy too. He’d even helped his dad build the house where his uncle and Sara live now, just like he had in his dream all those months ago. The rough grain of the wood beneath his fingers felt exactly as he’d imagined it would feel, cool and solid.
Why can’t he still be dreaming about that, he wonders miserably. Why is it only the bad things that his sleeping mind keeps revisiting?
No school until next fall, so he goes surfing every day and works enough hours at the dive shop to grin every time he opens his wallet. He splits his time between their place and the big house - Uncle Mike and Sara’s place - and most of the time, he feels like they’re a family. He’s almost seventeen years old and living five steps away from the beach and he knows he should be happy that he’s safe and far away from the city where he was almost murdered.
He isn’t.
It’s a week until Christmas, and his world is filled with brilliant blue skies and yellow heat, but it’s all wrong. The glittering tinsel is too bright in the Panamanian sun, the words Feliz Navidad niggling at him every time he sees or hears them. He doesn't want sun and the sea. He wants snow and the cold, grey Chicago sky. He wants his mother.
He wants to go home.
~*~
The woman behind the counter of the luggage store gives her a friendly smile as she rings up the small carry-all on the register. “Visiting relatives over the holidays?”
In the middle of reaching for her purse, Jane hesitates, her mind unconsciously analysing the validity of the phrase. “Not exactly,” she finally mutters, and the woman’s cheery expression falters. Feeling an unexpected pang of remorse, she hastily adds, “Friends, actually.”
The saleswoman’s face brightens once more. “Well, sometimes that’s nicer than family, don’t you think?”
Jane hears herself utter something nonsensical about at least being able to choose your friends, then she’s taking her purchase from the woman’s outstretched hand and walking out of the store. It’s only when she’s lost herself in the crowd of milling shoppers that she feels as though she can breathe again.
Nicer than family.
She briefly wonders what the saleswoman would have said if she’d had told her that she’d never had the chance to grow weary of spending time with her family - her John and her Catherine - before they’d been ripped away from her. She allows herself to imagine the shocked discomfort on the woman’s face, then pushes the image away, locking it inside the place in her head where she keeps a tight grip on everything that’s hurt her the most. It’s not that poor woman’s fault that Jane was once stupid enough to believe that serving The Company meant serving her country. Averting her gaze from the lavishly decorated window of the toy store to her right, she heads for the closest coffee bar and orders an espresso she barely sips and a cruller she doesn’t touch.
Come down for the holidays, Lincoln had said a few weeks ago, the low rumble of his voice sliding like warm, dark honey across the phone line. It feels like months since I’ve seen you. The thought of refusing his invitation hadn’t occurred to her, and it’s only now, sitting alone as she watches the families do their Christmas shopping, that she wonders if she’s made the right decision.
She dislikes the holidays. Christmas is a time for families. If you no longer have a family, she thinks as she watches a joyfully hyperactive child dance past at his mother’s heels, what is there to celebrate? She hasn’t acknowledged Christmas since John and Catherine died, making a point of immersing herself in her work every year around this time, something that hasn’t been difficult given her choice of career. But now, for the first time in a very long time, there are no shadows to chase, no lives to save, nothing to distract her from the snow and the carollers and the children and the glittering decorations.
Wrapping her hands around her neglected coffee, she thinks of the slow drive through the thick snow to her empty apartment. Punte Chame will be warm and sunny, and for a moment she imagines she can feel the smooth grit of pale sand beneath her feet. She thinks of Lincoln, how his hands on her always make her forget that she’s spent so many years alone. His passion for her is raw and unashamed, and the depth of her response still manages to shock her every time. She used to be afraid that they were simply living out the cliché of misery loving company, but she knows now that it’s much more than that.
Another family passes by, and Jane finds herself smiling at the fair-haired child holding onto her mother’s hand. Taking a deep breath, she thinks not of everything she’s lost but everything Lincoln’s trying so hard to give her, and she thinks that maybe there’s something to be celebrated, after all.
~*~
“Maybe we should have gone home for Christmas.”
Lincoln blinks as his son’s sudden announcement. “We are home, LJ.”
LJ shrugs. “It’s not Christmas without snow.”
He frowns, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on inside his son’s teenaged head. Four days before Christmas, after six months of apparently being content to call Punte Chame home, LJ seems to have decided here isn’t where he wants to be. “Millions of people celebrate Christmas during summer every year, man.”
“Don’t worry, LJ.” Sara has joined them on the deck, a soda can dangling from her fingers. She’s not working at the clinic this week, and seems to be spending all her free time either cooking or humouring Michael every time he comes up with something else they just have to do or eat or buy this Christmas. “I’m sure Santa will still be able to find you down here.”
Well used to LJ and Sara’s easygoing relationship, Lincoln waits for his son’s smile, but it never comes. He simply shrugs again and picks up his own drink. “Whatever,” he mutters, his face half-hidden by the soda can, and Sara darts a quick glance at Lincoln.
“Uh, I might go see how Michael’s doing with the car?”
When he gives her a grateful nod, she slips away, heading for the carport beside the house where his brother is diligently working on the beat up old car he’d had shipped from Gila soon after they’d come to Panama. Lincoln can’t help thinking that the atmosphere on the deck must be particularly thick for her to willingly hang out in the carport. More than once he’s seen her clean the house from top to bottom to avoid helping Michael work on that wreck of a car, something that seems to amuse his brother greatly.
Left alone with his son, he wishes - not for the first time - that teenagers came with a goddamned instruction manual. LJ has never expressed a particular liking for snow, or winter, for that matter. In fact, Lincoln seems to remember a time when his son would cross off the days until summer on a calendar. “What’s up, man?”
“Nothing.”
Recognising LJ’s mulish expression as one he’s seen in his own mirror many times, he swallows his frustrated retort. “Is it about the shop?”
“No.”
He studies his son’s face, searching his memory for some kind of clue hidden in their recent conversations. Coming up with exactly zilch, he presses on, half-wishing that Sara hadn’t bailed on him quite so soon. “Look, I'm sorry I didn't ask you before I asked Jane to come down on Christmas Day.”
Another shrug, another answer in a voice as flat as the blue water of the bay. “I don’t care if she comes down.”
Okay, that’s enough. “LJ.”
His son looks at him with glittering eyes for a long moment, then takes a deep breath, a harsh sigh that sounds as though it’s been dredged up from the soles of his feet. “I miss Mom.”
Lincoln’s heart sinks. It’s been a few months since LJ talked of missing his mother, and while Lincoln knows there’s still a long road ahead, he can’t deny he’d dared to hope that things were getting better. Looking at his son, he knows there’s only one right thing to say, even if it’s not quite the truth. “So do I.”
LJ turns away to stare at the water, dashing his eyes with the back of his hand. “We were going to go skiing this Christmas.”
The misery in his son’s voice has him on his feet and moving to his side, dropping into the chair beside him. “You hate skiing,” he points out gently, and LJ’s face crumples.
“I know,” he mutters thickly. “We had a big fight about it because I said I didn’t want to go.”
“I think I heard about that one,” Lincoln says lightly, feeling as though he’s watching the lit fuse on a stick of dynamite burn down, knowing what’s coming but powerless to stop it. “What was it you called your stepfather? A pencil-necked asswipe?”
LJ looks at him. “Something like that.” His bottom lip trembles, and he suddenly looks five years younger. “I said some bad stuff to Mom, too.”
Lincoln thinks he might be getting closer to the heart of the problem. “Your uncle and I called each other a lot of names back in the day, you know.” He can’t help smiling as he thinks of some of Michael’s more creative insults. “It didn’t mean we didn’t still love each other.”
LJ’s face tightens, and Lincoln feels his smile dissolve. “I didn’t love Adrian, and he died because of me.”
Swearing vividly in his head, Lincoln slides his arm around his son’s shoulders. “None of this is your fault, LJ.” Feeling a silent sob wrack LJ’s frame, he tugs him closer. “Remember all those talks we had with your grandfather?” LJ nods, his face wet with tears. “This crap started long before you were born. Long before I was born.”
“I remember.” LJ doesn’t try to pull away, and Lincoln can’t help being relieved that his kid still isn’t embarrassed to be hugged by his dad in public. “It’s just Christmas and everything, you know?” Letting out a shaky sigh, LJ stares down at the wooden table top. “I’ve been dreaming about her.”
Lincoln’s chest tightens. “I still dream about Vee,” he says softly, and LJ’s surprised gaze comes up to meet his.
“But what about Jane?”
Oh, kid, that’s definitely a question for another time. Inwardly wincing at the thought of explaining to his son the finer details of his relationship with Jane, he squeezes LJ’s shoulder. “Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting the people you’ve had to leave behind, LJ.” Christ, listen to yourself. You sound just like that damned self-help book Sara gave you after Vee’s funeral. Letting his arm fall away from his son’s shoulders, he leans back in his chair, not wanting to make LJ feel like he’s trying to baby him. “What do you want me to do? What would help?”
LJ looks at him. “Can we go back to Chicago for Christmas?”
“No,” he tells him gently, knowing there’s no point in stringing the kid along. Between Michael’s almost obsessive determination to have the perfect Christmas in their new home and the fact that this place actually makes Lincoln feel as though he can finally breathe again, there’s no chance of jumping on a plane to the States.
“Then why bother asking me what I want?” LJ’s gaze narrows - Christ, he looks like his uncle when he does that, Lincoln thinks, and it always seems that he’s on the receiving end - and he reaches out once more, gently touching his son’s shoulder.
“Why do you want to go back to Chicago?”
His son hesitates, scratching at a whorl in the wood of the table top with his thumb nail. “I want to visit Mom and Adrian.”
Lincoln fights the impulse to punch himself in the head. After everything he’d gone through with Veronica’s death, he should have seen this coming. “You want to visit the cemetery.”
LJ nods. “Yeah.”
He puts his hand around his son’s shoulder, surprised by the strength of the muscle and bone beneath his touch. “What if we went after New Year’s instead?”
“Seriously?” LJ’s eyes widen. “We could really go to Chicago?”
His throat closes up like a fist at the hope in his son’s eyes. “Sure.”
“Cool.” LJ smiles properly for the first time in what seems like days, and to Lincoln it feels as though the sun has just risen for the second time that day.
“Don’t mention it.”
~*~
“Okay.” Slamming the cabinet door shut, she puts her hands on her hips and glares into the living room. “Who drank the rum?”
The air seems to grow still at her words, and Sara can’t help thinking of a herd of wild animals suddenly sensing danger. “Which rum would that be, exactly?” Michael asks warily as he wanders over to her side.
She points an exasperated finger at the large bowl of mixed fruit on the kitchen counter. “The bottle of rum I bought to use in the Christmas cooking.”
“Uh-” Michael looks over his shoulder at his brother, and the two men exchange a guilty glance that immediately makes her want to bounce a measuring cup off their heads. “That might have been us last weekend,” Michael finally admits, his hand lazily wandering up and down the length of her spine, as though that might distract her from his confession.
“Great.” Sara shrugs off the hand, suddenly and irrationally furious, ignoring Michael’s faintly wounded expression. “Just great.”
“I’ll go to the liquor store right now if you want.” Lincoln gives her an apologetic smile that would probably have worked on thousands of other women, then sighs loudly when she merely narrows her eyes at him. Picking up his car keys from the bowl on the sideboard, he looks at them both in turn. “Anyone want anything else while I’m out?”
“Just the rum will be fine,” she mutters, feeling as though her jaw is in danger of becoming permanently clenched.
Silence reigns supreme in the kitchen until they hear the sound of Lincoln’s car reversing up the long driveway. As soon as they’re officially alone, Michael puts both hands flat on the counter and looks at her with such an expression of tender concern that she doesn’t know whether to kiss him or go with her original plan of throwing something.
“Are you okay?”
“No.” She swipes her damp forehead with the back of her hand, trying to dislodge several clumps of hair sticking to her skin. “I’m hot and I’m cranky and you guys drank my rum.”
He grins - laughing at her, of course - and she feels her fingers itching with the urge to reach for the measuring cup. “You don’t have to make fruit cake, you know.”
She snorts, a distinctly unladylike noise that makes his grin grow even wider. “As if I wouldn’t,” she says shortly. “You’ve been talking about it for the last three weeks.”
Michael’s latest Plan had begun the day after Thanksgiving, and it had quickly become clear that he was intent on creating the perfect Christmas, something that had proven to be quite draining for the rest of them. She’d thought she was used to his obsessive habit of planning everything down to the most minute of details, but it seemed that the holiday season had the effect of kicking it into high gear. There is a frozen turkey in their freezer, the crisper is groaning with vegetables to be roasted (not exactly her ideal menu in this heat) and the greenery in the corner of the living room is taller than any tree she remembers from her childhood in the Governor’s mansion.
The sight of the tree never fails to send a hollow pang of longing through her. She and her father may have fought tooth and nail over every Christmas lunch, but she misses him so much that it feels like a physical ache. She always thinks of her mother this time of year, but it’s so much worse now, and she understands why Michael feels the need to make this celebration special. It doesn’t stop her from feeling as though she’s trying to please everyone but herself, though, and she’s spent the last few days teetering on the edge of a genuine, full-blown tantrum.
“Will three days be enough time to soak the fruit?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes.”
He picks a currant out of the bowl of fruit, grinning as she pretends to smack his hand away. “My mom used to do it a few weeks before Christmas-”
Catching sight of her face, he breaks off abruptly, comprehension dawning in his eyes with a speed that reminds her why she loves him the way she does. He’s mentioned his mother several times over the last few weeks, dropped into casual conversation that’s not really casual. God knows she knows why, but she has no desire to take her place in this family’s life, and his faintly horrified expression tells her that he knows that as well as she does. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m not trying to turn you into my mother, I swear.”
He’s so very earnest in his anxiety to explain himself, and she can’t help smiling. “I know.” She shoots him a grin, the tension stiffening her shoulders easing. What she shares with this man is worth any number of irritable squabbles. “Although that might explain the urge I’ve had to spank you and send you to your room lately.”
He laughs, his palm warm on the back of her neck as he bends his head to hers, his mouth smilingly hovering over her lips. “That should sound ten kinds of wrong, you know.”
“Hmmm.”
He brushes his mouth against hers, a maddeningly light touch that’s just enough to make her shift towards him, wanting more. “Just out of curiosity, how many times have you wanted to kill me this week?”
“Are we counting today?”
He kisses her then, hard and fast, leaving her breathless and smiling. “I withdraw the question.”
Her pulse dancing madly, she picks a glace cherry out of the bowl of mixed fruit and pops it into her mouth, scrunching up her nose at the unexpected sticky crunch on her tongue. “Who invented these things?”
“I have no idea,” he murmurs, watching her face. “Sara, do you even like fruit cake?”
“No.”
“So why are you making it?”
She smiles at him. Lincoln had once told her that his brother was ‘a fucking genius, but there were a lot of things he still had to learn’. She’d believed him then, and she believes him now. “I’m making it because you and Lincoln and LJ like it.”
His whole face softens, his eyes glowing, and she briefly wonders if she ever looks like that when she’s watching him. “What else are you making that you don’t like?”
“Nothing.” She grins. “I might be a generous hostess, but I’m not an idiot.”
"Definitely not." His hand is still curled around the back of her neck, and she feels his fingers trace the halter strap of the swimsuit top she’s wearing beneath her t-shirt. “Come for a swim.”
She looks through the open French doors at the blue water that borders their world, then at her to-do list on the refrigerator. His gaze following the line of hers, he shakes his head. “Forget about that.”
It’s the best idea she’s heard all day, but for some reason she feels the need to put up at least the illusion of a fight. “What about Lincoln?”
“I’ll leave him a note.”
Five minutes later, she’s diving beneath the cool, clear water of the bay, a welcome shiver prickling her heated skin, and coming up into the waiting circle of Michael’s arms. Wrapping her arms around him, she savours the soothing rhythm of his heart against hers, the way he holds her steady against the ebb and flow of the waves. “I still love you,” she murmurs against his throat, tasting both the salt of the sea and the salt of his skin, “even though you did drink my rum.”
His chuckle hums through her body, warming her like the sun. “I’m very pleased to hear it.”
Two days later, he holds her steady once more, this time on dry land. He comes with her to the midnight church service on Christmas Eve, chastely holding her hand as they sit in the back pew. The scent of incense fills the air, and while the sound of the children’s choir singing carols makes her eyes fill with tears, it’s the lighting of candles for the dead that almost proves her undoing.
Closing her eyes, she remembers her parents, the tight clasp of Michael’s hand around hers telling her that she’s not alone in her sorrow. When the service is over, they slip out of the church in silence, not speaking until they reach their car. Her hand still in his, she turns to him as he pulls the car keys from his pocket. “Thank you.”
His vivid eyes look very dark in the half-light. “For what?”
She looks at him, knowing that while there are many things she regrets, he will never be one of them. “Everything.”
His hand tightens around hers. “It’s my pleasure.”
They sleep extremely late the next morning, scrambling to find the time to shower and dress before Lincoln and LJ arrive for lunch. “Hope you didn’t buy me anything embarrassing,” she mutters to Michael as she gives their visitors a cheery wave from the deck. “I’d hate to give your brother and nephew an eyeful of saucy lingerie.”
He gives her a slow smile that starts a small glow in the pit of her stomach. “I’ll go hide those ones, shall I?”
A few minutes later, she’s kissing Lincoln hello and hugging his son. LJ’s hair is still damp from the surf, cool against her cheek. Noticing his brand new t-shirt and boardshorts, she teasingly mentions Santa once more, and he gives her a sheepish grin. “Yeah, he totally figured out my new address.”
She studies him carefully, thinking of the tense conversation into which she’d stumbled a few days earlier. “Everything okay?”
He nods, his gaze looking clearer than it has for days. “Yeah.” He glances quickly at his father, then back at her. “We’re good.”
Planning to pick Jane up from the airport later that afternoon, Lincoln waves away Michael’s offer of a beer, rolling his eyes at LJ’s offer to pick up the slack and drink it for him. With Jane not arriving until dinner, lunch is a simple affair consisting of barbecued seafood and fresh fruit. Much to Sara’s relief, Michael had taken over much of the food preparation after her mini-meltdown over the rum, banishing her from the kitchen on several occasions. Sipping the non-alcoholic sangria he seems to be able to make in his sleep these days, she gazes at the white sand and blue water just beyond the deck and marvels at the difference that a year makes.
Halfway through lunch, Michael reaches for one of the Christmas crackers scattered in the middle of the table. Sara had ordered them online, unable to resist the temptation of adding a small piece of her own childhood to this new eclectic life of theirs. Her mother had always insisted on having them at Christmas time and, after her death, Sara and her father had found themselves buying them by unspoken agreement, one of the rare occasions on which they were in perfect accord.
Dangling a bright red cracker from his fingers, Michael shoots a look of challenge across the table at his brother. “Try your luck?”
Lincoln looks amused, but makes no effort to take the other end of the cracker. “As if.”
Michael gives him a knowing smile, then promptly finds a willing participant in LJ. A few seconds later, after a loud crack and the scattering of glitter, Michael promptly hands his winning half to LJ. “Here, you can have it.”
LJ unfolds a gaudy purple paper crown and studies it doubtfully. “Uh, thanks.”
As Lincoln snickers, Sara hears the unmistakable sound of Michael’s cell phone ringing from inside the house. “Be right back.”
When Michael slips through the open French doors into the living room, Sara looks at Lincoln. “Okay. What’s the story with the crackers?”
Lincoln grins. “When Michael was nine, we were fostered with an English family for six months.” He glances towards the door where Michael had vanished. “Spent Christmas with them.”
He picks up another cracker and flips it into the air, catching it before it hits the table. “It took Michael about five minute to work out exactly the right way to hold the damned thing so that he always won.” He points to the torn cracker on the table in front of LJ. “Obviously he hasn’t lost his touch.”
Grinning, Sara reaches out and plucks the cracker from his hand. “But he and I were joking around with these things last night.” She feels heat creep up the back of her neck, remembering the sensation of a smooth paper crown being trailed over her bare skin, then hastily clears her throat. “I won twice.”
Lincoln smirks. “Well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, Doc, but I think my brother might have a crush on you.”
She’s still blushing when Michael reappears, cell phone in his hand, his smile reaching from ear to ear. “It’s Dad,” he announces to the room at large, then hands the phone to Lincoln.
As Lincoln speaks to his father, Michael slides back into his seat beside Sara. “He said he’d like to come down and spend New Year’s Eve with us,” he says as he turns to her, and that’s all he has time to say before she reaches out and curl her hand around the back of his neck, giving him a quick but undeniably thorough kiss. When she pulls away, he’s gazing at her with a wide but faintly dazed smile.
“What was that for?”
“No reason.” Picking up a new cracker, she holds it out to him, grinning, knowing that all the planning in the world can’t prepare you for the best surprises in life. “Best out of three?”
~*~
Wiping the last smear of polish from the chrome fender of the Rambler, Michael sits back on his haunches to admire the effect. When he and Sara had bought this heap from a shonky car yard a lifetime ago, the possibility that he might find himself restoring it to its former glory in a carport a few steps from a Panamanian beach was something he’d never once allowed himself to entertain.
And yet here he is.
Here they are, he amends, catching sight of Sara walking slowly towards the carport, her head down as she watches her bare feet scuff through the sandy grass. Dressed in denim shorts and a pale blue tank top, her bright auburn hair pulled back into a high ponytail, from a distance she looks the same age as the young girls who flirt with LJ over the counter of the dive shop.
He feels a smile spread across his face as he watches her, a faint fluttering of disbelief threading itself through his thoughts. Even now, over three months since she first arrived in Punte Chame, it’s hard to believe that she’s chosen him, that she’s chosen this life. As though feeling his gaze on her, she lifts her head to look at him, one hand raised in a small wave. “Hey.”
He grins at her as she joins him beneath the shaded carport. “To what do I owe this honour?”
She gives him a rueful smile. “Lincoln and LJ are having a moment, I think.”
Knowing that could mean anything from an argument about LJ learning to drive to Lincoln’s habit of not doing the dishes unless company was expected, Michael sighs. Picking up a clean rag from the workbench, he wipes the worst of the grime from his hands. “Want me to evict them from the premises, ma’am?”
She laughs. “No, it’s fine.” Leaning one hip against the workbench, she folds her arms across her chest and studies the Rambler. “Wow, it’s looking really good.”
He manages to suppress the urge to gloat and simply gestures towards the car with a flourish. “Want to take it for a spin?”
Peering through the windscreen to where the steering wheel should be, she looks at him with raised eyebrows, wide mouth curved in a smile. “Maybe later.”
Tossing the rag onto the workbench, he wipes his hands on his battered khaki shorts, feeling sweaty and dusty. “God, it’s hot.”
She gives him a look that speaks volumes. “You think?”
Chuckling under his breath, he curls his hand around her arm, letting his thumb brush the tender skin in the crook of her elbow. “Not exactly a white Christmas in Chicago.”
“No, it’s not.” She shivers a little at his touch on her heated skin, just as he knew she would, then offers him a brilliant smile that impacts in every inch of his body. “But Panama definitely has its charms,” she teases, looking at him as though daring him to ask her to list those charms in bullet point.
The scent of her perfume mingles with the smell of chrome polish, the heat of her skin seeming to pool beneath his touch. He lets his hand slide up her bare arm, smoothing his palm over the delicate curve of her shoulder. “Is that so?”
“Michael!” Lincoln’s shout cuts through the air, and Michael marvels for the umpteenth time at his brother’s uncanny sense of timing.
“What?”
Lincoln and LJ are making their way down to the beach, obviously heading back to their own place. “We’re going for a surf,” Lincoln calls out, then leans across and says something to his son, making him laugh. “Catch you later?”
“Sure.”
As they vanish from sight, he looks at Sara, making no secret of the fact he’d very much like to take advantage of the fact that their constant visitors have made themselves scarce. “Alone at last.”
She rolls her eyes. “God, you’re an optimistic one.” She plucks at her damp tank top, affording him a glimpse of the pale swell of her breasts. “It’s far too hot for those kind of shenanigans, I’m afraid.”
“You’re a doctor,” he tells her, sliding his arm around her waist and drawing her towards the house. “I’m sure you’re well-trained to deal with any ill-effects from heatstroke.”
She laughs, her hand slipping beneath the bottom of his t-shirt to stroke his back even as she starts to demur. “But I’m off duty.”
“You know you can’t use a word like shenanigans and seriously expect me not to have impure thoughts.”
She laughs again, a throaty sound that tells him he’s preaching to the converted. A few minutes later, he’s pulling her into the cool of the house and the pale sanctuary of their bathroom. The shower tiles are slick against his back as she kisses him, the cold spray of water washing away the dust and the heat, and he knows he doesn’t care if he never sees snow again.
The next day, however, he’s almost ready to put forward the suggestion that they cancel Christmas this year. He wants so much for everything to be perfect, and with every passing day, it becomes more apparent that perfection just isn’t going to happen. It’s been a long time since he experienced a family Christmas, but he’s beginning to suspect he may be guilty of the sin of romanticising the past.
The moped he and Sara wanted to buy for LJ is apparently still on a freighter somewhere between Europe and Panama. The temperature soars at exactly the same time that the air-conditioning unit in the main part of the house decides that it's suffering from metal fatigue. LJ and Lincoln are niggling at each other night at day, quarrelling about everything from the hours LJ’s working at the dive shop to the fact that Lincoln didn’t check with his son first before asking Jane to spend Christmas with them.
And then there’s Sara.
For the last month, she’s nodded and smiled every time he's suggested something else they might have for Christmas dinner or brings home yet another string of lights. He knows she’s only doing it to keep the peace, to make him happy, and he can’t help wondering if she’s thinking of all the ways - good and bad - her life has changed since this time last year. She’s comfortable sharing her thoughts with him, but this is one instance where he hesitates to prompt her. Grief is a very strange beast, and while she’s working her way through the loss of her father as best she can, there’s something about the holidays that can make even the smallest pain feel so much sharper.
When she almost loses her cool over a missing bottle of rum, he and Lincoln quickly do what they can to make amends. While his brother heads to the liquor store to replace the rum they’d drunk, Michael convinces Sara to forget the to-do list (the one she’s only following to make him happy, he’s sure of it) and go for a swim instead. It seems that cold water is his solution to everything this week, but he’s not going to argue with results.
The four of them make it through the next two days relatively unscathed by holiday-themed arguments, and Michael starts to think that maybe his plan might just come together after all. He and Sara attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, just the two of them, on a whim more than anything else. He calls Lincoln just after eleven to ask if they’d like to join them, but LJ is already asleep and his brother doesn’t like to leave him alone. He squelches a pang of regret - the last time he and his brother had sat together in a church had been in Fox River - but knowing Lincoln is right where he wants to be, watching out for his son, he smiles and says they’ll see them both in the morning.
The service is simple and heartfelt, the traditional Catholic mass infused with a casual warmth that he often thinks typifies this place they’ve chosen to call home. Sara holds his hand very tightly during the last prayers, smiling through her tears as they light a candle for every soul they’ve lost, and he wonders if she realises her touch is just as much of a comfort to him. There were times when he was so very afraid she would become one of those lost souls, a memory to be mourned for the rest of his life, and the thought of it still has the power to chill his blood.
It’s after one in the morning by the time they return home, but Sara still switches on the Christmas lights he’d painstakingly strung up over the last two weeks. He pours them both a drink, suddenly feeling more awake than he has all day, watching her as she brings out two flat, white boxes from the spare room and puts them on the kitchen counter.
Handing her a club soda, he nods at the boxes. “What are they?”
She grins. “Christmas crackers.”
His jaw feels the sudden urge to drop. “You’re kidding me.”
“No.” She gives him a curious look. “Why?”
Walking to the counter, he trails his fingers along the edge of the cardboard box, trying to remember if he’d ever told her about his childhood obsession with this particular Christmas tradition. “What made you buy these?”
Something dark shimmers in her eyes as she smiles at him. “My mom always liked them.” She looks down at the boxes, then she’s opening one of them and pulling out two of the brightly coloured bonbons. “Want to try your luck?”
He lets her win both times, her delighted grin well worth the effort of suppressing the urge to use his usual technique, knowing that the sight of her laughingly pulling a paper crown over her bright auburn hair will forever be burned in his memory. When she makes to put the second crown on his own head, he takes it from her hand, letting it brush against the pale skin bared by the deep v-neck of her blouse as he touches her face. “Let’s go to bed.”
They make love in the very early hours of Christmas Day, the bedroom windows flung wide open to let in the salt-tinged breeze and the sound of the ocean. Afterwards, the ceiling fan above the bed washes cool air over his sweat-dampened skin, and he falls asleep with the rhythm of Sara’s heartbeat warm against his back, her arm wrapped around his waist.
The next thing he knows are her hands on him once more, but her voice is filled with a different kind of urgency. “Michael.” She’s shaking him awake, sunlight streaming into their bedroom.
“What time is it?”
“Eleven,” she announces as she flings back the sheet and reaches for her bathrobe, “and Linc and LJ will be here in half an hour.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
They barely have time to shower and throw on some clothes by the time the rest of his family arrives, leaving them no chance to exchange gifts in private. Just as he tells himself it doesn’t matter, Sara makes a wisecrack about naughty lingerie, making him smile, and he realises that it really doesn’t matter. They’re all here with him - her and Lincoln and LJ - and that’s a gift he never thought to receive.
His father calls during lunch, and Michael realises with a start that it’s the first time he’s ever had contact with his father on Christmas Day. They talk for a few minutes about Aldo’s plans to visit them for New Year’s Eve, then Michael hands the phone over to Lincoln. Sara seems distracted as he takes his seat beside her, looking as though she’s only half-listening to what he’s saying about Aldo’s intended visit, then she’s kissing him, her mouth soft and warm, her tongue lightly brushing his bottom lip. He gazes at her when she draws away, vaguely conscious of the amused stares from his brother and nephew. “What was that for?”
“No reason.” Smirking, she picks up the Christmas cracker closest to her plate and holds it out to him, her eyes dancing. “Best out of three?”
He glances across the table at his brother. Still talking to their father on the phone, Lincoln’s expression nevertheless manages to convey the news that Michael’s little secret is out. He turns and gives Sara a rueful smile, his hand gently squeezing her knee beneath the table. “There’s just no such thing as a good secret in this family.”
After lunch, they exchange gifts (LJ takes the news about the absent Moped very well, proving he’s capable of seeing the big picture, Michael thinks, amused) and indulge in Sara’s stash of imported chocolates. As drowsiness sets in, he and Lincoln take an unhurried walk on the beach, leaving LJ and Sara bonding over his nephew’s new mp3 player. He watches as Lincoln tries to skim a pebble across the trembling surface of the bay, then clears his throat. “Everything okay with LJ?”
His brother sighs. “It’s Lisa.”
Michael sighs, watching as the water washes over his bare feet, the lingering foam briefly making his left foot look as though it’s still perfectly normal. “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Lincoln considers the question for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, actually.” He looks at Michael. “I’m taking LJ back to Chicago after New Year’s.”
Michael blinks, a sudden chill sweeping through him. He’d taken it for granted that Lincoln and LJ were content to be here. Maybe he’d been wrong. “Uh, for how long?”
His brother is watching the horizon, his gaze narrowed against the glare of the sun. “Maybe a week or so, I don’t know.”
Michael feels his whole body slump with relief. “Right.”
“He wants to visit his mom’s grave.” Lincoln darts a quick look at him. “I thought maybe you and I could do the same.”
Michael frowns, then realises what Lincoln’s trying to say. “You want to visit our mom?”
“Yeah.” Lincoln scuffs his feet through the sand. “What do you think?”
Michael stares at his brother, literally lost for words. They haven’t visited their mother’s grave together for over ten years, and it suddenly occurs to him that no one is immune from wanting to revisit the past at this time of year. Reaching out, he puts his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. “I think that’s a perfect idea.”
Jane’s plane is delayed by two hours. Lincoln calls from the airport thirty minutes after they’re due to have arrived back at the house, and Michael glares at the turkey in the oven as Sara talks to his brother on the phone. “Okay, that’s fine. We’ll see you when you get here.” Gripping Michael’s arm, she pulls him away from his post in front of the oven. “It’s no problem at all, just drive safely, okay?” Flipping the phone shut, she gives Michael a reassuring smile. “Michael, relax.”
“The turkey is done.”
“I know it’s done, I turned off the oven fifteen minutes ago and I’m just about to take it out to rest.”
Her bright smile starts to fray around the edges as she speaks, and he blows out a loud sigh. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” She tosses the oven mitt at him. “But I’ll forgive you as long as you make yourself useful and pull that giant bird out of the oven.”
He does as she requests, his stomach growling indelicately as the smell of roasted meat hits his nostrils. “It looks amazing.”
She looks up from her contemplation of the roast potatoes and parsnips on the lower shelf of the oven. “You sound surprised.”
“Not at all.” He pulls off the oven mitt, then moves to stand behind her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. When he presses a kiss to the top of her head, she leans back against him, her hands coming up to curl around his forearm. “I’ve learned that there aren’t many things you can’t do.”
“Flatterer,” she murmurs laughingly, tilting back her head to rest on his shoulder. “Is it wrong of me to feel as though I’ll be glad when this day is over?”
He grins. “I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel, actually.” Catching sight of the rapidly crisping potatoes through the tinted oven door, he ventures a tentative, “Won’t the vegetables be ruined if they’re-”
“Michael.” Turning in his arms, she puts her hand over his mouth, her voice tinged with exasperated laughter. “Go and sit on the deck with LJ. Take him out a beer, a bowl of peanuts, a packet of pretzels. I don’t care. Just get the hell out of this kitchen.”
He kisses the palm covering his lips, then grins. “If I don’t, will you send me to my room?”
Putting her hands flat on his chest, she pushes him gently in the direction of the deck. “Goodbye, Michael.”
LJ looks at him when he joins him on the deck. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Still grinning, he hands his nephew a light beer, and LJ’s eyes widen.
“Thanks!”
Michael stretches out in a chair across from him. “Don’t get too excited. You’d have to drink a dozen of them before you felt the slightest hint of a buzz.”
“Cool.” Despite the disclaimer, LJ remains impressed. “Sara says that kids younger than me in Europe drink wine at home at the time.”
Michael smiles as he takes a sip of his own beer. “You don’t like wine.”
LJ gives him an injured look, something that quickly vanishes as they fall into an easy conversation about LJ’s grandfather’s plans to visit, and LJ’s hope that they’ll be able to do some serious fishing. Sara joins them a short time later, and the three of them spend a pleasant hour or so talking about everything and nothing, the conversation lazily wandering from one subject to the next. Michael makes an effort not to check his watch or glance towards the driveway any more than necessary, and every time he does, Sara always seems to catch him out.
It’s after eight o’clock when the headlights of Lincoln’s car slice through the darkness. “That’s Dad,” LJ announces needlessly, getting to his feet and waving to Lincoln and Jane as they appear at the end of the driveway.
Wearing a bright red shirt and lipstick to match, her long blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, Jane Phillips looks nothing like the stern operative Michael first met several months ago. “I’m so sorry we’re late,” she apologises as she hugs them all in turn. “The weather in Boston was terrible.” She lightly touches the arm of the man beside her. “I owe Lincoln big time for making him wait so long.”
Lincoln gives her a look that plainly says he would have happily waited another twenty-four in that airport for her, then turns to Michael with a hopeful grin.
“Have we missed dinner? I’m starving, man.”
Michael opens his mouth to reply, only to feel Sara’s foot press down on his. “No, we waited for you,” she says cheerfully. “Why don’t you get Jane a drink, then you can help Michael with the turkey.”
Jane gives them both a complicit grin as she follows Lincoln inside the house, then Michael turns to Sara. “What did you think I was going to say?”
She chuckles. “I don’t know, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Dinner may have been delayed by over two hours, but it’s still close to perfect as far as Michael is concerned. Looking around the table at the faces of the people who mean so much to him, he knows that it doesn’t matter if the food needs to be put in the microwave or he can’t find the Christmas CD he’d bought earlier in the week.
He doesn’t talk much during dinner, content to watch and listen as the others catch up with Jane and discuss their plans for the next day. His hand finds Sara’s beneath the table, and she leans towards him, her shoulder pressed against his. He thinks again of the thick book on South American architecture she’d given him earlier that day, and the urge to snatch another private moment with her takes hold of him. “Thank you for the book,” he murmurs close to her ear, and she flashes him a quick smile.
“You’re welcome.” She glances down at the silver Celtic pendant resting in the hollow between her breasts, the gift he’d had in mind for her ever since she’d told him of her Irish grandparents during one of their late night conversations soon after her arrival in Punte Chame. I’d wondered where the red hair had come from, he’d told her teasingly, immediately filing away the information for later use. “And thank you,” she adds in a low, laughing voice as she touches the pendant, “but where’s my lingerie?”
He knows they’ve only lived together for three months, but he wonders if it’s normal for her to still be able to make him feel like a schoolboy with just a few well-placed words. “I’ve hidden them, remember?”
She laughs, and three pairs of eyes turn to regard them in unison. Recovering with admirable speed, she beams at their guests. “Who wants coffee?”
After coffee and the infamous fruitcake (which is better than anything Michael remembers from his childhood) and Jane promising Sara she’ll call her the following day, the party slowly breaks up. Michael kisses Jane on the cheek and claps LJ on the back, then his brother takes him by surprise by enveloping in him a brief but bruising hug, his voice rough with fatigue and beer. “Thanks, man, for everything.”
Michael feels a sudden sense of déjà vu, thinking of his conversation with Sara outside the church the night before. “You’re welcome.” Lincoln studies him for a moment, as if wanted to make sure they’re on the same page, then slaps him hard enough on the back to leave a stinging handprint.
Laughing, Jane slides her arm around Lincoln’s waist, keeping him steady. “And I’m the one with the jet-lag,” she complains jokingly as they head for the stairs that lead down to the driveway. “It’s a good thing I love you, Burrows.”
Lincoln’s head snaps up, his face split in a broad grin. “You owe me a favour for the ride from the airport, remember?” he shoots back in a teasing voice that tells Michael this is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. He can literally feel Sara bristling with gleeful curiosity beside him, and is very careful not to meet her eyes.
Shaking her head, Jane looks at Michael and Sara. “Thanks for dinner, it was wonderful.”
“You’re very welcome, and good luck,” Michael says with a pointed grin, raising his eyebrows at his brother, who is now telling LJ what sounds like a very bad joke about nuns. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
After watching long enough to see that Jane has successfully commandeered Lincoln’s car keys, they start clearing away the coffee cups and dessert plates, gradually transferring them to the dishwasher, working together in a peaceful, easy silence. When the outdoor table is clean, Sara pulls the French doors shuts and flicks off the light on the deck. “Question?” she says as she follows Michael into the kitchen.
“What?”
“Do you think Lincoln giving LJ an mp3 player the same day Jane comes down to stay is a coincidence?” She slides the last three plates into the dishwasher, then gives him a wicked smile. “You know what the acoustics are like in their place.”
It’s exactly the same thought that had occurred to him, but somehow it sounds so much more obscene coming from Sara’s mouth. “You have a very dirty mind, Doctor Tancredi.”
She laughs, her face turning faintly pink, but she doesn’t deny the accusation. “So, did you have a good day?”
“Of course.” He gazes at her, his hands filled with dirty coffee cups, wondering why she ever feels the need to ask. “I was with you.”
In answer she simply smiles, taking the dishes from his hands and putting them on the side of the sink. He goes to open the dishwasher, and she curls her fingers around his wrist. “Leave them, okay?” She pulls him towards the darkened living room, to where the glittering Christmas tree is glowing beside the long leather couch. “I have a better idea.”
The coloured lights dance over her body as she stretches out on the couch beside him, her pale skin shimmering with all the hues of the rainbow, their clothes lying somewhere on the floor between the bookcase and the tree. “Every tradition has to start somewhere,” she whispers in his ear as his body melts into hers, finding and losing himself in the same heartbeat, and perfection is suddenly easy to find.
~*~