Palm to Palm - Michael/Sara (NC-17)
Title: Palm to Palm (1/1)
Pairing: Michael/Sara (with guest appearances by Lincoln, LJ and Jane)
Genre: Het, AU
Length: 2,069 words
Rating: NC-17
Summary:There are many different ways to hold her hand. He wants to know them all. Contains spoilers and dialogue from "Pilot", "Riots, Drills and the Devil", "The End of the Tunnel" and "Bad Blood". It contains wild speculation for Season Four and a title and quotation stolen from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet".
Author's Note:This is what happens when a long-suppressed plot bunny is poked into life by someone else promising to create a rather breaktaking piece of artwork to match. To see that breathtaking artwork, you need to click here to visit sarah_scribbles's journal. Warning, it's not exactly work-safe, okay? This is for all the fabulous April babies, whose birthdays I would much rather have been celebrating than moving house, with many thanks for being such tremendous friends.
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene V.
~*~
When Michael Scofield was a teenager, holding hands with a girl was something of a milestone. It meant something. Something you wanted the rest of the world to see.
Fifteen years later, five minutes after meeting him, Sara Tancredi cradles his hand in hers, her gentle touch masking the sting of the needle prick in his fingertip. He lets his hand curl in hers, watching her face - so familiar, so foreign - and realises with dismay this could easily mean a lot more than he ever expected.
~*~
His eyes watering from the acrid smoke, he shifts his weight forward, his left arm wrapped around the support strut, every single muscle in his right straining as he reaches down to her.
She flinches at his touch on her shoulder, spinning on her heel, her eyes widening with both disbelief and fear at the sight of him.
“Take my hand!”
Her hesitation shouldn’t sting, but it does.
“Come on!”
Trust me, he begs her silently. Please trust me.
She does.
Her hand catches his, her palm melded to his with sweat and terror. She lets him pull her out of hell and into a whole new danger, because even when she’s sitting safely beside him, he doesn’t want to let go.
~*~
Afterwards, he’s not sure why he asked her. Perhaps knowing he was going over the wall that night made him fearless. Made him just reckless enough to want to leave something of himself behind in this room. “You ever think, in another life-”
“I won’t be that woman, Michael.”
He stares at her, simultaneously impressed and irritated by her blunt honesty. “I wasn't asking you to be,” he shoots back, unhappily aware this might be the last lie he ever tells her. “But it is something to wonder about. What if." She says nothing, her gaze determinedly on the trolley beside her, and he feels another flash of quiet desperation. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure it was said.”
She looks at him, her eyes soft, almost wistful. “Why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye to me?”
His pulse quickens. “I don't know.” His clumsy attempt to thank her seems to have opened up a whole new realm of possibility, and it makes his heart soar as much as it makes it sink. “I guess in a place like this, you never know which day is going to be your last.”
Confusion clouds her eyes, and he can no longer resist the urge to reach out for her. He calls her Doctor when he takes her hand in his, as though the use of her official title might soften the touch. Her face shuts down, her hand growing wooden in his grip, and his tongue suddenly feels thick and heavy in his mouth. “Thank you.”
Another life, he thinks as he walks away from her for the last time, the feel of her hand still imprinted on his. Since he’s been inside these walls, he’s come to believe in the impossible. Perhaps afterwards, when all is said and done, there will be room for one more miracle.
~*~
As they watch Henry Pope walk away from the car towards the entrance of one of Chicago’s most upmarket private cigar clubs, the tension rises between them once again. He’d gone to great lengths to ensure she hadn’t overheard his earlier conversation with the older man, but he learned a long time ago never to assume anything when it comes to this woman.
“You sure about this?” she asks in a light voice that trembles faintly, and his heart twists, realizing that if she doesn’t know about his promise to Henry, she suspects. In some ways, suspicion is worse than certainty. Suspicion feels like a lie.
It feels like a betrayal.
“No.”
She lets out a long breath. “Either way, you still owe me dinner.”
A smile blossoms across his face, his heart instantly growing lighter despite the darkness of his thoughts. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” She’s not looking at him, her gaze still trained on the last spot they’d seen Henry, her cheek resting on her tightly clasped hands. “First week in Fox River, you promised me if you ever got out of there, you’d take me to dinner.”
Perhaps, given their current circumstances, her perfect recall of a three-month old conversation shouldn’t make him feel as though he wants to punch the air in triumph, but it does. “Well, maybe after we wrap this up, we can stop off and get you a burrito on the way back to Pope’s house.”
She smiles at his teasing drawl, and gives him the answer he would rightly expect from a Governor’s daughter. “Scofield, I’m not sure what you’re used to, but anything less than a filet mignon is not going to cut it with me.”
God, I love you. He bites back the words before they can tumble from his lips, knowing saying them will only make keeping his promise that much harder. Twisting in his seat, he reaches into the back seat, holding out his hand to her. “It’s a date.” It’s the second promise he’s made in as many hours, and he wishes to God there was a way to pick and choose which vow he honored.
She slides her hand into his, her palm warm and soft, squeezing gently in silent agreement, her thumb rubbing against his in a reassuring caress that feels like a promise of her own.
~*~
He has lost her more times than he ever wants to remember. Now he has found her, finally made himself believe her resurrection, he will do whatever needs to be done to make things right.
He wants their first time together to be perfect. He wants clean sheets and a soft bed. He wants them to be able to take their time.
Like so many other things when it comes to Sara Tancredi, it doesn’t happen the way he planned.
They’ve been together for twelve hours, half a day spent trying to retrace their steps and make some sense of the hell in which they’ve been living. When they finally stop moving, taking refuge in a tatty hotel room off the highway, it takes less than five seconds for everything between them to shift and realign once more.
She says his name, just once, a broken sound falling from her lips as she reaches out to him. He kisses her as gently as he can, tasting the healing cut in her lip as well as the sweetness of her mouth, a taste he had been afraid he was starting to forget.
Her hands are tugging at his shirt, pulling it up and over his head, then going to her own t-shirt, her mouth no longer gentle on his. There’s a delicate violence in her that calls to the darkest hunger in him, and he welcomes her gasp of breath as he pushes her back against the wall. Her hands twist in his as he pins them down, not struggling to be free but trying to grip his more tightly, her spine arching as he presses his mouth against her throat, tasting her frantic pulse, her need, every beat of the blood through her veins.
Her bare skin slides against his as she wraps her legs around his hips, soft and slick against his aching flesh. He knows he should say something about being careful, taking precautions, but she's urging him on, telling him it's okay, to please just hurry, and he lets himself forget anything more complicated than the feel of her against him.
Their bodies twist together, desperately searching for that last unknown connection between them, then he is suddenly consumed, sliding into the heat of her. His heart stops and starts again in the same ragged breath, his body losing its boundaries and finding so much more in the same moment. Knowing there's nothing he can do to keep this firestorm from engulfing them both, he whispers her name over and over again, his mouth on her shoulder, her face, pressed against her ear, wanting her to hear his voice, his plea for her - for them - to let go, let everything go.
She does, her body shuddering through his last desperate thrusts, her soft cry of completion washing over his burning skin like hot water. He chokes out her name one last time, his body pouring itself into hers with a violence that may have once shocked him in another life. Finally, they cling to each other, slumped against a rented wall with peeling paint, her hands still tightly gripping his, and he can’t help thinking clean sheets and soft beds might be overrated.
~*~
Francis Robert Tancredi. Beloved Husband of Anne.
Her eyes are closed against the sight of her father's headstone, her voice thick with tears. “Thank you for coming with me.”
He curls his fingers through hers, unconsciously rubbing his thumb over the time-worn setting of the antique ring on her index finger, a habit he can’t remember starting but one he finds strangely soothing. “Thank you for asking me.”
One week later, she returns the favour, traveling with them to the small, anonymous ridge of dirt and grass in New Mexico that has become their father’s final resting place. Her hand is warm and steady in his as they watch Lincoln bow his head over the carefully arranged rocks and earth, and he knows she’s become his touchstone in more ways than one.
~*~
Two summers after his father is exonerated, Lincoln Burrows Junior graduates from high school. He refused to use another name upon his return to school, and Michael is glad. After all that's happened, his brother and nephew deserve to be proud of their heritage on this day.
Michael sits between his brother and Sara in the crowded auditorium, vaguely aware of the curious glances and whispers. Time, it seems, hasn’t served to dim the general public’s memory, but it’s something that gets easier to ignore with each day.
The tall blonde on Lincoln’s other side smiles broadly as LJ’s name is called. Jane Phillips looks startlingly like a proud mother, and Michael suspects his brother has no objections. Lincoln’s head is bent close to hers, the soft rumble of his laughter drifting through the air as they watch his son’s journey across the stage.
Sara rests her hand on his forearm, turning his attention away from his brother to her beaming face. If it’s possible, she looks even more proud than Jane. “What are you thinking?”
He covers her hand with his, tracing her delicate skin with his fingertips. “That I still can't believe we're all here.”
In the semi-darkness of the auditorium, he sees her smiling blush, then feels her fingers thread through his. “Better get used to it, Scofield.”
~*~
“You should be in bed.”
She smiles wearily as she wraps both hands around a large mug of what his nose tells him is peppermint tea. “As should you.”
The three of them have been through a rough night, and he can’t help but smile at the realization that dozens of sleepless, stressful nights in Fox River was no training for a unhappy baby with colic. He sinks onto the wooden bench beside her, his back against the side of the house that seems to be in a perpetual state of ‘almost finished’ these days. “Well, at least she’s asleep,” he murmurs with relief, earning him a chuckle.
“Thank God for that,” she says softly, her eyes trained on the red and gold horizon. “I actually was heading back to bed, then I looked out and saw the sun was coming up. It's silly, I know. I see it almost every day, but it just looked so perfect, so peaceful.” She gives him a faintly shy smile that reaches into the deepest recesses of his heart, then turns back to the glittering expanse of water that encircles their world. "I couldn’t walk away.”
His hand finds hers as the same time she reaches for his, her palm fitting perfectly into the curve of his own. He thinks of the first time she'd touched him, scooping up his hand into hers with a practised, professional air. He lifts her hand to his lips, pressing his mouth against warm skin scented with baby powder and lemon soap, his heart suddenly almost too full to speak. “I know the feeling.”
~*~
Pairing: Michael/Sara (with guest appearances by Lincoln, LJ and Jane)
Genre: Het, AU
Length: 2,069 words
Rating: NC-17
Summary:There are many different ways to hold her hand. He wants to know them all. Contains spoilers and dialogue from "Pilot", "Riots, Drills and the Devil", "The End of the Tunnel" and "Bad Blood". It contains wild speculation for Season Four and a title and quotation stolen from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet".
Author's Note:This is what happens when a long-suppressed plot bunny is poked into life by someone else promising to create a rather breaktaking piece of artwork to match. To see that breathtaking artwork, you need to click here to visit sarah_scribbles's journal. Warning, it's not exactly work-safe, okay? This is for all the fabulous April babies, whose birthdays I would much rather have been celebrating than moving house, with many thanks for being such tremendous friends.
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene V.
~*~
When Michael Scofield was a teenager, holding hands with a girl was something of a milestone. It meant something. Something you wanted the rest of the world to see.
Fifteen years later, five minutes after meeting him, Sara Tancredi cradles his hand in hers, her gentle touch masking the sting of the needle prick in his fingertip. He lets his hand curl in hers, watching her face - so familiar, so foreign - and realises with dismay this could easily mean a lot more than he ever expected.
~*~
His eyes watering from the acrid smoke, he shifts his weight forward, his left arm wrapped around the support strut, every single muscle in his right straining as he reaches down to her.
She flinches at his touch on her shoulder, spinning on her heel, her eyes widening with both disbelief and fear at the sight of him.
“Take my hand!”
Her hesitation shouldn’t sting, but it does.
“Come on!”
Trust me, he begs her silently. Please trust me.
She does.
Her hand catches his, her palm melded to his with sweat and terror. She lets him pull her out of hell and into a whole new danger, because even when she’s sitting safely beside him, he doesn’t want to let go.
~*~
Afterwards, he’s not sure why he asked her. Perhaps knowing he was going over the wall that night made him fearless. Made him just reckless enough to want to leave something of himself behind in this room. “You ever think, in another life-”
“I won’t be that woman, Michael.”
He stares at her, simultaneously impressed and irritated by her blunt honesty. “I wasn't asking you to be,” he shoots back, unhappily aware this might be the last lie he ever tells her. “But it is something to wonder about. What if." She says nothing, her gaze determinedly on the trolley beside her, and he feels another flash of quiet desperation. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure it was said.”
She looks at him, her eyes soft, almost wistful. “Why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye to me?”
His pulse quickens. “I don't know.” His clumsy attempt to thank her seems to have opened up a whole new realm of possibility, and it makes his heart soar as much as it makes it sink. “I guess in a place like this, you never know which day is going to be your last.”
Confusion clouds her eyes, and he can no longer resist the urge to reach out for her. He calls her Doctor when he takes her hand in his, as though the use of her official title might soften the touch. Her face shuts down, her hand growing wooden in his grip, and his tongue suddenly feels thick and heavy in his mouth. “Thank you.”
Another life, he thinks as he walks away from her for the last time, the feel of her hand still imprinted on his. Since he’s been inside these walls, he’s come to believe in the impossible. Perhaps afterwards, when all is said and done, there will be room for one more miracle.
~*~
As they watch Henry Pope walk away from the car towards the entrance of one of Chicago’s most upmarket private cigar clubs, the tension rises between them once again. He’d gone to great lengths to ensure she hadn’t overheard his earlier conversation with the older man, but he learned a long time ago never to assume anything when it comes to this woman.
“You sure about this?” she asks in a light voice that trembles faintly, and his heart twists, realizing that if she doesn’t know about his promise to Henry, she suspects. In some ways, suspicion is worse than certainty. Suspicion feels like a lie.
It feels like a betrayal.
“No.”
She lets out a long breath. “Either way, you still owe me dinner.”
A smile blossoms across his face, his heart instantly growing lighter despite the darkness of his thoughts. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” She’s not looking at him, her gaze still trained on the last spot they’d seen Henry, her cheek resting on her tightly clasped hands. “First week in Fox River, you promised me if you ever got out of there, you’d take me to dinner.”
Perhaps, given their current circumstances, her perfect recall of a three-month old conversation shouldn’t make him feel as though he wants to punch the air in triumph, but it does. “Well, maybe after we wrap this up, we can stop off and get you a burrito on the way back to Pope’s house.”
She smiles at his teasing drawl, and gives him the answer he would rightly expect from a Governor’s daughter. “Scofield, I’m not sure what you’re used to, but anything less than a filet mignon is not going to cut it with me.”
God, I love you. He bites back the words before they can tumble from his lips, knowing saying them will only make keeping his promise that much harder. Twisting in his seat, he reaches into the back seat, holding out his hand to her. “It’s a date.” It’s the second promise he’s made in as many hours, and he wishes to God there was a way to pick and choose which vow he honored.
She slides her hand into his, her palm warm and soft, squeezing gently in silent agreement, her thumb rubbing against his in a reassuring caress that feels like a promise of her own.
~*~
He has lost her more times than he ever wants to remember. Now he has found her, finally made himself believe her resurrection, he will do whatever needs to be done to make things right.
He wants their first time together to be perfect. He wants clean sheets and a soft bed. He wants them to be able to take their time.
Like so many other things when it comes to Sara Tancredi, it doesn’t happen the way he planned.
They’ve been together for twelve hours, half a day spent trying to retrace their steps and make some sense of the hell in which they’ve been living. When they finally stop moving, taking refuge in a tatty hotel room off the highway, it takes less than five seconds for everything between them to shift and realign once more.
She says his name, just once, a broken sound falling from her lips as she reaches out to him. He kisses her as gently as he can, tasting the healing cut in her lip as well as the sweetness of her mouth, a taste he had been afraid he was starting to forget.
Her hands are tugging at his shirt, pulling it up and over his head, then going to her own t-shirt, her mouth no longer gentle on his. There’s a delicate violence in her that calls to the darkest hunger in him, and he welcomes her gasp of breath as he pushes her back against the wall. Her hands twist in his as he pins them down, not struggling to be free but trying to grip his more tightly, her spine arching as he presses his mouth against her throat, tasting her frantic pulse, her need, every beat of the blood through her veins.
Her bare skin slides against his as she wraps her legs around his hips, soft and slick against his aching flesh. He knows he should say something about being careful, taking precautions, but she's urging him on, telling him it's okay, to please just hurry, and he lets himself forget anything more complicated than the feel of her against him.
Their bodies twist together, desperately searching for that last unknown connection between them, then he is suddenly consumed, sliding into the heat of her. His heart stops and starts again in the same ragged breath, his body losing its boundaries and finding so much more in the same moment. Knowing there's nothing he can do to keep this firestorm from engulfing them both, he whispers her name over and over again, his mouth on her shoulder, her face, pressed against her ear, wanting her to hear his voice, his plea for her - for them - to let go, let everything go.
She does, her body shuddering through his last desperate thrusts, her soft cry of completion washing over his burning skin like hot water. He chokes out her name one last time, his body pouring itself into hers with a violence that may have once shocked him in another life. Finally, they cling to each other, slumped against a rented wall with peeling paint, her hands still tightly gripping his, and he can’t help thinking clean sheets and soft beds might be overrated.
~*~
Francis Robert Tancredi. Beloved Husband of Anne.
Her eyes are closed against the sight of her father's headstone, her voice thick with tears. “Thank you for coming with me.”
He curls his fingers through hers, unconsciously rubbing his thumb over the time-worn setting of the antique ring on her index finger, a habit he can’t remember starting but one he finds strangely soothing. “Thank you for asking me.”
One week later, she returns the favour, traveling with them to the small, anonymous ridge of dirt and grass in New Mexico that has become their father’s final resting place. Her hand is warm and steady in his as they watch Lincoln bow his head over the carefully arranged rocks and earth, and he knows she’s become his touchstone in more ways than one.
~*~
Two summers after his father is exonerated, Lincoln Burrows Junior graduates from high school. He refused to use another name upon his return to school, and Michael is glad. After all that's happened, his brother and nephew deserve to be proud of their heritage on this day.
Michael sits between his brother and Sara in the crowded auditorium, vaguely aware of the curious glances and whispers. Time, it seems, hasn’t served to dim the general public’s memory, but it’s something that gets easier to ignore with each day.
The tall blonde on Lincoln’s other side smiles broadly as LJ’s name is called. Jane Phillips looks startlingly like a proud mother, and Michael suspects his brother has no objections. Lincoln’s head is bent close to hers, the soft rumble of his laughter drifting through the air as they watch his son’s journey across the stage.
Sara rests her hand on his forearm, turning his attention away from his brother to her beaming face. If it’s possible, she looks even more proud than Jane. “What are you thinking?”
He covers her hand with his, tracing her delicate skin with his fingertips. “That I still can't believe we're all here.”
In the semi-darkness of the auditorium, he sees her smiling blush, then feels her fingers thread through his. “Better get used to it, Scofield.”
~*~
“You should be in bed.”
She smiles wearily as she wraps both hands around a large mug of what his nose tells him is peppermint tea. “As should you.”
The three of them have been through a rough night, and he can’t help but smile at the realization that dozens of sleepless, stressful nights in Fox River was no training for a unhappy baby with colic. He sinks onto the wooden bench beside her, his back against the side of the house that seems to be in a perpetual state of ‘almost finished’ these days. “Well, at least she’s asleep,” he murmurs with relief, earning him a chuckle.
“Thank God for that,” she says softly, her eyes trained on the red and gold horizon. “I actually was heading back to bed, then I looked out and saw the sun was coming up. It's silly, I know. I see it almost every day, but it just looked so perfect, so peaceful.” She gives him a faintly shy smile that reaches into the deepest recesses of his heart, then turns back to the glittering expanse of water that encircles their world. "I couldn’t walk away.”
His hand finds hers as the same time she reaches for his, her palm fitting perfectly into the curve of his own. He thinks of the first time she'd touched him, scooping up his hand into hers with a practised, professional air. He lifts her hand to his lips, pressing his mouth against warm skin scented with baby powder and lemon soap, his heart suddenly almost too full to speak. “I know the feeling.”
~*~