Scattered - Hiatus Fic Challenge
Title: Scattered (1/1)
Characters: Michael, Sara, Lincoln, LJ
Pairing: Michael/Sara, mention of Lincoln/Jane
Genre: Het, AU
Length: 2,497 words
Rating: PG-15 (a few bad words)
Summary:Home is a feeling, not a place.
Author's Note:Written for the There's No Place Like Home challenge at pbhiatus_fic. It's incredibly late, but what's one more overdue fic, hey? No beta this time around (they're all sleeping, lol!) so all concrit is especially welcome.
~*~
Trying to pick out the plain English from the muddle of legal jargon he’s just heard, LJ stares across the desk, trying very hard not to feel as though he’s back at school and sitting in the principal’s office. “I’m sorry, what does that actually mean?”
His mother’s attorney gives him a kindly smile. “That means the house is yours now, LJ.” He slides a large envelope across the desk in LJ’s father’s direction, and LJ hears the faint jingle of keys.
“I apologise for the delay in finalizing the estate,” the guy is saying now. “Given your father’s circumstances have changed drastically since your mother and step-father last updated their wills, the probate was a fairly knotty one.”
LJ gives up trying to decipher the legalese and simply looks at the white envelope sitting on the desk between himself and his father. I could go home, he thinks for an instant, then he remembers the blood, bright red against the blue of his mother’s jacket.
His father clears his throat. “Maybe we could pick up some of your things.”
“There’s nothing there I want,” LJ says quickly, wishing the lawyer would stop looking at him like that, like he feels sorry for him. He’s very tired of people looking at him like that, and he turns to his dad with relief. “Sara and Jane have been helping me with the shopping and stuff, replacing everything I had to leave behind.” He can barely stand to think of the house in which his mom and step-dad had lived and died. He can’t be in that place. Not now, not ever. “I don’t want to live in that house.”
“I know that.” His father’s hand is a comforting weight on his shoulder. “You don’t even have to go to the house if you don’t want to.”
LJ shifts restlessly in his chair, knowing all the times in his life he’s wanted to be treated as an adult have just come back to bite him in the ass. “Am I allowed to sell it?”
The elderly man smiles. “Your mother appointed myself as a trustee to the estate until you turn eighteen. If it is your wish that the property be sold and the money put into a trust fund until you come of legal age, that could certainly be arranged.”
His dad gives him a reassuring smile that doesn’t quite mask the sadness in his eyes. LJ knows exactly how he feels. It seems wrong to be sitting here talking about money that shouldn’t be his. “You don’t have to decide anything today, LJ.”
“It’s okay.” LJ thinks about his mom, her dream of him going to college like his Uncle Mike, really doing something with his life. He thinks of Veronica and Sara, and how much they believed in what they did. It seems like a very long time since he’s even thought about school, but a whole world of possibility is suddenly opening up in front of him, an endless, unknown road. “I think I know what she would have wanted me to do.”
~*~
Sara never thought the sight of her own front door could make her feel sick. She stands stock still, her feet halting as though they’ve been welded to the floor, and she suddenly wants nothing more than to flee back down the stairs and onto the street.
“We don’t have to do this today.” Michael catches her cold hand in his, his shoulder firm against hers. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever want to do this, so today is as good a day as any.” She grips his hand tightly, then lets it go, reaching instead for the key ring tucked into the side pocket of her purse. “I just need to get some paperwork and a few other things. Everything else can wait until we come up again next month.” Taking a deep breath, she opens the door to an apartment that is musty, cold and an utter shambles.
She’s spent the morning trying to prepare herself for the first sight of it in weeks, but as she stares at the carnage around her, she feels the blood drain from her face. “Oh, my God.”
This apartment used to be her home, her haven, the one place she felt completely safe. Now it’s the battlefield where she had to fight for her life, the last room in which she’d seen her father alive, and she knows she will never be able to live here again.
The vase she’d smashed during her last stand with the Company agent still lies in pieces on the carpet, its shattered remains joined by the contents of drawers and cupboards and bookcases. Michael’s hand firmly at the small of her back, she walks slowly through her former home, her heart twisting tighter and tighter with every new discovery. Her gaze goes instinctively to the coffee table, her eyes widening at the sight of the drug paraphernalia still strewn across its surface. The vial of morphine is gone, no doubt retrieved by the same man who’d put it there in the first place, but the disposable syringe and the glass of scotch are still very much in evidence.
Beside her, Michael lets out a shaky breath, and she turns to find he’s followed the line of her gaze. She brushes his arm with her fingertips, and his eyes lift to lock with hers. “You know what they say about overdoses,” she says softly. “The second time’s usually the charm.”
If it’s at all possible, he looks even more horrified, and she slides her hand down to tangle her fingers through his. “I got away, Michael, okay? Let’s just get this done.”
She walks through the apartment room by room, her thoughts keeping pace with the rapid thrum of her pulse. Michael follows her at a discreet distance, as though torn between giving her space and not wanting to leave her alone to face the past. In the smallest moments of hope she had ever allowed herself before the escape, she let herself imagine Michael’s first visit to her apartment. This is not how she’d pictured it, not even close.
“Sara?” He's looking at her, waiting patiently. “If you tell me where everything is, I can help you get started.”
She rubs her hand over her forehead, feeling the start of a headache clawing between her eyes. “Uh, my suitcase is under my bed,” she replies as she gestures down the hallway. “You could start there, I guess.”
He gives her a wry smile that speaks volumes. “Oh, the irony,” he quips lightly, squeezing her shoulder as he brushes past her.
Alone in the living room, she puts her hands on her hips and takes several deep breaths, trying to push down a flicker of panic. There is no one here but us, she tells herself sternly. No masked men, no Paul Kellerman, just the remnants of her old life, scattered uncaringly from wall to wall.
By the time Michael returns, carrying her empty suitcase, she’s gathered up the personal papers she needs and is sitting in what used to be her favourite chair, staring at the couch. “Paul Kellerman sat here in this room with me, on that couch right there, pretending to be my friend.” She looks at him. “I asked him into my home, let him cook me dinner. A week later, he tried to drown me in a fucking bathtub.”
Michael drops the suitcase onto the floor with a dull thud as he quickly moves towards her. “Sara, don’t do this.”
“What do you suggest I do?” She swipes her hands across her face, surprised to find it’s wet with tears. “Pretend none of it ever happened?”
“Of course not.” His hands are on her elbows, lifting her out of the chair and into his arms. She closes her eyes as the warmth of him seeps through her thin sweater, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of his chest.
There’s no one here but us.
“Paul Kellerman is dead, Sara,” he murmurs in her ear, his hands gently stroking her back.
Despite the reassurance of his touch, she feels a shiver of doubt crawl down the length of her spine, tightening her skin. “Is he?”
He pulls back, his hands coming up to cup her face, not letting her look away. “Sara, listen to me.”
Her eyes blur once again, and she has the sudden, ridiculous fear that her nose might be running. “What?”
He smooths one hand gently over her hair, a familiar gesture that usually never fails to calm her frayed nerves. “If by some twist of fate he’s still alive, I don’t believe any of us have anything to fear from him.”
No matter what foolish fears lurk beneath the surface of her thoughts, she knows he’s right. She nods slowly, not quite trusting her voice, and he rubs his thumb gently along the curve of her jaw. “You’re always going to remember everything that happened,” he says softly, his gaze holding hers steady. “There’s not a lot you can do to change that.”
“I know.”
“The thing is, you don’t ever have to be alone in remembering it.”
She stares at him, her pulse quickening as she grasps the reality of what he’s offering her, what he’s been offering her from the moment he'd left Fox River. A memory flashes into her head, the moment of utter despair when she’d told the police there was no other family they needed to inform of her father’s death, because there was only her. “Thank you.”
His eyes darken, and she’s suddenly afraid the next words out of his mouth will be an apology. But he simply nods at the suitcase sitting on the floor, his hands dropping to his sides. “Well, the sooner we get started-”
“The sooner we’ll finish,” she interjects, a smile threatening to curve her lips. “Your mother liked to use that one, too?”
“Yes.” His eyes widen slightly - she’s not in the habit of casually dropping the subject of their absent mothers into conversation - then she feels the brush of his hand against hers. ”She would have liked you,” he murmurs, giving her a smile that skates endearingly close to being shy, and her heart lurches.
“Well, I’d love to tell you my father would have liked you, Scofield,” she tosses back, gratefully seizing the chance for a light-hearted moment, “but I’m not sure you’d believe me.”
Laughing softly, he puts his hands on her shoulders and gently turns her in the direction of her bedroom. “Go and get what you need so I can take you home.”
He says the word home easily, naturally, as though they’re simply visitors standing in the middle of someone else’s apartment. Something shifts in her head, something that feels like acceptance dawning with an almost audible click, and the task ahead of her suddenly seems far less daunting. “If I’m not done in fifteen minutes, you have my permission to manhandle me out the door.”
His bright eyes creasing at the corners, he gives her a slow smile. “I’ll set my watch.”
~*~
“So, what now?” Lincoln takes a long swig of beer, more to give himself a moment to think of the right words rather than quench his thirst. “We gonna check out your old place?”
They both know it’s a rhetorical question. Michael’s loft had been put on the market the week before he walked into Fox River. Even if it hadn’t, Lincoln’s not sure he would have wanted to stir up the memories that particular visit may have invoked.
It might be a rhetorical question, but his brother answers it anyway. “I don’t think so.” Michael frowns at the light beer in his hand, his expression faintly pained, and Lincoln can’t help wondering if he’s mentally cataloguing everything he’d left behind. When he finally speaks, though, Lincoln realizes he’s stewing over regret of a different kind. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you over more often,” he blurts out, and Lincoln can’t control the bark of laughter that rises in his throat.
“You think I give a shit about that?”
His brother looks at him steadily. “Yes.”
He opens his mouth to deny it, then reminds himself they’ve been to hell and back together, and the time for honesty is long overdue. “Maybe.”
“I was a pompous ass to you a lot of the time.”
“Yeah, you were.” Lincoln shrugs restlessly, suddenly realizing being honest takes a lot more effort than he might have thought. “But I deserved it a lot of the time.”
Michael’s sudden grin lights up his face. “Yeah, you did.”
Feeling a smile creep across his own mouth, Lincoln feels some of the tension pinching the back of his neck fade away. LJ has let himself be coerced into buying new clothes and a haircut by Sara, leaving Lincoln alone with his brother for the first time in what feels like an eternity.
Leaning back in the booth, he curls his hands around his beer and checks out their surroundings. They’re sitting in a type of bar in which Michael wouldn’t have been caught dead a few years ago, not that Lincoln would ever say such a thing aloud. There are no suits, no cable news channels playing above the bar, no gleaming chrome, just beer on tap and peanuts on the bar.
“Remember what we said at the boat that day?” Lincoln watches Michael’s face, trying to gauge how far he can go with this particular topic. It’s not a day his brother likes to remember, and Lincoln can’t say he blames him. “We go and we don’t look back?”
“I remember.” Michael looks down at the untouched beer in front of him, then up at Lincoln. “I didn’t mean it,” he adds almost casually, and Lincoln’s sigh feels as though it comes up from the bottom of his chest.
“Neither did I.” How could he? Not looking back would have meant walking away from his son forever. “But now? I’m tired of looking back, man.”
Michael swallows hard. “So am I.”
“I don’t mean leaving Chicago,” Lincoln tells him, wanting to make sure they’re on the same page. “I’m tired of looking back at everything I messed up.” He thinks of his son’s cheerful determination to go back to school in the fall, of the way his brother smiles when he looks at Sara Tancredi, of the tall blonde woman who both terrifies and fascinates him to the point of distraction. For the first time in a long time, he wants to go forward, and he has no intention of going there alone. Grinning across the table, Lincoln lifts his beer in salute. “Here's to meaning it this time.”
His brother grins back, the sound of clinking glass cutting easily through the dull babble of the lunchtime crowd. “I’ll drink to that.”
~*~
Characters: Michael, Sara, Lincoln, LJ
Pairing: Michael/Sara, mention of Lincoln/Jane
Genre: Het, AU
Length: 2,497 words
Rating: PG-15 (a few bad words)
Summary:Home is a feeling, not a place.
Author's Note:Written for the There's No Place Like Home challenge at pbhiatus_fic. It's incredibly late, but what's one more overdue fic, hey? No beta this time around (they're all sleeping, lol!) so all concrit is especially welcome.
~*~
Trying to pick out the plain English from the muddle of legal jargon he’s just heard, LJ stares across the desk, trying very hard not to feel as though he’s back at school and sitting in the principal’s office. “I’m sorry, what does that actually mean?”
His mother’s attorney gives him a kindly smile. “That means the house is yours now, LJ.” He slides a large envelope across the desk in LJ’s father’s direction, and LJ hears the faint jingle of keys.
“I apologise for the delay in finalizing the estate,” the guy is saying now. “Given your father’s circumstances have changed drastically since your mother and step-father last updated their wills, the probate was a fairly knotty one.”
LJ gives up trying to decipher the legalese and simply looks at the white envelope sitting on the desk between himself and his father. I could go home, he thinks for an instant, then he remembers the blood, bright red against the blue of his mother’s jacket.
His father clears his throat. “Maybe we could pick up some of your things.”
“There’s nothing there I want,” LJ says quickly, wishing the lawyer would stop looking at him like that, like he feels sorry for him. He’s very tired of people looking at him like that, and he turns to his dad with relief. “Sara and Jane have been helping me with the shopping and stuff, replacing everything I had to leave behind.” He can barely stand to think of the house in which his mom and step-dad had lived and died. He can’t be in that place. Not now, not ever. “I don’t want to live in that house.”
“I know that.” His father’s hand is a comforting weight on his shoulder. “You don’t even have to go to the house if you don’t want to.”
LJ shifts restlessly in his chair, knowing all the times in his life he’s wanted to be treated as an adult have just come back to bite him in the ass. “Am I allowed to sell it?”
The elderly man smiles. “Your mother appointed myself as a trustee to the estate until you turn eighteen. If it is your wish that the property be sold and the money put into a trust fund until you come of legal age, that could certainly be arranged.”
His dad gives him a reassuring smile that doesn’t quite mask the sadness in his eyes. LJ knows exactly how he feels. It seems wrong to be sitting here talking about money that shouldn’t be his. “You don’t have to decide anything today, LJ.”
“It’s okay.” LJ thinks about his mom, her dream of him going to college like his Uncle Mike, really doing something with his life. He thinks of Veronica and Sara, and how much they believed in what they did. It seems like a very long time since he’s even thought about school, but a whole world of possibility is suddenly opening up in front of him, an endless, unknown road. “I think I know what she would have wanted me to do.”
~*~
Sara never thought the sight of her own front door could make her feel sick. She stands stock still, her feet halting as though they’ve been welded to the floor, and she suddenly wants nothing more than to flee back down the stairs and onto the street.
“We don’t have to do this today.” Michael catches her cold hand in his, his shoulder firm against hers. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever want to do this, so today is as good a day as any.” She grips his hand tightly, then lets it go, reaching instead for the key ring tucked into the side pocket of her purse. “I just need to get some paperwork and a few other things. Everything else can wait until we come up again next month.” Taking a deep breath, she opens the door to an apartment that is musty, cold and an utter shambles.
She’s spent the morning trying to prepare herself for the first sight of it in weeks, but as she stares at the carnage around her, she feels the blood drain from her face. “Oh, my God.”
This apartment used to be her home, her haven, the one place she felt completely safe. Now it’s the battlefield where she had to fight for her life, the last room in which she’d seen her father alive, and she knows she will never be able to live here again.
The vase she’d smashed during her last stand with the Company agent still lies in pieces on the carpet, its shattered remains joined by the contents of drawers and cupboards and bookcases. Michael’s hand firmly at the small of her back, she walks slowly through her former home, her heart twisting tighter and tighter with every new discovery. Her gaze goes instinctively to the coffee table, her eyes widening at the sight of the drug paraphernalia still strewn across its surface. The vial of morphine is gone, no doubt retrieved by the same man who’d put it there in the first place, but the disposable syringe and the glass of scotch are still very much in evidence.
Beside her, Michael lets out a shaky breath, and she turns to find he’s followed the line of her gaze. She brushes his arm with her fingertips, and his eyes lift to lock with hers. “You know what they say about overdoses,” she says softly. “The second time’s usually the charm.”
If it’s at all possible, he looks even more horrified, and she slides her hand down to tangle her fingers through his. “I got away, Michael, okay? Let’s just get this done.”
She walks through the apartment room by room, her thoughts keeping pace with the rapid thrum of her pulse. Michael follows her at a discreet distance, as though torn between giving her space and not wanting to leave her alone to face the past. In the smallest moments of hope she had ever allowed herself before the escape, she let herself imagine Michael’s first visit to her apartment. This is not how she’d pictured it, not even close.
“Sara?” He's looking at her, waiting patiently. “If you tell me where everything is, I can help you get started.”
She rubs her hand over her forehead, feeling the start of a headache clawing between her eyes. “Uh, my suitcase is under my bed,” she replies as she gestures down the hallway. “You could start there, I guess.”
He gives her a wry smile that speaks volumes. “Oh, the irony,” he quips lightly, squeezing her shoulder as he brushes past her.
Alone in the living room, she puts her hands on her hips and takes several deep breaths, trying to push down a flicker of panic. There is no one here but us, she tells herself sternly. No masked men, no Paul Kellerman, just the remnants of her old life, scattered uncaringly from wall to wall.
By the time Michael returns, carrying her empty suitcase, she’s gathered up the personal papers she needs and is sitting in what used to be her favourite chair, staring at the couch. “Paul Kellerman sat here in this room with me, on that couch right there, pretending to be my friend.” She looks at him. “I asked him into my home, let him cook me dinner. A week later, he tried to drown me in a fucking bathtub.”
Michael drops the suitcase onto the floor with a dull thud as he quickly moves towards her. “Sara, don’t do this.”
“What do you suggest I do?” She swipes her hands across her face, surprised to find it’s wet with tears. “Pretend none of it ever happened?”
“Of course not.” His hands are on her elbows, lifting her out of the chair and into his arms. She closes her eyes as the warmth of him seeps through her thin sweater, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of his chest.
There’s no one here but us.
“Paul Kellerman is dead, Sara,” he murmurs in her ear, his hands gently stroking her back.
Despite the reassurance of his touch, she feels a shiver of doubt crawl down the length of her spine, tightening her skin. “Is he?”
He pulls back, his hands coming up to cup her face, not letting her look away. “Sara, listen to me.”
Her eyes blur once again, and she has the sudden, ridiculous fear that her nose might be running. “What?”
He smooths one hand gently over her hair, a familiar gesture that usually never fails to calm her frayed nerves. “If by some twist of fate he’s still alive, I don’t believe any of us have anything to fear from him.”
No matter what foolish fears lurk beneath the surface of her thoughts, she knows he’s right. She nods slowly, not quite trusting her voice, and he rubs his thumb gently along the curve of her jaw. “You’re always going to remember everything that happened,” he says softly, his gaze holding hers steady. “There’s not a lot you can do to change that.”
“I know.”
“The thing is, you don’t ever have to be alone in remembering it.”
She stares at him, her pulse quickening as she grasps the reality of what he’s offering her, what he’s been offering her from the moment he'd left Fox River. A memory flashes into her head, the moment of utter despair when she’d told the police there was no other family they needed to inform of her father’s death, because there was only her. “Thank you.”
His eyes darken, and she’s suddenly afraid the next words out of his mouth will be an apology. But he simply nods at the suitcase sitting on the floor, his hands dropping to his sides. “Well, the sooner we get started-”
“The sooner we’ll finish,” she interjects, a smile threatening to curve her lips. “Your mother liked to use that one, too?”
“Yes.” His eyes widen slightly - she’s not in the habit of casually dropping the subject of their absent mothers into conversation - then she feels the brush of his hand against hers. ”She would have liked you,” he murmurs, giving her a smile that skates endearingly close to being shy, and her heart lurches.
“Well, I’d love to tell you my father would have liked you, Scofield,” she tosses back, gratefully seizing the chance for a light-hearted moment, “but I’m not sure you’d believe me.”
Laughing softly, he puts his hands on her shoulders and gently turns her in the direction of her bedroom. “Go and get what you need so I can take you home.”
He says the word home easily, naturally, as though they’re simply visitors standing in the middle of someone else’s apartment. Something shifts in her head, something that feels like acceptance dawning with an almost audible click, and the task ahead of her suddenly seems far less daunting. “If I’m not done in fifteen minutes, you have my permission to manhandle me out the door.”
His bright eyes creasing at the corners, he gives her a slow smile. “I’ll set my watch.”
~*~
“So, what now?” Lincoln takes a long swig of beer, more to give himself a moment to think of the right words rather than quench his thirst. “We gonna check out your old place?”
They both know it’s a rhetorical question. Michael’s loft had been put on the market the week before he walked into Fox River. Even if it hadn’t, Lincoln’s not sure he would have wanted to stir up the memories that particular visit may have invoked.
It might be a rhetorical question, but his brother answers it anyway. “I don’t think so.” Michael frowns at the light beer in his hand, his expression faintly pained, and Lincoln can’t help wondering if he’s mentally cataloguing everything he’d left behind. When he finally speaks, though, Lincoln realizes he’s stewing over regret of a different kind. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you over more often,” he blurts out, and Lincoln can’t control the bark of laughter that rises in his throat.
“You think I give a shit about that?”
His brother looks at him steadily. “Yes.”
He opens his mouth to deny it, then reminds himself they’ve been to hell and back together, and the time for honesty is long overdue. “Maybe.”
“I was a pompous ass to you a lot of the time.”
“Yeah, you were.” Lincoln shrugs restlessly, suddenly realizing being honest takes a lot more effort than he might have thought. “But I deserved it a lot of the time.”
Michael’s sudden grin lights up his face. “Yeah, you did.”
Feeling a smile creep across his own mouth, Lincoln feels some of the tension pinching the back of his neck fade away. LJ has let himself be coerced into buying new clothes and a haircut by Sara, leaving Lincoln alone with his brother for the first time in what feels like an eternity.
Leaning back in the booth, he curls his hands around his beer and checks out their surroundings. They’re sitting in a type of bar in which Michael wouldn’t have been caught dead a few years ago, not that Lincoln would ever say such a thing aloud. There are no suits, no cable news channels playing above the bar, no gleaming chrome, just beer on tap and peanuts on the bar.
“Remember what we said at the boat that day?” Lincoln watches Michael’s face, trying to gauge how far he can go with this particular topic. It’s not a day his brother likes to remember, and Lincoln can’t say he blames him. “We go and we don’t look back?”
“I remember.” Michael looks down at the untouched beer in front of him, then up at Lincoln. “I didn’t mean it,” he adds almost casually, and Lincoln’s sigh feels as though it comes up from the bottom of his chest.
“Neither did I.” How could he? Not looking back would have meant walking away from his son forever. “But now? I’m tired of looking back, man.”
Michael swallows hard. “So am I.”
“I don’t mean leaving Chicago,” Lincoln tells him, wanting to make sure they’re on the same page. “I’m tired of looking back at everything I messed up.” He thinks of his son’s cheerful determination to go back to school in the fall, of the way his brother smiles when he looks at Sara Tancredi, of the tall blonde woman who both terrifies and fascinates him to the point of distraction. For the first time in a long time, he wants to go forward, and he has no intention of going there alone. Grinning across the table, Lincoln lifts his beer in salute. “Here's to meaning it this time.”
His brother grins back, the sound of clinking glass cutting easily through the dull babble of the lunchtime crowd. “I’ll drink to that.”
~*~