A Postcard from the Edge - Michael/Sara
Title: A Postcard from the Edge (1/1)
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield, mention of Nurse Katie
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 1,962 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Do you really believe that? That you can get it all back? Spoilers for #201, Manhunt and the vague spoilers for the whole of Season Four so far. I have two other WIPs that don't want to co-operate with me, so I wrote this. The slightly-tweaked title is stolen from a very good book. *g*
~*~
They’ve been living under the same roof for almost a week, but it had only taken him a day or two to realise that if Sara wasn’t camped out in the small boat, he’d find her sitting by the water’s edge, her gaze fixed on a distant point on the horizon. A few days ago, she’d told him she’d always wanted to live on the water, to have the ocean as her front yard, and he realises now she hadn’t been exaggerating. He likes that she feels that way. A life near the water was something he’d once envisaged for himself and Lincoln - before everything had gone to hell down in Panama - and the thought of Sara secretly harbouring the same longing makes him smile.
Gazing across the boardwalk to where she’s found a moment’s privacy at the far end of the dock now, however, his smile fades. Even from this distance, he can see the steady rhythm of her heels drumming against the ground, the tense line of her slender neck as she bows her head. She looks small and vulnerable against the backdrop of cranes and freighters, and his feet are moving towards her before his brain has a chance to point out she’ll talk to him about Panama when she’s ready and not a moment before. He can hardly resent her need for secrets, he thinks as he surreptitiously swipes his knuckle under his nose, not when he’s keeping one of his own.
If she minds that her quiet moment is being interrupted, there’s no sign of it in her eyes or her smile. “Hey.”
“Hi.” He carefully arranges himself on the uncomfortable pile of hardwood planks beside her. It’s not the first time he’s found her in this specific spot, and he makes a mental note to bring a pillow with him next time. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Her lips twitch at his painfully lame opener, then she sighs. “I was thinking how much I miss talking to Katie.”
He’s not sure what he’d been expecting her to say, but he definitely hadn’t expecting her to mention her former nurse. Of course, now that he thinks about it, he’s not surprised she’s craving some female company after a week spent under the same roof as a bunch of guys fresh out of prison. “You were good friends, weren’t you?”
“I like to think so.” Following the line of her gaze, he sees that she’s folding and unfolding her slender hands together in her lap, over and over again. “She was a good friend to me, at least.” She darts him a quick glance, as though not wanting to look at him when she says the next words. “Except for the police, she was the only person who came to see me in hospital after you guys broke out of Fox River.”
Her tone is matter-of-fact and nowhere near a rebuke, but guilt still sinks like a stone to the bottom of his stomach. “Your dad didn’t visit you?”
This time, she looks him in the eye. “No.”
Damn you, Frank Tancredi. Even as he silently mutters the words in his head, he knows he’s in no position to judge. “When was the last time you talked to Katie?”
“She wrote to me when I was in custody awaiting trail in Chicago.” Her expression is calm, almost serene, but he sees the darkness in her eyes. There are so many bad things to forget, he thinks. Sometimes he wonders if they’re aiming for the impossible, thinking they’ll be able to leave it all behind them. “Told me she was praying for me and that she’d be there for me no matter what the verdict was.” She closes her eyes, her eyelashes dark against her pale skin. “When my case was dismissed and I finally listened to the message you’d left me, I didn’t think of anything except getting to Panama and finding you and Lincoln.” Her head drops a little, and he wonders if she’s thinking of that desperate flight that had ended so very badly. “I never called her.”
My fault, he thinks, knowing it’s just another in a long list of damages he’s inflicted on this woman’s life. He exhales unsteadily, blowing out a loud sigh. Sliding his arm around her, he trails his hand slowly up and down the length of her spine. In the midday sun, both her thin cotton shirt and the skin beneath it are hot enough to warm his palm. The subtle scent of the perfumed soap she always uses teases his senses, reminding him of the private moment they’d managed to share in her sleeping quarters in the early hours of that morning. “I could talk to Self. See if he can get a message to her. Let her know you’re okay.”
Her eyes fly open as she shakes her head almost violently. “No. No. The last person who got a message from me was Bruce.” Bruce’s name hums in the air between them, and she puts her hand gently on his leg, as if wanting to take the sting of it away. “No messages, not until we’re sure all this is over.”
“Tell you what.” He stretches his legs out in front of him, enjoying the feel of the sun warming his skin through the denim of his jeans. “When this is all over, we’ll send her a postcard. Ask her to come for a visit.”
She looks at him, her dark eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. “A postcard from where?”
He returns her gaze steadily. Since the fates had returned her to him, there hasn’t been a day when he hasn’t imagined spending the rest of his life with her. The locale of that life varies according to his mood but, looking at her now, he knows that location doesn’t matter. “That’s up to you.” Realising he might be taking a huge leap of faith with that statement (but, oh God, he hopes he isn’t) he hastily adds, “If that’s what you want.”
He sees her throat work as she swallows hard. “To be with you when this is over?” He nods, and the hand on his leg tightens. “Of course that’s what I want.” She flashes him a smile that makes him forget he’s already been awake for eight hours. “Haven’t you been listening?”
He gives her a grin he suspect verges on being sheepish. “I like to double check these things.”
“I’ve noticed.”
"I miss being able to go to my favourite bookstore," he tells her after a few moments spent in silent, pleasant contemplation of the glittering water. "And my favourite pizza place."
She gives him a look that tells him she knows exactly what he's trying to do. "I miss sleeping late and my record collection."
He knows she misses a lot more than that, starting with her father and Bruce and being a working doctor, but that's not what this conversation is about. This conversation is a reminder and a promise, both to themselves and to each other. “I mean it about Katie. She’s probably due for a vacation, don’t you think?”
She smiles again, and this time the darkness in her eyes begins to fade. “She does like the beach, from what I remember.”
Slipping his hand beneath the hem of her shirt, he brushes his fingertips across the soft skin of her lower back, barely noticing the tightly raised ridges of her scars. “Maybe we could take the SS Minnow up the river and drop anchor in Lake Michigan,” he says quietly, watching a myriad of emotions flickering across her face. “Pick her up for a three hour tour.”
His second lame joke in as many minutes elicits a grin. “I’m sure she’d love that,” she drawls, her spine arching subtly beneath his touch. “You really don’t care where we go when this is over?”
He shakes his head. There was a time when he thought he needed to run as far away from Chicago as possible, but now he’s not so sure. “As long as Linc and LJ are safe and I have you, I’d live in that damned warehouse for the next twenty years if I had to.”
Smiling, she turns to consider the building that’s been their home for the last week. “Well, I’m not sure about that.” Turning back to him, she nudges his shoulder with hers. “The housework would be a bitch.”
Something tightens deep in his chest. He knows she’s fighting demons every time she closes her eyes at night, every time someone mentions The Company or Sona, but she’s sitting in the sun with him, smiling as she cracks jokes about housework. “We could get a housekeeper.”
She lifts her hand to his face, her fingertips brushing his skin, her fingernails rasping lightly over his unshaven jaw. “You’re more than just a pretty face, aren't you, Scofield?”
Turning his head, he presses a lingering kiss to the soft skin of her inner wrist. “I sincerely hope so.”
Chuckling, she tilts her head until it’s resting on his shoulder, her other hand still splayed on his thigh. “I’d like to sit here for the rest of the day,” she murmurs in a voice tinged with wistfulness. “Do you think that’s doable?”
Squinting into the sun, he studies the figure which has emerged from the warehouse’s main entrance. It’s his brother, waving at them in an unmistakable ‘come back’ gesture, and Michael doesn’t bother suppressing his sigh. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Lifting her head, Sara shields her eyes as she looks towards the warehouse. “Come on in, your time is up,” she mutters under her breath, her hand gripping his thigh briefly as she pushes herself to her feet. Her expression, so open and relaxed only seconds earlier, is now unsettlingly blank, as though something or someone has wiped it clean.
He climbs off the pile of hardwood, catching her hand in his as she takes the first step towards the warehouse. “Sara.”
Weariness shimmers in her eyes as she looks at him. “What?”
“Postcard. Katie. Vacation.” He squeezes her hand gently. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
“I know you will.” The corners of her mouth lift in a smile as her fingers curl around his, and he knows she wants very badly to believe what he’s saying is possible. “And the SS Minnow?”
He tucks her hand into the crook of his arm as they start to walk, managing to resist the urge to press it against his heart instead. “Hope you’ve got your sea legs, Tancredi, because that's a done deal.”
She laughs softly. “I’ve been on a boat before, remember?” They walk towards the warehouse without speaking, the screeching of the seagulls splitting the air above them, the low moan of boat horns echoing across the water. As they reach the main entrance, she stops in her tracks and gives him a searching look. “Of course, there will be one big difference this time.”
He blinks, his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden wall of shade that’s just engulfed them. “What’s that?”
Standing on tip toe, she brushes his mouth with a kiss, a chaste caress that makes his pulse leap wildly. “This time, I plan on remembering everything.”
Stricken with a sudden rush of desire and a tenderness that goes beyond any craving of the flesh, he watches her as she makes her way towards her nautical bedroom, no doubt to retrieve the notes she'd been making before she'd taken a break. Her spine is ramrod straight, like that of a soldier preparing to march into battle. Which, of course, is exactly what she is. What they are.
Postcard. Katie. Vacation. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the sudden twist of pain stabbing at his temples. He'd once told her they could get back what they'd lost, but they both know that's no longer possible. There is still something worth fighting for, though, something incredibly precious and fragile.
Freedom.
"I'll make it happen," he says aloud, knowing she's too far away to hear him but wanting to say the words, a vow to himself as well as to her. "I promise."
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield, mention of Nurse Katie
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 1,962 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Do you really believe that? That you can get it all back? Spoilers for #201, Manhunt and the vague spoilers for the whole of Season Four so far. I have two other WIPs that don't want to co-operate with me, so I wrote this. The slightly-tweaked title is stolen from a very good book. *g*
~*~
They’ve been living under the same roof for almost a week, but it had only taken him a day or two to realise that if Sara wasn’t camped out in the small boat, he’d find her sitting by the water’s edge, her gaze fixed on a distant point on the horizon. A few days ago, she’d told him she’d always wanted to live on the water, to have the ocean as her front yard, and he realises now she hadn’t been exaggerating. He likes that she feels that way. A life near the water was something he’d once envisaged for himself and Lincoln - before everything had gone to hell down in Panama - and the thought of Sara secretly harbouring the same longing makes him smile.
Gazing across the boardwalk to where she’s found a moment’s privacy at the far end of the dock now, however, his smile fades. Even from this distance, he can see the steady rhythm of her heels drumming against the ground, the tense line of her slender neck as she bows her head. She looks small and vulnerable against the backdrop of cranes and freighters, and his feet are moving towards her before his brain has a chance to point out she’ll talk to him about Panama when she’s ready and not a moment before. He can hardly resent her need for secrets, he thinks as he surreptitiously swipes his knuckle under his nose, not when he’s keeping one of his own.
If she minds that her quiet moment is being interrupted, there’s no sign of it in her eyes or her smile. “Hey.”
“Hi.” He carefully arranges himself on the uncomfortable pile of hardwood planks beside her. It’s not the first time he’s found her in this specific spot, and he makes a mental note to bring a pillow with him next time. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Her lips twitch at his painfully lame opener, then she sighs. “I was thinking how much I miss talking to Katie.”
He’s not sure what he’d been expecting her to say, but he definitely hadn’t expecting her to mention her former nurse. Of course, now that he thinks about it, he’s not surprised she’s craving some female company after a week spent under the same roof as a bunch of guys fresh out of prison. “You were good friends, weren’t you?”
“I like to think so.” Following the line of her gaze, he sees that she’s folding and unfolding her slender hands together in her lap, over and over again. “She was a good friend to me, at least.” She darts him a quick glance, as though not wanting to look at him when she says the next words. “Except for the police, she was the only person who came to see me in hospital after you guys broke out of Fox River.”
Her tone is matter-of-fact and nowhere near a rebuke, but guilt still sinks like a stone to the bottom of his stomach. “Your dad didn’t visit you?”
This time, she looks him in the eye. “No.”
Damn you, Frank Tancredi. Even as he silently mutters the words in his head, he knows he’s in no position to judge. “When was the last time you talked to Katie?”
“She wrote to me when I was in custody awaiting trail in Chicago.” Her expression is calm, almost serene, but he sees the darkness in her eyes. There are so many bad things to forget, he thinks. Sometimes he wonders if they’re aiming for the impossible, thinking they’ll be able to leave it all behind them. “Told me she was praying for me and that she’d be there for me no matter what the verdict was.” She closes her eyes, her eyelashes dark against her pale skin. “When my case was dismissed and I finally listened to the message you’d left me, I didn’t think of anything except getting to Panama and finding you and Lincoln.” Her head drops a little, and he wonders if she’s thinking of that desperate flight that had ended so very badly. “I never called her.”
My fault, he thinks, knowing it’s just another in a long list of damages he’s inflicted on this woman’s life. He exhales unsteadily, blowing out a loud sigh. Sliding his arm around her, he trails his hand slowly up and down the length of her spine. In the midday sun, both her thin cotton shirt and the skin beneath it are hot enough to warm his palm. The subtle scent of the perfumed soap she always uses teases his senses, reminding him of the private moment they’d managed to share in her sleeping quarters in the early hours of that morning. “I could talk to Self. See if he can get a message to her. Let her know you’re okay.”
Her eyes fly open as she shakes her head almost violently. “No. No. The last person who got a message from me was Bruce.” Bruce’s name hums in the air between them, and she puts her hand gently on his leg, as if wanting to take the sting of it away. “No messages, not until we’re sure all this is over.”
“Tell you what.” He stretches his legs out in front of him, enjoying the feel of the sun warming his skin through the denim of his jeans. “When this is all over, we’ll send her a postcard. Ask her to come for a visit.”
She looks at him, her dark eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. “A postcard from where?”
He returns her gaze steadily. Since the fates had returned her to him, there hasn’t been a day when he hasn’t imagined spending the rest of his life with her. The locale of that life varies according to his mood but, looking at her now, he knows that location doesn’t matter. “That’s up to you.” Realising he might be taking a huge leap of faith with that statement (but, oh God, he hopes he isn’t) he hastily adds, “If that’s what you want.”
He sees her throat work as she swallows hard. “To be with you when this is over?” He nods, and the hand on his leg tightens. “Of course that’s what I want.” She flashes him a smile that makes him forget he’s already been awake for eight hours. “Haven’t you been listening?”
He gives her a grin he suspect verges on being sheepish. “I like to double check these things.”
“I’ve noticed.”
"I miss being able to go to my favourite bookstore," he tells her after a few moments spent in silent, pleasant contemplation of the glittering water. "And my favourite pizza place."
She gives him a look that tells him she knows exactly what he's trying to do. "I miss sleeping late and my record collection."
He knows she misses a lot more than that, starting with her father and Bruce and being a working doctor, but that's not what this conversation is about. This conversation is a reminder and a promise, both to themselves and to each other. “I mean it about Katie. She’s probably due for a vacation, don’t you think?”
She smiles again, and this time the darkness in her eyes begins to fade. “She does like the beach, from what I remember.”
Slipping his hand beneath the hem of her shirt, he brushes his fingertips across the soft skin of her lower back, barely noticing the tightly raised ridges of her scars. “Maybe we could take the SS Minnow up the river and drop anchor in Lake Michigan,” he says quietly, watching a myriad of emotions flickering across her face. “Pick her up for a three hour tour.”
His second lame joke in as many minutes elicits a grin. “I’m sure she’d love that,” she drawls, her spine arching subtly beneath his touch. “You really don’t care where we go when this is over?”
He shakes his head. There was a time when he thought he needed to run as far away from Chicago as possible, but now he’s not so sure. “As long as Linc and LJ are safe and I have you, I’d live in that damned warehouse for the next twenty years if I had to.”
Smiling, she turns to consider the building that’s been their home for the last week. “Well, I’m not sure about that.” Turning back to him, she nudges his shoulder with hers. “The housework would be a bitch.”
Something tightens deep in his chest. He knows she’s fighting demons every time she closes her eyes at night, every time someone mentions The Company or Sona, but she’s sitting in the sun with him, smiling as she cracks jokes about housework. “We could get a housekeeper.”
She lifts her hand to his face, her fingertips brushing his skin, her fingernails rasping lightly over his unshaven jaw. “You’re more than just a pretty face, aren't you, Scofield?”
Turning his head, he presses a lingering kiss to the soft skin of her inner wrist. “I sincerely hope so.”
Chuckling, she tilts her head until it’s resting on his shoulder, her other hand still splayed on his thigh. “I’d like to sit here for the rest of the day,” she murmurs in a voice tinged with wistfulness. “Do you think that’s doable?”
Squinting into the sun, he studies the figure which has emerged from the warehouse’s main entrance. It’s his brother, waving at them in an unmistakable ‘come back’ gesture, and Michael doesn’t bother suppressing his sigh. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Lifting her head, Sara shields her eyes as she looks towards the warehouse. “Come on in, your time is up,” she mutters under her breath, her hand gripping his thigh briefly as she pushes herself to her feet. Her expression, so open and relaxed only seconds earlier, is now unsettlingly blank, as though something or someone has wiped it clean.
He climbs off the pile of hardwood, catching her hand in his as she takes the first step towards the warehouse. “Sara.”
Weariness shimmers in her eyes as she looks at him. “What?”
“Postcard. Katie. Vacation.” He squeezes her hand gently. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
“I know you will.” The corners of her mouth lift in a smile as her fingers curl around his, and he knows she wants very badly to believe what he’s saying is possible. “And the SS Minnow?”
He tucks her hand into the crook of his arm as they start to walk, managing to resist the urge to press it against his heart instead. “Hope you’ve got your sea legs, Tancredi, because that's a done deal.”
She laughs softly. “I’ve been on a boat before, remember?” They walk towards the warehouse without speaking, the screeching of the seagulls splitting the air above them, the low moan of boat horns echoing across the water. As they reach the main entrance, she stops in her tracks and gives him a searching look. “Of course, there will be one big difference this time.”
He blinks, his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden wall of shade that’s just engulfed them. “What’s that?”
Standing on tip toe, she brushes his mouth with a kiss, a chaste caress that makes his pulse leap wildly. “This time, I plan on remembering everything.”
Stricken with a sudden rush of desire and a tenderness that goes beyond any craving of the flesh, he watches her as she makes her way towards her nautical bedroom, no doubt to retrieve the notes she'd been making before she'd taken a break. Her spine is ramrod straight, like that of a soldier preparing to march into battle. Which, of course, is exactly what she is. What they are.
Postcard. Katie. Vacation. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the sudden twist of pain stabbing at his temples. He'd once told her they could get back what they'd lost, but they both know that's no longer possible. There is still something worth fighting for, though, something incredibly precious and fragile.
Freedom.
"I'll make it happen," he says aloud, knowing she's too far away to hear him but wanting to say the words, a vow to himself as well as to her. "I promise."
~*~