Due Care and Attention - Michael/Sara (2/3)
Title: Due Care and Attention (2/3)
Fandom: Prison Break
Genre: Het, AU
Pairing:Michael/Sara
Rating: NC-17
Length: 1, 421 words
Summary:She loves it when he treats her like the most precious creature on the planet, except when she doesn't, which seems to happen a lot these days. Set in the Full Circle universe a few months after "India", but you don't really need to read all those hundreds of thousands of words before you read this one. No beta, so please point out all typos and weird missing word incidents. You can read Chapter One right HERE.
Author's Note:This story was written for linzi20 on the occasion of her birthday with much love and gratitude for the unwavering gift of her friendship. It's been a long wait since Chapter One, and I thank her for her patience at my slackness. *hugs her*
~*~
In a concerted effort to stop himself watching Sara walk away from the house - or worse, going after her - Michael surveys the abandoned dinner ingredients littering the top of the kitchen counter. He could start dinner in her absence, but he suspects that might do more harm than good. He seems to be making a lot of wrong decisions lately, and while he’d love nothing more than to resent her for pushing him into the role of clueless partner, he knows this isn’t her fault.
Then again, it’s not all his, either.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he returns the tomatoes to the refrigerator, decides the basil and garlic can stay where they are, and wipes a small splash of olive oil from the counter top. After that, there is nothing left to do and nothing to stop him from walking to the French doors that open onto the deck and staring through the glass at Sara’s rapidly disappearing figure. Even at this distance, he imagines he can see the tension in her shoulders.
Closing his eyes, he rests his forehead against the cool glass. The afternoon air is thick with humidity and the threat of a thunderstorm, but it’s not the heat that’s making his temples ache. Ten days ago, Sara had greeted him at the front door with a kiss that had made his knees quiver and a smile that had lit up her whole face. The fish curry did the trick, she’d told him, laughing through her tears. His heart had instantly lurched, almost as though it wanted to leap clean out of his chest and into her fluttering hands, his head filling with images of that night in Kolkata. We’re having a baby.
He’d pulled her into his arms while the last word was still falling from her lips, kissing the soft shape of it from her mouth. He’d kissed her until she’d laughingly pulled away and wiped his damp face with her fingertips, and he’d realized with a start that he was crying. That night, they’d laid awake in the darkness and plucked names out of the warm air above their bed, his increasingly outrageous suggestions of Phineas and Brutus making her shake with laughter, her belly quivering beneath his palm. She’d still been laughing when he’d kissed her, then the only sounds had been the languid rustle of sheets and skin, a mingled sing-song sigh of breath as she’d arched beneath him, pulling him deeper inside her.
Since then? Since then, he’s been floundering like a fish out of water.
He knows he’s crowding her. He knows he’s doing everything wrong. He’s tried to explain a dozen times why he’s doing the things he’s doing, but the right words have failed him every time. How can he tell her that the thought of anything happening to her or the baby - God, their baby - sends him into tailspin of horror he has only felt once before, the day he watched a dark curtain draw back to reveal his brother strapped to an electric chair?
This should be the happiest time of their lives. He is happy, unbelievably so. How can he sour it with the darkness of his thoughts? How can he possibly tell her of the dreams that have plagued him for the last ten days, nightmares filled with blood and loss and pain?
Lifting his head, he presses his fingers against his temples, feeling the thrum of his pulse. The house is quiet without her. Too quiet. He hates that she feels as though she needs to physically leave their home in order to find some breathing space. He hates that he hasn't been able to make her understand why he’s so worried.
He pulls open the French doors and steps out on to the deck, and the scent of the coming rain fills his nose. The wind has picked up dramatically, and even this far back from the beach he can feel the faint sting of sand against his skin. He walks to the deck railing, gripping the smooth wood tightly as he scans the beachfront on either side of their house. Sara has been gone almost twenty minutes, and in that short space of the time the sky has grown much darker. The clouds are thick with a lush gloom, the high tide rushing over the hard sand with unsettling haste. The blackened sky seems to hang low over the water, the heavy bank of clouds rolling into the bay with a speed that makes his nerves twinge.
Sara is nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it, Sara,” he mutters aloud, then turns on his heel and heads for the telephone. As he punches in Lincoln’s number, he tells himself he’s panicking over nothing. As soon as his brother picks up, though, he hears the tremor in his own voice. “Hey, Linc, is Sara there?”
“Uh, nope.” He hears the rough note in his brother’s tone, and wonders if he’d had another late night waiting for LJ to come home from wherever he’d been. “Should she be here?”
Michael watches the rain sweep across the glassy surface of the bay, coming closer and closer to the shore with every breath he takes. “She went for a walk a while ago.”
“In this weather?”
Michael hesitates, not wanting to get into anything he doesn’t want to finish, but it’s too late. Lincoln has been an eye-witness on more than one occasion to the newly fraught tension between his brother and Sara. “Another fight?” His brother sounds amused rather than concerned. “Are you going for the world record or something? What was it this time? Did you tell her she can’t color her hair while she’s pregnant, or did you insist on researching the mercury levels of every piece of seafood that comes into your house again?”
Michael feels a dull flush creep up the back of his neck. “I wanted to lift a saucepan down from the shelf for her.”
Lincoln sighs. “You’ve gotta stop smothering her, man.”
Michael feels his jaw set into a mutinous line. “It was heavy.”
“Michael.” His brother clears his throat gently, but it’s a rebuke nevertheless. “I’m not exactly an expert on how to treat a pregnant woman, but I do know something.”
“What’s that?”
“You just gotta go with the flow.”
Despite his somber mood, Michael can’t help smiling. “That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“Got anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Great.” Michael’s smile fades as the rain begins to pound on the roof of the house. Given his knowledge of Sara’s anatomy and the light summer dress she’d been wearing, he’s pretty sure she hadn’t been carrying an umbrella when she left the house. “If she turns up at your place-”
“I’ll bitch at her until she calls you, got it.”
That isn’t quite what Michael had in mind, but he’ll take it. “Thanks.”
He puts down the phone just as the first crack of thunder whips through the air, and he’s moving towards the hallway closet and grabbing his waterproof jacket and umbrella and heading for the door. Sara isn’t at Lincoln’s, which means she’s either waiting out the rain under a random beach shelter which quite often plays host to any number of unsavory individuals who make a living out of loitering, or she’s being an incredibly stubborn woman and walking in the drenching rain without an umbrella, hat or coat.
Either way, he’s going to find her.
He only gets twenty yards from the house before he sees her. She’s walking slowly along the sand towards their home, her arms wrapped around herself, her head bent against the rain and wind. The incoming tide hides her feet and calves with every new wave, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s soaking wet, her dark green dress plastered to her skin, her ponytail limp against her neck. He stops in his tracks, suddenly feeling foolish with his umbrella and waterproof coat. In that moment, she lifts her head, as if sensing his presence, and across the expanse of rain and sand and grey wind, he feels the change in her. She doesn’t smile as her eyes lock with his, and his heart does an odd little jerking dance, tumbling against his ribs.
He shrugs out of his coat as she makes her way towards him, draping it around her shoulders as soon as she reaches his side. She gives him a wordless nod of thanks, gathering the edges of the zipper together across her wet dress, hiding her goosefleshed skin from his sight. He has to fight the impulse to gather her in his arms, contenting himself with a simple, “You okay?”
She nods again, then takes a deep breath that seems to come all the way up from the soles of her bare sand-encrusted feet. “I think we need to talk.”
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Genre: Het, AU
Pairing:Michael/Sara
Rating: NC-17
Length: 1, 421 words
Summary:She loves it when he treats her like the most precious creature on the planet, except when she doesn't, which seems to happen a lot these days. Set in the Full Circle universe a few months after "India", but you don't really need to read all those hundreds of thousands of words before you read this one. No beta, so please point out all typos and weird missing word incidents. You can read Chapter One right HERE.
Author's Note:This story was written for linzi20 on the occasion of her birthday with much love and gratitude for the unwavering gift of her friendship. It's been a long wait since Chapter One, and I thank her for her patience at my slackness. *hugs her*
~*~
In a concerted effort to stop himself watching Sara walk away from the house - or worse, going after her - Michael surveys the abandoned dinner ingredients littering the top of the kitchen counter. He could start dinner in her absence, but he suspects that might do more harm than good. He seems to be making a lot of wrong decisions lately, and while he’d love nothing more than to resent her for pushing him into the role of clueless partner, he knows this isn’t her fault.
Then again, it’s not all his, either.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he returns the tomatoes to the refrigerator, decides the basil and garlic can stay where they are, and wipes a small splash of olive oil from the counter top. After that, there is nothing left to do and nothing to stop him from walking to the French doors that open onto the deck and staring through the glass at Sara’s rapidly disappearing figure. Even at this distance, he imagines he can see the tension in her shoulders.
Closing his eyes, he rests his forehead against the cool glass. The afternoon air is thick with humidity and the threat of a thunderstorm, but it’s not the heat that’s making his temples ache. Ten days ago, Sara had greeted him at the front door with a kiss that had made his knees quiver and a smile that had lit up her whole face. The fish curry did the trick, she’d told him, laughing through her tears. His heart had instantly lurched, almost as though it wanted to leap clean out of his chest and into her fluttering hands, his head filling with images of that night in Kolkata. We’re having a baby.
He’d pulled her into his arms while the last word was still falling from her lips, kissing the soft shape of it from her mouth. He’d kissed her until she’d laughingly pulled away and wiped his damp face with her fingertips, and he’d realized with a start that he was crying. That night, they’d laid awake in the darkness and plucked names out of the warm air above their bed, his increasingly outrageous suggestions of Phineas and Brutus making her shake with laughter, her belly quivering beneath his palm. She’d still been laughing when he’d kissed her, then the only sounds had been the languid rustle of sheets and skin, a mingled sing-song sigh of breath as she’d arched beneath him, pulling him deeper inside her.
Since then? Since then, he’s been floundering like a fish out of water.
He knows he’s crowding her. He knows he’s doing everything wrong. He’s tried to explain a dozen times why he’s doing the things he’s doing, but the right words have failed him every time. How can he tell her that the thought of anything happening to her or the baby - God, their baby - sends him into tailspin of horror he has only felt once before, the day he watched a dark curtain draw back to reveal his brother strapped to an electric chair?
This should be the happiest time of their lives. He is happy, unbelievably so. How can he sour it with the darkness of his thoughts? How can he possibly tell her of the dreams that have plagued him for the last ten days, nightmares filled with blood and loss and pain?
Lifting his head, he presses his fingers against his temples, feeling the thrum of his pulse. The house is quiet without her. Too quiet. He hates that she feels as though she needs to physically leave their home in order to find some breathing space. He hates that he hasn't been able to make her understand why he’s so worried.
He pulls open the French doors and steps out on to the deck, and the scent of the coming rain fills his nose. The wind has picked up dramatically, and even this far back from the beach he can feel the faint sting of sand against his skin. He walks to the deck railing, gripping the smooth wood tightly as he scans the beachfront on either side of their house. Sara has been gone almost twenty minutes, and in that short space of the time the sky has grown much darker. The clouds are thick with a lush gloom, the high tide rushing over the hard sand with unsettling haste. The blackened sky seems to hang low over the water, the heavy bank of clouds rolling into the bay with a speed that makes his nerves twinge.
Sara is nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it, Sara,” he mutters aloud, then turns on his heel and heads for the telephone. As he punches in Lincoln’s number, he tells himself he’s panicking over nothing. As soon as his brother picks up, though, he hears the tremor in his own voice. “Hey, Linc, is Sara there?”
“Uh, nope.” He hears the rough note in his brother’s tone, and wonders if he’d had another late night waiting for LJ to come home from wherever he’d been. “Should she be here?”
Michael watches the rain sweep across the glassy surface of the bay, coming closer and closer to the shore with every breath he takes. “She went for a walk a while ago.”
“In this weather?”
Michael hesitates, not wanting to get into anything he doesn’t want to finish, but it’s too late. Lincoln has been an eye-witness on more than one occasion to the newly fraught tension between his brother and Sara. “Another fight?” His brother sounds amused rather than concerned. “Are you going for the world record or something? What was it this time? Did you tell her she can’t color her hair while she’s pregnant, or did you insist on researching the mercury levels of every piece of seafood that comes into your house again?”
Michael feels a dull flush creep up the back of his neck. “I wanted to lift a saucepan down from the shelf for her.”
Lincoln sighs. “You’ve gotta stop smothering her, man.”
Michael feels his jaw set into a mutinous line. “It was heavy.”
“Michael.” His brother clears his throat gently, but it’s a rebuke nevertheless. “I’m not exactly an expert on how to treat a pregnant woman, but I do know something.”
“What’s that?”
“You just gotta go with the flow.”
Despite his somber mood, Michael can’t help smiling. “That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“Got anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Great.” Michael’s smile fades as the rain begins to pound on the roof of the house. Given his knowledge of Sara’s anatomy and the light summer dress she’d been wearing, he’s pretty sure she hadn’t been carrying an umbrella when she left the house. “If she turns up at your place-”
“I’ll bitch at her until she calls you, got it.”
That isn’t quite what Michael had in mind, but he’ll take it. “Thanks.”
He puts down the phone just as the first crack of thunder whips through the air, and he’s moving towards the hallway closet and grabbing his waterproof jacket and umbrella and heading for the door. Sara isn’t at Lincoln’s, which means she’s either waiting out the rain under a random beach shelter which quite often plays host to any number of unsavory individuals who make a living out of loitering, or she’s being an incredibly stubborn woman and walking in the drenching rain without an umbrella, hat or coat.
Either way, he’s going to find her.
He only gets twenty yards from the house before he sees her. She’s walking slowly along the sand towards their home, her arms wrapped around herself, her head bent against the rain and wind. The incoming tide hides her feet and calves with every new wave, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s soaking wet, her dark green dress plastered to her skin, her ponytail limp against her neck. He stops in his tracks, suddenly feeling foolish with his umbrella and waterproof coat. In that moment, she lifts her head, as if sensing his presence, and across the expanse of rain and sand and grey wind, he feels the change in her. She doesn’t smile as her eyes lock with his, and his heart does an odd little jerking dance, tumbling against his ribs.
He shrugs out of his coat as she makes her way towards him, draping it around her shoulders as soon as she reaches his side. She gives him a wordless nod of thanks, gathering the edges of the zipper together across her wet dress, hiding her goosefleshed skin from his sight. He has to fight the impulse to gather her in his arms, contenting himself with a simple, “You okay?”
She nods again, then takes a deep breath that seems to come all the way up from the soles of her bare sand-encrusted feet. “I think we need to talk.”
~*~