Safe House - Chapter Thirteen
Title: Safe House - Chapter Thirteen
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Sara Tancredi/Michael Scofield
Other Characters: Lincoln Burrows, Paul Kellerman, Aldo Burrows, Jane Phillips
Length: 6,651 words
Rating: R (bad language, sexual situations)
Summary: The words safe house conjure up a picture of a dark and fortified hideout, certainly not this plain but clean wooden house in the outer suburbs.
Author's Note: Spoilers for Season One and Season Two. Pretty much AU from "Scan" onwards, it also uses events from the whole of Season Two. I think you could call this an AU with strong canon overtones - in other words, anything that you recognise from canon is not mine, especially a certain conversation from #218 "Wash". Many thanks to sk56 for the beta and sarah_scribbles for the handholding. This story is part of a series, the rest of which you can find here.
~*~
“What are you doing here?” she whispers back fiercely. “This was too big a risk even for you to take!”
Michael’s eyes grow darker. “I told you that you wouldn’t have to do this alone.” His hands tighten around hers. “I meant it.”
Before she can speak - or at least try to speak, because her voice seems to have vanished - he touches her hair, running his fingers through her newly fashioned bob, his eyes lighting up with a slow smile that makes her toes curl. “Nice.”
A ridiculous rush of shyness assails her, and she feels her face grow warm. “Yeah, well, it worked almost as well as that baseball cap of yours did.” His arm tightens around her shoulders as he tries to pull her closer, but she’s not done interrogating him, not yet. Putting one hand flat on his chest, she stares at him. “How the hell did you get here, Michael?” She doesn’t bother trying to hide her disbelief. “The last thing I knew you and Lincoln were in the FBI’s custody.”
A wry smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “A lot can change in an hour.” The arm around her shoulders shifts, and she feels the brush of his fingertips on the newly-exposed nape of her neck. “Turns out my talent for these situations is a strong genetic trait,” he says quietly, his gaze flicking towards his father.
A soft chuckle rises up in her throat, and she feels faintly giddy with both relief and the reality of his touch, warm and delicate against her skin. Finally heeding their silent audience, she asks no more questions, knowing he will tell her everything he can as soon as he can. Resting her hand on his leg - there's a tear in the knee of his khaki trousers, she notes with a dull pang - she leans into the solid warmth of his body, finding comfort in the soothing heat of him. "What now?" she murmurs softly as she turns her head towards him, unwilling to share their conversation with the rest of the passengers.
She hears him sigh, then he pulls her closer, his hand tightening on the curve of her shoulder as he puts his lips to her ear. "We find out what your father died for, and we use it to take down the people who killed him."
Sara closes her eyes, the sudden lump in her throat swallowing up her words. Groping blindly for Michael's other hand, she tightly laces her fingers through his until his palm is warm against hers. "Thank you."
She feels the brush of his lips against her temple, the soft rush of his breath over her skin. "Thank you."
~*~
The return trip to the apartment feels very different to the one she and Jane took to the teahouse only thirty minutes ago. In the company of several expertly trained operatives armed to the hilt and Michael’s arm tight around her shoulders, she literally feels the tension draining out of her, making it easier to breath, easier to hope that they really are one step closer to the end of this nightmare.
In the front seat, Aldo Burrows opens the sealed envelope Michael had given him. Sara can’t see his hands, but she hears the sound of ripping paper and the satisfied expression that steals over his face. Twisting around to look at them, he holds up a small USB memory stick with an unmistakable air of triumph. “This is it.” He glances at Sara. “Thank you, Doctor Tancredi.”
She ducks her head in acknowledgment, her relief that it hadn’t all been for nothing making it hard to talk. After a few minutes of a silence too laden with unspoken words to be truly comfortable, Michael slides his hand beneath her hair once more, his fingertips etching haphazard patterns on the nape of her neck. “You found it, didn’t you?”
His touch on her skin is both soothing (she wants to curl into him and sleep for the next twelve hours) and arousing (sleeping wouldn’t exactly mean sleeping, at least not for the first hour or two), but there’s nothing that can be done about either of these things. “Found what?”
“The GPS unit.”
She turns to meet his eyes. His hand shifts on her neck as she moves, but he doesn’t let go, merely adjusts the angle of his wrist. It’s as though now that he’s found her again, he has to keep touching her to make sure she’s still there, and she’s not about to object. “As soon as I got to Jane’s apartment.”
He smiles, something that looks very much like pride glittering in his eyes. “I knew you would.”
Her first instinct is to return his smile - she almost hates the way his obvious pride in her makes her feel like grinning - but she forces it back, shaking her head at him instead. “You know, you could have just told me that you’d done it.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You and I both know that if I had, you wouldn’t have got in that taxi.”
She opens her mouth to argue, then promptly shuts it again, knowing that he’s right. If she’d thought he was expecting to be separated from her, she might have caught on to his plan to act as a diversion a little sooner. Damn it. Irritated with both him and herself, she abruptly changes the subject. “Why did Jane tell me to go out the back way?”
“Place was about to be swarming with cops,” is Michael’s succinct reply, making her blink.
“The police?” Her mouth dries. “After me?”
Michael hesitates, and she hears his father say gently, “There’s been a warrant issued for your arrest, Sara.”
The news shouldn’t shock her, but it does, and just like that, the sick tension is clutching at her belly all over again. As though he sees it in her face, Michael’s hand tightens on the back of her neck. “Try not to worry about it,” he tells her in a soft undertone, and she suddenly feels the ridiculous urge to laugh, because he’s serious and actually thinks she might be strong-willed enough to put something like that out of her mind.
“Is that the voice of experience talking?”
“Yep.”
She tilts her head to look at him, inwardly wincing at the sight of the dried blood stiffening his eyebrow. “How’s that working for you?”
He gives her a rueful smile. “Some days are better than others.”
~*~
When they arrive at the apartment, the first thing they hear is what sounds like a heated argument coming from the direction of the kitchen. “You know that it’s a bad idea.”
“All I know is that you’re telling me what’s best for my son.”
Walking ahead of her, Aldo Burrows hesitates. Sara doesn’t know if he wants to give them time to finish their discussion, or whether he also has the feeling as though they’ve stumbled onto something more than an argument between business associates.
“He’s safe, Lincoln.” Jane sounds more than a little irritated, as though this is something she’s said one too many times. “And I thought you agreed it was better for him to stay where he is.”
“I did, but this whole mess could start going down at any time. He needs to be with his family.”
Aldo clears his throat loudly, and the voices from the kitchen abruptly fall silent. A few seconds later, Lincoln appears, his frown vanishing at the sight of them. “Hey!”
Sara finds herself briefly caught up in the midst of familial back-slapping, then Lincoln surprises her by giving her an awkward one-armed hug. “Glad to see you in one piece, Doc,” he says gruffly, and she knows that for Lincoln, this is tantamount to performing a dance of joy.
“Likewise,” she shoots back dryly. He gives her arm a light squeeze, then he’s turning to his father.
“We need to pick up LJ.”
“Son, that’s not -” Aldo Burrows glances at the tall blonde woman walking out of the kitchen. Jane’s expression is composed, but Sara sees both frustration and weariness in her eyes. “That’s not the first priority right now.”
Lincoln’s face darkens at his father’s words - red rag to a bull, Sara thinks uneasily - and instinctively takes one step backwards. She feels Michael’s hand on the small of her back, his fingers curling into the waistband of her pants, the silent reassurance a welcome balm to the fury she can see building in his brother’s eyes.
“My son is not a priority?” Lincoln spits out furiously. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that’s the way you see it.”
Slowly, calmly, as though trying to gentle a wounded animal, Aldo Burrows reaches out and puts one hand on his son’s shoulder, reaching inside his coat with the other, pulling out the white envelope that Sara had retrieved from the teahouse. “First, we need to make sure we have the ammunition to get all our lives back,” he tells his older son as he holds up the envelope. “Then we will go after my grandson.”
The heat in Lincoln’s eyes cools, and Sara can’t help but admire the elder Burrows’ choice of words. Our lives. My grandson. With those few words, he’s managed to both reassure and remind Lincoln that there’s much more at stake than his need to be with LJ. A natural diplomat, it would seem. Glancing at the man standing silently behind her, Sara can’t help thinking that Aldo Burrows bequeathed more to his younger son than a talent for evading the authorities.
Lincoln jerks his head in a nod, and Aldo turns to look at Jane. “Ready?”
Jane waves her hand towards the living room. “Laptop’s all set up.” She gives Sara a quick smile. “You did a good job.”
Sara feels a dull flush creep up the back of her neck. She’s not sure how many more congratulatory ‘thank yous’ she can handle, considering how close she came to falling short of the finishing line. “How’s Hodges?”
Jane’s smile fades. “In critical condition. We’ll know more in a few hours.”
Sara glances at Michael, and sees her next question reflected in his eyes. She feels his shoulder shift against hers, his hand lightly grazing her hip, then hears him ask in a low, rough voice, “And Kellerman?”
Aldo and Jane exchange a veiled glance, and Sara feels her stomach lurch. “He’s alive,” Jane finally says, “and under heavy guard.”
“Why is he still alive?” Michael’s tone is deceptively polite - Sara can feel the anger thrumming through him - and a sharp pang of guilt twists through her. He wants another human being dead - no matter that it’s Kellerman - because of her. It’s not a comforting thought.
“He knows where Terrence Steadman is, Michael,” his father reminds him. “We might still need him.”
Michael looks pointedly at the envelope in his father’s hand. “And we might not.”
In answer, Aldo Burrows shakes the USB memory stick out of the envelope into the palm of his hand, then looks at them all in turn, his gaze lingering on Sara. “Anyone who doesn’t want to hear this, you’re welcome to sit out.”
Sara realises he’s giving her the chance to maintain some semblance of plausible deniability, but she’s in no mood to pretend she’s not as involved in this as much as anyone. She glances at Michael, wondering if he’d had a hand in prompting this particular line of conversation, but he’s staring at his father with narrowed eyes. “I think Sara should hear it.”
Aldo’s gaze flickers between the two of them. “People have died for this.”
“My father died for this,” Sara corrects him flatly. “I need to hear it.”
Jane has set up the laptop on the cherry wood coffee table in front of the dark brown leather couch. As always, she stays in the background, leaning against the wall with her arms folded, waiting as the rest of them settle around the computer. Michael sits beside Sara, Lincoln perched on the arm of the couch on her other side. Beside Michael, Aldo reaches out and inserts the USB memory stick into the laptop, then presses play.
Later, Sara will wonder if she was the only one who flinched at the sound of Caroline Reynold’s voice. She knew she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.
“It's awful, I know.”
There’s a muffled mmmm in reply - a man’s voice - then the first female President of the United States is talking again. “But the choice was clear, you needed to be far away from all of this.”
“I am,” comes the querulous answer, breathless and bitter. “I’m the Isle of Terrence, far out to sea.”
“But I’m still here for you. Now listen to me, don't dwell on the negative.”
“Some people deserve to dwell, Caroline,” mutters Terrence Steadman, breathless and bitter but still very much alive.
“You know I’m only a phone call away,” his sister placates him calmly, her tone infused with a warmth that sends an odd chill down Sara’s spine.
“Uh huh. And three thousand miles.” There’s a long silence, then the sound of his unsteady breathing grows louder. “Do you-” He breaks off, his voice breaking, then starts again. “Do you know how cold it is here?”
“We talked about this, Terrence.” Caroline Reynold’s distinctive voice drops into a husky, wheedling tone. “You knew that you would be lonely but it's only temporary. His appeals process has started already. This is going to fly by quicker than your twenties, and soon the world will forget all about him and they’ll forget about you too, I promise.”
Beside her, Lincoln shifts restlessly, swearing under his breath, and Sara doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s fighting the urge to put his fist through the laptop’s screen.
“But - it's killing me, not being able to see you, Sweet Caroline.”
Terrence Steadman’s last strangled words send a second shiver down Sara’s spine, and she darts a glance at Michael. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his eyes never leaving the digital player on the screen.
“I want to see you too,” Caroline Reynolds reassures her brother softly, “but that can’t happen right now.”
“This house is so big. I just - I just think of you.” Steadman takes a deep breath, his voice quivering. “Lying in bed-”
Sara blinks. Surely he doesn’t mean -
“I know, me too,” murmurs the President, her voice almost a purr, and Sara’s stomach lurches for the second time in five minutes.She stares down at the table as Terrance Steadman talks to his sister as though she’s his lover, unable to meet anyone’s eye, not even Michael’s.
“Your warmth, your touch -” Steadman’s voice catches on a sob, and his sister is quick to console him.
“Perhaps in a few months, when the hysteria has died down a little, I’ll be able to come up there.”
“That’s too long.” Steadman is crying now, his sobs messy and despairing. “It’s been so long already.”
“I would change things if I could, but you know that I can’t.” There’s a burst of noise over the line, then the President sighs loudly. “I’m sorry, dear, I have to go.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Your country needs you, I suppose.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“I need you.”
“I know, dear, I know.” Caroline Reynold’s voice is suddenly fluttery and girlish, and Sara almost recoils at the sound of it. “But I do have to go. Try to get some sleep.”
“That’s all I do, my dear sister,” Terrance snipes gently, then the digital recording comes to an abrupt end, silence falling heavily over the room.
“Oh, my God.” The words slip from Sara’s lips before she can stop them. After everything that has happened, she had thought herself unshockable. She’d been wrong.
Michael looks as stunned as she feels. “Yeah.”
At her shoulder, she hears Lincoln let out a long breath. “Wow.”
Aldo Burrows gets to his feet, his gaze focused on Jane. “Have you heard from him again?”
“Just before you arrived.” Jane pushes herself away from the wall where she was leaning. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Michael looks up at his father. “Who?”
“Cooper Green.”
Frowning, Michael glances at Sara, then Lincoln, but neither of them can answer his unspoken question. “Who’s Cooper Green?”
“Former Deputy Attorney General,” Jane replies crisply. “He splits his time between DC, Chicago and New York. He’s been an ally of your father’s for a very long time.”
Aldo looks down at his sons, then at Sara. “He’s the one who’s going to help us use what we just heard.” A flicker of distaste dances across his face. “I have to say, that’s not exactly what I was expecting to hear.”
Behind her, Lincoln lets out a loud snort. “I don’t think any of us were expecting that.”
Sara leans back, her shoulders sinking into the softness of the leather couch. She thinks of all the footage and photographs she’s ever seen of Carolyn Reynolds, always so perfectly groomed to meet her public, her hair and nails and makeup flawless, her speeches filled with talk of the importance of family values. Always so prim and proper, and all this time, she and her brother - Sara swallows hard, forcing herself to finish the thought. She and her brother had spoken with a familiarity that usually only comes after years of sexual intimacy.
Dear God.
Shaking her head as if that might clear out everything she’s just learned, Sara nudges Michael’s knee with hers, wanting some normalcy, however relative.
He looks at her expectantly. “What?”
“That's a nasty cut,” she says softly, her gaze going to the gash above his eyebrow. “I’d like to take a look at it.”
His eyes widen briefly - perhaps he’s trying to work out if that’s a euphemism or not, she thinks with a sudden flash of humour - then he nods. “Okay.”
He follows her down the hallway to the room where she’d stashed their belongings, and she feels his gaze burning into the back of her neck. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since their frantic lovemaking in the train’s bathroom, and it’s all she can do not to blush every time she meets his eyes. “I need to get your first-aid kit,” she tells him without looking over her shoulder, “but I think the light will be better in the bathroom.”
She stops outside the bathroom door and glances back at him. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.” Without a word, he takes her hand, pulling her around to face him, pulling her into his arms and hugging her so tightly that it almost knocks the breath from her lungs.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers urgently against her ear. His stubbled jaw scratches her cheek, making her shiver. Uncaring that they’re standing in the middle of the hallway, she closes her eyes, slipping her arms around his waist, fitting her body against the solid warmth of his.
“For what?”
“I told you I wouldn’t let him hurt you again.” His voice is rough, almost angry, the tension she felt in him earlier still humming through his body.
“And he didn’t.”
“But -”
She’s suddenly gripped by the need to shake some sense into him, shake some of the guilt out of him. Leaning back in the circle of his arms, she takes his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “You got there before he could, Michael, and that’s what counts.”
“A few seconds more and I could have been too late.”
“But you weren’t too late, Michael.” Suddenly very conscious of the warmth of his body - his thighs are flush against hers, her breasts brushing his chest - she eases herself away. Lifting her hand to his face, she gently touches his forehead, the dried blood rough beneath her fingertips. “I’ll meet you in the bathroom, okay?”
He gives her a look that plainly says he thinks she’s making a fuss over nothing - a look she remembers all too well from Fox River - then grins. “Doctor Tancredi,” he says lightly, almost teasingly, and some of the dark sourness left by Terrence Steadman’s words fades from her thoughts.
When she returns to the bathroom, first-aid kit under her arm, he’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub, long legs stretched out in front of him. There’s a wooden chair from the kitchen beside him - he must have grabbed it while she was in the bedroom - and she’s suddenly struck by the familiarity of the situation.
The feeling grows as she snaps on a pair of sterile gloves, knowing he’s watching her every move. “So, exactly how did this happen?” She glances up at him. “And don’t tell me you caught an elbow playing basketball, because I won’t believe you this time either.”
He chuckles softly. “I wish,” he mutters, wincing as she begins to clean the cut as gently as she can. “My head accidentally got into an argument with the pavement. It lost.”
“Accidentally, huh?”
He quirks one eyebrow - the non-bloodied one - at her. “Well, I’m sure the arresting officer didn’t really mean to thump my forehead into the ground.”
She screws the soiled swab into a ball, then drops it into the small trash can next to the sink. “Jane said you weren’t in the custody of the DC Police, though,” she murmurs, studying the now clean gash above his eyebrow. Steri-Strip tape, she decides, then meets his eyes. “She said you were in FBI custody.”
“She was right.” He shakes his head, taking advantage of the fact that she’s currently tearing open a sterile dressing. “I think that was as much of a surprise to the police as it was to Linc and I.”
“Lean forward?” She gently presses the small adhesive dressing against his skin, then frowns. “The FBI snatched you from the police?”
“Pretty much.”
She concentrates on smoothing her fingertips across the dressing, making sure it will hold firm. “And then your father snatched you from the FBI?”
“It’s been a busy afternoon,” he deadpans, and she can’t help smiling.
“So, that tracker of yours-”
“What about it?”
She pulls off her gloves and tosses them into the trash can. “Please don’t tell me it’s somewhere that can’t be mentioned in polite company.” She struggles to keep a straight face as he looks at her with wide, incredulous eyes, as though he can’t believe she’s just said what she’s said.
“You were right. You aren’t a nice girl,” he finally mutters, a slow smile creeping across his face, then he lifts his right foot into the air. “If you must know, it’s in my sock.”
“Very traditional.”
“I thought so.” They look at each other for a few seconds, levity giving way to reality, to the knowledge that this conversation came all too close to never taking place. His gaze slides towards the open door, towards the voices coming from the nearby living room, then back to her, his eyes searching her face with an intensity that makes her shift restlessly on the uncomfortable wooden chair.
“Uh, do you need your bag? It’s in the other room.”
He plucks at the front of his sweater, then give her a self-depreciating smile. “Clean clothes would be good. Even if they are from Target,” he adds dryly, making her laugh as she gets to her feet.
She’s only taken two steps into the spare bedroom when she hears him close the door behind them, then she feels his hand on her shoulder, turning her slowly to face him. They stare at each other, his eyes dark with the same hunger that's shivering through her, then he dips his head and kisses her, hard, his mouth hot and slick. A soft, choked moan rises up in the back of her throat at the taste of him, the scent of his skin - sweat and soap and him - washing over her, then his hands dig into her hips as he pulls her hard against him.
Oh.
Her hands fluttering down to rest on his shoulders, she opens her mouth to the fierceness of his kiss, taking as much as she’s giving, tasting and teasing and wanting and needing. Affirmation of life, she thinks hazily, then his hand is cupping her breast and she forgets all about thinking.
She arches in his arms, trying to feel him against her everywhere, rocking her hips against his, leaning into the warmth of the splayed hand on her breast. Her blood is suddenly on fire, pulse pounding in her head and her breasts and her belly, a slow, soft heat fluttering into life between her thighs.
He shifts his stance until her hips are cradled against his, letting her feel him pressed against her there, right there, hard and urgent where her body is soft and aching. He murmurs her name against her lips, her jaw, her throat, his mouth wet and hot, the scrape of his two-day old beard raising gooseflesh in its wake, her nipples tightening almost painfully, her breath coming fast and shallow.
When he slides one leg between hers, his hands going to the zipper of her hooded sweatshirt with unmistakable intent, she realises she’s going to have to be the voice of reason this time. They may be finally alone in a beautifully appointed bedroom, but they had more time and privacy in the bathroom on the train. Jane’s contact will be here any moment and there are some very important decisions that have to be made and oh, God, his thumb is teasing her nipple through her shirt, sending a bolt of heat straight to her groin, and she feels her knees start to tremble.
Scrambling for both breath and self-control, she tears her mouth away from his, putting her hand over his, wondering if he can feel the pounding of her heart. “We can’t do this now,” she whispers, and wonders if she’s ever sounded more unconvincing.
He swears softly, then draws a long, unsteady breath, his eyes closing as he presses his forehead against hers. “You know,” he says in a faintly strangled voice, “before I went into Fox River, my timing was always pretty good.”
Her smile feels more than a little wobbly. “Really?” She smoothes her hands over the curve of his closely-cropped head, fingernails scratching gently against his scalp, still amazed that such a simple thing could feel so gratifyingly normal. “Mine’s always been pretty crappy.”
He takes another breath, then slowly eases himself away from her, but his hands linger on her shoulders. He touches her hair, gently rubbing a few dark strands between his finger and thumb. “Very nice. Ever considered moonlighting as a hairdresser?”
She lets out her breath, grinning at both his words and his gallant attempt to cool the heat between them. “And what would you know about hairdressers?” She looks pointedly at his shorn head. “I’m sure I could do yours with my eyes closed.”
“Job’s all yours,” he shoots back. “Once every two weeks and I’ll even throw in a tip.”
She blinks at the unmistakable long-term implications of his teasing words, but before she can come up with a witty retort, there’s a knock at the door. “We’ve got company,” Lincoln announces loudly from the hallway. “Dad’s contact is here.”
“We’ll be right there.” Turning back to Sara, Michael gives her a look that leaves her in no doubt that they are not done with this conversation, then gestures towards the door. “Shall we?”
~*~
Cooper Green is in his early fifties, with thinning dark hair and a round, almost cherubic face. He shakes Michael’s hand as Jane introduces them, then turns to Sara. “Doctor Tancredi?”
Sara takes his outstretched hand. “Yes.”
His handshake firm and unhurried, he looks at her with genuine regret. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a good man.”
She nods, her throat tightening at the unexpected sentiment. “Thank you.”
He looks expectantly at Aldo Burrows, who gestures towards the living room. “You’ll need to sit down for this one.”
Cooper Green raises his eyebrows. “That bad?”
Michael’s father gives him a dark look. “You could say that.”
As Jane and Lincoln follow the two men into the living room, Sara hesitates. She definitely doesn’t need to hear that conversation a second time. She brushes the back of Michael’s hand with her fingertips, then mutters, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Sure.” He nods, looking as though he’d prefer to join her, then turns to follow his brother and father.
Once in the kitchen, she finds herself peering into the large refrigerator, noting its unhappy lack of anything other than sandwich fillings, wondering idly if someone is going to address the mundane but very important issue of acquiring dinner. She can’t imagine Michael and Lincoln have eaten since she left them at the train station this morning, then wonders if she’s mad to be thinking about food when there’s a life and death discussion going on in the next room.
It’s only a few minutes before Jane appears in the doorway. “Sara?”
“Is it safe to come back in?” She finishes the last of her glass of water, then puts the glass on the sink. “I don’t want to almost lose my lunch a second time.”
Jane almost smiles. “We’ve finished listening to the recording. Cooper is going through the data now.”
Aldo Burrows is nowhere to be seen, but Michael and Lincoln are hovering on either side of the man sitting in front of the laptop, scribbling on a thick notepad. “You know what you have?” Cooper Green asks, looking up at Michael.
Michael nods, his expression grim. “I think we have a pretty good idea.” He glances at Sara as she rejoins them, his eyes locking with hers for a few seconds before he looks back at Green. “The question is, what exactly can do we do with it?”
Lincoln peers at the notepad on the coffee table. “What are you doing?”
“Getting all the unique data from the memory key,” Green informs him, jotting down several numbers, “so we can identify this key from any other, label it, and start a proper record of the chain of custody to present to the judges I trust.” He looks up at Lincoln as he finishes speaking, as though wanting to see if the other man understood his answer.
Lincoln being Lincoln, though, offers only the briefest of confirmations. “Cool.”
Green looks at him for a beat, then back down at the screen in front of him. “Wait.”
That one word makes Sara’s stomach drop. Michael stiffens, moving closer to the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the date stamp on the memory key,” Green mutters in obvious frustration. “It’s the copy date.”
Sara perches on the arm of the couch, her gaze flicking from Michael to Green. “I’m sorry, what’s that?”
“It’s the date that the damned thing was copied, not the date that the conversation was originally recorded.”
Lincoln scowls. “So what? I mean, you heard what was on the tape.”
Green puts down his pen with more force than strictly necessary. “Without a time stamp of exactly when this conversation took place, we can’t prove that this is Terrence Steadman talking after you supposedly killed him.” He looks at Michael and Lincoln in turn, his expression both irritated and apologetic. “This could have happened a year before his funeral. It can’t be authenticated, so it can’t be admitted to any court as evidence.”
Sara’s hand goes to her mouth. Nothing. It had all been for nothing. Stricken, she looks at the two men standing close to the couch. Michael’s expression is anguished, while Lincoln looks as though he’s about to punch something very hard. “People died because of this,” he growls at Cooper Green. Sara knows he’s thinking of Veronica rather than her father. As though sensing her thoughts, he glances at her, his eyes dark with grief. “Sara’s father died.”
“I’m sorry,” Green says, and Sara believes him. “Legally speaking, this tape is useless.”
Michael shakes his head, his jaw clenched. “It’s not over. We’re this close.”
Pacing the living room, Lincoln retorts over his shoulder. “You heard what he said, it’s done.”
“Actually,” Cooper Green interjects, making them all turn to him, “what I said was that it wouldn’t exonerate you in a court of law.”
Michael grows very still. “And?”
“Maybe it can help you outside the law.”
Jane, silent up until now, eyes Green with interest. “How?”
“We all heard the conversation. There’s more to this tape than potential proof of Lincoln’s innocence.” He looks at them all in turn, his eyes gleaming. “There is proof of Caroline Reynold’s guilt. Guilt about something she does not want anyone to know anything about.”
Michael smiles. It’s not a smile Sara remembers ever seeing on his face before, and she’s not sure she likes it. “So we blackmail her.”
The word hangs in the air, raw and ugly. Cooper Green holds up his hands. “I’m an officer of the court. I didn’t say that.” As Sara watches, he and Michael exchange a glance that tells her that, despite his words, he would be all too happy for them to take his advice.
Sara thinks she knows where Michael is going with this, but she wants to be sure. She wants to hear him say it. “Blackmail her in exchange for what?”
He turns to look at her, his vivid gaze burning into hers. “A Presidential pardon.”
Lincoln barks out a humourless laugh. “So the woman that set me up, is going to set me free?”
Michael lifts his chin and gives his brother a smile of pure triumph. “I think she’ll sign it with her own hand.”
“Then we need to work out our next step very carefully.” Jane moves to sit on the couch, gracefully dropping into the seat beside Cooper Green. As they begin a murmured conversation about making a second copy of the recording, Sara watches Lincoln watching Jane, his unguarded expression making her more curious about what had transpired on that long trip to Gila.
Suddenly feeling like a voyeur, she gets to her feet and crosses the room to Michael’s side. “Where’s your father?”
He curls his hand around her elbow, tugging her closer, and Sara tries to remember that she used to have a problem with men who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. “He had to make a few calls.”
Lincoln clears his throat. “I asked him to check on LJ.” From the couch, Jane gives him a sharp look.
“He’s fine, Lincoln.”
“Actually,” Aldo Burrows interjects as he strides into the room, “we may have a problem.”
Lincoln is immediately in his father’s face. “What? What’s wrong?”
Just as he’d done earlier, Aldo puts his hand on his son’s shoulder, then looks at Jane. “There’s no answer at the house.”
Jane is on her feet and moving across the room before Sara has a chance to draw breath. She grabs her cell phone, punching in numbers as she paces, Lincoln at her heels.
“I thought you said he was safe.”
“He is.”
“How many ops did you have guarding him?”
“Two.” Phone pressed to her ear, Jane glares at Lincoln, blue eyes flashing. “You’re not helping.”
“What would help, Jane?” He bites the words out, his nose only inches from hers. “Gee, do you think maybe having my son here with me like I wanted would have helped?”
Michael squeezes Sara’s arm, then quickly crosses the room to his brother’s side. “Lincoln.”
Lincoln glares at him, but Michael presses on. “Jane’s right. This isn’t helping.”
Jane swears softly, flipping the phone shut with a snap. “No answer from either Perkins or Baker.” She turns to Lincoln, meeting his angry gaze without flinching. “It will take me fifteen minutes to reach the house. I’ll call you as soon as I arrive.”
Lincoln’s expression is mutinous. “I’m coming with you.”
His father shakes his head. “They’ve used LJ as a means to draw you out into the open before, son. You might not get away with it a second time.”
Lincoln scowls at his father. “You did.”
“You’re not me,” his father answers mildly, and Lincoln’s scowl deepens.
“Thank Christ for that!”
Once again Michael puts his hand on his brother’s arm, speaking too softly for Sara to hear. Tearing her attention away from the rapidly escalating argument, she glances at Cooper Green. He’s on his feet now, looking more than a little embarrassed, sliding his notepad into a leather briefcase. Moving closer, Sara catches his gaze and gives him a hesitant smile. “Thank you for all your help.”
He sighs, slipping his fountain pen into his jacket pocket. “I’m not sure how much help I turned out to be.” He buttons his jacket, then gives her a considering look. “Aldo Burrows is a good man. It doesn’t surprise me that his sons are good men too.”
“They are,” she assures him quietly, her mouth suddenly dry. “And with your help, they might soon be able to put all this behind them.”
He picks up his briefcase and gives her a weary smile. “If what Jane has told me is correct, Doctor, they’ll owe their thanks to you, not me.”
Sara flushes, then once again finds herself shaking his hand. “Take care, Ms. Tancredi.” After a quick word to a distracted Aldo Burrows, he’s gone, walked to the door by the suddenly materialising Pearce, the same operative who’d driven Jane and Sara to the teahouse earlier.
Hearing a loud thump, she turns on her heel to see Lincoln with his hand on the wall, knuckles clenched in a fist. Jane and Aldo both have cell phones jammed to their ears, talking in rapid, urgent tones. Bewildered, she looks at Michael, his distressed expression answering her question before she’s even asked it.
“What’s wrong?”
Michael swallows hard. “One of the operatives guarding LJ has turned up in a dumpster a few miles from the house.”
She stares at him, horrified. “Oh, my God.”
Aldo Burrows flips his cell phone shut, fixing his elder son with an unwavering stare. “Second team are five minutes away from the house.”
“He’s my son.” Lincoln shakes his head. “I won’t just sit here.”
His father hesitates, then looks at Jane, a silent question in his eyes. After a few seconds, she nods stiffly, then turns to Lincoln, her expression remote. “You do what I say, when I say it. Is that understood?”
Lincoln’s gaze narrows, his one-word answer tight with anger. “Fine.” He turns to his brother. “I have to do this.”
Michael nods, his eyes glittering. “I know.”
Numb, shocked anew by the speed at which everything can fall to pieces, Sara watches as Lincoln hugs his brother, then shakes his father’s hand. He looks at her with the uncertainty that always seems to grip him with it comes to her, and she’s tempted to let the moment pass. But she thinks of LJ and Veronica and slips her arm around his shoulders, hugging him the way she’d hugged him in Chicago, when he’d told her about Veronica, when he’d wept in her arms. He gives her a grateful nod as he pulls away, then he and Jane are striding out of the room.
Aldo’s cell phone immediately rings and he’s soon deep in conversation with his unknown caller, but the apartment still feels silent and empty. Sara instinctively moves closer to Michael. He’s standing in front of a large bookcase, staring at the books’ spines, but Sara doubts he’s looking for something to read.
“What now?”
His hand finds hers, his thumb idly rubbing the ring on her index finger like a worry bead. Or, she thinks suddenly, like a touchstone. “Now, we wait.”
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Sara Tancredi/Michael Scofield
Other Characters: Lincoln Burrows, Paul Kellerman, Aldo Burrows, Jane Phillips
Length: 6,651 words
Rating: R (bad language, sexual situations)
Summary: The words safe house conjure up a picture of a dark and fortified hideout, certainly not this plain but clean wooden house in the outer suburbs.
Author's Note: Spoilers for Season One and Season Two. Pretty much AU from "Scan" onwards, it also uses events from the whole of Season Two. I think you could call this an AU with strong canon overtones - in other words, anything that you recognise from canon is not mine, especially a certain conversation from #218 "Wash". Many thanks to sk56 for the beta and sarah_scribbles for the handholding. This story is part of a series, the rest of which you can find here.
~*~
“What are you doing here?” she whispers back fiercely. “This was too big a risk even for you to take!”
Michael’s eyes grow darker. “I told you that you wouldn’t have to do this alone.” His hands tighten around hers. “I meant it.”
Before she can speak - or at least try to speak, because her voice seems to have vanished - he touches her hair, running his fingers through her newly fashioned bob, his eyes lighting up with a slow smile that makes her toes curl. “Nice.”
A ridiculous rush of shyness assails her, and she feels her face grow warm. “Yeah, well, it worked almost as well as that baseball cap of yours did.” His arm tightens around her shoulders as he tries to pull her closer, but she’s not done interrogating him, not yet. Putting one hand flat on his chest, she stares at him. “How the hell did you get here, Michael?” She doesn’t bother trying to hide her disbelief. “The last thing I knew you and Lincoln were in the FBI’s custody.”
A wry smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “A lot can change in an hour.” The arm around her shoulders shifts, and she feels the brush of his fingertips on the newly-exposed nape of her neck. “Turns out my talent for these situations is a strong genetic trait,” he says quietly, his gaze flicking towards his father.
A soft chuckle rises up in her throat, and she feels faintly giddy with both relief and the reality of his touch, warm and delicate against her skin. Finally heeding their silent audience, she asks no more questions, knowing he will tell her everything he can as soon as he can. Resting her hand on his leg - there's a tear in the knee of his khaki trousers, she notes with a dull pang - she leans into the solid warmth of his body, finding comfort in the soothing heat of him. "What now?" she murmurs softly as she turns her head towards him, unwilling to share their conversation with the rest of the passengers.
She hears him sigh, then he pulls her closer, his hand tightening on the curve of her shoulder as he puts his lips to her ear. "We find out what your father died for, and we use it to take down the people who killed him."
Sara closes her eyes, the sudden lump in her throat swallowing up her words. Groping blindly for Michael's other hand, she tightly laces her fingers through his until his palm is warm against hers. "Thank you."
She feels the brush of his lips against her temple, the soft rush of his breath over her skin. "Thank you."
~*~
The return trip to the apartment feels very different to the one she and Jane took to the teahouse only thirty minutes ago. In the company of several expertly trained operatives armed to the hilt and Michael’s arm tight around her shoulders, she literally feels the tension draining out of her, making it easier to breath, easier to hope that they really are one step closer to the end of this nightmare.
In the front seat, Aldo Burrows opens the sealed envelope Michael had given him. Sara can’t see his hands, but she hears the sound of ripping paper and the satisfied expression that steals over his face. Twisting around to look at them, he holds up a small USB memory stick with an unmistakable air of triumph. “This is it.” He glances at Sara. “Thank you, Doctor Tancredi.”
She ducks her head in acknowledgment, her relief that it hadn’t all been for nothing making it hard to talk. After a few minutes of a silence too laden with unspoken words to be truly comfortable, Michael slides his hand beneath her hair once more, his fingertips etching haphazard patterns on the nape of her neck. “You found it, didn’t you?”
His touch on her skin is both soothing (she wants to curl into him and sleep for the next twelve hours) and arousing (sleeping wouldn’t exactly mean sleeping, at least not for the first hour or two), but there’s nothing that can be done about either of these things. “Found what?”
“The GPS unit.”
She turns to meet his eyes. His hand shifts on her neck as she moves, but he doesn’t let go, merely adjusts the angle of his wrist. It’s as though now that he’s found her again, he has to keep touching her to make sure she’s still there, and she’s not about to object. “As soon as I got to Jane’s apartment.”
He smiles, something that looks very much like pride glittering in his eyes. “I knew you would.”
Her first instinct is to return his smile - she almost hates the way his obvious pride in her makes her feel like grinning - but she forces it back, shaking her head at him instead. “You know, you could have just told me that you’d done it.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You and I both know that if I had, you wouldn’t have got in that taxi.”
She opens her mouth to argue, then promptly shuts it again, knowing that he’s right. If she’d thought he was expecting to be separated from her, she might have caught on to his plan to act as a diversion a little sooner. Damn it. Irritated with both him and herself, she abruptly changes the subject. “Why did Jane tell me to go out the back way?”
“Place was about to be swarming with cops,” is Michael’s succinct reply, making her blink.
“The police?” Her mouth dries. “After me?”
Michael hesitates, and she hears his father say gently, “There’s been a warrant issued for your arrest, Sara.”
The news shouldn’t shock her, but it does, and just like that, the sick tension is clutching at her belly all over again. As though he sees it in her face, Michael’s hand tightens on the back of her neck. “Try not to worry about it,” he tells her in a soft undertone, and she suddenly feels the ridiculous urge to laugh, because he’s serious and actually thinks she might be strong-willed enough to put something like that out of her mind.
“Is that the voice of experience talking?”
“Yep.”
She tilts her head to look at him, inwardly wincing at the sight of the dried blood stiffening his eyebrow. “How’s that working for you?”
He gives her a rueful smile. “Some days are better than others.”
~*~
When they arrive at the apartment, the first thing they hear is what sounds like a heated argument coming from the direction of the kitchen. “You know that it’s a bad idea.”
“All I know is that you’re telling me what’s best for my son.”
Walking ahead of her, Aldo Burrows hesitates. Sara doesn’t know if he wants to give them time to finish their discussion, or whether he also has the feeling as though they’ve stumbled onto something more than an argument between business associates.
“He’s safe, Lincoln.” Jane sounds more than a little irritated, as though this is something she’s said one too many times. “And I thought you agreed it was better for him to stay where he is.”
“I did, but this whole mess could start going down at any time. He needs to be with his family.”
Aldo clears his throat loudly, and the voices from the kitchen abruptly fall silent. A few seconds later, Lincoln appears, his frown vanishing at the sight of them. “Hey!”
Sara finds herself briefly caught up in the midst of familial back-slapping, then Lincoln surprises her by giving her an awkward one-armed hug. “Glad to see you in one piece, Doc,” he says gruffly, and she knows that for Lincoln, this is tantamount to performing a dance of joy.
“Likewise,” she shoots back dryly. He gives her arm a light squeeze, then he’s turning to his father.
“We need to pick up LJ.”
“Son, that’s not -” Aldo Burrows glances at the tall blonde woman walking out of the kitchen. Jane’s expression is composed, but Sara sees both frustration and weariness in her eyes. “That’s not the first priority right now.”
Lincoln’s face darkens at his father’s words - red rag to a bull, Sara thinks uneasily - and instinctively takes one step backwards. She feels Michael’s hand on the small of her back, his fingers curling into the waistband of her pants, the silent reassurance a welcome balm to the fury she can see building in his brother’s eyes.
“My son is not a priority?” Lincoln spits out furiously. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that’s the way you see it.”
Slowly, calmly, as though trying to gentle a wounded animal, Aldo Burrows reaches out and puts one hand on his son’s shoulder, reaching inside his coat with the other, pulling out the white envelope that Sara had retrieved from the teahouse. “First, we need to make sure we have the ammunition to get all our lives back,” he tells his older son as he holds up the envelope. “Then we will go after my grandson.”
The heat in Lincoln’s eyes cools, and Sara can’t help but admire the elder Burrows’ choice of words. Our lives. My grandson. With those few words, he’s managed to both reassure and remind Lincoln that there’s much more at stake than his need to be with LJ. A natural diplomat, it would seem. Glancing at the man standing silently behind her, Sara can’t help thinking that Aldo Burrows bequeathed more to his younger son than a talent for evading the authorities.
Lincoln jerks his head in a nod, and Aldo turns to look at Jane. “Ready?”
Jane waves her hand towards the living room. “Laptop’s all set up.” She gives Sara a quick smile. “You did a good job.”
Sara feels a dull flush creep up the back of her neck. She’s not sure how many more congratulatory ‘thank yous’ she can handle, considering how close she came to falling short of the finishing line. “How’s Hodges?”
Jane’s smile fades. “In critical condition. We’ll know more in a few hours.”
Sara glances at Michael, and sees her next question reflected in his eyes. She feels his shoulder shift against hers, his hand lightly grazing her hip, then hears him ask in a low, rough voice, “And Kellerman?”
Aldo and Jane exchange a veiled glance, and Sara feels her stomach lurch. “He’s alive,” Jane finally says, “and under heavy guard.”
“Why is he still alive?” Michael’s tone is deceptively polite - Sara can feel the anger thrumming through him - and a sharp pang of guilt twists through her. He wants another human being dead - no matter that it’s Kellerman - because of her. It’s not a comforting thought.
“He knows where Terrence Steadman is, Michael,” his father reminds him. “We might still need him.”
Michael looks pointedly at the envelope in his father’s hand. “And we might not.”
In answer, Aldo Burrows shakes the USB memory stick out of the envelope into the palm of his hand, then looks at them all in turn, his gaze lingering on Sara. “Anyone who doesn’t want to hear this, you’re welcome to sit out.”
Sara realises he’s giving her the chance to maintain some semblance of plausible deniability, but she’s in no mood to pretend she’s not as involved in this as much as anyone. She glances at Michael, wondering if he’d had a hand in prompting this particular line of conversation, but he’s staring at his father with narrowed eyes. “I think Sara should hear it.”
Aldo’s gaze flickers between the two of them. “People have died for this.”
“My father died for this,” Sara corrects him flatly. “I need to hear it.”
Jane has set up the laptop on the cherry wood coffee table in front of the dark brown leather couch. As always, she stays in the background, leaning against the wall with her arms folded, waiting as the rest of them settle around the computer. Michael sits beside Sara, Lincoln perched on the arm of the couch on her other side. Beside Michael, Aldo reaches out and inserts the USB memory stick into the laptop, then presses play.
Later, Sara will wonder if she was the only one who flinched at the sound of Caroline Reynold’s voice. She knew she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.
“It's awful, I know.”
There’s a muffled mmmm in reply - a man’s voice - then the first female President of the United States is talking again. “But the choice was clear, you needed to be far away from all of this.”
“I am,” comes the querulous answer, breathless and bitter. “I’m the Isle of Terrence, far out to sea.”
“But I’m still here for you. Now listen to me, don't dwell on the negative.”
“Some people deserve to dwell, Caroline,” mutters Terrence Steadman, breathless and bitter but still very much alive.
“You know I’m only a phone call away,” his sister placates him calmly, her tone infused with a warmth that sends an odd chill down Sara’s spine.
“Uh huh. And three thousand miles.” There’s a long silence, then the sound of his unsteady breathing grows louder. “Do you-” He breaks off, his voice breaking, then starts again. “Do you know how cold it is here?”
“We talked about this, Terrence.” Caroline Reynold’s distinctive voice drops into a husky, wheedling tone. “You knew that you would be lonely but it's only temporary. His appeals process has started already. This is going to fly by quicker than your twenties, and soon the world will forget all about him and they’ll forget about you too, I promise.”
Beside her, Lincoln shifts restlessly, swearing under his breath, and Sara doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s fighting the urge to put his fist through the laptop’s screen.
“But - it's killing me, not being able to see you, Sweet Caroline.”
Terrence Steadman’s last strangled words send a second shiver down Sara’s spine, and she darts a glance at Michael. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his eyes never leaving the digital player on the screen.
“I want to see you too,” Caroline Reynolds reassures her brother softly, “but that can’t happen right now.”
“This house is so big. I just - I just think of you.” Steadman takes a deep breath, his voice quivering. “Lying in bed-”
Sara blinks. Surely he doesn’t mean -
“I know, me too,” murmurs the President, her voice almost a purr, and Sara’s stomach lurches for the second time in five minutes.She stares down at the table as Terrance Steadman talks to his sister as though she’s his lover, unable to meet anyone’s eye, not even Michael’s.
“Your warmth, your touch -” Steadman’s voice catches on a sob, and his sister is quick to console him.
“Perhaps in a few months, when the hysteria has died down a little, I’ll be able to come up there.”
“That’s too long.” Steadman is crying now, his sobs messy and despairing. “It’s been so long already.”
“I would change things if I could, but you know that I can’t.” There’s a burst of noise over the line, then the President sighs loudly. “I’m sorry, dear, I have to go.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to.”
“Your country needs you, I suppose.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“I need you.”
“I know, dear, I know.” Caroline Reynold’s voice is suddenly fluttery and girlish, and Sara almost recoils at the sound of it. “But I do have to go. Try to get some sleep.”
“That’s all I do, my dear sister,” Terrance snipes gently, then the digital recording comes to an abrupt end, silence falling heavily over the room.
“Oh, my God.” The words slip from Sara’s lips before she can stop them. After everything that has happened, she had thought herself unshockable. She’d been wrong.
Michael looks as stunned as she feels. “Yeah.”
At her shoulder, she hears Lincoln let out a long breath. “Wow.”
Aldo Burrows gets to his feet, his gaze focused on Jane. “Have you heard from him again?”
“Just before you arrived.” Jane pushes herself away from the wall where she was leaning. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Michael looks up at his father. “Who?”
“Cooper Green.”
Frowning, Michael glances at Sara, then Lincoln, but neither of them can answer his unspoken question. “Who’s Cooper Green?”
“Former Deputy Attorney General,” Jane replies crisply. “He splits his time between DC, Chicago and New York. He’s been an ally of your father’s for a very long time.”
Aldo looks down at his sons, then at Sara. “He’s the one who’s going to help us use what we just heard.” A flicker of distaste dances across his face. “I have to say, that’s not exactly what I was expecting to hear.”
Behind her, Lincoln lets out a loud snort. “I don’t think any of us were expecting that.”
Sara leans back, her shoulders sinking into the softness of the leather couch. She thinks of all the footage and photographs she’s ever seen of Carolyn Reynolds, always so perfectly groomed to meet her public, her hair and nails and makeup flawless, her speeches filled with talk of the importance of family values. Always so prim and proper, and all this time, she and her brother - Sara swallows hard, forcing herself to finish the thought. She and her brother had spoken with a familiarity that usually only comes after years of sexual intimacy.
Dear God.
Shaking her head as if that might clear out everything she’s just learned, Sara nudges Michael’s knee with hers, wanting some normalcy, however relative.
He looks at her expectantly. “What?”
“That's a nasty cut,” she says softly, her gaze going to the gash above his eyebrow. “I’d like to take a look at it.”
His eyes widen briefly - perhaps he’s trying to work out if that’s a euphemism or not, she thinks with a sudden flash of humour - then he nods. “Okay.”
He follows her down the hallway to the room where she’d stashed their belongings, and she feels his gaze burning into the back of her neck. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since their frantic lovemaking in the train’s bathroom, and it’s all she can do not to blush every time she meets his eyes. “I need to get your first-aid kit,” she tells him without looking over her shoulder, “but I think the light will be better in the bathroom.”
She stops outside the bathroom door and glances back at him. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.” Without a word, he takes her hand, pulling her around to face him, pulling her into his arms and hugging her so tightly that it almost knocks the breath from her lungs.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers urgently against her ear. His stubbled jaw scratches her cheek, making her shiver. Uncaring that they’re standing in the middle of the hallway, she closes her eyes, slipping her arms around his waist, fitting her body against the solid warmth of his.
“For what?”
“I told you I wouldn’t let him hurt you again.” His voice is rough, almost angry, the tension she felt in him earlier still humming through his body.
“And he didn’t.”
“But -”
She’s suddenly gripped by the need to shake some sense into him, shake some of the guilt out of him. Leaning back in the circle of his arms, she takes his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “You got there before he could, Michael, and that’s what counts.”
“A few seconds more and I could have been too late.”
“But you weren’t too late, Michael.” Suddenly very conscious of the warmth of his body - his thighs are flush against hers, her breasts brushing his chest - she eases herself away. Lifting her hand to his face, she gently touches his forehead, the dried blood rough beneath her fingertips. “I’ll meet you in the bathroom, okay?”
He gives her a look that plainly says he thinks she’s making a fuss over nothing - a look she remembers all too well from Fox River - then grins. “Doctor Tancredi,” he says lightly, almost teasingly, and some of the dark sourness left by Terrence Steadman’s words fades from her thoughts.
When she returns to the bathroom, first-aid kit under her arm, he’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub, long legs stretched out in front of him. There’s a wooden chair from the kitchen beside him - he must have grabbed it while she was in the bedroom - and she’s suddenly struck by the familiarity of the situation.
The feeling grows as she snaps on a pair of sterile gloves, knowing he’s watching her every move. “So, exactly how did this happen?” She glances up at him. “And don’t tell me you caught an elbow playing basketball, because I won’t believe you this time either.”
He chuckles softly. “I wish,” he mutters, wincing as she begins to clean the cut as gently as she can. “My head accidentally got into an argument with the pavement. It lost.”
“Accidentally, huh?”
He quirks one eyebrow - the non-bloodied one - at her. “Well, I’m sure the arresting officer didn’t really mean to thump my forehead into the ground.”
She screws the soiled swab into a ball, then drops it into the small trash can next to the sink. “Jane said you weren’t in the custody of the DC Police, though,” she murmurs, studying the now clean gash above his eyebrow. Steri-Strip tape, she decides, then meets his eyes. “She said you were in FBI custody.”
“She was right.” He shakes his head, taking advantage of the fact that she’s currently tearing open a sterile dressing. “I think that was as much of a surprise to the police as it was to Linc and I.”
“Lean forward?” She gently presses the small adhesive dressing against his skin, then frowns. “The FBI snatched you from the police?”
“Pretty much.”
She concentrates on smoothing her fingertips across the dressing, making sure it will hold firm. “And then your father snatched you from the FBI?”
“It’s been a busy afternoon,” he deadpans, and she can’t help smiling.
“So, that tracker of yours-”
“What about it?”
She pulls off her gloves and tosses them into the trash can. “Please don’t tell me it’s somewhere that can’t be mentioned in polite company.” She struggles to keep a straight face as he looks at her with wide, incredulous eyes, as though he can’t believe she’s just said what she’s said.
“You were right. You aren’t a nice girl,” he finally mutters, a slow smile creeping across his face, then he lifts his right foot into the air. “If you must know, it’s in my sock.”
“Very traditional.”
“I thought so.” They look at each other for a few seconds, levity giving way to reality, to the knowledge that this conversation came all too close to never taking place. His gaze slides towards the open door, towards the voices coming from the nearby living room, then back to her, his eyes searching her face with an intensity that makes her shift restlessly on the uncomfortable wooden chair.
“Uh, do you need your bag? It’s in the other room.”
He plucks at the front of his sweater, then give her a self-depreciating smile. “Clean clothes would be good. Even if they are from Target,” he adds dryly, making her laugh as she gets to her feet.
She’s only taken two steps into the spare bedroom when she hears him close the door behind them, then she feels his hand on her shoulder, turning her slowly to face him. They stare at each other, his eyes dark with the same hunger that's shivering through her, then he dips his head and kisses her, hard, his mouth hot and slick. A soft, choked moan rises up in the back of her throat at the taste of him, the scent of his skin - sweat and soap and him - washing over her, then his hands dig into her hips as he pulls her hard against him.
Oh.
Her hands fluttering down to rest on his shoulders, she opens her mouth to the fierceness of his kiss, taking as much as she’s giving, tasting and teasing and wanting and needing. Affirmation of life, she thinks hazily, then his hand is cupping her breast and she forgets all about thinking.
She arches in his arms, trying to feel him against her everywhere, rocking her hips against his, leaning into the warmth of the splayed hand on her breast. Her blood is suddenly on fire, pulse pounding in her head and her breasts and her belly, a slow, soft heat fluttering into life between her thighs.
He shifts his stance until her hips are cradled against his, letting her feel him pressed against her there, right there, hard and urgent where her body is soft and aching. He murmurs her name against her lips, her jaw, her throat, his mouth wet and hot, the scrape of his two-day old beard raising gooseflesh in its wake, her nipples tightening almost painfully, her breath coming fast and shallow.
When he slides one leg between hers, his hands going to the zipper of her hooded sweatshirt with unmistakable intent, she realises she’s going to have to be the voice of reason this time. They may be finally alone in a beautifully appointed bedroom, but they had more time and privacy in the bathroom on the train. Jane’s contact will be here any moment and there are some very important decisions that have to be made and oh, God, his thumb is teasing her nipple through her shirt, sending a bolt of heat straight to her groin, and she feels her knees start to tremble.
Scrambling for both breath and self-control, she tears her mouth away from his, putting her hand over his, wondering if he can feel the pounding of her heart. “We can’t do this now,” she whispers, and wonders if she’s ever sounded more unconvincing.
He swears softly, then draws a long, unsteady breath, his eyes closing as he presses his forehead against hers. “You know,” he says in a faintly strangled voice, “before I went into Fox River, my timing was always pretty good.”
Her smile feels more than a little wobbly. “Really?” She smoothes her hands over the curve of his closely-cropped head, fingernails scratching gently against his scalp, still amazed that such a simple thing could feel so gratifyingly normal. “Mine’s always been pretty crappy.”
He takes another breath, then slowly eases himself away from her, but his hands linger on her shoulders. He touches her hair, gently rubbing a few dark strands between his finger and thumb. “Very nice. Ever considered moonlighting as a hairdresser?”
She lets out her breath, grinning at both his words and his gallant attempt to cool the heat between them. “And what would you know about hairdressers?” She looks pointedly at his shorn head. “I’m sure I could do yours with my eyes closed.”
“Job’s all yours,” he shoots back. “Once every two weeks and I’ll even throw in a tip.”
She blinks at the unmistakable long-term implications of his teasing words, but before she can come up with a witty retort, there’s a knock at the door. “We’ve got company,” Lincoln announces loudly from the hallway. “Dad’s contact is here.”
“We’ll be right there.” Turning back to Sara, Michael gives her a look that leaves her in no doubt that they are not done with this conversation, then gestures towards the door. “Shall we?”
~*~
Cooper Green is in his early fifties, with thinning dark hair and a round, almost cherubic face. He shakes Michael’s hand as Jane introduces them, then turns to Sara. “Doctor Tancredi?”
Sara takes his outstretched hand. “Yes.”
His handshake firm and unhurried, he looks at her with genuine regret. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a good man.”
She nods, her throat tightening at the unexpected sentiment. “Thank you.”
He looks expectantly at Aldo Burrows, who gestures towards the living room. “You’ll need to sit down for this one.”
Cooper Green raises his eyebrows. “That bad?”
Michael’s father gives him a dark look. “You could say that.”
As Jane and Lincoln follow the two men into the living room, Sara hesitates. She definitely doesn’t need to hear that conversation a second time. She brushes the back of Michael’s hand with her fingertips, then mutters, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Sure.” He nods, looking as though he’d prefer to join her, then turns to follow his brother and father.
Once in the kitchen, she finds herself peering into the large refrigerator, noting its unhappy lack of anything other than sandwich fillings, wondering idly if someone is going to address the mundane but very important issue of acquiring dinner. She can’t imagine Michael and Lincoln have eaten since she left them at the train station this morning, then wonders if she’s mad to be thinking about food when there’s a life and death discussion going on in the next room.
It’s only a few minutes before Jane appears in the doorway. “Sara?”
“Is it safe to come back in?” She finishes the last of her glass of water, then puts the glass on the sink. “I don’t want to almost lose my lunch a second time.”
Jane almost smiles. “We’ve finished listening to the recording. Cooper is going through the data now.”
Aldo Burrows is nowhere to be seen, but Michael and Lincoln are hovering on either side of the man sitting in front of the laptop, scribbling on a thick notepad. “You know what you have?” Cooper Green asks, looking up at Michael.
Michael nods, his expression grim. “I think we have a pretty good idea.” He glances at Sara as she rejoins them, his eyes locking with hers for a few seconds before he looks back at Green. “The question is, what exactly can do we do with it?”
Lincoln peers at the notepad on the coffee table. “What are you doing?”
“Getting all the unique data from the memory key,” Green informs him, jotting down several numbers, “so we can identify this key from any other, label it, and start a proper record of the chain of custody to present to the judges I trust.” He looks up at Lincoln as he finishes speaking, as though wanting to see if the other man understood his answer.
Lincoln being Lincoln, though, offers only the briefest of confirmations. “Cool.”
Green looks at him for a beat, then back down at the screen in front of him. “Wait.”
That one word makes Sara’s stomach drop. Michael stiffens, moving closer to the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the date stamp on the memory key,” Green mutters in obvious frustration. “It’s the copy date.”
Sara perches on the arm of the couch, her gaze flicking from Michael to Green. “I’m sorry, what’s that?”
“It’s the date that the damned thing was copied, not the date that the conversation was originally recorded.”
Lincoln scowls. “So what? I mean, you heard what was on the tape.”
Green puts down his pen with more force than strictly necessary. “Without a time stamp of exactly when this conversation took place, we can’t prove that this is Terrence Steadman talking after you supposedly killed him.” He looks at Michael and Lincoln in turn, his expression both irritated and apologetic. “This could have happened a year before his funeral. It can’t be authenticated, so it can’t be admitted to any court as evidence.”
Sara’s hand goes to her mouth. Nothing. It had all been for nothing. Stricken, she looks at the two men standing close to the couch. Michael’s expression is anguished, while Lincoln looks as though he’s about to punch something very hard. “People died because of this,” he growls at Cooper Green. Sara knows he’s thinking of Veronica rather than her father. As though sensing her thoughts, he glances at her, his eyes dark with grief. “Sara’s father died.”
“I’m sorry,” Green says, and Sara believes him. “Legally speaking, this tape is useless.”
Michael shakes his head, his jaw clenched. “It’s not over. We’re this close.”
Pacing the living room, Lincoln retorts over his shoulder. “You heard what he said, it’s done.”
“Actually,” Cooper Green interjects, making them all turn to him, “what I said was that it wouldn’t exonerate you in a court of law.”
Michael grows very still. “And?”
“Maybe it can help you outside the law.”
Jane, silent up until now, eyes Green with interest. “How?”
“We all heard the conversation. There’s more to this tape than potential proof of Lincoln’s innocence.” He looks at them all in turn, his eyes gleaming. “There is proof of Caroline Reynold’s guilt. Guilt about something she does not want anyone to know anything about.”
Michael smiles. It’s not a smile Sara remembers ever seeing on his face before, and she’s not sure she likes it. “So we blackmail her.”
The word hangs in the air, raw and ugly. Cooper Green holds up his hands. “I’m an officer of the court. I didn’t say that.” As Sara watches, he and Michael exchange a glance that tells her that, despite his words, he would be all too happy for them to take his advice.
Sara thinks she knows where Michael is going with this, but she wants to be sure. She wants to hear him say it. “Blackmail her in exchange for what?”
He turns to look at her, his vivid gaze burning into hers. “A Presidential pardon.”
Lincoln barks out a humourless laugh. “So the woman that set me up, is going to set me free?”
Michael lifts his chin and gives his brother a smile of pure triumph. “I think she’ll sign it with her own hand.”
“Then we need to work out our next step very carefully.” Jane moves to sit on the couch, gracefully dropping into the seat beside Cooper Green. As they begin a murmured conversation about making a second copy of the recording, Sara watches Lincoln watching Jane, his unguarded expression making her more curious about what had transpired on that long trip to Gila.
Suddenly feeling like a voyeur, she gets to her feet and crosses the room to Michael’s side. “Where’s your father?”
He curls his hand around her elbow, tugging her closer, and Sara tries to remember that she used to have a problem with men who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. “He had to make a few calls.”
Lincoln clears his throat. “I asked him to check on LJ.” From the couch, Jane gives him a sharp look.
“He’s fine, Lincoln.”
“Actually,” Aldo Burrows interjects as he strides into the room, “we may have a problem.”
Lincoln is immediately in his father’s face. “What? What’s wrong?”
Just as he’d done earlier, Aldo puts his hand on his son’s shoulder, then looks at Jane. “There’s no answer at the house.”
Jane is on her feet and moving across the room before Sara has a chance to draw breath. She grabs her cell phone, punching in numbers as she paces, Lincoln at her heels.
“I thought you said he was safe.”
“He is.”
“How many ops did you have guarding him?”
“Two.” Phone pressed to her ear, Jane glares at Lincoln, blue eyes flashing. “You’re not helping.”
“What would help, Jane?” He bites the words out, his nose only inches from hers. “Gee, do you think maybe having my son here with me like I wanted would have helped?”
Michael squeezes Sara’s arm, then quickly crosses the room to his brother’s side. “Lincoln.”
Lincoln glares at him, but Michael presses on. “Jane’s right. This isn’t helping.”
Jane swears softly, flipping the phone shut with a snap. “No answer from either Perkins or Baker.” She turns to Lincoln, meeting his angry gaze without flinching. “It will take me fifteen minutes to reach the house. I’ll call you as soon as I arrive.”
Lincoln’s expression is mutinous. “I’m coming with you.”
His father shakes his head. “They’ve used LJ as a means to draw you out into the open before, son. You might not get away with it a second time.”
Lincoln scowls at his father. “You did.”
“You’re not me,” his father answers mildly, and Lincoln’s scowl deepens.
“Thank Christ for that!”
Once again Michael puts his hand on his brother’s arm, speaking too softly for Sara to hear. Tearing her attention away from the rapidly escalating argument, she glances at Cooper Green. He’s on his feet now, looking more than a little embarrassed, sliding his notepad into a leather briefcase. Moving closer, Sara catches his gaze and gives him a hesitant smile. “Thank you for all your help.”
He sighs, slipping his fountain pen into his jacket pocket. “I’m not sure how much help I turned out to be.” He buttons his jacket, then gives her a considering look. “Aldo Burrows is a good man. It doesn’t surprise me that his sons are good men too.”
“They are,” she assures him quietly, her mouth suddenly dry. “And with your help, they might soon be able to put all this behind them.”
He picks up his briefcase and gives her a weary smile. “If what Jane has told me is correct, Doctor, they’ll owe their thanks to you, not me.”
Sara flushes, then once again finds herself shaking his hand. “Take care, Ms. Tancredi.” After a quick word to a distracted Aldo Burrows, he’s gone, walked to the door by the suddenly materialising Pearce, the same operative who’d driven Jane and Sara to the teahouse earlier.
Hearing a loud thump, she turns on her heel to see Lincoln with his hand on the wall, knuckles clenched in a fist. Jane and Aldo both have cell phones jammed to their ears, talking in rapid, urgent tones. Bewildered, she looks at Michael, his distressed expression answering her question before she’s even asked it.
“What’s wrong?”
Michael swallows hard. “One of the operatives guarding LJ has turned up in a dumpster a few miles from the house.”
She stares at him, horrified. “Oh, my God.”
Aldo Burrows flips his cell phone shut, fixing his elder son with an unwavering stare. “Second team are five minutes away from the house.”
“He’s my son.” Lincoln shakes his head. “I won’t just sit here.”
His father hesitates, then looks at Jane, a silent question in his eyes. After a few seconds, she nods stiffly, then turns to Lincoln, her expression remote. “You do what I say, when I say it. Is that understood?”
Lincoln’s gaze narrows, his one-word answer tight with anger. “Fine.” He turns to his brother. “I have to do this.”
Michael nods, his eyes glittering. “I know.”
Numb, shocked anew by the speed at which everything can fall to pieces, Sara watches as Lincoln hugs his brother, then shakes his father’s hand. He looks at her with the uncertainty that always seems to grip him with it comes to her, and she’s tempted to let the moment pass. But she thinks of LJ and Veronica and slips her arm around his shoulders, hugging him the way she’d hugged him in Chicago, when he’d told her about Veronica, when he’d wept in her arms. He gives her a grateful nod as he pulls away, then he and Jane are striding out of the room.
Aldo’s cell phone immediately rings and he’s soon deep in conversation with his unknown caller, but the apartment still feels silent and empty. Sara instinctively moves closer to Michael. He’s standing in front of a large bookcase, staring at the books’ spines, but Sara doubts he’s looking for something to read.
“What now?”
His hand finds hers, his thumb idly rubbing the ring on her index finger like a worry bead. Or, she thinks suddenly, like a touchstone. “Now, we wait.”
~*~