Of Ghosts and Saints, III
Title: Of Ghosts and Saints, III
Author: wrldpossibility
Characters: Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield
Word Count: 1800
Rating: R (suggestive references)
Spoilers: 4.01.
Summary: She's been pacing this room for nearly ten minutes.
Author's Note: This fic falls under several categories. Firstly, it's a missing scene fic for 4.01. Yes, that missing scene. It takes place at the beginning of Michael and Sara's reunion and continues through the moment the Chinese food/bed scene begins. Whether they had sex during that bedroom scene in canon or not can remain ambiguous if you ask me, but what needs clarification in my mind is what happened before...immediately following their reunion. This is my take. As such, it fits bnleah's Big Bang Theory challenge. It is also the third and (I think) last installment of my Ghosts and Saints stories, the first two of which can be found HERE and HERE.
She’s been pacing this room for nearly ten minutes.
She’s standing at the window for the sole purpose of catching the earliest possible glimpse of him, but at the last moment, just as she hears the car pull up, she turns, training her eyes instead on the doorway. Suddenly, seeing him before he sees her seems like cheating.
The car doors slam outside, the sharp sound on the quiet street exploding through her consciousness to further scatter her already rogue nerves from her head to her toes until her heart is hammering and her hands are shaking. She grips them together in front of her and keeps her eyes on the door.
He’s the first one through it.
She can’t breathe. He was told she was dead, and as of only hours before, she had thought it probable he was as well, and now he‘s standing before her like some impossible marvel has been thrust in the face of all reason, and they scarcely know what to do with each other.
She moves first…slowly…because the fact is, he looks undeniably spooked. She can relate; a very real part of her is still afraid this is all just a mirage, that as soon as she steps out of the light and her pupils are forced to expand, receiving a fuller spectrum of stimulation, his form with waver then fade altogether.
He finally reaches for her, and she has time only to respond with the slightest sliver of a smile before his hand is grazing her cheek and then curling around the back of her head. And then? And then she’s there, flush against his solid torso, shaking as the sliver expands to a crack of unadulterated joy that breaks wide open to swallow her whole.
*****
There had been no possible way to prepare for this. On the car ride over, he had listened to Bruce recount all he knew of Sara’s escape and subsequent flight from Panama (which hadn’t been much), but for every word he absorbed, a dozen sprang forward in rebuttal as his mind insisted on feeding him a stubborn, continuous loop of denial. This cannot be, he had thought fervently. This cannot be, this cannot be, this cannot be.
She’s standing by the window as he enters the room, and when she doesn’t speak or move as the pale sunlight blurs the edges of her skin and hair and her white shirt, his first thought is that he should have listened to the voice of reason in his head. She’s clearly an apparition…he will wake soon enough and he will hate himself all the more for the cruelty of this dream.
Stop this right now, he begs his eyes and his feet and his hands, because he’s moving, and reaching, and oh God, this is going to be so unbearably painful when he’s proven right and she’s not there to hold. She’s gliding toward him, and then she’s close enough to touch. He tells himself again to stop, but he risks it anyway and his palm cups the back of her head and it’s solid and oh her face is against his shoulder and her tears are wetting his neck and he bends into her, stroking her hair and trying not to faint as reality overruns his wildest dreams right before his eyes.
She’s holding him so tightly he can do nothing but bury his head into her skin, but nothing--ever--has been so welcome. He can’t speak, he can’t look at her; in this ripped-raw state, all he can do is wrap his arms around her and revel in the pounding of her heart. That alone is so, so much more than he ever thought he‘d get.
When she pulls back, he pushes the hair out of her face in a manner that’s somehow greedy and reverent at the same time, but still, even with her an inch from him, the mere sight of her face is not enough. He touches her instead, his palms braced against her jaw, one finger sliding across her mouth as though in tactile confirmation. As though he’s blind. And maybe, at this exact moment, he is. His senses seem to keep overloading and crashing, only to overload all over again. She lets him feel his way along, her eyes steadily on him, her hesitant intake of breath warm against his fingertip.
It’s too much, and not anywhere close to enough--her lips are parted, her eyes pleading, and he knows what he wants. He needs to taste her, to consume her; he dips his head and captures her mouth, kissing her.
*****
Somewhere quite far away, she hears Bruce say something about unfinished business and being missed at work, and Lincoln is answering him, and then their voices are receding and the door is closing. She remains rooted in place, holding Michael to her, and a full minute must go by before she realizes how hard she‘s crying.
He is, too. Amid choking tears, he’s alternating between kissing her face and mouth and the top of her head, his hands spanning from her hair to her jaw to her neck and back up again. She closes her eyes to his touch while maintaining a vice-like grip on his shoulders and back.
“How?” he gasps into her neck. His voice is rough and demanding and so full of love she sobs all the harder. “How are you here?”
She doesn’t know. How could she possibly know the answer to that? She simply continues to cry, pulling him closer even though there’s no way he could be nearer.
Having evidently given up on a satisfactory answer, his fingers graze her skin as he plies her jaw, opening her mouth to him as he kisses her again and again. They don’t speak at all for some time; all she can hear is her own blood pounding against her temples and his answering thrum of pulse where her fingers rest at the base of his throat. At a pause for breath, she glances up at him, her lips curving into a hint of a smile. He returns it, and then the light behind her must catch his eye because he frowns and pulls her gently away from the window. There‘s another doorway to his right and he guides her though it blindly before halting at the sight of the bedroom she‘s been using for days.
Clearly only just becoming aware of where he’s led them, he flicks a glance to her that’s both hungry and apologetic, and in answer, she tips her head upward, desperate to feel him kiss her again. Desperate just to feel.
He’s asking her something, pulling back, trying to elicit a response, but it’s all too much…his words are lost in the screaming sensation of his hands roaming her body; it’s as though he‘s trying to confirm everything at once, with his words, his mouth, his hands, and God she feels it all. “Yes,” she whispers into his mouth, taking a chance on the nature of his question. She hasn’t computed what he asked, but it doesn’t matter…it’s the only answer she wants to give to any question for a long, long time. She guides him backward, her hands fast on his hips, and he’s saying something else, but by this point, she’s given up any pretense of listening. Instead, she’s kissing him anew, murmuring softly over the cadence of his voice, her soft sighs the gentlest ripple over the surface of his words. “Yes,” she insists softly. “Yes, yes, yes.”
At the bed, he stops her. “Are you alright? Are you sure you--”
“Michael.” She cannot think about all the reasons she should not be ready for this. She cannot detail to him all the ways in which she is damaged. He’s still looking at her like she’s a ghost, and right now, at least for today, she needs to be whole for him. “I cannot get enough of you,” she hears herself say, and while her bluntness surprises her, its exactly what he needed to hear. She watches his mouth fall open and his eyes darken, and she spurs him on, as if she‘s never needed anything so badly in her life. She hasn‘t. “You cannot give me too much,” she adds, and to her relief, he takes her at her word. Her back hits the bed, and for a moment she thinks she’ll panic, but then her mind takes pity on her, narrowing in sympathetic accord as it complies along with her body, processing nothing but Michael’s touch.
It’s fast and it’s desperate and it’s needy, and neither of them even bother to take off all their clothes. At its pinnacle, she finally allows her adrenaline and her nerves and her every carnal need free reign until sheer, thick desire is galloping under her skin, and that’s when she starts to speak, filling in a gap here and a blank there in short, gasping sentences into his ear, into his neck, into his own inked confessions across his chest. Because right here? Like this? She’s no longer recounting the event of her escape to an audience, but almost to a part of herself.
*****
He receives her words as she receives his body, and her outpouring of explanations fill him as he fills her in such a profound way that for minutes afterward, he can only look at her, speechless, his hand cradling her cheek, his mouth periodically dipping to close over her heated skin. She hasn’t told him all of it, or really, even the half of it…only logistics, only enough to sketch the vaguest of timelines in his mind, but for now, it’s enough.
He finally pulls himself away from her and the bed to find Lincoln and perhaps something for all of them to eat, and when he returns with a carton of Chinese take-out, the sight of her washes over his senses anew. The light has changed considerably in the room, and while there certainly wasn’t anything ethereal about her as they shared this bed earlier, the spectral quality of their initial reunion has returned. At first he thinks it must simply be the combination of her muted shirt against her pale skin and his raw, battered emotions coloring his vision; after all, her hand, reaching for the food, is very much solid. A moment later, however, he realizes she’s lit the candle set atop the shelf above the bed, and he knows then that it’s this flame that’s casting shadows--casting a doubt that can easily be snuffed--and nothing more.
Author: wrldpossibility
Characters: Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield
Word Count: 1800
Rating: R (suggestive references)
Spoilers: 4.01.
Summary: She's been pacing this room for nearly ten minutes.
Author's Note: This fic falls under several categories. Firstly, it's a missing scene fic for 4.01. Yes, that missing scene. It takes place at the beginning of Michael and Sara's reunion and continues through the moment the Chinese food/bed scene begins. Whether they had sex during that bedroom scene in canon or not can remain ambiguous if you ask me, but what needs clarification in my mind is what happened before...immediately following their reunion. This is my take. As such, it fits bnleah's Big Bang Theory challenge. It is also the third and (I think) last installment of my Ghosts and Saints stories, the first two of which can be found HERE and HERE.
She’s been pacing this room for nearly ten minutes.
She’s standing at the window for the sole purpose of catching the earliest possible glimpse of him, but at the last moment, just as she hears the car pull up, she turns, training her eyes instead on the doorway. Suddenly, seeing him before he sees her seems like cheating.
The car doors slam outside, the sharp sound on the quiet street exploding through her consciousness to further scatter her already rogue nerves from her head to her toes until her heart is hammering and her hands are shaking. She grips them together in front of her and keeps her eyes on the door.
He’s the first one through it.
She can’t breathe. He was told she was dead, and as of only hours before, she had thought it probable he was as well, and now he‘s standing before her like some impossible marvel has been thrust in the face of all reason, and they scarcely know what to do with each other.
She moves first…slowly…because the fact is, he looks undeniably spooked. She can relate; a very real part of her is still afraid this is all just a mirage, that as soon as she steps out of the light and her pupils are forced to expand, receiving a fuller spectrum of stimulation, his form with waver then fade altogether.
He finally reaches for her, and she has time only to respond with the slightest sliver of a smile before his hand is grazing her cheek and then curling around the back of her head. And then? And then she’s there, flush against his solid torso, shaking as the sliver expands to a crack of unadulterated joy that breaks wide open to swallow her whole.
*****
There had been no possible way to prepare for this. On the car ride over, he had listened to Bruce recount all he knew of Sara’s escape and subsequent flight from Panama (which hadn’t been much), but for every word he absorbed, a dozen sprang forward in rebuttal as his mind insisted on feeding him a stubborn, continuous loop of denial. This cannot be, he had thought fervently. This cannot be, this cannot be, this cannot be.
She’s standing by the window as he enters the room, and when she doesn’t speak or move as the pale sunlight blurs the edges of her skin and hair and her white shirt, his first thought is that he should have listened to the voice of reason in his head. She’s clearly an apparition…he will wake soon enough and he will hate himself all the more for the cruelty of this dream.
Stop this right now, he begs his eyes and his feet and his hands, because he’s moving, and reaching, and oh God, this is going to be so unbearably painful when he’s proven right and she’s not there to hold. She’s gliding toward him, and then she’s close enough to touch. He tells himself again to stop, but he risks it anyway and his palm cups the back of her head and it’s solid and oh her face is against his shoulder and her tears are wetting his neck and he bends into her, stroking her hair and trying not to faint as reality overruns his wildest dreams right before his eyes.
She’s holding him so tightly he can do nothing but bury his head into her skin, but nothing--ever--has been so welcome. He can’t speak, he can’t look at her; in this ripped-raw state, all he can do is wrap his arms around her and revel in the pounding of her heart. That alone is so, so much more than he ever thought he‘d get.
When she pulls back, he pushes the hair out of her face in a manner that’s somehow greedy and reverent at the same time, but still, even with her an inch from him, the mere sight of her face is not enough. He touches her instead, his palms braced against her jaw, one finger sliding across her mouth as though in tactile confirmation. As though he’s blind. And maybe, at this exact moment, he is. His senses seem to keep overloading and crashing, only to overload all over again. She lets him feel his way along, her eyes steadily on him, her hesitant intake of breath warm against his fingertip.
It’s too much, and not anywhere close to enough--her lips are parted, her eyes pleading, and he knows what he wants. He needs to taste her, to consume her; he dips his head and captures her mouth, kissing her.
*****
Somewhere quite far away, she hears Bruce say something about unfinished business and being missed at work, and Lincoln is answering him, and then their voices are receding and the door is closing. She remains rooted in place, holding Michael to her, and a full minute must go by before she realizes how hard she‘s crying.
He is, too. Amid choking tears, he’s alternating between kissing her face and mouth and the top of her head, his hands spanning from her hair to her jaw to her neck and back up again. She closes her eyes to his touch while maintaining a vice-like grip on his shoulders and back.
“How?” he gasps into her neck. His voice is rough and demanding and so full of love she sobs all the harder. “How are you here?”
She doesn’t know. How could she possibly know the answer to that? She simply continues to cry, pulling him closer even though there’s no way he could be nearer.
Having evidently given up on a satisfactory answer, his fingers graze her skin as he plies her jaw, opening her mouth to him as he kisses her again and again. They don’t speak at all for some time; all she can hear is her own blood pounding against her temples and his answering thrum of pulse where her fingers rest at the base of his throat. At a pause for breath, she glances up at him, her lips curving into a hint of a smile. He returns it, and then the light behind her must catch his eye because he frowns and pulls her gently away from the window. There‘s another doorway to his right and he guides her though it blindly before halting at the sight of the bedroom she‘s been using for days.
Clearly only just becoming aware of where he’s led them, he flicks a glance to her that’s both hungry and apologetic, and in answer, she tips her head upward, desperate to feel him kiss her again. Desperate just to feel.
He’s asking her something, pulling back, trying to elicit a response, but it’s all too much…his words are lost in the screaming sensation of his hands roaming her body; it’s as though he‘s trying to confirm everything at once, with his words, his mouth, his hands, and God she feels it all. “Yes,” she whispers into his mouth, taking a chance on the nature of his question. She hasn’t computed what he asked, but it doesn’t matter…it’s the only answer she wants to give to any question for a long, long time. She guides him backward, her hands fast on his hips, and he’s saying something else, but by this point, she’s given up any pretense of listening. Instead, she’s kissing him anew, murmuring softly over the cadence of his voice, her soft sighs the gentlest ripple over the surface of his words. “Yes,” she insists softly. “Yes, yes, yes.”
At the bed, he stops her. “Are you alright? Are you sure you--”
“Michael.” She cannot think about all the reasons she should not be ready for this. She cannot detail to him all the ways in which she is damaged. He’s still looking at her like she’s a ghost, and right now, at least for today, she needs to be whole for him. “I cannot get enough of you,” she hears herself say, and while her bluntness surprises her, its exactly what he needed to hear. She watches his mouth fall open and his eyes darken, and she spurs him on, as if she‘s never needed anything so badly in her life. She hasn‘t. “You cannot give me too much,” she adds, and to her relief, he takes her at her word. Her back hits the bed, and for a moment she thinks she’ll panic, but then her mind takes pity on her, narrowing in sympathetic accord as it complies along with her body, processing nothing but Michael’s touch.
It’s fast and it’s desperate and it’s needy, and neither of them even bother to take off all their clothes. At its pinnacle, she finally allows her adrenaline and her nerves and her every carnal need free reign until sheer, thick desire is galloping under her skin, and that’s when she starts to speak, filling in a gap here and a blank there in short, gasping sentences into his ear, into his neck, into his own inked confessions across his chest. Because right here? Like this? She’s no longer recounting the event of her escape to an audience, but almost to a part of herself.
*****
He receives her words as she receives his body, and her outpouring of explanations fill him as he fills her in such a profound way that for minutes afterward, he can only look at her, speechless, his hand cradling her cheek, his mouth periodically dipping to close over her heated skin. She hasn’t told him all of it, or really, even the half of it…only logistics, only enough to sketch the vaguest of timelines in his mind, but for now, it’s enough.
He finally pulls himself away from her and the bed to find Lincoln and perhaps something for all of them to eat, and when he returns with a carton of Chinese take-out, the sight of her washes over his senses anew. The light has changed considerably in the room, and while there certainly wasn’t anything ethereal about her as they shared this bed earlier, the spectral quality of their initial reunion has returned. At first he thinks it must simply be the combination of her muted shirt against her pale skin and his raw, battered emotions coloring his vision; after all, her hand, reaching for the food, is very much solid. A moment later, however, he realizes she’s lit the candle set atop the shelf above the bed, and he knows then that it’s this flame that’s casting shadows--casting a doubt that can easily be snuffed--and nothing more.