Seven 3/7: Bargaining
Characters: Michael, mentions of Sara, original characters.
Chapter: 3: Bargaining
Length: 2200 words
Genre: AU, drama, reflective, post-series, sadness.
Rating: pg.
Summary: A lot can happen in four years...
A/N: This is the alternative POV chapter to wrldpossibility’s Seven. Thanks to linzi20 and wrldpossibility for the plotting guidance and beta skills, and to lauratnz for the beautiful banner. A couple of pieces of canon dialogue used here (1:11 & 2:04)
Bargaining
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, It's you and me.
And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places
from, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush
His recovery happens in fits and starts, a little like a gambling bout at a casino where you have a stack of chips, but the gaming tables are slightly skewed. Strides forward, steps back, losses of things in between, curtains of grieving overshadowing everything, and any personal gain scrutinized by the ‘house’.
And like the roulette wheel, he spins around and afloat as he adapts to being upright - until his body is able to manage the newness of the environment into which it’s been dealt. He still can’t see the deck very clearly, but the lay of the cards reminds him daily that he’s here to serve a purpose and he is very short on bargaining chips.
Michael continues to think of his physical improvement as small footsteps in his apparent rebirth, and he wonders exactly how his son’s foot would sit in the expanse of his own palm. He smiles to himself at the waning of each day, deciding that Michael’s feet would be enveloped in the enormous hand of his father, and the child would be easily engulfed by the bottomless love of the man who yearns to be with his son’s mother. It’s an astringent longing - bathed in bitterness and sharp need - and Michael takes to counting the sunset of each day post-birth, in an attempt to neutralize the acid-burn of separation.
He thought once he knew Sara had the company of their child, it would be easier to bear. It’s not. He wants. So much,and he yearns.
But the house is stacked against him for the moment.
If his recovery is progressive, the work they require him to do is not, even though they shorten the duration due to his health. As soon as the majority of his communicable speech is regained and he has reasonable control over the vertigo, he’s assisted to move about, then is twirled out of his hospital room for the first time and slotted into a sparsely furnished, bunker-style work station. They wheel him, as breezily as a roulette mechanism spins in place. A faceless man sprouting medical knowledge assists an orderly to place him in a wheelchair, adjust his limbs for comfort, and push him through a series of dimly-lit tunnels to where he is expected to perform - to work - in a job he conjured from the depths of his newly married brain, in order to hastily wrap a ‘keep out of jail free’ card for his beautiful gift of his wife.
He’s got this backwards, but his brain doesn’t see the need to reprogram - his Sara is a gift, his wedding present to her is his deal for her freedom, his absence from her presence scores his heart like the most virulent lashes of a switchblade. It’s a gift that can’t be exchanged no matter how hard he might bargain with the house! But as always, his thoughts work overtime, in time with the beating of his heart:
Sara? If I do this, if I try to finally make this right, will you forgive me? Can I barter for your trust? Can I make a bargain to earn back your faith in me?
***
‘I can’t see that well,’ Michael ensures he tells the two men wheeling him to his first day onsite, and he realizes that information is redundant. The faceless man with the familiar voice is his main medical provider, someone who has attended him over a long period. The doctor has changed the dark padding over his eyes for a lighter gauze. He has tested Michael’s sight at least once a day for the last month. He knows everything there is to know about the physiology of Michael’s eyesight, and unlike the pretense of fake diabetes, there doesn’t seem to be any test worth blindsiding in this particular situation; although emotion continues to cloud his improving vision.
‘Your sight should be improving, Mr Scofield. We’ve discussed this.’
‘Right. And to-day? I have to. . . listen? Intel? Using Dev-on to read and s-s-scribe,’ he says, recalling how the soothing Irish lilt to Devon’s voice had captured his attention the moment they’d met. ‘But I wonder? When I-I . . . when I start to see - when I can read - I get . . . own . . . computer, is that it? I will get access . . . that is, in my work? As part of the work I’m doing?’
There’s a pause. His words are hitting the table a lot better, but he is still staggering to get all his chips lined up and arranged in a complex verbal pattern. It’s damn frustrating. However, it’s the first time Michael has been proactive about his role, rather than simply listening to instructions from his directors - a group of several people who only talk work.
There’s Devon - who Michael instinctively likes - and then there is an older sounding male, and a woman This couple have taken to visiting his recovery room of late, with their work-based itineraries flapping around the air as they detail what’s expected of him now he is healing. He knows they are not the top puppeteers, but this couple is closer to pulling the strings around this place than he will ever be, and he knows they will not be open to any form of bargaining.
But neither are they the voice of his watcher.
If Michael thinks about the watcher too much he starts to fret. He hasn’t heard from him in more than a month, and the lack of news about Sara and Michael is slowly starting to squeeze the life out of his motivation. Over the course of time, he asks the people in his room, wheeling his chair, and adjusting his bandages of the watcher’s whereabouts, but they have told Michael that they are unsure who is referring to when he is only describing a voice.
But he will try again today. He will try every day until he ascertains whether his son is moving around yet, if he likes the beach, if the summer suits Sara, if she remembers he still owes her dinner, if she remembers . . .
‘Hey? ‘bout the computer?’ he asks again, as he feels a huge door being opened and senses the light change once more. The room around is a vast cavern of nothing. It’s like being in a massive aeroplane hanger and, if possible, Michael feels more alone than ever - like a solitary figure in a vacuum of space and time. His workplace.
‘Ask your directors about the computer, Mr Scofield,’ replies his doctor. ‘My main concern is your health, and I will be back to collect you in three hours.’
‘Oh, what, Doc? Three hours?’ comes the lyrical voice of Devon from across the fathomless divide. ‘Gotta work him harder than that!’
Michael sense the doctor’s ill-humour. ‘This work is intense. Three hours is enough to start. See you then, Mr Scofield.’
Before the doctor departs, Michael throws one last bargaining chip into the pile of debit he is starting to accumulate at the feet-supports of his wheelchair. ‘Doc? If I work. Do I get to talk . . . talk to that man? You-know? That man? About, my wife . . .family? ’
‘What man, Mr Scofield?’ his doctor asks impatiently.
‘Man. He comes . . . at times. Tells me of family. Not for a while.’
He hears the doctor sigh. Michael immediately thinks about another doctor who might sigh, for totally different reasons, for entirely different motivations. He wants her. He wants to be away from this medico and remember what it was like to be with a healer who cares, with a woman who loves. They can immerse themselves into each other and the dewdrop face of a child who can re-train his brain that it is all real. ‘It was real, Sara. You and me. It’s real.’
‘Ask your directors about this man, Mr Scofield!’
But the three hours elapse, then three weeks - and more - and the only people around to ask are Devon, the doctor and his orderly. All of a sudden, Michael realizes he has lost over another month in the life of his son, and a window of opportunity to discover how Sara is breaking up her day.
If I think about you all the time, will you understand why I’m doing this? If I don’t cry, will you smile by the sea? For me? His mind bargains for an insight that doesn’t come.
***
Inside the high-rolling area of his office, Michael’s doctor consults the phone numbers within his cell and quickly connects to Panama. This call is well beyond due. It’s been longer than necessary, in his medical opinion, and even though there is a valid work reason for the watcher’s absence from Scofield’s life, it’s not helping his patient physically or psychologically.
‘You need to make contact with Scofield. He needs some news from down there,’ the doctor insists, once formalities have been exchanged.
‘I thought his progress was good since the birth? I heard his work is slow and steady. What’s the problem?’
The doctor sighs. It’s so complex to explain the intimacy between brain and body, particularly when applied to vision and emotion. ‘His sight isn’t recovering as well as his physical testing indicates. I think . . . it’s my opinion that although some structural damage is responsible for Scofield’s poor vision, some of it is psychological. He might also be holding out. Hard to tell.’
‘Why wasn’t I notified about this earlier? What exactly are you saying?’
‘He needs to hear about his family more often - but unlike the things we can offer him, it needs to be concrete details. We have to try something. I think some of the visual problems are due to emotional issues - a psychological blindness - and perhaps waiting for a motivation only you can provide. He asks about you every day . . . ’
The doctor trails off, but notes an energized change to the voice on the other end. ‘We’ve been so busy here - nothing to do with Scofield’s family - but I won’t be back there for at least another month. Give Michael your cell this time tomorrow and tell him to expect a call.’
The doctor listens to the rest of his instructions. It’s nearly a year since he started working with Scofield, and he had hoped to restore much of Michael’s primary health by that particular anniversary. It’s the date he has always had in his sights.
***
Michael’s trembles as he hears the ‘slot machine’ type ring to the cellphone in his left hand. It’s been thrust into his palm a moment before, with the gruff voice of his doctor suggesting, ‘it’s only good news for you, Michael,’ as a prelude to receiving a communication dividend.
‘Michael?’
It’s him. Finally
‘It’s been a long time. Too long.’ He doesn’t want to sound ungrateful, but he’s tired and worried, unable to see the intel for all the Sara noise in his head - a crescendo that only gets louder the longer Michael is without news.
The sound waves increase, and they are a melody of wonder and happiness as the watcher paints family portraits cast in time - describes tapestries of a lone, ethereal woman, and crayon colours of a waxed childlike figure into Michael’s mind. He speaks on. He tells of Lincoln and LJ, of the start of Fall, of Michael milestones and of Sara’s health.
And Michael feels the tears fall. He lets them wash away at the blind spots and cleanse the months of living outside the family orbit. Towards the end of the call, he arises with greater clarity. A definite vision. He stacks his chips as the roulette table spins with equilibrium.
‘I want to get word to them.’
If the watcher is shocked, he doesn’t let on. ‘You know you can’t do that, Michael. It’s not part of the deal.’
‘The doctor says it might help my progress. My speech is better, my hearing . . . if I could get a message out there . . . well? Who knows, but, could we do this in good faith? Maybe, blind faith? I just need . . . something. One thing?’
Michael hears the watcher’s sigh of exasperation. He knows the doctor’s been mentioning his eyesight anomalies to anyone who will listen, and if he can press this less-than-ample gaming chip into the watcher’s palm, maybe he can bargain with the house? ‘I don’t know, Michael-’
‘I can work harder. They know that, if I had more motivation . . . my work would double. Ask Devon and the doctor. I just have an idea. One message, one photo. One thing you could do to help me with this . . .’
‘We are already doing this one thing for you - Sara’s out of jail, right?’
Finally Michael uses the medical ace up his sleeve in this particular bargain, ‘I know I could crack this watchdog role right open and work to my maximum potential if my sight got better quickly. A photo? A small message . . .’
The return of his speech and gift of planning finally falls into a winning combination, and although the watcher doesn’t agree to any of the terms listed in the bargaining to-and-fro, neither does he disagree. Michael buries his doubt and opens his heart.
Time to take a chance. Put your cards on the table.
‘Is there a memorial site for me? A stone? A tree?’ he asks, knowing there will be, but unable to imagine the surroundings.
‘Yes.’
‘They’ll be close by - the day after tomorrow - one year down the track. And my brother? He’ll leave origami, probably a paper crane.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I can imagine the scene unfolding.’
‘So, Michael? What would be your message? If you could leave one?’
Michael clenches the phone in his hand as he imagines the roulette ball falling perfectly into his red number of choice.
‘You’ll need to take a pen . . .’
tbc
Chapter: 3: Bargaining
Length: 2200 words
Genre: AU, drama, reflective, post-series, sadness.
Rating: pg.
Summary: A lot can happen in four years...
A/N: This is the alternative POV chapter to wrldpossibility’s Seven. Thanks to linzi20 and wrldpossibility for the plotting guidance and beta skills, and to lauratnz for the beautiful banner. A couple of pieces of canon dialogue used here (1:11 & 2:04)
Bargaining
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, It's you and me.
And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places
from, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush
His recovery happens in fits and starts, a little like a gambling bout at a casino where you have a stack of chips, but the gaming tables are slightly skewed. Strides forward, steps back, losses of things in between, curtains of grieving overshadowing everything, and any personal gain scrutinized by the ‘house’.
And like the roulette wheel, he spins around and afloat as he adapts to being upright - until his body is able to manage the newness of the environment into which it’s been dealt. He still can’t see the deck very clearly, but the lay of the cards reminds him daily that he’s here to serve a purpose and he is very short on bargaining chips.
Michael continues to think of his physical improvement as small footsteps in his apparent rebirth, and he wonders exactly how his son’s foot would sit in the expanse of his own palm. He smiles to himself at the waning of each day, deciding that Michael’s feet would be enveloped in the enormous hand of his father, and the child would be easily engulfed by the bottomless love of the man who yearns to be with his son’s mother. It’s an astringent longing - bathed in bitterness and sharp need - and Michael takes to counting the sunset of each day post-birth, in an attempt to neutralize the acid-burn of separation.
He thought once he knew Sara had the company of their child, it would be easier to bear. It’s not. He wants. So much,and he yearns.
But the house is stacked against him for the moment.
If his recovery is progressive, the work they require him to do is not, even though they shorten the duration due to his health. As soon as the majority of his communicable speech is regained and he has reasonable control over the vertigo, he’s assisted to move about, then is twirled out of his hospital room for the first time and slotted into a sparsely furnished, bunker-style work station. They wheel him, as breezily as a roulette mechanism spins in place. A faceless man sprouting medical knowledge assists an orderly to place him in a wheelchair, adjust his limbs for comfort, and push him through a series of dimly-lit tunnels to where he is expected to perform - to work - in a job he conjured from the depths of his newly married brain, in order to hastily wrap a ‘keep out of jail free’ card for his beautiful gift of his wife.
He’s got this backwards, but his brain doesn’t see the need to reprogram - his Sara is a gift, his wedding present to her is his deal for her freedom, his absence from her presence scores his heart like the most virulent lashes of a switchblade. It’s a gift that can’t be exchanged no matter how hard he might bargain with the house! But as always, his thoughts work overtime, in time with the beating of his heart:
Sara? If I do this, if I try to finally make this right, will you forgive me? Can I barter for your trust? Can I make a bargain to earn back your faith in me?
***
‘I can’t see that well,’ Michael ensures he tells the two men wheeling him to his first day onsite, and he realizes that information is redundant. The faceless man with the familiar voice is his main medical provider, someone who has attended him over a long period. The doctor has changed the dark padding over his eyes for a lighter gauze. He has tested Michael’s sight at least once a day for the last month. He knows everything there is to know about the physiology of Michael’s eyesight, and unlike the pretense of fake diabetes, there doesn’t seem to be any test worth blindsiding in this particular situation; although emotion continues to cloud his improving vision.
‘Your sight should be improving, Mr Scofield. We’ve discussed this.’
‘Right. And to-day? I have to. . . listen? Intel? Using Dev-on to read and s-s-scribe,’ he says, recalling how the soothing Irish lilt to Devon’s voice had captured his attention the moment they’d met. ‘But I wonder? When I-I . . . when I start to see - when I can read - I get . . . own . . . computer, is that it? I will get access . . . that is, in my work? As part of the work I’m doing?’
There’s a pause. His words are hitting the table a lot better, but he is still staggering to get all his chips lined up and arranged in a complex verbal pattern. It’s damn frustrating. However, it’s the first time Michael has been proactive about his role, rather than simply listening to instructions from his directors - a group of several people who only talk work.
There’s Devon - who Michael instinctively likes - and then there is an older sounding male, and a woman This couple have taken to visiting his recovery room of late, with their work-based itineraries flapping around the air as they detail what’s expected of him now he is healing. He knows they are not the top puppeteers, but this couple is closer to pulling the strings around this place than he will ever be, and he knows they will not be open to any form of bargaining.
But neither are they the voice of his watcher.
If Michael thinks about the watcher too much he starts to fret. He hasn’t heard from him in more than a month, and the lack of news about Sara and Michael is slowly starting to squeeze the life out of his motivation. Over the course of time, he asks the people in his room, wheeling his chair, and adjusting his bandages of the watcher’s whereabouts, but they have told Michael that they are unsure who is referring to when he is only describing a voice.
But he will try again today. He will try every day until he ascertains whether his son is moving around yet, if he likes the beach, if the summer suits Sara, if she remembers he still owes her dinner, if she remembers . . .
‘Hey? ‘bout the computer?’ he asks again, as he feels a huge door being opened and senses the light change once more. The room around is a vast cavern of nothing. It’s like being in a massive aeroplane hanger and, if possible, Michael feels more alone than ever - like a solitary figure in a vacuum of space and time. His workplace.
‘Ask your directors about the computer, Mr Scofield,’ replies his doctor. ‘My main concern is your health, and I will be back to collect you in three hours.’
‘Oh, what, Doc? Three hours?’ comes the lyrical voice of Devon from across the fathomless divide. ‘Gotta work him harder than that!’
Michael sense the doctor’s ill-humour. ‘This work is intense. Three hours is enough to start. See you then, Mr Scofield.’
Before the doctor departs, Michael throws one last bargaining chip into the pile of debit he is starting to accumulate at the feet-supports of his wheelchair. ‘Doc? If I work. Do I get to talk . . . talk to that man? You-know? That man? About, my wife . . .family? ’
‘What man, Mr Scofield?’ his doctor asks impatiently.
‘Man. He comes . . . at times. Tells me of family. Not for a while.’
He hears the doctor sigh. Michael immediately thinks about another doctor who might sigh, for totally different reasons, for entirely different motivations. He wants her. He wants to be away from this medico and remember what it was like to be with a healer who cares, with a woman who loves. They can immerse themselves into each other and the dewdrop face of a child who can re-train his brain that it is all real. ‘It was real, Sara. You and me. It’s real.’
‘Ask your directors about this man, Mr Scofield!’
But the three hours elapse, then three weeks - and more - and the only people around to ask are Devon, the doctor and his orderly. All of a sudden, Michael realizes he has lost over another month in the life of his son, and a window of opportunity to discover how Sara is breaking up her day.
If I think about you all the time, will you understand why I’m doing this? If I don’t cry, will you smile by the sea? For me? His mind bargains for an insight that doesn’t come.
***
Inside the high-rolling area of his office, Michael’s doctor consults the phone numbers within his cell and quickly connects to Panama. This call is well beyond due. It’s been longer than necessary, in his medical opinion, and even though there is a valid work reason for the watcher’s absence from Scofield’s life, it’s not helping his patient physically or psychologically.
‘You need to make contact with Scofield. He needs some news from down there,’ the doctor insists, once formalities have been exchanged.
‘I thought his progress was good since the birth? I heard his work is slow and steady. What’s the problem?’
The doctor sighs. It’s so complex to explain the intimacy between brain and body, particularly when applied to vision and emotion. ‘His sight isn’t recovering as well as his physical testing indicates. I think . . . it’s my opinion that although some structural damage is responsible for Scofield’s poor vision, some of it is psychological. He might also be holding out. Hard to tell.’
‘Why wasn’t I notified about this earlier? What exactly are you saying?’
‘He needs to hear about his family more often - but unlike the things we can offer him, it needs to be concrete details. We have to try something. I think some of the visual problems are due to emotional issues - a psychological blindness - and perhaps waiting for a motivation only you can provide. He asks about you every day . . . ’
The doctor trails off, but notes an energized change to the voice on the other end. ‘We’ve been so busy here - nothing to do with Scofield’s family - but I won’t be back there for at least another month. Give Michael your cell this time tomorrow and tell him to expect a call.’
The doctor listens to the rest of his instructions. It’s nearly a year since he started working with Scofield, and he had hoped to restore much of Michael’s primary health by that particular anniversary. It’s the date he has always had in his sights.
***
Michael’s trembles as he hears the ‘slot machine’ type ring to the cellphone in his left hand. It’s been thrust into his palm a moment before, with the gruff voice of his doctor suggesting, ‘it’s only good news for you, Michael,’ as a prelude to receiving a communication dividend.
‘Michael?’
It’s him. Finally
‘It’s been a long time. Too long.’ He doesn’t want to sound ungrateful, but he’s tired and worried, unable to see the intel for all the Sara noise in his head - a crescendo that only gets louder the longer Michael is without news.
The sound waves increase, and they are a melody of wonder and happiness as the watcher paints family portraits cast in time - describes tapestries of a lone, ethereal woman, and crayon colours of a waxed childlike figure into Michael’s mind. He speaks on. He tells of Lincoln and LJ, of the start of Fall, of Michael milestones and of Sara’s health.
And Michael feels the tears fall. He lets them wash away at the blind spots and cleanse the months of living outside the family orbit. Towards the end of the call, he arises with greater clarity. A definite vision. He stacks his chips as the roulette table spins with equilibrium.
‘I want to get word to them.’
If the watcher is shocked, he doesn’t let on. ‘You know you can’t do that, Michael. It’s not part of the deal.’
‘The doctor says it might help my progress. My speech is better, my hearing . . . if I could get a message out there . . . well? Who knows, but, could we do this in good faith? Maybe, blind faith? I just need . . . something. One thing?’
Michael hears the watcher’s sigh of exasperation. He knows the doctor’s been mentioning his eyesight anomalies to anyone who will listen, and if he can press this less-than-ample gaming chip into the watcher’s palm, maybe he can bargain with the house? ‘I don’t know, Michael-’
‘I can work harder. They know that, if I had more motivation . . . my work would double. Ask Devon and the doctor. I just have an idea. One message, one photo. One thing you could do to help me with this . . .’
‘We are already doing this one thing for you - Sara’s out of jail, right?’
Finally Michael uses the medical ace up his sleeve in this particular bargain, ‘I know I could crack this watchdog role right open and work to my maximum potential if my sight got better quickly. A photo? A small message . . .’
The return of his speech and gift of planning finally falls into a winning combination, and although the watcher doesn’t agree to any of the terms listed in the bargaining to-and-fro, neither does he disagree. Michael buries his doubt and opens his heart.
Time to take a chance. Put your cards on the table.
‘Is there a memorial site for me? A stone? A tree?’ he asks, knowing there will be, but unable to imagine the surroundings.
‘Yes.’
‘They’ll be close by - the day after tomorrow - one year down the track. And my brother? He’ll leave origami, probably a paper crane.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I can imagine the scene unfolding.’
‘So, Michael? What would be your message? If you could leave one?’
Michael clenches the phone in his hand as he imagines the roulette ball falling perfectly into his red number of choice.
‘You’ll need to take a pen . . .’
tbc