Bailed

[knopflergroupie]

Title: Bailed
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Michael Scofield Jr./Emily Morgan
Words: 2,807
Warnings: Emotional adultery
Summary: Michael receives a late night phone call. Takes place twenty-seven years post-finale.
Author's Note: If anyone happens to read this weird little piece of crack pairing: hi, nice to meet you! I hope my characterization of both seems somewhat logical, given what we know about their parents and their possible upbringings.

The shrill ring of the phone pierced the haziness of Michael’s dream. He woke up very suddenly, for once shooting into a perfectly lucid state directly from his deep sleep. The phone rang again, and his wife groaned and rolled over. He checked the clock. One twenty four in the morning.

“Hello?” he croaked into the receiver.

“Michael?” A rough female voice. Sounding like a smoker, or maybe like she’d been kicked in the throat at some point in her life.

“Who are you and why are you calling at one thirty in the morning?”

The barest hint of a pause. “It’s Maya. Remember me?”

How the hell could he forget? “And by Maya, you mean Emily, right? I thought you’d be dead by now.” So kicked in the throat, then.

“Were you hoping?” There was a hint of humor in her hoarse voice, almost as though she were prompting him to say yes.

“A little. What do you want?”

“Who says I want anything? Can’t a girl just call to say hello?”

“Not at this hour. And when have you ever bothered to associate yourself with someone when you’re completely free of ulterior motives?”

“Damn, you don’t give me much credit,” she chuckled into the phone.

“You don’t really deserve it,” he replied. “So what can I do for you, Emily?”

“Seriously. I’m in the neighborhood at the moment, just calling to say hi, and wondering if you wanted to grab a cup of coffee?”

Emily didn’t drink coffee, so it was perhaps the most ridiculous thing she could have ever propositioned. Which meant he should have hung up and gone back to sleep immediately. Instead… “Yeah, why not? I don’t despise you quite enough to actually kill you.”

“Oh great!” she said with a cheery jump to her voice. “One little catch.”

“I thought so,” Michael muttered, finally sitting up in bed.

“You’ve gotta post bail?” she said as though she were asking a question, and he could actually hear her trying to be endearing with her troublesome ways.

“What did you do? And this had better be good.”

“I punched a cop.”

“Say it more proudly, why don’t you?”

The pause was longer this time. “Okay, it’s not a great story.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. He looked over to make sure that his wife was still asleep. “If I come to post bail for you, you tell me why I need to. Not now, because I know there are a couple of cops standing right behind you listening for you to incriminate yourself. But later.” Because she never, ever came out and asked for favors, even favors like this. “Fair enough?”

He could hear her breathing on the other end of the line, as though she couldn’t quite control her train of thought. “Deal. My time’s up, kiddo. You be down here soon, okay?”

“Fifteen minutes.” He hung up before she got the chance to, and briefly massaged his temples before climbing out of bed. Lilla, who could sleep through an avalanche, continued to breathe calmly, remaining in the land of her probably sweet dreams.

Maya Roswell was the name of Emily Morgan’s half-sister, and she had appropriated it for herself three years ago when she had accidentally killed its original owner. At least, it was the name she used when she got into bar fights and the like. An identity she assumed whenever she dealt with cops or anything legal, because as Emily Morgan she was wanted in multiple states. Michael had offered to create a new identity for her multiple times, but she had always turned him down before because of that favor thing, and now he was not prepared to renew the offer.

“Evening, Babe,” she greeted him when he first walked into the station. Two cops were standing on either side of where she was seated and cuffed. “Glad you could make it.”

He tried to ignore her, but of course he couldn’t, because he hadn’t seen her in two years and his eyes had missed her. Thick brown hair in a pair of tattered braids, blue tank top clinging to generous curves, pale skin flushed with the evening’s thrills.

“How does a nice guy like you get caught up with this kind of girl?” the officer asked him as they worked out the terms of the bail.

I’m not a nice guy, he didn’t say. Instead, he sent his most charming smile the officer’s way, gave him a little twinkle from his blue eyes. “Friend of the family. And I’ve got a guilt complex.”

The officer laughed. “At least she’s cute.”

“Oh, don’t go there,” he warned the officer, raising his voice so he was sure Emily could hear. “That’s just what she wants to hear.”

He could feel her smile at his back. Michael may have been the one with the money, but she was obviously the one with the power, and he wondered just how many men would have shared his thought four or five years ago.

“You speak as though from experience,” the officer said with a raised eyebrow.

“I’ve known her for a long time.” Behind him, another officer was uncuffing her.

“Good to see you, Michael,” she said as she strutted towards him, the heels of her shoes scraping on the hard floor. “For obvious reasons.”

“You’re just as much trouble as always.” He grabbed her wrist and made to move. “Let’s go.”

She stood still, though, and pulled him close with only the leverage from that wrist.

“I knew you’d come,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear. He shivered at the sensation before pulling his arm away.

“I could just leave you here.” An empty threat, and they both knew it. “Gratitude is in order.”

She walked swiftly past him in answer to that, and he followed her, ignoring the strange look the cops were sending after them and trying to forget the fact that she had just all but manhandled him in public.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour diner a block that way,” he told her, pointing the opposite direction she had headed.

She stopped, turned, and smiled. “Sorry, I forgot. It’s been awhile since I’ve been here, you know?”

He led the way, silently turning to look at her to make sure she didn’t bolt. She had a tendency to disappear when you least wanted her to.

They were the only people in the diner. The sole waiter poured coffee without being asked. Emily didn’t drink coffee-she had this idiosyncrasy where she absolutely refused to be dependent on anyone or anything, and that included caffeine-but Michael smiled appreciatively and sipped at his. They sat there quietly for a few minutes, before he decided to take the initiative.

“So you were caught?” he inquired quietly, steepling his fingers in front of him.

“No, but they found Maya’s body. Completely rotten, degenerated, but they did some dental thing. If they had kept me too long in that place, they might’ve put two and two together. Maya Roswell isn’t the most common name.”

“So what does a girl do when she’s got two identities, one wanted for murder and one confirmed dead?”

Emily cleared her throat, leaned backward in her seat. “As you might’ve guessed, I need a favor.”

“Why the hell would I help you? I just bailed you out of impending incarceration. You’ve pretty much run out of freebies.”

“Because I’m cute,” and she smiled, all Big Bad Wolf.

“It’s been awhile since that’s worked on me,” he replied, meeting her eyes with as much conviction as he could. “You’re a bitch, fantastic body and big blue eyes aside.”

She sat back, not retreating from his stare. “Why’d you bail me out, then? I can’t think of any good reason.”

Luckily, the waiter chose that moment to come by with their plate of buffalo wings.

He watched Emily chew the meat off the bone, attempted to do the same without wilting under the outrageous spiciness of the buffalo sauce. They each teethed their way through one wing.

“So how’s your mom?” she asked, licking the sauce off of her fingers. He passed on that, as his lips already felt as though they were going to fall off.

“Dead.” She did not offer condolences, so after a beat, “Yours?”

“Dead.”

“How?”

“Cancer. Yours?”

“Murdered.” He felt his fist clench, even though he had moved on at least two years ago.

“How cosmically ironic,” she commented. “Twenty-five years in prison and she’s totally fine, gets out and gets sick.” Then, she had the audacity to laugh. “Yours breaks out and gets herself killed anyway.”

He glared at her. She just couldn’t help herself. “They never found the person who did it.”

She shrugged. “Shit happens. But no epic quest for vengeance? Not what I would have expected from a Scofield.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted it.”

Emily grabbed another wing and devoured it shamelessly. “Does that really matter in most cases? Revenge is never about the person who actually died.”

“Ah, words of wisdom from a woman who can’t function as a normal human being,” Michael droned.

“People as a race are easy enough to understand,” she replied. “And I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Emily-”

“I’m pregnant, so I’d better be able to.”

He stopped in his tracks. It was quite possibly the last thing he would have ever expected from her at that moment, and he didn’t have a clue how to react.

“Well, that’s-uh-do you know who-?” And how was he supposed to feel about the father?

“He was a redhead, so maybe I’ll have a carrot-top for a kid. Of course he wore contacts, so that’s something to think about-”

“Fuck, you’re keeping it? Where exactly do you have room for a baby in between sleeping in your stolen car, screwing strangers and if you’re lucky conning people out of their wallets?” She reached for another wing, he moved the plate away from her. “Have you thought about this?”

“That’s where you come in. I need a new life, a new identity.” She was looking at him straight-on, blue eyes pinning him to the seat.

“I’m not going to facilitate this. You can’t raise a kid.” Agony swelled somewhere in his chest. He ignored it.

“What makes you say that?”

“I know you. So well. You’re gonna suddenly turn into a person who can hold down a job and make some kind of commitment and learn to actually care about people?”

“However well you think you know me-”

“Don’t pull that bullshit. I made it my project to know you. I’ve been in love with you since I was twenty.”

That hung between them for a few moments, and he wondered if she had always known, or was attempting to digest it. Finally, “well, I guess if a Scofield made it his project to know me, he must.” She sat back and closed her eyes. “So the fact that I’m pregnant with a random guy’s baby must be killing you, huh.”

“A little bit.”

“You’re married, right? To little Lilla Sucre?” she snorted. “About the furthest you could ever get from me.”

His heart ached briefly for Lilla. “Maybe that was the point.”

She looked at the plate of wings, apparently unenthusiastic about them all of a sudden. “I mean, I always figured it was a bit of a crush, you know?” His heart jumped to his throat. No way had he expected her to actually address his little confession. “Just…as the chick who basically taught you how to have sex.”

“Nope. Legitimately love you.”

“Shit, Michael.”

He laughed darkly. “I know, right?”

“Shit.” She didn’t say anything for a few moments. She had abruptly closed herself off to him, and that was when he always loved her the most.

Then she rose from the booth and smiled, inserting a bit of a chill into the expression. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind about that new identity thing. I won’t waste any more of your time.”

“Wait,” he gasped, standing as well. “Just because-?”

“Yeah,” she snapped in response, and for the first time, she was quite obviously angry. “There’s no place in my life for anyone who could care about someone like me.”

“Sit down. Give me a few minutes.”

To his complete surprise, she obeyed, although her eyes had gone dark.

“Those three guys, my close college friends? We all wanted much more than sex from you.”

“Wow, you educated people?”

“Believe me, it was considered cool to be dating a townie, that wasn’t a problem. And I know we weren’t the only ones, Emily. You had that effect on all the good boys.”

“You were never a good boy.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m the only one who still loves you, in spite of the fact that you are the most unlovable person I’ve ever met.”

He expected a laugh at that. He didn’t receive one. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that we all cared, and it seemed like you enjoyed it.”

“I did.”

“But we were toys?”

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she tried to meet his eyes. “I was young.”

“We all were.”

“What do you want me to say? I had power, I used it.” I miss it, he heard her think.

“Shame everyone else outgrew you.” He allowed a few seconds for her to really, really think about it. “Is that really what you want? To run away from the last person who does care?”

“Why not?”

“Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not exactly the Belle of the Ball anymore. It’s hard to be when you can’t stick with anything or anyone.”

Finally, she laughed again. “So you tell me you love me, then you get at my ego. You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“To yours? I'm not abusive enough, but I can try if you'd like me to."

She blinked. Exhaled. Licked her lips again. The twisted sense of satisfaction from seeing her rattled was supposed to be hitting him. "Can we not do this?"

His thoughts again drifted back to Lilla. No, he realized, now was not the time to be playing this game with Emily Morgan. It never would be. He had gotten married to ensure just that.

"What's your kid's gender?" He wasn't actually sure this topic was any easier than the former one.

"You think it's easy for a fugitive to walk into the doctor's and get an ultrasound?"

"And you think it's easy for a fugitive to be a mother?"

"Your's didn't do too badly," Emily retorted, and he noticed her feet extending up onto the seat next to him. "Couldn't stand her, but she was probably a much better mother than all my assorted parents and surrogate parents and step-parents combined."

He wondered about that sometimes. "You are nothing like my mother," he said after a moment. For better or for worse.

"Thank God. But that doesn't mean I can't raise a kid. I'm going to have this baby Michael. You can either help me out, or guarantee that the baby's mommy is going to be getting up to some nasty things to make ends meet."

"How long do you think you can hold down a job even with a brand new identity?" But he had already lost the battle. He was picturing the child, Emily's child, and his heart was thudding. He realized that he had lost before they had even sat down. Being with her just did that to him.

"I've never wanted to before."

He wanted to be convinced. Emily had never talked about changing until now. "If I do this for you, will you just...not come back?" Each word was an overwhelming struggle, because he had never wanted anything less.

"I'll get out of your life. Forever."

"I'm not doing it for you. Just for your poor kid."

"Understood."

He sagged back in the booth. Suddenly exhausted.

"Why'd you tell me?" she asked him.

"What, that I loved you?"

"Yeah."

"Because you make me an idiot."

She nodded thoughtfully, leaned forward all the way across the table, and kissed him. A quick, chaste peck on the lips, but her palm was briefly on his cheek, speaking an entire novel. "I think that's mutual," she whispered in his ear.

--

She walked away from Michael a day later as Rebecca Morrison. She’d already decided to go by Becky.

She thought of the miscarriage she’d had four days before she was arrested.

She had told at least two lies every day since she was about eleven years old. She’d just never regretted any of them before.