(Untitled)

[free_now]

The last time Michael Scofield had found himself standing on a beach, it had been under considerably better circumstances.

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[under_his_skin]

Usually Laura rose bright and early. Today, though, she'd slept in. While Laura appreciated a good eight solid hours of sleep, thirteen was pushing it. By the time she was dressed and out the door for her morning jog, the sun was a hell of a lot higher than she would have liked.

"Damn," she muttered under her breath, pulling her long hair up into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic band. She'd missed ITF training and everything. Sheppard was going to be pissed. She'd have to swing by to see him -- after she got her jog in.

Sand sprayed up, granules biting her calves as she flew over the beach. Her breathing was steady, inoutinoutinoutinout, and loud in her ears, louder than the pounding of the surf.

Arms pumping at her sides, she rounded a bend -- and nearly ran right into some guy standing there.

"Oof!" she exclaimed, stopping just short of him, reaching out a hand to clasp his shoulder in case she needed to shove him out of the way. "Sorry, sorry!"

[free_now]

Of all the things Michael had expected from the afterlife, nearly being bowled over by a jogger had never really entered into his mind. It was a lot hotter than he expected it to be, too. Unless he'd earned himself a trip downstairs, which could very well have been the case, but he'd reserve judgment on that till there was convincing evidence for or against one place over the other.

"You're not one of the Five People I'm supposed to meet, are you?" He asked wearily, pocketing the paper swan. Frankly, making sense of his yesterdays with a complete stranger might have been more appealing after a bit of the shell shock wore off.

[under_his_skin]

Now that was a weird question to be asked when you nearly just bowled a guy over. Huffing out a shuddering sort of breath as the adrenaline from the almost-collision left her body, Laura dropped her hand from his shoulder and took a step back.

She tilted her head to one side, giving him a small, albeit slightly confused smile. "Not that I know of, but then again this place never gives me the heads up on anything."

[free_now]

Michael glanced back at the headstone before pinching the bridge of his nose, drawing in a steadying breath. "'This place' being... what, exactly?" There was no real point in pussyfooting around the issue when short and direct produced results so much faster. "Heaven? Hell? Purgatory?"

[under_his_skin]

About two seconds before the guy glanced back at the headstone, Laura noticed it. She noticed it and then she knew.

Newbie.

She kind of sucked at this part, but obviously it was gonna be up to her to give him the grand island welcome wagon spiel.

"Okaaaaaay," she said slowly, trying to adopt a very grave expression and coming up a little short. "I'm gonna have to go with 'D', none of the above. You're on Tabula Rasa, aka Crazy Magical Island. Don't ask me how you got here because I don't know. Hell, I still don't know how I ended up here, but yet here we are. Wherever you just were, there's a you still there while you're here. This is like an alternate reality or something."

[free_now]

Crazy. That did seem like the optimal word if there was even the slightest shred of truth to any of that. Even a person who hadn't been forced to become more skeptical of everyone and everything would have had to have trouble buying that one at face value.

"I'm sure you'll understand if I say that all sounds more than a little far fetched." And that was saying a lot when Mike wasn't exactly a stranger to the strange and unusual. Alternate realities just sort of escaped the scope of the brand of bizarre he'd gotten used to. "Not least of all being the idea of another me left anywhere." Whatever was left of him after the explosion couldn't have been pretty, let alone living.

[under_his_skin]

Laura held up a hand, palm out. "Oh," she said, nodding in understanding. "I totally get it, believe you me. But it's the total, absolute truth." A brief pause and then, inspired, she traced an X over her heart. "Cross my heart and hope to die and all that."

"But I'm telling you the truth, no matter how insane that might sound right now. Tell me, what were you doing two minutes ago?"

[free_now]

"Strange thing to hope for," he replied offhandedly. At least she seemed reasonable, if nothing else. She obviously wasn't as insane as the potential situation he'd found himself in if she got just how weird it all sounded.

"I was getting my wife out of prison, and going out with a bang."

[under_his_skin]

"Yeah, well, I've traveled to other solar systems, been sucked up into Wraith darts, and had my conscience stuck inside somebody else, so I figure I may as well face and outsmart death at some point or another," she said with a casual shrug of a shoulder.

Smoothing back a few flyaway hairs behind her ears, Laura cocked a brow. "By getting out, do you mean helping to bust her out using...explosives?" Now that was something she could get into.

[free_now]

Then again, maybe she was crazy. His expression didn't falter any, though, maintaining his usual stoic guise. "In that case, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you."

His gaze turned slightly critical for a second before easing up again. The break was obviously behind him now and it worked; there was really no need to keep it under tight wraps. "No explosives, just a generator, two wires and a power surge."

[under_his_skin]

Laura hadn't been part of the USMC, given Secret security clearance, a member of Secret Service, and chosen to work with Stargate Command for nothing. She'd learned a few things along the way about a whole lot of everything, including human nature and reading a person's body language. What they did or didn't do said a hell of a lot, and even though this guy was good, Laura knew full well he had to be thinking she was a few cards short of a full deck.

"Pity," she said after a moment of silence. "Explosives would have been way more fun. But as long as it did its job, that's all that matters, huh? You did get your wife out?"

[free_now]

"And a lot less subtle," said the guy who'd had an entire blueprint on his skin. But, to his credit, it worked, and like she'd just said: As long as it gets the job done. It was odd how the only person in all of Fox River to even come close to figuring out what the tattoo meant was a clinically insane man.

"I did." Or he'd assume he did, anyway. All he could do was assume. It wasn't like he saw Sara off on that boat headed to South America himself. "Do you have a name?" As things were, she was Crazy Explosives Woman, and he kind of doubted that's what it read on her driver's license.

[under_his_skin]

"Sometimes a little showmanship is a whole lot underrated," Laura said with a small smile. But she could do subtle. Laura liked subtle. More often than not, it was way more challenging than the whole three ring circus thing.

"Good for you then." Sticking out a hand firmly, she said, "The name's Cadman. Lieutenant Laura Cadman." Her nose wrinkled. "Or at least, I was a lieutenant before I got here. Now, I'm not really sure what the hell my rank is."

[free_now]

"Something tells me the fine correctional officers at Miami Dade are exactly the type that showmanship like that would have been lost on." Though it was slight, Michael did manage to crack a small smile.

"Michael Scofield," he said, shaking her hand. "Lowly civilian, I guess. Military or police?" Not that a congratulations for a job well done on a prison escape was expected from either.

[under_his_skin]

She wasn't expecting this guy to have a limp handshake, so Laura was glad to not be disappointed. Anybody who had the balls to try and bust someone out of prison shouldn't exactly be wishy-washy.

Laura snorted a little. "So there's a reason the Florida penal system has a bad rep, huh?" Releasing his grip, she gestured to herself. "Military all the way, baby." Looking around once, she leaned in, lips twitching conspiratorially. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Michael Scofield. Sometimes even we military people have to do things that aren't exactly legal. But whatever you and I did before we got here, it doesn't matter now. Everybody gets a blank slate here."