Fic: The Second (And Last) Love Song of Alexander Mahone - Part 1 (Prison Break)
Authors: cerebel, with much, much help from vibishan (THANK YOU).
Pairing: Alex Mahone/Michael Scofield
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 2.22.
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine.
Word Count: 14,000 (in two parts)
Summary: AU from 2.10 "Rendezvous". Mahone tries to inhale through his mouth, his jaw stretched uncomfortably, and he half-chokes. Dirty cloth, he realizes, jammed between his teeth - he claws at it, yanks it away, panting in abruptly relieved panic.
And finally, he gets it. He’s in the trunk of a car.
- - -
Mahone wakes up with one hell of a fucking headache. He almost can’t breathe it’s so bad, throbbing from the base of his skull to his temples. There’s humming, too, humming deep as his bones, grating sore nerves and tired muscles, utterly infuriating in its steady, unending rhythm.
He blinks his eyes a few times, bleary, trying to clear the spots, the blur from his vision.
It doesn’t work.
Twists around - his hands are tied; he hits a wall (padded? A padded wall?) with his knee and god, that humming, that humming…
There’s something. Something about where he is, something just barely beyond the grasp of his brain.
Mahone tries to inhale through his mouth, his jaw stretched uncomfortably, and he half-chokes. Dirty cloth, he realizes, jammed between his teeth - he claws at it, yanks it away, panting in abruptly relieved panic.
And finally, he gets it.
He’s in the trunk of a car.
He’s in the trunk of someone’s fucking car.
Mahone hisses in frustration, fighting the urge to kick the goddamn thing open. The struggle would be pretty futile.
He supposes he should be happy he’s alive, given that Michael Scofield left him in a room rapidly filling with gas. He doesn’t remember passing out, though he supposes he must have. It would have been a good way to die. A quiet way to die.
Mahone scrambles in his jacket pocket, feeling for the pen - finds it. It’s more difficult than he expected to finagle the cap off with his hands taped together, but he manages. As soon as it hits his tongue, he feels better. Calmer.
Three doses left.
It’s a horrible space for maneuvering, but, with effort, Mahone gets himself the right way around to hunt for the brake light wires. It’s been years since he learned how to do this, but it’s amazing how motivated you get when your life is on the line.
He’s just managed to get the first one stripped when the car slows. A turn (left), then the car comes to a halt. Restarts a moment later, a right turn, a left turn, and then the car really halts. Turns off.
And Mahone’s lost his chance.
He can hear footsteps, on the gravel outside. A faint exclamation, probably a greeting. Might have been Michael, but Mahone doesn’t even know for sure that Scofield was the one who came back and rescued him.
Christ, but who else could it be?
“You have him in your trunk?”
Mahone closes his eyes. Senses attuned.
“…had a choice, all right?”
“Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with him?”
“Who are we talking about?” -this is a newcomer, to the conversation.
The discussion drops below the level of Mahone’s hearing, then.
“…a Fed in the trunk of your car?!”
And, apparently, the newcomer is not happy.
“It’s worse than that,” says the second speaker - who, Mahone is now quite sure, is Michael Scofield. Which would make the first Lincoln Burrows?
“How, exactly?”
More, then, that Mahone can’t quite hear. He shifts, trying to get into a better position -
And his heel thunks into the wall, just next to one of the brake lights.
Shit, shit, shit.
The conversation has definitely stopped, outside.
The trunk opens to blinding white light outside. -right, the sun.
Mahone blinks, and focuses in on the gun barrel, pointed straight at his face.
“I’d suggest you don’t make any move,” says Lincoln Burrows, “or I’ll blow your head off.”
Mahone doubts it. “You both are making a mistake,” he says, “kidnapping an FBI agent is way, way more trouble than you want to deal with.”
It’s his job, right? It’s the script. If the con makes a threat, the cop has to make a threat right back.
“Here’s the deal, Alex,” says Michael Scofield. The only other person in Mahone’s field of view, and what would Mahone not give to find out who the third person was. “If you’re nice and quiet, don’t make any trouble, we’ll let you go in a few days.”
“Still can’t kill, Michael?” asks Mahone. “Is that why you came back for me?”
Michael and Lincoln exchange a short glance - full of communication, Mahone is sure, and it frustrates him that he doesn’t already know Michael Scofield well enough to figure out what it means.
“Just relax,” says Michael, with a forced smile.
“His tie,” suggests Lincoln.
“Yeah.” And Michael reaches in, gingerly, undoing the knot of Mahone’s tie, sliding it free of his collar.
Mahone could grab him, right now, get Michael in between him and Lincoln’s gun, maybe make a break for it.
Michael presses the tie against Mahone’s eyes. Shifts Mahone’s head, with a gentle but firm touch, and ties it. Secure. And Mahone is effectively blind.
Well, this could be construed as a good sign. If Michael planned on killing him, he likely wouldn’t bother limiting what Alex saw and heard.
The tape on his ankles is cut away, and he feels Michael’s grasp around his wrists.
“The gun is still on you,” warns Lincoln. “Move slowly.”
He’s blind. Much as he’d like to defy Lincoln’s instructions, it’s not really an option. He has to feel his way, jerky and uncertain, and Michael is more guiding him out than supporting him. Once he’s on his feet, there’s Michael’s hand, again, between his shoulder blades.
“This way,” says Michael.
God, this is humiliating.
They go up a small set of stairs - to a porch? - through a doorway, down to the right, up more stairs, and then they pause. Mahone listens: drawers, going in and out, rummaging, a muffled curse. “It’s clear,” says a woman’s voice.
Then Mahone is guided into a room. Surface change, from hardwood to - tile, he thinks. Bathroom, then?
Cold metal closes around his right wrist; he’s tugged, none-so-gently, and shoved until he’s sitting on what must be a toilet with the cover on.
The blindfold slips free.
Yes, a bathroom, done in cheery blue-and-white tile. Mahone is cuffed to the pipe, leading up from the toilet. The door is completely out of reach.
Lincoln lowers the gun. “We done here, Michael?”
Michael searches Mahone’s face, a strange, unreadable look on his own. “Yeah,” he says.
They shut the door behind them.
Well, goal number one: get the tape off his wrists. Once he can do that, he’ll have more mobility, might be able to reach the drawers. He guesses that they weren’t exactly preparing this place for long-term occupation, and that means they might have missed something.
And his list of fugitive helpers is up to two. One man and one woman. There might be others, too, and he should assume that they’ll be armed.
Hopefully it won’t piss them off when Mahone decides to leave.
The tape is just ordinary duct tape. Nothing too strong. And his hands are in front of him, so it’s not like it’s hard to reach. Five, maybe six layers deep.
He finds the corner, the edge of the tape - raggedy, where it was ripped from the roll - and starts pulling. Not too long before he has an inch, two inches, then it’s coming more easily.
It’s a sunny day outside. Beautiful. It’s pretty much impossible that it’s still the same day Michael shut him in that metal cage - he must have been unconscious most of the night, and the morning too. It explains why he’s so fucking sluggish.
Carefully, ignoring the pain, Mahone pulls the last of the tape free of his skin. Spits it out, on the floor.
And if he braces himself here, he can just barely reach the first drawer. He gropes inside -
Empty. Completely empty. And he can’t - quite - make it to the second drawer.
Fuck. There has to be something. Isn’t it some kind of rule, that every empty bathroom drawer on the planet actually has a few bobby pins in the corners? One, one is all he needs.
The bottom of the drawer is coated with some kind of paper. The corners are peeling - come on, come on, come on…
Mahone feels something. Something small and metal.
Scrambles for it, catching it on his fingernail and lord, would you look at that, a bobby pin. A bobby pin.
It’s quite possible that whoever his captors are have made their key mistake.
Mahone bites off the plastic edge of the pin, leaving the metal exposed, and inserts it into the handcuff lock. Bends it at a ninety-degree angle, then pulls it out, presses just the end in, and bends it again, leaving him with the perfect double-angled shape.
And now all he has to do is trip the mechanism -
The door opens.
There’s a woman there, definitely unfamiliar, probably the one who locked him here in the first place. In about half a second, her gun is in her hand, safety off, aim steady.
“Drop the pin,” she says, “and show me those handcuffs are still locked.”
Mahone grits his teeth.
“That’ll teach us to underestimate him,” she snaps, to someone out in the hallway. “Four and a half minutes, and he was almost gone.”
“He was Special Forces,” says Michael, apologetically, moving into view.
“Thanks for telling me,” says the woman, “before I left him locked in a bathroom. Unsupervised.” To Mahone: “Hold out your hands.” She passes off the gun to Michael, who looks more startled than threatening.
She unlocks the set of cuffs, uses it to link his wrists together, and secures the tie back around his eyes. “Basement’s ready for you,” she says. “Hopefully, there are no fucking bobby pins lying around.” She hauls Mahone up. “Do not get on my bad side, pal,” she hisses, in his ear. “It will not go well for you.”
You should be aware, thinks Mahone, that I have a bad side of my own.
In the basement, they throw him into what looks like a hastily-cleared storage room, by the dust lines. It’s completely empty, and there’s a newly-installed padlock on the door. Impressive, for the few minutes they had to prepare.
Mahone observes, as he’s flung to the ground, that there’s a padlock that operates from the inside.
“Let me talk to him,” says Michael, before the door closes.
The woman heaves a sigh of clear irritation. “Why?”
“Because,” returns Michael. “You going to take this up with your boss?”
The woman shrugs. “Fine. I’m leaving the door open.”
Her boss. The other man?
Michael steps into the room cautiously. Tilts his head to the side, hesitant, like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“I have nothing to say to you, Scofield,” says Mahone.
“Well, I have something to say to you.” Michael crouches, next to him. “My brother is innocent.”
Mahone laughs, hoarsely. “I don’t care.”
Michael nods, as though he’s taking this in. “Why did you kill Tweener?”
The question comes completely from left field.
“Why?” persists Michael.
“He was trying to escape.”
Michael’s eyes narrow. “Was Oscar Shales trying to escape?”
“Fuck you,” hisses Mahone.
Michael’s hand grabs, iron-tight, around Mahone’s wrist. “Is there some deluded part of you that thinks Tweener deserved it? Like Oscar Shales deserved it?”
No, thinks Mahone - his heartbeat jumped, as soon as Michael’s skin touched his, and that’s something he can’t handle, can’t explain.
Michael lets him go, his mouth twisted.
The door clicks shut behind him, and Mahone has to think. He has to think, and he has to get out of here.
The headache returns, as soon as he has nothing to distract himself from it. Mahone hefts himself up, so he’s braced against the wall. It’s better than lying on the floor - that’s for sure.
Michael had said something about a few days. If Mahone behaved for a few days, then they’d let him go. It’s a crucial time frame, then. In a few days, Mahone knowing about this place won’t matter. They’ll be out of his reach.
He has to act before then.
He stands. He has time; he’ll check the cell corner to corner, wall to wall. There has to be something in here that will help him. No trap is completely inescapable.
- - - -
It’s near evening, Mahone thinks, when the door opens again. The light in the hallway is bright, compared to that in the - cell? - and he blinks, squinting. There’s figure - just a silhouette, really. Must be the woman, carrying something. And Michael, just behind her, watching Alex. Calculating.
In his hand, Mahone belatedly realizes, is Mahone’s own cell phone.
“You’ve been missing calls,” says the woman. “We’d like you to return them.” She shoots a glare at Michael. No, this definitely wasn’t her idea. She’s too cautious for that.
They step inside the room, light glinting off of the gunmetal in her hand. Michael tosses him the phone.
Three missed calls. Two from Wheeler, one from Kim.
Oh, hell.
“No funny business,” says the woman, dumping whatever it is she’s holding on the ground next to Mahone. “Speakerphone, and if you say anything suspicious, we’ll kill you.”
“That’s inviting a lot more trouble than you already have,” says Mahone, giving the pile a glance. MREs. Oh, joy. At least they’re not starving him.
She shrugs. “They likely won’t be tracking the call, and if they already think you’re missing, then there’s not much more they can do. Except give up on finding you alive.”
“Make the calls,” says Michael.
You think you’ve beaten me. Mahone clenches his fists. Dials the first number.
“Agent Mahone?” comes Wheeler’s voice.
“Yeah, Wheeler.” Mahone dips his head. Doesn’t look at Michael. “I missed your call?”
“Yeah.” Wheeler sounds uncertain. “Is everything all right?”
The gun raises, threateningly.
“I’m fine,” says Mahone.
“It’s just you haven’t reported in,” says Wheeler -
“I’m. Fine,” enunciates Mahone. “What do you need?”
“It’s about Burrows and Scofield, sir,” Wheeler tells him. “They-”
“Keep on the trail of the others,” says Mahone. “I’ll be in contact with you and the local field office soon. I don’t have time for this right now.” He hangs up. Offers the phone back to Michael.
“There was one more number,” says Michael. “Call it.”
Shit, shit. Maybe he could call some other number -
Michael takes the phone, hits send, and hands it back.
Goddamnit.
Rings once. Rings twice, maybe Kim won’t pick up -
“Mahone, where the hell have you been?” asks Kim.
“Where do you think?” returns Mahone.
Kim lets out a hissed breath. “Are they dead?”
Michael’s face is blank.
“Are. They. Dead?”
“Yes,” lies Mahone, spur-of-the-moment.
“Alex. Are you telling me the truth?”
“Why would I lie?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kim pauses. “Spoken to your wife and son lately?”
Mahone snaps. “You stay away from my family!”
Michael - and the unknown woman - both seem taken aback. She moves her gun from a one-handed to a two-handed grip.
Kim is unfazed. “Pictorial evidence, Alex. Now.”
Mahone looks up, to Michael.
At Michael’s nod - “Fine.”
“Good. Where are you?”
“Just north of the Mexican border.”
“I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
“Not necessary,” says Mahone, shortly, and he shuts the phone.
“Right,” sighs the woman, as Michael takes back the phone. “Time for a trip to the store.”
“Why?” asks Michael.
“Corn syrup and red food coloring,” says the woman. “Scofield.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Michael moves down, next to Mahone. “How long have you been working for them?”
Mahone shakes his head. “It’s really none of your business.”
“Let me guess.” Michael crosses his arms. “They promised you that they’d get rid of Oscar Shales, forever. No more body, no more investigation. Everything, swept clean under the rug, and all you had to do was help them out.” Mahone starts to speak, but Michael cuts him off. “And then you realize that it involves murder. And that might - that might be understandable, if you’d backed out then.”
“You think you’re better than me?” Mahone realizes he’s raising his voice - the woman might come back, at any time - “What’s your body count, Michael? How many people have died because of what you’ve done? Because let me tell you, every one of mine is one of yours too.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger,” says Michael, halfway through the door.
“Doesn’t that make you the perfect little angel.”
The door shuts; the room is dark, once more.
- - - -
About an hour later, it opens again. Michael has something red and sticky all down his chest, his ribs - fake blood, Mahone realizes.
The phone in his hand is ringing. Michael throws it to him. “Answer it.”
Mahone flips it open. “Hello?”
“Excellent job,” says Kim. “Now tell me where you are.”
Mahone eyes the gun, pointed at his head. “Let me bury them first.”
“No. Alex, Alex, Alex. You don’t seem to quite understand this relationship of ours. You showed me the bodies are real; now, my people are going to get rid of them. Forgive me for saying so, but you’re hardly professional at the matter, are you?”
Mahone grits his teeth. “The job’s already half-done.”
“Well, undo it.”
He can hear the smile in Kim’s voice. The little fucker.
“I can’t,” says Mahone patiently, as though he’s explaining this to a child.
The silence goes on too long - far too long. “Alex,” says Kim, “why am I on speakerphone?”
The woman lunges for the phone, and flips it shut. “You knew that was going to happen.”
Mahone shrugs. “He was going to figure it out eventually.”
She looks to Michael. “Well, it bought you a few hours-”
And Mahone makes his move.
It’s easy to underestimate a man in handcuffs. And whoever this woman is, however good she is, she hasn’t had Mahone’s training or his experience. He brings her down, hard, against the concrete, and his hand makes it to the gun first.
Most fights are over in thirty seconds, his instructor once told him.
“Handcuff keys,” says Mahone. “Right now.”
She unhooks them from her belt and tosses them over. Mahone lets them land at his feet, making no effort to catch.
“Now, get out,” gesturing with the gun.
She gets to her feet.
“Out!” - and she backs through the door, cautiously. When Michael moves to follow - “No. You stay.” He nods at the door. “Close it, and use the deadbolt.”
Michael does, his jaw gritted. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Protecting my family,” says Mahone, stooping to pick up the keys. It’s a minor challenge, to unlock the cuffs and hold the gun at the same time, but he manages it. Lets the metal clink to the ground.
He opens the phone, and hits a button.
Wheeler picks up on the first ring. “Agent Mahone.” His voice is cautious.
“Wheeler,” says Mahone, “I’ve been - I’ve been detained.”
His phone beeps - low battery. Wonderful timing, as always.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m fucking locked up in someone’s basement, what do you think I mean?” snarls Mahone. “I was going after Burrows and Scofield and they had friends.” Technically the truth, if a little colored.
Wheeler is instantly serious. “I’m sorry, I thought - where are you?”
“I have no idea,” says Mahone. “Can you track this call?”
A long pause, then - “No,” says Wheeler. “The tech says there’s some kind of resonance thing with the towers, that it’ll take it a while to sort out.”
“My phone going to turn off soon, so listen to this carefully. I was at,” and he gives the location where Scofield locked him in the cage, “and this can’t be more than twelve hours away. I’m guessing six or fewer. We were on a main highway,” and Mahone recites the sequence of turns that he remembers, from in the trunk. “The house is big, a mansion, there’s a gravel drive out in front, there are four steps to the porch-”
Michael, on the other side of the room, turns his gaze towards the wall, features knitted in frustration.
“Do your best,” says Mahone, “I can’t last in here forever,” and his phone makes a soft chiming noise. Turns itself off.
“You didn’t call the Company.”
“I don’t trust the Company,” Mahone shoots back. He touches the flat of the barrel to his temple. What the hell is he going to do?
There’s a pounding noise, against the door. “MAHONE!” comes Lincoln’s voice. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
“Does that question run in your genes or something?” snaps Mahone. A pill, he needs another pill - no, he doesn’t, there are only three doses left, Wheeler might not be able to find this place, he has to make it last as long as he can.
“I’d tell you to answer,” says Michael, calm, “but I don’t think you know the answer yourself.”
“MICHAEL!” comes another voice. “MICHAEL! SON!”
“I’m fine,” calls Michael. “Everything is fine!”
Mahone stops, in his tracks. “Son?” he echoes. Michael’s jaw clenches. “Aldo Burrows,” marvels Mahone. “So he is alive.”
“They won’t find you in time,” says Michael. “You’re not accomplishing anything.”
Mahone exhales. “I’m controlling my own environment, which is more than I could say five minutes ago.”
“The Company will probably think you’ve betrayed them,” points out Michael.
“You think I’m not aware of that?” -the words rip free, and Mahone is appalled at his own lack of control. Michael Scofield already knows enough of his secrets.
“Alex. Put down the gun.”
Mahone raises it. Brandishes it.
“You’re not going to do anything -”
“I could kill you right now.”
“No, you couldn’t.” Michael’s eyes are steady, his hands free, and he’s moving towards Mahone, so slowly - “If you kill me, they’ll break down that door, and you’re dead. That’s it.” He takes one more step. “Why me?”
“What do you mean?” Mahone is busy looking around the cell, again. Looking for anything that might help him, anything at all, but he didn’t find it the first few times. It’s not likely he’ll find it now.
“You could have kept her in here.”
“She’s too dangerous.”
“Physically, I think you could hold your own.” Michael’s mouth curls, a little.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Michael shrugs. “Why didn’t you call the Company?”
“I told you, I don’t trust the Company.”
“Why did you kill Tweener?”
“Because I had to.” The answer is out before Mahone can take it back. It sounds more like a plea than a statement, somehow.
And then - then Michael has moved just a little bit too far, and Mahone shoots, right over his shoulder. Only a warning shot, aimed to miss, but the reaction from outside the door is immediate. And entirely expected.
Two sharp gunshots, and the door flies open. Mahone already has his hands up, gun pointed towards the ceiling; Michael has already backed away, lips barely parted - in shock.
“You can’t save me, Michael,” says Mahone, as Lincoln grabs one wrist, then another, cuffs him -
And slams him into the wall.
“Hold him still,” says the woman, and Mahone feels a sharp pinprick, at his neck.
- - - -
Mahone wakes up comfortable. And well-rested.
Gradually, he realizes that the swaying of the bed, underneath him, isn’t entirely the work of his drug-addled consciousness. No, he’s on the road again, only this time he’s on a bunk, in the back of an RV. Tied to the wall with rope, and weak as a kitten from whatever sedatives it was they gave him.
His brain works sluggishly, but he can’t fall back asleep, he’s not quite comfortable enough, so he settles in for the journey. It seems like there’s something he should be worried about, but it’s comfortably distant. Hardly even matters, really.
Something about a wheel. Wheels. Wheeling.
The bunk depresses, slightly, next to his legs. Mahone focuses, blearily, on the figure above him.
“He’s awake,” says Michael Scofield.
The response, from the front, is inaudible over the hum of the roadway. Mahone is disinterested. His eyes wander to the window. There’s desert outside.
Michael’s palm cups Mahone’s cheek. It occurs to Mahone that this maybe isn’t normal, but that he probably won’t remember it, so it shouldn’t matter too much.
“You’re wrong,” murmurs Michael. “I can save you.” His fingers close Mahone’s eyelids, and the world falls away.
- - - -
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
It’s dark, inside the trailer. Mahone can’t see - he blinks, a few times, to make sure he didn’t forget to open his eyes.
“If you’re sure.”
“He’s drugged and restrained. I don’t see how he’s going to be much of a threat.”
“Maybe I should stay too.”
“Camping grounds are a lot less private than motels.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t be the one -”
“I’ll be fine. Go.”
It seems a long time, before the next thing happens.
“On your side,” comes Michael’s voice, urging him up, facing the wall. Then the blankets shift, and Michael eases in behind him, one arm snug over Mahone’s chest.
Mahone is mildly irritated at the disturbance, because all he wants to do is sleep, but something in the rhythm of the breath against the back of his neck is soothing, rather than disturbing.
- - - -
Mahone is so thirsty it hurts.
That’s what wakes him up - blinking, shoulders sore, his left arm completely numb, but it’s really the thirst, incredible, overpowering, enough to make him dizzy even when he’s lying down and where the hell is he, exactly?
“How are you feeling?”
Mahone twists around, squinting against the light from the window. Michael, of course it’s Michael. “Got any water?” he manages, in a rasp.
“Yeah.”
Mahone closes his eyes. Listens to the refrigerator door open and close. He half-tries to sit up, but the ropes are short. They don’t give him much range of movement. Not even enough for one hand to reach the other wrist. Whoever tied him up this knew what he - or she - was doing.
“Going to untie me?” Mahone asks, as Michael twists the top off.
“I thought you were done with underestimating my intelligence,” says Michael. “Open your mouth.”
Oh, hell no.
“You’re kidding.”
Michael sits, next to him. “Not at all.”
“You’re - going to, what, feed me-”
“I could let you go thirsty,” says Michael. “Feel free to take the option.” He touches the bottle to Mahone’s mouth.
Mahone’s lips part almost automatically. He needs the water - and anyway, the touch might be soft, but it sure is insistent. It’s very strange, letting himself depend on Michael like this. Like the water rushing over his tongue is a direct extension of Michael himself, reaching into Mahone, bringing him back to life.
Michael seems to know just when to stop, too. Lets Mahone swallow, then gives him more.
The bottle is about half-gone when Michael pulls away. “That’s enough, for now.”
Mahone takes a breath. “Where’s the pen?”
“What pen?”
“In my suit.” Mahone tries to move - and the ropes are in the way again, is this really necessary?
“What, Alex,” says Michael, “you need your pills?”
Fuck you, Scofield. “Well, you know,” begins Alex, “I haven’t eaten in days, I could really use a shower, I’d like to get the hell out of here so I can help my family, and it’d be real great if you and your brother were dead, but yes, I’ll settle for one of the pills.”
The words come out in spasms - too fast, all wrong, all wrong. He hadn’t realized he was this far gone.
Michael regards him, for a moment. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Michael sits across from him, on the floor of the RV. “Tell me why you need it.”
“I can’t - think - without them.”
“Midazolam is a sedative. Not usually regarded as a performance booster,” says Michael, matter-of-factly.
“Just - give it to me.”
“Tell me why you need it,” repeats Michael.
This is going to be bad. This is going to be so very bad. “Fuck you, Scofield.”
“I’ll wait,” says Michael. “How long do you think you can last?”
Not very long. Mahone knows it; Michael knows it.
Mahone looks away.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Michael is on his feet, raising his voice. Unleashed. “I’m trying to give you a chance. You want to know what makes me better than you? Really? Well, here it is: I never meant for any of this to happen! But you, you kill people, and you do it on purpose.” Michael takes a rushed breath.
“First you tell me to stop underestimating your intelligence, then you expect me to believe you were incapable of predicting the consequences of letting someone like Bagwell go free? Shall I tell you about the people he’s killed already? The people they left behind?”
“Fuck you, Mahone, I didn’t have a choice -”
“There’s always a choice!” Mahone shouts, hoarse with fury. “You chose to save your brother, chose to protect you and yours at the cost of innocent lives. And so have I. But Michael, I don’t pretend that not wanting it to happen exonerates my responsibility for the choice!”
BANG.
Mahone sits bolt upright, arms twisted against the ropes - but it’s just someone at the door, knocking hard.
Michael reaches for the gun - bad grip, if he fires it like that it’ll hurt him and go wild - and moves to the door. “Linc?” he calls.
“It’s me,” comes another voice.
Mahone recognizes it -
Michael grits his teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“There were people snooping around - Dad couldn’t come,” says the voice. “I can get you to the cabin.”
Michael reaches down, and unlatches the door.
In that moment, it clicks. Mahone realizes who the voice is. And, as he thought - LJ Burrows steps up into the RV, shutting the door behind him. Giving Mahone a long, disdainful look.
“So, you found one?” asks Michael.
“Yeah,” says LJ, “someone had a cancellation at one of the local vacation rental places. It’s pretty isolated, and the road out is flat, so the RV isn’t a problem.”
“And do you have what I asked for?”
LJ glances to Mahone. “Yeah, we stopped by a Best Buy on the way.” He draws out a cord - a charger. A cell phone charger.
“Good, thank you.” Michael moves out of Mahone’s range of sight -
“Hey,” says LJ, to Mahone. “Last time I saw you, you looked a lot healthier.”
There’s a flaw, in the blanket wrapped around Mahone. He runs his fingers over it, again and again. “I see your release completely failed to catch your father.”
LJ shrugs. “Guess we’re too good for that.”
“Nice to know I can count on agents outside my direct supervision.” He would make this more acid, he would throw it back on LJ, dig in where the kid hurts the most, but he just doesn’t feel up to it.
“Hey, you hungry?” asks LJ. “Cause you don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” Mahone lies.
“Are you sure?” LJ gestures towards the refrigerator. “I mean, I’m sure there’s something in there, and seriously, I don’t think anyone here plans on letting you, like, starve or anything.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mahone shoots back, and Michael is back. Mahone’s cell phone in his hand.
“I told you my conditions,” says Michael, mildly.
LJ holds up a hand. “Wait. You’re withholding food?”
“Food he can have.” Michael plugs the phone into the wall, next to Mahone.
“What is it, then?”
Mahone takes the proffered phone, and hits power.
“Any calls, you answer them,” says Michael. “On speakerphone.”
Michael’s face seems drawn, suddenly. Tired. “What are you trying to find, Michael?” asks Mahone.
“Anything you’re not telling me, Alex,” returns Michael. “You have a map, LJ?”
“Yeah,” and LJ digs in his pocket. Pulls out a brochure, passed to Michael too quickly for Mahone to read. “Want me to watch him?”
“Yes,” says Michael. “And get him something to eat.”
- - - -
For about half an hour, Mahone rides in silence. The kid doesn’t bother him. Michael is in front, driving, taking them to this cabin, or whatever it is. The blinds are drawn; Mahone has no idea where he is, though it’s probably somewhere near the Mexican border, and it’s kind of peaceful, almost. Like he’s relinquishing responsibility.
But then -
Then the phone rings.
LJ looks up. “Uncle Mike!”
The trailer slows, pulls off to the right. The phone rings, again.
“Don’t answer it yet,” warns LJ.
“It’ll go to voicemail,” Mahone points out.
The power shuts off. “Okay, now,” says LJ, and Michael gets there, back with them, just as Mahone flips it open.
“Hello?”
“Alex?”
“Alex?”
Oh. Oh Christ. Not now, not this.
“Pam,” says Mahone, and he chokes on the word, a little. Closes his eyes, but he’s all-too-aware of Michael and LJ’s eyes on him.
“Listen, Alex, I know we haven’t talked in a long time -”
“It’s fine,” he interrupts, because, goddamn, even if this is the worst possible time, he still hasn’t heard her voice in months. And this time, she called him.
“I think we need to be more of a family.” If he hadn’t heard the words, he might have thought she were issuing an ultimatum - the statement was harsh, stern, commanding. But he had heard the words.
“I’d - I’d love that,” he gasps. “I know we’ve had…difficulties, but I. I still.” Love you, he wants to say, and Michael’s eyes flash like he heard it, his face cold and unreadable. Alex hates this situation so much, because he knows his hopes and vulnerabilities are exposed now, spread out in front Michael like a set of fucking blueprintswith his name on the label, all his weak points soon to be outlined in neat, miniscule script.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Pam snaps, because she can hear what he doesn’t say too, at least sometimes. A side effect of marriage, or maybe a side cause. “We’re not getting back together, not a chance.”
Alex swallows hard, tries to keep the pang of sorrow off his face. This is - so much, too much to deal with, her voice is so familiar, ringing and vibrant and sharp, right in his chest. He’s feeling it all, five years of joy tied off with a sharp knot of anger and loss, twisting around him, tangling, and he needs to push it back, down, where it belongs, he needs his goddamn pills -
“Pam, I -” I miss you. So much. Four green eyes on him, jungle-poison-acid green, the brightest points in a too-bright world, and they makes his head hurt and the words catch in his throat.
“Alex, do you even remember how our marriage ended?” Panic, confusion and paranoia, screaming and guilt and the terrifying desperation of trying to cling his life when it was already spinning too fast, away, out of his control. Of course he remembers. He’s still dizzy from it.
“I’m - god, Pam, I’m sorry -”
“Sorry? You were obsessive, irrational, borderline verbally abusive - not to mention destructive…”
“I never hurt you,” he whispers, and he hates how much it sounds like the plea it is.
“No,” she acknowledges softly, and it’s - it’s enough that he can breathe again, the air cool and strange in his mouth and throat. “But I didn’t understand, I still don’t, and you wouldn’t let me - you scared me, Alex.” And the admission is soft, fragile, it’s a gift that she trusts him with this no matter how much it hurts - tearing at him, tearing strips out of him - it’s private. He’s suddenly, utterly furious; Michael and LJ shouldn’t be listening to this, they have no right. He’s their prisoner, he knows he doesn’t get privacy, but Pam revealing something so painful and personal, totally unaware - he feels like he’s caught them both peeking at her bathroom window, except he can’t stop them or warn her and she’s his wife damnit, even though she’s not.
“I wish I could fix it,” he whispers, offering his regret because apologies have already been rebuffed and explanations are impossible.
“I was scared for you, too,” she tells him softly, a small reprieve, like wind across his face. The world settles some around him, until it feels nearly as still as it is. He forces his breathing to slow, lets his eyes close until the chaos retreats to the edges of his senses and bunkers down, waiting there.
He opens his eyes.
Michael’s face is still inscrutable, observing. LJ, however, has no such tact: his eyes are huge with attention, his mouth twisted between pity and amusement.
Alex can’t quite believe his post-marital drama is being witnessed by a sixteen-year-old fugitive whose curly hair is about an inch away from becoming a mullet. Alex fucking hates teenagers.
“How do you want us to be more familial, then?” he asks, trying to make the words calm, rational, so that the raw, sensitive places aren’t so badly exposed.
“You’ve been on the news a lot, lately.”
It sounds like a non sequitur but Alex knows it’s not. He waits, patient and confident of her eventual explanation, watching the bewilderment flicker across LJ’s face. Somebody needs to teach the kid to shield, already. Alex knows it’s stupid to be annoyed by that, but. It’s sloppy.
“Cam’s seen you. He’s been asking about you, and why he doesn’t see you anymore.” Alex fights to keep everything steady on its axis, manages to not suck his breath in, but the blanket is so hot under him, the stifling shadow of his body heat rough and oppressive against his clothes, everything prickling at the edges of his skin, flickering around his field of vision. Fuck patience.
“And?” he asks, all of him taut as a high wire tightrope.
“And even though I haven’t forgiven you, he deserves to know his father,” Pam announces, her voice strong and steady as the Benben stone, with the rest of creation perched safely upon it. “I know you’re really busy with work just now, but I was thinking when all of this is over, you could spend some time with him. Maybe he could visit you for a while.”
“You’d - be okay with that? After everything?”
“If you tell me you’re stable enough not to traumatize him for life, well. I trust your judgment.” The hyperbole is wry and amused and playful, and the truth of it is - precious. It makes the world glimmer a little, and he knows that’s not a good sign, neurologically speaking, but he’s so happy he just doesn’t care.
Of course, this whole conversation is contingent on when all of this is over, on the increasingly slim chance that he manages to off Scofield and Burrows and placate the company and his actual bosses and get back in one piece, but god. Just the chance. He’ll find a way.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he lets himself put his whole heart into it, even though Scofield and sidekick are there, because Pam deserves it. She knows exactly how much he adores his son and even after everything he’s put them through - she still knows.
“You want to talk to him? I mean, oh gosh, I suppose you’re really busy, I should have waited -”
“No! I mean, please, I mean - no, I’m not too busy, I. I’d really like to talk to him.” And then, because his parent-brain is finally waking up, and he remembers that Cameron’s old enough to be in kindergarten this year, “Shouldn’t he be in school right now?”
Pam laughs, and its. God. Music.
“It’s Saturday, you workaholic freak,” and he can almost feel her light punch on his shoulder. It was a frequent argument. He chuckles lightly with her.
“Yeah, I. Things have been. Intense, recently.” And isn’t that the understatement of the year.
“Hang in there.” Casual, like he was losing sleep over one too many reams of paperwork instead of being blackmailed by some shadowy, bloodthirsty cabal and held hostage by his own damn targets. “I’m putting him on,” Pam continued.
“Daddy, I saw you on TV!” Cameron’s voice is rushed, his breathing too loud, too close to the speaker. Alex can almost see him, clutching the receiver with both hands, bouncing up and down a little on the balls of his feet, maybe in his white and green Dr. Seuss oobleck socks.
“Is that so?” he asked, voice filled with the appropriate awe.
“Yep! An’ I told Mark at kinnergarden an’ he didn’t believe me but I made him watch and now the whole class knows you’re famous so whenever we play cops an’ robbers I always getta be a cop now cause you’re really a cop an’ you boss people ‘round an’ go after the bad guys an’ everything!”
“That’s great, kiddo,” he murmurs around whatever inexplicable phenomenon that’s stuck in his throat. “You’re making friends in kindergarten, then?”
“Uh-huhn. I found this bottle cap that’s really shiny so I made it a badge so now whoever’s my best friend every day getsta be my deputy,” he declared proudly.
“It’s important to have people you can trust,” Alex confided sagely, and his hand shook a little, holding the phone, caught between the comedy of it and the black irony.
“I woulda made Mark my deputy first ‘cept he didn’t believe me ‘bout you bein’ on TV, so Jerry got to be deputy for a while, to teach him a lesson. Next time, he’ll listen.” Cameron’s confidence in his strategy was clearly unshakable.
Manipulative little twerp. “I bet he will, champ.”
He looked up to meet Michael’s eyes, in some sort of automatic, universal adult recognition of humoring a child, and Michael’s eyebrow are way up, and Alex wants to rip them off, because implying scorn about other people’s children is so - just - not allowed. He can’t make any noise while Cameron’s on speaker, but he lets his lips curl into a snarl at Michael’s patronizing skepticism.
“Listen, Cam,” says Mahone - “I gotta run. I’ll see you soon, all right?”
He runs through the intricacies of saying goodbye to a child, endures the enthusiasm in Cameron’s voice. Clicks the phone shut with a sound that obscurely reminds him of the chamber of a gun, sliding into place.
“How was that?” he asks, into the silence. “Hear something you didn’t know? Learn any fucking tactical information?”
Michael stands. “Would you have preferred that I not let you talk to her at all?” The question is neutral, free of the sharp edge of accusation, but it tears all the same. It’s not a decision Mahone can make - because it’s torture, more horrific than anything Michael could devise, to have his family ripped open where someone else can see, and yet. Even talking to Cameron loosened up his chest, just a little bit -
“Wow,” says LJ. “Just, wow. You know, I get it, now.”
“You get what?” enunciates Mahone, carefully. With a hint of threat.
LJ either ignores or doesn’t notice the threat. “I mean, you have to be kidding me,” says LJ. “What are you, doing this for them?”
Mahone doesn’t answer. He’s seething, still reeling from the phone call, and this ignorant, obnoxious teenager picks now to -
“Cause, what, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel?” LJ leans forward. “You think the Company’s going to let you go? Earth to Mahone! Once they have their claws on you, they’re never going to let go.”
“They’ll have no further need for me,” explains Mahone, with enforced calm -
“Then they’ll kill you!” LJ shoots back. “And if you get to your family before then, they’ll kill them too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I watched them shoot my mom,” says LJ, tight with an emotion Mahone doesn’t want to identify. “And my stepdad. And they were nice to me, they were gonna let the courts take care of it. Electric chair isn’t supposed to be too painful, right?”
“LJ,” warns Michael.
“No,” says LJ, “shut up.” To Mahone: “I don’t know what kind of happy land of denial you’re living in, but they will kill you. And then they will kill your wife, and your son, and there will be nothing left, because that’s what they are.”
After LJ is gone - stormed off to the front of the RV - Michael eyes Mahone. In something akin to sympathy, Mahone thinks.
Michael reaches into a pocket and produces the pen. Offers it to Mahone. “Do you want this?” he asks.
Mahone can practically taste the pills inside. They’re so close.
“Keep your charity,” he spits.
- - - -
Mahone doesn’t remember much of what happens, once they get to the cabin. The woman hustles him inside, eyes all around, left, right, over her shoulder like she’s waiting for an ambush. They toss him in a bathroom, with a change of clothes and a bar of soap. Mahone turns the water up so hot it’s scalding, but he still doesn’t quite feel it.
He jumps at every noise. The world is stretched tight, reality sharp as a paper cut.
The provided clothes are very basic. Pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt. They’re clean, though. Smell fresh.
Mahone spreads his fingers on the mirror, tracing like he could count the spaces in between.
There’s a knock at the door. “We don’t have all day,” yells a man, someone Mahone hasn’t seen before. Looks like this organization, group, family, whatever it is, has more people than he anticipated.
Maybe Wheeler will find a trace, after all.
Mahone palms the door open. Lets the man slide the handcuffs on his wrists, and follows the gestures of the man’s gun.
They’re halfway down the hall, when it happens. A tile hallway, just off the front door (Mahone had even half-considered running for it, but he’s beyond that now, isn’t he?).
The pop noise doesn’t really sound like anything. Guns with silencers don’t make noise like they do in the movies - the first time someone hears that noise, they don’t know how to react. It doesn’t feel, to the average person, like a gunshot.
Fortunately for Mahone, he’s not the average person.
He knows immediately that it wasn’t aimed at him. He isn’t moving quickly, and a silencer would imply someone who has enough funding, enough experience, enough professional skill not to miss such an easy shot. That only leaves one real option, and Mahone is already half-twisted, in motion before the second noise. Just as soft, just as unobtrusive as the first.
He feels the rush of the bullet just by his shoulder. Missed by a hair.
Lands on top of the man without a name, hard, the breath rushing out of his lungs. Perfect landing, too, Mahone thinks, with detachment, because the blood from the man’s bullet wound is already darkening, staining Mahone’s borrowed shirt.
Footsteps, one after another, to confirm the kill. The kills.
Mahone remembers what a bullet wound feels like. So, he mimics everything he remembers.
His eyes drift to contact, with the assassin. Another man, Caucasian, nondescript. “Company,” manages Mahone, soft, on a breath of air. Like a bullet pierced his lung.
There’s a flash of recognition, short, but unmistakable. And the man ignores him, moving along, towards his next target.
- - - -
This is what Mahone supposes it must have looked like, from the living room, where, as he later learned, Michael Scofield, Lincoln Burrows, LJ Burrows and Aldo Burrows were all gathered:
The assassin rounded the corner. Those facing that direction must have seen him - maybe recognized him, if Aldo was among them. They would have seen the gun second, after it was already half-raised, far too late to do anything about it. Lincoln probably flailed for his own weapon, which was out-of-reach, in this place of safety; Michael would have frozen, maybe Aldo too, shocked at the betrayal. LJ started to shout - Mahone remembers this much.
Then the crackof the bullet shot rang out. Resounded through wall and floor and bone. And the assassin fell.
When they rounded the corner, what they saw was Alexander Mahone, on his side, next to a dead body, the smoking gun - literally - in his hand.
- - - -
Mahone lowers the gun, palm flat on the ground. The shot was true. The assassin was dead before he hit the floor.
“Drop the gun!” yells Lincoln, at Mahone.
Mahone glances at the gun. Newly acquired from the body next to him. It’s not bad, actually. Glock, 45mm, pretty standard action movie issue. “No,” he decides.
“MAHONE!”
“Wait,” says Michael, covering the barrel of Lincoln’s gun. Maybe he sees something in Mahone. Something that wasn’t there before.
The woman rushes in, her own gun drawn. “What the hell - oh my god,” and she drops next to the first dead man, checking the pulse.
“Michael,” says Lincoln, through gritted teeth.
Mahone gets to his feet, unsteadily, the 45 by his side, safety on, pointed towards the floor.
“Did you do this?” she hisses, at Mahone, pure fury.
“No, Jane, put the gun down,” says Aldo Burrows.
“You saved our lives,” says Michael, in a breathless, shocked tone, and if this all weren’t enough to take away Mahone’s composure, that would have done it.
“Why?” asks the woman. Jane, apparently.
Mahone doesn’t have an answer to that - rubs the back of his hand across his face. It’s been a long time since he’s had to move that fast. React that fast. He wasn’t sure he still had it in him. And now, now the adrenaline is starting to catch up, and with the mixture of withdrawal, he’s having trouble staying on his feet.
And now, Mahone turns to the only question that he can think of. The only question to move them forward.
“What’s your plan?” he asks.
-
End of Part 1.
Go on to Part 2.
Pairing: Alex Mahone/Michael Scofield
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 2.22.
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine.
Word Count: 14,000 (in two parts)
Summary: AU from 2.10 "Rendezvous". Mahone tries to inhale through his mouth, his jaw stretched uncomfortably, and he half-chokes. Dirty cloth, he realizes, jammed between his teeth - he claws at it, yanks it away, panting in abruptly relieved panic.
And finally, he gets it. He’s in the trunk of a car.
- - -
Mahone wakes up with one hell of a fucking headache. He almost can’t breathe it’s so bad, throbbing from the base of his skull to his temples. There’s humming, too, humming deep as his bones, grating sore nerves and tired muscles, utterly infuriating in its steady, unending rhythm.
He blinks his eyes a few times, bleary, trying to clear the spots, the blur from his vision.
It doesn’t work.
Twists around - his hands are tied; he hits a wall (padded? A padded wall?) with his knee and god, that humming, that humming…
There’s something. Something about where he is, something just barely beyond the grasp of his brain.
Mahone tries to inhale through his mouth, his jaw stretched uncomfortably, and he half-chokes. Dirty cloth, he realizes, jammed between his teeth - he claws at it, yanks it away, panting in abruptly relieved panic.
And finally, he gets it.
He’s in the trunk of a car.
He’s in the trunk of someone’s fucking car.
Mahone hisses in frustration, fighting the urge to kick the goddamn thing open. The struggle would be pretty futile.
He supposes he should be happy he’s alive, given that Michael Scofield left him in a room rapidly filling with gas. He doesn’t remember passing out, though he supposes he must have. It would have been a good way to die. A quiet way to die.
Mahone scrambles in his jacket pocket, feeling for the pen - finds it. It’s more difficult than he expected to finagle the cap off with his hands taped together, but he manages. As soon as it hits his tongue, he feels better. Calmer.
Three doses left.
It’s a horrible space for maneuvering, but, with effort, Mahone gets himself the right way around to hunt for the brake light wires. It’s been years since he learned how to do this, but it’s amazing how motivated you get when your life is on the line.
He’s just managed to get the first one stripped when the car slows. A turn (left), then the car comes to a halt. Restarts a moment later, a right turn, a left turn, and then the car really halts. Turns off.
And Mahone’s lost his chance.
He can hear footsteps, on the gravel outside. A faint exclamation, probably a greeting. Might have been Michael, but Mahone doesn’t even know for sure that Scofield was the one who came back and rescued him.
Christ, but who else could it be?
“You have him in your trunk?”
Mahone closes his eyes. Senses attuned.
“…had a choice, all right?”
“Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with him?”
“Who are we talking about?” -this is a newcomer, to the conversation.
The discussion drops below the level of Mahone’s hearing, then.
“…a Fed in the trunk of your car?!”
And, apparently, the newcomer is not happy.
“It’s worse than that,” says the second speaker - who, Mahone is now quite sure, is Michael Scofield. Which would make the first Lincoln Burrows?
“How, exactly?”
More, then, that Mahone can’t quite hear. He shifts, trying to get into a better position -
And his heel thunks into the wall, just next to one of the brake lights.
Shit, shit, shit.
The conversation has definitely stopped, outside.
The trunk opens to blinding white light outside. -right, the sun.
Mahone blinks, and focuses in on the gun barrel, pointed straight at his face.
“I’d suggest you don’t make any move,” says Lincoln Burrows, “or I’ll blow your head off.”
Mahone doubts it. “You both are making a mistake,” he says, “kidnapping an FBI agent is way, way more trouble than you want to deal with.”
It’s his job, right? It’s the script. If the con makes a threat, the cop has to make a threat right back.
“Here’s the deal, Alex,” says Michael Scofield. The only other person in Mahone’s field of view, and what would Mahone not give to find out who the third person was. “If you’re nice and quiet, don’t make any trouble, we’ll let you go in a few days.”
“Still can’t kill, Michael?” asks Mahone. “Is that why you came back for me?”
Michael and Lincoln exchange a short glance - full of communication, Mahone is sure, and it frustrates him that he doesn’t already know Michael Scofield well enough to figure out what it means.
“Just relax,” says Michael, with a forced smile.
“His tie,” suggests Lincoln.
“Yeah.” And Michael reaches in, gingerly, undoing the knot of Mahone’s tie, sliding it free of his collar.
Mahone could grab him, right now, get Michael in between him and Lincoln’s gun, maybe make a break for it.
Michael presses the tie against Mahone’s eyes. Shifts Mahone’s head, with a gentle but firm touch, and ties it. Secure. And Mahone is effectively blind.
Well, this could be construed as a good sign. If Michael planned on killing him, he likely wouldn’t bother limiting what Alex saw and heard.
The tape on his ankles is cut away, and he feels Michael’s grasp around his wrists.
“The gun is still on you,” warns Lincoln. “Move slowly.”
He’s blind. Much as he’d like to defy Lincoln’s instructions, it’s not really an option. He has to feel his way, jerky and uncertain, and Michael is more guiding him out than supporting him. Once he’s on his feet, there’s Michael’s hand, again, between his shoulder blades.
“This way,” says Michael.
God, this is humiliating.
They go up a small set of stairs - to a porch? - through a doorway, down to the right, up more stairs, and then they pause. Mahone listens: drawers, going in and out, rummaging, a muffled curse. “It’s clear,” says a woman’s voice.
Then Mahone is guided into a room. Surface change, from hardwood to - tile, he thinks. Bathroom, then?
Cold metal closes around his right wrist; he’s tugged, none-so-gently, and shoved until he’s sitting on what must be a toilet with the cover on.
The blindfold slips free.
Yes, a bathroom, done in cheery blue-and-white tile. Mahone is cuffed to the pipe, leading up from the toilet. The door is completely out of reach.
Lincoln lowers the gun. “We done here, Michael?”
Michael searches Mahone’s face, a strange, unreadable look on his own. “Yeah,” he says.
They shut the door behind them.
Well, goal number one: get the tape off his wrists. Once he can do that, he’ll have more mobility, might be able to reach the drawers. He guesses that they weren’t exactly preparing this place for long-term occupation, and that means they might have missed something.
And his list of fugitive helpers is up to two. One man and one woman. There might be others, too, and he should assume that they’ll be armed.
Hopefully it won’t piss them off when Mahone decides to leave.
The tape is just ordinary duct tape. Nothing too strong. And his hands are in front of him, so it’s not like it’s hard to reach. Five, maybe six layers deep.
He finds the corner, the edge of the tape - raggedy, where it was ripped from the roll - and starts pulling. Not too long before he has an inch, two inches, then it’s coming more easily.
It’s a sunny day outside. Beautiful. It’s pretty much impossible that it’s still the same day Michael shut him in that metal cage - he must have been unconscious most of the night, and the morning too. It explains why he’s so fucking sluggish.
Carefully, ignoring the pain, Mahone pulls the last of the tape free of his skin. Spits it out, on the floor.
And if he braces himself here, he can just barely reach the first drawer. He gropes inside -
Empty. Completely empty. And he can’t - quite - make it to the second drawer.
Fuck. There has to be something. Isn’t it some kind of rule, that every empty bathroom drawer on the planet actually has a few bobby pins in the corners? One, one is all he needs.
The bottom of the drawer is coated with some kind of paper. The corners are peeling - come on, come on, come on…
Mahone feels something. Something small and metal.
Scrambles for it, catching it on his fingernail and lord, would you look at that, a bobby pin. A bobby pin.
It’s quite possible that whoever his captors are have made their key mistake.
Mahone bites off the plastic edge of the pin, leaving the metal exposed, and inserts it into the handcuff lock. Bends it at a ninety-degree angle, then pulls it out, presses just the end in, and bends it again, leaving him with the perfect double-angled shape.
And now all he has to do is trip the mechanism -
The door opens.
There’s a woman there, definitely unfamiliar, probably the one who locked him here in the first place. In about half a second, her gun is in her hand, safety off, aim steady.
“Drop the pin,” she says, “and show me those handcuffs are still locked.”
Mahone grits his teeth.
“That’ll teach us to underestimate him,” she snaps, to someone out in the hallway. “Four and a half minutes, and he was almost gone.”
“He was Special Forces,” says Michael, apologetically, moving into view.
“Thanks for telling me,” says the woman, “before I left him locked in a bathroom. Unsupervised.” To Mahone: “Hold out your hands.” She passes off the gun to Michael, who looks more startled than threatening.
She unlocks the set of cuffs, uses it to link his wrists together, and secures the tie back around his eyes. “Basement’s ready for you,” she says. “Hopefully, there are no fucking bobby pins lying around.” She hauls Mahone up. “Do not get on my bad side, pal,” she hisses, in his ear. “It will not go well for you.”
You should be aware, thinks Mahone, that I have a bad side of my own.
In the basement, they throw him into what looks like a hastily-cleared storage room, by the dust lines. It’s completely empty, and there’s a newly-installed padlock on the door. Impressive, for the few minutes they had to prepare.
Mahone observes, as he’s flung to the ground, that there’s a padlock that operates from the inside.
“Let me talk to him,” says Michael, before the door closes.
The woman heaves a sigh of clear irritation. “Why?”
“Because,” returns Michael. “You going to take this up with your boss?”
The woman shrugs. “Fine. I’m leaving the door open.”
Her boss. The other man?
Michael steps into the room cautiously. Tilts his head to the side, hesitant, like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“I have nothing to say to you, Scofield,” says Mahone.
“Well, I have something to say to you.” Michael crouches, next to him. “My brother is innocent.”
Mahone laughs, hoarsely. “I don’t care.”
Michael nods, as though he’s taking this in. “Why did you kill Tweener?”
The question comes completely from left field.
“Why?” persists Michael.
“He was trying to escape.”
Michael’s eyes narrow. “Was Oscar Shales trying to escape?”
“Fuck you,” hisses Mahone.
Michael’s hand grabs, iron-tight, around Mahone’s wrist. “Is there some deluded part of you that thinks Tweener deserved it? Like Oscar Shales deserved it?”
No, thinks Mahone - his heartbeat jumped, as soon as Michael’s skin touched his, and that’s something he can’t handle, can’t explain.
Michael lets him go, his mouth twisted.
The door clicks shut behind him, and Mahone has to think. He has to think, and he has to get out of here.
The headache returns, as soon as he has nothing to distract himself from it. Mahone hefts himself up, so he’s braced against the wall. It’s better than lying on the floor - that’s for sure.
Michael had said something about a few days. If Mahone behaved for a few days, then they’d let him go. It’s a crucial time frame, then. In a few days, Mahone knowing about this place won’t matter. They’ll be out of his reach.
He has to act before then.
He stands. He has time; he’ll check the cell corner to corner, wall to wall. There has to be something in here that will help him. No trap is completely inescapable.
- - - -
It’s near evening, Mahone thinks, when the door opens again. The light in the hallway is bright, compared to that in the - cell? - and he blinks, squinting. There’s figure - just a silhouette, really. Must be the woman, carrying something. And Michael, just behind her, watching Alex. Calculating.
In his hand, Mahone belatedly realizes, is Mahone’s own cell phone.
“You’ve been missing calls,” says the woman. “We’d like you to return them.” She shoots a glare at Michael. No, this definitely wasn’t her idea. She’s too cautious for that.
They step inside the room, light glinting off of the gunmetal in her hand. Michael tosses him the phone.
Three missed calls. Two from Wheeler, one from Kim.
Oh, hell.
“No funny business,” says the woman, dumping whatever it is she’s holding on the ground next to Mahone. “Speakerphone, and if you say anything suspicious, we’ll kill you.”
“That’s inviting a lot more trouble than you already have,” says Mahone, giving the pile a glance. MREs. Oh, joy. At least they’re not starving him.
She shrugs. “They likely won’t be tracking the call, and if they already think you’re missing, then there’s not much more they can do. Except give up on finding you alive.”
“Make the calls,” says Michael.
You think you’ve beaten me. Mahone clenches his fists. Dials the first number.
“Agent Mahone?” comes Wheeler’s voice.
“Yeah, Wheeler.” Mahone dips his head. Doesn’t look at Michael. “I missed your call?”
“Yeah.” Wheeler sounds uncertain. “Is everything all right?”
The gun raises, threateningly.
“I’m fine,” says Mahone.
“It’s just you haven’t reported in,” says Wheeler -
“I’m. Fine,” enunciates Mahone. “What do you need?”
“It’s about Burrows and Scofield, sir,” Wheeler tells him. “They-”
“Keep on the trail of the others,” says Mahone. “I’ll be in contact with you and the local field office soon. I don’t have time for this right now.” He hangs up. Offers the phone back to Michael.
“There was one more number,” says Michael. “Call it.”
Shit, shit. Maybe he could call some other number -
Michael takes the phone, hits send, and hands it back.
Goddamnit.
Rings once. Rings twice, maybe Kim won’t pick up -
“Mahone, where the hell have you been?” asks Kim.
“Where do you think?” returns Mahone.
Kim lets out a hissed breath. “Are they dead?”
Michael’s face is blank.
“Are. They. Dead?”
“Yes,” lies Mahone, spur-of-the-moment.
“Alex. Are you telling me the truth?”
“Why would I lie?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kim pauses. “Spoken to your wife and son lately?”
Mahone snaps. “You stay away from my family!”
Michael - and the unknown woman - both seem taken aback. She moves her gun from a one-handed to a two-handed grip.
Kim is unfazed. “Pictorial evidence, Alex. Now.”
Mahone looks up, to Michael.
At Michael’s nod - “Fine.”
“Good. Where are you?”
“Just north of the Mexican border.”
“I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
“Not necessary,” says Mahone, shortly, and he shuts the phone.
“Right,” sighs the woman, as Michael takes back the phone. “Time for a trip to the store.”
“Why?” asks Michael.
“Corn syrup and red food coloring,” says the woman. “Scofield.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Michael moves down, next to Mahone. “How long have you been working for them?”
Mahone shakes his head. “It’s really none of your business.”
“Let me guess.” Michael crosses his arms. “They promised you that they’d get rid of Oscar Shales, forever. No more body, no more investigation. Everything, swept clean under the rug, and all you had to do was help them out.” Mahone starts to speak, but Michael cuts him off. “And then you realize that it involves murder. And that might - that might be understandable, if you’d backed out then.”
“You think you’re better than me?” Mahone realizes he’s raising his voice - the woman might come back, at any time - “What’s your body count, Michael? How many people have died because of what you’ve done? Because let me tell you, every one of mine is one of yours too.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger,” says Michael, halfway through the door.
“Doesn’t that make you the perfect little angel.”
The door shuts; the room is dark, once more.
- - - -
About an hour later, it opens again. Michael has something red and sticky all down his chest, his ribs - fake blood, Mahone realizes.
The phone in his hand is ringing. Michael throws it to him. “Answer it.”
Mahone flips it open. “Hello?”
“Excellent job,” says Kim. “Now tell me where you are.”
Mahone eyes the gun, pointed at his head. “Let me bury them first.”
“No. Alex, Alex, Alex. You don’t seem to quite understand this relationship of ours. You showed me the bodies are real; now, my people are going to get rid of them. Forgive me for saying so, but you’re hardly professional at the matter, are you?”
Mahone grits his teeth. “The job’s already half-done.”
“Well, undo it.”
He can hear the smile in Kim’s voice. The little fucker.
“I can’t,” says Mahone patiently, as though he’s explaining this to a child.
The silence goes on too long - far too long. “Alex,” says Kim, “why am I on speakerphone?”
The woman lunges for the phone, and flips it shut. “You knew that was going to happen.”
Mahone shrugs. “He was going to figure it out eventually.”
She looks to Michael. “Well, it bought you a few hours-”
And Mahone makes his move.
It’s easy to underestimate a man in handcuffs. And whoever this woman is, however good she is, she hasn’t had Mahone’s training or his experience. He brings her down, hard, against the concrete, and his hand makes it to the gun first.
Most fights are over in thirty seconds, his instructor once told him.
“Handcuff keys,” says Mahone. “Right now.”
She unhooks them from her belt and tosses them over. Mahone lets them land at his feet, making no effort to catch.
“Now, get out,” gesturing with the gun.
She gets to her feet.
“Out!” - and she backs through the door, cautiously. When Michael moves to follow - “No. You stay.” He nods at the door. “Close it, and use the deadbolt.”
Michael does, his jaw gritted. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Protecting my family,” says Mahone, stooping to pick up the keys. It’s a minor challenge, to unlock the cuffs and hold the gun at the same time, but he manages it. Lets the metal clink to the ground.
He opens the phone, and hits a button.
Wheeler picks up on the first ring. “Agent Mahone.” His voice is cautious.
“Wheeler,” says Mahone, “I’ve been - I’ve been detained.”
His phone beeps - low battery. Wonderful timing, as always.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m fucking locked up in someone’s basement, what do you think I mean?” snarls Mahone. “I was going after Burrows and Scofield and they had friends.” Technically the truth, if a little colored.
Wheeler is instantly serious. “I’m sorry, I thought - where are you?”
“I have no idea,” says Mahone. “Can you track this call?”
A long pause, then - “No,” says Wheeler. “The tech says there’s some kind of resonance thing with the towers, that it’ll take it a while to sort out.”
“My phone going to turn off soon, so listen to this carefully. I was at,” and he gives the location where Scofield locked him in the cage, “and this can’t be more than twelve hours away. I’m guessing six or fewer. We were on a main highway,” and Mahone recites the sequence of turns that he remembers, from in the trunk. “The house is big, a mansion, there’s a gravel drive out in front, there are four steps to the porch-”
Michael, on the other side of the room, turns his gaze towards the wall, features knitted in frustration.
“Do your best,” says Mahone, “I can’t last in here forever,” and his phone makes a soft chiming noise. Turns itself off.
“You didn’t call the Company.”
“I don’t trust the Company,” Mahone shoots back. He touches the flat of the barrel to his temple. What the hell is he going to do?
There’s a pounding noise, against the door. “MAHONE!” comes Lincoln’s voice. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
“Does that question run in your genes or something?” snaps Mahone. A pill, he needs another pill - no, he doesn’t, there are only three doses left, Wheeler might not be able to find this place, he has to make it last as long as he can.
“I’d tell you to answer,” says Michael, calm, “but I don’t think you know the answer yourself.”
“MICHAEL!” comes another voice. “MICHAEL! SON!”
“I’m fine,” calls Michael. “Everything is fine!”
Mahone stops, in his tracks. “Son?” he echoes. Michael’s jaw clenches. “Aldo Burrows,” marvels Mahone. “So he is alive.”
“They won’t find you in time,” says Michael. “You’re not accomplishing anything.”
Mahone exhales. “I’m controlling my own environment, which is more than I could say five minutes ago.”
“The Company will probably think you’ve betrayed them,” points out Michael.
“You think I’m not aware of that?” -the words rip free, and Mahone is appalled at his own lack of control. Michael Scofield already knows enough of his secrets.
“Alex. Put down the gun.”
Mahone raises it. Brandishes it.
“You’re not going to do anything -”
“I could kill you right now.”
“No, you couldn’t.” Michael’s eyes are steady, his hands free, and he’s moving towards Mahone, so slowly - “If you kill me, they’ll break down that door, and you’re dead. That’s it.” He takes one more step. “Why me?”
“What do you mean?” Mahone is busy looking around the cell, again. Looking for anything that might help him, anything at all, but he didn’t find it the first few times. It’s not likely he’ll find it now.
“You could have kept her in here.”
“She’s too dangerous.”
“Physically, I think you could hold your own.” Michael’s mouth curls, a little.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Michael shrugs. “Why didn’t you call the Company?”
“I told you, I don’t trust the Company.”
“Why did you kill Tweener?”
“Because I had to.” The answer is out before Mahone can take it back. It sounds more like a plea than a statement, somehow.
And then - then Michael has moved just a little bit too far, and Mahone shoots, right over his shoulder. Only a warning shot, aimed to miss, but the reaction from outside the door is immediate. And entirely expected.
Two sharp gunshots, and the door flies open. Mahone already has his hands up, gun pointed towards the ceiling; Michael has already backed away, lips barely parted - in shock.
“You can’t save me, Michael,” says Mahone, as Lincoln grabs one wrist, then another, cuffs him -
And slams him into the wall.
“Hold him still,” says the woman, and Mahone feels a sharp pinprick, at his neck.
- - - -
Mahone wakes up comfortable. And well-rested.
Gradually, he realizes that the swaying of the bed, underneath him, isn’t entirely the work of his drug-addled consciousness. No, he’s on the road again, only this time he’s on a bunk, in the back of an RV. Tied to the wall with rope, and weak as a kitten from whatever sedatives it was they gave him.
His brain works sluggishly, but he can’t fall back asleep, he’s not quite comfortable enough, so he settles in for the journey. It seems like there’s something he should be worried about, but it’s comfortably distant. Hardly even matters, really.
Something about a wheel. Wheels. Wheeling.
The bunk depresses, slightly, next to his legs. Mahone focuses, blearily, on the figure above him.
“He’s awake,” says Michael Scofield.
The response, from the front, is inaudible over the hum of the roadway. Mahone is disinterested. His eyes wander to the window. There’s desert outside.
Michael’s palm cups Mahone’s cheek. It occurs to Mahone that this maybe isn’t normal, but that he probably won’t remember it, so it shouldn’t matter too much.
“You’re wrong,” murmurs Michael. “I can save you.” His fingers close Mahone’s eyelids, and the world falls away.
- - - -
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
It’s dark, inside the trailer. Mahone can’t see - he blinks, a few times, to make sure he didn’t forget to open his eyes.
“If you’re sure.”
“He’s drugged and restrained. I don’t see how he’s going to be much of a threat.”
“Maybe I should stay too.”
“Camping grounds are a lot less private than motels.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t be the one -”
“I’ll be fine. Go.”
It seems a long time, before the next thing happens.
“On your side,” comes Michael’s voice, urging him up, facing the wall. Then the blankets shift, and Michael eases in behind him, one arm snug over Mahone’s chest.
Mahone is mildly irritated at the disturbance, because all he wants to do is sleep, but something in the rhythm of the breath against the back of his neck is soothing, rather than disturbing.
- - - -
Mahone is so thirsty it hurts.
That’s what wakes him up - blinking, shoulders sore, his left arm completely numb, but it’s really the thirst, incredible, overpowering, enough to make him dizzy even when he’s lying down and where the hell is he, exactly?
“How are you feeling?”
Mahone twists around, squinting against the light from the window. Michael, of course it’s Michael. “Got any water?” he manages, in a rasp.
“Yeah.”
Mahone closes his eyes. Listens to the refrigerator door open and close. He half-tries to sit up, but the ropes are short. They don’t give him much range of movement. Not even enough for one hand to reach the other wrist. Whoever tied him up this knew what he - or she - was doing.
“Going to untie me?” Mahone asks, as Michael twists the top off.
“I thought you were done with underestimating my intelligence,” says Michael. “Open your mouth.”
Oh, hell no.
“You’re kidding.”
Michael sits, next to him. “Not at all.”
“You’re - going to, what, feed me-”
“I could let you go thirsty,” says Michael. “Feel free to take the option.” He touches the bottle to Mahone’s mouth.
Mahone’s lips part almost automatically. He needs the water - and anyway, the touch might be soft, but it sure is insistent. It’s very strange, letting himself depend on Michael like this. Like the water rushing over his tongue is a direct extension of Michael himself, reaching into Mahone, bringing him back to life.
Michael seems to know just when to stop, too. Lets Mahone swallow, then gives him more.
The bottle is about half-gone when Michael pulls away. “That’s enough, for now.”
Mahone takes a breath. “Where’s the pen?”
“What pen?”
“In my suit.” Mahone tries to move - and the ropes are in the way again, is this really necessary?
“What, Alex,” says Michael, “you need your pills?”
Fuck you, Scofield. “Well, you know,” begins Alex, “I haven’t eaten in days, I could really use a shower, I’d like to get the hell out of here so I can help my family, and it’d be real great if you and your brother were dead, but yes, I’ll settle for one of the pills.”
The words come out in spasms - too fast, all wrong, all wrong. He hadn’t realized he was this far gone.
Michael regards him, for a moment. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Michael sits across from him, on the floor of the RV. “Tell me why you need it.”
“I can’t - think - without them.”
“Midazolam is a sedative. Not usually regarded as a performance booster,” says Michael, matter-of-factly.
“Just - give it to me.”
“Tell me why you need it,” repeats Michael.
This is going to be bad. This is going to be so very bad. “Fuck you, Scofield.”
“I’ll wait,” says Michael. “How long do you think you can last?”
Not very long. Mahone knows it; Michael knows it.
Mahone looks away.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Michael is on his feet, raising his voice. Unleashed. “I’m trying to give you a chance. You want to know what makes me better than you? Really? Well, here it is: I never meant for any of this to happen! But you, you kill people, and you do it on purpose.” Michael takes a rushed breath.
“First you tell me to stop underestimating your intelligence, then you expect me to believe you were incapable of predicting the consequences of letting someone like Bagwell go free? Shall I tell you about the people he’s killed already? The people they left behind?”
“Fuck you, Mahone, I didn’t have a choice -”
“There’s always a choice!” Mahone shouts, hoarse with fury. “You chose to save your brother, chose to protect you and yours at the cost of innocent lives. And so have I. But Michael, I don’t pretend that not wanting it to happen exonerates my responsibility for the choice!”
BANG.
Mahone sits bolt upright, arms twisted against the ropes - but it’s just someone at the door, knocking hard.
Michael reaches for the gun - bad grip, if he fires it like that it’ll hurt him and go wild - and moves to the door. “Linc?” he calls.
“It’s me,” comes another voice.
Mahone recognizes it -
Michael grits his teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“There were people snooping around - Dad couldn’t come,” says the voice. “I can get you to the cabin.”
Michael reaches down, and unlatches the door.
In that moment, it clicks. Mahone realizes who the voice is. And, as he thought - LJ Burrows steps up into the RV, shutting the door behind him. Giving Mahone a long, disdainful look.
“So, you found one?” asks Michael.
“Yeah,” says LJ, “someone had a cancellation at one of the local vacation rental places. It’s pretty isolated, and the road out is flat, so the RV isn’t a problem.”
“And do you have what I asked for?”
LJ glances to Mahone. “Yeah, we stopped by a Best Buy on the way.” He draws out a cord - a charger. A cell phone charger.
“Good, thank you.” Michael moves out of Mahone’s range of sight -
“Hey,” says LJ, to Mahone. “Last time I saw you, you looked a lot healthier.”
There’s a flaw, in the blanket wrapped around Mahone. He runs his fingers over it, again and again. “I see your release completely failed to catch your father.”
LJ shrugs. “Guess we’re too good for that.”
“Nice to know I can count on agents outside my direct supervision.” He would make this more acid, he would throw it back on LJ, dig in where the kid hurts the most, but he just doesn’t feel up to it.
“Hey, you hungry?” asks LJ. “Cause you don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” Mahone lies.
“Are you sure?” LJ gestures towards the refrigerator. “I mean, I’m sure there’s something in there, and seriously, I don’t think anyone here plans on letting you, like, starve or anything.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mahone shoots back, and Michael is back. Mahone’s cell phone in his hand.
“I told you my conditions,” says Michael, mildly.
LJ holds up a hand. “Wait. You’re withholding food?”
“Food he can have.” Michael plugs the phone into the wall, next to Mahone.
“What is it, then?”
Mahone takes the proffered phone, and hits power.
“Any calls, you answer them,” says Michael. “On speakerphone.”
Michael’s face seems drawn, suddenly. Tired. “What are you trying to find, Michael?” asks Mahone.
“Anything you’re not telling me, Alex,” returns Michael. “You have a map, LJ?”
“Yeah,” and LJ digs in his pocket. Pulls out a brochure, passed to Michael too quickly for Mahone to read. “Want me to watch him?”
“Yes,” says Michael. “And get him something to eat.”
- - - -
For about half an hour, Mahone rides in silence. The kid doesn’t bother him. Michael is in front, driving, taking them to this cabin, or whatever it is. The blinds are drawn; Mahone has no idea where he is, though it’s probably somewhere near the Mexican border, and it’s kind of peaceful, almost. Like he’s relinquishing responsibility.
But then -
Then the phone rings.
LJ looks up. “Uncle Mike!”
The trailer slows, pulls off to the right. The phone rings, again.
“Don’t answer it yet,” warns LJ.
“It’ll go to voicemail,” Mahone points out.
The power shuts off. “Okay, now,” says LJ, and Michael gets there, back with them, just as Mahone flips it open.
“Hello?”
“Alex?”
“Alex?”
Oh. Oh Christ. Not now, not this.
“Pam,” says Mahone, and he chokes on the word, a little. Closes his eyes, but he’s all-too-aware of Michael and LJ’s eyes on him.
“Listen, Alex, I know we haven’t talked in a long time -”
“It’s fine,” he interrupts, because, goddamn, even if this is the worst possible time, he still hasn’t heard her voice in months. And this time, she called him.
“I think we need to be more of a family.” If he hadn’t heard the words, he might have thought she were issuing an ultimatum - the statement was harsh, stern, commanding. But he had heard the words.
“I’d - I’d love that,” he gasps. “I know we’ve had…difficulties, but I. I still.” Love you, he wants to say, and Michael’s eyes flash like he heard it, his face cold and unreadable. Alex hates this situation so much, because he knows his hopes and vulnerabilities are exposed now, spread out in front Michael like a set of fucking blueprintswith his name on the label, all his weak points soon to be outlined in neat, miniscule script.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Pam snaps, because she can hear what he doesn’t say too, at least sometimes. A side effect of marriage, or maybe a side cause. “We’re not getting back together, not a chance.”
Alex swallows hard, tries to keep the pang of sorrow off his face. This is - so much, too much to deal with, her voice is so familiar, ringing and vibrant and sharp, right in his chest. He’s feeling it all, five years of joy tied off with a sharp knot of anger and loss, twisting around him, tangling, and he needs to push it back, down, where it belongs, he needs his goddamn pills -
“Pam, I -” I miss you. So much. Four green eyes on him, jungle-poison-acid green, the brightest points in a too-bright world, and they makes his head hurt and the words catch in his throat.
“Alex, do you even remember how our marriage ended?” Panic, confusion and paranoia, screaming and guilt and the terrifying desperation of trying to cling his life when it was already spinning too fast, away, out of his control. Of course he remembers. He’s still dizzy from it.
“I’m - god, Pam, I’m sorry -”
“Sorry? You were obsessive, irrational, borderline verbally abusive - not to mention destructive…”
“I never hurt you,” he whispers, and he hates how much it sounds like the plea it is.
“No,” she acknowledges softly, and it’s - it’s enough that he can breathe again, the air cool and strange in his mouth and throat. “But I didn’t understand, I still don’t, and you wouldn’t let me - you scared me, Alex.” And the admission is soft, fragile, it’s a gift that she trusts him with this no matter how much it hurts - tearing at him, tearing strips out of him - it’s private. He’s suddenly, utterly furious; Michael and LJ shouldn’t be listening to this, they have no right. He’s their prisoner, he knows he doesn’t get privacy, but Pam revealing something so painful and personal, totally unaware - he feels like he’s caught them both peeking at her bathroom window, except he can’t stop them or warn her and she’s his wife damnit, even though she’s not.
“I wish I could fix it,” he whispers, offering his regret because apologies have already been rebuffed and explanations are impossible.
“I was scared for you, too,” she tells him softly, a small reprieve, like wind across his face. The world settles some around him, until it feels nearly as still as it is. He forces his breathing to slow, lets his eyes close until the chaos retreats to the edges of his senses and bunkers down, waiting there.
He opens his eyes.
Michael’s face is still inscrutable, observing. LJ, however, has no such tact: his eyes are huge with attention, his mouth twisted between pity and amusement.
Alex can’t quite believe his post-marital drama is being witnessed by a sixteen-year-old fugitive whose curly hair is about an inch away from becoming a mullet. Alex fucking hates teenagers.
“How do you want us to be more familial, then?” he asks, trying to make the words calm, rational, so that the raw, sensitive places aren’t so badly exposed.
“You’ve been on the news a lot, lately.”
It sounds like a non sequitur but Alex knows it’s not. He waits, patient and confident of her eventual explanation, watching the bewilderment flicker across LJ’s face. Somebody needs to teach the kid to shield, already. Alex knows it’s stupid to be annoyed by that, but. It’s sloppy.
“Cam’s seen you. He’s been asking about you, and why he doesn’t see you anymore.” Alex fights to keep everything steady on its axis, manages to not suck his breath in, but the blanket is so hot under him, the stifling shadow of his body heat rough and oppressive against his clothes, everything prickling at the edges of his skin, flickering around his field of vision. Fuck patience.
“And?” he asks, all of him taut as a high wire tightrope.
“And even though I haven’t forgiven you, he deserves to know his father,” Pam announces, her voice strong and steady as the Benben stone, with the rest of creation perched safely upon it. “I know you’re really busy with work just now, but I was thinking when all of this is over, you could spend some time with him. Maybe he could visit you for a while.”
“You’d - be okay with that? After everything?”
“If you tell me you’re stable enough not to traumatize him for life, well. I trust your judgment.” The hyperbole is wry and amused and playful, and the truth of it is - precious. It makes the world glimmer a little, and he knows that’s not a good sign, neurologically speaking, but he’s so happy he just doesn’t care.
Of course, this whole conversation is contingent on when all of this is over, on the increasingly slim chance that he manages to off Scofield and Burrows and placate the company and his actual bosses and get back in one piece, but god. Just the chance. He’ll find a way.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he lets himself put his whole heart into it, even though Scofield and sidekick are there, because Pam deserves it. She knows exactly how much he adores his son and even after everything he’s put them through - she still knows.
“You want to talk to him? I mean, oh gosh, I suppose you’re really busy, I should have waited -”
“No! I mean, please, I mean - no, I’m not too busy, I. I’d really like to talk to him.” And then, because his parent-brain is finally waking up, and he remembers that Cameron’s old enough to be in kindergarten this year, “Shouldn’t he be in school right now?”
Pam laughs, and its. God. Music.
“It’s Saturday, you workaholic freak,” and he can almost feel her light punch on his shoulder. It was a frequent argument. He chuckles lightly with her.
“Yeah, I. Things have been. Intense, recently.” And isn’t that the understatement of the year.
“Hang in there.” Casual, like he was losing sleep over one too many reams of paperwork instead of being blackmailed by some shadowy, bloodthirsty cabal and held hostage by his own damn targets. “I’m putting him on,” Pam continued.
“Daddy, I saw you on TV!” Cameron’s voice is rushed, his breathing too loud, too close to the speaker. Alex can almost see him, clutching the receiver with both hands, bouncing up and down a little on the balls of his feet, maybe in his white and green Dr. Seuss oobleck socks.
“Is that so?” he asked, voice filled with the appropriate awe.
“Yep! An’ I told Mark at kinnergarden an’ he didn’t believe me but I made him watch and now the whole class knows you’re famous so whenever we play cops an’ robbers I always getta be a cop now cause you’re really a cop an’ you boss people ‘round an’ go after the bad guys an’ everything!”
“That’s great, kiddo,” he murmurs around whatever inexplicable phenomenon that’s stuck in his throat. “You’re making friends in kindergarten, then?”
“Uh-huhn. I found this bottle cap that’s really shiny so I made it a badge so now whoever’s my best friend every day getsta be my deputy,” he declared proudly.
“It’s important to have people you can trust,” Alex confided sagely, and his hand shook a little, holding the phone, caught between the comedy of it and the black irony.
“I woulda made Mark my deputy first ‘cept he didn’t believe me ‘bout you bein’ on TV, so Jerry got to be deputy for a while, to teach him a lesson. Next time, he’ll listen.” Cameron’s confidence in his strategy was clearly unshakable.
Manipulative little twerp. “I bet he will, champ.”
He looked up to meet Michael’s eyes, in some sort of automatic, universal adult recognition of humoring a child, and Michael’s eyebrow are way up, and Alex wants to rip them off, because implying scorn about other people’s children is so - just - not allowed. He can’t make any noise while Cameron’s on speaker, but he lets his lips curl into a snarl at Michael’s patronizing skepticism.
“Listen, Cam,” says Mahone - “I gotta run. I’ll see you soon, all right?”
He runs through the intricacies of saying goodbye to a child, endures the enthusiasm in Cameron’s voice. Clicks the phone shut with a sound that obscurely reminds him of the chamber of a gun, sliding into place.
“How was that?” he asks, into the silence. “Hear something you didn’t know? Learn any fucking tactical information?”
Michael stands. “Would you have preferred that I not let you talk to her at all?” The question is neutral, free of the sharp edge of accusation, but it tears all the same. It’s not a decision Mahone can make - because it’s torture, more horrific than anything Michael could devise, to have his family ripped open where someone else can see, and yet. Even talking to Cameron loosened up his chest, just a little bit -
“Wow,” says LJ. “Just, wow. You know, I get it, now.”
“You get what?” enunciates Mahone, carefully. With a hint of threat.
LJ either ignores or doesn’t notice the threat. “I mean, you have to be kidding me,” says LJ. “What are you, doing this for them?”
Mahone doesn’t answer. He’s seething, still reeling from the phone call, and this ignorant, obnoxious teenager picks now to -
“Cause, what, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel?” LJ leans forward. “You think the Company’s going to let you go? Earth to Mahone! Once they have their claws on you, they’re never going to let go.”
“They’ll have no further need for me,” explains Mahone, with enforced calm -
“Then they’ll kill you!” LJ shoots back. “And if you get to your family before then, they’ll kill them too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I watched them shoot my mom,” says LJ, tight with an emotion Mahone doesn’t want to identify. “And my stepdad. And they were nice to me, they were gonna let the courts take care of it. Electric chair isn’t supposed to be too painful, right?”
“LJ,” warns Michael.
“No,” says LJ, “shut up.” To Mahone: “I don’t know what kind of happy land of denial you’re living in, but they will kill you. And then they will kill your wife, and your son, and there will be nothing left, because that’s what they are.”
After LJ is gone - stormed off to the front of the RV - Michael eyes Mahone. In something akin to sympathy, Mahone thinks.
Michael reaches into a pocket and produces the pen. Offers it to Mahone. “Do you want this?” he asks.
Mahone can practically taste the pills inside. They’re so close.
“Keep your charity,” he spits.
- - - -
Mahone doesn’t remember much of what happens, once they get to the cabin. The woman hustles him inside, eyes all around, left, right, over her shoulder like she’s waiting for an ambush. They toss him in a bathroom, with a change of clothes and a bar of soap. Mahone turns the water up so hot it’s scalding, but he still doesn’t quite feel it.
He jumps at every noise. The world is stretched tight, reality sharp as a paper cut.
The provided clothes are very basic. Pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt. They’re clean, though. Smell fresh.
Mahone spreads his fingers on the mirror, tracing like he could count the spaces in between.
There’s a knock at the door. “We don’t have all day,” yells a man, someone Mahone hasn’t seen before. Looks like this organization, group, family, whatever it is, has more people than he anticipated.
Maybe Wheeler will find a trace, after all.
Mahone palms the door open. Lets the man slide the handcuffs on his wrists, and follows the gestures of the man’s gun.
They’re halfway down the hall, when it happens. A tile hallway, just off the front door (Mahone had even half-considered running for it, but he’s beyond that now, isn’t he?).
The pop noise doesn’t really sound like anything. Guns with silencers don’t make noise like they do in the movies - the first time someone hears that noise, they don’t know how to react. It doesn’t feel, to the average person, like a gunshot.
Fortunately for Mahone, he’s not the average person.
He knows immediately that it wasn’t aimed at him. He isn’t moving quickly, and a silencer would imply someone who has enough funding, enough experience, enough professional skill not to miss such an easy shot. That only leaves one real option, and Mahone is already half-twisted, in motion before the second noise. Just as soft, just as unobtrusive as the first.
He feels the rush of the bullet just by his shoulder. Missed by a hair.
Lands on top of the man without a name, hard, the breath rushing out of his lungs. Perfect landing, too, Mahone thinks, with detachment, because the blood from the man’s bullet wound is already darkening, staining Mahone’s borrowed shirt.
Footsteps, one after another, to confirm the kill. The kills.
Mahone remembers what a bullet wound feels like. So, he mimics everything he remembers.
His eyes drift to contact, with the assassin. Another man, Caucasian, nondescript. “Company,” manages Mahone, soft, on a breath of air. Like a bullet pierced his lung.
There’s a flash of recognition, short, but unmistakable. And the man ignores him, moving along, towards his next target.
- - - -
This is what Mahone supposes it must have looked like, from the living room, where, as he later learned, Michael Scofield, Lincoln Burrows, LJ Burrows and Aldo Burrows were all gathered:
The assassin rounded the corner. Those facing that direction must have seen him - maybe recognized him, if Aldo was among them. They would have seen the gun second, after it was already half-raised, far too late to do anything about it. Lincoln probably flailed for his own weapon, which was out-of-reach, in this place of safety; Michael would have frozen, maybe Aldo too, shocked at the betrayal. LJ started to shout - Mahone remembers this much.
Then the crackof the bullet shot rang out. Resounded through wall and floor and bone. And the assassin fell.
When they rounded the corner, what they saw was Alexander Mahone, on his side, next to a dead body, the smoking gun - literally - in his hand.
- - - -
Mahone lowers the gun, palm flat on the ground. The shot was true. The assassin was dead before he hit the floor.
“Drop the gun!” yells Lincoln, at Mahone.
Mahone glances at the gun. Newly acquired from the body next to him. It’s not bad, actually. Glock, 45mm, pretty standard action movie issue. “No,” he decides.
“MAHONE!”
“Wait,” says Michael, covering the barrel of Lincoln’s gun. Maybe he sees something in Mahone. Something that wasn’t there before.
The woman rushes in, her own gun drawn. “What the hell - oh my god,” and she drops next to the first dead man, checking the pulse.
“Michael,” says Lincoln, through gritted teeth.
Mahone gets to his feet, unsteadily, the 45 by his side, safety on, pointed towards the floor.
“Did you do this?” she hisses, at Mahone, pure fury.
“No, Jane, put the gun down,” says Aldo Burrows.
“You saved our lives,” says Michael, in a breathless, shocked tone, and if this all weren’t enough to take away Mahone’s composure, that would have done it.
“Why?” asks the woman. Jane, apparently.
Mahone doesn’t have an answer to that - rubs the back of his hand across his face. It’s been a long time since he’s had to move that fast. React that fast. He wasn’t sure he still had it in him. And now, now the adrenaline is starting to catch up, and with the mixture of withdrawal, he’s having trouble staying on his feet.
And now, Mahone turns to the only question that he can think of. The only question to move them forward.
“What’s your plan?” he asks.
-
End of Part 1.
Go on to Part 2.