Belief (part of the Incidents in the Life of Lincoln Burrows)
A/N: I have decided I can only go so long without writing Lincoln. Too much of writing Michael makes me miss my man, so I'm back with a story I didn't see coming. This is in part for friedangle who made me some beautiful Linc/Vee banners, and part of this story is based on those photos, while the other part is based on the prompt from friedangle about wanting to see Veronica visiting Linc in jail after he'd been arrested for Steadman's murder, after Michael's initial visit in which he accusingly asked Linc what Linc did with his half of the insurance money (a scene from Brother's Keeper). So here you go, plus some, dear one, who I love so much for making such gorgeous banners!
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
“If you tell me you didn’t do it, I’ll believe it.”
“You’ll believe a lie?”
“I’ll believe whatever you want me to believe.”
“That’s the problem. You shouldn’t believe me. Just go.”
“If I leave...Linc...”
“I know. This is it. This is how it should be. Let’s just break up, for the last time, Vee.”
“This will be the last time.”
“I know.”
“You can’t kiss a lie and make it better. Well, maybe you could, but we’d just end up back here again, wouldn’t we?”
~*~
May 1995
Veronica checked the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes, cursing Michael and Lincoln with the same breath that she said a little prayer of “Please let them be okay.”
She had exactly 45 minutes to get back to campus and get in line with her classmates for commencement. She was waiting for the brothers to get to her apartment so that she could take them back to campus with her. What she should have done was given them directions to the University instead of to her apartment so then she wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Of course, her nervousness didn’t stem from the anticipation of receiving her degree in Real Estate Law. Her nervousness came from the idea of seeing Lincoln for the first time in almost three years. Her nervousness had escalated since Michael called her four days before and told her they were coming. The anxiety was about to eat her insides right up and she wished she had never called to invite them in the first place.
It had been a purely selfish thing. Her father, whose health had steadily been declining for several years now, was unable to travel to see her graduate. She had all her friends in Waco, of course, but the idea of not having anyone from Chicago there had bothered her greatly. It wasn’t every day you got your law degree. It wasn’t every day a little girl from up north was in the top 3% of her class at Baylor. It wasn’t every day she had something to celebrate, and if her father couldn’t be there, then the only other people in the world she wanted to share it with were Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows.
“Wait, so how’re they related?” Her roommate Audrey had asked a few days earlier.
“They’re brothers,” Veronica had said.
“But they have different last names. Different daddy’s, huh?”
“Actually, no, just…it’s a long story. Michael has his mother’s maiden name, because their dad took off before he was born.”
“What’s the other one’s name?” Audrey probed.
“Lincoln.”
“Lincoln? As in the-love-of-your-life Lincoln?”
Veronica had looked up from the box of books she was packing. “That’s the one.”
“So your ex and his brother are driving all the way from Chicago to Waco to watch you graduate?” Audrey propped her elbows on her knees and looked fascinated by the event unfolding in her mind’s eye.
Veronica gave her a look that said it’s no big deal and said, “We’ve known each other our whole lives.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever, you’re still in love with him. I’ve known that from the parade of guys who’ve been through here, but none’ve stayed longer than a month or two. He wouldn’t come down here, unless…”
“Aud, you don’t even know him. Michael probably begged him, made him feel guilty, coerced him in some way-Michael is a master manipulator. Anyway, they know my father has been sick and they are my oldest friends. But Lincoln and I are done. We haven’t talked to or seen each other since I left Illinois.”
“All I’m sayin’ is it’s an awful long way to come to watch a girl walk across a stage.”
“They’re my friends. When my dad had a heart attack a few years back, Lincoln drove three hours from Chicago to where I did my undergraduate degree to tell me in person. He didn’t call me; he drove all the way there. That’s just how they are.”
“It wasn’t a 20-hour drive, though, was it?”
As she craned her neck to look out the living room window, Veronica smiled to herself as she remembered her conversation with Audrey, who had already gone up to campus for the graduation ceremony. That conversation hadn’t helped her nervousness at all; if anything it planted a lot of ideas in her mind that she fought fruitlessly against because of the pleasure the thoughts brought her. Audrey was right that no one else that she had dated, in a long line of possible boyfriends, had stayed very long, and it all came down to the fact that thinking about Lincoln brought more smiles than time spent with other guys. She didn’t want it to be like that, but it was. She wanted to see Lincoln and feel nothing. Or at least remember the pain he’d put her through; but that had lessened with time because she loved him. Forgiveness took time, but love always won out. And regardless of what had happened, she had always known Lincoln Burrows loved her, even before he knew it.
Of course, if he and his brother made her late for her own graduation, all she’d be feeling when she saw him was anger.
~*~
“813, 815, here it is, 817!” Michael pointed with the map in his hand. “This is it, Linc. Oh, look, there she is. Oh, shit. She looks mad. How late are we?” he asked anxiously.
Lincoln pulled the car up to the curb and watched as Veronica ran down the stairs, into the parking lot, and then across a patch of grass towards them. Her hair was flying behind her and she had a royal blue graduation gown on. She did look a bit angry, but not nearly as angry as he had seen her on other occasions. This was nothing. He checked his wristwatch. “We’ve got a half hour till it starts.”
Michael jumped out of the car and captured Veronica in his arms as Lincoln slowly climbed from the driver’s seat. “Oh, my gosh, y’all!” she shouted, waving her graduation cap over hers and Michael’s head. “Nothing like making me think you were never gonna get here!”
As Michael hugged her tightly, her eyes found Lincoln’s across the roof of the car. “Y’all?” Lincoln drawled, mocking her.
“You can’t live in Texas for three years and not pick up some of the accent,” she said in return, smiling broadly at him over Michael’s shoulder.
“I’d hug you, but we’re short on time,” Lincoln said, pointing at his watch. “Shouldn’t we just get our cabooses over to the college?”
Michael let Veronica go and reached to push the seat forward so he could climb into the back seat. “You sit in front, Vee,” he said enthusiastically, not waiting for either of them to acknowledge whether they really should hug or not.
Lincoln waited while she decided, and then she shrugged, and slid into the car. He returned to the driver’s seat as she was fastening her seatbelt. “What’s the fastest way to get there?” he asked, moving the stick shift restlessly.
“Turn the car around, go back out to the main road,” Veronica said, grinning at him and then turning to include Michael in the grin. “I’m so glad you guys are here,” she said, emphasizing the northern dialect phrase. Reaching a hand over, Veronica ran her fingers over Lincoln’s scalp. “What happened to your hair?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
Lincoln spun the steering wheel, and kept his eyes on the cars lining the street. He knew it would be like this, to an extent, but he didn’t expect it to be such a punch to the gut. Like no time had passed in anyway, like he hadn’t banged dozens of women in the hope that letting Veronica walk away would, at some point, magically feel right. He didn’t expect her to reach out and touch him instantly, but then he hadn’t thought about his newly shaved head, and the week’s worth of stubble that now lined it. She had never seen him with his hair this short, and he had forgotten about it. “I made a bet with a buddy and shaved it all off a couple years ago. Been wearing it like that ever since.”
The car straightened out and they headed back to the main road, as Veronica had directed. Her fingers skimmed over his head and brushed his ear softly before she said, “It’s different; I’ll have to get used to it.” He could hardly restrain himself from reaching down and squeezing her leg with his hand. If Michael wasn’t in the car, watching every move like the vulture he was, Lincoln didn’t know how much restraint he would have employed over himself. But it was good to have a chaperone, especially one like Michael, whose sole reason for this little adventure was to get them back together. Lincoln knew what was in his brother’s scheming, planning mind, and he was trying to resist it with everything inside him. It was a given he wanted Vee back; he only hoped she had no such desires, because it had always been her strength that kept them apart when they were apart. It was good to have a reminder that just because she looked as good, if not better, to his eyes today than she had the last time he’d seen her, she wasn’t his anymore, and she never would be again.
~*~
Veronica hugged about twenty people in quick succession, all the other graduates in her program that she had been good friends with, spent endless hours studying, interning, and stressing out with. Now that it was really over, she couldn’t even wrap her mind around it. She wasn’t going to start thinking about the bar exam for at least a month, just to give her brain a rest.
When Michael and Lincoln found her in the crowd, they were both grinning happily at her. “Did you hear us cheering?” Lincoln demanded as Michael grabbed her in a big hug.
“Yes,” she said, and she could feel her cheeks flushing again in embarrassment. Only Lincoln could bellow that loudly and when they’d read her name and her degree, she’d heard “Whooooooooooo Vee!” from way in the back, louder than the announcer’s voice on the P.A. system.
Lincoln’s grin somehow got bigger as she blushed and she buried her head in Michael’s shoulder to avoid his gaze. Michael laughed, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. It was only natural that she step into Lincoln’s embrace, after all he was one of her oldest friends, and he and Michael had waited patiently while she hugged everyone else.
Veronica had spent much of her youth attempting to get inside Lincoln Burrows’ arms. Inside his arms was where she had had her first taste of love and sex and true tenderness. Inside his arms was where she fit, even now, even with her graduation cap slipping to one side as his head dipped down and his chin slid into the curve of her shoulder. It was in that moment that she understood inside her arms was where Lincoln Burrows belonged.
“Oh, whoa,” he said, his hands coming up to fix her cap as it slid off the back of her head. The hug didn’t last nearly as long as Veronica would have liked it to, because he was suddenly primping her, but she looked up into his face-his beloved face-and the smile on her own wobbled, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. God, she loved him so much; it wasn’t right that she could still feel it so strongly after all the time that had gone by. “Let me fix this for you,” he murmured, his eyes leaving hers to study the bobby pins he was pulling out of her hair. Sticking them quickly in his mouth for safekeeping, he steadied the cap and then replaced the bobby pins so they held it securely. His eyes crinkled into another, softer grin and he said, “If that whole odd-job thing doesn’t work out for me, maybe I could be a hairdresser.”
Veronica giggled, caught unawares by the joke, and then his thumbs moved down to wipe at her eyes carefully. “You don’t want your make-up to run,” he whispered, dabbing away the moisture that had gathered at the corners of her lashes with delicate movements of his fingers.
“Veronica, turn around, let’s get a picture of you with these handsome fellas who drove all the way from friggin’ Chicago for this shindig!” Audrey called from behind Veronica.
Veronica glanced down, and noticed Lincoln’s pulse thrumming in the hollow of his throat. In that instant, everything stilled for her. She’d made her decision before the question had even been asked. As she turned to face Audrey, Lincoln’s arm clamped around her shoulder, automatically pulling her tight against his body. Michael moved closer to them, but he didn’t put his arm around her. That in and of itself was evidence enough that Lincoln had also come to some sort of decision. The flash from the camera temporarily blinded her and then Lincoln was hugging her again and he whispered in her ear, “I almost didn’t come, you know.”
~*~
August 2001
Veronica sits tensely; he can see the stiffness of her shoulders clearly. “I almost didn’t come, you know,” she says by way of introduction.
“I’m glad you did,” Lincoln says softly. He hasn’t seen her in such a long time, at least not this close up, but looking at her through a glass partition while he wears a bright orange jumpsuit does nothing to change how beautiful he finds her. He knows which law firm she works for-Glazer & Ross-and he’s been by there a few times, standing outside the giant skyscraper, imagining her busily working in its white hallways. Once, on his weekly scouting of the place, he’d seen her come out the front doors, but she was with a man-Sebastian-he later learned, and they had been holding hands and laughing, and he’d stopped going there after that. He hadn’t realized until then that he’d been working up his nerve to go inside to get her back, again.
Because that’s what Lincoln did. He got Veronica back, every time.
“Are you all right?” she asks softly. Her green eyes shine, and he can tell she’s trying to hold back tears. No doubt, she’s imagined him here so many times, but now that it’s actually happening, the reality is just too much to take.
He knows he certainly finds it too much to take. Michael had come to see him the day before, and his little brother hadn’t seemed surprised at all. He’d told Michael he didn’t do it, and anger had sparked inside him when it seemed Michael didn’t believe him. But what pained him the most was Michael’s flinging his my-life-is-better-than-yours speech again, one that Lincoln had heard a few times in recent years. The anger that surged through him and the abrupt desire to tell him that it was his college education and his better life that had landed Lincoln right where he was got choked off by the image of their mother, and the promise Lincoln had made to her to take care of his little brother no matter what.
He knows it isn’t Michael’s fault. He’s here because of himself. He doesn’t understand how it happened exactly, but Veronica’s restrained tears remind him that he’s been on this track for a long time. “I’m fine,” he finally says. It’s not true, but what else can he say? The fact that she even came to see him warms him like nothing else ever could.
“Has Michael come to see you?” she asks. She folds her fingers together on the table top, clenching, he can see, until her knuckles turn white. Then she straightens her fingers out and presses them flat on the wood, only to fold them up again. He watches while she repeats the motions three times in quick succession.
“Yeah,” he snorts, dragging his gaze back to her face. “He came yesterday. Totally supportive, too, you know,” he adds dryly.
“It’s because he doesn’t know,” she says, with an open-ended lilt to her voice.
“At this point what good would it do for him to know?” he asks, knowing exactly what she means, though she has not specified it.
Her sad eyes tell him without words, but she gives him those too. “It’s always better to know the truth, isn’t it?”
~*~
May 1995
In a spur-of-the-moment, craziest-thing-she’d-ever-done, and at Lincoln’s insistence, Veronica found herself loading the stuff she couldn’t live without into the back of Michael’s Honda to drive back to Chicago with them two days after graduation instead of the following week, like she’d planned. She called and cancelled the U-haul, gave Audrey everything of value that she wasn’t taking with her, and climbed into the backseat with her belongings because it would have just been mean to make Michael or Lincoln sit back there, all arms and legs with no room to move. After all, it was a 20-hour drive. (“Seventeen hours-“ Lincoln corrected. “It took us seventeen hours, but we didn’t stop except to piss!”)
The other crazy thing they did: drove straight through, except to pee and eat, and once when Veronica couldn’t stand being in the car any longer, she made him pull over. Having left early Sunday morning, by midnight they were just outside St. Louis, Missouri. And even though Veronica was short, and they had gotten gas right after they ate dinner around 7pm, she couldn’t take it anymore. Linc pulled over after her complaints got louder and she hit his shoulder three times. She climbed out on Linc’s side because Michael had long since fallen to sleep.
Lincoln hooked his hands under her armpits and tugged her to freedom, dragging her over a few garbage bags full of crap she now thought she could live without, especially since she was so cramped in the back seat with all of it. They were on the side of the interstate, but Veronica walked away from him over to the grass just beyond the concrete. “Can you smell it?” she asked.
“Smell what?” Lincoln asked, coming to stand next to her.
“Chicago!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up and spinning around in the darkness.
“Uh-no,” he said seriously. “It’s still almost 400 miles away. I don’t think I’ll be able to smell it for a while.”
“Well, I can smell it. It’s closer than it’s been in a long time.”
“You came home to visit some while you were at Baylor.” It was a statement, not a question.
“How do you know that?” she asked, turning to look at him. She could only see his silhouette, and occasionally the lights of a passing car would highlight his face for a brief moment.
“I heard stuff. There was always someone who told me they’d seen you when you did come home.” His voice was soft, inviting nostalgia.
“Well, I haven’t been home in a year and a half, now. I’m afraid of seeing my dad, I know he’s going to look different,” Veronica replied, her own voice soft with a smidge of fear.
When he moved over to her and put his arm around her, it was the most perfect thing in the world to rest her head on his chest. “It’ll be all right,” he said quietly, tucking her head under his chin.
Veronica placed her palms against his back and rubbed upward slowly over the material of the wifebeater he wore. Her cheek rested against his bare chest, where the fabric dipped over his pectoral muscles. The smell she found comfort in now wasn’t the threat of Chicago several hours down the line, but the musky, manly scent of Lincoln’s skin, as familiar to her as anything in her life could ever be. She breathed deeply, pressing her face more firmly to him.
He still smelled the same, he felt the same, his arms were just what she needed-wanted-couldn’t believe she’d survived for so long without. When his hands mimicked hers, moving up her back in the same way, she reveled in the heat that poured through her. His hands tangled in her hair and he tipped her head back, finding her lips unerringly. The dark had never been a problem for Linc. In fact, some of his best work was done in the shady twilight of Veronica’s innocence. But somehow, every time he touched her, it was like the first time, and that was why it never got old, and she never got over him. It was also why her mouth opened and his tongue probed inside, sliding deliciously over her own. He drew back and whispered, “I’ve been wanting to do this since the minute I saw you.”
His hands traveled stealthily down and curved under her buttocks and before she realized what he was about, her arms and legs were wrapped around him, and his mouth ravaged hers, the kiss far more than a re-acquaintance to their previous life.
How long they stayed like that, kissing in the dark, with only Lincoln’s strength holding them up, Veronica never knew. She could hear their breaths beating against each other as they gasped for air but didn’t let their lips part long enough to get a decent amount. His tongue, always rapacious and dominating, made love to her mouth as thoroughly as she knew his body could, and she arched closer until her breasts flattened against his chest and her hardened nipples found some consolation for their aroused state. She felt him move, but didn’t know where he was going until the car pressed against her back, and his hands gripped her thighs, opening her up to the thrust of his erection as he rocked his hips against hers, causing the shorts they both wore to be a hindrance and very good boundary, because otherwise, she had no doubt they would have fucked right there for the whole world-and possibly a sleepy Michael-to see by the sporadic shadows of headlights.
“Linc,” she breathed when he let her mouth go for a few moments, though he wasn’t idle, his hands were busy shoving her t-shirt and bra out of his way and then his lips drew one of her nipples into the wet heat of his mouth. She clenched her hands on his head tightly, missing his hair briefly, which was enough to bring her to her senses. “Stop, you have to stop…oh, Linc…” she sighed. Moving her hands down, she pushed him back until they covered his chest before she brushed her lips against his. “We can’t do this here…” she whispered.
“I want you,” he panted, and even if somehow she couldn’t feel his excitement in the press of his body to hers, or the thundering beat of his heart under her hand, his words, rough and tortured-sounding reinforced the idea completely.
“I want you, too,” she replied, and his lips plundered hers again before she could gasp out, “but we can’t, not here.”
He muttered something obscene and dropped his head down to her shoulder. She rubbed one hand over his the soft stubble of the hair on his head, and gave him a few moments to collect himself. When his breathing started to calm, she turned her head and pressed her lips to his ear. “I love you, Lincoln Burrows.”
His grip on her thighs tightened painfully, so much so she was sure she would have bruises there in a few hours. “Fuck, Vee,” he breathed, disengaging himself from her slowly, as though it caused him severe discomfort. “I didn’t come down here for this,” he helped her get her feet on the ground. “I swear I didn’t,” he muttered, and as a car passed them again, she saw the hard glint in his eyes.
“I hoped it would be different, myself,” she confessed quietly.
“It’s always better to know the truth, I guess,” he said, pulling away completely.
“And what’s that?” she asked, missing his warmth, and wondering if he was finding inner reserves to keep himself away from her.
“I’ll never get over you. I’ll always want you. I can’t stop loving you.” His hand moved up and cupped her face gently. “I want you back, Vee. I always want you back.”
~*~
August 2001
“I don’t want him to know the truth,” Lincoln says, his voice low. That isn’t exactly the truth itself, anymore. He hadn’t wanted Michael to know where the money came from, not until his brother sat in front of him, believing he’d become a murderer. Lincoln knows he had almost become one, but having Michael believe that was more painful than all the other losses he’d suffered. He’s lost Veronica over and over since he first landed her, but he doesn’t know if he can survive losing Michael.
Veronica wipes at her face with trembling hands. “I take the promise back, Linc.”
“What promise?” he asks, watching her fingers glide over her own cheeks.
“The one where I said I wouldn’t tell Michael about the money. I was young and stupid when I promised that.”
And naked and in my bed, Lincoln thinks darkly, glaring at her. “Vee, you know how crazy it would make Michael if he knew. He can’t know.” She stands up, moving away from the glass and Lincoln puts his hand out, touching the barrier between them. “He shouldn’t know,” he says, but there is no firmness in his voice.
“If you’re convicted of murder, he needs to know the good thing you did for him, Linc.”
As she walks out, Lincoln realizes she never asked him if he did it. She hadn’t wanted a denial or an excuse, like Michael had.
But then again, Veronica wouldn’t give him a chance to lie to her. She’d learned her lesson well years before.
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
“If you tell me you didn’t do it, I’ll believe it.”
“You’ll believe a lie?”
“I’ll believe whatever you want me to believe.”
“That’s the problem. You shouldn’t believe me. Just go.”
“If I leave...Linc...”
“I know. This is it. This is how it should be. Let’s just break up, for the last time, Vee.”
“This will be the last time.”
“I know.”
“You can’t kiss a lie and make it better. Well, maybe you could, but we’d just end up back here again, wouldn’t we?”
~*~
May 1995
Veronica checked the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes, cursing Michael and Lincoln with the same breath that she said a little prayer of “Please let them be okay.”
She had exactly 45 minutes to get back to campus and get in line with her classmates for commencement. She was waiting for the brothers to get to her apartment so that she could take them back to campus with her. What she should have done was given them directions to the University instead of to her apartment so then she wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Of course, her nervousness didn’t stem from the anticipation of receiving her degree in Real Estate Law. Her nervousness came from the idea of seeing Lincoln for the first time in almost three years. Her nervousness had escalated since Michael called her four days before and told her they were coming. The anxiety was about to eat her insides right up and she wished she had never called to invite them in the first place.
It had been a purely selfish thing. Her father, whose health had steadily been declining for several years now, was unable to travel to see her graduate. She had all her friends in Waco, of course, but the idea of not having anyone from Chicago there had bothered her greatly. It wasn’t every day you got your law degree. It wasn’t every day a little girl from up north was in the top 3% of her class at Baylor. It wasn’t every day she had something to celebrate, and if her father couldn’t be there, then the only other people in the world she wanted to share it with were Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows.
“Wait, so how’re they related?” Her roommate Audrey had asked a few days earlier.
“They’re brothers,” Veronica had said.
“But they have different last names. Different daddy’s, huh?”
“Actually, no, just…it’s a long story. Michael has his mother’s maiden name, because their dad took off before he was born.”
“What’s the other one’s name?” Audrey probed.
“Lincoln.”
“Lincoln? As in the-love-of-your-life Lincoln?”
Veronica had looked up from the box of books she was packing. “That’s the one.”
“So your ex and his brother are driving all the way from Chicago to Waco to watch you graduate?” Audrey propped her elbows on her knees and looked fascinated by the event unfolding in her mind’s eye.
Veronica gave her a look that said it’s no big deal and said, “We’ve known each other our whole lives.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever, you’re still in love with him. I’ve known that from the parade of guys who’ve been through here, but none’ve stayed longer than a month or two. He wouldn’t come down here, unless…”
“Aud, you don’t even know him. Michael probably begged him, made him feel guilty, coerced him in some way-Michael is a master manipulator. Anyway, they know my father has been sick and they are my oldest friends. But Lincoln and I are done. We haven’t talked to or seen each other since I left Illinois.”
“All I’m sayin’ is it’s an awful long way to come to watch a girl walk across a stage.”
“They’re my friends. When my dad had a heart attack a few years back, Lincoln drove three hours from Chicago to where I did my undergraduate degree to tell me in person. He didn’t call me; he drove all the way there. That’s just how they are.”
“It wasn’t a 20-hour drive, though, was it?”
As she craned her neck to look out the living room window, Veronica smiled to herself as she remembered her conversation with Audrey, who had already gone up to campus for the graduation ceremony. That conversation hadn’t helped her nervousness at all; if anything it planted a lot of ideas in her mind that she fought fruitlessly against because of the pleasure the thoughts brought her. Audrey was right that no one else that she had dated, in a long line of possible boyfriends, had stayed very long, and it all came down to the fact that thinking about Lincoln brought more smiles than time spent with other guys. She didn’t want it to be like that, but it was. She wanted to see Lincoln and feel nothing. Or at least remember the pain he’d put her through; but that had lessened with time because she loved him. Forgiveness took time, but love always won out. And regardless of what had happened, she had always known Lincoln Burrows loved her, even before he knew it.
Of course, if he and his brother made her late for her own graduation, all she’d be feeling when she saw him was anger.
~*~
“813, 815, here it is, 817!” Michael pointed with the map in his hand. “This is it, Linc. Oh, look, there she is. Oh, shit. She looks mad. How late are we?” he asked anxiously.
Lincoln pulled the car up to the curb and watched as Veronica ran down the stairs, into the parking lot, and then across a patch of grass towards them. Her hair was flying behind her and she had a royal blue graduation gown on. She did look a bit angry, but not nearly as angry as he had seen her on other occasions. This was nothing. He checked his wristwatch. “We’ve got a half hour till it starts.”
Michael jumped out of the car and captured Veronica in his arms as Lincoln slowly climbed from the driver’s seat. “Oh, my gosh, y’all!” she shouted, waving her graduation cap over hers and Michael’s head. “Nothing like making me think you were never gonna get here!”
As Michael hugged her tightly, her eyes found Lincoln’s across the roof of the car. “Y’all?” Lincoln drawled, mocking her.
“You can’t live in Texas for three years and not pick up some of the accent,” she said in return, smiling broadly at him over Michael’s shoulder.
“I’d hug you, but we’re short on time,” Lincoln said, pointing at his watch. “Shouldn’t we just get our cabooses over to the college?”
Michael let Veronica go and reached to push the seat forward so he could climb into the back seat. “You sit in front, Vee,” he said enthusiastically, not waiting for either of them to acknowledge whether they really should hug or not.
Lincoln waited while she decided, and then she shrugged, and slid into the car. He returned to the driver’s seat as she was fastening her seatbelt. “What’s the fastest way to get there?” he asked, moving the stick shift restlessly.
“Turn the car around, go back out to the main road,” Veronica said, grinning at him and then turning to include Michael in the grin. “I’m so glad you guys are here,” she said, emphasizing the northern dialect phrase. Reaching a hand over, Veronica ran her fingers over Lincoln’s scalp. “What happened to your hair?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
Lincoln spun the steering wheel, and kept his eyes on the cars lining the street. He knew it would be like this, to an extent, but he didn’t expect it to be such a punch to the gut. Like no time had passed in anyway, like he hadn’t banged dozens of women in the hope that letting Veronica walk away would, at some point, magically feel right. He didn’t expect her to reach out and touch him instantly, but then he hadn’t thought about his newly shaved head, and the week’s worth of stubble that now lined it. She had never seen him with his hair this short, and he had forgotten about it. “I made a bet with a buddy and shaved it all off a couple years ago. Been wearing it like that ever since.”
The car straightened out and they headed back to the main road, as Veronica had directed. Her fingers skimmed over his head and brushed his ear softly before she said, “It’s different; I’ll have to get used to it.” He could hardly restrain himself from reaching down and squeezing her leg with his hand. If Michael wasn’t in the car, watching every move like the vulture he was, Lincoln didn’t know how much restraint he would have employed over himself. But it was good to have a chaperone, especially one like Michael, whose sole reason for this little adventure was to get them back together. Lincoln knew what was in his brother’s scheming, planning mind, and he was trying to resist it with everything inside him. It was a given he wanted Vee back; he only hoped she had no such desires, because it had always been her strength that kept them apart when they were apart. It was good to have a reminder that just because she looked as good, if not better, to his eyes today than she had the last time he’d seen her, she wasn’t his anymore, and she never would be again.
~*~
Veronica hugged about twenty people in quick succession, all the other graduates in her program that she had been good friends with, spent endless hours studying, interning, and stressing out with. Now that it was really over, she couldn’t even wrap her mind around it. She wasn’t going to start thinking about the bar exam for at least a month, just to give her brain a rest.
When Michael and Lincoln found her in the crowd, they were both grinning happily at her. “Did you hear us cheering?” Lincoln demanded as Michael grabbed her in a big hug.
“Yes,” she said, and she could feel her cheeks flushing again in embarrassment. Only Lincoln could bellow that loudly and when they’d read her name and her degree, she’d heard “Whooooooooooo Vee!” from way in the back, louder than the announcer’s voice on the P.A. system.
Lincoln’s grin somehow got bigger as she blushed and she buried her head in Michael’s shoulder to avoid his gaze. Michael laughed, squeezing her tighter before letting her go. It was only natural that she step into Lincoln’s embrace, after all he was one of her oldest friends, and he and Michael had waited patiently while she hugged everyone else.
Veronica had spent much of her youth attempting to get inside Lincoln Burrows’ arms. Inside his arms was where she had had her first taste of love and sex and true tenderness. Inside his arms was where she fit, even now, even with her graduation cap slipping to one side as his head dipped down and his chin slid into the curve of her shoulder. It was in that moment that she understood inside her arms was where Lincoln Burrows belonged.
“Oh, whoa,” he said, his hands coming up to fix her cap as it slid off the back of her head. The hug didn’t last nearly as long as Veronica would have liked it to, because he was suddenly primping her, but she looked up into his face-his beloved face-and the smile on her own wobbled, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. God, she loved him so much; it wasn’t right that she could still feel it so strongly after all the time that had gone by. “Let me fix this for you,” he murmured, his eyes leaving hers to study the bobby pins he was pulling out of her hair. Sticking them quickly in his mouth for safekeeping, he steadied the cap and then replaced the bobby pins so they held it securely. His eyes crinkled into another, softer grin and he said, “If that whole odd-job thing doesn’t work out for me, maybe I could be a hairdresser.”
Veronica giggled, caught unawares by the joke, and then his thumbs moved down to wipe at her eyes carefully. “You don’t want your make-up to run,” he whispered, dabbing away the moisture that had gathered at the corners of her lashes with delicate movements of his fingers.
“Veronica, turn around, let’s get a picture of you with these handsome fellas who drove all the way from friggin’ Chicago for this shindig!” Audrey called from behind Veronica.
Veronica glanced down, and noticed Lincoln’s pulse thrumming in the hollow of his throat. In that instant, everything stilled for her. She’d made her decision before the question had even been asked. As she turned to face Audrey, Lincoln’s arm clamped around her shoulder, automatically pulling her tight against his body. Michael moved closer to them, but he didn’t put his arm around her. That in and of itself was evidence enough that Lincoln had also come to some sort of decision. The flash from the camera temporarily blinded her and then Lincoln was hugging her again and he whispered in her ear, “I almost didn’t come, you know.”
~*~
August 2001
Veronica sits tensely; he can see the stiffness of her shoulders clearly. “I almost didn’t come, you know,” she says by way of introduction.
“I’m glad you did,” Lincoln says softly. He hasn’t seen her in such a long time, at least not this close up, but looking at her through a glass partition while he wears a bright orange jumpsuit does nothing to change how beautiful he finds her. He knows which law firm she works for-Glazer & Ross-and he’s been by there a few times, standing outside the giant skyscraper, imagining her busily working in its white hallways. Once, on his weekly scouting of the place, he’d seen her come out the front doors, but she was with a man-Sebastian-he later learned, and they had been holding hands and laughing, and he’d stopped going there after that. He hadn’t realized until then that he’d been working up his nerve to go inside to get her back, again.
Because that’s what Lincoln did. He got Veronica back, every time.
“Are you all right?” she asks softly. Her green eyes shine, and he can tell she’s trying to hold back tears. No doubt, she’s imagined him here so many times, but now that it’s actually happening, the reality is just too much to take.
He knows he certainly finds it too much to take. Michael had come to see him the day before, and his little brother hadn’t seemed surprised at all. He’d told Michael he didn’t do it, and anger had sparked inside him when it seemed Michael didn’t believe him. But what pained him the most was Michael’s flinging his my-life-is-better-than-yours speech again, one that Lincoln had heard a few times in recent years. The anger that surged through him and the abrupt desire to tell him that it was his college education and his better life that had landed Lincoln right where he was got choked off by the image of their mother, and the promise Lincoln had made to her to take care of his little brother no matter what.
He knows it isn’t Michael’s fault. He’s here because of himself. He doesn’t understand how it happened exactly, but Veronica’s restrained tears remind him that he’s been on this track for a long time. “I’m fine,” he finally says. It’s not true, but what else can he say? The fact that she even came to see him warms him like nothing else ever could.
“Has Michael come to see you?” she asks. She folds her fingers together on the table top, clenching, he can see, until her knuckles turn white. Then she straightens her fingers out and presses them flat on the wood, only to fold them up again. He watches while she repeats the motions three times in quick succession.
“Yeah,” he snorts, dragging his gaze back to her face. “He came yesterday. Totally supportive, too, you know,” he adds dryly.
“It’s because he doesn’t know,” she says, with an open-ended lilt to her voice.
“At this point what good would it do for him to know?” he asks, knowing exactly what she means, though she has not specified it.
Her sad eyes tell him without words, but she gives him those too. “It’s always better to know the truth, isn’t it?”
~*~
May 1995
In a spur-of-the-moment, craziest-thing-she’d-ever-done, and at Lincoln’s insistence, Veronica found herself loading the stuff she couldn’t live without into the back of Michael’s Honda to drive back to Chicago with them two days after graduation instead of the following week, like she’d planned. She called and cancelled the U-haul, gave Audrey everything of value that she wasn’t taking with her, and climbed into the backseat with her belongings because it would have just been mean to make Michael or Lincoln sit back there, all arms and legs with no room to move. After all, it was a 20-hour drive. (“Seventeen hours-“ Lincoln corrected. “It took us seventeen hours, but we didn’t stop except to piss!”)
The other crazy thing they did: drove straight through, except to pee and eat, and once when Veronica couldn’t stand being in the car any longer, she made him pull over. Having left early Sunday morning, by midnight they were just outside St. Louis, Missouri. And even though Veronica was short, and they had gotten gas right after they ate dinner around 7pm, she couldn’t take it anymore. Linc pulled over after her complaints got louder and she hit his shoulder three times. She climbed out on Linc’s side because Michael had long since fallen to sleep.
Lincoln hooked his hands under her armpits and tugged her to freedom, dragging her over a few garbage bags full of crap she now thought she could live without, especially since she was so cramped in the back seat with all of it. They were on the side of the interstate, but Veronica walked away from him over to the grass just beyond the concrete. “Can you smell it?” she asked.
“Smell what?” Lincoln asked, coming to stand next to her.
“Chicago!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up and spinning around in the darkness.
“Uh-no,” he said seriously. “It’s still almost 400 miles away. I don’t think I’ll be able to smell it for a while.”
“Well, I can smell it. It’s closer than it’s been in a long time.”
“You came home to visit some while you were at Baylor.” It was a statement, not a question.
“How do you know that?” she asked, turning to look at him. She could only see his silhouette, and occasionally the lights of a passing car would highlight his face for a brief moment.
“I heard stuff. There was always someone who told me they’d seen you when you did come home.” His voice was soft, inviting nostalgia.
“Well, I haven’t been home in a year and a half, now. I’m afraid of seeing my dad, I know he’s going to look different,” Veronica replied, her own voice soft with a smidge of fear.
When he moved over to her and put his arm around her, it was the most perfect thing in the world to rest her head on his chest. “It’ll be all right,” he said quietly, tucking her head under his chin.
Veronica placed her palms against his back and rubbed upward slowly over the material of the wifebeater he wore. Her cheek rested against his bare chest, where the fabric dipped over his pectoral muscles. The smell she found comfort in now wasn’t the threat of Chicago several hours down the line, but the musky, manly scent of Lincoln’s skin, as familiar to her as anything in her life could ever be. She breathed deeply, pressing her face more firmly to him.
He still smelled the same, he felt the same, his arms were just what she needed-wanted-couldn’t believe she’d survived for so long without. When his hands mimicked hers, moving up her back in the same way, she reveled in the heat that poured through her. His hands tangled in her hair and he tipped her head back, finding her lips unerringly. The dark had never been a problem for Linc. In fact, some of his best work was done in the shady twilight of Veronica’s innocence. But somehow, every time he touched her, it was like the first time, and that was why it never got old, and she never got over him. It was also why her mouth opened and his tongue probed inside, sliding deliciously over her own. He drew back and whispered, “I’ve been wanting to do this since the minute I saw you.”
His hands traveled stealthily down and curved under her buttocks and before she realized what he was about, her arms and legs were wrapped around him, and his mouth ravaged hers, the kiss far more than a re-acquaintance to their previous life.
How long they stayed like that, kissing in the dark, with only Lincoln’s strength holding them up, Veronica never knew. She could hear their breaths beating against each other as they gasped for air but didn’t let their lips part long enough to get a decent amount. His tongue, always rapacious and dominating, made love to her mouth as thoroughly as she knew his body could, and she arched closer until her breasts flattened against his chest and her hardened nipples found some consolation for their aroused state. She felt him move, but didn’t know where he was going until the car pressed against her back, and his hands gripped her thighs, opening her up to the thrust of his erection as he rocked his hips against hers, causing the shorts they both wore to be a hindrance and very good boundary, because otherwise, she had no doubt they would have fucked right there for the whole world-and possibly a sleepy Michael-to see by the sporadic shadows of headlights.
“Linc,” she breathed when he let her mouth go for a few moments, though he wasn’t idle, his hands were busy shoving her t-shirt and bra out of his way and then his lips drew one of her nipples into the wet heat of his mouth. She clenched her hands on his head tightly, missing his hair briefly, which was enough to bring her to her senses. “Stop, you have to stop…oh, Linc…” she sighed. Moving her hands down, she pushed him back until they covered his chest before she brushed her lips against his. “We can’t do this here…” she whispered.
“I want you,” he panted, and even if somehow she couldn’t feel his excitement in the press of his body to hers, or the thundering beat of his heart under her hand, his words, rough and tortured-sounding reinforced the idea completely.
“I want you, too,” she replied, and his lips plundered hers again before she could gasp out, “but we can’t, not here.”
He muttered something obscene and dropped his head down to her shoulder. She rubbed one hand over his the soft stubble of the hair on his head, and gave him a few moments to collect himself. When his breathing started to calm, she turned her head and pressed her lips to his ear. “I love you, Lincoln Burrows.”
His grip on her thighs tightened painfully, so much so she was sure she would have bruises there in a few hours. “Fuck, Vee,” he breathed, disengaging himself from her slowly, as though it caused him severe discomfort. “I didn’t come down here for this,” he helped her get her feet on the ground. “I swear I didn’t,” he muttered, and as a car passed them again, she saw the hard glint in his eyes.
“I hoped it would be different, myself,” she confessed quietly.
“It’s always better to know the truth, I guess,” he said, pulling away completely.
“And what’s that?” she asked, missing his warmth, and wondering if he was finding inner reserves to keep himself away from her.
“I’ll never get over you. I’ll always want you. I can’t stop loving you.” His hand moved up and cupped her face gently. “I want you back, Vee. I always want you back.”
~*~
August 2001
“I don’t want him to know the truth,” Lincoln says, his voice low. That isn’t exactly the truth itself, anymore. He hadn’t wanted Michael to know where the money came from, not until his brother sat in front of him, believing he’d become a murderer. Lincoln knows he had almost become one, but having Michael believe that was more painful than all the other losses he’d suffered. He’s lost Veronica over and over since he first landed her, but he doesn’t know if he can survive losing Michael.
Veronica wipes at her face with trembling hands. “I take the promise back, Linc.”
“What promise?” he asks, watching her fingers glide over her own cheeks.
“The one where I said I wouldn’t tell Michael about the money. I was young and stupid when I promised that.”
And naked and in my bed, Lincoln thinks darkly, glaring at her. “Vee, you know how crazy it would make Michael if he knew. He can’t know.” She stands up, moving away from the glass and Lincoln puts his hand out, touching the barrier between them. “He shouldn’t know,” he says, but there is no firmness in his voice.
“If you’re convicted of murder, he needs to know the good thing you did for him, Linc.”
As she walks out, Lincoln realizes she never asked him if he did it. She hadn’t wanted a denial or an excuse, like Michael had.
But then again, Veronica wouldn’t give him a chance to lie to her. She’d learned her lesson well years before.