(no subject)
Title: Better Than Nothing (1/1)
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Michael Scofield/Dr Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows
Length: 4,807 words
Rating: PG-15 (a few bad words and a hint of Sexual Situation)
Summary: Something is always better than nothing.Spoilers for Season One and Season Two. SPOILERS for "First Down".
Author's Note: This is a companion piece to Unexpected that I started writing a few days ago. However, once "First Down" aired, I did a spot of reworking and - well - this is the result, which I guess is a weird blend of canon and AU and wild speculation. It contains dialogue from "First Down" that does not belong to me. Many thanks to sk56 for the nitpicking. Any mistakes that remain are all mine. All concrit is, as always, warmly welcome. *g*
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”
~ T.S. Elliot
His fault. All of it, all of them. Linc. Veronica. Lisa. L.J. Charles.
Sara.
Cradling the cell phone in his hands, he sucks in a deep breath, then another, trying to fend off the growing feeling of cold, blind panic. Slumped against a dirty wall in a dusty shack with his plans falling down around his ears, he stares at the phone in his hand until the LCD screen blurs hotly in front of his eyes. He stares at the phone and Bellick’s words seep like poison into his head and his heart and he wants to go back and ram his fist into that fat, sneering face again and again and he’s not sure he’d be able to stop.
After a long time, he wipes his hand across his wet face - he doesn’t remember crying - then closes his eyes and thinks of every single fact and figure he’s ever memorised about her, from her home address to the type of car she drove, to the cell phone number she’d put on his patient file as an emergency contact. He hadn’t needed to write any of it down, hadn’t needed any reminders when it came to her.
He shouldn’t call her. He knows that. He can think of a dozen different reasons why calling her would be the worst idea he’s ever had. He looks at the phone in his hand, then thinks of the random series of numbers that could be translated into a lifeline between them in a matter of seconds. He flips open the phone and dials her number before he can change his mind, his pulse accelerating with every button he presses.
She answers on the fourth ring, and the cheery note in her voice takes him by surprise. “Hello?”
His mouth dries, the phone suddenly slippery in his grip; he didn't know that the sound of someone’s voice could make him feel so off-balance. He puts one hand against the wall, his forehead pressed hard against the rough wood. The smell of dirt is thick in his nose. “Sara, it’s me.”
There’s a long pause, then her breathing subtly changes, becoming faintly unsteady. “What do you want?”
He hardly knows what he’s saying, can hardly get the words out. “I don’t have time to talk, and there’s every chance they’re listening to this call right now. But there’s a lot I want to say.” His eyes are stinging, the back of his throat burning. “Please don’t hang up on me.”
“I don’t-” she breaks off, then begins again, her voice hardening. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I heard about-” The memory of Bellick’s taunting words press down on him, closing his throat until he can hardly speak. “I heard about what happened.” He shuts his eyes, picturing her face as easily as breathing. His fingers dig into the rotting wood of the wall; he can feel his hand shaking. “I want you to know - I want you to know how sorry I am. For everything.”
“Sorry’s not going to do me a lot of good with what I’m up against right now.” Her words are cold and clipped, so different from what he remembers, and he wonders how she can sound so strong when he feels as though he’s breaking.
“Listen,” he says shakily, pulling together the scattered threads of his thoughts. He knows that he probably has less than a minute and what he’s saying is all wrong and that this was a mistake. But he doesn’t hang up. He can’t, not yet. “Anyone with any ties to me and my brother is in danger now.”
“I’ve no ties to you and your brother anymore.”
She sounds so sure of what she’s saying; he can feel the sting in every word. “There’s a way I can protect you.” Please understand what I’m saying, he thinks desperately. Please be the amazing person I know you are and see the bigger picture. “It’s already in your possession.”
“What are you talking about?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he has to get off this line, but that’s okay because there’s only one more thing he wants to say. “It was real, Sara. You and me.” His eyes blur hotly, knowing that it’s hopeless but he almost doesn’t care because he’s finally telling her. “It’s real.”
His pulse pounding in his ears, he listens to the sound of her breathing, the silence between them stretching out until he can no longer bear to hear everything she’s not saying. He flips the phone shut, disconnecting the call, wishing they’d had more time, knowing that this is not the end for them.
~*~
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“No.”
“It’s a very bad idea.”
“About as bad as trying to grab L.J. from the courthouse?” Michael shoots back, gripping the safety handle above his head tighter as Lincoln takes a corner a little too sharply.
“You telling me this is the same as trying to rescue my son?” His brother throws him a quick glance. “Because if you are, you’d better start filling in some blanks for me.”
Michael opens his mouth to reply, then realises that anything he says will no doubt be used against him for many weeks to come. “I owe it to her.”
“You’ll have to give me more than that.”
“How about we owe it to her?” he snaps, his already stretched temper fraying, then immediately regrets it. “I’m sorry," he mutters, running his hand over his head, wishing he could dig his thumbs into every pressure point until the tension in his neck eases. "I promise that I’ll tell you the whole story when I can, but right now we just have to make sure that she’s safe.”
“You think they’ll go after her?”
He’d like to blame the bad suspension of the van for the queasiness in the pit of his stomach, but he knows that would be a lie. He’s felt like throwing up ever since Bellick had taken such great delight in telling him the price Sara had paid for helping him. Sucking in a deep breath, he leans forward in his seat, as though that might make the van go faster, and silently prays that he’s not too late to make things right. “Yes.”
~*~
Sara’s street is tree-lined and quiet, and he very much wishes he was seeing it under different circumstances. Lincoln’s right - they should be anywhere but here, but here is where he needs to be. Bellick’s vicious words are on a loop in his head, digging themselves beneath his skin, insidiously snaking into his thoughts until he can think of nothing else. Until he sees for himself that she’s all right, he can’t move onto the next part of the plan. For Lincoln’s sake, if nothing else, he needs to do this.
He feels a small thrill of victory when he sees her car parked outside her home, a thrill that is soon replaced by restlessness. Pulling into an empty space a few doors down, they wait for two hours, two endless hours during which Lincoln reads the paper twice and makes low-voiced comments about being bored shitless and suggests more than once that maybe they should just go and throw stones at her bedroom window.
Michael ignores him.
Two hours and five minutes after they first parked, the front door opens and she’s finally there, dressed in a green sweater and dark trousers, walking to her car with her keys dangling from her hand.
Michael stares at her. He’d expected to feel something when he first saw her again, but he never expected to feel as though someone is standing on his chest, pressing down so hard that he can hardly breathe. He watches her as she unlocks the car door and slides behind the wheel, all long graceful limbs, and he feels his mouth go dry.
“Now what?” His brother looks at him as Sara’s car pulls out of its parking space, then answers his own question before Michael even has a chance to open his mouth. “Christ, you want me to follow her, don’t you?”
“I need to make sure she’s okay.”
Lincoln frowns, but he’s already starting the car and checking for traffic. “You called her cell phone, Michael,” he says flatly as he executes a swift u-turn. “How do we know that she hasn’t already spilled her guts to the Feds?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Is now a good time to remind you the last woman you trusted turned out to be a freaking head case?”
He shakes his head. “You know Sara. She isn’t Nika.” He presses his lips into a tight line after he says the name. He doesn’t want to think about Nika.
Lincoln mutters something under his breath that sounds very much like thank Christ for that, then they fall silent, watching Sara’s car ahead, scanning the traffic beside and behind them.
Ten minutes later, they watch from around the corner as she finds a parking spot in front of a community centre. “What’s this place?”
“Group,” is his brother’s succinct reply.
Michael frowns. “What?”
“A.A., N.A., whatever. Might be a condition of her bail.” Lincoln gives him a curious look. “You didn’t know she’d had a drug problem?”
If Michael had thought hearing the words out loud might make them more real, he was mistaken. This can’t be real and they can’t be having this conversation. “No.”
“Would you have still asked her to help?”
Michael looks at his brother for a moment, then lets out a long shaky breath. “I don’t know.”
~*~
“Tell me again why we’re sitting here?”
“Because anyone who has a connection to us isn’t safe.” Given that he’s been replaying their phone conversation over and over in his head for the last two days, he’s not surprised he gives his brother the same explanation he gave Sara. “I left her a way of contacting me, but I’m pretty sure she’s not going to use it.”
His brother snorts. “Women.” He raises his eyebrows in a decided mocking expression. “Anyone would think she’d figured out you weren’t to be trusted.”
Michael ignores him, holding his breath once more as people begin to emerge from the front door of the building. Sara is the fourth person to push open the double glass doors, her hair gleaming as she moves into the sunlight. Beside him, his brother makes a sharp noise of disbelief.
“What?”
“That guy.”
Michael stares at the brown-haired man walking beside Sara. Dressed in jeans and a button-down blue shirt, he looks completely innocuous and totally unfamiliar. “What about him?”
“He’s part of the Company.”
His blood ices over. “What?”
“That’s what Dad called it,” his brother insists. “That guy with the Doc? He’s the one who tried to take me out with the accident to the prison van.”
Michael stares at the couple who are now having what looks like a cheery discussion while standing next to Sara’s car, then looks at Lincoln with a calm he’s far from feeling. “We have to do something.”
His brother nods in grim agreement. “I know.”
As they watch, the man points toward another car - his car, obviously - but Sara smiles and shakes her head. After a few more minutes, they begin to walk towards in the general direction of the stores and cafés on the next block, and Michael feels his jaw clench.
“At least they’re on foot,” he mutters, almost to himself, glaring at the couple who are now strolling along the pavement with no particular urgency. At least they’re not holding hands, he adds darkly, disturbed by the jealousy that twists through him at the thought.
“What the hell is she doing with him anyway?”
The same question has been burning a hole in the pit of Michael’s stomach for the last five minutes, but he merely offers his brother a bland, “She makes friends easily.”
“Not a very good judge of character, is she?” Lincoln asks dryly, then clears his throat in the face of Michael’s pointed stare. “What did she say to you when you called her?”
Michael shifts in his seat. It’s not a conversation he wants to relive any time soon, and it’s certainly not something he wants to share with anyone, even his brother. “Not much.”
“You realise now that her cell phone was probably tapped, don’t you?”
“I know.” They exchange a glance, and Michael sees his own realisation dawning in his brother’s eyes. “And probably by the same person who’s with her right now.”
Lincoln looks back to the road and brakes suddenly, making the van jerk. “Shit.”
“What?”
“They’re gone.”
Michael sits up straighter, his eyes straining as he stares through the window at the pedestrian traffic. “How could they be gone?” He’d only taken his eyes off them for a few seconds, but it was obviously long enough.
“Fucked if I know,” Lincoln mutters in obvious frustration. “They were there, and now they’ve gone.”
He slowly pulls over to the kerb and slows the van, and Michael rolls down the window to peer into every doorway, his gaze sweeping every alleyway. He finally catches sight of Sara’s hair, tumbling brightly down the back of her green sweater. She and her ‘friend’ are walking down a relatively quiet side street, and Michael wants to reach out and shake her. Damn it, Sara. Why the hell are you trusting him?
He barely has time to ignore the irony of that particular thought before he lets himself blink and they’ve vanished from his sight. His gut clenches like a fist as he gestures towards the next street on the right. “Turn here, drive around the block and come back this way.”
Lincoln’s voice cuts through the increasingly tense silence. “This is still a very bad idea.”
“I know, we shouldn’t be anywhere near here.” He looks at his brother. “But you know what these people are capable of.”
Lincoln’s face tightens, his voice dark with bitterness, and the unspoken mention of Veronica settles over them both like a shroud. “Better than anyone.”
“And you’re sure this is the same guy Dad pulled off you after the crash?”
“Positive.”
Michael swears under his breath, then puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Drive faster.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He knows what Lincoln is asking, but he can’t bring himself to give him the answer. “Drive faster.”
“Come on, Michael. Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it.”
“Take him out,” he hears himself say. “But try not to kill him,” he adds, with a reluctance that should worry him, but doesn’t.
Lincoln pulls the wheel hard to the right, and Michael swears he sees a smile tug at his mouth. “I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises.”
~*~
It takes two minutes to locate them, but it seems that two minutes is more than enough for everything to go to hell. The sunlight is glinting off a gun that’s being pointed at the middle of Sara’s chest and even at this distance Michael can see the fear in her face.
“Faster.” He barks the word at Lincoln, his own fear overwhelming any need for politeness. His brother complies without protest, accelerating until the van is rattling around them. One day, Michael thinks in a vain attempt to distract himself from what they’re about to do, he will research the long-term effects of adrenalin on the human body. In the meantime, though, he’ll ignore the pounding of his heart and the rush of his pulse and pray that Linc is having a good driving day.
“The three of us jammed up front will be too conspicuous,” Lincoln tells him, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. “Get in the back, get her in through the rear door.”
Michael undoes his seatbelt and slides between the two front seats into the back of the nondescript vehicle they’d bought two days earlier - it seemed a good idea to ditch Bellick's car as soon as possible - trying not to bump his brother’s shoulder with his foot. “If she’ll come,” he mutters under his breath as he crouches behind the driver’s seat.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Lincoln says grimly. “Hang on!”
Michael drops down onto one of the long bench seats that line either side of the van’s storage area, bracing his back against the side wall, one hand tightly gripping the back of Lincoln’s seat. There are no windows in the back of the van; from his position he only has time to catch a lightning-quick glimpse of the two people locked in their private stand-off, then the van lurches and shudders, the sickening thud of flesh hitting metal mingling with the screeching of tyres.
“He’s down.” There’s more than a hint of satisfaction in Lincoln’s voice. “Go!”
Michael grabs the handle of the rear door, flinging it open and looking right into Sara Tancredi’s startled face. Obeying an instinct he doesn’t bother to question, he grips the safety handle above the open door and half-swings out of the van, holding out his other hand to her.
“Come on!”
She stares at him, her face white with shock, and he wonders if this is how people look when they think they’ve seen a ghost. Without saying a word, she turns and stares at the man on the ground. Michael’s gaze follows hers, and he’s unable to suppress a surge of satisfaction as her erstwhile assailant writhes on the ground, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle, his gun at least ten feet out of his reach. He looks utterly defeated and totally defenceless and Michael doesn’t buy it for one second.
“Sara, take my hand!”
She’s still staring at him as if she’s frozen on the spot, and he knows then that if he has to beg her, he will. “Take my hand,” he says softly, the words feeling raw in his throat. Please, he tells her silently, his eyes desperately searching her face, her eyes, trying to see behind the shock and the fear to the woman he knows.
Her face changes, her eyes softening, and then she takes his hand.
She takes his hand, her fingers wrapping around his wrist, and she lets him haul her into the van. He slams the door shut behind her just as Lincoln puts his foot on the accelerator. The van jerks forward and Michael braces himself, feet planted wide, as Sara stumbles against him, her hands clutching at his shoulders. She’s trembling, her breathing fast and shallow. He can feel the warmth of her seeping through his clothes, the soft curve of her breasts pressed against his chest, and he feels a rush of exhilaration that has nothing to do with a successful snatch and grab.
The scent of her skin - she’s wearing the same perfume she wore every day at Fox River - fills his senses, and he pulls her down onto the long seat before he can do anything foolish like kissing her until she can’t breathe. Her eyes widen as she looks around the van, her mouth gaping slightly as she spots Lincoln in the driver’s seat.
He hadn’t meant to touch her again but it’s hopeless - he’s hopeless - because he can’t be this close to her and not touch her. She doesn’t protest as he cups her face in his hands, gently tilting back her head so that he can see her eyes. Her skin is silken and hot against his palms, every ragged breath tickling the skin of his bare wrists. “Are you hurt?”
She blinks, her lips quivering as though she’s fighting the urge to smile and cry at the same time. “I’m fine.”
There’s another side-effect to adrenalin, Michael thinks, as his pulse begins to pound, his body tightening in response to the smell of her, the feel of her skin. His blood is humming with her closeness, and the urge to slide his hands through her hair and lift her mouth to his burns like a fire in his belly. He’s felt this way before, felt it with her, the day he’d pulled her from her office and dragged her through the ceiling of Fox River to safety.
Almost as though she hears his thoughts - or perhaps they’re tattooed onto his forehead - she wraps her hands around his wrists, holding his hands against her face, the trembling of her fingertips finding an echo in his fluttering pulse. “I’m fine,” she says again, her voice stronger this time.
“Good.”
She looks at him, obviously waiting for him to say more than just that one word, her gaze dropping from his eyes to his mouth. Heat instantly skims along his veins, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from pulling her into his arms. Instead he gently disentangles his hands from hers, then wonders if he imagines the flicker of disappointment that crosses her face.
She shifts on the seat until her back is against the wall, not looking at him as she asks, “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe. For now, at least,” he adds softly, unable to look away from the delicate curve of her jaw, the well-shaped arch of her eyebrow.
She glances at him quickly, then looks down at her hands, linked loosely in her lap. “That’s reassuring,” she finally replies, her tone studiedly casual. “How did you find me?”
No more lies, he thinks. “We followed you from your meeting.”
Her eyes glitter with what he suspects is anger, but she merely says, “Do you know who he is?”
It’s Lincoln who answers her, as if he’s decided to remind them both of his presence. “He’s one of the bad guys.” He shoots Sara a quick look over his shoulder. “He tried to kill me once, too.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t take it personally?” There’s a hint of hysterical laughter in her voice that has Michael wanting to reach for her hand. She turns and looks at him steadily, and again he feels as though the air is being squeezed from his lungs. “Of course, some people might say that you’re the bad guys.”
“Those people would be wrong,” he says softly.
“I’m beginning to see that for myself.” They look at each other for a long moment, then she turns away, carefully getting to her feet and making her way to the other side of the van where she sits, one leg tucked under her, her arms wrapped around herself. Leaning her head against the wall of the van, she closes her eyes, and Michael knows the conversation - for now - is over.
It takes thirty minutes to reach their destination, and he spends every second of that time watching her. He’s been picturing her face in his mind for so many weeks, but having her here now, so close he could reach out and touch her, is something entirely different. She looks tired and far too pale, yet there’s an edge of steel beneath the familiar fragility that twists his heart.
When they pull into the long driveway that leads to the safe house they’ll be using for another twelve hours, he’s both relieved and disappointed. She can’t stay here - it’s not safe - but there’s every chance that once she leaves, he’ll never see her again.
Lincoln turns around in the front seat. “End of the line, kids,” he drawls.
Sara looks up at him, her face unreadable. “I guess I should thank you for saving my life.”
“Just returning the favour.” Lincoln glances at Michael, then at Sara, then clears his throat loudly. “I’ll check the house. Wait here.”
Sara says nothing until he slides from the driver’s seat and slams the door shut, then she looks down at her feet. “That was subtle.”
Heat scratches at the back of Michael’s neck. “That’s Lincoln.” He watches her for another moment, his throat feeling thick and raw with everything he wants to say to her. “Sara-”
“Just tell me one thing.” Her eyes are glittering, but not with tears. “What you said on the phone. Did you mean it?”
He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t honest with you about a lot of things.” This isn’t the time or the place that he wanted to be having this conversation, but his plans have never run smoothly when it comes to Sara Tancredi. “There were a lot of things I couldn’t tell you, but how I feel about you?” Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t look away, and he feels his pulse begin to race. “That’s real. All of it.”
She nods, a faint frown creasing her forehead, but she doesn’t speak. Michael bites back a sigh of frustration. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but something, anything - anger, harsh words - would be better than the emptiness in her eyes.
“You hurt me very much,” she says suddenly, giving him a distinctly challenging stare. “You saved my life today - again - but you and I, we can’t-” She looks at him unhappily. “I can’t do this, Michael.”
He swallows hard. “We should go inside,” he says heavily, knowing at last that she’s right, that this isn’t going to work, not matter how much he might want things to be different. “And then we need to figure out the best way to get you to your father.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be safe there. You can’t go home, not now that they’ve decided to drag you into this, and you can’t leave the country, not without violating the conditions of your bail.”
She stares at him, a dozen different emotions flickering across her face. “You took a big risk, doing what you just did.”
He shrugs. “You needed help.”
“And you came to find me,” she whispers, her eyes never leaving his.
“Yes,” he replies more abruptly than he intended, his control stretched to breaking point. He needs to get her out of this van and out of his life before he does something they’ll both regret.
She doesn’t move out of the way as he tries to open the door, forcing him to reach around her. His arm brushes against the curve of her breast, and the audible hitch in her breath makes his body tighten, sending the blood rushing to both his head and his groin. She lifts her chin, her gaze locking with his, a very different kind of challenge suddenly in her eyes, and his control dissolves into a liquid rush of desire.
He shouldn’t - they shouldn’t - but they’ve been dancing around this since the very first day and he needs her and God he wants to believe that she needs him, too. One hand braced on the still closed door, he bows his head and kisses her, yielding to both temptation and the inevitable.
She doesn’t fall into his arms, but she doesn’t push him away. She lets him kiss her for a few seconds - he can feel the tension in her, the hesitation - then her lips part softly beneath his, making him shudder.
It’s a gentle, almost chaste kiss that makes him feel anything but chaste. It makes him want to pull her hard against him and devour her mouth, to push her back against the wall of the van and kiss her the way he’s dreamed of kissing her for months and weeks and days.
He doesn’t, of course, and she’s the first one to pull away, just as she was that morning in the infirmary. This time, though, she doesn’t say a word, doesn’t ask him any questions he can’t answer. She simply looks at him, waiting, her expression indecipherable.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers unsteadily, his fingers flexing on the wall of the van in an effort to stop himself from reaching for her. He wants to tell her that he’s not sorry for kissing her, but that’s such a cliché and he’s quite sure she’s already worked that out for herself. “For everything.”
He holds his breath, waiting for her to tell him again that sorry isn’t good enough, but she doesn’t. “I know,” she murmurs, her gaze skittering away from his. Taking a step back from him, she reaches for the door handle and wrenches open the sliding door. “I know,” she says again, then gives him a fleeting, tremulous smile that almost reaches her eyes.
He watches her as she climbs out of the van - he knows better than to try to help her - and somewhere deep inside him he feels a tiny flicker of hope. Her smile may have been merely a shadow of the one he remembers, but it was something. And something, he tells himself, is always better than nothing.
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Michael Scofield/Dr Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows
Length: 4,807 words
Rating: PG-15 (a few bad words and a hint of Sexual Situation)
Summary: Something is always better than nothing.Spoilers for Season One and Season Two. SPOILERS for "First Down".
Author's Note: This is a companion piece to Unexpected that I started writing a few days ago. However, once "First Down" aired, I did a spot of reworking and - well - this is the result, which I guess is a weird blend of canon and AU and wild speculation. It contains dialogue from "First Down" that does not belong to me. Many thanks to sk56 for the nitpicking. Any mistakes that remain are all mine. All concrit is, as always, warmly welcome. *g*
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”
~ T.S. Elliot
His fault. All of it, all of them. Linc. Veronica. Lisa. L.J. Charles.
Sara.
Cradling the cell phone in his hands, he sucks in a deep breath, then another, trying to fend off the growing feeling of cold, blind panic. Slumped against a dirty wall in a dusty shack with his plans falling down around his ears, he stares at the phone in his hand until the LCD screen blurs hotly in front of his eyes. He stares at the phone and Bellick’s words seep like poison into his head and his heart and he wants to go back and ram his fist into that fat, sneering face again and again and he’s not sure he’d be able to stop.
After a long time, he wipes his hand across his wet face - he doesn’t remember crying - then closes his eyes and thinks of every single fact and figure he’s ever memorised about her, from her home address to the type of car she drove, to the cell phone number she’d put on his patient file as an emergency contact. He hadn’t needed to write any of it down, hadn’t needed any reminders when it came to her.
He shouldn’t call her. He knows that. He can think of a dozen different reasons why calling her would be the worst idea he’s ever had. He looks at the phone in his hand, then thinks of the random series of numbers that could be translated into a lifeline between them in a matter of seconds. He flips open the phone and dials her number before he can change his mind, his pulse accelerating with every button he presses.
She answers on the fourth ring, and the cheery note in her voice takes him by surprise. “Hello?”
His mouth dries, the phone suddenly slippery in his grip; he didn't know that the sound of someone’s voice could make him feel so off-balance. He puts one hand against the wall, his forehead pressed hard against the rough wood. The smell of dirt is thick in his nose. “Sara, it’s me.”
There’s a long pause, then her breathing subtly changes, becoming faintly unsteady. “What do you want?”
He hardly knows what he’s saying, can hardly get the words out. “I don’t have time to talk, and there’s every chance they’re listening to this call right now. But there’s a lot I want to say.” His eyes are stinging, the back of his throat burning. “Please don’t hang up on me.”
“I don’t-” she breaks off, then begins again, her voice hardening. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I heard about-” The memory of Bellick’s taunting words press down on him, closing his throat until he can hardly speak. “I heard about what happened.” He shuts his eyes, picturing her face as easily as breathing. His fingers dig into the rotting wood of the wall; he can feel his hand shaking. “I want you to know - I want you to know how sorry I am. For everything.”
“Sorry’s not going to do me a lot of good with what I’m up against right now.” Her words are cold and clipped, so different from what he remembers, and he wonders how she can sound so strong when he feels as though he’s breaking.
“Listen,” he says shakily, pulling together the scattered threads of his thoughts. He knows that he probably has less than a minute and what he’s saying is all wrong and that this was a mistake. But he doesn’t hang up. He can’t, not yet. “Anyone with any ties to me and my brother is in danger now.”
“I’ve no ties to you and your brother anymore.”
She sounds so sure of what she’s saying; he can feel the sting in every word. “There’s a way I can protect you.” Please understand what I’m saying, he thinks desperately. Please be the amazing person I know you are and see the bigger picture. “It’s already in your possession.”
“What are you talking about?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he has to get off this line, but that’s okay because there’s only one more thing he wants to say. “It was real, Sara. You and me.” His eyes blur hotly, knowing that it’s hopeless but he almost doesn’t care because he’s finally telling her. “It’s real.”
His pulse pounding in his ears, he listens to the sound of her breathing, the silence between them stretching out until he can no longer bear to hear everything she’s not saying. He flips the phone shut, disconnecting the call, wishing they’d had more time, knowing that this is not the end for them.
~*~
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“No.”
“It’s a very bad idea.”
“About as bad as trying to grab L.J. from the courthouse?” Michael shoots back, gripping the safety handle above his head tighter as Lincoln takes a corner a little too sharply.
“You telling me this is the same as trying to rescue my son?” His brother throws him a quick glance. “Because if you are, you’d better start filling in some blanks for me.”
Michael opens his mouth to reply, then realises that anything he says will no doubt be used against him for many weeks to come. “I owe it to her.”
“You’ll have to give me more than that.”
“How about we owe it to her?” he snaps, his already stretched temper fraying, then immediately regrets it. “I’m sorry," he mutters, running his hand over his head, wishing he could dig his thumbs into every pressure point until the tension in his neck eases. "I promise that I’ll tell you the whole story when I can, but right now we just have to make sure that she’s safe.”
“You think they’ll go after her?”
He’d like to blame the bad suspension of the van for the queasiness in the pit of his stomach, but he knows that would be a lie. He’s felt like throwing up ever since Bellick had taken such great delight in telling him the price Sara had paid for helping him. Sucking in a deep breath, he leans forward in his seat, as though that might make the van go faster, and silently prays that he’s not too late to make things right. “Yes.”
~*~
Sara’s street is tree-lined and quiet, and he very much wishes he was seeing it under different circumstances. Lincoln’s right - they should be anywhere but here, but here is where he needs to be. Bellick’s vicious words are on a loop in his head, digging themselves beneath his skin, insidiously snaking into his thoughts until he can think of nothing else. Until he sees for himself that she’s all right, he can’t move onto the next part of the plan. For Lincoln’s sake, if nothing else, he needs to do this.
He feels a small thrill of victory when he sees her car parked outside her home, a thrill that is soon replaced by restlessness. Pulling into an empty space a few doors down, they wait for two hours, two endless hours during which Lincoln reads the paper twice and makes low-voiced comments about being bored shitless and suggests more than once that maybe they should just go and throw stones at her bedroom window.
Michael ignores him.
Two hours and five minutes after they first parked, the front door opens and she’s finally there, dressed in a green sweater and dark trousers, walking to her car with her keys dangling from her hand.
Michael stares at her. He’d expected to feel something when he first saw her again, but he never expected to feel as though someone is standing on his chest, pressing down so hard that he can hardly breathe. He watches her as she unlocks the car door and slides behind the wheel, all long graceful limbs, and he feels his mouth go dry.
“Now what?” His brother looks at him as Sara’s car pulls out of its parking space, then answers his own question before Michael even has a chance to open his mouth. “Christ, you want me to follow her, don’t you?”
“I need to make sure she’s okay.”
Lincoln frowns, but he’s already starting the car and checking for traffic. “You called her cell phone, Michael,” he says flatly as he executes a swift u-turn. “How do we know that she hasn’t already spilled her guts to the Feds?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Is now a good time to remind you the last woman you trusted turned out to be a freaking head case?”
He shakes his head. “You know Sara. She isn’t Nika.” He presses his lips into a tight line after he says the name. He doesn’t want to think about Nika.
Lincoln mutters something under his breath that sounds very much like thank Christ for that, then they fall silent, watching Sara’s car ahead, scanning the traffic beside and behind them.
Ten minutes later, they watch from around the corner as she finds a parking spot in front of a community centre. “What’s this place?”
“Group,” is his brother’s succinct reply.
Michael frowns. “What?”
“A.A., N.A., whatever. Might be a condition of her bail.” Lincoln gives him a curious look. “You didn’t know she’d had a drug problem?”
If Michael had thought hearing the words out loud might make them more real, he was mistaken. This can’t be real and they can’t be having this conversation. “No.”
“Would you have still asked her to help?”
Michael looks at his brother for a moment, then lets out a long shaky breath. “I don’t know.”
~*~
“Tell me again why we’re sitting here?”
“Because anyone who has a connection to us isn’t safe.” Given that he’s been replaying their phone conversation over and over in his head for the last two days, he’s not surprised he gives his brother the same explanation he gave Sara. “I left her a way of contacting me, but I’m pretty sure she’s not going to use it.”
His brother snorts. “Women.” He raises his eyebrows in a decided mocking expression. “Anyone would think she’d figured out you weren’t to be trusted.”
Michael ignores him, holding his breath once more as people begin to emerge from the front door of the building. Sara is the fourth person to push open the double glass doors, her hair gleaming as she moves into the sunlight. Beside him, his brother makes a sharp noise of disbelief.
“What?”
“That guy.”
Michael stares at the brown-haired man walking beside Sara. Dressed in jeans and a button-down blue shirt, he looks completely innocuous and totally unfamiliar. “What about him?”
“He’s part of the Company.”
His blood ices over. “What?”
“That’s what Dad called it,” his brother insists. “That guy with the Doc? He’s the one who tried to take me out with the accident to the prison van.”
Michael stares at the couple who are now having what looks like a cheery discussion while standing next to Sara’s car, then looks at Lincoln with a calm he’s far from feeling. “We have to do something.”
His brother nods in grim agreement. “I know.”
As they watch, the man points toward another car - his car, obviously - but Sara smiles and shakes her head. After a few more minutes, they begin to walk towards in the general direction of the stores and cafés on the next block, and Michael feels his jaw clench.
“At least they’re on foot,” he mutters, almost to himself, glaring at the couple who are now strolling along the pavement with no particular urgency. At least they’re not holding hands, he adds darkly, disturbed by the jealousy that twists through him at the thought.
“What the hell is she doing with him anyway?”
The same question has been burning a hole in the pit of Michael’s stomach for the last five minutes, but he merely offers his brother a bland, “She makes friends easily.”
“Not a very good judge of character, is she?” Lincoln asks dryly, then clears his throat in the face of Michael’s pointed stare. “What did she say to you when you called her?”
Michael shifts in his seat. It’s not a conversation he wants to relive any time soon, and it’s certainly not something he wants to share with anyone, even his brother. “Not much.”
“You realise now that her cell phone was probably tapped, don’t you?”
“I know.” They exchange a glance, and Michael sees his own realisation dawning in his brother’s eyes. “And probably by the same person who’s with her right now.”
Lincoln looks back to the road and brakes suddenly, making the van jerk. “Shit.”
“What?”
“They’re gone.”
Michael sits up straighter, his eyes straining as he stares through the window at the pedestrian traffic. “How could they be gone?” He’d only taken his eyes off them for a few seconds, but it was obviously long enough.
“Fucked if I know,” Lincoln mutters in obvious frustration. “They were there, and now they’ve gone.”
He slowly pulls over to the kerb and slows the van, and Michael rolls down the window to peer into every doorway, his gaze sweeping every alleyway. He finally catches sight of Sara’s hair, tumbling brightly down the back of her green sweater. She and her ‘friend’ are walking down a relatively quiet side street, and Michael wants to reach out and shake her. Damn it, Sara. Why the hell are you trusting him?
He barely has time to ignore the irony of that particular thought before he lets himself blink and they’ve vanished from his sight. His gut clenches like a fist as he gestures towards the next street on the right. “Turn here, drive around the block and come back this way.”
Lincoln’s voice cuts through the increasingly tense silence. “This is still a very bad idea.”
“I know, we shouldn’t be anywhere near here.” He looks at his brother. “But you know what these people are capable of.”
Lincoln’s face tightens, his voice dark with bitterness, and the unspoken mention of Veronica settles over them both like a shroud. “Better than anyone.”
“And you’re sure this is the same guy Dad pulled off you after the crash?”
“Positive.”
Michael swears under his breath, then puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Drive faster.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He knows what Lincoln is asking, but he can’t bring himself to give him the answer. “Drive faster.”
“Come on, Michael. Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it.”
“Take him out,” he hears himself say. “But try not to kill him,” he adds, with a reluctance that should worry him, but doesn’t.
Lincoln pulls the wheel hard to the right, and Michael swears he sees a smile tug at his mouth. “I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises.”
~*~
It takes two minutes to locate them, but it seems that two minutes is more than enough for everything to go to hell. The sunlight is glinting off a gun that’s being pointed at the middle of Sara’s chest and even at this distance Michael can see the fear in her face.
“Faster.” He barks the word at Lincoln, his own fear overwhelming any need for politeness. His brother complies without protest, accelerating until the van is rattling around them. One day, Michael thinks in a vain attempt to distract himself from what they’re about to do, he will research the long-term effects of adrenalin on the human body. In the meantime, though, he’ll ignore the pounding of his heart and the rush of his pulse and pray that Linc is having a good driving day.
“The three of us jammed up front will be too conspicuous,” Lincoln tells him, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. “Get in the back, get her in through the rear door.”
Michael undoes his seatbelt and slides between the two front seats into the back of the nondescript vehicle they’d bought two days earlier - it seemed a good idea to ditch Bellick's car as soon as possible - trying not to bump his brother’s shoulder with his foot. “If she’ll come,” he mutters under his breath as he crouches behind the driver’s seat.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Lincoln says grimly. “Hang on!”
Michael drops down onto one of the long bench seats that line either side of the van’s storage area, bracing his back against the side wall, one hand tightly gripping the back of Lincoln’s seat. There are no windows in the back of the van; from his position he only has time to catch a lightning-quick glimpse of the two people locked in their private stand-off, then the van lurches and shudders, the sickening thud of flesh hitting metal mingling with the screeching of tyres.
“He’s down.” There’s more than a hint of satisfaction in Lincoln’s voice. “Go!”
Michael grabs the handle of the rear door, flinging it open and looking right into Sara Tancredi’s startled face. Obeying an instinct he doesn’t bother to question, he grips the safety handle above the open door and half-swings out of the van, holding out his other hand to her.
“Come on!”
She stares at him, her face white with shock, and he wonders if this is how people look when they think they’ve seen a ghost. Without saying a word, she turns and stares at the man on the ground. Michael’s gaze follows hers, and he’s unable to suppress a surge of satisfaction as her erstwhile assailant writhes on the ground, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle, his gun at least ten feet out of his reach. He looks utterly defeated and totally defenceless and Michael doesn’t buy it for one second.
“Sara, take my hand!”
She’s still staring at him as if she’s frozen on the spot, and he knows then that if he has to beg her, he will. “Take my hand,” he says softly, the words feeling raw in his throat. Please, he tells her silently, his eyes desperately searching her face, her eyes, trying to see behind the shock and the fear to the woman he knows.
Her face changes, her eyes softening, and then she takes his hand.
She takes his hand, her fingers wrapping around his wrist, and she lets him haul her into the van. He slams the door shut behind her just as Lincoln puts his foot on the accelerator. The van jerks forward and Michael braces himself, feet planted wide, as Sara stumbles against him, her hands clutching at his shoulders. She’s trembling, her breathing fast and shallow. He can feel the warmth of her seeping through his clothes, the soft curve of her breasts pressed against his chest, and he feels a rush of exhilaration that has nothing to do with a successful snatch and grab.
The scent of her skin - she’s wearing the same perfume she wore every day at Fox River - fills his senses, and he pulls her down onto the long seat before he can do anything foolish like kissing her until she can’t breathe. Her eyes widen as she looks around the van, her mouth gaping slightly as she spots Lincoln in the driver’s seat.
He hadn’t meant to touch her again but it’s hopeless - he’s hopeless - because he can’t be this close to her and not touch her. She doesn’t protest as he cups her face in his hands, gently tilting back her head so that he can see her eyes. Her skin is silken and hot against his palms, every ragged breath tickling the skin of his bare wrists. “Are you hurt?”
She blinks, her lips quivering as though she’s fighting the urge to smile and cry at the same time. “I’m fine.”
There’s another side-effect to adrenalin, Michael thinks, as his pulse begins to pound, his body tightening in response to the smell of her, the feel of her skin. His blood is humming with her closeness, and the urge to slide his hands through her hair and lift her mouth to his burns like a fire in his belly. He’s felt this way before, felt it with her, the day he’d pulled her from her office and dragged her through the ceiling of Fox River to safety.
Almost as though she hears his thoughts - or perhaps they’re tattooed onto his forehead - she wraps her hands around his wrists, holding his hands against her face, the trembling of her fingertips finding an echo in his fluttering pulse. “I’m fine,” she says again, her voice stronger this time.
“Good.”
She looks at him, obviously waiting for him to say more than just that one word, her gaze dropping from his eyes to his mouth. Heat instantly skims along his veins, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from pulling her into his arms. Instead he gently disentangles his hands from hers, then wonders if he imagines the flicker of disappointment that crosses her face.
She shifts on the seat until her back is against the wall, not looking at him as she asks, “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe. For now, at least,” he adds softly, unable to look away from the delicate curve of her jaw, the well-shaped arch of her eyebrow.
She glances at him quickly, then looks down at her hands, linked loosely in her lap. “That’s reassuring,” she finally replies, her tone studiedly casual. “How did you find me?”
No more lies, he thinks. “We followed you from your meeting.”
Her eyes glitter with what he suspects is anger, but she merely says, “Do you know who he is?”
It’s Lincoln who answers her, as if he’s decided to remind them both of his presence. “He’s one of the bad guys.” He shoots Sara a quick look over his shoulder. “He tried to kill me once, too.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t take it personally?” There’s a hint of hysterical laughter in her voice that has Michael wanting to reach for her hand. She turns and looks at him steadily, and again he feels as though the air is being squeezed from his lungs. “Of course, some people might say that you’re the bad guys.”
“Those people would be wrong,” he says softly.
“I’m beginning to see that for myself.” They look at each other for a long moment, then she turns away, carefully getting to her feet and making her way to the other side of the van where she sits, one leg tucked under her, her arms wrapped around herself. Leaning her head against the wall of the van, she closes her eyes, and Michael knows the conversation - for now - is over.
It takes thirty minutes to reach their destination, and he spends every second of that time watching her. He’s been picturing her face in his mind for so many weeks, but having her here now, so close he could reach out and touch her, is something entirely different. She looks tired and far too pale, yet there’s an edge of steel beneath the familiar fragility that twists his heart.
When they pull into the long driveway that leads to the safe house they’ll be using for another twelve hours, he’s both relieved and disappointed. She can’t stay here - it’s not safe - but there’s every chance that once she leaves, he’ll never see her again.
Lincoln turns around in the front seat. “End of the line, kids,” he drawls.
Sara looks up at him, her face unreadable. “I guess I should thank you for saving my life.”
“Just returning the favour.” Lincoln glances at Michael, then at Sara, then clears his throat loudly. “I’ll check the house. Wait here.”
Sara says nothing until he slides from the driver’s seat and slams the door shut, then she looks down at her feet. “That was subtle.”
Heat scratches at the back of Michael’s neck. “That’s Lincoln.” He watches her for another moment, his throat feeling thick and raw with everything he wants to say to her. “Sara-”
“Just tell me one thing.” Her eyes are glittering, but not with tears. “What you said on the phone. Did you mean it?”
He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t honest with you about a lot of things.” This isn’t the time or the place that he wanted to be having this conversation, but his plans have never run smoothly when it comes to Sara Tancredi. “There were a lot of things I couldn’t tell you, but how I feel about you?” Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t look away, and he feels his pulse begin to race. “That’s real. All of it.”
She nods, a faint frown creasing her forehead, but she doesn’t speak. Michael bites back a sigh of frustration. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but something, anything - anger, harsh words - would be better than the emptiness in her eyes.
“You hurt me very much,” she says suddenly, giving him a distinctly challenging stare. “You saved my life today - again - but you and I, we can’t-” She looks at him unhappily. “I can’t do this, Michael.”
He swallows hard. “We should go inside,” he says heavily, knowing at last that she’s right, that this isn’t going to work, not matter how much he might want things to be different. “And then we need to figure out the best way to get you to your father.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be safe there. You can’t go home, not now that they’ve decided to drag you into this, and you can’t leave the country, not without violating the conditions of your bail.”
She stares at him, a dozen different emotions flickering across her face. “You took a big risk, doing what you just did.”
He shrugs. “You needed help.”
“And you came to find me,” she whispers, her eyes never leaving his.
“Yes,” he replies more abruptly than he intended, his control stretched to breaking point. He needs to get her out of this van and out of his life before he does something they’ll both regret.
She doesn’t move out of the way as he tries to open the door, forcing him to reach around her. His arm brushes against the curve of her breast, and the audible hitch in her breath makes his body tighten, sending the blood rushing to both his head and his groin. She lifts her chin, her gaze locking with his, a very different kind of challenge suddenly in her eyes, and his control dissolves into a liquid rush of desire.
He shouldn’t - they shouldn’t - but they’ve been dancing around this since the very first day and he needs her and God he wants to believe that she needs him, too. One hand braced on the still closed door, he bows his head and kisses her, yielding to both temptation and the inevitable.
She doesn’t fall into his arms, but she doesn’t push him away. She lets him kiss her for a few seconds - he can feel the tension in her, the hesitation - then her lips part softly beneath his, making him shudder.
It’s a gentle, almost chaste kiss that makes him feel anything but chaste. It makes him want to pull her hard against him and devour her mouth, to push her back against the wall of the van and kiss her the way he’s dreamed of kissing her for months and weeks and days.
He doesn’t, of course, and she’s the first one to pull away, just as she was that morning in the infirmary. This time, though, she doesn’t say a word, doesn’t ask him any questions he can’t answer. She simply looks at him, waiting, her expression indecipherable.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers unsteadily, his fingers flexing on the wall of the van in an effort to stop himself from reaching for her. He wants to tell her that he’s not sorry for kissing her, but that’s such a cliché and he’s quite sure she’s already worked that out for herself. “For everything.”
He holds his breath, waiting for her to tell him again that sorry isn’t good enough, but she doesn’t. “I know,” she murmurs, her gaze skittering away from his. Taking a step back from him, she reaches for the door handle and wrenches open the sliding door. “I know,” she says again, then gives him a fleeting, tremulous smile that almost reaches her eyes.
He watches her as she climbs out of the van - he knows better than to try to help her - and somewhere deep inside him he feels a tiny flicker of hope. Her smile may have been merely a shadow of the one he remembers, but it was something. And something, he tells himself, is always better than nothing.
~*~