India - Michael/Sara
Title: India
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 2,037 words
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 eventually)
Summary: All good things come to those who wait.
Author's Note:This story is part of the Full Circle series. It takes place between the 'end' and the 'epilogue' of Safe House, and will make much more sense if you've already read that story. For sarah_scribbles, for requesting this particular gap be filled and lending me her bonfire scene. Unlike every single other multi-chaptered story I've ever written, these chapters are going to be quite short. *g*
~*~
He that can have patience can have what he will.
~ Benjamin Franklin
It’s raining the morning they leave Panama for India.
This, of course, comes as no surprise, given that it’s rained solidly for the last ten days. They’ve woken every morning to the sound of rain splattering against the windows, the Bay of Panama gray and flat, the sky sullen with the promise of another month’s worth of rain to come. Smiling at the water-logged world outside the rain smeared kitchen window, Michael hurriedly finishes his coffee and goes in search of his traveling companion.
Sara is still in their room, her suitcase lying closed on their hastily made bed. He watches from the doorway as she puts one knee on top of the case, forcing it down as she slowly tugs the zipper closed. So much for traveling light, he thinks with a smile. “Need a hand?”
“Nope.” She pulls the zipper shut with a triumphant flourish. “All done.”
“It’s raining again,” he remarks casually and Sara rolls her eyes.
“Yes, yes, you’re very clever,” she mutters, but he sees the smile she’s trying to hide. “Now will you please shut up about the weather?”
He grins. He’s spent the last two months carefully researching the seasonal conditions in both countries in order to choose the perfect time for this trip - a task he’d quickly discovered Sara was more than happy to leave completely up to him - and he can't deny he's enjoying the validation. “You ready? Linc will be here in a minute.”
“Yep.” She tosses him a bright smile, then winces as she picks up her smaller, carry-on bag from the floor beside the bed.
He grabs her other suitcase before she has the chance to reach for it. “Your arm still sore?”
She nods. “It’ll pass in a day or two,” she says, rubbing her bicep. “Although I didn’t think much of his technique, to be honest,” she adds, obviously referring to the local doctor who’d given them their shots over the course of the last week.
“Oh, I don’t know.” The sudden urge to tease her is too tempting to resist. “He was gentler than another doctor I could name.” He watches her face, enjoying the tiny frown that appears between her eyebrows. “There were days back at Fox River when I thought you were going to rupture a - ow!”
He looks at her, the site of his last and most painful inoculation stinging from her gentle punch, but she merely grins at him, unrepentant. “Oh, I’m sorry. Hand slipped.”
Shaking his head, he hefts her suitcase out into the hallway. “I certainly hope you’re nicer to your patients than you are to me, Doctor Tancredi.”
She slants him a soft look that ripples across his skin. “I think they’d take away my license if I were even half as nice to them as I am to you.”
She’s still smiling when he kisses her, the feel of her mouth against his making his blood grow warm. He hears the sound of her carry-on luggage hitting the tiled floor, then her arms are winding around his neck, pulling him closer.
“Oh, for the love of -”
They break apart at the sound of Lincoln’s voice. After taking a few seconds to study the blush that creeps over Sara’s face, Michael turns to his brother. “We’re good to go.”
Lincoln looks as though he’s trying to decide between several interesting - and no doubt insulting - replies. Picks up the larger of Michael’s bags, he gives them both a long-suffering look. “Yeah, I figured that.”
Michael grins, resisting the temptation to point out that LJ has spent many a night over the last twelve months sleeping in their spare room in order to get away from the romantic entanglements happening in Lincoln's own house. Picking up the house keys, he nods towards the door. “I’ll be right with you. Just have to grab a couple of things.”
As the other two make their way out to the car - he hears them laughingly complain about the rain - he heads into the dining room to grab the three large envelopes he’d left on the table. He could leave them for Lincoln to post later, but he’s sending out prospectuses to new clients and he’d leave Panama happier knowing that they were already in the system.
Outside, it’s still teeming with rain. Lincoln’s parked his car as close to the front door as possible, but they're still half soaked by the time they've stowed the luggage. Wiping his hand over the rain-spotted envelopes in his lap, he leans forward and touches Sara’s shoulder. “Got everything?”
Twisting around in the front passenger seat, she gives him a patient smile. “Yes.” She lifts her hand to thread her fingers through his, and he sees the excitement brimming in her eyes. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Beside her, Lincoln coughs. “You know, I read somewhere that they frown on public displays of affection in India.”
Sara turns to him with a smirk. “Wait, you read something?”
In the rearview mirror, Michael sees Lincoln’s gaze narrow, but his, “So, straight to the airport?” is cheery enough.
Michael grins at his brother’s reflection. “We need to stop at the post office first, if that’s okay.” Lincoln mutters something about leaving things to the last minute, but Michael only smiles. “Three potential new clients, Linc.”
His brother looks smug. “It’s the name that brings them in, you know.”
Michael raises his eyebrows. “Nothing to do with my designs?”
“Nope.”
Sara is quietly laughing to herself, even though this argument is one she’s heard half a dozen times before. “Not that you’re biased or anything.”
“What can I say?” Lincoln replies loftily, “I was inspired.”
Michael grins. “You were drunk.”
His brother shrugs. “Same thing.”
Michael settles back into his seat, watching the passing landscape through the window and listening to the friendly bickering coming from the front seat. It’s been over a year since Sara first arrived in Punta Chame, and not a day of that year has gone by without him wanting to pinch himself to make sure he’s not dreaming. It’s not just Sara being here with him. It’s everything.
Smoothing his hand idly over the envelopes on the seat beside him, he thinks of sitting with Lincoln on the beach six months ago, sipping beers as they watched the flames of a bonfire rise up into the dark sky. Sunburned from a fruitless afternoon of fishing, they’d found themselves talking about what the hell they were going to do for the rest of their lives. When Lincoln had casually mentioned that he’d already talked to LJ’s boss about maybe buying the dive shop from him, Michael almost envied him. He’d told his brother as much, and Lincoln had frowned at him.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
The words had seemed to spill out of Michael’s mouth almost of their own accord. “I want to make beautiful things.” Even to his own ears, he’d sounded wistful and more than a little drunk. Staring up the sky, he’d wondered if Sara was still awake.
Lincoln had grinned. “You should do freelance design.”
Laughing, Michael had leaned back on his elbows, watching the embers of the fire floating through the air. “Design the ultimate escape-proof prison.”
Lincoln had taken a long swig from his beer, then gestured unsteadily with the bottle. “You should totally call it Crane Designs.”
For some reason, this had seemed like the funniest thing either of them had heard in a long time. They’d laughed until Michael was hiccupping and tears were streaming down Lincoln’s face. Sometime later, after they’d finally managed to kick enough sand over the bonfire to put it out, Michael had crawled into bed beside Sara and buried his nose into the warm crook of her neck, chuckling at her sleepily muttered, “Lush.”
The next morning, nursing an unforgiving headache, it had still seemed like a good name.
Six months later, he’s managed to carve out a respectable niche in his chosen field, and Lincoln is his own boss for the first time in his life. LJ has gone back to school in the States - surprising them all by deciding to live with his grandfather for a year - and Jane is almost a permanent fixture in Lincoln’s house. From the outside, Michael thinks, it looks like the perfect life. Gazing at the back of Sara’s tousled head, however, he knows that perfection is an elusive beast.
Despite his quietly frantic efforts, there's one thing he hasn't still managed to achieve. He’s a traditionalist at heart, he accepted that a long time ago. As much as he wants to say the words, there’s something fundamentally wrong about asking a woman to marry you while you’re still married to someone else.
“How’s LJ getting on with your dad?” he hears Sara ask, and he leans forward, anxious to hear Lincoln’s answer. While the separation from his son is a voluntary one this time around, it’s still a separation. Lincoln’s been doing his best to pretend he’s totally fine with it, but they all know that he’s already counting the days until Thanksgiving.
“Pretty good,” his brother says as he changes lanes, “but we’ll see what happens when the novelty of living in the same house wears off.”
Michael chuckles, thinking of the two months he’d spent living with Lincoln and LJ in the house he now shares with Sara. Lincoln’s gaze catches his in the rearview mirror, and they share a look of perfect understanding. “Serves Dad right,” Michael says, and Lincoln grins.
When Lincoln pulls up outside the post office, Michael grabs the envelopes and quickly slides out of the backseat. “Won’t be long.”
He’s early enough to have beaten the usual crowd of retirees and busy mothers, and it’s only a few minutes before he’s checking his locked mail box on the way out. Making a mental note to give the key to Lincoln when he gets back in the car, he pulls out the usual assortment of registered mail. Along with the usual correspondence from his small collection of clients, there’s a cream colored A4 envelope with his lawyer’s return address on it.
Michael swallows hard as he stares at Cooper Green’s name, black against the pale paper. Good news or bad news? There’s only one way to find out. Tearing open the envelope, he quickly skims the covering letter, his pulse spiking when he finds the two words he’s been waiting so long to read.
Decree nisi.
The Latin words seem to swim in front of his eyes. He shakes his head, but the giddy feeling remains. His hand tightens on the piece of paper in his hand, the paper that says his divorce from Nika Volek is now final, and knows that there’s many different types of freedom.
Tucking the documents carefully back into the envelope, he clutches it to his chest and makes his way back to the car, not bothering to shield his head from the rain. He raps his knuckles on the truck and Lincoln obligingly pops it. A moment later, he’s climbing into the back seat, his hooded sweatshirt sodden with rain. Twisting around her seat, Sara smiles at him as Lincoln pulls out into the traffic once more. “Anything interesting in the mail?”
He looks at her, and the words start filling up his chest. God, he knows he wants this - he wants her - for the rest of his life, but he also knows that this trip means the world to her. When they’d been running for their lives, the thought that she might be able to revisit the place she’d once been so happy had seemed beyond impossible.
He swallows the words burning his throat. He wants this trip to be perfect. He wants this trip to be for her. Maybe it’s best to keep things simple, keep things the way they are, at least for another two weeks.
Two weeks, he tells himself sternly. He’s waited this long. He can wait another two weeks.
“No.” He gives her a warm smile, doing his best not to think of the secret now tucked inside his suitcase and failing miserably. “Nothing interesting.”
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 2,037 words
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 eventually)
Summary: All good things come to those who wait.
Author's Note:This story is part of the Full Circle series. It takes place between the 'end' and the 'epilogue' of Safe House, and will make much more sense if you've already read that story. For sarah_scribbles, for requesting this particular gap be filled and lending me her bonfire scene. Unlike every single other multi-chaptered story I've ever written, these chapters are going to be quite short. *g*
~*~
He that can have patience can have what he will.
~ Benjamin Franklin
It’s raining the morning they leave Panama for India.
This, of course, comes as no surprise, given that it’s rained solidly for the last ten days. They’ve woken every morning to the sound of rain splattering against the windows, the Bay of Panama gray and flat, the sky sullen with the promise of another month’s worth of rain to come. Smiling at the water-logged world outside the rain smeared kitchen window, Michael hurriedly finishes his coffee and goes in search of his traveling companion.
Sara is still in their room, her suitcase lying closed on their hastily made bed. He watches from the doorway as she puts one knee on top of the case, forcing it down as she slowly tugs the zipper closed. So much for traveling light, he thinks with a smile. “Need a hand?”
“Nope.” She pulls the zipper shut with a triumphant flourish. “All done.”
“It’s raining again,” he remarks casually and Sara rolls her eyes.
“Yes, yes, you’re very clever,” she mutters, but he sees the smile she’s trying to hide. “Now will you please shut up about the weather?”
He grins. He’s spent the last two months carefully researching the seasonal conditions in both countries in order to choose the perfect time for this trip - a task he’d quickly discovered Sara was more than happy to leave completely up to him - and he can't deny he's enjoying the validation. “You ready? Linc will be here in a minute.”
“Yep.” She tosses him a bright smile, then winces as she picks up her smaller, carry-on bag from the floor beside the bed.
He grabs her other suitcase before she has the chance to reach for it. “Your arm still sore?”
She nods. “It’ll pass in a day or two,” she says, rubbing her bicep. “Although I didn’t think much of his technique, to be honest,” she adds, obviously referring to the local doctor who’d given them their shots over the course of the last week.
“Oh, I don’t know.” The sudden urge to tease her is too tempting to resist. “He was gentler than another doctor I could name.” He watches her face, enjoying the tiny frown that appears between her eyebrows. “There were days back at Fox River when I thought you were going to rupture a - ow!”
He looks at her, the site of his last and most painful inoculation stinging from her gentle punch, but she merely grins at him, unrepentant. “Oh, I’m sorry. Hand slipped.”
Shaking his head, he hefts her suitcase out into the hallway. “I certainly hope you’re nicer to your patients than you are to me, Doctor Tancredi.”
She slants him a soft look that ripples across his skin. “I think they’d take away my license if I were even half as nice to them as I am to you.”
She’s still smiling when he kisses her, the feel of her mouth against his making his blood grow warm. He hears the sound of her carry-on luggage hitting the tiled floor, then her arms are winding around his neck, pulling him closer.
“Oh, for the love of -”
They break apart at the sound of Lincoln’s voice. After taking a few seconds to study the blush that creeps over Sara’s face, Michael turns to his brother. “We’re good to go.”
Lincoln looks as though he’s trying to decide between several interesting - and no doubt insulting - replies. Picks up the larger of Michael’s bags, he gives them both a long-suffering look. “Yeah, I figured that.”
Michael grins, resisting the temptation to point out that LJ has spent many a night over the last twelve months sleeping in their spare room in order to get away from the romantic entanglements happening in Lincoln's own house. Picking up the house keys, he nods towards the door. “I’ll be right with you. Just have to grab a couple of things.”
As the other two make their way out to the car - he hears them laughingly complain about the rain - he heads into the dining room to grab the three large envelopes he’d left on the table. He could leave them for Lincoln to post later, but he’s sending out prospectuses to new clients and he’d leave Panama happier knowing that they were already in the system.
Outside, it’s still teeming with rain. Lincoln’s parked his car as close to the front door as possible, but they're still half soaked by the time they've stowed the luggage. Wiping his hand over the rain-spotted envelopes in his lap, he leans forward and touches Sara’s shoulder. “Got everything?”
Twisting around in the front passenger seat, she gives him a patient smile. “Yes.” She lifts her hand to thread her fingers through his, and he sees the excitement brimming in her eyes. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Beside her, Lincoln coughs. “You know, I read somewhere that they frown on public displays of affection in India.”
Sara turns to him with a smirk. “Wait, you read something?”
In the rearview mirror, Michael sees Lincoln’s gaze narrow, but his, “So, straight to the airport?” is cheery enough.
Michael grins at his brother’s reflection. “We need to stop at the post office first, if that’s okay.” Lincoln mutters something about leaving things to the last minute, but Michael only smiles. “Three potential new clients, Linc.”
His brother looks smug. “It’s the name that brings them in, you know.”
Michael raises his eyebrows. “Nothing to do with my designs?”
“Nope.”
Sara is quietly laughing to herself, even though this argument is one she’s heard half a dozen times before. “Not that you’re biased or anything.”
“What can I say?” Lincoln replies loftily, “I was inspired.”
Michael grins. “You were drunk.”
His brother shrugs. “Same thing.”
Michael settles back into his seat, watching the passing landscape through the window and listening to the friendly bickering coming from the front seat. It’s been over a year since Sara first arrived in Punta Chame, and not a day of that year has gone by without him wanting to pinch himself to make sure he’s not dreaming. It’s not just Sara being here with him. It’s everything.
Smoothing his hand idly over the envelopes on the seat beside him, he thinks of sitting with Lincoln on the beach six months ago, sipping beers as they watched the flames of a bonfire rise up into the dark sky. Sunburned from a fruitless afternoon of fishing, they’d found themselves talking about what the hell they were going to do for the rest of their lives. When Lincoln had casually mentioned that he’d already talked to LJ’s boss about maybe buying the dive shop from him, Michael almost envied him. He’d told his brother as much, and Lincoln had frowned at him.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
The words had seemed to spill out of Michael’s mouth almost of their own accord. “I want to make beautiful things.” Even to his own ears, he’d sounded wistful and more than a little drunk. Staring up the sky, he’d wondered if Sara was still awake.
Lincoln had grinned. “You should do freelance design.”
Laughing, Michael had leaned back on his elbows, watching the embers of the fire floating through the air. “Design the ultimate escape-proof prison.”
Lincoln had taken a long swig from his beer, then gestured unsteadily with the bottle. “You should totally call it Crane Designs.”
For some reason, this had seemed like the funniest thing either of them had heard in a long time. They’d laughed until Michael was hiccupping and tears were streaming down Lincoln’s face. Sometime later, after they’d finally managed to kick enough sand over the bonfire to put it out, Michael had crawled into bed beside Sara and buried his nose into the warm crook of her neck, chuckling at her sleepily muttered, “Lush.”
The next morning, nursing an unforgiving headache, it had still seemed like a good name.
Six months later, he’s managed to carve out a respectable niche in his chosen field, and Lincoln is his own boss for the first time in his life. LJ has gone back to school in the States - surprising them all by deciding to live with his grandfather for a year - and Jane is almost a permanent fixture in Lincoln’s house. From the outside, Michael thinks, it looks like the perfect life. Gazing at the back of Sara’s tousled head, however, he knows that perfection is an elusive beast.
Despite his quietly frantic efforts, there's one thing he hasn't still managed to achieve. He’s a traditionalist at heart, he accepted that a long time ago. As much as he wants to say the words, there’s something fundamentally wrong about asking a woman to marry you while you’re still married to someone else.
“How’s LJ getting on with your dad?” he hears Sara ask, and he leans forward, anxious to hear Lincoln’s answer. While the separation from his son is a voluntary one this time around, it’s still a separation. Lincoln’s been doing his best to pretend he’s totally fine with it, but they all know that he’s already counting the days until Thanksgiving.
“Pretty good,” his brother says as he changes lanes, “but we’ll see what happens when the novelty of living in the same house wears off.”
Michael chuckles, thinking of the two months he’d spent living with Lincoln and LJ in the house he now shares with Sara. Lincoln’s gaze catches his in the rearview mirror, and they share a look of perfect understanding. “Serves Dad right,” Michael says, and Lincoln grins.
When Lincoln pulls up outside the post office, Michael grabs the envelopes and quickly slides out of the backseat. “Won’t be long.”
He’s early enough to have beaten the usual crowd of retirees and busy mothers, and it’s only a few minutes before he’s checking his locked mail box on the way out. Making a mental note to give the key to Lincoln when he gets back in the car, he pulls out the usual assortment of registered mail. Along with the usual correspondence from his small collection of clients, there’s a cream colored A4 envelope with his lawyer’s return address on it.
Michael swallows hard as he stares at Cooper Green’s name, black against the pale paper. Good news or bad news? There’s only one way to find out. Tearing open the envelope, he quickly skims the covering letter, his pulse spiking when he finds the two words he’s been waiting so long to read.
Decree nisi.
The Latin words seem to swim in front of his eyes. He shakes his head, but the giddy feeling remains. His hand tightens on the piece of paper in his hand, the paper that says his divorce from Nika Volek is now final, and knows that there’s many different types of freedom.
Tucking the documents carefully back into the envelope, he clutches it to his chest and makes his way back to the car, not bothering to shield his head from the rain. He raps his knuckles on the truck and Lincoln obligingly pops it. A moment later, he’s climbing into the back seat, his hooded sweatshirt sodden with rain. Twisting around her seat, Sara smiles at him as Lincoln pulls out into the traffic once more. “Anything interesting in the mail?”
He looks at her, and the words start filling up his chest. God, he knows he wants this - he wants her - for the rest of his life, but he also knows that this trip means the world to her. When they’d been running for their lives, the thought that she might be able to revisit the place she’d once been so happy had seemed beyond impossible.
He swallows the words burning his throat. He wants this trip to be perfect. He wants this trip to be for her. Maybe it’s best to keep things simple, keep things the way they are, at least for another two weeks.
Two weeks, he tells himself sternly. He’s waited this long. He can wait another two weeks.
“No.” He gives her a warm smile, doing his best not to think of the secret now tucked inside his suitcase and failing miserably. “Nothing interesting.”
~*~