India - Michael/Sara (Chapter Five)
Title: India - Chapter Five
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 4,437 words
Rating: PG-15
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. You can read Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here and Chapter Four here. Huge thanks to swatkat24 for letting me badger her with questions for the last couple of weeks and helping me make Michael and Sara's journey as authentic as possible. Any mistakes that remain are all mine, and all concrit is welcomed with open arms. *g*
~*~
As the wheels of their plane lift off the runway at Heathrow, Michael slips off his shoes and reclines his chair a few inches. Another day, another nine hour flight, he thinks ruefully, then catches himself. Flying first class can hardly be considered a chore, even for a nine hour flight.
Sara is staring wistfully out the window, watching London disappear beneath them, and Michael thinks of their earlier conversation. She’d visited London once when she was much younger, and he knows that the trip is one of her happier memories. The prospect of sharing her second visit to the UK is an enticing one, and he makes a mental note to do some research as soon as they return to Panama.
Speaking of research- Reaching out, he brushes her forearm lightly with his fingertips. “Are you going to tell me where we’re staying in Kolkata, or are you still enjoying your little secret too much to let me in on it?”
Sara raises an eyebrow, a mischievous smile curving her lips. “What do you think?”
Biting back his own smile, he narrows his eyes at her. Her refusal to tell him anything about their accommodation in Kolkata has been a source of both frustration and amusement for him. If he’s learned one thing over the last year, it’s that she’ll take any opportunity to keep him from planning every little thing down to the finest detail. He loves her unwavering stance in the face of what he has to admit has been no small amount of pressure to divulge the information, but a small part of him is truly vexed that he hasn’t been able to coax it out of her. “I think I should have read your credit card statement before you had the chance to hide it from me.”
She grins, giving his hand a consoling pat. “And you used to be so good at thinking on your feet.”
He squeezes her hand gently, then settles back in his chair, smiling. “Have you stayed in this place before?” She shakes her head, and he’s absurdly pleased by the thought that, amidst the memories of her past, this will be something new for them to experience together. “What made you decide to stay there this time?”
She gives him another infuriatingly secretive smile. “You’ll see.” With that, she kicks off her shoes and reaches for the paperback tucked beside her, sliding him one last, quick glance. “Trust me.”
He smiles, watching her as she finds her place in her book. After all this time, the words trust me are more than a little unnecessary between them. With the exception of his brother, there’s no one he trusts more. He thinks of her concerned expression as she’d haltingly tried to warn him about what they’re going to experience upon their arrival in Kolkata, and a wave of tenderness washes over him. He’s very glad she told him of her concerns - there have been times over the last month when the anxiety in her eyes has left him wondering whether she regretted their decision to revisit her past. Part of him still wonders if there isn’t a small grain of truth in his theory, but it was a relief to learn she’d mostly been worried about his reaction to Kolkata.
She’d fallen asleep before he could tell her that he’s extensively researched their destination over the last year, and that while he knows the reality is going to be a shock, he’s done everything possible to prepare himself.
He stretches his legs out in front of him experimentally, still coming to terms with the novelty of sitting in an airplane seat without feeling as though his knees are under his chin. Sara had initially been reluctant to fly first class, but he’d told her (and himself) that there were more practical ways to help those who can’t help themselves than endure a nine hour flight in coach. The orphanage’s trust fund was set up for that very reason, and he intends to make good use of his money before they return to Panama.
He studies his feet as he wriggles his toes. He’s still wearing his socks, and his left foot looks perfectly normal. He glances across at Sara once more, remembering the feel of her hands caressing his feet during their bath the night before, her quiet assertion that she barely notices his lack of toes. His thoughts lazily drifting to how they’d spent the rest of their time in the bathroom, he closes his eyes, the latest Hollywood blockbuster on offer no match for the vivid private movie now playing in his head.
First class or not, it’s going to be a long flight.
Four hours later - hours in which they’ve eaten everything they’ve been offered and watched one and a half movies of varying quality - Sara leans across and hands him a pair of earplugs, telling him it’s the fastest way to get to sleep. Surprised, he checks his watch. “It’s only five o’clock.”
“I know, but it will be ten o’clock when we land in Kolkata, which is six in the morning local time.” She drops the foam earplugs into his palm. “If we sleep now, we won’t be as jetlagged when we arrive.” Her mouth twitches with a smile. “You don’t want to waste the whole of tomorrow in bed, do you?”
He looks at her. “Do you actually expect me to answer that?”
Grinning, she leans back into her own chair, tearing open a second packet of ear plugs. “You’re hopeless.”
“No, just good at thinking on my feet.” He crams the earplugs into his ears before she can reply, but her eloquent eye-roll speaks volumes.
The first class seats recline to an indecently luxurious angle, but he’s still not convinced he’ll be able to get comfortable enough to doze off. He spends the next fifteen minutes plagued by the certainty that he will never fall asleep, not even with the sounds around him completely blocked out and the window shade pulled down and his overhead light turned off.
When he next opens his eyes, the air in the cabin seems cooler, the light more diffused. In the seat next to him, Sara is asleep, half turned onto her side, her hands tucked beneath her chin like a child’s. He pulls the earplugs from his ears, and his world once again fills with the sound of the plane’s engine, the soft hum of the air-conditioning and the faint chatter of voices. Checking his watch, he sees that it’s after nine in the evening on Panamanian time, which means they’ll be landing in Calcutta in an hour. It also means he’s been asleep for the last four hours. He looks at the earplugs in his palm, then gives the sleeping woman beside him an admiring glance. Doctor or no doctor, she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to long flights.
Fifteen minutes later, after a hasty visit to the restroom - splashing his face with cold water and cleaning his teeth helping to make him feel more awake than coffee ever could - their plane is skimming across the sunrise. The anticipation sparkling in Sara’s eyes is contagious, and he finds himself leaning across her to peer out the window as the plane begins its final descent over Dum Dum airport. He grins to himself, remembering Sara’s exasperated conversation with Lincoln on the subject of pronunciation - it’s Thom Thom, Lincoln, not Dumb Dumb - as he studies the open fields surrounding the airport. They’re arriving at the tail-end of monsoon season, and the seemingly endless miles of green are dotted with tall waving sheaths of what looks almost like wheat, the pale fronds moving in the wind.
He glances at Sara. “It’s beautiful.”
She leans into him, her shoulder warm against his. “I know.”
It seems to have taken them an eternity to get here, but it soon becomes apparent that their waiting has only just begun. It takes almost an hour to collect their luggage and get through Customs. Michael breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of their suitcases, and can’t help running his hand over the top of his, picturing the letter from Cooper Green lying safely hidden beneath the Lucite.
Even at such an early hour, Dum Dum airport is crawling with people. After their experience at Heathrow, it’s definitely a shock to the system, but one that Michael relishes. There is almost too much to see, too many vivid colours, too many dialects floating through the air. They watch the crowds as they wait in line, occasionally catching each other’s eye, grinning. Despite the openly curious stares from many of the passersby, he feels wonderfully anonymous. He also feels as though everything around him is moving in slow motion. When he glances at his watch a third time, he hears Sara chuckle.
“Don’t you know what IST stands for?” she murmurs in his ear, tangling her fingers in the loose cuff of his long-sleeved shirt.
“Indian Standard Time?”
“Indian Stretchable Time.”
Michael grins as he watches the unhurried, almost relaxed air of the Customs officials. “Right.”
Once they’re finally clear of Customs, he breathes a second sigh of relief. They’ve passed through without having to open up their luggage, which means not having to explain to his sharp-eyed traveling companion why he has an envelope from Cooper Green tucked into his suitcase. He'd rather not have to lie to her, and the alternative isn't an option, because a crowded airport is not where he wants to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.
Their last stop before leaving the airport is a visit to one of the many currency exchange bureaus, where they change one hundred US dollars into Indian rupees. Again, Michael is thankful for Sara’s previous experience, and he’s happy to let her handle the transaction, watching as she politely requests as many notes of small denomination as possible. She’s told him several times that tipping is done very different in India, and while they won’t need to have money handy for their arrival at the hotel, the taxi is a different matter.
The difference in temperature hits them the instant they step out of the airport. It’s still early, just after eight o’clock, but it’s already warm enough to put a flush in Sara’s face and leave him tasting salt on his upper lip. Hauling their luggage behind them, they make their way slowly through the milling crowd to the closest taxi rank. When they reach their destination, he stops in his tracks and turns to Sara, who smiles at his reaction to seeing rickshaws lined up amongst the bright yellow taxis. “Bit different to home, isn’t it?”
“Kind of.”
To his surprise, they find themselves at the front of the queue fairly quickly. “Why are they letting us go first?” he murmurs quietly to Sara as yet another local waves them ahead in the line.
“You know, I’ve never quite managed to figure that out. I had a friend who used to say that Indian people just like waiting.” Once they’ve secured a taxi, Sara walks to the driver’s window and rattles off a very long sentence in what Michael realises with a start must be Hindi, her hands flying through the air as she talks. The driver’s eyes widen - obviously as taken aback as Michael that the tall, white woman has suddenly broken out into fluent Hindi - then he grins and nods, the sound of the trunk being popped spurring Michael into action.
After their luggage is stowed and they’ve made themselves comfortable in the backseat, Michael nudges Sara’s knee with his. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
She chuckles. “I can order food and beer and ask for directions. That’s about it.” Mischief dances in her eyes. “Uh, I might know some Bengali too.”
He grins. “I’m impressed," he tells her, and it's the truth. Impressed, and more than a little intrigued by the realisation that he obviously still has many things to learn about this woman.
It takes forty-five minutes to reach their hotel, and every moment of the trip is an adventure in itself. Years later, when Michael would tell people about his first impression of Kolkata, he would have two words for them.
Sensory overload.
The world around them becomes a cacophony of car horns and raised voices, Michael’s gaze darting from side to side as he tries to take in everything at once - rickshaws, taxis, cars, livestock, people. At almost every stop sign and traffic light, he sees naked children playing on the side of the street. He sees the beggars, the amputees panhandling on the corners, the emptiness in their eyes as they circling the taxi when it stops at the intersection. Forewarned by Sara, he does his best not to flinch, but the sight of such human misery is something that he knows he’ll never forget. His chest tightens, heat burning at the back of his eyes. He takes several deep breaths, trying to force the air into his lungs, staring at the red traffic light, furiously willing it to change.
Sara takes his hand, shifting to sit as close to him as proprietary allows - Lincoln had been quite correct about public displays of affection - threading her fingers tightly through his. “You okay?”
Swallowing hard, he nods. “Yeah.”
Thankfully, it doesn’t happen again, and by the time they reach their hotel, his heart rate has almost returned to normal. When the taxi suddenly turns off the main street into a driveway, Michael dips his head to look out and up the window, his eyes widening when he realises where they are. The Oberoi Grand is a place Michael came across time and time again in the course of his online research, and he can’t deny he’d been hoping it had made it onto Sara’s short list. He turns his head to find her watching him with a faintly nervous expression.
“What do you think?”
He blinks, surprised that she would even consider that he might not be pleased with her choice. It’s a plain but imposing looking white hotel, built over one hundred and twenty-five years ago, and after everything he’s read about the place, the thought of exploring it is almost enough to make his mouth water. “Nice work, Doctor Tancredi.”
She grins. “It’s such a beautiful place, I really wanted you to see it.”
She pays the taxi driver, a process that once again seems to involve much cheerful negotiation, then a uniformed porter is standing beside the car, waiting to take their luggage. Despite his best efforts, the young boy refuses Michael’s attempts to help with the larger suitcases, swinging both of them out of the trunk with practiced ease. Michael feels faintly uncomfortable with being waited on to such an extent, but does his best to shrug it off. Grabbing the rest of the luggage, he slams the trunk shut and gives their taxi driver a wave. The man beams at him, making Michael suspect that their tip had been a generous one, then the taxi roars out of the driveway to rejoin the morning traffic choking the main street.
Several cars are parked in the circular driveway, an eclectic mix of luxury and older, much cheaper vehicles. Michael eyes the closest BMW, a silver model less than a few months old. He thinks of the beggars that had besieged their taxi, then does his best to push the thought away. He could refuse to step foot inside the Oberoi and drag Sara off to a one-star hotel, but it would serve no purpose - they would be miserably uncomfortable and it would do nothing to change centuries of social injustice.
The turbaned doorman greets them with a smile that stretches from ear to ear, bowing as he pushes open the heavy door. “Welcome to the Oberoi, sir, ma’am.”
Hanging back to let Sara through the door first, Michael gives the man a smile and a nod. “Uh, thank you.” The sound of the traffic outside vanishes as soon as the ornately carved door shuts behind them, then he finds himself following Sara and their porter into a foyer that makes him feel as though he’s fallen through a crack in time.
He knows he looks like an awestruck tourist, but he doesn’t particularly care. His hand curling around Sara’s elbow, he studies the classic art deco lines of the ceiling and the walls, the glossy black and white floor that stretches right through to French doors that look out onto a sunny courtyard. He suddenly remembers there’s a pool out there somewhere - God bless the internet and its endless wealth of facts and figures - and he has a fleeting mental picture of them escaping the heat at the end of each day with a long, peaceful swim.
Checking in proves to be yet another new experience. After swiping Michael’s credit card, the concierge explains to them that there is no need for them to tip any of the staff during the duration of their stay. Michael is tempted to protest, but he remembers Sara telling him that tipping is different in this country. Perhaps seeing Michael’s doubtful expression, the man hastens to elaborate, explaining that such things are dealt with at the end of a guest’s visit.
“Our guests are invited to leave an envelope with us when they check out,” the concierge imparts in a smooth, warm voice. “They include an appropriate sum and the names of those staff whose service they wish to reward.”
As unfamiliar a system as it is, Michael has to admit that it might make life simpler. “Ah, okay.”
The concierge smiles at them both in turn, looking as though helping them has been the highlight of his day so far, and Michael makes a mental note to put the man’s name in that envelope. “Enjoy your stay.”
Fifteen minutes later, they’re alone, gazing around at their room with faint disbelief. The suite in London had been impressive, but this is something else. He looks around the luxuriously appointed suite, his gaze widening at the sight of the four-poster bed, then turns to Sara. She’s running her hands through her hair, her spine arched, looking as though she’s trying to stretch the kinks out of a body forced to spend far too much time in one position. When her eyes meet his, she smiles. “What do you want to do this morning?”
“Your choice.” Apart from the normal sense of disorientation that comes with being in a different country, he feels perfectly fine. “Are you tired?”
“No, thank God.” She walks across the room to the sliding glass door that reaches from ceiling to floor, pulling back the curtain to let sunlight stream into the room. “Oh, we have a balcony.”
He moves quickly to her side, brushing his lips across the glossy tumble of her hair as he reaches over her shoulder to unlock the door. “I guess this means you can sleep with the window open.”
She darts him a sideways glance as she leans back against him, the warmth of her teasing his skin through his shirt. “In this heat? No, thanks.”
Together they peer over the edge of the balcony, and Michael grins at the contrast between the green courtyard and the blue water of the pool. “Nice.”
“I’m so glad you like it.”
He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She lifts her gaze from the shimmering swimming pool, and stares into the beautiful room behind them, a look of discomfort flickering across her face. “This is lovely, but it’s not really the Kolkata I wanted to show you. Not really.” She glances at him. “Does that make sense?”
“Completely,” he says softly, and he sees the relief in her eyes. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, he pulls her close, inhaling the faint scent of her shampoo. “Does it make you feel uncomfortable, staying here?”
“A little.” She pulls back to gaze at him steadily. “But it’s okay. It took me a long time, but I finally understand that there’s no point in making a grand gesture like staying in a dump just to make myself feel better about how someone else has to live.”
His heart twists. When he’d first slotted the name Sara Tancredi into his plan to liberate his brother, he’d had her pegged as a rich girl trying to ease her conscience by playing bleeding hearts. Even now, an eternity later, it stuns him just how wrong he’d been. “I love you.”
The words are out of his mouth before he realises it, and her face softens, her dark gaze melting into his. Lifting her face to his, she gives him a lingering kiss, letting him taste spearmint gum and lip balm. The kiss lasts long enough to make his pulse spike, then she’s pulling away, her fingertips ghosting along his jaw. “I love you, too,” she says with a smile, her other hand splayed flat on his chest, over his heart. “Thank you for doing this.”
He puts his hand over hers, his thumb brushing over the familiar ridges of the antique ring on her index finger. “My pleasure,” he murmurs, a particularly enticing idea blossoming into life inside his head. Rubbing his thumb slowly over the ring a second time, he gives her a smile. “They’re not expecting us at St Mary’s until tomorrow, are they?”
“No.” They’d deliberately delayed their first visit to the orphanage until their second day, wanting to give themselves time to recover from the long flight. She chews on her bottom lip meditatively for a few seconds, then flashes him a bright smile. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure.”
“We could have some breakfast, then take a look around, get acclimatized?”
“Good plan.”
He orders a light breakfast from room service, carefully avoiding the more traditional deep-fried items on the menu. It’s not that he’s not a fan of Indian food, but he’s not sure how he feels about eating it for breakfast.
“Do I have time for a quick shower before the food arrives, do you think? I feel as though I’ve been wearing these clothes for days.”
Michael looks across the large room to where Sara is sitting on the couch, her handbag on the coffee table in front of her. As she always does before she showers, she’s absentmindedly pulling off her watch and her earrings, putting them in a small pile beside her bag. He waits until she slides the ring off her index finger, then smiles.
“Definitely.”
When fragrant steam begins to waft out of the bathroom, he picks up her ring from the coffee table. Perhaps he’s imagining it, but the metal is still warm from her skin as he slides it onto his index finger. It’s a snug fit - her fingers are more slender than his - but it fits. Hastily sliding it off before the unthinkable happens and his fingers swell in the heat and he has to explain why he’s wearing her mother’s ring, he slips it onto his ring finger. Overtly conscious of the sound of running water coming from the bathroom, he studies the difference in how the ring fits on this finger, the ease with which he can turn the small circle, filing away each tiny measurement in his head.
After a few minutes, the ring is back on the coffee table with Sara’s watch and earrings, and ten minutes later he’s signing for their breakfast. As he puts the covered tray on the small dining table, a towel-clad Sara emerges from the bathroom. “Coffee?”
She throws him a grateful smile. They may have been traveling in first class, but airline coffee is still airline coffee. “Yes, please.”
After they pick their way through toast and fruit, he heads to the bathroom himself, wanting to wash the last ten hours of travel from his skin. When he returns to the bedroom, Sara is standing next to the bed in her bra and a pair of gray trousers, slathering sunscreen on her arms. As Michael watches, she digs a long-sleeved white t-shirt out of her suitcase, then pulls it over her head. The shirt has an unusually modest scooped-neck, the sleeves reaching almost to her knuckles, and he can’t help smiling.
“The sunscreen’s a little redundant, don’t you think?”
“I might want to roll my sleeves up.” She turns, giving his brown arms a pointed look, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Unlike some people, all it takes is ten minutes in the midday sun before I start to fry.”
He grins, well used to her protective attitude towards her fair skin. They’ve lived in Punta Chame for just over a year, and while her once pale arms and legs are now delicately tanned, her face and hands are still as translucent as the day she first arrived. Of course, he thinks with a sudden flash of hunger, the tender skin of her breasts and bottom are also still as pale as the day she arrived in Panama, but that’s not a subject he should let himself broach right now, not if they want to leave this room. “Point taken.”
While she slips a pack of hand wipes and two bottles of water into her purse, he hastily dresses in clean jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, suddenly filled with anticipation. It’s hard to believe they’re finally here, finally in the place that means so much to Sara, a place that he hopes will come to mean a lot to him, for more reasons than one. The teeming world outside the hotel is totally foreign to him and, after a year spent in the relative solitude of their house on the beach, he wants nothing more than to soak up as much of it as possible. Unearthing his baseball cap from the bottom of his backpack, he looks at Sara. “Are you ready?”
“Yep.” She picks up the room key and slips it into the pocket of her trousers, then gives him a dazzling smile. “So, what would you like to do first?”
His breath catches in his throat at the sight of her beautiful face, alight with the same anticipation zipping through his veins. Forcing back the urge to blurt out the words that have been on the tip of his tongue ever since their visit to the post office two days ago, he holds out his hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Length: 4,437 words
Rating: PG-15
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. You can read Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here and Chapter Four here. Huge thanks to swatkat24 for letting me badger her with questions for the last couple of weeks and helping me make Michael and Sara's journey as authentic as possible. Any mistakes that remain are all mine, and all concrit is welcomed with open arms. *g*
~*~
As the wheels of their plane lift off the runway at Heathrow, Michael slips off his shoes and reclines his chair a few inches. Another day, another nine hour flight, he thinks ruefully, then catches himself. Flying first class can hardly be considered a chore, even for a nine hour flight.
Sara is staring wistfully out the window, watching London disappear beneath them, and Michael thinks of their earlier conversation. She’d visited London once when she was much younger, and he knows that the trip is one of her happier memories. The prospect of sharing her second visit to the UK is an enticing one, and he makes a mental note to do some research as soon as they return to Panama.
Speaking of research- Reaching out, he brushes her forearm lightly with his fingertips. “Are you going to tell me where we’re staying in Kolkata, or are you still enjoying your little secret too much to let me in on it?”
Sara raises an eyebrow, a mischievous smile curving her lips. “What do you think?”
Biting back his own smile, he narrows his eyes at her. Her refusal to tell him anything about their accommodation in Kolkata has been a source of both frustration and amusement for him. If he’s learned one thing over the last year, it’s that she’ll take any opportunity to keep him from planning every little thing down to the finest detail. He loves her unwavering stance in the face of what he has to admit has been no small amount of pressure to divulge the information, but a small part of him is truly vexed that he hasn’t been able to coax it out of her. “I think I should have read your credit card statement before you had the chance to hide it from me.”
She grins, giving his hand a consoling pat. “And you used to be so good at thinking on your feet.”
He squeezes her hand gently, then settles back in his chair, smiling. “Have you stayed in this place before?” She shakes her head, and he’s absurdly pleased by the thought that, amidst the memories of her past, this will be something new for them to experience together. “What made you decide to stay there this time?”
She gives him another infuriatingly secretive smile. “You’ll see.” With that, she kicks off her shoes and reaches for the paperback tucked beside her, sliding him one last, quick glance. “Trust me.”
He smiles, watching her as she finds her place in her book. After all this time, the words trust me are more than a little unnecessary between them. With the exception of his brother, there’s no one he trusts more. He thinks of her concerned expression as she’d haltingly tried to warn him about what they’re going to experience upon their arrival in Kolkata, and a wave of tenderness washes over him. He’s very glad she told him of her concerns - there have been times over the last month when the anxiety in her eyes has left him wondering whether she regretted their decision to revisit her past. Part of him still wonders if there isn’t a small grain of truth in his theory, but it was a relief to learn she’d mostly been worried about his reaction to Kolkata.
She’d fallen asleep before he could tell her that he’s extensively researched their destination over the last year, and that while he knows the reality is going to be a shock, he’s done everything possible to prepare himself.
He stretches his legs out in front of him experimentally, still coming to terms with the novelty of sitting in an airplane seat without feeling as though his knees are under his chin. Sara had initially been reluctant to fly first class, but he’d told her (and himself) that there were more practical ways to help those who can’t help themselves than endure a nine hour flight in coach. The orphanage’s trust fund was set up for that very reason, and he intends to make good use of his money before they return to Panama.
He studies his feet as he wriggles his toes. He’s still wearing his socks, and his left foot looks perfectly normal. He glances across at Sara once more, remembering the feel of her hands caressing his feet during their bath the night before, her quiet assertion that she barely notices his lack of toes. His thoughts lazily drifting to how they’d spent the rest of their time in the bathroom, he closes his eyes, the latest Hollywood blockbuster on offer no match for the vivid private movie now playing in his head.
First class or not, it’s going to be a long flight.
Four hours later - hours in which they’ve eaten everything they’ve been offered and watched one and a half movies of varying quality - Sara leans across and hands him a pair of earplugs, telling him it’s the fastest way to get to sleep. Surprised, he checks his watch. “It’s only five o’clock.”
“I know, but it will be ten o’clock when we land in Kolkata, which is six in the morning local time.” She drops the foam earplugs into his palm. “If we sleep now, we won’t be as jetlagged when we arrive.” Her mouth twitches with a smile. “You don’t want to waste the whole of tomorrow in bed, do you?”
He looks at her. “Do you actually expect me to answer that?”
Grinning, she leans back into her own chair, tearing open a second packet of ear plugs. “You’re hopeless.”
“No, just good at thinking on my feet.” He crams the earplugs into his ears before she can reply, but her eloquent eye-roll speaks volumes.
The first class seats recline to an indecently luxurious angle, but he’s still not convinced he’ll be able to get comfortable enough to doze off. He spends the next fifteen minutes plagued by the certainty that he will never fall asleep, not even with the sounds around him completely blocked out and the window shade pulled down and his overhead light turned off.
When he next opens his eyes, the air in the cabin seems cooler, the light more diffused. In the seat next to him, Sara is asleep, half turned onto her side, her hands tucked beneath her chin like a child’s. He pulls the earplugs from his ears, and his world once again fills with the sound of the plane’s engine, the soft hum of the air-conditioning and the faint chatter of voices. Checking his watch, he sees that it’s after nine in the evening on Panamanian time, which means they’ll be landing in Calcutta in an hour. It also means he’s been asleep for the last four hours. He looks at the earplugs in his palm, then gives the sleeping woman beside him an admiring glance. Doctor or no doctor, she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to long flights.
Fifteen minutes later, after a hasty visit to the restroom - splashing his face with cold water and cleaning his teeth helping to make him feel more awake than coffee ever could - their plane is skimming across the sunrise. The anticipation sparkling in Sara’s eyes is contagious, and he finds himself leaning across her to peer out the window as the plane begins its final descent over Dum Dum airport. He grins to himself, remembering Sara’s exasperated conversation with Lincoln on the subject of pronunciation - it’s Thom Thom, Lincoln, not Dumb Dumb - as he studies the open fields surrounding the airport. They’re arriving at the tail-end of monsoon season, and the seemingly endless miles of green are dotted with tall waving sheaths of what looks almost like wheat, the pale fronds moving in the wind.
He glances at Sara. “It’s beautiful.”
She leans into him, her shoulder warm against his. “I know.”
It seems to have taken them an eternity to get here, but it soon becomes apparent that their waiting has only just begun. It takes almost an hour to collect their luggage and get through Customs. Michael breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of their suitcases, and can’t help running his hand over the top of his, picturing the letter from Cooper Green lying safely hidden beneath the Lucite.
Even at such an early hour, Dum Dum airport is crawling with people. After their experience at Heathrow, it’s definitely a shock to the system, but one that Michael relishes. There is almost too much to see, too many vivid colours, too many dialects floating through the air. They watch the crowds as they wait in line, occasionally catching each other’s eye, grinning. Despite the openly curious stares from many of the passersby, he feels wonderfully anonymous. He also feels as though everything around him is moving in slow motion. When he glances at his watch a third time, he hears Sara chuckle.
“Don’t you know what IST stands for?” she murmurs in his ear, tangling her fingers in the loose cuff of his long-sleeved shirt.
“Indian Standard Time?”
“Indian Stretchable Time.”
Michael grins as he watches the unhurried, almost relaxed air of the Customs officials. “Right.”
Once they’re finally clear of Customs, he breathes a second sigh of relief. They’ve passed through without having to open up their luggage, which means not having to explain to his sharp-eyed traveling companion why he has an envelope from Cooper Green tucked into his suitcase. He'd rather not have to lie to her, and the alternative isn't an option, because a crowded airport is not where he wants to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.
Their last stop before leaving the airport is a visit to one of the many currency exchange bureaus, where they change one hundred US dollars into Indian rupees. Again, Michael is thankful for Sara’s previous experience, and he’s happy to let her handle the transaction, watching as she politely requests as many notes of small denomination as possible. She’s told him several times that tipping is done very different in India, and while they won’t need to have money handy for their arrival at the hotel, the taxi is a different matter.
The difference in temperature hits them the instant they step out of the airport. It’s still early, just after eight o’clock, but it’s already warm enough to put a flush in Sara’s face and leave him tasting salt on his upper lip. Hauling their luggage behind them, they make their way slowly through the milling crowd to the closest taxi rank. When they reach their destination, he stops in his tracks and turns to Sara, who smiles at his reaction to seeing rickshaws lined up amongst the bright yellow taxis. “Bit different to home, isn’t it?”
“Kind of.”
To his surprise, they find themselves at the front of the queue fairly quickly. “Why are they letting us go first?” he murmurs quietly to Sara as yet another local waves them ahead in the line.
“You know, I’ve never quite managed to figure that out. I had a friend who used to say that Indian people just like waiting.” Once they’ve secured a taxi, Sara walks to the driver’s window and rattles off a very long sentence in what Michael realises with a start must be Hindi, her hands flying through the air as she talks. The driver’s eyes widen - obviously as taken aback as Michael that the tall, white woman has suddenly broken out into fluent Hindi - then he grins and nods, the sound of the trunk being popped spurring Michael into action.
After their luggage is stowed and they’ve made themselves comfortable in the backseat, Michael nudges Sara’s knee with his. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
She chuckles. “I can order food and beer and ask for directions. That’s about it.” Mischief dances in her eyes. “Uh, I might know some Bengali too.”
He grins. “I’m impressed," he tells her, and it's the truth. Impressed, and more than a little intrigued by the realisation that he obviously still has many things to learn about this woman.
It takes forty-five minutes to reach their hotel, and every moment of the trip is an adventure in itself. Years later, when Michael would tell people about his first impression of Kolkata, he would have two words for them.
Sensory overload.
The world around them becomes a cacophony of car horns and raised voices, Michael’s gaze darting from side to side as he tries to take in everything at once - rickshaws, taxis, cars, livestock, people. At almost every stop sign and traffic light, he sees naked children playing on the side of the street. He sees the beggars, the amputees panhandling on the corners, the emptiness in their eyes as they circling the taxi when it stops at the intersection. Forewarned by Sara, he does his best not to flinch, but the sight of such human misery is something that he knows he’ll never forget. His chest tightens, heat burning at the back of his eyes. He takes several deep breaths, trying to force the air into his lungs, staring at the red traffic light, furiously willing it to change.
Sara takes his hand, shifting to sit as close to him as proprietary allows - Lincoln had been quite correct about public displays of affection - threading her fingers tightly through his. “You okay?”
Swallowing hard, he nods. “Yeah.”
Thankfully, it doesn’t happen again, and by the time they reach their hotel, his heart rate has almost returned to normal. When the taxi suddenly turns off the main street into a driveway, Michael dips his head to look out and up the window, his eyes widening when he realises where they are. The Oberoi Grand is a place Michael came across time and time again in the course of his online research, and he can’t deny he’d been hoping it had made it onto Sara’s short list. He turns his head to find her watching him with a faintly nervous expression.
“What do you think?”
He blinks, surprised that she would even consider that he might not be pleased with her choice. It’s a plain but imposing looking white hotel, built over one hundred and twenty-five years ago, and after everything he’s read about the place, the thought of exploring it is almost enough to make his mouth water. “Nice work, Doctor Tancredi.”
She grins. “It’s such a beautiful place, I really wanted you to see it.”
She pays the taxi driver, a process that once again seems to involve much cheerful negotiation, then a uniformed porter is standing beside the car, waiting to take their luggage. Despite his best efforts, the young boy refuses Michael’s attempts to help with the larger suitcases, swinging both of them out of the trunk with practiced ease. Michael feels faintly uncomfortable with being waited on to such an extent, but does his best to shrug it off. Grabbing the rest of the luggage, he slams the trunk shut and gives their taxi driver a wave. The man beams at him, making Michael suspect that their tip had been a generous one, then the taxi roars out of the driveway to rejoin the morning traffic choking the main street.
Several cars are parked in the circular driveway, an eclectic mix of luxury and older, much cheaper vehicles. Michael eyes the closest BMW, a silver model less than a few months old. He thinks of the beggars that had besieged their taxi, then does his best to push the thought away. He could refuse to step foot inside the Oberoi and drag Sara off to a one-star hotel, but it would serve no purpose - they would be miserably uncomfortable and it would do nothing to change centuries of social injustice.
The turbaned doorman greets them with a smile that stretches from ear to ear, bowing as he pushes open the heavy door. “Welcome to the Oberoi, sir, ma’am.”
Hanging back to let Sara through the door first, Michael gives the man a smile and a nod. “Uh, thank you.” The sound of the traffic outside vanishes as soon as the ornately carved door shuts behind them, then he finds himself following Sara and their porter into a foyer that makes him feel as though he’s fallen through a crack in time.
He knows he looks like an awestruck tourist, but he doesn’t particularly care. His hand curling around Sara’s elbow, he studies the classic art deco lines of the ceiling and the walls, the glossy black and white floor that stretches right through to French doors that look out onto a sunny courtyard. He suddenly remembers there’s a pool out there somewhere - God bless the internet and its endless wealth of facts and figures - and he has a fleeting mental picture of them escaping the heat at the end of each day with a long, peaceful swim.
Checking in proves to be yet another new experience. After swiping Michael’s credit card, the concierge explains to them that there is no need for them to tip any of the staff during the duration of their stay. Michael is tempted to protest, but he remembers Sara telling him that tipping is different in this country. Perhaps seeing Michael’s doubtful expression, the man hastens to elaborate, explaining that such things are dealt with at the end of a guest’s visit.
“Our guests are invited to leave an envelope with us when they check out,” the concierge imparts in a smooth, warm voice. “They include an appropriate sum and the names of those staff whose service they wish to reward.”
As unfamiliar a system as it is, Michael has to admit that it might make life simpler. “Ah, okay.”
The concierge smiles at them both in turn, looking as though helping them has been the highlight of his day so far, and Michael makes a mental note to put the man’s name in that envelope. “Enjoy your stay.”
Fifteen minutes later, they’re alone, gazing around at their room with faint disbelief. The suite in London had been impressive, but this is something else. He looks around the luxuriously appointed suite, his gaze widening at the sight of the four-poster bed, then turns to Sara. She’s running her hands through her hair, her spine arched, looking as though she’s trying to stretch the kinks out of a body forced to spend far too much time in one position. When her eyes meet his, she smiles. “What do you want to do this morning?”
“Your choice.” Apart from the normal sense of disorientation that comes with being in a different country, he feels perfectly fine. “Are you tired?”
“No, thank God.” She walks across the room to the sliding glass door that reaches from ceiling to floor, pulling back the curtain to let sunlight stream into the room. “Oh, we have a balcony.”
He moves quickly to her side, brushing his lips across the glossy tumble of her hair as he reaches over her shoulder to unlock the door. “I guess this means you can sleep with the window open.”
She darts him a sideways glance as she leans back against him, the warmth of her teasing his skin through his shirt. “In this heat? No, thanks.”
Together they peer over the edge of the balcony, and Michael grins at the contrast between the green courtyard and the blue water of the pool. “Nice.”
“I’m so glad you like it.”
He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She lifts her gaze from the shimmering swimming pool, and stares into the beautiful room behind them, a look of discomfort flickering across her face. “This is lovely, but it’s not really the Kolkata I wanted to show you. Not really.” She glances at him. “Does that make sense?”
“Completely,” he says softly, and he sees the relief in her eyes. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, he pulls her close, inhaling the faint scent of her shampoo. “Does it make you feel uncomfortable, staying here?”
“A little.” She pulls back to gaze at him steadily. “But it’s okay. It took me a long time, but I finally understand that there’s no point in making a grand gesture like staying in a dump just to make myself feel better about how someone else has to live.”
His heart twists. When he’d first slotted the name Sara Tancredi into his plan to liberate his brother, he’d had her pegged as a rich girl trying to ease her conscience by playing bleeding hearts. Even now, an eternity later, it stuns him just how wrong he’d been. “I love you.”
The words are out of his mouth before he realises it, and her face softens, her dark gaze melting into his. Lifting her face to his, she gives him a lingering kiss, letting him taste spearmint gum and lip balm. The kiss lasts long enough to make his pulse spike, then she’s pulling away, her fingertips ghosting along his jaw. “I love you, too,” she says with a smile, her other hand splayed flat on his chest, over his heart. “Thank you for doing this.”
He puts his hand over hers, his thumb brushing over the familiar ridges of the antique ring on her index finger. “My pleasure,” he murmurs, a particularly enticing idea blossoming into life inside his head. Rubbing his thumb slowly over the ring a second time, he gives her a smile. “They’re not expecting us at St Mary’s until tomorrow, are they?”
“No.” They’d deliberately delayed their first visit to the orphanage until their second day, wanting to give themselves time to recover from the long flight. She chews on her bottom lip meditatively for a few seconds, then flashes him a bright smile. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure.”
“We could have some breakfast, then take a look around, get acclimatized?”
“Good plan.”
He orders a light breakfast from room service, carefully avoiding the more traditional deep-fried items on the menu. It’s not that he’s not a fan of Indian food, but he’s not sure how he feels about eating it for breakfast.
“Do I have time for a quick shower before the food arrives, do you think? I feel as though I’ve been wearing these clothes for days.”
Michael looks across the large room to where Sara is sitting on the couch, her handbag on the coffee table in front of her. As she always does before she showers, she’s absentmindedly pulling off her watch and her earrings, putting them in a small pile beside her bag. He waits until she slides the ring off her index finger, then smiles.
“Definitely.”
When fragrant steam begins to waft out of the bathroom, he picks up her ring from the coffee table. Perhaps he’s imagining it, but the metal is still warm from her skin as he slides it onto his index finger. It’s a snug fit - her fingers are more slender than his - but it fits. Hastily sliding it off before the unthinkable happens and his fingers swell in the heat and he has to explain why he’s wearing her mother’s ring, he slips it onto his ring finger. Overtly conscious of the sound of running water coming from the bathroom, he studies the difference in how the ring fits on this finger, the ease with which he can turn the small circle, filing away each tiny measurement in his head.
After a few minutes, the ring is back on the coffee table with Sara’s watch and earrings, and ten minutes later he’s signing for their breakfast. As he puts the covered tray on the small dining table, a towel-clad Sara emerges from the bathroom. “Coffee?”
She throws him a grateful smile. They may have been traveling in first class, but airline coffee is still airline coffee. “Yes, please.”
After they pick their way through toast and fruit, he heads to the bathroom himself, wanting to wash the last ten hours of travel from his skin. When he returns to the bedroom, Sara is standing next to the bed in her bra and a pair of gray trousers, slathering sunscreen on her arms. As Michael watches, she digs a long-sleeved white t-shirt out of her suitcase, then pulls it over her head. The shirt has an unusually modest scooped-neck, the sleeves reaching almost to her knuckles, and he can’t help smiling.
“The sunscreen’s a little redundant, don’t you think?”
“I might want to roll my sleeves up.” She turns, giving his brown arms a pointed look, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Unlike some people, all it takes is ten minutes in the midday sun before I start to fry.”
He grins, well used to her protective attitude towards her fair skin. They’ve lived in Punta Chame for just over a year, and while her once pale arms and legs are now delicately tanned, her face and hands are still as translucent as the day she first arrived. Of course, he thinks with a sudden flash of hunger, the tender skin of her breasts and bottom are also still as pale as the day she arrived in Panama, but that’s not a subject he should let himself broach right now, not if they want to leave this room. “Point taken.”
While she slips a pack of hand wipes and two bottles of water into her purse, he hastily dresses in clean jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, suddenly filled with anticipation. It’s hard to believe they’re finally here, finally in the place that means so much to Sara, a place that he hopes will come to mean a lot to him, for more reasons than one. The teeming world outside the hotel is totally foreign to him and, after a year spent in the relative solitude of their house on the beach, he wants nothing more than to soak up as much of it as possible. Unearthing his baseball cap from the bottom of his backpack, he looks at Sara. “Are you ready?”
“Yep.” She picks up the room key and slips it into the pocket of her trousers, then gives him a dazzling smile. “So, what would you like to do first?”
His breath catches in his throat at the sight of her beautiful face, alight with the same anticipation zipping through his veins. Forcing back the urge to blurt out the words that have been on the tip of his tongue ever since their visit to the post office two days ago, he holds out his hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”
~*~