"Latency", for foxriverinmate
Title: Latency
Author: To be revealed
Rating: pg-13
Category: Drama, Angst, Implied Het, set around 4:16 (no spoilers)
Characters/Pairings: Michael, Christina, Lincoln, Sara, some Sara/Michael
Requested by: foxriverinmate.
Summary: Michael cannot decide what is real and what is the figment of his post-operative condition, but his mind is about to be challenged by the brute force of his mother’s brain as he struggles to ward off insanity.
Author’s Note: foxriverinmate simply wanted Michael *g*. She gave the prompts hurt/comfort, Michael with anyone, humor, general, any romantic persuasion, angst. foxriverinmate! There’s a bit of most things here (not much humor) and I hope it meets your prompts.
Latency
His brain is his weapon. It’s potent. The grains of squiggle flutter with a neuro-electricity he can almost hear. It is vibrant and dextrous. It rebounds and attacks and can bring a line of hostiles to their knees. It deduces. It can ascertain if you are an enemy within a blink of an eye, and it softens in the face of his comrades at arms.
His brain is weaponry. It theorizes and uses complicated strategy to defend territory, but recently his mind has been more susceptible to internal combustion. Friendly fire. When the most advanced part of the fleet - the Scofield Think Tank - can easily be destroyed by a member of it’s own arsenal.
And sometimes, with great subtlety, his brain turns upon itself and Michael is lost at war.
The Westmoreland encounter during his operation is merely the tip of the recovery iceberg and even though Michael thought it a near-death experience, what happens next may prove otherwise. Scofield knows this internal prison is more terrifying than Sona, more debilitating than a psychological cage and impossible to escape from, because the Jail of his Mind is entirely impregnable - from the inside out.
Regardless of his protests, the Company doctors work with him on his reaction time, memory retrieval, coherent thought and full use of senses over intensive hours of daylight. It is at night the firebrand of his tumor stalks the inside of his cranium and phantoms dreams and images so vivid, Michael wakes believing them true. Sara holds him as he shivers and shakes with horror, attempting to recount what she thinks are mere nightmares, but what he believes are actual manifestations of mania. So he never disagrees with her words of comfort. She might end up working for them too, if his paranoia and internal voice are to be appreciated as truth.
His brain is a land-to-air missile, and he’s shooting it above in an attempt to plan, plot, configure and deal; it’s descending sharply in the wake of his surgery and post-operative treatment, and if Michael can’t move quickly enough, he’s going to be a victim of friendly fire.
But this conspiracy comes at night, the missile banging towards his head with such stealth, he’s unable to see it until it’s almost fully entrenched in his brain. Until he realizes the truth. That he has to sort the psychosis from the message in order to have any chance to wander back amongst the living.
*
Michael sits in a room, but he’s not alone. His chair is in solitude, but he’s surrounded by a U-shape of tables and he’s aware of a figure at each section of desk. They face him, but his eyes are fixed to the front and even though he is desperate to see who accompanies him into this delusion, Michael can only make out Lincoln. His older brother is directly inside his line of vision, and he sits with his arms folded, chewing gum.
‘It’s your turn to defend yourself, Michael. You’ve heard everyone else here. You know where I stand, bro, so now you. We’re running outta time.’
‘Linc? Lincoln?’ Michael detects lots of things in his own voice - concern, high anxiety - but even though he knows this can’t possibly be real, he cannot use his major weapon to break himself free of his head. The friendly fire looms dangerously lower. ‘Who is here? Who is here with us, Linc?’
He sees Lincoln sigh. His brother wears the same look of frustration he did when Michael wouldn’t seek help for his head, and the same slam of aggression as the day they last came to physical blows in Panama. Michael senses such an intensity of feeling in this room, he tries to boost from his seat and run from the shackles of his brain, but he is bonded by more than thought. He’s stuck. As in most dreamscapes, his feet are leaden with sleep inertia. ‘Please? Lincoln?’
‘We don’t have time for this, Michael-’
‘Yes we do,’ interrupts Sara, and Michael feels his heart beat more rhythmically. ‘It’s his time, so…Michael? I’m here, with Linc. Next to me is your father, the other side of Lincoln is Christina. Then we have Fernando, Alex, Vee, Charles...and...and…’
Michael wars with his head, and as a result he flips the chair about, but there is still no way to escape. ‘Who else, Sara? Please?’ Then his eyes goggle for a second, and he feels his mouth crunch into a smirk. ‘Oh. Right. I get it. Um, shouldn’t there be twelve of you?’
‘That’s not what this is about, bro,’ Lincoln injects before Sara has time to continue. ‘This is not your trial.’
Michael laughs. There is nothing funny about losing your mind, or realizing your major artillery is aimed at your own head, but it’s probably more amusing than your lover, your brother, parents and friends sitting as your executioners. ‘Then what is it?’ he asks, sneering. He puts his hand to his forehead and withdraws it, expecting to see blood associated with the red haze of his pain, so it surprises him to see it’s clear body fluid streaking from him in waves. He’s burning up from the inside of his malfunctioning furnace. He’s sweating guilt, or is it remorse?
‘Now’s not the time for askin’ those questions, Pretty,’ purrs Bagwell, from somewhere to Michael’s left. ‘We all know you’ve got the Mightiest Mind God put on the face of this planet, but there is no angry dozen here. But if Family and the Voice of Reason get representation in this place, then Ms Gretchen and I are here to speak for The Badness. Just so you know.’
Michael immediately tries to establish eye contact with Sara. He thinks if he can save his most constant ally from confronting the friendly fire that will kill them all, there might be a chance for his redemption. He doubts it, but his mind is so damn hazy, he is having trouble remembering this is not real. He is having trouble thinking at all.
‘If this is NOT a trial, then what the hell is it?’
The sounds of sniggers and sighs, hushed whispers and papers muting against each other echo around the space. It’s an unfamiliar female voice answering now, but Michael knows exactly who it is. He can even imagine her face. ‘It’s a gathering to reminisce about you, son. It’s like a redemption recollection. It’s to remind you of your essential goodness, something you appear to be forgetting as you’ve fallen deeper into this hole.’
‘Right!’ Michael is instantly aggressive and sarcastic, ‘and you’d know a lot about me? About this hole I’m in? You’re the one digging-’
‘I’ve been telling mom about our last fight, Michael,’ admits Lincoln, commanding the floor again. ‘How you were too sick to tackle me physically, but you dragged me down with your words, and how I held you against the wall even though your fucking head was bandaged.’
‘I remember,’ says Michael, closing his eyes on the float of unreality. ‘It was in the recovery room of The Company’s medical suite, that much I can...just...remember…’
...his head was pounding like the tumor was still there threatening to split open, but Michael continued on at Linc, using arguments he knew would weigh on his brother’s conscience. He was too weak to try and punch some sense into Lincoln, which never worked anyway. They’d been brothers for over thirty years, and Michael hadn’t the strength to take Lincoln in a fight over the entire time.
‘You would be working for them, Linc! We are trying to bring them down, not form an alliance!’
His brother prowled the glass enclosure like a panther on heat, stopping only when he was toe to toe with Michael. His menace didn’t deter Scofield, and although Michael was arguing about the black and white concept of right, wrong and The Company, a major reason for not wanting Linc involved was the danger he’d face without Michael there. ‘If you do this, you’ll be no better than them!’ Don’t do it Linc, you’ll be unsafe. Wait for me to get better, I’ll help you.
Lincoln reacted. He pulled Michael by the scruff of his medical gown and grasped him towards his own chest. ‘Why you sancti...sancti...FUCK...you sanctim...you son of a bitch!’
‘I’m a sanctimonious son of a bitch?’ Michael emphasized the word Lincoln couldn’t pronounce, and this irritated Burrows further, ‘well apparently the BITCH is out there, but there will only be ONE son working for her!’
Michael felt Lincoln heave on his top, shove him away and press him against the glassed wall. It wasn’t the first time in their lives they’d fought like this, but it was their first confrontation over their mother. ‘I’m doing this for you, Goddamn it! I’m doing this so we can END it!’
‘It’ll never end. Not while she’s alive, and not while she has control over you!’ Michael remembers saying. ‘She’s using you. She’s using my operation so you’ll help her get what she wants...but it won’t stop there, Linc, it-’
‘You’re wrong! I’ll walk away,’ Lincoln verbally smacked into his face. He pinned Michael with one hand to the chest, and fisted his other over his head in a threatening stance, but the younger brother knew Linc wouldn’t punch him as surely as he knew the next words out of his mouth would render Lincoln mute.
‘She’s using you like she used Dad,’ Michael said. Lincoln tightened his grip and growled from the depths of his being, but it didn’t deter Michael. ‘It’s the same. She’s the thinker - don’t you get it? And Aldo was the standover man….now she’s grooming a standover son…’
Lincoln didn’t hit him, but he did slam his fist into the wall above Michael’s head, meeting the solid hate of the glass. Michael didn’t flinch, so Linc did it again, and finally when Burrows got the reaction he was looking for - a look of hurt and fear gracing Michael’s bandaged features - did the older brother walk out on Scofield. And he never looked back...
‘How long ago was that fight? From now, Lincoln? How long?’
Michael asks the question to the central table, and the four pivotal figures have become clearer as he lapses back from memory into insanity. Sara, Lincoln, Christina, Aldo. The other six remain a half-dozen of consciousness he can feel, but their presence is flakey - as though his redemption is either granted without question (Charles, Vee, Sucre...perhaps even Alex) or not even considered; Bagwell. Gretchen. Michael spares a moment to wonder what further role they might have in this unreal universe, then his mother deigns to speak again. ‘Time doesn’t matter here, Michael. The future doesn’t exist, son. It’s the past we are considering.’
Michael tastes the roar of the missile at the back of his palate. His brain recognizes the consequential danger in this matching of minds, and the fight-flight trigger shields his head from the threat of his own friendly fire. Suddenly, the imminent danger doesn’t stem from his own thoughts. His mother’s weapon is shiny and experienced, emblazoned with years of cognitive warfare and ready for head-to-head confrontation with it’s think-alike son. Michael hopes he is up to the challenge, because it’s now or never. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ He doesn’t give her credence of title at this stage because she’s done nothing to deserve it, ‘the future is very, very important to us. To Sara and Lincoln. To me, even if it’s not important to YOU.’
Michael loves how the final couple of words are slung towards his mother with an edge bordering on disdain, and he thinks he hears Aldo clear his throat to utter some words. Nothing is forthcoming, so perhaps the Standover Man and Son are too much in awe of the Matriarch and her Prodigal to enter the verbal spate? It’s a pity, because with each moment of silence, Michael fears Lincoln is being dragged closer to the epicenter of his mother’s plans for history repetition.
‘You may have no future, son.’
‘DON’T call me that!’ Michael still cannot move, can’t jump from his seat to haul Sara to safety, can’t run at Lincoln to push him away from their mother’s armed-force recruitment. He’s fixated. And his mindset will be too if he doesn’t batten down his hatches and select what to believe and what to ignore. ‘You have no idea about me and a future. You are not God.’
‘How can you expect a future, Michael, if you keep treating people this way? People you love, says Christina, emphasizing the last word as though she is the Giver of All Love. ‘You’ve ruined lives Michael, and this gathering has been hearing all about the decisions you’ve made and the paths you’ve chosen. I mean, Sara? For goodness sake, your treatment of Sara-’
‘DO NOT say her name!’
Michael shouts at Christina, realizing now he can only see his mother. Everyone else is gone, and in this moment of mini-anxiety, while his logical brain is trying to recall this is not real - it’s not happening - he cranes his neck and bugs his eyes to search for Sara and Lincoln. He can’t see them, but his forcefield reminds him not to panic. Michael can’t afford to fall to friendly fire, not when he faces such a deadly advance of Maternal Mind Military. ‘I love Sara. She knows that.’
‘You abandon her. You push her away and lie to her. She’s told us that. She’s told all of us that, while we sat listening to her just now and-’
Christina stops mid-sentence as Sara steps from the shadows of Michael’s mind to touch his mother on her left shoulder. Is it a sign of caution from Sara to his mom? Is it a show of affection, and Sara is turning towards Christina just like Lincoln? ‘No! Sara! Say it’s not so…’
Michael hears his voice trail off as Sara casts him a smile which is exactly like the reaffirming look she gave him before his CAT scan, before his head was expunged during surgery, and he feels his anxiety dissipate a little. Then she speaks, and he’s lost. ‘Your mother asked me about our last difference of opinion, Michael, and of course I had to tell her. Considering this...considering what this is all about; your redemption, your past. So I told her about the bridge. You know? The moment when you mentioned you thought she was alive and I didn’t know what to say…?’
Michael groans and holds his head. He wants to be holding her, to tell her exactly what she means to him before it’s too late, but his head! His goddamned head must be shedding internally. It’s the pain. It’s always the pain doing him in. ‘I remember the bridge, Sara! I do remember the bridge, but I love you...I do love you…
He spiraled into the woods with the words about thinking his mother was alive, and Sara didn’t appear to know where to look. All Michael wanted was to grab her and run to the car she’d smashed into their enemies, cradle her in his heart for the next fifty years and ask her for a future. All he knew how to do was love her through protection by distancing her from his squalor. He’s good at that.
‘So what’s our next move, Michael? Do we know how to find your mother and what does she have to do with Scylla?’
Michael felt himself sneer at her. He shifted his body along the bridge railing, attempting to nullify the physical effects of their love, but nothing worked. He still wanted her with him. He was still willing to risk their lives for a chance to be somewhat whole with Sara Tancredi. ‘I don’t know how to get to her yet. What I do know is you need to get yourself back to the city. Now.’
She wounded so easily - not ever at the hands of their enemies - but by his own bidding. Sara looked down, but Michael knew she was bleeding inside for both of them, and she was trying to find the words to make sense of his latest series of actions. ‘You’re kidding me, right? What…?’ she stammered just a little, but it was enough to let Michael steel his protective instinct, ‘you want to do this yourself? You don’t want me with you? Is that it?’
Look at me and know I love you. Please look at me, and read my eyes. You cannot die. I will not let you die, so I will push you away and kill you before our enemies do. Look at me, SARA. She didn’t, so Michael rattled on. ‘That’s right. Get back to the city. Take the car. I’m working alone and by foot.’
‘I’m not leaving you. I’ve told you so many times since we started this.’
Michael played his Hate Card. He used the coward’s measure, because he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes even though he felt hers boring into his head. The only time Michael watched her during the Bridge Encounter was when Sara Tancredi drove from him as he staggered away from their mutual point. ‘I need you to leave. You’re slowing me down. I need you alive, so go back to the city, Sara. That’s all I have to say on the matter.’
His words were so wooden, he almost splintered himself. She didn’t move, merely placed her arms around her body protectively. Sara didn’t step away, so Michael did. He wandered off, back turned t’wards her sun, hoping his gently lurching shoulders weren’t giving away the fact he was crying...
‘When did that happen? Sara, please tell me? How long ago was the afternoon we stood on that bridge?’ And I watched you drive away...please don’t leave me...but please stay alive or I’ll die...
The craziness of the present draws him back to the foreboding room. Michael’s favorite people have gone, and he is alone with his mother once more. He can no longer feel Sara or Lincoln, and thinks the others might never have been here - not Aldo or Sucre or Alex...all a part of the madness of war. His brain in the battle for sanity.
‘It’s just us now, son.’
Christina has drawn a chair up from the outskirts of the scene and sits knee to knee with Michael. He doesn’t know whether to use his foot to kick out at her so he can regain some sort of control, or steel his mind against the final game she is sure to play, just so he comes out of this fiasco with some sanity intact. He feels his heart-rate accelerate. Perhaps friendly fire is no longer a threat, but the only thing standing between himself and his final capitulation is his mother’s apology? Or her explanation? But she seems to have none of that for him. ‘They have all left their votes with me, Michael. And I’m sorry to say only one of your allies and enemies decided you worthy of redemption. NONE of your actions are considered good enough by the rest. You are not good enough, according to the majority.’
Michael doesn’t expect this. He thinks his mother might be a consummate liar, although how is he to know this really? His mother is as strange to him as a life without hardship. ‘So? Only one person declared me redeemable?’ Michael repeats the words to give his brain battalion time to strategize and defend. ‘I know who that is.’
Christina smiles, and this shocks Michael more than any words could. She has a grin like Lincoln and her eyes light up like his own. The familiarity unsettles him. ‘No, my love, you wouldn’t guess your positive vote in a million years.’
He shuffles in his seat. Michael decides to play his card because he is so tired. So very, very tired. ‘It’s Sara. She thinks I’m worthy,’ and he states it to regain a modicum of confidence and control.
‘No. It’s not Sara. She’s tired too. You’ve pushed her to that point, son, but if you act now, you can regain what you might have lost by pushing her away. And it’s not Lincoln either, but I think you know this. You’ve lost him too; taken them for granted...’
Michael feels himself lapsing. He wants to open his eyes, but his mother won’t let him go, won’t let him find Sara and fall to his knees and carve out his heart for her; won’t let him seek Lincoln and renew the fraternal bond that used to be so strong, they could have shared that heart. ‘Who is it?’ he croaks, feeling lost. ‘Who thinks I’m worthy?’
Christina leans forward, but Michael notices she fading from him visually just as sure as Sucre, Sara, Vee, Alex, and his own father have gone. He feels a gentle touch to his knee. ‘Michael. It’s me, son. My vote. You are worthy of redemption, because you distance your loved ones, you protect with your brain, you use your mind to manipulate them to safety, you hurt with words...but we both know why this is. We know why - you and I. We know we have to shun the ones we love the most furthest from this mind-mess we create; we’d give our lives for them, we can’t watch them die on the stage our brains create. No one knows this better than me, son. No one understands this sacrifice like me...and one day, perhaps you will understand…
*
He wakes in a watershed of tears, lying on Sara’s stomach, calling names. Michael tongues them along the roof of his mouth - Lincoln, Vee, LJ, Sucre, Dad, Mom - and Sara. He clings to her, knowing she is awake because of the movement of her palm over the pound of his skull, and he wonders if it is too late to prevent another Christina-Aldo & Sons scenario with himself, Sara, Lincoln, LJ.
His own mother did what was best for them and Michael’s first inclination is to get Sara the hell out of here too, but she is so goddamn stubborn, she hasn’t left him since he called her the night after the bridge and asked her to forgive his method. The method of his madness. He’s not taking them for granted now, especially her.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m sorry. I was dreaming again, I think. Hope I didn’t wake you?’
They’re still incarcerated in Company luxury and the brain people are still working on him to get him to exchange words with his mother. Sara remains neutral, knowing he needs to fathom and deduce, ponder and deliberate upon his own journey. And maybe he did need to, but this was before the nocturnal revelation.
‘Maybe if you see her, Michael? Your mom? It can’t be any worse than what’s happening at the moment.’
The imminent threat of friendly fire is gone, and the frightening advance of his mother’s psyche upon his own is so presently accounted for during his recent experience, Michael almost feels free for the first time in his adult life. There’s no use doing it alone, not when he has the best support available. It’s so damned easy all of a sudden. ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ he replies to her, pushing his skull into her palm and never wanting to create distance between them again. He murmurs something about being like his mother in more ways than he realized, and when Sara says nothing Michael starts to believe in his mind’s ability to defend itself again, and to regenerate plans of action which might result in positive outcomes for a change.
But for now, he ignores the tiny unsullied part of his brain which fires the missile of ‘possible happy ending’ into his heart, because he knows his mind is always liable to play tricks upon him. Even when it presents the option he craves most.
*
Author: To be revealed
Rating: pg-13
Category: Drama, Angst, Implied Het, set around 4:16 (no spoilers)
Characters/Pairings: Michael, Christina, Lincoln, Sara, some Sara/Michael
Requested by: foxriverinmate.
Summary: Michael cannot decide what is real and what is the figment of his post-operative condition, but his mind is about to be challenged by the brute force of his mother’s brain as he struggles to ward off insanity.
Author’s Note: foxriverinmate simply wanted Michael *g*. She gave the prompts hurt/comfort, Michael with anyone, humor, general, any romantic persuasion, angst. foxriverinmate! There’s a bit of most things here (not much humor) and I hope it meets your prompts.
Latency
His brain is his weapon. It’s potent. The grains of squiggle flutter with a neuro-electricity he can almost hear. It is vibrant and dextrous. It rebounds and attacks and can bring a line of hostiles to their knees. It deduces. It can ascertain if you are an enemy within a blink of an eye, and it softens in the face of his comrades at arms.
His brain is weaponry. It theorizes and uses complicated strategy to defend territory, but recently his mind has been more susceptible to internal combustion. Friendly fire. When the most advanced part of the fleet - the Scofield Think Tank - can easily be destroyed by a member of it’s own arsenal.
And sometimes, with great subtlety, his brain turns upon itself and Michael is lost at war.
The Westmoreland encounter during his operation is merely the tip of the recovery iceberg and even though Michael thought it a near-death experience, what happens next may prove otherwise. Scofield knows this internal prison is more terrifying than Sona, more debilitating than a psychological cage and impossible to escape from, because the Jail of his Mind is entirely impregnable - from the inside out.
Regardless of his protests, the Company doctors work with him on his reaction time, memory retrieval, coherent thought and full use of senses over intensive hours of daylight. It is at night the firebrand of his tumor stalks the inside of his cranium and phantoms dreams and images so vivid, Michael wakes believing them true. Sara holds him as he shivers and shakes with horror, attempting to recount what she thinks are mere nightmares, but what he believes are actual manifestations of mania. So he never disagrees with her words of comfort. She might end up working for them too, if his paranoia and internal voice are to be appreciated as truth.
His brain is a land-to-air missile, and he’s shooting it above in an attempt to plan, plot, configure and deal; it’s descending sharply in the wake of his surgery and post-operative treatment, and if Michael can’t move quickly enough, he’s going to be a victim of friendly fire.
But this conspiracy comes at night, the missile banging towards his head with such stealth, he’s unable to see it until it’s almost fully entrenched in his brain. Until he realizes the truth. That he has to sort the psychosis from the message in order to have any chance to wander back amongst the living.
*
Michael sits in a room, but he’s not alone. His chair is in solitude, but he’s surrounded by a U-shape of tables and he’s aware of a figure at each section of desk. They face him, but his eyes are fixed to the front and even though he is desperate to see who accompanies him into this delusion, Michael can only make out Lincoln. His older brother is directly inside his line of vision, and he sits with his arms folded, chewing gum.
‘It’s your turn to defend yourself, Michael. You’ve heard everyone else here. You know where I stand, bro, so now you. We’re running outta time.’
‘Linc? Lincoln?’ Michael detects lots of things in his own voice - concern, high anxiety - but even though he knows this can’t possibly be real, he cannot use his major weapon to break himself free of his head. The friendly fire looms dangerously lower. ‘Who is here? Who is here with us, Linc?’
He sees Lincoln sigh. His brother wears the same look of frustration he did when Michael wouldn’t seek help for his head, and the same slam of aggression as the day they last came to physical blows in Panama. Michael senses such an intensity of feeling in this room, he tries to boost from his seat and run from the shackles of his brain, but he is bonded by more than thought. He’s stuck. As in most dreamscapes, his feet are leaden with sleep inertia. ‘Please? Lincoln?’
‘We don’t have time for this, Michael-’
‘Yes we do,’ interrupts Sara, and Michael feels his heart beat more rhythmically. ‘It’s his time, so…Michael? I’m here, with Linc. Next to me is your father, the other side of Lincoln is Christina. Then we have Fernando, Alex, Vee, Charles...and...and…’
Michael wars with his head, and as a result he flips the chair about, but there is still no way to escape. ‘Who else, Sara? Please?’ Then his eyes goggle for a second, and he feels his mouth crunch into a smirk. ‘Oh. Right. I get it. Um, shouldn’t there be twelve of you?’
‘That’s not what this is about, bro,’ Lincoln injects before Sara has time to continue. ‘This is not your trial.’
Michael laughs. There is nothing funny about losing your mind, or realizing your major artillery is aimed at your own head, but it’s probably more amusing than your lover, your brother, parents and friends sitting as your executioners. ‘Then what is it?’ he asks, sneering. He puts his hand to his forehead and withdraws it, expecting to see blood associated with the red haze of his pain, so it surprises him to see it’s clear body fluid streaking from him in waves. He’s burning up from the inside of his malfunctioning furnace. He’s sweating guilt, or is it remorse?
‘Now’s not the time for askin’ those questions, Pretty,’ purrs Bagwell, from somewhere to Michael’s left. ‘We all know you’ve got the Mightiest Mind God put on the face of this planet, but there is no angry dozen here. But if Family and the Voice of Reason get representation in this place, then Ms Gretchen and I are here to speak for The Badness. Just so you know.’
Michael immediately tries to establish eye contact with Sara. He thinks if he can save his most constant ally from confronting the friendly fire that will kill them all, there might be a chance for his redemption. He doubts it, but his mind is so damn hazy, he is having trouble remembering this is not real. He is having trouble thinking at all.
‘If this is NOT a trial, then what the hell is it?’
The sounds of sniggers and sighs, hushed whispers and papers muting against each other echo around the space. It’s an unfamiliar female voice answering now, but Michael knows exactly who it is. He can even imagine her face. ‘It’s a gathering to reminisce about you, son. It’s like a redemption recollection. It’s to remind you of your essential goodness, something you appear to be forgetting as you’ve fallen deeper into this hole.’
‘Right!’ Michael is instantly aggressive and sarcastic, ‘and you’d know a lot about me? About this hole I’m in? You’re the one digging-’
‘I’ve been telling mom about our last fight, Michael,’ admits Lincoln, commanding the floor again. ‘How you were too sick to tackle me physically, but you dragged me down with your words, and how I held you against the wall even though your fucking head was bandaged.’
‘I remember,’ says Michael, closing his eyes on the float of unreality. ‘It was in the recovery room of The Company’s medical suite, that much I can...just...remember…’
...his head was pounding like the tumor was still there threatening to split open, but Michael continued on at Linc, using arguments he knew would weigh on his brother’s conscience. He was too weak to try and punch some sense into Lincoln, which never worked anyway. They’d been brothers for over thirty years, and Michael hadn’t the strength to take Lincoln in a fight over the entire time.
‘You would be working for them, Linc! We are trying to bring them down, not form an alliance!’
His brother prowled the glass enclosure like a panther on heat, stopping only when he was toe to toe with Michael. His menace didn’t deter Scofield, and although Michael was arguing about the black and white concept of right, wrong and The Company, a major reason for not wanting Linc involved was the danger he’d face without Michael there. ‘If you do this, you’ll be no better than them!’ Don’t do it Linc, you’ll be unsafe. Wait for me to get better, I’ll help you.
Lincoln reacted. He pulled Michael by the scruff of his medical gown and grasped him towards his own chest. ‘Why you sancti...sancti...FUCK...you sanctim...you son of a bitch!’
‘I’m a sanctimonious son of a bitch?’ Michael emphasized the word Lincoln couldn’t pronounce, and this irritated Burrows further, ‘well apparently the BITCH is out there, but there will only be ONE son working for her!’
Michael felt Lincoln heave on his top, shove him away and press him against the glassed wall. It wasn’t the first time in their lives they’d fought like this, but it was their first confrontation over their mother. ‘I’m doing this for you, Goddamn it! I’m doing this so we can END it!’
‘It’ll never end. Not while she’s alive, and not while she has control over you!’ Michael remembers saying. ‘She’s using you. She’s using my operation so you’ll help her get what she wants...but it won’t stop there, Linc, it-’
‘You’re wrong! I’ll walk away,’ Lincoln verbally smacked into his face. He pinned Michael with one hand to the chest, and fisted his other over his head in a threatening stance, but the younger brother knew Linc wouldn’t punch him as surely as he knew the next words out of his mouth would render Lincoln mute.
‘She’s using you like she used Dad,’ Michael said. Lincoln tightened his grip and growled from the depths of his being, but it didn’t deter Michael. ‘It’s the same. She’s the thinker - don’t you get it? And Aldo was the standover man….now she’s grooming a standover son…’
Lincoln didn’t hit him, but he did slam his fist into the wall above Michael’s head, meeting the solid hate of the glass. Michael didn’t flinch, so Linc did it again, and finally when Burrows got the reaction he was looking for - a look of hurt and fear gracing Michael’s bandaged features - did the older brother walk out on Scofield. And he never looked back...
‘How long ago was that fight? From now, Lincoln? How long?’
Michael asks the question to the central table, and the four pivotal figures have become clearer as he lapses back from memory into insanity. Sara, Lincoln, Christina, Aldo. The other six remain a half-dozen of consciousness he can feel, but their presence is flakey - as though his redemption is either granted without question (Charles, Vee, Sucre...perhaps even Alex) or not even considered; Bagwell. Gretchen. Michael spares a moment to wonder what further role they might have in this unreal universe, then his mother deigns to speak again. ‘Time doesn’t matter here, Michael. The future doesn’t exist, son. It’s the past we are considering.’
Michael tastes the roar of the missile at the back of his palate. His brain recognizes the consequential danger in this matching of minds, and the fight-flight trigger shields his head from the threat of his own friendly fire. Suddenly, the imminent danger doesn’t stem from his own thoughts. His mother’s weapon is shiny and experienced, emblazoned with years of cognitive warfare and ready for head-to-head confrontation with it’s think-alike son. Michael hopes he is up to the challenge, because it’s now or never. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ He doesn’t give her credence of title at this stage because she’s done nothing to deserve it, ‘the future is very, very important to us. To Sara and Lincoln. To me, even if it’s not important to YOU.’
Michael loves how the final couple of words are slung towards his mother with an edge bordering on disdain, and he thinks he hears Aldo clear his throat to utter some words. Nothing is forthcoming, so perhaps the Standover Man and Son are too much in awe of the Matriarch and her Prodigal to enter the verbal spate? It’s a pity, because with each moment of silence, Michael fears Lincoln is being dragged closer to the epicenter of his mother’s plans for history repetition.
‘You may have no future, son.’
‘DON’T call me that!’ Michael still cannot move, can’t jump from his seat to haul Sara to safety, can’t run at Lincoln to push him away from their mother’s armed-force recruitment. He’s fixated. And his mindset will be too if he doesn’t batten down his hatches and select what to believe and what to ignore. ‘You have no idea about me and a future. You are not God.’
‘How can you expect a future, Michael, if you keep treating people this way? People you love, says Christina, emphasizing the last word as though she is the Giver of All Love. ‘You’ve ruined lives Michael, and this gathering has been hearing all about the decisions you’ve made and the paths you’ve chosen. I mean, Sara? For goodness sake, your treatment of Sara-’
‘DO NOT say her name!’
Michael shouts at Christina, realizing now he can only see his mother. Everyone else is gone, and in this moment of mini-anxiety, while his logical brain is trying to recall this is not real - it’s not happening - he cranes his neck and bugs his eyes to search for Sara and Lincoln. He can’t see them, but his forcefield reminds him not to panic. Michael can’t afford to fall to friendly fire, not when he faces such a deadly advance of Maternal Mind Military. ‘I love Sara. She knows that.’
‘You abandon her. You push her away and lie to her. She’s told us that. She’s told all of us that, while we sat listening to her just now and-’
Christina stops mid-sentence as Sara steps from the shadows of Michael’s mind to touch his mother on her left shoulder. Is it a sign of caution from Sara to his mom? Is it a show of affection, and Sara is turning towards Christina just like Lincoln? ‘No! Sara! Say it’s not so…’
Michael hears his voice trail off as Sara casts him a smile which is exactly like the reaffirming look she gave him before his CAT scan, before his head was expunged during surgery, and he feels his anxiety dissipate a little. Then she speaks, and he’s lost. ‘Your mother asked me about our last difference of opinion, Michael, and of course I had to tell her. Considering this...considering what this is all about; your redemption, your past. So I told her about the bridge. You know? The moment when you mentioned you thought she was alive and I didn’t know what to say…?’
Michael groans and holds his head. He wants to be holding her, to tell her exactly what she means to him before it’s too late, but his head! His goddamned head must be shedding internally. It’s the pain. It’s always the pain doing him in. ‘I remember the bridge, Sara! I do remember the bridge, but I love you...I do love you…
He spiraled into the woods with the words about thinking his mother was alive, and Sara didn’t appear to know where to look. All Michael wanted was to grab her and run to the car she’d smashed into their enemies, cradle her in his heart for the next fifty years and ask her for a future. All he knew how to do was love her through protection by distancing her from his squalor. He’s good at that.
‘So what’s our next move, Michael? Do we know how to find your mother and what does she have to do with Scylla?’
Michael felt himself sneer at her. He shifted his body along the bridge railing, attempting to nullify the physical effects of their love, but nothing worked. He still wanted her with him. He was still willing to risk their lives for a chance to be somewhat whole with Sara Tancredi. ‘I don’t know how to get to her yet. What I do know is you need to get yourself back to the city. Now.’
She wounded so easily - not ever at the hands of their enemies - but by his own bidding. Sara looked down, but Michael knew she was bleeding inside for both of them, and she was trying to find the words to make sense of his latest series of actions. ‘You’re kidding me, right? What…?’ she stammered just a little, but it was enough to let Michael steel his protective instinct, ‘you want to do this yourself? You don’t want me with you? Is that it?’
Look at me and know I love you. Please look at me, and read my eyes. You cannot die. I will not let you die, so I will push you away and kill you before our enemies do. Look at me, SARA. She didn’t, so Michael rattled on. ‘That’s right. Get back to the city. Take the car. I’m working alone and by foot.’
‘I’m not leaving you. I’ve told you so many times since we started this.’
Michael played his Hate Card. He used the coward’s measure, because he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes even though he felt hers boring into his head. The only time Michael watched her during the Bridge Encounter was when Sara Tancredi drove from him as he staggered away from their mutual point. ‘I need you to leave. You’re slowing me down. I need you alive, so go back to the city, Sara. That’s all I have to say on the matter.’
His words were so wooden, he almost splintered himself. She didn’t move, merely placed her arms around her body protectively. Sara didn’t step away, so Michael did. He wandered off, back turned t’wards her sun, hoping his gently lurching shoulders weren’t giving away the fact he was crying...
‘When did that happen? Sara, please tell me? How long ago was the afternoon we stood on that bridge?’ And I watched you drive away...please don’t leave me...but please stay alive or I’ll die...
The craziness of the present draws him back to the foreboding room. Michael’s favorite people have gone, and he is alone with his mother once more. He can no longer feel Sara or Lincoln, and thinks the others might never have been here - not Aldo or Sucre or Alex...all a part of the madness of war. His brain in the battle for sanity.
‘It’s just us now, son.’
Christina has drawn a chair up from the outskirts of the scene and sits knee to knee with Michael. He doesn’t know whether to use his foot to kick out at her so he can regain some sort of control, or steel his mind against the final game she is sure to play, just so he comes out of this fiasco with some sanity intact. He feels his heart-rate accelerate. Perhaps friendly fire is no longer a threat, but the only thing standing between himself and his final capitulation is his mother’s apology? Or her explanation? But she seems to have none of that for him. ‘They have all left their votes with me, Michael. And I’m sorry to say only one of your allies and enemies decided you worthy of redemption. NONE of your actions are considered good enough by the rest. You are not good enough, according to the majority.’
Michael doesn’t expect this. He thinks his mother might be a consummate liar, although how is he to know this really? His mother is as strange to him as a life without hardship. ‘So? Only one person declared me redeemable?’ Michael repeats the words to give his brain battalion time to strategize and defend. ‘I know who that is.’
Christina smiles, and this shocks Michael more than any words could. She has a grin like Lincoln and her eyes light up like his own. The familiarity unsettles him. ‘No, my love, you wouldn’t guess your positive vote in a million years.’
He shuffles in his seat. Michael decides to play his card because he is so tired. So very, very tired. ‘It’s Sara. She thinks I’m worthy,’ and he states it to regain a modicum of confidence and control.
‘No. It’s not Sara. She’s tired too. You’ve pushed her to that point, son, but if you act now, you can regain what you might have lost by pushing her away. And it’s not Lincoln either, but I think you know this. You’ve lost him too; taken them for granted...’
Michael feels himself lapsing. He wants to open his eyes, but his mother won’t let him go, won’t let him find Sara and fall to his knees and carve out his heart for her; won’t let him seek Lincoln and renew the fraternal bond that used to be so strong, they could have shared that heart. ‘Who is it?’ he croaks, feeling lost. ‘Who thinks I’m worthy?’
Christina leans forward, but Michael notices she fading from him visually just as sure as Sucre, Sara, Vee, Alex, and his own father have gone. He feels a gentle touch to his knee. ‘Michael. It’s me, son. My vote. You are worthy of redemption, because you distance your loved ones, you protect with your brain, you use your mind to manipulate them to safety, you hurt with words...but we both know why this is. We know why - you and I. We know we have to shun the ones we love the most furthest from this mind-mess we create; we’d give our lives for them, we can’t watch them die on the stage our brains create. No one knows this better than me, son. No one understands this sacrifice like me...and one day, perhaps you will understand…
*
He wakes in a watershed of tears, lying on Sara’s stomach, calling names. Michael tongues them along the roof of his mouth - Lincoln, Vee, LJ, Sucre, Dad, Mom - and Sara. He clings to her, knowing she is awake because of the movement of her palm over the pound of his skull, and he wonders if it is too late to prevent another Christina-Aldo & Sons scenario with himself, Sara, Lincoln, LJ.
His own mother did what was best for them and Michael’s first inclination is to get Sara the hell out of here too, but she is so goddamn stubborn, she hasn’t left him since he called her the night after the bridge and asked her to forgive his method. The method of his madness. He’s not taking them for granted now, especially her.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m sorry. I was dreaming again, I think. Hope I didn’t wake you?’
They’re still incarcerated in Company luxury and the brain people are still working on him to get him to exchange words with his mother. Sara remains neutral, knowing he needs to fathom and deduce, ponder and deliberate upon his own journey. And maybe he did need to, but this was before the nocturnal revelation.
‘Maybe if you see her, Michael? Your mom? It can’t be any worse than what’s happening at the moment.’
The imminent threat of friendly fire is gone, and the frightening advance of his mother’s psyche upon his own is so presently accounted for during his recent experience, Michael almost feels free for the first time in his adult life. There’s no use doing it alone, not when he has the best support available. It’s so damned easy all of a sudden. ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ he replies to her, pushing his skull into her palm and never wanting to create distance between them again. He murmurs something about being like his mother in more ways than he realized, and when Sara says nothing Michael starts to believe in his mind’s ability to defend itself again, and to regenerate plans of action which might result in positive outcomes for a change.
But for now, he ignores the tiny unsullied part of his brain which fires the missile of ‘possible happy ending’ into his heart, because he knows his mind is always liable to play tricks upon him. Even when it presents the option he craves most.
*