Shadows (part 7/?)
Title: Shadows (Part 7)
Author: angel_1013
Rating: R for language & violence
Characters: Michael POV with others thrown in for flavor.
Summary: This is the third and last installment of my Regret/Pieces series. You should probably read Regret and Pieces first as this won’t make much sense otherwise. Shadows takes us back to Michael’s POV and runs parallel time-wise to Sara’s POV in Pieces. So this basically covers Michael’s time back at Fox River.
Author's Note: Wow, it's been forever since I updated this. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but we're almost to the end now and hopefully I'll have it finished in the next week. Thanks for sticking around and being patient!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Life almost seems normal now. Sometimes, if I try really hard, I can even forget that the last five years happened. Until I look in a mirror, or put on my shoes. But there are those brief moments when I feel like my old self, not a con out on parole.
Take today, for example. I was in line at Starbucks and on the phone with someone at the city records office trying to get some information I need for a project my firm is working on.
And for those few minutes, I was transported back to a time when I would have been doing this same thing. A sort of déjà vu. Until the records clerk took down my name so he could call me back.
“No way!” he exclaimed. “You’re that guy. The one who broke his brother out of prison, aren’t you?”
I sigh and tell him yes. The problem with wanting things to be normal again is that you can’t do that when your name and face was all over the local and national news for almost a year.
The process of clearing Lincoln’s name and uncovering the conspiracy - or part of it, anyway - garnered a lot of media coverage. And as a byproduct, so did The Plan.
At least the attention helped get me a decent job. Not at my old firm, of course. Stealing their plans to break out of prison didn’t go over too well there.
But Chicago has no shortage of engineering firms and I found it surprisingly easy to secure a comparable job to what I had before.
I sit in my small office now and stare out the window. It’ll be Christmas in a few weeks and the city below me is dressed for the holiday. Lights twinkle on the buildings outside and the streetlamps are hung with festive decorations.
And my thoughts inevitably turn to Sara. I’m starting to think that I like torturing myself because thinking of her can never lead to anything good.
I wonder if she’s one of those people down there doing their Christmas shopping. Perhaps she’s buying a few stocking stuffers or a new tie for Dr. Davis.
I get up and lean on the frame of the window, looking straight down to the street below, and my cell phone rings. It’s Lincoln.
“Meet us at O’Malley’s in fifteen,” he barks as soon as I answer. Lincoln is like a completely different person now. He and Veronica are getting married and he got a job he actually goes to and does well. LJ is living with them and seems to be doing well. For the first time since I can remember, Lincoln is happy.
“I can’t,” I tell him and glance over at the pile of paperwork sitting on my desk.
“Michael, it’s 7:30. How long have you been there? Probably since 7:30 this morning.” 7am, actually. And I can hear Lincoln gearing up to his You Work Too Much speech.
“I have plans, actually,” I tell him to avoid the oncoming lecture.
This catches him by surprise. “You do?”
I ignore the pile of paperwork and turn off the lamp on my desk. “I do.”
“You better not be fucking with me, bro. If you’re really working, I’ll hunt you down and set all your suits on fire.”
I laugh and say, “I swear. I’m leaving right now. Hear that? I’m shutting down my computer.”
“I guess I’ll take your word for it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he says before hanging up.
Smiling, I throw my coat on and turn the lights out in my office. I don’t really have plans, and Lincoln probably knows that. I just know that O’Malley’s will be crowded tonight and I don’t like crowds.
~~~**~~~
I have to drive out of the way to come to this particular grocery store. It’s the only one that carries the ice cream I like. It’s completely worth it.
Blondie is playing over the sound system as I make my way to the frozen food section and I stop myself right before I start singing along to The Tide is High. How embarrassing.
When I turn the corner to the ice cream aisle, though, my smile disappears. Standing 30 feet in front of me studying the various flavors of ice cream is Bellick.
A split second passes where I almost turn around and leave. But dammit, the man is standing in front of my ice cream. And he can’t do anything to me anymore. I can’t let him scare me away.
So I straighten my back and my coat and walk toward him. He’s too busy looking at the ice cream to notice me, though. Until I’m standing right next to him.
I enjoy the look of surprise on his face until he spits out, “Jesus, Scofield. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Just getting some ice cream, Brad.” I smile at his annoyance of my use of his first name.
He looks me up and down and narrows his eyes. He hates this. He absolutely hates having a con invade his world. Jerking his brown leather jacket closed, he takes a step away from the freezer and says, “Well go right ahead, princess. Don’t let me get in your way.” His sneer is so palpable that I flash back to the many beatings I received from him.
I take care to avoid getting close to him as I open the freezer door and feel the blast of cold air hit my face. His gaze is burning a hole in my back and I struggle to take my time. To act nonchalant.
With my ice cream in hand, I turn and smile; nod my head. “You have a good evening,” I tell him and start to move on my way.
“Look at you. In your fancy clothes thinking your shit don’t stink no more,” he drawls, stopping me in my tracks. My back is to him and I can feel the cold air from all the open freezer cases on my face. It reminds me of the yard in winter.
He’s trying to get me to react. He wants an excuse to…what? Hit me? Have me arrested? Whatever it is he’s hoping for from me, he won’t get it. I turn my head slightly and see him out of the corner of my eye. His stance is confrontational. He’s waiting.
As I walk away from him, he calls out, “You’ll always be a con, Scofield. No matter what else you try to be, you’re always gonna be a con.”
~~~~~
As I walk from my car to my building, container of pistachio almond ice cream in one hand and my briefcase in the other, I feel like I’m being watched. It’s an unfortunate by-product of being at Fox River and I have a hard time shaking it.
Snow started falling earlier in the evening and when I stop on the sidewalk in front of the door, I look around and feel that stillness that snow always brings.
It brightens the night and blankets the streets in silence. I hear a car door in the distance and look up at the sky. At the snowflakes that are still falling. Each individual snowflake, every one unique, falls on my face and I realize that I’ve been standing outside a little longer than what’s normal.
I skip checking my mail and head immediately for the elevators. I’m anxious to get upstairs, turn on the TV and have some of this ice cream I stopped to get. It was an impulse and these days, I pretty much do anything that pops into my head.
There are no limits anymore.
I want a pizza, I order it. I want to go ride rollercoasters, I take the day off and go to Six Flags. Too many years have been wasted and I’ve spent the last six months on the outside making up for lost time.
It’s been an adjustment, but I’m getting there. I’m slowly getting back to normal. I hope.
My psychiatrist tells me I’m suffering from disassociation. I’m not participating in the world around me and it’s to be expected after so much time spent alone. The thing is, I seem to be the only one who doesn’t have a problem with that.
Lincoln and Veronica worry about me. They invite me over to their house often and ask me to go out in an effort to help me socialize.
For now I’m just happy making decisions for myself.
Like staying in on a Friday night eating ice cream and watching TV.
After changing into my favorite sweat pants and Cubs t-shirt, I happily stretch out on the sofa with my bowl of pistachio ice cream and flip through my Tivo list. I decide on Spiderman 3, which I’ve wanted to see for a while now, and I do my best to shake off my earlier encounter with Bellick.
One thing to look forward to when getting out of prison is the wealth of movies and TV to catch up on. Five years locked away and I’ve got enough entertainment stored on my Tivo to last me a while.
Before the opening credits have even ended, though, I hear a thump at my door. I whip my head around at the intrusion. It wasn’t a knock. More like something fell on it.
Maybe my neighbor accidentally knocked into it on her way home.
Maybe Lincoln and Veronica decided to stop by, so I get up and go to the door.
But when I look through the peephole, no one’s there. I guess it was the neighbor. Just to make sure she’s ok, I open the door to see if she made it in her apartment all right.
I step out into the hall and I don’t see anyone, but when I turn to look the other way, I see Her.
~TBC~
Author: angel_1013
Rating: R for language & violence
Characters: Michael POV with others thrown in for flavor.
Summary: This is the third and last installment of my Regret/Pieces series. You should probably read Regret and Pieces first as this won’t make much sense otherwise. Shadows takes us back to Michael’s POV and runs parallel time-wise to Sara’s POV in Pieces. So this basically covers Michael’s time back at Fox River.
Author's Note: Wow, it's been forever since I updated this. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but we're almost to the end now and hopefully I'll have it finished in the next week. Thanks for sticking around and being patient!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Life almost seems normal now. Sometimes, if I try really hard, I can even forget that the last five years happened. Until I look in a mirror, or put on my shoes. But there are those brief moments when I feel like my old self, not a con out on parole.
Take today, for example. I was in line at Starbucks and on the phone with someone at the city records office trying to get some information I need for a project my firm is working on.
And for those few minutes, I was transported back to a time when I would have been doing this same thing. A sort of déjà vu. Until the records clerk took down my name so he could call me back.
“No way!” he exclaimed. “You’re that guy. The one who broke his brother out of prison, aren’t you?”
I sigh and tell him yes. The problem with wanting things to be normal again is that you can’t do that when your name and face was all over the local and national news for almost a year.
The process of clearing Lincoln’s name and uncovering the conspiracy - or part of it, anyway - garnered a lot of media coverage. And as a byproduct, so did The Plan.
At least the attention helped get me a decent job. Not at my old firm, of course. Stealing their plans to break out of prison didn’t go over too well there.
But Chicago has no shortage of engineering firms and I found it surprisingly easy to secure a comparable job to what I had before.
I sit in my small office now and stare out the window. It’ll be Christmas in a few weeks and the city below me is dressed for the holiday. Lights twinkle on the buildings outside and the streetlamps are hung with festive decorations.
And my thoughts inevitably turn to Sara. I’m starting to think that I like torturing myself because thinking of her can never lead to anything good.
I wonder if she’s one of those people down there doing their Christmas shopping. Perhaps she’s buying a few stocking stuffers or a new tie for Dr. Davis.
I get up and lean on the frame of the window, looking straight down to the street below, and my cell phone rings. It’s Lincoln.
“Meet us at O’Malley’s in fifteen,” he barks as soon as I answer. Lincoln is like a completely different person now. He and Veronica are getting married and he got a job he actually goes to and does well. LJ is living with them and seems to be doing well. For the first time since I can remember, Lincoln is happy.
“I can’t,” I tell him and glance over at the pile of paperwork sitting on my desk.
“Michael, it’s 7:30. How long have you been there? Probably since 7:30 this morning.” 7am, actually. And I can hear Lincoln gearing up to his You Work Too Much speech.
“I have plans, actually,” I tell him to avoid the oncoming lecture.
This catches him by surprise. “You do?”
I ignore the pile of paperwork and turn off the lamp on my desk. “I do.”
“You better not be fucking with me, bro. If you’re really working, I’ll hunt you down and set all your suits on fire.”
I laugh and say, “I swear. I’m leaving right now. Hear that? I’m shutting down my computer.”
“I guess I’ll take your word for it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he says before hanging up.
Smiling, I throw my coat on and turn the lights out in my office. I don’t really have plans, and Lincoln probably knows that. I just know that O’Malley’s will be crowded tonight and I don’t like crowds.
~~~**~~~
I have to drive out of the way to come to this particular grocery store. It’s the only one that carries the ice cream I like. It’s completely worth it.
Blondie is playing over the sound system as I make my way to the frozen food section and I stop myself right before I start singing along to The Tide is High. How embarrassing.
When I turn the corner to the ice cream aisle, though, my smile disappears. Standing 30 feet in front of me studying the various flavors of ice cream is Bellick.
A split second passes where I almost turn around and leave. But dammit, the man is standing in front of my ice cream. And he can’t do anything to me anymore. I can’t let him scare me away.
So I straighten my back and my coat and walk toward him. He’s too busy looking at the ice cream to notice me, though. Until I’m standing right next to him.
I enjoy the look of surprise on his face until he spits out, “Jesus, Scofield. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Just getting some ice cream, Brad.” I smile at his annoyance of my use of his first name.
He looks me up and down and narrows his eyes. He hates this. He absolutely hates having a con invade his world. Jerking his brown leather jacket closed, he takes a step away from the freezer and says, “Well go right ahead, princess. Don’t let me get in your way.” His sneer is so palpable that I flash back to the many beatings I received from him.
I take care to avoid getting close to him as I open the freezer door and feel the blast of cold air hit my face. His gaze is burning a hole in my back and I struggle to take my time. To act nonchalant.
With my ice cream in hand, I turn and smile; nod my head. “You have a good evening,” I tell him and start to move on my way.
“Look at you. In your fancy clothes thinking your shit don’t stink no more,” he drawls, stopping me in my tracks. My back is to him and I can feel the cold air from all the open freezer cases on my face. It reminds me of the yard in winter.
He’s trying to get me to react. He wants an excuse to…what? Hit me? Have me arrested? Whatever it is he’s hoping for from me, he won’t get it. I turn my head slightly and see him out of the corner of my eye. His stance is confrontational. He’s waiting.
As I walk away from him, he calls out, “You’ll always be a con, Scofield. No matter what else you try to be, you’re always gonna be a con.”
~~~~~
As I walk from my car to my building, container of pistachio almond ice cream in one hand and my briefcase in the other, I feel like I’m being watched. It’s an unfortunate by-product of being at Fox River and I have a hard time shaking it.
Snow started falling earlier in the evening and when I stop on the sidewalk in front of the door, I look around and feel that stillness that snow always brings.
It brightens the night and blankets the streets in silence. I hear a car door in the distance and look up at the sky. At the snowflakes that are still falling. Each individual snowflake, every one unique, falls on my face and I realize that I’ve been standing outside a little longer than what’s normal.
I skip checking my mail and head immediately for the elevators. I’m anxious to get upstairs, turn on the TV and have some of this ice cream I stopped to get. It was an impulse and these days, I pretty much do anything that pops into my head.
There are no limits anymore.
I want a pizza, I order it. I want to go ride rollercoasters, I take the day off and go to Six Flags. Too many years have been wasted and I’ve spent the last six months on the outside making up for lost time.
It’s been an adjustment, but I’m getting there. I’m slowly getting back to normal. I hope.
My psychiatrist tells me I’m suffering from disassociation. I’m not participating in the world around me and it’s to be expected after so much time spent alone. The thing is, I seem to be the only one who doesn’t have a problem with that.
Lincoln and Veronica worry about me. They invite me over to their house often and ask me to go out in an effort to help me socialize.
For now I’m just happy making decisions for myself.
Like staying in on a Friday night eating ice cream and watching TV.
After changing into my favorite sweat pants and Cubs t-shirt, I happily stretch out on the sofa with my bowl of pistachio ice cream and flip through my Tivo list. I decide on Spiderman 3, which I’ve wanted to see for a while now, and I do my best to shake off my earlier encounter with Bellick.
One thing to look forward to when getting out of prison is the wealth of movies and TV to catch up on. Five years locked away and I’ve got enough entertainment stored on my Tivo to last me a while.
Before the opening credits have even ended, though, I hear a thump at my door. I whip my head around at the intrusion. It wasn’t a knock. More like something fell on it.
Maybe my neighbor accidentally knocked into it on her way home.
Maybe Lincoln and Veronica decided to stop by, so I get up and go to the door.
But when I look through the peephole, no one’s there. I guess it was the neighbor. Just to make sure she’s ok, I open the door to see if she made it in her apartment all right.
I step out into the hall and I don’t see anyone, but when I turn to look the other way, I see Her.
~TBC~