Seven (3/7)
Title: Seven
Author: wrldpossibility
Characters: Sara Tancredi (primarily), Michael Jr., Lincoln Burrows, mention of Michael Scofield, ensemble
Chapter: 3/7, Bargaining
Word Count: 1760
Rating: R for one profanity
Warning: *checks* Yep, still sad.
Spoilers: For the series.
Summary: A lot can happen in four years...
Author's Note: One line borrowed from Rendezvous (you'll know it when you see it). Many thanks to my Seven partners rosie_spleen and linzi20. The shiny banner was made by the lovely and talented lauratnz.
Chapter 3
Bargaining
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Michael grows.
His first summer dissipates in a haze like heat rising from the sand, every day lacking proper definition, every night stretching out like the cane sugar candy LJ’s grown fond of, sticky and sweet and endless.
He’s not a particularly good sleeper. Lincoln seems to think the problem is simply the oppressive tropical heat. Sara leaves the ceiling fan running, strips him down to his diaper, removes the blankets, and then tells Linc he doesn’t know what he’s talking about; she’s the one who’s read all the baby books.
What she doesn’t tell him: she’s afraid to leave the windows open.
Because he might be exonerated, living his life in full view in this sleepy little corner of the world, but she’s still very much a fugitive. Sometimes, she wonders if he‘s forgotten that, despite several discreet (and unsuccessful) attempts to contact Paul Kellerman and sort this thing out. Whoever once said that having a child is akin to wearing your heart on the outside of your body had it all wrong. To Sara, it’s much more like being forced to cast your heart very far from you and then walk away, leaving it alone and exposed to an ever-present sense of danger. Despite her full hands since Michael’s birth, she feels completely and utterly unarmed.
*****
The little clinic in Nuevo Cristóbal where she takes Michael for check-ups and immunizations is understaffed. Desperately so.
At first, she tries not to notice. Instead of watching the single nurse attempt to check in three patients at once, she stares at the public health posters on the wall, practicing her Spanish. When the wait times stretch to two to three hours, she opts to come back another day rather than sit between crying infants and coughing day laborers. When they grow low on flu shot vaccines, then run completely out, she tries not to allow the entire experience to remind her sharply of India, but it does anyway. She pushes this thought away as well. She’s not here to help. She has enough problems of her own.
Of course, she always has, hasn’t she? I believe in being part of the solution.
It’s never stopped her before.
*****
Michael learns to crawl within the confines of their tiny house, scooting in laps between the bed and the kitchen and the back screen door until Sara wonders if he’ll wear out a path in the floor rug. He seems to hate the sand, the texture causing him to recoil; Lincoln always grins at his expression of intense dislike, but Sara often finds herself forced to look away, her chest constricting at the sight of his expressions so closely mirror his father’s.
With a few exceptions, however--his blue eyes for one--he mostly resembles Sara. No one says so aloud, but she suspects that everyone is secretly relieved.
*****
She finds herself making little deals with herself, often spoken aloud to the baby, who inevitably stares back at her solemnly: if we can get through this week, we’ll go stay with Uncle Lincoln for the weekend. If you take a nap, we’ll go see the birds in the market. If you don’t cry today, I won’t either.
She has way too much time on her hands.
When they’re outside the house, she still looks over her shoulder. It’s worse in the car, her eyes more often on the rear-view mirror than on the road. Sometimes, she wonders if her mind focuses on worst-case scenarios and runaway fears because she has nothing else to concentrate upon. Because she yearns for something to break up the day.
Do you think there's a part of you that enjoys this?
Peroxide in an open wound? No.
In her attempt to dull the pain, she suspects she’s only making it worse.
*****
Dr. Jonas, the sole M.D. at the clinic, is a harried but not unfriendly-looking man in his fifties. The nurse who takes care of all the weigh-ins and well-care has told Sara he’s been there just over a year, a volunteer from Columbia Medical Center on a UNICEF grant. Sara had been surprised; with his lined, tanned face and flawless Spanish, she’d mistaken him for a local.
It’s not until Michael’s first ear infection at seven months that Sara finds herself in an exam room with him. She waits until he‘s frowned into the red bulb of Michael‘s ear drum, then asks which antibiotics they have on-hand.
One eyebrow raises over his otoscope. “I’ll have to check. We haven’t had time to request a new shipment.” He straightens and offers Michael a spare tongue depressor in lieu of the stethoscope he‘s reaching for, then looks at Sara with mild interest. “Most mothers don’t ask for an Rx list. They just want the fever to go down.”
She feels her heart pump faster, but months of watching Michael deflect suspicion hasn‘t been lost on her. Answer a question with a question. “Your nurse,” she says. “She’s gone today?”
Dr. Jonas leans back against the exam table. She knows he’s still studying her. “She visits her mother in Escobal every Tuesday and Wednesday.”
She takes a deep breath. “You look as though you could use a hand around here, then.”
Now he’s outright surprised. “Do you have training in the medical field?”
She forces her eyes to meet his, then shakes her head. “No.” He sighs. “But I could make appointments, triage patients…order antibiotics on time?”
He smiles. Then chuckles. “I wasn’t aware this was a job interview.” She opens her mouth to take it back, but he holds up one hand. “But if it is, tell me what you’re doing in Panama”--he looks down at Michael’s chart--“Sara.”
She finally breaks eye contact, staring at the top of Michael’s downy head instead. When she looks back up, the doctor’s pinning her with a look of unmasked curiosity.
“Do you ever just…need to get away?”
He grins, and instantly, the tension evaporates from the room. “I’m here aren’t I?”
*****
“So I was hoping we could strike a deal.”
She’s sitting with Lincoln on the beach, Michael sitting unassisted on an over-sized towel between them, a collection of large seashells in his lap. He grasps one successfully and guides it immediately toward his mouth. Sara lowers his hand. The top of his head shines gold in the sunset.
“What sort of deal?”
“I help out here on weekends, when you’re busiest, if you’ll watch Michael for a few hours during the week?”
He frowns at her. “I’ll do that anyway, Sara. You don‘t have to help out.”
She traces the sand by her hip with one finger. It’s still warm from the heat of the day. “But I’d like to. Also?” she pauses. “I have a job.” He swivels to look at her. “If it works out,” she adds swiftly.
“What sort of job? What‘s the matter? You don’t have enough money?”
“I have enough money, Linc. What I don’t have is enough to do. I can’t sit around wait--” She curbs herself. “I can’t sit around.”
He looks at her, and she hastens to explain about the clinic and the doctor and the lack of antibiotics. She can’t tell whether he’s squinting into the sun or frowning until he rests a rough hand on her arm, and she knows it’s the former. “Suit yourself,” he says after a time. “Just…be careful.”
She nods, and he picks up Michael, swinging him into his arms in a manner that threatens up uproot his dinner of pureed vegetables and mango from his stomach. “Lincoln!”
“We want more time together anyway, don’t we Mikey?”
She flinches good-naturedly. “Don’t call him that.”
He blithely ignores her. “Don’t we, M.J.?”
“He won’t answer to that, either.”
“Don’t we, J--”
“Linc!” But by now she’s laughing along with him, and so is Michael, chortling deep from his belly in response to the adults, one abalone shell still clutched tightly in one chubby fist.
They make their way back toward the house, Michael on Lincoln’s hip, Sara trailing behind. He looks back over his shoulder at her, extending his free hand.
“It’s a deal, Dr. Tancredi.”
*****
With the shift from summer to fall comes the return of hurricane season and, in early November, the first anniversary of Michael’s death.
Sara has no idea what one does on such an occasion. She certainly has no idea what she should do, straddling the fence as she is between anguished grief and improbable hope. To mark the day seems like surrender. To let it pass feels like betrayal. Over dinner one evening in late October, LJ tentatively suggests a sort of beachside ceremony. “Like a wedding?” Sara reminds him sharply, and he fumbles through an apology, and then she fumbles through her own later, delivering her words to the back of his rounded shoulders as he stands at the rail of the dive shop deck, bent into the wind. Lincoln refuses to acknowledge the approaching date at all, even as it comes closer and closer, like a storm brewing.
Ironically, it’s Alex who sets a plan in motion. Three days before the 4th of November, Lincoln receives a fax, slipped under the dive shop door after hours. Tell Sara I’ll be there. Fernando too.
The weather holds.
They gather at the grave, but no one can quite bear to speak. In the end, silence feels like the truest tribute. Lincoln pulls a paper crane from his pocket and sets on the headstone, and Sucre kisses both palms before placing them flatly on the words engraved in the stone. Alex looks at the sea, LJ at his feet. Sara holds Michael, who’s discovered the satisfaction of sucking on his own fingers.
Don’t make me do this, she thinks fervently. Don’t make me wonder. Don’t make me wait.
She follows Alex’s gaze to the choppy ocean, then down at her child, whose weight is suddenly welcome in her arms. His blue eyes seek hers before blinking, his head dipping to rest against the crook of her neck.
You still have a son, she thinks. You still have me.
She doesn’t realize she crying until she feels Fernando’s arm around both of them.
You still owe me dinner. And if you stop this right now…if you come back to me today…
I’ll still forgive you.
Author: wrldpossibility
Characters: Sara Tancredi (primarily), Michael Jr., Lincoln Burrows, mention of Michael Scofield, ensemble
Chapter: 3/7, Bargaining
Word Count: 1760
Rating: R for one profanity
Warning: *checks* Yep, still sad.
Spoilers: For the series.
Summary: A lot can happen in four years...
Author's Note: One line borrowed from Rendezvous (you'll know it when you see it). Many thanks to my Seven partners rosie_spleen and linzi20. The shiny banner was made by the lovely and talented lauratnz.
Chapter 3
Bargaining
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Michael grows.
His first summer dissipates in a haze like heat rising from the sand, every day lacking proper definition, every night stretching out like the cane sugar candy LJ’s grown fond of, sticky and sweet and endless.
He’s not a particularly good sleeper. Lincoln seems to think the problem is simply the oppressive tropical heat. Sara leaves the ceiling fan running, strips him down to his diaper, removes the blankets, and then tells Linc he doesn’t know what he’s talking about; she’s the one who’s read all the baby books.
What she doesn’t tell him: she’s afraid to leave the windows open.
Because he might be exonerated, living his life in full view in this sleepy little corner of the world, but she’s still very much a fugitive. Sometimes, she wonders if he‘s forgotten that, despite several discreet (and unsuccessful) attempts to contact Paul Kellerman and sort this thing out. Whoever once said that having a child is akin to wearing your heart on the outside of your body had it all wrong. To Sara, it’s much more like being forced to cast your heart very far from you and then walk away, leaving it alone and exposed to an ever-present sense of danger. Despite her full hands since Michael’s birth, she feels completely and utterly unarmed.
*****
The little clinic in Nuevo Cristóbal where she takes Michael for check-ups and immunizations is understaffed. Desperately so.
At first, she tries not to notice. Instead of watching the single nurse attempt to check in three patients at once, she stares at the public health posters on the wall, practicing her Spanish. When the wait times stretch to two to three hours, she opts to come back another day rather than sit between crying infants and coughing day laborers. When they grow low on flu shot vaccines, then run completely out, she tries not to allow the entire experience to remind her sharply of India, but it does anyway. She pushes this thought away as well. She’s not here to help. She has enough problems of her own.
Of course, she always has, hasn’t she? I believe in being part of the solution.
It’s never stopped her before.
*****
Michael learns to crawl within the confines of their tiny house, scooting in laps between the bed and the kitchen and the back screen door until Sara wonders if he’ll wear out a path in the floor rug. He seems to hate the sand, the texture causing him to recoil; Lincoln always grins at his expression of intense dislike, but Sara often finds herself forced to look away, her chest constricting at the sight of his expressions so closely mirror his father’s.
With a few exceptions, however--his blue eyes for one--he mostly resembles Sara. No one says so aloud, but she suspects that everyone is secretly relieved.
*****
She finds herself making little deals with herself, often spoken aloud to the baby, who inevitably stares back at her solemnly: if we can get through this week, we’ll go stay with Uncle Lincoln for the weekend. If you take a nap, we’ll go see the birds in the market. If you don’t cry today, I won’t either.
She has way too much time on her hands.
When they’re outside the house, she still looks over her shoulder. It’s worse in the car, her eyes more often on the rear-view mirror than on the road. Sometimes, she wonders if her mind focuses on worst-case scenarios and runaway fears because she has nothing else to concentrate upon. Because she yearns for something to break up the day.
Do you think there's a part of you that enjoys this?
Peroxide in an open wound? No.
In her attempt to dull the pain, she suspects she’s only making it worse.
*****
Dr. Jonas, the sole M.D. at the clinic, is a harried but not unfriendly-looking man in his fifties. The nurse who takes care of all the weigh-ins and well-care has told Sara he’s been there just over a year, a volunteer from Columbia Medical Center on a UNICEF grant. Sara had been surprised; with his lined, tanned face and flawless Spanish, she’d mistaken him for a local.
It’s not until Michael’s first ear infection at seven months that Sara finds herself in an exam room with him. She waits until he‘s frowned into the red bulb of Michael‘s ear drum, then asks which antibiotics they have on-hand.
One eyebrow raises over his otoscope. “I’ll have to check. We haven’t had time to request a new shipment.” He straightens and offers Michael a spare tongue depressor in lieu of the stethoscope he‘s reaching for, then looks at Sara with mild interest. “Most mothers don’t ask for an Rx list. They just want the fever to go down.”
She feels her heart pump faster, but months of watching Michael deflect suspicion hasn‘t been lost on her. Answer a question with a question. “Your nurse,” she says. “She’s gone today?”
Dr. Jonas leans back against the exam table. She knows he’s still studying her. “She visits her mother in Escobal every Tuesday and Wednesday.”
She takes a deep breath. “You look as though you could use a hand around here, then.”
Now he’s outright surprised. “Do you have training in the medical field?”
She forces her eyes to meet his, then shakes her head. “No.” He sighs. “But I could make appointments, triage patients…order antibiotics on time?”
He smiles. Then chuckles. “I wasn’t aware this was a job interview.” She opens her mouth to take it back, but he holds up one hand. “But if it is, tell me what you’re doing in Panama”--he looks down at Michael’s chart--“Sara.”
She finally breaks eye contact, staring at the top of Michael’s downy head instead. When she looks back up, the doctor’s pinning her with a look of unmasked curiosity.
“Do you ever just…need to get away?”
He grins, and instantly, the tension evaporates from the room. “I’m here aren’t I?”
*****
“So I was hoping we could strike a deal.”
She’s sitting with Lincoln on the beach, Michael sitting unassisted on an over-sized towel between them, a collection of large seashells in his lap. He grasps one successfully and guides it immediately toward his mouth. Sara lowers his hand. The top of his head shines gold in the sunset.
“What sort of deal?”
“I help out here on weekends, when you’re busiest, if you’ll watch Michael for a few hours during the week?”
He frowns at her. “I’ll do that anyway, Sara. You don‘t have to help out.”
She traces the sand by her hip with one finger. It’s still warm from the heat of the day. “But I’d like to. Also?” she pauses. “I have a job.” He swivels to look at her. “If it works out,” she adds swiftly.
“What sort of job? What‘s the matter? You don’t have enough money?”
“I have enough money, Linc. What I don’t have is enough to do. I can’t sit around wait--” She curbs herself. “I can’t sit around.”
He looks at her, and she hastens to explain about the clinic and the doctor and the lack of antibiotics. She can’t tell whether he’s squinting into the sun or frowning until he rests a rough hand on her arm, and she knows it’s the former. “Suit yourself,” he says after a time. “Just…be careful.”
She nods, and he picks up Michael, swinging him into his arms in a manner that threatens up uproot his dinner of pureed vegetables and mango from his stomach. “Lincoln!”
“We want more time together anyway, don’t we Mikey?”
She flinches good-naturedly. “Don’t call him that.”
He blithely ignores her. “Don’t we, M.J.?”
“He won’t answer to that, either.”
“Don’t we, J--”
“Linc!” But by now she’s laughing along with him, and so is Michael, chortling deep from his belly in response to the adults, one abalone shell still clutched tightly in one chubby fist.
They make their way back toward the house, Michael on Lincoln’s hip, Sara trailing behind. He looks back over his shoulder at her, extending his free hand.
“It’s a deal, Dr. Tancredi.”
*****
With the shift from summer to fall comes the return of hurricane season and, in early November, the first anniversary of Michael’s death.
Sara has no idea what one does on such an occasion. She certainly has no idea what she should do, straddling the fence as she is between anguished grief and improbable hope. To mark the day seems like surrender. To let it pass feels like betrayal. Over dinner one evening in late October, LJ tentatively suggests a sort of beachside ceremony. “Like a wedding?” Sara reminds him sharply, and he fumbles through an apology, and then she fumbles through her own later, delivering her words to the back of his rounded shoulders as he stands at the rail of the dive shop deck, bent into the wind. Lincoln refuses to acknowledge the approaching date at all, even as it comes closer and closer, like a storm brewing.
Ironically, it’s Alex who sets a plan in motion. Three days before the 4th of November, Lincoln receives a fax, slipped under the dive shop door after hours. Tell Sara I’ll be there. Fernando too.
The weather holds.
They gather at the grave, but no one can quite bear to speak. In the end, silence feels like the truest tribute. Lincoln pulls a paper crane from his pocket and sets on the headstone, and Sucre kisses both palms before placing them flatly on the words engraved in the stone. Alex looks at the sea, LJ at his feet. Sara holds Michael, who’s discovered the satisfaction of sucking on his own fingers.
Don’t make me do this, she thinks fervently. Don’t make me wonder. Don’t make me wait.
She follows Alex’s gaze to the choppy ocean, then down at her child, whose weight is suddenly welcome in her arms. His blue eyes seek hers before blinking, his head dipping to rest against the crook of her neck.
You still have a son, she thinks. You still have me.
She doesn’t realize she crying until she feels Fernando’s arm around both of them.
You still owe me dinner. And if you stop this right now…if you come back to me today…
I’ll still forgive you.