“How's he doing this morning?”
The breathless note in her voice makes her want to cringe. She could tell herself it’s because she walked too quickly from the infirmary, but that would involve examining why she’s walked so quickly. And that’s not on her agenda. Not today.
Thankfully, the charge nurse doesn't notice. She's only interested in the fact that her shift is nearly over, and she's more than ready to go home. “He’s fine.” She shrugs well-padded shoulders. “Hard to believe it’s the same guy you hauled in here.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” the nurse says as she passes over Michael’s file.
Sara studies the paperwork in her hand. “How are his blood sugar levels?”
“Good.”
“Any problem administering his insulin?”
“Nope.” The nurse gives her a long-suffering look. “Apart from his bitching about why you weren’t doing it, of course.” She snorts. “As if you have time to be paying house calls twice a day.”
Sara offers her a polite smile. There’s no need to point out that this visit is at Michael’s request, and even less need to point out that she’s been in twice-daily contact with the psych doctor ever since Michael was admitted. And even less again, she acknowledges wryly, to point out that it is only due to a miracle of self-restraint and a particularly busy schedule that this patient hasn’t already received several house calls.
As she stands in the doorway of his cell, her first thought is – as happens too often lately - an inherently inappropriate one. She’s seen many a psych patient, but never one who managed to wear a pair of unflattering white overalls as though they were an Armani suit.
He’s standing at the window, his back to her and his thoughts obviously elsewhere, but he turns at her knock on the door. His face lights up at the sight of her. “Hey.”
Sara blinks. The charge nurse had been quite right – it is very difficult to believe that this is the same man she’d found catatonic in a blood-smeared cell. His movements are concise and self-aware, his gaze clear and focused.
The change in him is both startling and oddly unsettling. Slipping her hands into her coat pockets, she offers him what she hopes is a professional smile. “Hi. They said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah.” Standing in the middle of his cell, he gives her a sheepish grin, his own hands shoved deep in the pockets of his overalls. “Um, yeah.”
She represses the smile that is her automatic response. It doesn’t seem possible, but time away from Gen Pop has made him even more taciturn. “Okay.” She glances at the guard behind her. “It’s good.”
When she moves closer, Michael glances around the spartan cell, suddenly looking much younger and just a little embarrassed. She is abruptly reminded of high school study dates - being a teenager alone with a boy in a room that contained a bed was always awkward, even if you were only there to discuss math and physics. She wants to shake herself: she is twenty-nine years old and Michael is two years older, for God’s sake, and there should be nothing between them to make her remember that feeling.
Nothing.
Finally, he gestures with a self-deprecating grandeur towards his neatly made bunk, looking as though he’s fighting the urge to laugh. “Please.”
“Thanks.” Her palms are damp and she presses them hard against her knees as she sits down, annoyed with herself and trying not to think of how much nothing can feel like something in the right – or wrong - circumstances.
He drops gracefully onto the bunk beside her, an easy smile tugging at his lips, and she finds herself staring once more. “I made you something,” he announces cheerily before she can say a word, twisting away from her to reach down to the floor.
She is grateful for the reprieve from his eyes.
He turns back to her, passing the small bowl into her suddenly waiting hands, still looking as though he’s doing his best not to laugh. “It’s an ashtray.”
The clay is cool against her palms. Something inside her chest tightens, a curious mixture of amusement and something that feels disturbingly like tenderness tugging at her. She doubts that an ashtray has been made with more deliberate precision in the entire history of Fox River’s psych ward, and for some reason the thought makes her want to laugh and weep in the same breath. “Um, I don’t smoke?”
“Yeah, I know, but they only let us make these and jewellery.” He pauses, his wide mouth curving in a familiar smirk. “And I didn’t figure you for the macaroni necklace type.”
Laughter bubbles up softly in her throat before she can stop it, a perfect match for the subdued mirth dancing in his eyes. “That’s very sweet.” She rests it on her leg, careful not to look at it again. If she looks at it, she will have to think about what it represents. Or doesn’t, for that matter. “Uh, how about we talk about how you’re doing?”
His expression stills, his gaze snapping away. He sucks in a long breath, then his eyes meet hers once more. “I think we both know I don’t belong here.” His voice is low, a half-whisper, and she has to fight the urge to lean closer. “I don’t remember much about that night, but being locked up in Ad Seg, something must have snapped.”
She nods, happy to let him talk, relieved that he has found his voice again. Hers seems to be trapped somewhere in the middle of her chest, and she knows why. She's relived the moment she found him - broken and bleeding - far too many times, and it has crippled her ability to offer token words of reassurance.
“What I’m trying to say is,” his gaze catches hers, and again that smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, “that I think I’ve had enough of arts and crafts.” The soft chuckle that escapes her lips is as involuntary as her glance down at the ashtray in her lap. “But that’s your call,” he adds softly, his eyes never leaving hers.
“And the doctors here do say that you’ve been acting fine.”
She wishes they hadn’t. If they hadn’t, he would have to stay here. He would have to stay here, where he would be safe. “The problem is that if you don’t tell the Pope who burned you,” she continues softly, “he’s going to lock you back up in Ad Seg.” She watches him as she speaks, trying to see through the cocktail party small talk façade he’s assumed, but apart from a tiny muscle flexing in his jaw at the mention of Ad Seg, there’s nothing to see. “And after a couple of days of that, you’re going to be right back here.” She hates the words coming out of her mouth, wants to bite them back as soon as she’s spoken, but they are a truth neither of them can deny.
His only response is a frustrated exhalation of breath, his shoulders slumping as if in defeat, and she can no longer suppress the urge to offer him whatever reassurance she can. She reaches for him before she can talk herself out of it, the starched white material of his overalls smooth against her palm as she skims her hand along the length of his forearm. She lets her hand linger, telling herself that this is nothing she wouldn’t do for any other patient, ignoring the dark whisper that flutters through her thoughts.
Be careful.
“Michael, I hate what’s happened to you and I hate that you’re here, but you’ve got to let me help you.” She curls her hand around his wrist and squeezes gently, careful not to look at his clasped hands, hands that are much too beautiful for a prisoner. She feels the heat of his skin through his clothes, and she wishes she felt as calm as she sounds. “If you want to get out of psych ward and stay out, you’ve got to tell the Pope the truth about that burn.”
He stares at her with unreadable eyes, then looks down at her hand on his arm, as though he’s only just become aware of her touch. His arm tenses beneath her hand, muscles sliding smoothly under skin, and she suddenly realizes how close he’s sitting.
Too close, she thinks, just as his hand covers hers, trapping it between his palm and his forearm. Her breath catches in her throat. “My being in here isn’t your fault, Sara.” His expression is somber, despite his half-smile. “I understand why you went to the warden.”
She stares at him, a flash of resentment stiffening her spine. It doesn't seem fair that after everything he's been through over the last few days, he should be so intuitive. She’s never before thought of intelligence as a dangerous thing, but she’s been relearning quite a few things lately. “You know that I’m required by law –“
He shifts his hand, and she feels the press of his long, warm fingers against her knuckles. “I also know that you would have gone to him even if you weren’t required to do so by law.”
He may not mean it as an accusation, but an accusation is what she hears, and it stings far more than it should. She opens her mouth but he talks over whatever sharp retort she might have made. “What I’m saying is that I know you did it to protect me, and I appreciate it.”
They look at each other for a long moment, his hand both a solid weight and a phantom touch on hers. Sara’s mouth dries, heat scratching at the nape of her neck. She's a doctor; she knows it’s impossible to feel the thrum of his blood in the warm clasp of his hand. But she can. She can feel it and she wonders if his heart could possibly be beating as quickly as hers. She doubts it.
She suddenly doubts a lot of things.
Pulling her hand away from his touch, she takes a deep breath. “If I promised you it wouldn’t leave this room, would you tell me who burned you?”
He says nothing. His eyes, however, lock with hers in a faintly challenging stare that starts a whisper of sensation curling through her.
Some part of her – the sensible part, obviously – is telling her that she needs to get out of this room. Another part of her – the masochistic part – wants to push him a little bit more. “Let me guess – this is the part where you don’t answer me, right?”
He tilts his head to look at her, and she's certain that he’s choosing his words very carefully. “I don’t want to involve you in this.”
“Little late for that, don’t you think?”
He looks down at his hands, now linked loosely in his lap. “Can you get me out of here?” he asks without looking at her.
“Will you talk to the Pope?”
He hesitates again, but only briefly. “Yes.”
“Then yes, I can get you out of here.”
He lifts his head, his eyes glittering. “Today?”
“I’ll go organize your transfer now.”
“Great.” He beams at her as though she’s just granted his most treasured wish, and she rises hastily to her feet.
Definitely time to go.
She’s halfway across the room before he says her name.
“Sara?”
“What?” She turns, instinctively clutching her new ashtray to her chest with one hand, holding it in front of her like a shield as he gets to his feet and takes two leisurely steps towards her.
Much later, this moment will be the one that makes her especially furious with herself. This moment right here, the moment in which she knew he was going to touch her, and yet she did nothing to stop him.
His hand curls around her forearm, then slides slowly down to her wrist, his fingers stroking skin and skimming muscle, making the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rise up. He cradles her hand in his, just as he had in her office several days ago. He holds it gently, politely, as though he is about to lift it to his lips and press a chivalrous kiss to her red-skinned knuckles. And, just as she had done in her office several days ago, she freezes, her pulse skittering and stuttering, her stomach clenching with something dangerously akin to sexual hunger.
“Thank you.” His hand tightens on hers. “For everything.”
She doesn’t feel him drawing her closer, but he does and now there’s barely a foot of air between them. He’s watching her, his vivid eyes glowing with something she doesn’t dare begin to name, and it suddenly hurts to look at him. She lowers her gaze to stare at his collar, but it’s hardly an escape. His skin is smooth and tanned, its olive tone deepened by the stark white of his overalls. She blinks and takes a deep breath, trying to control her violent reaction to him, and instantly regrets it. The smell of prison soap and laundry detergent can’t quite disguise the clean-sweat scent of his skin, and the impulse to press her face against the smooth column of his throat is so strong that she can taste it on the back of her tongue.
I’m used to a certain amount of attention from inmates. I’m not used to enjoying it.
Anger flickers through her. Anger at Michael. Anger with herself. Acutely aware of the open door, the brightly lit cell and her own human frailty, she slips her hand from his grasp once again and gives him what she hopes is a detached smile. “You’re welcome.”
His bright gaze dips to her mouth, lingering until her face begins to burn. “I guess I’ll be seeing you in your office tomorrow, then?”
Sara has never thought of herself as a coward, but neither is she a fool. She is quickly discovering that there is a definite limit to her self-restraint when it comes to this man, and she’s just reached saturation point. “I guess so.” She forces a smile, then leaves the room without a backward glance, her whole body humming. Her skin feels tight, stretched like a drum, as though the slightest touch would vibrate right down to her very bones.
As she walks towards the nurses’ station, Sara slips the ashtray into her bag with a faintly trembling hand, then begins to deal with the necessary paperwork to have him transferred back to Gen Pop. She makes small talk with the doctor on duty and the charge nurse, small talk that she knows she will not remember.
Standing at the brightly-lit admissions desk, she ticks boxes and makes notations and signs her name, over and over again, and all she can think is that he had wanted to kiss her and she had wanted to let him. Wanted it so much that she could almost taste the cool press of his lips against hers. Wanted it so much she almost let herself believe it was worth a risk she’s always sworn she would never take.
She has suspected it for weeks, but now she knows that Michael Scofield is a very dangerous man.
Her afternoon continues as usual with a routine array of scratches, gouges, and gastric complaints. A broken thumb, an infected eye, a split lip and a shattered kneecap.
Business as usual.
She gives each patient her full attention, mending and soothing and gently rebuking as they deserve it, but in her mind she is cataloguing every word and every touch of her exchange with Michael and she hates herself for it. She hates herself for it but that doesn’t stop her hand feeling the echo of his touch, her mouth the ghost of his eyes’ silent kiss.
She hates herself for it, but it doesn't stop her wanting more.