Sandcastles (Prison Break Fanfic)

Chapter One

There was absolutely nothing Lincoln Burrows liked about the new agent in charge of their case. Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, let alone with her petite frame, dark, straight hair, doe eyes, and the ethereal air of fragility that strongly suggested she didn't belong in their world of conspiracy, betrayal, peril, and death.

He snorted when she told them their case was the very first she was in charge of after having finished the Agency's training. Four years ago, his brother had broken them out of the maximum security facility. Since then, they had found all the fucking Scylla cards and unraveled a government security, being lauded as heroes not only by America, but the world. They had dined with the President, rejected slots in prime time talk shows, and picked up more than a handful of medals neither of them gave a shit about. And yet they got assigned a rookie for their case. Lincoln considered it to be a perfectly justifiable reason to be upset about.

But it wasn't it either. It was the sheer fact that their case still existed. What the fuck could the government still want from them? They had weeded out the traitors in exchange for freedom. It was the deal they had made all those years ago. They had done everything, so why the fuck were they once again seated behind a desk in a room without windows, facing a person holding a light brown file with their mugshots attached to the front cover?

At least they got coffee this time.

For five minutes now Agent Spencer had been talking in circles, apologizing for having them called back in, expressing her profound understanding that they had enough of the government, it being the very reason for the nightmare of recent years, that they had places to be, all the while stressing that this was a mere formality to get the story in order (so she wasn't even an agent, Lincoln thought. She was a bureaucrat. Somehow that made it even worse), to close the case for once and for all.

It was a struggle not to continuously roll his eyes at her words. She was right about so many things, of course. He did want to get the fuck out. He had been in spaces much smaller than this interrogation room (interrogation room, really. Couldn't they put them in an office? They would deserve it. But, he reminded himself, at least they got coffee. All they had usually gotten in a proximity of a federal agent was a hail of bullets aiming them), but never before had he felt so claustrophobic. He couldn't keep still anymore; every muscle in his body felt on fire, he kept running his hand over his sweaty scalp and he repositioned himself on the creaky chair repeatedly. There was still fucking steam billowing from the fucking coffee and for some reason, it annoyed him exponentially.

He definitely had plans. Lunch with LJ, his first as a free man in years. Then he'd get out of America, at least until he'd be reminded why he had once loved it. Panama, probably. It had been the cornerstone of Michael's initial plan and it became their lifeline after they started collaborating with the good people in the government (he snorted again. Good people in the government. Somehow it didn't matter anymore if people in question supported tax reforms that would keep bread off the table in homes like theirs when they had been kids. Everyone was good, fucking great, as long as they weren't concocting plans to kill them). Just think of Panama, they'd say to keep each other's morale up. When this is all over, sun, sandy beaches, cool beer – don't forget that. As he repeated it now in his head, he saw it for what it was – froth. Not for the first time did Lincoln wonder if he hadn't found himself at the receiving end of Michael's deception. While he envisioned life in Panama for them and LJ, something entirely different was getting his little brother through the hard day's arduous nights.

The government's way of saying sorry, the compensation for the wrongful conviction and all the attempted executions, in and out of prison, should come in in a few weeks (the fact that Agent Spencer mentioned it three times without providing an exact date infuriated him further). No one had so far specified the exact amount, but he suspected it would be more than he and his brother had ever seen, DB Cooper's bounty included. He'd use it to open something down in Panama. He used to think it would be a shop with diving equipment, but now it sounded like too much work, filling in orders, doing inventory. A bar, maybe. He'd keep open beers by his side, overlooking the pristine beaches. It would be an easy life after he had beaten the odds so many times. A few millions wouldn't make it okay, but they would make it easier.