Sandcastles (Prison Break Fanfic)

An Interlude

The last four years Michael Scofield had spent in more motel rooms than he could, or dared to, remember. They blended together in their indistinctiveness, a trivial backdrop to the glaring purpose of his stays. Frankly, it didn't matter to him where he returned to every night after having spent a day decoding the mystery of Scylla with detached vigor. His brain was wired to notice the patterns of the wallpaper, compare the shapes of nightstands, count the spots on the carpeted floor, but his mind was too preoccupied to care about the color of the bedspread or the number of TV channels. Whatever it was, he still fell asleep to identical images residing on his eyelids, and it wasn't the morning sun that awoke him, regardless of the direction the window faced.

Now he was sitting on the bed, watching the last sunrays of the day slowly disappearing. The hotel room Agent Spencer had arranged for him was an aberration that for some reason constricted his lungs. It was the closest he had been to his pre-Fox River life in years. The room was spacious, overlooking a river, and furnished in a minimalistic way he would appreciate if a lack of stimuli was something his mind could benefit from. Now the respite Agent Spencer probably thought she had given him was a slow-burning torture he should have extinguished when he first felt it creeping on.

He knew what he should do the moment the door had closed behind him. Pick up a book and read it in a ridiculously short time. Turn on a television, pick a foreign channel and try to decipher the message. Find a pencil and adumbrate a building with the idiosyncratic exterior and curlicued interior, something inane enough to keep him focused. He had been through it countless times these past four years, had learned to recognize the triggers and mastered the skill of ignoring it. He let it engulf him without resistance every time, pull him under the currents where he belonged.

Was there a part of him that enjoyed it? The muffled screams, the loudest thing he had ever heard? The piercing laugh, the only thing that got his heart racing these days? The movement of the hand, reaching its goal the way he never would?

He definitely deserved it. He had taken lives, the life that mattered most to him, yet he was a free, lauded man. There would never be an indictment that included her name read to him, a pair of handcuffs cutting into his wrists with the wrath of her undeserved fate. He knew that replaying her end would never grant him absolution, but he would not stop trying. It was a bullet he would have taken for her if given a chance. It was a cudgel made of all the broken promises he had made to her. The freedom he had almost given her was now suffocating him every time he thought of her.

Sometimes, when the pain numbed him and he couldn't feel any more of it, he pictured her there, with him. Somehow they had dodged salvos aimed at them, cruised through the storms they faced; now the land unknown sprawled in front of them, so full of wine they couldn't hide their smiles even if they tried. He would give her everything she wanted, everything he had. He would make her a paper flower for every day they had shared; take her out for dinner he still owed her, preceded by the cup of coffee and lunch he had offered in desperation. He would hold her in his arms in the hammock on the back deck until she fell asleep; show her Thailand and every exotic place there was a travel guide on. He would build her a house of her dreams, no matter how many sleepless nights it took; give her all the babies she wanted and one more. He would give her his name if she let him.

All he would ever ask in return was the permission to tangle his fingers in her auburn hair and pull her closer whenever the words could not sufficiently encapsulate what he felt for her. He craved the privilege of being the one bringing the smile on her face and having his life forever lit up by the sparks in her eyes. His name on her lips would be a remedy to any malady that could ever inflict him.

They may not even work out. Perhaps out in the open, without the bars caging them in, pressing them into one another, the luster would fade as the bruises he had inflicted would prove to be indelible. They could end on the golden beaches of Panama, the scent of her mixing with the ocean breeze one last time as the feel of her hand in his started to evanesce. He might watch her walk away, toward another pair of arms that were untarnished by the torturous past.

He would never know.

They had been denied the chance of ever finding out if it was meant to be.

But what he was sure of, she wouldn't want him to crumble like he did every time he was alone. She would sit down next to him, wrap her fingers around his forearm the way she had once upon a time in the psych ward, and with the grace he didn't deserve, she would absolve him of guilt. He had done what he could, she would assure him. She didn't blame him. As much as she had risked for him, he reciprocated when he had sent her the cranes guiding her to Gila. What he had competed against was something no man could ever eclipse; and while he, Michael Scofield, was a man of incredible strength, acumen, and bravery, he was only human.

He wondered if he would ever believe it.

On bad days, he reminded himself that he had barely known her. They had less than two months' worth of each other in their crest of memories. The majority of time they had shared he spent in the blue that wasn't of his choosing, and the freedom of her colors made her irresistible. Every time he had touched her welcoming skin under the cover of the New Mexican night, the pain in his arm reminded him of the peril the sunrise would bring. He refused to listen, so arrogant in the conviction of his brilliance, so selfish in his need to have her. Each sensation was an answer to a question he hadn't known he had and he relished in the silence filled with the warmth of two bodies that cried for comfort. If one was to dismantle the proscription of their contact, the mortal danger of the afternoon, would anything remain? Was what he had felt and resolved to never let go a mere amplification brought about by the thrill of never knowing if there was one more tomorrow in their book?

He would never believe that.

The reaction he anticipated didn't keep him waiting. His breaths became shallow as if something more than just his mind was running. Sweat flooded down his face and the throbbing in his head blurred his vision. He tottered toward the window and opened it before collapsing against the wall. Drawing up his knees, he leaned his chin on the knees and closed his eyes. The wind cooled his burning skin, and just as his breathing started to return to normal, there was a knock on the door.

He held his breath, as if it could make whoever it was go away.

The second knock made it clear it wasn't his brother. Lincoln would be hollering his name by now.

Michael ran his hand over his scalp, wiping away the remaining sweat. His gait gained confidence with every step, and by the time he reached the door, nobody could guess he had just bathed in penance.

He was surprised to find that the sight of Agent Spencer was unexpected to him. She must have stopped by on her way home, as he recognized the clothes he wore. Once upon a time, he'd joke about making a house call; now he just noted again how widely open her eyes were, effervescing zest for life he hoped she would never lose, for her sake.

"Hello, Mr. Scofield," she greeted him in that casual manner of hers. He remembered how it annoyed Lincoln, and it was the first time that day that he cracked a smile. "I, um. You got a minute?"

The familiarity of the words felt like a delayed wave of the overbearing guilt that had hit him. He sought the haven of his wristwatch again, brushing the screen with his thumb meticulously, as if he could turn back the time and change the outcome.

"About... 15 hours' worth," he counted the hours to their next scheduled interview when he trusted his voice again.

"Sorry, right. Look, um. I just wanted to say that I hate what happened to Sara and I hate that we just sit in that dreadful room, tiptoeing around it. When I was going through the files on your case, I found some about Sara's abduction. And I know that this isn't much, but if you want, I can get you access to them? Maybe they will help you find some, I don't know, closure? Or maybe you'll see something in them no one else has. It wouldn't be the first time."

This time he didn't hide the impact her words had on him. He looked the agent in the eyes and he had to give her credit; if his look conveyed a fraction of the intensity he was feeling, most people would be perturbed by such intimacy.

"Thank you," he intoned the simple words, identical to those spoken four years ago when the fence separated him from the woman whose beauty unfolded in his eyes more and more each day.

And just like Sara had on that impossibly hot April day, the agent only nodded in response before walking away. As he closed the door again, he wondered if she knew that tonight, for the first time in years, he would have a spark to dissolve his fear of the dark.