Sandcastles (Prison Break Fanfic)

Chapter Six

There was nothing about that July morning, six years after Gila, to indicate that the evening would end with smashed dishes on and around the counter.

This should be harder, Sara thought and the glass of orange juice was in her hand. She was a wanted criminal after all; she had aided and abetted the most notorious prison break in recent history, then got unlawfully out when the flames were still raging. She had left it all behind, along with the documents of her real identity, when she boarded that ship in Costa Rica. Well, all but her little miracle.

She wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for their little boy. If it had been just her, alone in Costa Rica after having learned of Michael's death, she would have gone back to America and faced the consequences of leaving door open. Michael might have wanted her to be free, but what kind of life would that have been, weighted down by guilt and obscured by constant looking over her shoulder? Sara had been used to new beginnings, but that one daunted her. Without her father, without her medical license, without Michael, what excuse could there be for evading her warrant until someone recognized her or her heart tired out?

When she had been a little girl, changing the world was her goal. The six-year-old her would raise the tiny eyebrow at what her years of medical school had been reduced to now. But lofty ambitions didn't matter to her anymore. Now she was a mom, and it was a mystery to her why she had ever wanted to be anything more or else. Maybe it was presumptuous of her to claim freedom for herself in the name of their son. But her father had never been around and her mother had only been around bottles; giving her kid anything but all she could was out of the question. If she had gone to prison after Michael's death, their perfect baby boy would have ended up in the system, the same system that had inflicted so much suffering on Michael. She must have been the only person in the whole world who interpreted that as a noble excuse for avoiding the prison sentence that had awaited her.

After she learned about Michael's fate and realized their baby would only have her, she remembered a woman she had never expected to see again. Sara had met Geraldine when they were both doing volunteer work in India. They had never been exactly friends and never kept in touch, but Sara knew of Geraldine's work through mutual friends. Geraldine had opened up a center for women who were victims of domestic abuse and needed a place where they could be safe and figure out their next step. With a growing baby bump and scars all over her arms, Sara was just one of dozens of women who passed through Geraldine's doors every month. Thank god she had taken French in high school.

Sara stayed in Lille, and with Geraldine. Geraldine knew her real name, of course, but never asked why her documents now gave her name as Karen Williams. She never asked those questions, not when children were involved. But she knew that Sara used to be a doctor and that since she didn't have a license with her new name on it, she could no longer practice medicine. The center needed a doctor, and with her gentle, compassionate nature, Sara was a perfect fit. She patched up women brought in by the police in the middle of the night, consoled and counseled them, distracted their kids. Geraldine's work had been recognized by and thus financially supported by the government, so Sara's little infirmary was remarkably well stocked and was just like any other doctor's office she had worked at.

The center also had a block of apartments for women in distress to stay in. Sara and her little boy lived in one of them. As other women and kids were coming and going, some before the bruises could fade, Sara and her boy stayed. The only woman living there as long as Sara had was Moni, her next-door neighbor. Their apartments were the only two on the top floor, and that was probably just one more reason why over time they became a family.

Moni used to have a bright future ahead of her, like most of the women Sara was meeting these days. But one wrong decision when it came to love that could show her the world had left her with a young daughter and more broken bones than she could remember. Now, almost seven years later, Selena, her daughter, was already in high school and the bones no longer ached. She worked as an accountant for Geraldine and served as an inspiration for women who kept arriving, their cheeks still wetted with tears and their minds already on the way back.