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| H E A L I N G O V E R N I G H T |
Title: Healing Overnight Go to: M/S Index AN: This is my first Prison Break fic. I had to get the confrontation out of my system after watching the series (for the first time) on DVD. The story is unbeta'd. Pairing: Michael/Sara Rating: Teen Spoilers: thru end of season one Disclaimer: Not mine. Chapter 1
helped a weak and injured Lincoln into the bedroom of the cabin.
mattress. Lincoln's face was a mask of pain, but he said nothing other than a few agonized grunts. His arms were covered in cuts and stained a deep maroon from all the blood, but that wasn't the pre-eminent problem at the moment. Once Lincoln was seated, Veronica quickly made her way to the other side of the bed. A fresh tear rolled down one side of her face as she gingerly lifted his blood soaked shirt. He grimaced and groaned as her eyes fell on the cause of his agony. A length of barbed wire was grotesquely imbedded in the skin across his stomach. Michael surveyed the wound practically and tried to come up with a solution. He, after all, was the one who had cut Lincoln free from the wire to begin with, all but the length that was still partially inside of him. But the human body wasn't a building and he couldn't just take Lincoln apart and put him together again. Finally, he said, "We have to remove the barbed wire." "We can't!" Veronica yelped. "We have no choice." The abject fear Michael felt was given away by the fact that the normal low timber of his voice was slightly higher. Veronica took several deep breaths trying to find rational thought. "If we take it out he's going to have a gapping wound clear across his stomach. Look how deep it is on this side, god only knows what it might have attached to besides skin. At the very least he's going to need hundreds of stitches. He needs a doctor, Michael." Michael turned his steely gaze on her, but the worry was apparent in his eyes. "If we go anywhere near a hospital, that's it, game over. He goes back to death row." "But if he doesn't get medical attention, and soon, he could die in this God forsaken cabin. Is that a better way to go?" She was right. Michael slumped feeling helpless for about the hundredth time since they'd escaped two weeks ago. "What about-" Now Michael spun to face her, somehow he knew what she was going to say. "No." His tone brooked no opposition. "You don't even know what I was going to suggest." Veronica shot back angrily. He took a deep breath. "Fine. What were you going to suggest." "Isn't your friend Sara a doc-" "No." His voice was even more firm the second time. "Why not? She seemed very sympathetic and to want to help when I met her." "It's out of the question." Michael's eyes flashed something that Veronica wasn’t used to seeing there. "I won't involve her any further than she already is. We'll find another way. We have to." *** Sara focused her attention on the warm mug in her hands, watching the decaffeinated tea dissolve into the boiling water as if some fascinating, all consuming event were taking place. It was a trick she'd used lately, concentrating on mundane things. It helped her; made it seem to onlookers like she wasn't just staring off into space. When she felt movement in front of her, she quickly looked up. A woman smiled kindly at her as she sat her own beverage down on the coffee table and took a seat opposite her. "They didn't have any cinnamon scones left so I'm looking my sweet tooth in the eye and having the strength to say no." Sara allowed a small, fake chuckle at the common joke amongst recovering addicts. A look of remorse stole over the woman's face and she started speaking in quick apologetic tones. "Listen, Sara, I'm so sorry I wasn't available that day when you called-" Sara interrupted her with a wave and spoke earnestly. "You've already apologized and you don't need to. It's not your fault; it's not anyone's fault… but my own." Shelly had been Sara's sponsor for three years and the guilt she felt for not being available was apparent on her face, but she set it aside. "How long has it been?" "Thirteen days." Sara reply didn't require any thought. She knew exactly how long it had been since her relapse and overdose, not to mention the other thing. "And how are you? Really?" "Hangin' in." But Sara sighed deeply as she said it. "What about physically?" Shelly pressed for more detail, trying to get the closed off woman to open up. "I don't really remember the first few days in the hospital. I was unconscious most of the time. My body went through withdrawal and detox while I was fighting for my life. Since then… the detox has been easier than last time." "Don't let that trick you into complacency." "I almost died…" Sara felt tears build behind her eyes, but she refused to cry. Not anymore. "I'm not feeling complacent, I'm here with you right?" Sara tried to smile, but failed. It was almost unfathomable to her how she had ended up in this place again. And this time with a whole heap of new problems. "The problem is I… I just don't know where to go from here." "That's perfectly understandable. But remember, you rebuild one block at a time. What about work? Have you gone back?" She quickly shook her head. "I'm on… leave." Shelly replied sympathetically. "I suppose they don't take kindly to doctors borrowing morphine?" Sara snorted softly. "It's certainly not encouraged. They haven't filed charges and I haven't been dismissed. Right now, I'm officially on health leave… but…" "But what?" "Let's just say that there aren't exactly a line of doctors clamoring to work at a Maximum Security prison and… if it was just the morphine and OD, they would probably want me back working the second I was physically able." "What are you talking about?" "Not all the details have been released." She took a deep breath, she was about to lie to her sponsor while confiding in her all at the same time. But it was unavoidable. "When I went back that night, to take the morphine… I uh… in the state of mind I was in, I forgot to lock the door to the infirmary when I left." "So…" "So," Sara closed her eyes and blew out a sharp breath. "That's where the Fox River Eight escaped from." "You're saying the door you left open-" "Is the door those men walked through. Yes." Sara winced as she said it. After all she'd knowingly left the door open for Michael and Lincoln. However, she hadn't done if for eight other convicted felons, some of them terrifying. Shelly sat down her coffee as a shiver ran through her. "They don't… they blame you?" "In a prison there are pretty clear rules. Locking the door when you leave is pretty much number one." "You blame yourself." Shelly replied knowingly. "Sara, I know after a relapse, guilt is a way of life, but you can't shoulder something so out of your own control. Look, this…" she waved her hand around as she searched for the right word, "Prison break has scared the daylights out of me. The thought of those men out prowling around this area, well it gives me the creeps." She patted her bag. "I'm carrying pepper spray and mace. But even in the irrational state of fear I've been living in, I know that you leaving your office door unlocked isn't why those men are on the streets." Sara's heart clenched. The escape had scared thousands of people. Even though the authorities claimed daily that there were new leads and they were close to bringing them in and were sure they had all left the Chicago area, everyone's life had changed just a little. Elementary schools were on lockdown and all high schools had closed their campuses. Businesses were affected as the masses stayed close to home while traffic had gotten exponentially worse as people chose to stay away from public transportation. People were living their lives in fear and she was responsible for that. It ate at her soul. She looked at Shelly. "But it really is." "Sara, I watched the Dateline. According to Stone Phillips those men had been working towards their goal for weeks…" A stab of pain hit Sara's heart as Shelly continued recounting the details from the report. Just as it did anytime someone mentioned how meticulously the escape had been planned. She'd been part of that plan, part of his plan. More than anything she was furious at herself. Furious at herself for being taken in, furious at how she'd let him get to her. Something she'd vowed would never happen the day she started working at Fox River, had happened. She'd been taken in by a convict… a con man really. How ever much it hurt her to think of him like that, it was true. He'd needed something from her and she'd been an all too willing pawn for him. Shaking her head she realized Shelly was still talking and she tried to refocus her attention on the conversation. "…they'd dug a four foot hole through solid concrete in the guards shack. The guards shack! It sounds like a lot of people were sleeping on their jobs in that prison. So one door that you didn't lock in your office is not the reason they were able to escape. Sara, it was just rotten timing that your relapse happened that night." "Yeah… rotten timing." The lie made her sick to her stomach. Shelly eyed her cautiously before asking softly, "Although, knowing you worked there, I admit I've been curious. Did you know any of those men?" A sharp exhale accompanied her words as she spoke. "I treated most of them for one thing or another since I've been there." "Are you afraid of them? That they might seek you out?" That thought sent a shot of alarm through her entire body, she remembered the terror she'd felt during the riot. But she shook her head quickly. "Not really. But admittedly there are a few I wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley." Shelly grimaced as she supplied knowingly, "Like that Lincoln Burrows." Lincoln had been the most famous and infamous inmate to escape so much of the media attention had focused on him. The media, very wrongly, had painted him as the most dangerous of the escapees. Even more so than John Abruzzi or Bagwell. They were idiots. "There are far scarier men than Lincoln Burrows." "Really? What do you mean?" Shelly asked, the curiosity getting the better of her once again. She was there for Sara, but she couldn't help sate her own interest. "I… uh... had quite a bit of contact with Lincoln Burrows and…" Sara trailed off at the thought of who else she'd had quite a bit of contact with at Fox River. "And what?" Shelly prodded when Sara didn't continue on her own. "Uh…" Sara shook it off. "I was going to say and his brother." Shelly's eyes narrowed in keen interest. "His brother? The mastermind?" The mastermind. That's what they were calling him. Sara wrapped her hands even tighter around the ceramic mug in front of her, fearing that if she let go they would be shaking for all to see. As someone with a keen intellect who had done a lot of soul searching over the last week, she knew she'd brought on the question. She'd brought him up. If she'd told Shelly that she didn't want to talk about the prison break, the other woman wouldn't have asked another question. But the truth was she wanted to talk about him. She had absolutely no one in the world to talk about any of this to and it was eating her up. Finally, she tried to paste an impassive expression on her face and nodded. "Scofield. He was only incarcerated for a short while before the break, but all that scheming must have been what was getting him into trouble, because he ended up in the infirmary quite often." "Really? What was he like?" Sara took a sip of tea to steady her nerves before replying, "Not what you would expect." "I guess he must have been smarter than your average criminal to plan such a thing?" Realizing the path of madness she was on, Sara stopped the conversation. "I really shouldn't talk about them. And I don't want to talk about the escape. That's not why I ended up where I am." She just hoped her sponsor wouldn't see through the blatant lie. *** Fifteen minutes of conversation about her relapse later, Shelly gave Sara a hug and left her to her now lukewarm tea. Sara was just about to gather her own belongings together and head home, for she had nowhere else to be, when someone brushed by her and covertly dropped a small folded piece of paper onto the table. Startled Sara watched the figure continue on to the back of the coffee shop. It appeared to be a teenage boy with a shaved head wearing a baseball hat. Looking down, Sara picked up the piece of paper and with suddenly thick fingers opened it. Sara – The guys need your help. Act natural and meet me in the ladies room. Her heart was now thumping heavily in her chest as a feeling of dread engulfed her. For a full minute she sat rooted to her seat and contemplated what to do. Her first instinct said to run. Get the hell out of the coffee shop and away from whoever and whatever was waiting in the bathroom. But she couldn't, because her curiosity was more powerful than the first instinct. And with her life in its current state of shambles she really didn't have anything to lose. She glanced around the room and saw nothing out of the ordinary. People at various tables enjoying their coffee and chatting with their companions, but she heeded the warning to act natural as she got up and made her way to the ladies room. TBC... |
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