HealingOvernight5

Author: Liza C.

Title:

ealing Overnight

/S Index

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Chapter

Working at a prison, abdominal stab wounds were one of the most

common injuries Sara saw. Lucky for Lincoln, she was used to

making almost triage like repairs on the spot. She put everything

into concentrating on the area where she knew the spike of the

barbed wire had been. After about thirty seconds of her hand

maneuvering blindly inside of Lincoln, she found what felt like a tear

and used her finger to close the gap and stop the bleeding.

With her finger held steady inside of Lincoln she looked up and once

again met Michael's terrified expression. Sara spoke evenly,

although her breathlessness belied her calm. "I think I have it. That

last piece of wire must have ripped a hole when we removed it.

Right now I'm holding it closed and I need you to very quickly and

very gently sponge up as much of the blood as you can."

With a gulp, he nodded quickly and reached for a fresh sponge. As

he followed her directions, he asked softly, "Can you fix it?"

"The problem is that to repair it I need to move my finger and if I

move my finger he could bleed to death."

"Bleeding to death is not an option." Michael had regained his steely

façade as he cleaned the blood away from Sara's finger. "So what

are we going to do?

Sara surveyed their relative positions. "We’re going to have to

switch places."

"Switch places?"

She nodded. "You are going to have to put your finger on the hole

so I can repair it."

Michael's command faltered. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I need you to bring your hand under mine and then you'll

slowly slip your index finger over the tear." With her free hand she

reached over and pressed her index finger into the back of one of

his latex glove covered hands. "Pressure should be about like that.

Do you understand?"

He nodded quickly and with one deep breath, snaked his hand under

hers and into his brother's stomach.

"Easy." She commanded as he pushes his finger over the spot hers

had been. Once her hand was free she looked for signs of new

blood. After determining that Michael had stemmed the bleeding

with his finger, she sponged up the blood around the internal wound

and then got her needle.

Michael watched in awe as she made miniscule stitches in the open

belly of his brother. She ordered him to move his finger a

millimeter at a time as she closed the wound behind him.

When she finally told him he could move his hand, he realized he'd

been holding his breath. With a whoosh he let it all out.

"You okay?" She looked up at him momentarily.

"I'm fine." However, his normally stoic demeanor was visibly

shaken.

With a nod, she went back to working on Lincoln. For the rest of the

procedure they spoke of nothing other than the task at hand,

focusing only on removing the barbed wire. It wasn't until an hour

later, that all the twisted, angry metal was removed, Lincoln was

stitched up and Sara had declared them finished. They each

snapped off their latex gloves and emerged from the bedroom to find

Veronica working steadfast on a computer.

"How is he?" She asked anxiously jumping to her feet.

"Resting. He's on morphine so he's pretty out of it, but we got all the

wire out, the wound sewn up and although there was some internal

bleeding I think…" She glanced at Michael. "We took care of

. We

got

some antibiotics to stave infection so I'm optimistic."

Veronica threw her arms around Sara in a bear hug. "Thank you.

Thank you so much."

Sara smiled despite herself. Happy costumers usually did that.

Helping people, this is why she became a doctor. "You're very

welcome," she replied as Veronica released her.

"Can I see him?"

Sara smiled at the question. Veronica sounded like they were in a

real hospital and Lincoln was in post-op. "Of course."

Veronica was all the way across the room and to the bedroom door

before she turned back. "You two must be starving. Hang tight and

I'll make some burgers. There's stuff to drink in the cooler."

Michael stretched and then walked towards the kitchen. Opening the

flimsy cooler he asked, "What do you want?"

Sara had started gathering more supplies and was heading to the

couch. "We're not done, Michael."

He looked back at her to see her holding the bandages for his

hands. At that his lip quirked at her single-minded determination

and he repeated, "What do you want to drink, Sara?"

Once she looked back up at him and saw the way he was staring at

her, she relented. "What do you have?"

He glanced back to the cooler. "Soda, juice, water."

"Soda is fine."

"Ginger ale okay?" Michael chuckled uncharacteristically. "Huh,

Veronica must have remembered that Lincoln likes ginger ale when

he's sick."

Sara watched the look of nostalgia pass across Michael's face. It

intrigued her. Even though it had nothing to do with their present

situation, some part of her wanted to press him for more details, get

him to open up about his past. Do something that would give her

some more insight into this man and the relationship he sacrificed

everything for, but she refrained and merely replied, "Ginger ale is

fine."

He grabbed two ice-cold cans of the soda and came towards the

couch. He handed her one and then opened his and took a long

drink.

She took hers but set it on the table. "Drink later, clean you up

first." She started to rise from the couch.

Quickly, he caught her forearm and gently tugged her back down.

"You just spent a couple of tense hours hunched over Lincoln. Relax

a second. Have a drink."

She eyed him suspiciously as she sat back down and took the can of

soda. "You sure want me to drink that. What, did you put something

in it?"

Michael replied with a low cough. "You think I could tamper with

what's inside a sealed aluminum can?"

"If anyone could do it, it would be you." But she took the soda and

slumped back, resting her head against the back of the couch.

Swallowing hard, he tried to not sound hurt. He failed. "You

actually think I'd want to do something like that? To you?"

"No." Her answer was quiet, but certain. She let her head roll to the

side so she was looking over at him. "I'm not scared of you

Michael. I never have been. It was part of my downfall."

She watched as he winced at the word 'downfall.' But he recovered

quickly and smirked at her, "You should have been scared, as a

prison inmate I was quite menacing."

At that she actually laughed. An honest-to-goodness belly laugh for

the first time in, well, she didn't know how long.

"It's not that funny." He replied a minute later, but he couldn't stop

the corner of his own lips from tugging upwards.

"Oh, Michael, it is. I ran across lots of menacing inmates at Fox

River. You were not one of them."

"I could've been." He taunted with a smirk. His aim was simple; just

keep the smile on her face.

"Nope," she shook her head against the back of the couch. "Even if

you weren't laying it on think with the charm-the-prison-doctor

routine, you still wouldn't have been menacing. Mostly because

menacing inmates don't rescue damsels in distress."

"Hmm," Michael nodded and mimicked her body language by letting

his head flop back against the couch, too. He turned his neck toward

her. "You were impressive in there."

"So were you

he returned.

"I didn't do anything."

"You did and it was impressive." Sara replied, before adding, "How

impressive I was remains to be seen. We'll have to watch him

closely though the night."

Just then Veronica walked back into the living room. She looked at

the two of them flopped on the couch and replied to Sara's last

statement. "I can stay in the room with him tonight, but I would feel

better if you were here. Is it okay if I take you back to town first

thing in the morning?"

The thought of leaving them, strangely, left Sara feeling empty.

She stole a glance over

Michael, but he was still lying against the

back of the couch, eyes forward, expression unreadable. "That's

fine."

"If you need to check your messages, don't turn on your cell. Use

one of these prepaid cell phones." She picked up one from the table.

"I haven't used this one, got it in Wyoming, so it should be

untraceable to these guys."

Sara just starred at her as she took the offered phone. "You are

really good at… this." Sara wasn't sure what the right word for 'this'

was.

"I've been burned by the internet and cell phones a few times

recently. Let's just say I've learned a lot in the last two months.

I'm sorry this place isn't more comfortable. I'm afraid the only bed

is the one Lincoln is on."

"She can sleep on the couch." Michael finally spoke.

"That's settled then." Veronica signed with relief and then set about

making the promised hamburgers.

Michael and Sara were both quiet for a few minutes. Finally, Sara

looked over at him. "How about I get a look at those hands now."

Michael rolled his head back over to look at her and found himself

staring right into her warm brown eyes. They'd softened towards

him considerably since when she'd first entered the cabin that

afternoon. "Yeah, okay."

Sara swabbed his hands with the antiseptic before she started

applying band aids. As she examined she found most of his injuries

were to his palms.

"I don't understand how you got these wounds from barbed wire. Did

you not see it coming or something?"

"Try jumping off a moving train and after a complete somersault,

landing on a barbed wire fence and see how you turn out."

"That's what Lincoln did?" Sara asked in disbelief. They were talking

low enough on the couch that Veronica couldn't hear them over the

sound of her cooking.

"Yes."

"You jumped off a train too?" Her heart almost stopped at the

thought of him doing something so insanely dangerous.

"Yeah, but I didn't land on the fence. These are from trying to get

Linc off the fence."

"Michael." She felt fear for him reverberated through her entire

body when she said his name.

***

Twenty minutes later the three of them were eating. They'd forgone

the dingy little table and just settled around the living room.

After they'd been eating in relative silence for a few minutes,

Veronica looked over at Sara and Michael on the couch and

sounding somewhat clueless asked, "So how did you two manage to

become friends in a prison?"

On cue, Sara choked on the soda she'd just been swallowing.

There was a bit of mirth in Michael's eye as he watched her cough.

"Are you okay, do you need me to whack you on the back?"

Sara quickly shook her head and shot him a glare. Once she'd

regained her composure, she turned to Veronica. "I'm not sure

'friends' is the right word."

Veronica's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry. But when you came to see

Nick and me on the night of… that night…you introduced yourself as

Michael's friend so I assumed…"

"Well… um… it would be highly irregular for someone who worked at

the prison to actually befriend an inmate. So… uh…"

Michael kindly interrupted her stammering. "She took good care of

me in there." Sara whipped around to stare at him as he continued

speaking, "She was a good friend to me… although the converse

can't be said." He took a deep breath and looked deeply into Sara's

eyes. "But someday I hope to pay her in return."

Veronica's glance darted between the two of them as he spoke and

was a little surprised at how intense the room suddenly was. The

answer to the question she'd posed to Lincoln was suddenly crystal

clear; Michael hadn't just been doing a number on the doctor.

Sara swallowed, as his piercing green eyes intensely drilled into her

own. As if willing her to believe his sincere desire to make amends.

It was too much, Sara blushed and looked away.

At that Veronica cleared her throat. "Well, you've certainly been a

good friend to all of us today. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repay

you for saving Linc."

Sara quickly shook her head, still regaining her composure after

Michael's intensity. "I'm a doctor; it's all part of the job."

Veronica chuckled softly. "I think we all know that what you did

today was outside the realm of any oath you took as a doctor."

Sensing Sara's discomfort at the subject, Veronica moved on to

question her about Lincoln's prognosis and what kind of care he

would need after Sara was back in the city.

Once on the surer footing of medicine, Sara spoke at ease with

Veronica about what she would need to do for Lincoln in the coming

days. Michael just watched the two women, but he didn't say

another word.

Eventually, Sara and Veronica went into the bedroom to check on

Lincoln and so Sara could show her how to dress the wounds.

Michael picked up the three paper plates that had held their dinner

and dumped them in the trash. Taking a deep breath he surveyed

the room. A couch. That's where Sara would sleep. He'd have to

either take the floor or one of the supremely uncomfortable chairs.

It was fine; he'd slept on worse during the last two weeks. He

walked to the door and stepped outside into the crisp night air. It

was quite a chilly night for late May, but he didn't go back inside.

His thoughts turned to the wild day it had been. When he'd woken

up that morning he would never have predicted that Lincoln would

sustain such an ugly injury or that they would make contact with

Veronica at exactly the time they needed help the most. Or that he

would see Sara again so soon. He wanted to be shocked that she'd

succumbed to Veronica's plea to help them. But he knew that she

wasn't the type of person who could turn her back, even when the

potential consequences were to her own determent.

She was just so good. And knowing him had changed her life for the

worse. An involuntary shiver ran through him at that truth.

He'd thought about her a lot over the last two weeks, so much so

that he was beginning to think he had an obsession. But that wasn't

it. Out of all the people who'd unwittingly been pawns in his plan,

Sara was the one who'd gotten to him instead of vice versa.

The thought of her leaving in the morning left him with a deep

ache. But the hard, cold truth was that he didn't deserve her and he

certainly couldn't destroy her life anymore than he already had. But

could he lose her for good…

His train of thought was interrupted by his name being spoken softly

from behind him. He turned back to find Sara standing in the

entrance to the cabin, leaning against the door frame. She had a

curious, yet sympathetic expression when she spoke.

"What are you thinking about?"

TBC…