Waiting for absolution
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Okay, let's get things straight!
I'm totally confident in my role as a reader and reviewer. I'm the total opposite of confident when it comes to my role of writer.
This is my first fanfic … EVER! My mother language is not English and I know shit about creative writing. It's taken me over a year of self-convincing and self-slapping to get my rear behind this keyboard.
I have this great story in my head, but I experienced it firsthand that envisioning something in my head is one thing, writing it down in a good story is quite another thing.
Note to all the great authors on this site: How do you freakin' do it?!!! Really?! Please tell me? I was in awe of all of you guys before writing this, but now I just worship the ground you walk on!!
Anyhow, this piece is probably going to suck big time! I apologise upfront for your wasted time here. But maybe with your help and reviews I can improve myself a little and learn along the way!
So please leave a note, for humanitarian reason, to help me suck a little less! Really, it would be your good deed of the day. Hihi! And please don't be shy about leaving criticism. I would rather have people beg me to "please stop writing", than you'd leave me in oblivion, I would continue and you'd end up dying of a heart attack caused by reading my brain-dead stories. Now, I wouldn't want to be responsible for your death, right.
Okay, sorry about the ramble, anxious Mieke listening to 'Frisco in den disco' on the radio makes for a very, very jittery and nervous girl!
ENJOY!
Cheers Mikey
Disclaimer: I haven't got any copyright on Prison Break. Sad but true. All credit goes to Paul Scheuring & co, baby, those lucky bastards!
Chapter One: Under a Red Moon
The rocking chair gently swayed from front to back, a movement created by the soft push of its occupant's right foot. The woman's left leg was bent close to her body. She desperately wanted to pull up her other leg too, in a childlike gesture to close up her body and protect it against any future harm. But the placid swaying of the chair seemed to soothe her restless mind a little so she kept on pushing.
Her body was covered by a thick wool blanket. Although the Panamanian summer temperature was still high and sultry, it felt more like a cold Chicago winter night to her. She shivered again for the umpteenth time and tucked the blanket more securely under her chin.
She turned her head sideways and looked out at the clear night's sky. The moon had coloured blood red, a natural phenomenon she last had witnessed many years back.
Her memories carried her to a time of innocence. A time with no absent father, no deceased mother, no addictions to morphine or a blue-eyed tattooed man for that matter.
She'd been thirteen years old that day, but it had felt like thirty. After weeks of nervy contemplation, she'd finally decided to tell Evan she liked him…a lot. That nervous feeling however had soon turned into devastation and humiliation, when Evan had told her he already had a girlfriend, namely, her best friend Stacy. She'd run home that evening like she was competing for an Olympic gold medal. Blinded by the tears of a heart broken for the first time, she had tripped over a small tree root. With a bruised knee and bloodied arm she'd continued running home and had locked herself in her room the minute she got in.
Later that evening her father had entered her room and had silently picked her fragile body up. He'd sat them in the rocking chair by her window and had told her everything was going to be all right. She'd felt so safe that night, tucked away in his big strong arms while his gentle voice rocked her into a slumbering state. He'd talked about everything and nothing at the same time, trivial things, many of which hadn't registered in her snoozing mind, but one particular moment she remembered like it happened yesterday. He'd stared silently at the red moon for a long time, and while tenderly stroking her injured arm he'd told her that in some ancient cultures the red moon symbolised the spilling of innocent blood on that day.
She didn't really understand why she recalled that specific moment so well. Maybe she wasn't broken beyond repair after all; maybe she still had a little naïve innocence left hidden within her bruised soul, maybe she was just a scared little girl who missed her father and who wanted nothing more than to tell him she loved him all along, maybe holding on to this one special moment made the years of misunderstanding, angry reproval and rebellious tears disappear like snow in the sun. Maybe.
She traced her fingers softly over the long-healed skin on her elbow. A little white scar was the only evidence left of that day so long ago. She looked back up to the red moon so prominently present in the immaculate dark sky, and felt her hazel eyes tear up. Innocent blood had indeed been spilled this day.
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Minutes later the redhead's gaze shifted back from the coppery moon to the bed in the middle of the darkened room. She had been mesmerized by it and its precious content for the better part of the night.
She knew she should go to sleep. The last few days had been agonizing at best. All the action, stress and nerve wracking moments had taken their toll on her body. While she hadn't slept or eaten properly in the last five days, an adrenaline-induced high and numerous cups of coffee had prevented her from shutting down.
Now, after all the tumult had died down, her body was fiercely rebelling against her wakeful state of mind. But no amount of exhaustion or excruciating pain could keep her away from this, from watching that bed and its most valuable cargo.
There he was, Michael, all battered and bruised, his frighteningly skinny body marked by bloody lacerations and covered by tattered dirty clothes. But still, there he was, her Michael, warm and breathing, not cold and mingled, with eyes dulled by death, like she'd seen so many nights before in her dreams.
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The ambiance of the scene in front of her was quiet, maybe too quiet for her liking. Except for the slight squeaking of her chair every time she rocked back, along with the steady drip of Michael's intravenous unit of blood, nothing could be heard. She was still deciding if the latter sound soothed or unnerved her more when visions of earlier bombarded her distressed mind yet again.
When Lincoln and Jane had first dragged him into their beach house earlier that evening, she'd switched into full doctor mode instantly. She'd quickly scanned his form for any life-threatening injuries, but other than plenty of bruises and cuts, a few sore ribs and a broken finger he seemed relatively out of the woods.
They'd been prepared for this situation. In the days prior to the showdown, Jane had provided them with syringes, antiseptics, units of nutritional solutions and all other medical equipment she might need. So, the minute they'd laid him down, she'd sunk on her knees next to the bed, unravelled her medical kit and started to address the ugliest wounds and cuts.
She knew now she'd shown signs of shock then. The vile of morphine had fallen twice out of her trembling hands and she had stopped her actions on his broken body too often to swipe at her wildly blinking watery eyes. It wasn't till Jane had softly touched her shoulder to give her a reassuring squeeze, that she'd regained herself. For just a second she'd locked eyes with the strong blonde next to her, and in that moment she'd never felt more grateful for anything in her whole life, than for the help and hope this ally had brought.
She shook her head in a vain attempt to wile away the memories, but one look at his unguarded sleeping face, made her remember how exactly he became so still.
When they'd brought him in earlier he'd been dangling between blurred awareness and unconsciousness. For the first couple of minutes he'd been talking gibberish while looking everywhere with unfocused foggy eyes. It wasn't until Sara started to disinfect a rather large laceration just above his groin area he'd sprung alive on the bed.
He'd started kicking and screaming, knocking over her instruments tray and her self in the process. His heavily booted foot had connected with her left cheek, and she'd felt it bruise immediately. She'd been dazed for a few seconds, sitting there on the floor surrounded by spilled medical instruments. In a hazy manor she'd softly touched her already swelling face. The noise around her had quieted down to nothingness and black spots had started to cloud her vision. The sweet offer of refuge into oblivion however, had been interrupted by a frantic Lincoln bursting into the room. She'd shacked off her natural drunkenness and quickly scrambled back to her feet.
The sight before her had paralysed her again. Lincoln and two of Jane's men were trying to trap down Michael's wriggling body. Lincoln had Michael's left arm in a vice like grip, while the other two held down his other arm and legs. Lincoln had tried to soothe his little brother into calmness by whispering desperate and sweet sounding pleas into his ear. But, this had only seemed to have aggravated him more. He'd tossed and turned, arched his back off the mattress in a way Sara knew had to be very painful with his injuries.
She couldn't recall how many times he'd screamed "No!" "Let me go!" and, "Please, don't do this!" But it was the way he'd screamed it, his anxious voice tainted with so much agony and torment, she was sure to haunt her nightmares till the day she died.
She had been in shock for the second time that night, and it wasn't until Lincoln's violent shout of her name had echoed in the room, that she'd come back down to the present. After registering that the three men were rapidly losing their battle in overpowering a hysterical Michael, the doctor in her had kicked in. One minute later Michael's tense body had relaxed due to the sedative she'd injected.
She sighed again and rubbed her forehead. A headache was slowly building and the only remedy for it seemed to catch a good few hours of sleep. But as she closed her eyes all she could see was the frightened look and tortured voice of this once so confident man.
Not long after she'd administered the anaesthetic, she'd tried to finish attending to his cuts, but with the little fight his body had left, he had moaned and whimpered away from her in the most vulnerable gesture she'd ever seen of him. She knew she shouldn't feel hurt about this. He was oblivious to the real world around him. But his rejection to her soft touch made her tremble with feelings of guilt and insecurity.
They all had decided that letting him sleep was the best thing to do at that moment, so she'd stopped treating his wounds. She'd soothed her inner self with the knowledge that the clean environment of her bedroom, had to be already a vast improvement to the filthy and dirty surroundings of Sona.
So, there she was sitting in a rocking chair, wide awake in the middle of the night, with the mother of all headaches looming under her skull, and a purple coloured left cheek. There she was, looking at a bruised and gaunt body full of treated and untreated wounds. Looking at a Michael who wasn't quite catching up to the fact he'd been saved.
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"Sara?"
She jerked her head a little too fast towards the door, regretting it almost instantly when a sharp pain shot up through her cheek. She winced and fought back the tears that threatened to fall for the umpteenth time that night.
Lincoln was sitting on the ground with his back and head leaning against the door, his muscular legs stretched out before him. He'd fallen asleep in that position a couple of hours ago. He'd been even more worn out than her, having actually participated in the rescue, and when his exhaustion had finally caught up with him, she hadn't gotten the heart to wake him up. So she'd simply covered him up with a blanket, hoping he wouldn't be all too stiff later on from sleeping in that awkward position.
"Yes?" she croaked in a tone altered by pent up emotion and fatigue. She cringed up her nose a little. Why did her voice sound so funny to her?
Lincoln's weary gaze shifted to the bed and back "How is he doing?"
She heard herself cough, a little strangled sound, and started to speak. "Most of the lacerations are shallow but it seems like he's lost a lot of blood over the past months, and apparently his body never got the proper time to recover decently, but two blood units should be enough. The food deprivation is a bigger problem. " She stopped only to take a much needed breath of air before rambling on "He can't weigh more than 120 pounds, Lincoln, that's way too little for someone of his build and height. He's so skinny you could have broken him into pieces while you were holding him down. Linc, I'm sure."
"Sara?" Lincoln tried to interrupt but she would have none of it.
"My god, I mean, what do they feed them in there, water and a couple of bread slices every day. People who voluntarily go on hunger strikes get more than that. What kind of hell is this Sona place, Linc? In what kind of twisted pit did I push him?"
Sara was in her own twilight zone now, a world created by five months of unbearable guilt and remorse for what had gone down that fateful day she'd shot Bill Kim. As she carried on aimless, she failed to notice Lincoln had gotten up from his position by the door, and was coming her way while rubbing his sore neck.
"Sara?" He tried again, a little more forceful this time.
"And, his cuts and bruises. I don't know how you guys talked me into not treating them right away." She started to make jittery gestures with her hands towards Michael's form on her bed. "I mean, they can get infected and in his condition that's definitely not a good thing and."
"SARA!"
She blinked once, twice, finally seeing Lincoln in a crouched position in front of her rocking chair. For a moment her forehead cringed into pensive wrinkles as she looked back to the door, not quite understanding how he turned up sitting here in front of her without her noticing. Her eyes lowered to her hands in her lap, and she felt a warm blush start to creep up her face.
They locked eyes again. She saw the corner of his lips turn up a little, his first attempt at a genuine smile in over five months. "Okay, let's try that again shall we? How is he doing?"
She let a deep sigh escape her lips, like she had been holding up her breath from the first time she laid eyes on Michael that night. Lincoln's hands had locked with hers in her lap and she squeezed them gently. "He's fine…" but couldn't help herself "for now!"
His right hand slowly crept up to gently caress her swollen cheek. She tempered the urge to wince. "How are you doing? And I'm asking in a non Joey-like way." She felt herself smile a little at his lame effort at humouring her. Tough, bad-assed, ex-death row con, but he sure knew his late nineties pop culture!
"It will heal."
"Sara!" The edge was back in his voice. But she planned on winning this round.
"I will heal!" She said more courageously than she felt, but with an air of conclusion about it.
She saw a glimpse of defeat pass over his eyes while he planned to drop the subject.
She didn't know why but, she raised her left hand and laid it on his one that gently stroked her roughed up face. Her eyes darkened with sorrow. "He's so gonna freak about this. He'll blame himself again."
Lincoln, who noticed the change back to a more depressive mood tried to chide her. "Well, then we'll just have to 'un-freak' him about it."
He saw a subtle but hopeful shift in her eyes and that urged him on. "And hey, once he's healed properly and you two finally get down and dirty with it, he's not gonna have to feel guilty about ANYTHING, with all the teeth marks you're gonna leave on that sexy body of his."
Sara felt her jaw hit the ground before she burst into giggles and slapped him on the arm.
"Lincoln!" She yelled incredulously.
"Sara!" He responded in the same manor she'd just called his name, before starting to chuckle quietly. She shook her head firmly. "I can't believe you just said THAT!"
They quieted down after a few moments, the atmosphere more positive than anytime in the past five months, and they both shifted their gaze to the sleeping man on the bed. Lincoln rocked back on his heels until he fell on his bottom and leaned against the radiator under the window. He'd pulled her with him out of the chair. She adjusted the blanket on both of them and snuggled up close to him on the ground. While she ducked her head under his chin and felt his big arms squeeze more securely around her, she suddenly was drawn back to the memory of her father and the red moon so long ago. The same feeling of security washed over her. Like these arms could protect her from anything the world would throw at her. Same frightened girl, different set of arms, same soul-healing power.
They both watched the object of their affection sleep a dreamless sleep in a bed not six feet from them. And slowly but surely their broken down souls started to build up again.
Minutes pasted and her eyes started to droop. With the last strength she possessed she squeezed his chest a little "I'm glad you're his brother." She whispered.
He shifted a little underneath her and she felt a soft kiss land upon her hair "I'm glad you're his girlfriend."
Right before she gave into slumber she heard him say "He's gonna be alright. We're gonna be alright". If she'd been more alert she's sure she would have noticed the slight quiver in his voice, a quiver that indicated more insecurity and doubt that he was willing to show. The truth was he'd never seen his little brother in such a bad predicament. He knew his brother was strong, much stronger than Michael gave himself credit for. But when that comatose body had been dropped in Lincoln's arms earlier that night in the exchange, and those liquid, murky, steal-blue eyes had locked with his, he'd received quite a shock to his system. Those hadn't been his baby brother's eyes. Those had been something different all together.
He just hoped that where ever his Michael was, he could overcome this and find a safe way back to them. Because his and Sara's absolution lay in the salvation of his brother, and without that, all three of them would be doomed.
Chapter End Notes:
DUM DUM DUM DUUUUUM sighs dramatically
WIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!! Major ANGST FEST coming up.
Bare in mind, my little friends. I might be the biggest sucker for angst, but in the end, a happy finale is all I crave for! So don't worry too much.
The road to absolution IS going to be rocky though (with some very nasty and adult themes)!!
Remember that humanitarian act today!! Go review this sucker!! Shoo!