"Going North"
Title: Going North
Author: Kate
Date: Friday, December 28 2007
Genre: General, AU
Rating: PG
Summary: She wants to feel the rain on her face in place of the tears, and she can't stay to see him fall.
A/N: This particular fic, (my first PB fic yet!) was written specifically for a challenge on another website: "what if Michael & Linc had a younger sister". It's under the pretences that Michael was a little older when their Mom died, but only just a little.
The faded cotton shirt felt like lead between her fingers as her eyes closed softly, almost as if in prayer. For what, she did not know. Perhaps for Michael, or Lincoln, or maybe even for herself; for the cliché of the light at the end of this never-ending tunnel. Behind her, images she'd seen dozens of times flickered again across the television screen; sound blurring into the back of her mind, though she knew exactly what they were saying.
The newsreaders, journalists and authorities telling the world of her eldest brother's sins, 'Burrows found guilty of VP's brother's murder', 'sentenced to death in Fox River State', 'justice found for murderer'.
She folded the linen messily, her arm brushing against a singular paper crane perched lightly on the dresser, a small smile spreading across her face that was swiftly replaced by a frown as she shoved the shirt into her bag. "Mikey," His name stung her lips as if it were hot coal, burning deep within her soul, and she knew what she was doing wasn't right, but that she had to do it.
Better this way, for all three of them. Not that Lincoln really mattered, not now, and Michael shouldn't have. It shouldn't have hurt her so much to leave him behind, but it did. Shouldn't be killing her to do this, but it was.
She pulled her hand around to the zipper of the bag and tugged at it slowly, a familiar rhythm to that of when she was just a child, packing for a foster-change.
"Do we have to go, Mikey? Can't we just stay here? Please?"
"No, sis. We've gotta go, okay? It's time to move on. Linc's out there waiting for us in the car, and if we go now, they won't know we've gone until we hit Michigan."
Except, this was no foster-change. This was leaving, and never coming back—walking away from everything she'd ever loved, and everything she's known. Walking away from Michael, like so many others have done. Like Dad, and Mom, and Linc, and now her, too.
"But I want to stay here. I like it here."
"Well, you can't. You've got to come with us, kiddo. You've gotta keep me sane around Lincoln."
Michael smiled, as if she hadn't said the same things last time they'd left; as if this time was different than the last.
He'd never left her. In all of her life, she could always depend on Mikey—her big brother, her guardian, and her shield against the terrors of the world. He'd been there whenever she had needed him, whenever they had moved back into foster care, or Linc had taken off again—he'd been there.
The day of their mother's funeral, she'd cried behind the casket in the viewing room. Too scared to look at her mother, but afraid to be alone at the same time.
"Hey..." He whispered softy. "Hey, I know that you're upset. I am, too. That's okay..."
"No, it's not." She sniffed. "We're all alone, Mikey. Mom's... gone."
Silence fell between them for a few moments as Michael knelt beside her, drawing her into a hug.
"We're not alone, sis. We've got each other. I'll look after you. I promise."
She reached across the dresser and picked the crane up, gently tracing it's outline on her palm. Linc had used these each time he was in and out of juvenile, to let them know when he'd checked up on them. Michael had crafted them for much the same purpose; left them laying around in places that Linc could find them easily, and, if they were split up, to let her know he was okay. They'd been much of a family tradition these past years, passed on from Lincoln, to Michael, and now to her.
"I'm sorry," She murmured, her eyesight fixed upon the paper bird, and her deep blue eyes laced with tears. "I'm so sorry Mikey."
The origami piece landed softly back on the dresser-top as she released it from her gentle grasp, it's tear-stained head tilting sideways before toppling down to meet the polished timber— from this, Michael would know what she had done.
She'd run.
"Mikey, what would happen if I ran away?"
"You'd come back. You'd have no place to go."
Her bag, packed down with old clothes, lay heavy in her arms as she carried it to the door. She considered, if only for a fleeting second, going to see Lincoln before the execution, though the thought left her mind as she remembered what he had done. What he had become.
She avoided eye-contact with the other residents as she made her way down the hall, her eyes cast downwards to her worn-out leather work boots, slightly too large for her feet, and stained with God-only-knows-what, but they still did the job. Her heart sunk to walk through those doors one last time, like a dying man, and out into the open air of the city. She had no formulated plan, no place to go where they couldn't find her, but she had something that a girl in her position should never have; Hope.
Hope that somehow had found its way to her through the years; through more foster homes than she could ever count, and more pain than she should have been able to take. It had found its way to her, but it left her brother behind, and so had she.
"I think I'm going to do it, you know. Run away."
"Oh yeah? Where you going to go?"
"I'm going north."