A series of drabbles, from the POV of various characters on the course of several moments
Random thoughts: Sara
The catalyst
(Set during Cell Test)
A catalyst participates in chemical reactions but is neither reactant nor product of the reaction it catalyzes. It just speeds things up without spending more energy while doing it.
I've come to realize that that's exactly what Joliet is going to be for Michael Scofield.
There is a fine balance between losing your humanity and caring too much. For years I tried to perfect that balance throughout my career and my dealings with all sorts of patients.
They come in all shapes and forms. There are those you feel an instant connection with; there are those you forced yourself to connect with, because something about them repulses you and you know that isn't fair to them.
It's the ones that you effortlessly connect with that you have to worry about, because those are the ones that can hurt you.
You can listen, you can advise, you can even hold their hands if they're scared or in pain. You can not make their pain your own. You can not feel it like a personal defeat when they don't want your help.
In the end, it is their choice, and you can't be nothing more than one of the elements in the larger chemical reaction. An element with heart, if you manage your balance right.
I lost that balance once, and the end result was an addiction to morphine that did nothing to settle me back on my tracks. I swore I would learn from my mistakes and never let a patient unbalance me again.
I lost my balance with Michael.
One of the first things that I learned working at Joliet was that my humanity, while appreciated outside, was seen as a weakness in here. I struggled to keep my hold on it, I struggled hard, but after a while the inevitable shield was formed around my heart, protecting me against the more violent inmates.
My bedside manner turned cold and only a few inmates could gain my trust enough to break a small part of the ice. I show interest, but I rarely cared.
Michael shattered the ice after only five minutes.
I still don't know if it was his politeness, his charm or the spontaneous way in which I listen to my favourite quote escape his lips.
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
In some insane, illogical way, I figured that a man that knew enough about Ghandi to quote him couldn't be dangerous.
And then, in that same insane, illogical way, I feared for him, because if he wasn't dangerous, than Joliet could turn very dangerous on him.
It's not figuratively speaking that they call it a jungle. It's quite real and because I'm the one who has to deal with the end results, it's quite ugly.
I've seen what prison can do to men, and I've seen what men can do to other men. In some ways, it is literally eat or be eaten, and every connotation you want to give it, it's true.
Outside, I'm sure Michael had his fair share of sexual attention. He doesn't have your average Hollywood-pretty looks, but with a gaze as intense as his, you can't help but notice him.
In here, he stands out like a damn beacon.
And if the others realize, like I did, that he isn't a violent person… I seriously hope that they never do, or if they do, I hope that I'm seriously wrong in my judgement.
When I saw him two days later, rushed in to my infirmary, hobbling, held up by two CO's, my immediate thought was that it had finally happened.
I prepared myself for the worse. He'd been stabbed and they'd hit an artery. He'd been poisoned and we didn't know what poison it had been. He'd been raped by one of the inmates that'd been ogling him in the yard. He'd been beaten because he had said no to the wrong person.
When they got closer, I realized that I'd miss completely. He'd been mutilated.
Choosing to focus my mind on the procedure and not on the man, I started doing what I did best, fixing him up. Only when his silent tears of pain stopped and his blood wasn't dripping all over the infirmary's floor, did I stopped to think.
How the hell does something like this happen? You can get a toe stomped pretty badly, when the two hundred pounds guy in front of you takes a sudden step back; or you can bang it hard against the bed frame when you're too sleepy in the morning; you can even have a freak accident if you chose to walk barefoot on a tools shed. You do not lose two toes with your shoe on.
And then the dreadful certainty of what had happen cause my stomach to twist and rebel, bile rising up to my mouth. Someone had done this to him, on propose. Someone had tortured Michael Scofield. And maybe he really had said no to the wrong person.
When Bellick refused to see the absurdly clear evidence and made no effort to find out who was behind this latest atrocity, the twisting feeling inside me grew worse. The obnoxious man already knew who had done it, if he hadn't done it himself.
The ungrateful position I was in came to bit me in the ass, as I sat in the cooled infirmary environment, waiting for the next disaster to arrive, helpless to do anything to prevent it. Because Joliet had its own set of rules and I, like all others, was forced to obey.
I heard it later, on the ever accurate and up-to-date, grave pine circles of Joliet, that Abruzzi, our most notorious mafia boss, had been the one to cut Michael's toes.
I look outside the window and see the same group gather around Michael, the group that is beginning to be known as Scofield's posse. Abruzzi is amongst them, looking nothing like the man responsible for torturing Michael.
My hand moves to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear and I let it rest against my cold neck as I watch them bellow.
I guess the grave pine got it wrong this time.
Outside, Michael would've most likely lived a normal, tedious life, dividing his time between work, probably a wife and maybe a couple of kids. Barbeques on Sundays, Disneyland vacations once a year.
In here, he fraternizes with the worse, the very inmates that every new prisoner tries to stay the hell away from. What is stranger, they fraternize back, lured to him like moths.
If I didn't knew better, I would say that he is picking them up, like a chemist mixes sulphur with water, knowing that eventually he'll get sulphuric acid.
Abruzzi is one of the chemical reactants that Michael seems to need for a particular reaction that only he knows of. My only fear is that the result will be as corrosive as acid.
Accelerated by Joliet, the reaction might be larger than he expects to, more powerful than what he can control. He'll get burned, and, as sure as death and taxes, I'll be the one that will have to deal with the consequences.
A catalyst participates in chemical reactions but is neither reactant nor product of the reaction it catalyzes. Joliet stays the same, only its inmates change and get changed by it. Most former inmates say that even after they leave Joliet behind them, Joliet and its walls stays with them for life.
I guess that in some way, it will stay with me too.
The end.