A/N -- This is my first ever published FF. I have a fragile ego, but I beg you for constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.
ATTENTION: This story has been revamped, re-edited, and reorganized. Anyone who began reading prior to 2/16/07 should got back and re-acquaint themselves. Some is slightly different, some exactly the same, and some completely new.
A chill permeates the thin flesh of his forearms as he leans through the bars, resting them on the flat surface of the cross rail. Roughened and pitted by decades-worth of inmates standing exactly in his position, the iron that had felt so foreign to him thirty days ago, now registers familiar. The fleeting relief of the cage's protection from the other felons morphs suddenly into a panicked realization that somewhere in his grey matter, this place has changed him. He willingly surrendered his individuality when his guns discharged, but he never anticipated having any difficulty in regaining it. The possibility that Fox River is altering his thought patterns, his very perceptions of the world and what things in it are good or bad, hadn't been part of his calculations. Now as equal to his desire to save his brother's life by means of escape is his desire to save his own.
Michael scans the dim cellblock, cataloging every small whimper or moan that quietly reverberates in the night, bouncing off cinderblocks and concrete and into his ears where it silently resonates for what seems an eternity. His intestines squirm with understanding of the sadness and torture eliciting the sounds, dread and doubt worming into his throat. Pivoting toward the stacked cots and Sucre's sleeping form, his eyes dart futilely around the cube to which his consciousness is becoming frighteningly accustomed. In fear, he questions if he could ever escape the creature this prison and its inhabitants has forced him to become.
Metallic clinks move toward him through the dark, the guard's keys echoing the ever-present helplessness that could not be squelched no matter how hard his intellect works to provide some pretense of control. As the rattles approach, he lays down on the springs to once more feign sleep, his mind moving ceaselessly into the abyss of his thoughts.
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The sun, high and bright, generates illusionary warmth against the chilly spring breeze. The sidewalk cracks beneath his boots abruptly bring about a grin as he trudges through the late-morning sogginess. Step on a crack… the giggles and smiles of a long-passed moment of glee with his mother and brother. The buoyancy of the memory exchanges for an ethereal tranquility as he steps onto the linoleum tiles in her domain – he feels different here, her simple existence changing the atmosphere. Memories of his nocturnal panic fade, seemingly belonging to another. The white rooms, so clinically bland and unremarkable for everyone else, are filled with a mixture of calm and security only palpable to him. His organs relax, the tension uncoiling from every cell in his body. She had been strategically chosen as his way out of the prison's walls, and she has unexpectedly become the way out of his mind's new barriers every day; she possesses his salvation without even knowing it.
His uniformed captor leads the way toward the now-familiar glassed exam room, escorting him in, and standing stoically as Michael sits in the cracked vinyl and wooden chair. The pair waits in the awkward silence that always accompanies a prisoner-guard pairing. Larger numbers of either creates a comfort of facelessness on both sides, he observes inwardly, but when one on one, each are forced to regard the other as more than numbers or uniforms; they are men to one another for brief moments.
Sara walks in. Her eyes meet his for an instant, but, as always, flit away just as the spark attempts to arc across the connection. He had discovered her altruism, her charity, as he chronicled her life, her history lining his walls and keeping him company in the dark. He should have known; the intrigue inspired by research foreshadowed curiosity that would flare into more. Her ability to see past prisoners' rap sheets, her hope to help them as individuals had placed her squarely in his line of fire as he planned for Lincoln's survival; but he realized within days of his arrival that the vulnerability he hoped to exploit for his brothers' benefit could be his own undoing if he allowed himself to fall ever further into her smile, her eyes. He was almost glad of her desire to break contact with him when she discovered Nika, but he also couldn't deny the part of him that wanted to be honest with her, nearly fracturing his psyche trying to walk the line of half-truths. If he can make most of the lies by omission, she might forgive him, he rationalizes daily.
"Morning," his quiet voice filters through a crooked smile.
The corners of her lips turn up and he wants to reach toward her and trace them. Her eyes follow the guard's retreat to the hall, returning briefly to his and flickering away once more.
"Good morning, Michael. Feeling okay?"
"Sure." His mouth closes slowly over the round syllable.
Routine takes over and his ears hear and his body feels everything before it happens; the snap of the lancet piercing his finger tip, the smooth latex against his arm – he fleetingly wishes away the rubber's invention – the dig of the thin insulin needle under his skin. But all of it stems from her, and from her there comes no pain. Metal wheels scrape the floor, her pen scratches paper, she stands, and they're done. He blinks, looks up, her chestnut waves seeming to glow from the fluorescent back-lighting. His throat tightens from wanting her – wanting her to know him, to see him, to want him, and wanting her to be within reach. Angels and demons; he had unwittingly stained a prison parable on his skin when he'd endeavored for a literal representation of its walls, and day by day he becomes more demonic, the prison devouring him, towing her further from his grasp. Within her domain, though, it drops away, and he still hopes.