Sara leaned heavily against the wall of the conference room, waiting as Michael and the others debated T-Bag's fate. It was the last decision they'd make together as a team, but she found she couldn't bear to weigh in. She definitely couldn't look at his face, or be in the same room. She knew how Michael would vote; that was enough.
Instead, she stared blankly at the beige walls and neutral decor of the corporate room as their voices washed over her from the hall. How odd, that this nightmare would end here, like this…in a mundane space meant for board meetings amongst bureaucrats. She let her head fall back against the hard drywall; now that they'd stopped moving a mile a minute, she could appreciate just how tired she felt all the time, how inadequately the few calories she could choke down fueled her. She felt tempted to lie down, right here on the tan carpeting.
She compromised by closing her eyes as she rested against the wall, opening them again only when she heard the board room door open and the guys return from delivering their verdict on T-Bag. She pushed herself off to lean instead against Michael's chest when he returned to her.
"Can we get out of here?" she asked him, into the warm cotton of his shirt.
He nodded. "Where do you want to go?" She looked at him blankly, and he added, "Anywhere you'd like."
But this was just one more decision she didn't have the bandwidth to process, let alone answer. "I don't care," she told him. "Just take me away."
He conferred with Lincoln, and they traded phone numbers. Each of them had yet another burner phone, Sara guessed. She shifted from one foot to the other impatiently. Despite the blast of air conditioning from the air duct directly above her head, she felt overheated in her t-shirt. She could feel a flush on her face, and a prickle down the back of her neck, like heat rash. All she wanted to do was push open the doors and steal away from this place.
They got into a car parked out front, and Sara didn't ask whose it was or how Michael had procured it. Maybe Kellerman had arranged it. The Miami heat trapped inside felt stifling, but as long as she could put the windows down, Sara didn't care. It still felt better than the conference room.
Michael looked at her expectantly, and she said again, "I don't care. Let's just…drive." She lay her head back and closed her eyes again as she felt the car stop and start through midtown, then pick up speed on I-95. The wind whipped her hair around, stinging her eyes and lips, but she didn't roll the window back up, even when the AC kicked in.
"I thought I'd be ready to celebrate all night when this day came," she said, over the wind, "you know, high on adrenaline. But I'm just…drained." Really, all she wanted to do was sleep for days.
Michael looked over at her, a spark of triumph in his eyes, his fingers dancing on the steering wheel. It only occurred to her right then, noting his barely coiled energy, that he was feeling all those things she'd thought she'd feel. He should probably be with Lincoln and Sucre and Sofia right now, buying each other beers and swapping stories. She'd pulled him away from all that.
She laid a hand on his thigh. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm more tired than I thought I'd be."
"You're allowed," he smiled, but he looked vaguely worried about her, and she felt a second wave of remorse. She didn't want to be a downer today.
They passed each exit for Miami Beach, then Fort Lauderdale. "Do you want to keep going up the coast?" Michael asked.
The ocean air felt good. She liked smelling the salt on the breeze created by the moving car. She nodded, laying her head back against the plush seat.
The next thing she knew, Michael was shaking her shoulder gently, and she woke with a start, blinking into an orange sunset diluted only slightly through the windshield. She immediately sat up straight and tried to get her bearings. They were parked on a gravel driveway, the ocean in front of them. "Where are we?"
"Just north of Palm Beach," he said. "I thought we could crash here a few days." She blinked at him, still battling the haze of sleep. "Well, check it out, anyway," he added almost shyly. "See what you think."
She unfolded herself from the car to take in a mint green beach bungalow standing on stilts over the sand. A seashell wreath decorated the front door, the mailbox encrusted in sand dollars. "It's very…Floridian," she smiled.
"It was the only rental available last minute," Michael said.
The weight of Sara's fatigue lifted a bit, more gossamer than wool. "We can stay here? Just you and me?" She smiled at him, unable to quite imagine such a luxury. Such freedom.
He smiled back, clearly relieved. "For the week, anyway."
A week felt like a lifetime. She actually struggled with the concept of it: time to themselves. Just the two of them. Well, the three of them. She smiled at him again, and took the steps to the front door two at a time. Michael followed just behind her, fitting the rental key into the lock. The door swung open onto a white-washed living room-kitchen combo, banked in windows overlooking the ocean. Ceiling fans shaped like palm fronds lazily stirred the air. At the end of the room, a short hallway led to a spacious bedroom, also whitewashed, decorated with more seashell accents, and an en suite bathroom. "It's perfect," she smiled, nearly bumping into Michael as she turned around.
He laid a steadying hand on her forearm, glimpsing past her into the bedroom. "It'll be like a vacation," he said.
"Like a honeymoon," she laughed, and then bit her tongue as Michael went still, his hand suddenly heavy on her arm. She felt her face flush. "I didn't mean…I don't know why I said that," she said swiftly.
In all their talk of forever and one day and together, neither of them had said the word marriage, unless you counted married to a Russian stripper, which Sara didn't. She'd just read the word between the lines for so long, she supposed she'd begun to take its inevitability for granted. Sometimes, she already felt married to Michael, like they'd just skipped over an entire series of steps that led most people to this point, leveling up based on the sheer intensity of their relationship alone. Proposals and engagements were for amateurs, she thought sardonically, for those who hadn't faced each other's mortality on a daily basis for months.
She looked down at the floor, and when she dared look back up, Michael's expression looked pained.
Did she think he didn't want to marry her? Did she mistake his silence on the subject for reluctance? She couldn't possibly, could she? Michael fretted as he extracted their few belongings from the back of the car, carrying them up the steps to set them in the entryway of the cottage. While he and Sara had actually known each other for less than 24 months, the magnitude of their feelings for each other bellied this short duration, he reasoned. Maybe Michael shouldn't assume Sara understood this? Still, she welcomed having his baby. She'd expressed desire to be with him forever. Was he also wrong to assume she wanted marriage?
And then, of course, there was the pesky problem of Nika. Despite telling Sara he'd 'been a little busy', he'd actually placed two calls to lawyers about this issue in the past few months, and just today, had taken Kellerman to the side to inquire about hiring someone government-appointed to expedite the annulment. He'd been promised a phone call on his new number within a matter of days.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed in his pocket against his thigh, but a cursory glance to the screen told Michael it was Lincoln. He spoke to his brother briefly, the phone wedged against his ear while his hands remained occupied with the luggage. When he clicked the phone shut, setting their bags in the entry, Sara turned from the windows, where she'd been watching the surf.
"Linc plans to stay in Miami with Sofia for a while," he said.
"Good." She smiled, but didn't look him in the eye. She seemed to choose her words carefully. "Then we'll see them soon, after a few days to ourselves?"
He nodded, wondering if this was how it was going to be: their time together reduced to awkwardly sidestepping a big, burning question he didn't feel he could ask until his sham of a marriage could be absolved. He couldn't bear that. "Listen, Sara," he started, but she cut him off with one upraised palm.
"Don't," she said, looking like she'd rather him bring up any other subject at all. "Don't give it another thought." She crossed the small room to him and smiled, seeming to shake off the subject like a cloak. "Where do you think we can find food? Because I'm starving."
He let her take his hand, tangling it in hers, and tried to squash the feeling of inadequacy that rose in his chest. He wanted so much more for her than a stolen week in a cheap beachfront bungalow. He focused on the part of this he could fix: with their assets unfrozen, they could go somewhere nicer, if they chose.
He mentioned this to Sara, who said without hesitation, "But I really do like it here."
He tugged their joined hands closer, until she was close enough to wrap his arms around. "Then let's go find some dinner."
It was actually harder than one would guess, to find food in a tourist town on a Sunday night. "It's Sunday?" Sara said, when Michael mentioned this fact. She hadn't paid attention to the days of the week in some time, now that she thought about it. Not since she'd counted backward on her hands, trying to remember the last time she'd needed to steal out of the LA warehouse to procure a box of tampons. Self hadn't deemed feminine products necessary to stock, she supposed, for the only female member of the team. Or, she thought now, maybe he just never expected them to be in the warehouse that long.
There was a seafood market, closed at this hour, and a Cuban food truck, the spicy aromas causing Sara's stomach to turn. Before she lost her fickle appetite altogether, they settled for mediocre Chinese take out, eaten back at the cottage. Sara didn't mind: the meal reminded her of the one they'd shared during their reunion at Bruce's safe house, just a matter of weeks ago. Almost absently, she wondered whether this baby had been conceived there, that night they'd slept together for the first time, her guard so devastatingly down.
"I'll do better tomorrow, I promise," Michael said, setting out the cardboard containers on the kitchen table.
"I should think so, Scofield," she teased, but once out of her mouth, the statement seemed to skirt too close to the conversation they'd stumbled into earlier, and she bit her tongue.
The bad Lo Mein and General Tso chicken with its ample serving of sodium and MSG hit the spot. Sara dug into the cartons long after Michael had sat back on the couch to watch her eat, a smile on his lips. "Still hungry?"
"Shut up." She extracted the last congealed noodle out of the box while he chuckled, sliding one hand across their laps to rest on her abdomen. She stilled, chop sticks raised halfway to her mouth. When she looked at him, his eyes shone brightly with their customary blue-green intensity, but also with something else. Love, without doubt, but maybe longing, too, or hope?
"Tell me more," he said, rubbing his hand lightly across her belly. "Tell me everything you know."
There hadn't been time for this until now: time for dates and speculation and guesswork. There had been time only for the most cursory of facts: a plus sign on the test, a desperate embrace, a promise that it would be alright, that they'd make this work.
"I don't know much," she conceded. "I uh, I missed my period that should have come on the 12th of last month, which means, I'm probably around seven weeks along? Maybe eight now?"
He smiled in something akin to wonder, and her heart seemed to both constrict and grow at the sight. "I suppose," he said slowly, "we should have been more careful." He looked at her intently. "But I'm not sorry we weren't."
She placed her hand over his, on her stomach, and smiled back. "I'm happy, right now," she whispered to him, realizing only as she said it aloud how true this was. He gently removed the takeout carton from her hands, setting it on the end table beside him. Hands now free, he kissed her deeply, fingers tangling in her hair and massaging the nearly-undetectable swell of her belly.
"I want to make you so much happier," he told her breathlessly, his words swallowed by her one by one. "I will. I will make you happier," he promised.
She kissed him back, her hands hooking around the belt loops of his pants, trying to draw him closer to her. When she'd practically crawled into his lap, she pressed him backward into the couch cushions. It was lumpy and short on space, but they were used to her boat, with its single narrow bunk, and she didn't need anything more. The windows still lay open, allowing moonlight to pour into the room along with the beam of each stray car headlamp on the access road out front, and she didn't care. She didn't care. She only wanted Michael, his skin on hers, his warmth, his mouth.
They commenced their usual desperate dance of groping hands, tugging at clothing until they'd rid each other of enough to feel skin on skin. Michael let Sara straddle him on the couch as he deftly opened her shirt, making fast work of the familiar buttons of this particular top, learned kinesthetically in the darkness of her boat cabin. When he'd freed enough material to slip his hand through to unclasp her bra, she pulled both garments unceremoniously over her head to the floor.
He kissed her hard, knowing hard was what she wanted, feeling her hands between their bodies, wrestling with the top button of his jeans. He shifted to help her, and then her fingers were tugging his zipper, and damn, she made fast work of this, too. It was like they'd underwent on-the-ground training in the art of sexual efficiency, where stealth and silence won the day against a running clock, but suddenly, it occurred to Michael that they didn't need to go about it this way tonight. A warehouse full of cons weren't on the other side of a very thin door, they didn't have terror and stress and deadlines looming over them, like a cloud they couldn't shake. This didn't need to be their usual frenzied, furious tumble.
"Hey, hey," he said, into her neck, her hair in his face, tickling his lips. "Hold up." She disobeyed, grinding against him in a devastating friction of half-removed jeans and boxers and cotton underwear. "Sara." He stilled her hips with his hands.
She lifted her head, and he brushed her hair back to see her frown. "What? Why?"
"Why don't we take it slow?" he breathed, cupping her chin. He kissed her softly, a taste of what he wanted.
She met his mouth hungrily, trying to roll her hips against his again. She was already highly aroused, at least halfway there…he could see the dark heat rising on a blush on her skin, the fierce desire pooling in her eyes. This telegraphing of her need was uniquely Sara, a proclivity Michael had discovered very early on, their first night in Bruce's safe house. She definitely didn't know she did it, which naturally made it twice as hot, and it never failed to threaten to undo him. Truly, he could come simply watching her want to come.
"I was pregnant the last time we did this, too, Michael," she said, misreading his restraint for hesitancy. "We just didn't know it yet."
"It's not that," he gasped. And it wasn't, not exactly. He assessed her almost clinically: the color on her cheeks, the coiled energy in her body, the muscles of her thighs and stomach taut, almost fighting him on the couch. Could he guide her back from the edge right now, make this even better? He thought so. "Come with me," he requested, hefting himself up into a sitting position, bringing her with him. "Let's go to the bed. Let's do this right." He didn't want to tackle her on the couch like a teenager tonight.
"I think we always do it right," she answered into his ear, but she let him rise, sliding off his lap and allowing him to guide her down the hall. At the bedroom door, he turned her by the shoulders to face him, blatantly appreciating the sight of her bare torso as they walked slowly backward to the bed.
She gave him a self-conscious smile, and reached to the wall to kill the light.
"Leave it on?" he asked. He wanted to see her. Not just feel her under his hands as he had amid the gloom of the boat cabin.
Another hesitant smile. She lowered her hand, leaving the light burning.
In the king-sized bed, the luxury of space had Sara stretching her limbs experimentally, tugging Michael down to her. His hands returned to her unbuttoned pants, but slowly this time. He freed her of them unhurriedly, his fingers sliding under the waistband and over her hips, before pausing for another long kiss, followed by a easy, gradual tug on the pant legs, another kiss. She squirmed her way out of them eventually, but he put the brakes back on before she could rid herself of her underwear.
"Not yet," he whispered, capturing her wrists to still her, then sliding a hand down her stomach, lingering on her belly, then down her thigh to her knee. Back up. Back down.
"Michael," she whimpered.
"Patience," he told her.
"I am patient, usually," she argued testily.
"Until your pants are off," he smiled, his lips on her stomach.
Her only retort to this was a narrowed gaze. "Can I at least…?" She tugged at his pants until they slid off his hips. He kicked them to the floor, and stretched out beside her in his boxers. She rolled toward him, hooking a leg over his, sliding half on top of him to kiss his neck and chest. He let her, for a moment, for as long as he could nobly stand, until she'd found what she wanted again, the devastating accuracy of groin to groin, the friction tantalizing. He rolled her off him again, pressing her back to the mattress with a hand on each shoulder. She looked up at him with frustration, but the excitement sparking in her eyes gave her away.
He kissed her slowly again, softly but deeply, running one hand from her clavicle to her ribs and back up to brush across her breasts. He cupped her, kneading her the way she liked, and she groaned against his mouth, which he took for pleasure until the sound changed, a soft then sharp cry. He lifted his face to look at her.
"That hurts tonight," she confessed. "Tender, I guess."
Oh. He looked back down at her breast in his palm, slightly swollen. "I'm sorry," he whispered, dipping his face to kiss her softly where he'd been too rough. Her nipple jutted against his hand, pebbled and pink and God he wanted to close his mouth over it, so he forced his gaze back to her eyes. He let his hand run down her torso and settle above her pelvis where his fingers toyed with the lacy hem of her underwear. "Tender anywhere else?"
"No," she breathed, lifting her head to meet his kiss, arching her hips to him in supplication. He allowed her pubic bone to meet his hand, and softly rubbed, earning him another moan, this one definitely conveying gratification. He stroked her again, over her underwear, pressing his free hand against her hip firmly when she tried to buck up into his touch. Patience, he wanted to tell her again, but didn't quite dare. To be honest, he enjoyed Sara in bed when she was marginally angry with him, but not tonight. Not tonight. Instead, he ran one finger between her legs, enjoying the sight of her stomach muscles quivering. He utilized just enough pressure to run the thin material of her underwear into the soft heat of her, just enough to leave a wet stain of arousal on the cotton.
She squirmed again, eyes closed, and he bore down slightly, his fingertip straining the barrier of the underwear, working the material against her in a painfully slow, circular motion. She arched again, kissing him almost combatively. "Take. Them. Off," she muttered.
Instead, he stroked and rubbed her again, shivering with her in shared frustration at the now soaked cotton between his finger and her flesh.
She whimpered harshly, he actually thought she might cry, so he relented, finally slipping his hand underneath the cotton. He pressed two fingers into her directly, without further teasing, reveling in the low expletive of satisfaction escaping her lips.
Moving inside her with his fingers made him want to take her right now, but he forced himself from the edge, too, counting backward in his head until he could focus on finding a rhythm that pleased her. He peeled her damp underwear all the way off, opening her up to him, adding his thumb to another moan of pleasure. Sara began to pant against his neck, her breath coming hard and fast, and when Michael thought he might almost be out of time, he slid down her body and replaced his fingers with his tongue, closing his mouth over her while sinking his thumb deeper inside her. She cried his name loudly, a luxury they'd never had before, coming hard and fast and thick against his lips. He devoured each spasm that coursed through her, tasting each wave of pleasure with greedy strokes of his tongue, and she came again, directly on the heels of her first climax.
"God, Michael," she cried, tears actually on her face, and this made him want to triple-down on his efforts, but she was reaching for him, and he allowed himself what he craved next, practically shaking with want as he sank into her. He thrust forcefully, carnal instinct galloping ahead of reason, then suddenly remembered her condition, and tried very hard to rein himself in, every muscle in his body quivering.
"Don't hold back," she said, still breathless, "I want it."
He gave it to her, bracing his arms on the mattress on either side of her, bending his head to her chest, filling her again and again until he knew that at this pace, he wouldn't last more than a few additional seconds. Then he flipped her, putting her on top, so she could slide her body hotly against his, chest to chest, stomach to belly. It only took her another few strokes, and then she was there with him, crying out a third time, and he let himself go, pouring himself into her with a hard groan. She sank against him - he saw her wince as her weight pressed her breasts flat against his chest - and exhaled deeply.
He rolled them again so she could settle against him more comfortably, side to side, and studied her face. He loved seeing the flush of color there after orgasm. He loved knowing he put it there. He brushed her hair back from her damp forehead. "I love you," he gasped. He loved her so much, 'love' had become an inadequate word, somewhere along the line.
"I know," she panted with a earnest nod, but he didn't think it was his imagination that a hint of their earlier awkward conversation about honeymoons lingered. "And I love you, too." She stroked his face. "You know that's enough, right?"
At least for tonight. He nodded, dipping his face back down to kiss the crook of her neck.
How could Sara make Michael understand, without saying it outright: she had no interest in parlaying her pregnancy into a marriage proposal. She wouldn't be that woman. Did she want marriage? Yes. Did she want it in reaction to this new start between them? No. She was almost terrified he'd ask her, and she'd have to wonder if he would have asked if she hadn't been carrying his child. And she was almost terrified he wouldn't ask her, and she'd know the answer definitively.
They lay together for almost another hour, Michael idly tracing circles across her stomach with the fingertips of one hand, Sara's head resting in the crook of his opposite arm.
"You're sure that was okay?" he asked her softly.
"It was more than okay, and you know it," she answered lazily. "Good call, on moving to the bed," she added, stretching out her legs again.
He flattened his palm over her belly. "That's not what I meant." He patted her gently, where she wasn't yet showing.
"Oh. Sex like that, during pregnancy?" She frowned into his shoulder. "I'm sure it was fine."
He lifted his head. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," she answered more confidently. "Of course."
"Because I don't know anything about this." He sounded faintly panicked, and Sara didn't see how it was fair that he got to corner this market.
"I've never been pregnant before," she reminded him. "This is all new to me, too."
"But you're a doctor." He said this like he'd counted on this asset heavily in his factoring of something or other. She watched him swallow tightly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, sliding up his body. Instead of allowing worry to creep upon her, she stubbornly focused on how wonderful it felt to be naked in bed with him, with nowhere to go, no one waiting on them, no mission hanging over them. "You're right," she allowed, as he caught her with an arm around the small of her back, drawing her flush against him. "I am, and I'm certain everything is fine."
When Sara woke, it was well past daybreak, and Michael's side of the bed lay empty. In his place, on his pillow, a scribbled note:
Buying groceries. Back soon.
She tried to imagine Michael in a grocery store, pushing a shopping cart, and couldn't quite conjure it. She remained in bed, taking stock: for the last week or so, mornings had brought nausea with a side of vertigo that sent her head spinning the moment her feet touched the floor. She experimented with rising gingerly, giving herself a full five minutes to make it to the shower.
When Michael returned with three full grocery bags, she was already in the kitchen, in her only clothing cool enough for the Florida heat: a white v-neck and khaki Capri pants. He laid out a wide variety of breakfast choices, absolutely none of which appealed to her in any way.
His face fell. "But you were so hungry last night," he pointed out.
She shrugged. "But in the mornings, I feel awful."
His brow furrowed. "Since when?"
"Just the last few days," she hedged. She saw no point in telling him how sick she'd felt while they'd barreled toward ending this whole nightmare. While she'd been tied up in Deb's kitchen, gun to her head. Worse, while she'd been shackled, at the mercy of T-Bag. She pushed that memory violently away.
Michael reached out across the counter to her, touching the top of her hand, and she willed her thoughts to stop broadcasting all over her face. When she didn't say anything more, he squeezed her fingers and dug into a grocery bag. "What about orange juice?"
She shook her head. At his look of concern, she added, "Maybe later."
Michael frowned, studying his purchases for a moment, then his expression brightened. "I got one thing right," he said, reaching into the bottom of the last bag.
"Michael, you didn't get anything wrong," she countered. "It's just that I — Oh! Thank you." She curled her hand around the plastic bottle he offered her, suddenly and inexplicably overcome with emotion. "I do need this."
"It's no big deal," he said, then, "Hey. What is it?"
She stared down at the pink and purple label on the prenatal vitamins, her eyes swimming. She'd begun crying, for some inexplicable reason. It just seemed so touching, picturing Michael thinking of this, searching the pharmacy section of Krogers to buy her these. She couldn't explain why, exactly. She tried to curb her emotion, sucking in a deep breath and attempting a faltering smile, but then glanced back down at the vitamins and completely lost it.
"Sara, what…?" He held her as she cried and cried. God, what was wrong with her? Her mind flashed erratically to T-Bag again, to the feeling of being trapped next to him, of his disgusting words in her ear, of the bravado she'd had to display while her stomach churned, while inwardly, her entire body tensed in acute panic. She shuddered and cried harder.
"What is it?" Michael asked again desperately.
"I never told you thank you," she sobbed into his shirt, "for coming for me the other day." She lifted her head, but saw only confusion on his face. "In the high rise we had to rappel down, after…" she cried hard again. "With…" she didn't want to say his name aloud.
Michael exhaled forcefully against her neck, tightening his hold on her. "You think you need to thank me for that?" he whispered bleakly.
"I guess I…I hadn't let myself think…about what happened." Michael looked down at her sharply, eyes snapping with fear, and she quickly amended, "What could have happened." She drew a breath in an attempt to calm the stem of tears. She had been playing for time, but they both knew she had run out, by the time Michael arrived in that room. He was silent now, undoubtedly replaying this in his mind as well, going down each dark avenue of what if.
After a minute or two, he seemed to shake himself loose of it. He looked back down at the vitamins still clutched in Sara's hand. "Let's talk about what else we'll need," he said with forced resolve, "besides the all-important prenatal vitamins I was so gallant to procure." He pried the bottle from her fingers and twisted the cap open, shaking one capsule out onto his palm. He squinted at it, then handed it to her, along with a glass he filled with water.
She swallowed the vitamin and let him steer her toward the couch, where she tucked her feet up between the rough cushions. She nestled her shoulder under his arm, curving into the side of him, and looked out the bay windows at the water and sand. "Uh, I don't know…a crib, I guess?"
He laughed. "That's all you got, Tancredi?"
"Alright…diapers. Blankets. Baby clothes." She felt herself begin to smile. "Those cute little tiny shoes."
"Why do babies need shoes, if they can't walk?" he asked her. "I've always wondered."
She shrugged in bewilderment. "So their feet don't get cold?"
"That's what socks are for," he pointed out.
"Nuh-uh," she countered, swallowing a drink of water. "The socks always fall off babies. I've seen it a hundred times in clinics and hospital rooms. Stray socks all over the place."
"Then…what? We just skip socks and go with the tiny shoes?"
"I suppose," she mused, "we do whatever we want."
"Well, that's terrifying."
She chuckled, and he threaded his fingers through hers, lifting their joined hands to kiss her knuckles. A serious look settled over his face, and he swallowed, clearing his throat. A trill of warning shot down Sara's spine, just like the night before. What if he said something he didn't mean? What if he offered her what she desperately wanted, only because of baby shoes?
She shifted away from him. "Can we get some air? It looks nice outside."
They walked the beach hand-in-hand, like every cliched couple ever. They laughed more about their lack of baby knowledge. They dipped their bare feet into the foamy surf, smiling at the families they passed. And when Michael's nose bled, he got to watch Sara's face as comprehension dawned, distinct agony flickering across her expression as she tried not to weep again. When she'd stemmed the flow, he silently circled his arms around her. These goddamned nose bleeds. Though not as frequent as they'd been before his surgery, the few he had remained severe, the blood she wiped away not quite crimson, not scarlet, but nearly black.
"I'm just so afraid we'll have come all this way, and I'll still lose you," she confessed in a whisper, a sort of fear-mantra of hers that circled in her head like a vulture. How Michael wished she could shake it.
"We're here, together," he told her. "We made it." What were the odds? They'd flipped a coin with their lives so many times, it felt unbelievable to Michael that they both could still be standing. Luck clearly was on their side. "I won't let this be a threat to us," he vowed.
She frowned at him, clearly thinking what he knew was true: he couldn't promise her this. "I'll go see someone," he conceded. "Whoever you'd like. I'll get a second opinion on the latest brain scan. Just…not this week, alright?"
She kissed him, bending to place her lips softly on the tip of his nose. "Alright," she agreed softly.
Sara had an appetite for lunch, to Michael's relief, followed by an appetite for an afternoon of sex. They found themselves naked together between the sheets more often than not, actually, over the next few days, bothering to dress only for brief bouts of fresh air to help quell Sara's morning sickness. When she slept, which was a lot, Michael checked in with Lincoln and went through all their exoneration paperwork and IDs from the state department, making sure every 'i' was dotted and every 't' crossed. On their third day, Michael finally received his promised phone call from Kellerman's contact at the attorney general's office, assuring him Nika had signed her half of their legal papers. They'd be overnighted by to their vacation address, so he could sign as early as the next day.
They were still tangled together in bed the next morning, Michael running his fingers lightly over the small of Sara's back, down the backs of her thighs, and back up in slow sweeps, when he heard the crunch of gravel under tires out front. He allowed himself one more pass across her skin, trying not to let the feel of her bare backside drive him to the point of distraction, then rose to pull on his pants.
"What is it?" she asked, alerted by the slam of a car door.
"It's fine. Stay right where you are." She rose anyway, tugging the sheet with her as she sat up as he ducked out of the room to meet the courier at the door. When he'd accepted the cardboard envelope and walked back in, she'd donned his boxers and t-shirt, which he'd discarded onto the floor.
The sight of her ensemble proved as distracting as her naked body had been seconds before. "You didn't need to get up," he repeated, his mouth twitching upward as he tore the seal off the envelope.
She sat back down on the bed. "What's that? Were you expecting something?" She peered out the window to see the van disappear back down the drive.
He slid the annulment papers out of the envelope and turned them toward her, his heart suddenly in his throat. He watched her eyes scan the page, reading swiftly. After a moment, she looked up at him with something like awe.
"Is this…? She glanced down at the papers again, as if for confirmation, and then beamed at him. "When did you have time to do this?"
He took the papers from her and signed them with a quick flourish while she watched. "Well, you do sleep a lot these days," he told her.
She gave him another incredulous smile, then threw herself at him, kissing him hard. "Thank you," she breathed.
Michael had expected relief from Sara, certainly gladness, but not this uninhibited elation. "It mattered that much to you?" he asked. To him, this issue with Nika had been such a non-issue, so less than nothing, apart from the legality, he forgot how it looked (felt?) from the outside.
"It has always mattered to me," she answered solemnly.
He studied her face, suddenly seeing her at the Fox River fence, chin raised, arms crossed over her chest. So, you're married. And later, her cheeks flushing under the California sun. You're still married… So many times in-between: a hurt look. A pained reminder. She wasn't kidding. There hadn't been a time, since she'd learned of Nika's existence, when it hadn't mattered to her. He kissed her softly, first her temple, then her ear and her cheek. Then her mouth, languidly, until he'd managed to lull her back into bed, where he could gently lift that shirt up and off. Slowly peel down those boxers. Bury himself inside her. Love her.
Their last evening in the cottage, Michael insisted on going out. Insisted as in, wouldn't take no for an answer. "But I only have jeans," Sara said, looking through her limited wardrobe.
"That's fine, because this is a causal place," Michael returned.
"Then why are you wearing a tie?"
Michael shrugged, but looked faintly embarrassed. "I like wearing a tie."
She studied him in the bathroom mirror, feeling herself relent. She kissed his shoulder. "And you should…you look very good in a tie," she admitted.
She stepped into her somewhat clean jeans, tugging them up and then pausing. "Huh," she said, peering down at herself. Michael glanced over at her in the mirror. "Can't quite button them," she said slowly, processing this information like an unexpected discovery.
Michael beamed at her. "Hey, leave it," he said, when she gave the zipper a second attempt. He stilled her hand on her waist, still smiling like a fool.
"This is crazy," she said. "I wore these just a few days ago."
"Well, you have been pretty lazy, in bed all the time," he observed, eyes dancing.
She mock punched him in the arm, selecting a shirt that would hide the open button of her pants. It wasn't her first choice of tops. She frowned at the contrast between herself and Michael in the mirror. "I'm completely underdressed," she complained, lifting her hair up to twist it into a bun. It was entirely too humid to leave it down. She turned sideways, trying to see if her belly looked different in profile. Michael tipped his head sideways to look, too. "I'm not showing yet," she decided.
"But I get to be in on the secret of those unbuttoned jeans all evening," he added happily. He stepped behind her, laying his hands flat on her abdomen. "I think maybe you do feel different," he said, tracing one finger across her skin where the pants wouldn't quite stretch. He lay his chin on her shoulder, gazing at both of them in the mirror. "You always look beautiful," he added, when he noticed she continued to frown.
She shook her head at her reflection.
"Always. Beautiful."
The restaurant was causal. Maybe not casual enough to fail to fully wear one's pants, but casual enough. They were seated on a cozy outdoor patio next to the sand, where they watched the sun set before the tables yielded to twilight, and the strings of outdoor lighting cast a soft glow on Michael's face. They talked of Chicago, using the word home hesitantly, talked of Miami and Lincoln's plans, and how they should go forward in the coming days and months.
Sara ordered an appetizer that disagreed with her constantly changing palate and fickle stomach, and Michael offered to finish it off, which surprised her: she'd had it in her head that he hated cilantro. This small detail, such a tiny thing, really, caused her to worry her lip in agitation. How could she love someone so much, be willing and ready to die for him, to joyfully expect a child with him, and not know that it was capers he disliked? And then he pushed his ceviche toward her in exchange, and she shook her head; shellfish was a no-go for her right now. She'd assumed he'd known that.
He smiled at her gently, tipping his glass toward her in toast. "It's okay," he murmured.
The tables sat fairly close together, the restaurant crowded at this hour, though starting to thin. As the party at the table next to them signed their check and rose, the friendly elderly woman who'd be sitting closest to Sara leaned toward them and asked with a smile, "First date?"
"Um," Sara stalled, caught between a laugh and a protest. "Is it that obvious?"
She patted her arm on her way toward the exit. "Yes dear," she chuckled, glancing to Michael. "But I'd say it has potential."
Sara waited until the woman had toddled off before breaking into a grin. "I don't even know what to say to that," she confessed.
Michael leaned back in his chair and laughed, and Sara felt some of her anxiety about this 'date' dissipating. He seemed relaxed, intent on making this evening about taking stock, and closing out their non-honeymoon, nothing more. Surely she could let go of her half-fear, half-hope that he'd propose.
They worked their way through a pleasant main course, skipping dessert in favor of the check. "Walk on the beach with me?" Michael asked afterward, "If you're not too tired."
Maybe she'd spoken too soon. That faint stirring of panic arose again in Sara's gut as she followed him out to the sand. They walked for a while, hand-in-hand, and then he stopped her by the surf, the muted light of an adjacent hotel casting a glow over the water. "I know there's a subject you've been trying to make me avoid, because you think you pushed me into it, but you didn't," he began circuitously. She lifted her eyebrows at this dance-around, wondering if he could see her movement in the dark. He must have, because he tried again. "You know I want a honeymoon with you, don't you?" he asked earnestly.
She swallowed. "I do," she allowed.
He smiled, although he looked nervous, which unsettled her further. "But first I needed to sort out my affairs," he said, and she wondered whether he purposely avoided Nika's name. "And then," he said, "I mean, and now…" He looked so serious, so heartfelt and fervent, she nearly caved, just to wipe that painstaking expression from his face. He opened something in his palm, presenting it to her. It was a velvet box, with a ring, just as she'd hoped-feared, and she exhaled in an abrupt, shuddering sigh.
"Will you marry me?" he asked, with devastating simplicity. Then he looked up from the ring in the box to her face, and blanched. She could actually see the color draining from his cheeks, even in only the dim light cast from the far-flung windows. He wore that startled, sickened look he got whenever a plan derailed. "Am I wrong," he gasped, "about what you want?"
She shook her head miserably, already feeling the tears stinging her cheeks. "I just can't…I can't have it be about the baby," she managed.
He went silent for a beat. "But," he said, "it's not."
"I know you say it's not, but…" She struggled for words that eluded her. "it's something you would do, you know? The right thing?" He was so damned noble.
More silence, like the encroachment of failure had rendered him immobile. Then he said, "But this is about us, not the baby. Look at the box."
Misery sluiced through her, like acid. "I sure it's beautiful," she whispered.
His face registered impatience. "Sara, no. Read the box."
She tried to make out the label in the dark, all the while thinking how little she cared about labels. "That doesn't matter to me, Michael," she said.
"But you'll see…you'll know that I, uh, I've had this ring for a while now." He imparted this information almost like a confession.
She looked closely, afraid of accepting this ring, taking care not to touch the box like it might bite her, and in the weak light, read a jeweler name she didn't know, followed by, Colon, Panama.
She glanced up at him in confusion. "Panama?" Not Florida?
"I…" He actually looked faintly abashed. "I didn't buy this ring this week."
"But we haven't been in Panama since…" She looked up at him, suddenly disoriented. "Since Sona? And Gretchen?"
"No, I bought it even earlier. Before you arrived, when it was just me and Lincoln, living on the Christina Rose."
"When I was in custody? In Chicago?" This didn't compute. Why would he buy her a ring then? Sara felt like they were drifting far away from where Michael had started a moment ago, caught in an entirely different current. She hadn't meant to do this to him.
"Lincoln was so angry with me," he remembered wretchedly. "Said I'd finally lost my mind."
Then it was true. He'd bought her an engagement ring in Colon while she'd been on trial in Illinois, not yet knowing she awaited Kellerman's saving testimony. Long before this pregnancy. Before Agent Kim surprised them. Before Michael had given himself up for her. Before he thought she'd died for his plan. Just days, actually, after she'd confessed her love for him. "Oh, Michael," she whispered.
"I thought…I hoped I'd get it to you somehow. That you'd know I'd be there for you, once we'd cleared our names." He grimaced, as though remembering this naive self pained him. "Or maybe it just felt like all I could do, just then. All I knew was that I missed you, and wanted you, and that life in Panama was no good without you."
"Michael…"
"Lincoln said I was an an idiot, to have spent so much of my….er, to have…"
"Michael?"
"What?" He looked desperate. He looked ashamed and miserable and lost.
"Ask me again."
He looked at her carefully, and what he saw there permitted a flicker of hope to catch and flare in the sea-green depths of his eyes. He swallowed hard, then said, "Marry me, Sara?"
"Yes." She smiled at him through tears she'd forgotten had formed. "Yes."
He exhaled a hard breath, trying a smile but not quite trusting it. "Really?"
"Put the ring on my finger," she implored him, adding, "please," in a choked whisper. She felt cool metal slide over her skin, and then she looked down at the most elegant, yet unassuming engagement ring she'd ever seen. She couldn't have conjured this ring in her mind if she'd tried.
She beamed at him, then flung her arms around him, burying her smile into his chest.
They drove back toward Miami on I-95 with the windows down again. Sara couldn't stop looking at her hand, turning it this way and that in the sunlight.
Michael laughed, capturing her fingers mid-air. "Are you trying to blind me?" He kissed her knuckles just below the ring.
She smiled unabashedly, leaning back into her seat to study her hand in her lap instead. "Do you really think we can pull off a wedding in under a week?" she said.
"If we keep it simple," he answered, then glanced at her. They both laughed. "Yeah," he conceded, "those odds aren't good."
But Sara wanted simple, if there was any chance the two of them could pull it off. If they married this week, she'd reasoned, Sucre and Mahone would still be in the city to celebrate with them, along with Lincoln, LJ, and Sofia. And she wanted to buy a new dress to wear, and she didn't want to be any more pregnant when she wore it.
Back in Miami, they splurged on a nice hotel, booked a date with a justice of the peace, and decided on the beach in front of their balcony for their wedding location. Simple. They called Linc, and made plans to meet up at the condo where he'd been enjoying his own R&R with his family.
They found them all on the patio, firing up the BBQ. Simple. Normal. Michael hadn't given his brother a heads up on their news, and after Sara greeted Lincoln, she crossed her hands over her arms for his perusal, looking at him expectantly.
"What?"
"You don't notice anything different?" she probed.
He narrowed his eyes like he sensed a trap. "Well I mean, I'm not supposed to say you look bigger, right?"
Michael chuckled, while Sofia, standing at the grill, added, "You are starting to show, you know, just a little."
Sara turned her head in her direction and smiled. "You think so?" For Lincoln's benefit, she wiggled her fingers, and then his eyes widened.
He laughed, then grimaced, holding his side. She made a mental note to check that his gunshot wound continued to heal well. "Congratulations," he said heartily. He hugged Sara gingerly again, capturing her hand to study the ring. He turned to Michael, still smiling. "I'd almost forgotten about this goddamned ring." To Sara, he added, "It sure looks better on you than buried at the bottom of his duffel bag."
Michael grinned. "Yeah, I…hold on." His phone had rung, and he turned away, one finger in the air.
Sara turned back to Linc. "I can't believe he bought this in Panama."
"Yeah, neither could I." A flicker of memory crossed his face, clearly not all pleasant, then he smiled hard at Sara again. "I'm glad he did, though. He was right, as usual."
She told him about their plans for a simple ceremony.
"Shotgun wedding, hey?" he tossed over his shoulder to Michael, but he was still on the phone. He looked tense to Sara, even with his back turned to them. Something about the way he carried his shoulders as he listened to whoever spoke on the other end of the line sent an intuitive spike of warning up her spine. She stepped toward him; maybe he'd put in a call to a doctor about his nosebleeds. Maybe she could shed some light.
But when she approached, he only glanced at her furtively in what seemed to be forced reassurance, and stepped inside, softly shutting the door separating the patio from the condo's kitchen. She let him go, and returned to Linc and Sofia, trying to shake the feeling that a shadow had just crossed in front of the sun.
When Michael rejoined them, however, he cheerfully accepted everyone's congratulations and Linc's offer of a beer. "Everything alright?" Sara asked him when he sat down next to her.
He nodded, giving her a smile. "Everything is fine," he said, placing a kiss to her forehead.
"Was that a specialist?"
"Yeah," he answered eventually, not quite meeting her gaze. "Sorry, you know how I am…this whole subject makes me tense. But it's going to be fine," he added bracingly.
She took his hand and squeezed, gratitude to him welling in her chest. She did know. And she knew how hard it was for him, to even start this process. "Well who was it? Someone in Chicago? Maybe I know the practice." He looked even more pained, and she bit her tongue. "Never mind," she said swiftly. "We'll talk about it later."
He called again, and then a third time, this disembodied voice on the other end of the phone, this mysterious 'Poseidon'. Each time, Michael shut him down. He wasn't interested, he insisted. He didn't want to hear from him again. And if he threatened his family, if he attempted to blackmail him -
The voice cut him off, mid-sentence. "If you're determined to learn the hard way how serious I am, Michael, you won't be the only one to suffer for it."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he shouted into the phone, pacing the beach in front of their hotel, stomping through the very sand on which he would marry Sara in just a day. He told himself he didn't need to fear this voice on the phone. A voice couldn't touch them.
"You don't want to test me, Michael," the voice pressed, but whoever this was, he didn't matter. They were exonerated. They had the support of the US government and the backing of the CIA. The worst thing standing before Michael now was his persistent nose bleeds, and even those couldn't hold a candle to the brilliant glow of his wedding day, their fresh start, the arrival of his child. So when the connection died in his ear with an ominous click, Michael stared at his phone long and hard, then flung it furiously into the sea.