Disclaimer: everything in Prison Break belongs to Paul T. Scheuring, Adelstein-Parouse Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, I'm just borrowing some of it. Not making any money. Don't sue.

A Confession of Pain

By chimère

"Believe me, I understand the impulse to pull the trigger. But if we lose ourselves, we lose everything."
- Michael in "Fin del Camino"

The paper flower and the gun lay on the seat next to him, but for all that Michael could see and feel, the flower might have been blown out of the car window, gone like all his cranes. For all that it mattered to him, there was only the gun.

If he had thought about the flower, he would have cried. But even though his thoughts were on Sara, his mind was full of death, not love, and his eyes were dry.

What time and circumstance might have changed, allowed to settle – time for sleep, time for memories, time for grief –, now lay in his mind like something cold and hard and inevitable. In this breathless, nerve-straining rush that his life had been for the past few months, all he had time to feel was the rage. Everything else was crushed beneath that rage, even tears. All that was left was revenge.

Even his love was crumbling in the face of this relentless determination. It didn't occur to him that he should cry.

Be the change you want to see in the world – and he would be, he would be the change that saw Gretchen Morgan dead. Even though these words had been said with a radically different meaning, even though she who had believed in them would not approve of it, he would still seek revenge. All the people who preached forgiveness did not understand that with a loved one's death, all the choices were annulled and revenge became a categorical imperative. It became such an imperative that even the knowledge that the very person being avenged would disapprove of it could not stop the one seeking vengeance.

Linc had understood. He had made no argument, not even a plea. No matter how much he might have wanted his brother to stay, he had known better than to try to stop him, for which Michael was grateful beyond words. For a moment, it had been impossibly hard to leave. But he had had no choice any more.

There were no more choices. The future had taken the shape of a straight road with a single destination, and not to reach it was unthinkable.

But do you lose your soul in the process?

His soul, too, was now laid on the table to achieve his goal, as was everything else at his disposal. All of him would be devoted to this, and no matter how much might be lost, his purpose would be fulfilled. In a way, such single-mindedness was liberating, and satisfying as well, because he knew that his resources were not inconsiderable. His intellect, for one thing, and the recently acquired experiences, but also the dark space inside him that had opened up and revealed a new Michael, cold and merciless and uncaring. It didn't matter to him what would happen to his old self or if, indeed, any of him would be left. What little there was seemed to be too broken and weak to care about.

The new Michael felt powerful, and darkly glad of his power. And he felt free. All the choices had been made, he could not turn aside, but inside that single choice he was free to do whatever was necessary, unhindered by any moral obstacles.

There was only one thing to worry about – that his old, ridiculously conscientious and compassionate self might re-emerge at the decisive moment and divert him, as it had happened in front of the Museum of Antiquities (or had it? would he have pulled the trigger, given a few more seconds?). Revenge would only lend him strength as long as he stayed true to it, if he slipped, that thick and yet brittle shell would crumble and leave… perhaps nothing at all. He knew that, he was no fool. But there was no way of telling what he would do if the desired chance for revenge was really set in front of him again.

There's one big difference between you and I, Michael. You can't kill.

He could only hope that Sara's death really had changed him as much as it felt like it had – beyond recognition. That he could prove Mahone wrong.

All the hope he had left.

Revenge is a confession of pain
- A Latin proverb