Second chances

by Backgroundnoise

And on that hot evening Paul knew without a doubt that he was in his own personal hell again, because she was even more beautiful than he remembered.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, not Prison Break and not Paul Adelstein.

Sad but true.

Spoilers until Sona, after that just my sick imagination.

Dedicated to the lovely Kirsty, for her great patience with me.

Thank you so much for making it possible.

Note: English isn't my first language so any mistakes that remain are my own.

Pairing: Sara/Kellerman.

Rating: R

Summary: And on that hot evening Paul knew without a doubt that he was in his own personal hell again, because she was even more beautiful than he remembered.

Title: Second chances.

Chapter title: Panama City.

Feedback is always like sex and coffee combined.

By Lylou

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"-…Don't make me do this…"

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He had tried.

This time he had tried with all his strength, so much so that he thought maybe he had succeeded.

Or at least that's what he wanted to believe.

This time he had moved on in the only way he could; he had let them go. "Well, more specifically Paul, she left you behind when she closed the door of that filthy car and her boyfriend stepped on the gas."

Paul had tried so much, that after that "incident" he hadn't even followed the three of them across half of Chicago while they played pathetically with the spies; despite knowing that he could easily have found them if he'd wanted.

But he hadn't wanted to; he was tired of that situation, too tired of keeping holding on what it means to be Paul Kellerman. Besides, he had other things to take care of.

By driving through that circle of ashes and dead bodies, Paul had ensured that he would never find his salvation; that there wasn't going to be forgiveness and a "happily ever after" at the end of his story.

Only the familiar and sibilant sound of bullets on his back, a sober and anodyne gravestone baring a fake name, and of course, not one single tear shed for him; "Hell, not even youwould be sorry for your death Paul… Not now, not when it is time to pay."

And although he had always known things would play out like this, in the last few hours he had passed through all the stages until he really understood it.

Paul had seen Caroline coldly through the telescopic aim of his rifle; ready to spill out all the memories of him that she still kept with one single shot.

He had dragged himself to his young sister, "How long since last time, Paul - ten years? Fifteen maybe?"

He had tried desperately to hold onto little Kris as if she might've been able to save him, but of course she couldn't; no one could save him now… Actually, he was sure that he had gone to her that day just to say "goodbye".

"But it doesn't matter. You've always known that it would turn out like this, Paul… maybe you're just a loser, even with all those shiny, colorful medals that prick you deep in the skin."

So he went to a motel in the outskirts of that city that had already stolen everything from him, and Paul Kellerman tried to blow out his brains.

But that didn't work either.

While he was in that chair, waiting for Kris, with the jammed gun in his hand and wearing his gala uniform, Paul thought about only two things:

The first: "Even your gun has failed you… How ironic is that for a man who has killed so many that he can't even remember the first."

And the second: "Sara."

Paul couldn't help but wonder if she might have forgotten him someday if his gun hadn't jammed.

No, impossible. Not Sara Tancredi.

"Did you really think that it was going to be that easy, Paul? That you would just spread your brains all over the carpet and she, along with the rest of the world, would forgive you?"

The rest of the world could go to hell for all he cared.

The rest of the damn world had never meant anything to him. But Sara…

"What would she have thought if you'd died then?"

Would she have cried for him? Would she have had a party with Scofield to celebrate? ...Would she have forgotten him?

"Well, certainly everything would have gotten worse for her if that gun against your temple hadn't jammed."

God… He had tried, he really had.

Paul had treated her like just another assignment; he had studied her record, her weak points, he had spent a couple of days following her… And after that all it took was a sad story and a few tears in an A.A. meeting to get her attention; a slice of blueberry pie and some laughs one warm evening seated next to her on a church stairway.

"That was one hell of a move, Paul…"

It had been then when things started to become slightly more complicated; especially when that damn Scofield called her and he watched Sara speaking to him, hurt and confused, just a few meters away. Paul stayed sitting, watching her, with the sweet taste of the dark marmalade in his mouth and the sound of her laughter still in his ears.

Yes, everything definitely became more complicated then.

And after that warm evening, when Paul Kellerman thought that nothing in the whole world could surprise him, because there just wasn't a damn thing that he couldn't believe anymore, came the confessions on Sara's sofa. Her sad smile, the way her hair smelled every time she came near him, her telephone number in the fake memory of both his normal and fake cell phone. And then meeting her father, feeling more like a nervous teenager and a little less like Paul Kellerman. The popcorn and movie sessions in her living room, and feeling Sara moving slowly next to him in her kitchen, looking for the soy sauce for the teriyaki chicken that he was cooking…

Paul could still remember how her soft laugh sounded behind him, and how she put her hand in the small of his back, and how suddenly all the air around him smelled like Sara Tancredi…

The last time that he had felt something similar had been… In fact, Paul couldn't remember ever feeling like that; it was as if suddenly he wasn't just a shadow and a fake name, it was as if for a moment he had stopped being Paul Kellerman and become another man.

A man that cooked teriyaki chicken for her with Van Morrison playing in the background of her kitchen, a man that made her laugh…

"Would the fucking Michael Scofield feel like that every time?

Surely."

Paul thought that maybe listening to her laugh and feeling her soft hands on the small of his back enough times might help him with this "forgiveness" issue.

Maybe enough evenings of movies and popcorn on her sofa could let him think about dangerous things, like the fact that there could still be other options for him, that maybe there was still a little hope after all…

But that was all too optimistic and too intense; and he was Paul Kellerman, not Michael Scofield.

And that day, while he was waiting in that chair with his jammed gun in one hand, waiting for his sister to come, Paul remembered everything.

Or more precisely, he understood it.

"Surely the reason you were unable to blow your brains out was that there's still another way… You can still come back and find forgiveness by other means."

However, if it was that easy surely everyone could do it and not just the damn Paul Kellerman.

Was that his real name? Sometimes he couldn't be completely sure, like now; when, walking out of the shower, he looked at his chest in the mirror in that hotel bathroom full of hot vapor, and saw all those familiar scars.

"Whose are all these scars?

Are they Paul Kellerman's, or do they belong to someone else whose name you stole a long time ago?

How much of what you still have left can be saved, Paul?"

It had been almost four months since his "death" in that not-so-bulletproof truck, and he still wasn't used to seeing those new marks on his skin.

"But those are your favorites, aren't they?

Even more than that big triangular shaped oneeven though that was the one that hurt the most…"

Paul smiled softly and sadly and walked out of the hotel bathroom to find his clothes.

"The small bites on your skin from the five bullets that you got then are the proof that maybe, after all, there could still be a little salvation left for Paul Kellerman.

Because you saved her."

-"You saved her."

He repeated the words in a low voice in the empty hotel room.

"And then you saved yourself."

And Paul knew that surely he had spent his fair share of miracles for two lifetimes.

Because he had miraculously been saved from those five red-hot bullets that had drafted themselves painfully underneath his skin, and after that, he had been saved from many other things.

After that, Paul had dragged himself once more to his younger sister and thought briefly - a notion pushed by the pain, the adrenalin and the blood painfully leaving his body - "She looks a bit like Sara."

After that came the painkillers through his veins doing nothing, the dark stitches in his skin, and five new wounds that never really seemed to heal.

Paul stayed on his sofa for weeks - well actually Owen Kravecki's sofa - waiting for someone from the company to realize that he wasn't really dead… But they must have been really busy cleaning under the carpet, because no one came.

"Maybe you're not useful anymore; maybe the worst thing that they can do to you now is leave you to live."

And when Paul began thinking that he would have to find a job for the first time since he was nineteen, a man knocked on his door.

He was from the government; not from the United States government, the Panama government.

Because, apparently, he could still be useful after all.

So now he lives in Panama City, working for the Panamanian government and doing the two things at which he was always insuperable: killing people and not asking questions.

Once again he was given a new fake name, a new fake identity, and he would soon have a new fake home to complete his perfectly false and empty life. But meanwhile he was living in that nice, quiet hotel with air conditioning and a view of the Pacific; all that at the expense of the poor Panamanian taxpayers.

Now he killed other people, in other places. And if it weren't for the hot air and his soft tan, Paul could have believed he was still in Chicago.

Until the day he saw Sara again.

That day Paul knew that he was in neither Chicago nor Panama anymore.

He was in hell, and Sara was there too; both paying for their sins.

There couldn't have been any other explanation because destiny, that same destiny that had jammed his gun four months ago, couldn't have brought them both to the same city at the same moment…

Was it really possible that they had both chosen the same place to hide from themselves?

He was in the worst, narrowest street of the most dangerous neighborhood in Panama City; and he saw her in that tight, sloping street, softly bathed by the orangey evening sun.

Sara was walking, distracted and absorbed in her thoughts, and Paul was able to observe her for a few seconds before she noticed him.

She was wearing an intense green dress and her hair had returned to its normal red-auburn color…

And on that hot evening in that dangerous, orangey street, Paul knew without a doubt that he was in his own personal hell again, because she was even more beautiful than he remembered.

After a few seconds Sara finally saw him and froze, looking at him with surprise and a thousand things more in her gaze, in that back street bathed by the sundown.

Even with the distance and the people moving around them, Paul could see something else floating in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before… Relief.

"Why are those five small scars suddenly burning you underneath your black shirt Paul?"

He raised his hand slowly, still surprised, to say a silent "hello" across the crowd, but then he saw Sara walking determinedly in his direction.

And Paul understood it painfully and delightfully. "Those bullets, forcing you to bleed to death, are going to be nothing compared to what you're about to get into."

Sara stopped just a few inches from him, so close that Paul could vaguely smell her intoxicating strawberry scent in the warm evening breeze. She looked at him, still a bit surprised, and spoke with a soft half smile on her lips:

-"… I thought you were dead."

Her voice sounded small, nervous and something more; something that, for then, Paul didn't allow himself to identify as relief.

"-… Sorry to disappoint you, Sara."

She didn't seem to hear his condescending and slightly hurt tone, and Paul was about to say something more caustic when Sara approached him, so close that he felt the heat radiating off her body beside his own… she was much nearer than he remembered being to someone in months, but he didn't step back, not an inch.

Paul felt his generally low pulse accelerating and beating painfully under the five scars on his chest, and he looked at Sara, trying to find the appropriate words for someone in their situation.

But of course, there wasn't anything appropriate to say.

But then he felt her small hands faintly on the black fabric of his shirt, rising slowly and somewhat vacillatingly over his chest, and Paul could sense her fingerprints burning deliciously onto his skin underneath the fabric.

She was beautiful; with her green dress and her long-again hair rubbing her shoulders, touching all the scars on his chest through the fabric of his shirt, all under the orange light of the sundown.

"…A bit less like Paul Kellerman."

He licked his lips, nervous and surprised, and looked around the sunbathed street as if for danger; as if he wanted to be sure that no one was paying them any attention.

Paul's voice faltered but he didn't care; he was so close to her ear that he almost touched her earlobe with his lips when he whispered:

-"…What are you doing, Sara?"

She didn't even look at him when he said her name; Sara was paying attention only to her hands against his chest, and Paul could feel her soft breathing upon the skin of his neck, where she had tried to strangle him only a few months before.

He slowly raised his hands to his chest and took her own, squeezing them softly between his fingers and pressing them more firmly against his body, until he could almost feel the wounds underneath burning him as if they were bleeding again.

"-…Sara…"

She raised her eyes and looked at him for the very first time, and Paul was able to see that dangerous and self-destructive look that he had recognized all along; a second after she loosened his hands from hers. She didn't step back, allowing him the presence of her warm scent in the evening breeze for a little longer, and knew intuitively that he would remember that hot sundown for a long, long time.

-"You're quite far from home… What are you doing here, Paul?"

Her voice had almost recovered that cold and distant tone that surely she never used when she was this near Scofield.

-"On vacation, having fun… until now."

Sara looked at him in silence, knowing perfectly well that he wasn't on vacation and, above all, knowing that he wasn't really angry for having found her in this inclining street of the far-flung Panama City.

She moved a little closer, enough to let him feel her warm breathing upon him when she smiled scornfully, everything becoming blurred and dangerous as she whispered against his lips:

-"Did you come here… just to find me Paul?"

He noted the combination of sexy and rough in her tone when she spoke his name, and it was then that Paul saw the liquid shadow floating in her chestnut eyes… Pain.

"She feels more alone and abandoned than usual… Don't do anything stupid, Paul, just go to your hotel room and don't think about her ever again."

He began to say something that later he wouldn't remember, because Sara crushed her lips against his, kissing him deeply and not at all by surprise.

Paul felt her soft lips upon his and her hot tongue in his mouth, as if she had kissed him many times before.

But that was the first kiss of hate that someone had ever given him.

He decided not to think too much about that because he could feel every movement of her body against his and her small hands wrapped around the back of his neck and holding him as tight as possible.

Paul closed his eyes and caught her wonderful strawberry scent in the hot evening breeze, and he knew then that it was enough to drive any man mad, maybe even the fucking Paul Kellerman.

"This is not how redemption tastes Paul… on the contrary… "

But to feel Sara Tancredi kissing him, consuming and desperate, turned out to be much more powerful than redemption itself.

Paul could feel her warmth and guilt poisoning him slowly and making him remember fast and hard why he had really run away from Chicago.

"You know that she can hurt you much more than that iron and those bullets, Paul... just stop kissing her in the middle of the street and walk away, never look back… Don't make it worse."

But he ignored those words in his mind, holding Sara tightly and pressing her closer against his body and mouth, kissing her thoroughly and sliding his tongue between her lips.

And it turned out to be a painfully easy way to silence that voice.

Paul could feel her warm skin pulsating underneath the green fabric of her dress and he tightened his grip around Sara.

It was like being intoxicated slowly with hot, sweet guilt; it was painful, twisted, inevitable, delightful and a thousands things more.

"Don't hurt her any more Paul…"

He distanced himself a little from her mouth but didn't release her; Paul licked his lips in an automatic response and he could taste her flavour perfectly on his tongue. "How long will you continue to feel her warmth in your mouth, Paul?"

He whispered softly against her lips:

-"…Go Sara.

Get away from me."

His words sounded much more determined than his possessive grip around her body or the lingering scent of his cologne trapped in her green dress.

-"I know that you don't want me to go Paul…

I'm the only thing you have left."

Even in their painful, cruel truth, on her lips those words sounded positive and hopeful… as if they didn't represent something that could make them bleed and die together.

He released her slowly and stepped back a bit, still keeping his hand on the small of her back.

His voice assumed the same tone as a thought spoken out loud, not really expecting an answer.

-"… Why are you here Sara?"

-"On vacation, having fun… until now?"

He smiled weakly, coldly, and took off his sunglasses to ask the more dangerous and selfish question:

-"And… where is your Prince Charming?"

Her eyes shivered and dampened instantly.

Sara looked to the stone pavement for a second and Paul thought that she was going to cry. "Well, you've finally made her cry."

-"He's… he's in hell.

And I'm not sure that he'll ever be able to escape."

"I guess that makes three of us."

-"Where is he?"

-"…He is in Sona… For me."

Then Paul understood everything.

Everything, from the dark pain that he had seen floating in her eyes to her hot and needy kiss… everything, even why she had decided to take a walk alone in surely the most dangerous street in the entire country.

The self-destructive and guilty Sara Tancredi loves the taste of her own blood in her mouth.

"Don't let her hurt herself any more Paul."

"-…I'm sorry, Sara..."

She looked at him with blemished eyes and pressed lips before speaking in a fragile tone that Paul had never heard from her before:

-"You hate him.

…And you hate me too."

"That's not true… I died for you and it didn't even matter."

Paul ignored her words and spoke softly again, already knowing the answer:

-"…So that's why you're here?"

She looked around at the increasingly dark street.

Yes… that was definitively why she was here.

Sara looked straight at him and Paul was able to fully see the pain and the loneliness floating in her eyes, poisoning her, slowly and silently.

Her big eyes fixed on his, Sara drew closer, until he felt her warm scent surrounding and intoxicating him, like that day in her kitchen long ago…

"Don't let her hurt herself any more Paul."

But Sara had wrapped her hands slowly around the back of his neck, playing softly with the short hair of his nape, and Paul felt a warm shiver along his spine.

He tightened his grip around her body, pulling her closer to him, and in that moment Paul knew, without a doubt, that they were in hell.

He could feel her soft lips moving slowly against his as she whispered…

-"…Maybe I was searching for you after all…"

"No you weren't, Sara.

You were just looking for something that would hurt you enough to replace the pain with dangerous guilt… and you've found me."

His lips brushed against hers as he whispered:

-"Come on… I'll take you to your hotel…"

Sara pulled back slightly from his mouth, but remained in his arms, looking at him before she spoke:

-"You're such a gentleman Paul… but you're much less persuasive without your 9mm aiming at me.

So I'm not going anywhere."

-"…Actually, I'm carrying my gun…"

Sara looked at him teasingly with a weak smile on her lips, before speaking softly:

-"… Yeah…

Actually I felt it when I kissed you before…"

He smiled truly for the first time in a long, long while and looked to the ground for a few seconds, keeping Sara in his arms and feeling her warm skin under the green fabric of her dress.

Paul's smile faded slowly as he looked around the now dark and silent street.

It was almost empty, and the hot, nightly breeze around him suddenly smelled of saltpeter and of Sara Tancredi's skin, but Paul knew very well where they were.

When he spoke, his voice sounded very much like it had on that warm and painful evening in that motel bathroom, when he almost supplicated: "-Don't make me do this."

-"If I leave you here now, someone will rape and kill you before I turn the corner."

Sara looked at him, too tired and broken to argue more, and whispered, surprised, against the fabric of his shirt.

-"And why do you care, Paul?"

He half smiled, unconcerned, and pulled her closer to his mouth, softly bruising her lips and breathing upon her hair, before whispering:

-"…I don't.

But I don't want to discover that I caught five bullets just to save a stupid suicide."

"…As if you hadn't known it before Paul…"

Sara touched his chest reflexively; he shivered a bit under her touch and looked straight at her before speaking in a low, determined tone:

-"I'm not going to leave you here, Sara."

She objected tiredly and slowly, and he could hear the accrued fatigue and hopelessness in her voice:

-"I'm not going to my hotel, Paul."

-"Then come to mine."

He said it roughly and suddenly into her mouth, without thinking too much about his consistent loss of control every time he's near this woman.

Sara brushed her lips faintly against his and Paul whispered again, knowing then that they could never win this dark game:

"-Is that self-destructive enough for you, Sara? Sleep with the guy who tortured you.

Because I can do that for you."

Sara blinked and he saw a flicker of surprise in her eyes. She left a soft kiss on his lips and whispered:

-"What is this all about, Paul… You think you can save me?"

He closed his eyes and buried his nose into her hair, smelling that scent that had captivated him months ago, when she was fluttering behind him in her now distant kitchen.

Paul felt Sara holding onto him tightly.

She spoke into his ear, and Paul could hear vividly the restrained tears and the fear in her voice for the very first time:

-"Michael thought that too, and now he's in hell because of me…

And the last time you tried to do that, Paul, you almost died… I don't want to be saved."

His heart broke a little at her fragile tone and he smiled weakly and kissed her forehead lightly before looking at her again.

Sara could see his anxious eyes fixed on her, could smell the lingering hint of his cologne in her own hair, and she knew that she had fallen painfully and delightfully into his arms and into his trap.

But for then it didn't matter that she could feel herself falling fast and irreversibly… all that mattered was the feeling of Paul's hot and salty lips moving slowly against hers when he whispered:

"…Maybe just this time, Sara, I'm the one who wants to be saved…"

She looked at him in silence but Paul knew that look in her eyes very well, because he had seen it the evening that he had tied her to a motel chair: "You're lying to me and now we're both going to suffer."

But he silenced that voice in his mind by kissing her deeply and thoroughly, holding her tight and letting Saras hot saliva into his mouth.

Her hands caressed the back of his neck, convincing him that what he was doing wasn't really that bad…

By sleeping with her, he was going to save her from a horrible death, and in exchange maybe she would allow him a little forgiveness.

Sara drew back slightly from his mouth by only the necessary amount to enclose both of their fate, as she whispered between short, hot kisses against his lips:

-"How far is your hotel…?"

To be continued…

You may now commence throwing tomatoes. I would love to know if I should stop writing before traumatize someone, so please, don't be shy about leaving death threats, criticism, insults, comments…