Title: Dandelions
Rating: K+
Character/Pairing:
Lincoln Burrows, Michael Scofield
Word
Count: 735
Summary: "She looked
so alive in the photo. Sometimes I could even try to image that she
still was."
Author's
Notes:
This is my first Prison Break fic, so constructive criticism would be
great. Please don't flame.
Disclaimer: Don't own it, and as far as I can see, I never will.
I was only eleven when my mother died. It was cancer, in her left breast. We didn't have the money for treatment and by the time she was diagnosed it was already too late anyway.
It had always been just the three of us, for as long ass I could remember. Lincoln, mom and me. My father left when I was still in my mothers womb. He couldn't handle the responsibilities of a family, another child.
Lincoln always used to tell me to forget him, but it seemed impossible for me to stop thinking about a man I'd never met. Sometimes I'd loath him for leaving and for hurting mom and Lincoln. Sometimes I'd just sit in fascination as my imagination pictured what he was like. I'd seen photos but in my mind he could be anyone. Somehow, in my imagination, he hadn't meant to leave our family, he'd been forced to.
Sometimes, when I was especially curious about my parents, I'd pull down the photo albums. After Mom died, Lincoln was the only one I could talk to, and he was often out, busy or in a raging mood. Sometimes he would talk to me, when he wasn't too busy or screwed up. We'd go through the albums together and smile at the photos of mom, and I'd wonder at the photos of my father.
She used to take us for picnics, in the summertime when the dandelions were in bloom.
We used to go out of town on a weekend in summer, as far as we could within time. Drive to a park in an empty part of the outer suburbs, where no-one ever went. We used to pretend that we were the only ones who knew about it, that it was ours. We'd spread the blanket out, put the picnic basket down, and Mom would sit while Lincoln and I played in the park, or by the creek catching tadpoles. At lunch time, she'd call us over and we'd sit down and eat. She always packed the right things. Sandwiches especially designed and made for Lincoln and I, chocolate biscuits, jell-o, kool aide. Although sometimes I wished my dad could have been there, I look back and it seems so incomprehensible. What would it have been like if he had stuck around. Would we be on a picnic at all?
There are so many photos that show Mom and I, or Mom with Lincoln, depending on who was managing our camera. She was always happy, always laughing, with the yellow dandelions dancing in the background.
There was one photo I always stopped at to look at more closely. It was dusk. The summer sky was a blood red mixed with swirls of orange as the sunlight caught the clouds as it disappeared. The dandelions danced in the field as a slight breeze caught them, and there she was, in the middle of them, just sitting, looking up at the mountains, contemplatively. Her arms wrapped around her knees in a close hug, her lap letting the heads of a bunch of dandelions poking out. There was a small smile playing at her lips and she looked so serene. As the breeze caught her hair, it was lifted slightly in the photo, tousling her shoulders slightly.
I know that I was away somewhere when that photo was taken, Lincoln must have taken it because I have no recollection of it, but the dandelions were for me. I'd picked so many during the day while I played in the field. They were all for her, a present of the most common wildflowers, especially for her.
That photo was always the last in the album. Almost as a ritual, I'd stroke the photo, shut the album and place it back in its little hide-hole in the book shelf.
She looked so alive in the photo. Sometimes I could even try to image that she still was.
In a field of yellow flowers,
Underneath the sun,
Bluest eyes that shine with lighting,
Boy with shoes undone
He is young, so full of hope,
Revelling in tiny dreams
Filling up his arms with flowers
Right for giving any queen.
- Dandelions by Five Iron Frenzy