I like how my last PB fic, Good for the Soul, was shot down last episode. Not even 20 days, and already AU. Huzzah! Anyway, I planned on doing this a long time ago, but figured it was the fangirl in me dreaming wishful dreams, but lo and behold it's actually happening! And so I write that fic I procrastinated on. And, uh, I foresee future Mahone fics involving his childhood. Aaarg why do I like him so much aarg.

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In retrospect, Mahone felt he should have expected it if only because it was the last thing he would ever expect to happen.

The phone call caught him unaware and unprepared; a state he deplored in others and despised in himself. As a leader, as a leader on a manhunt, it was his job to get into the fugitives' heads and never let them catch him at anything other than his unruffled best.

His job. The thought brought a wry twist to his lips. His job. That was the very topic of that phone call, timed so eerily as if Scofield had known what Mahone had gotten himself into. Mahone wondered if his leash was that visible.

"I'm going to ask you a question that you don't have to answer right now. Just hear me out." There was a pause, as if to let this sink in. "Which do you think is more important: your job, or justice?"

Mahone had paused, dumbfounded, and sat listening to the dial tone for an overly long amount of time before he collected himself and replaced the receiver into its cradle. A ridiculous question, that's what it was. His job is justice, pure and simple. One couldn't be more important than the other because they were the same thing.

Then he felt his collar tighten with the pull of an invisible leash, and the question hitting too close to home.

Killing every fugitive was not justice, nor was it his job. Yet there he was, the fresh blood of that teenager still on his hands expected to take out the rest. Mahone didn't need to know each and every detail of the Burrows case to see the conspiracy. The details only reminded him that his job is justice, and for the first time in his career he was blatantly neglecting his job.

Which is more important?

- already in trouble just keep your head down and finish it -

Damn pills, wearing off already, the doses lasting for smaller and smaller periods each time

I have a phone call to make.

For all his finality he dialed haltingly, already beginning to doubt his decision. It was selfish, hell yes, but he lived for his job. He feared losing his job more than his life. He could stop now, hang up the phone, and sell the rest of his soul.

"Hello."

"I have an answer for you."

"Good. I've had some people do some digging; they came up with a few things. I want you to meet me in Blackfoot, Montana. You got that? Blackfoot, Montana. I'll leave a trail for you to follow."

"I didn't even tell you my answer," Mahone said, although he already knew what Scofield would say.

"You don't have to. Keep on your toes, the first tip will be soon. Otherwise, pretend to be incompetant. My brother's still wandering around somewhere in Arizona."

Everything came back to Burrows, in the end, but Mahone didn't mind. Instead, he loosened his tie and looked out the window, and saw no black cars anywhere. Something in him could see where Scofield was coming from. The freedom came in a rush, and he wondered at this feeling when he hadn't even left the office yet on his way to the clandestine meeting in Montana. He hadn't felt this way, this justified, since he was just a rookie fed eager to put his past behind him. It was heady, and that something in him that wanted to see Scofield the man rather than Scofield the mug shot was drunk on it.

This would be his last chance to redeem himself, and this time there would be no bodies afterward, if an 'afterward' there would be.