Interruptus
Michael/Sara AU Escape Fic PG-13
Summary: She wasn't supposed to be there.
Complete: Yes
She wasn't supposed to be there.
The single thought reverberated through Michael's brain as he caught the scent of her perfume, strong enough to tell him it wasn't coming from the lab coat she'd left hanging on her desk chair that afternoon.
He'd just given Lincoln a leg up into the ceiling; the others were waiting for him to come. They were on a strict timetable and he had to move. But one breath of her scent had him freezing in his tracks and slowly turning around.
She was standing there in the same pants and sweater she'd been wearing earlier when she'd given him what he hoped was his last shot of insulin. The look on her face was one of shock and disbelief, and not a little anger.
"You just boosted Lincoln Burrows into the ceiling," she said numbly. He nodded. "You're breaking out." He nodded again. Her eyes raked over him before meeting his accusatorily. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he interrupted her.
"He's innocent."
"You say."
"I know." He took an involuntary step forward, started to reach out to her. Deliberately she stepped back, and somehow he knew it wasn't in fear, but anger. The confusion in her eyes was rapidly coalescing into a realization of what must have happened. A thousand small inconsistencies she'd noticed but never tried to explain about Michael suddenly made sense.
"You planned this," she said, her tone clearly accusatory. "You used me."
Michael opened his mouth to deny, then shut it and nodded. "He's my brother, Sara." He forgot when she'd become Sara and not Dr. Tancredi to him. Perhaps it had been when he'd pulled her through the same hole in the ceiling he just sent Lincoln and the rest through, or maybe it was when she'd offered to schedule his and Lincoln's visits back to back, or maybe it was just one of those times her hands had lingered on his arm just a split-second longer than needed when administering his shots. "And I didn't know you, not at first."
For some reason, Michael's words had some of the angry fire in her eyes dimming. A new picture of him was forming in her mind, replacing the tattooed bank robber with an odd heroic streak. Any other man, and she would call bullshit on his use of the infirmary and her kindness in whatever plot he'd sprung. But she'd always sensed in Michael something different than in the other inmates. As she looked steadily in his eyes now, she knew what it was. There was an integrity in him that all the others lacked.
"You're not a criminal, are you?"
Michael's face showed no reaction, but his fingers twitched and his voice was curiously flat. "I attempted to rob a bank."
"To get sent here, to be with Lincoln. No," she continued, the pieces falling into place. "Not to be with him. To break him out." Now she took the step forward. "Because he is innocent, isn't he?"
Michael nodded. "Yes. He is. I swear it."
She nodded almost imperceptibly and Michael could practically see a decision made in her eyes. She finally broke eye contact and glanced out the window at the prison yard, where all was peaceful. Obviously their absence had not yet been noted. It would be soon, she knew. She returned her gaze to Michael's face.
"Go. Your secret's safe, no one knows I'm here. I won't tell."
The light this started in Michael's eyes made Sara wish he wasn't breaking out of jail, that he hadn't been there in the first place, that she'd met him in a bar over Jack and Cokes and margaritas.
"Michael!" Lincoln's urgent whisper floated down over them. "What's going on?"
"Just a minute," Michael responded, never breaking eye contact with Sara. "Give me a minute," he said, quieter this time, and Sara knew he was speaking to her. Before she knew what she was doing, she had taken the four steps that separated them and she was in his arms and his mouth was warm on hers and then her brain shut off.
The breath caught in her throat and she bit back a tiny moan when he traced wet kisses across her cheek and then whispered low in her ear. "Twenty-five cent beers, Sara." Then he crushed his mouth to hers and she had the vague thought that perhaps she would never be able to stand the taste of any other man after experiencing his.
He ended the kiss, pulled back from her and cupped her cheek with a tenderness she never would have expected him to possess. "Do you understand? Twenty-five cent beers."
She nodded, remembering her hour in the walls with him. She understood what he was telling her, and she understood how he was trusting her, and she understood that she was about to break every rule she could think of and book a flight to Baja as soon as she could.
Lincoln whisper-shouted for Michael again, and this time he told Linc he was coming. He smiled one last time at Sara as she backed toward the door. Lincoln's hand appeared out of the ceiling and Sara opened the door to the infirmary. Just before Michael's head disappeared from view, she smiled back.