Title: Partager
Author: lightning bug
Pairing: Michael/Sara
Summary: When it came to female stereotypes, she would much rather be the caretaker than the woman who cried whenever anything bad happened.
Author's Note: This is my first Prison Break fic, so be gentle with me. Much love to the good people at Television Without Pity for the recaps. I'm a lurker on the PB boards, but you guys are great.
Partager: verb. French for "To share"
It is two months after Michael Scofield, his brother Lincoln Burrows, and some others had done the impossible and escaped from Fox River that Sara gets the letter. It is written on plain, white paper and the only message on it was an address in Elba.
Sara knows that it's from Michael right away, even though there's no signature. She spends one full week deciding whether or not to go. Then one afternoon, without even fully thinking it over, her bags are packed and she's left a message for her father that she's going on holiday for a while, and Don't Call Me, I'll Call You.
It is sometime halfway through the flight over that she realizes what a horrible idea this is. She is flying across the Atlantic Ocean to go see a prisoner— an escaped one, at that—who she should be reporting to the authorities, not wondering if he missed her. But there is something about Michael that makes her want to break the rules, and has since he first walked into her infirmary.
That is not a good sign.
Sara is still telling herself to turn back by the time she gets to the address. She looks up at the house. It looks too normal. Maybe he doesn't live here at all, he's probably in Baja, or Thailand and maybe this was just some fluke accident that she got some random letter, and she can spend a relaxing week touring Elba and everything will be fine.
But the envelope was addressed to her. And now she is here. She allows herself a brief giggle at the fact that Michael is living where Napoleon was exiled.
Finally, she goes in. Sara is surprised to find the door unlocked, and wanders through the dim hallway, not wanting to call out. She finds him in the kitchen, writing intensely on a piece of paper.
He has to know that she's there, which makes her uncomfortable. She says "I shouldn't have come here, you know."
Without turning around, Michael says, "I didn't think that you would come."
"Well, here I am."
Michael stands up. Any thoughts of him choosing this place due to a Napoleon Complex are erased; she had forgotten how tall he is. He walks up until he is only inches away from her, and gazing at her with those green eyes. "I was just working on a math problem, to keep my brain fresh." Sara nods, her voice gone. "Do you need any help with your luggage?"
This easy-going politeness startles her back to speech. "No, this is it." She looks down at her luggage and has a flashback to the summer after high school when she went to Europe. Same backpack and suitcase then as she has now. "I, uh, noticed a market on the way in to town; do you need any food?"
"No, we're good." He answers. He picks up her suitcase. Sara's first thought is that he's too damn nice sometime. "Let me show you around, in case you want to break out." He is the first to acknowledge the elephant in the room; Sara says a silent 'hi' to it as they walk up the stairs.
There is only one bedroom, with only one bed. In a previous life, Sara would have stammered something about not wanting to impose and checking in at an inn down the road. But recklessly she came here, so reckless she shall be.
And uncomfortable. She sends her suitcase a longing look before asking "I need to change." She says. "Do you mind…?"
"Of course," Michael turns to leave the room, but not before flashing her a cautious smile.
As soon as the door closes, Sara gratefully sheds the clothes that had seemed so comfortable in the morning. She pulls from her suitcase some worn sweats from college and a comfy t-shirt. Sara checks the mirror for the first time since she left home. God, her hair looks horrible, some strands are sticking out at odd angles and it's frizzing at the ends. She assesses the damage and decides to put it into a tight bun.
When Sara goes downstairs, she sees Michael standing in front of the stove, putting some water on to boil. She feels a surge of hate towards him (how can he just stand there and calmly flip through a recipe book like nothing has happened while she has been confused and angry since he broke out?), but then it passes. She had felt like that for the first few weeks, but it was too exhausting.
She clears her throat to get his attention and then asks, "Need any help?"
"Can you make spaghetti sauce?"
Sara nods, and goes to stand next to him to read the recipe. They fall into the pattern of making dinner like they've been doing it for years. There is some small talk about baseball scores and movies, but mostly they are quiet. It is when they sit down to eat that Michael opens up.
He tells her about his past, things Lincoln had told her already, justification that she doesn't really want to hear. Michael's speech slows to a stop, and they sit in silence until Sara brings up something she has been thinking of since she learned the details of his breakout. "You used me," she states quietly. "You pretended to have diabetes just so you could use me."
"Yes."
Sara doesn't know what answer she is expecting, but a simple, no-objections 'yes' is not it.
"You were a means to an end," Michael continues, and some of Sara's rage comes back. "I don't regret doing it, but I am sorry that it was you."
"What does that mean?"
"I didn't think," Michael pauses and starts over again, "I thought that you would be easy to manipulate, just a way to get into the infirmary and out of the prison. I didn't think that you would affect me the way you do."
The question "How do I affect you?" Is on the very tip of her tongue, but Sara chokes it back. She isn't sure that she wants to hear that answer right now. Instead they are silent again, while Sara lets everything sink in.
"Do you ever have a random memory strike you?" she asks suddenly. Michael makes a noncommittal noise as a response. "I was just thinking this over, and the first time I met you just floated into my mind. I don't know how I didn't see it."
"See what?"
"That you were trying to break out. You were too charming, too casual." Sara's anger is starting to come back. It's partly the rage she feels towards herself for not realizing it when she should have. "You told me I could trust you. You said it when I was the most vulnerable, and the entire time you knew you were going to betray me."
"I meant it then." Michael says.
"So it was a one time deal?" Sara laughs bitterly.
"I didn't want to lie to you," Michael echoes one of their earlier conversations.
"Then why lie at all?"
"I had to get my brother out, Sara. He's the only person who's been there for me. I didn't think things with you would get so personal."
"Well, I take things very personally, so maybe you should have left me out of your plan." Sara spits out.
That's an effective conversation ender for the rest of the night. After the dishes are washed, Michael disappears to some other part of the house, and Sara makes herself some tea and reads one of the books she brought with her.
At ten, tired enough from the trip that it balances out with the time change, she climbs the stairs to go to bed. She has been there for ten minutes, staring up at the dark, when Michael comes in. It hadn't occurred to her until now that yes, Michael would be sharing a bed with her, and maybe she should have taken that into consideration before yelling at him earlier, and how much more awkward could this be?
He slides into bed next to her, and though there's a gaping space between them, Sara still has a hard time going to sleep. She keeps turning over in her head everything that has happened in the past few hours and her mind can barely take it. Before she can even stop herself, she's crying.
Sara tries to be quiet, but Michael notices. His hand comes to rest on her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he whispers.
"Don't be. It's not your fault" she manages to get out.
It is, though. She wants to tell him that everything is his fault. She's crying because she's here with him, because she knows how horrible his past was, because she doesn't know what her future holds, because he used her, and he admitted it too, because she's fallen in love with him and he's doing nothing to dissuade her of it.
But instead, she turns over so her back is facing him and chokes back her tears. When it comes to female stereotypes, she would much rather be the caretaker than the woman who cries whenever anything bad happened. She remembers what his psychiatrist told her about his need to care for people; Sara doesn't want to be his burden.
Eventually sleep does come, because when Sara opens her eyes again, it is late the next morning. When she sees Michael, Sara can tell there's still a stress in the air that she can't quite stomach, so she instead heads into town to do the tourist thing. When she comes back, that damn tension is still there, and she leaves it up to herself to break it.
"Whatever happened to your nephew?" she asks quietly. "I remember hearing that something about him."
"He's with Lincoln." Michael answers. "He's on the run too, until they can both get their names cleared."
"Poor kid," Sara murmurs. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too." There is something in the way they both say it that she knows they're not saying 'sorry' for his nephew; they're apologizing to each other too, in their own weird, screwed-up way (but then, that's how Sara's been feeling, so it makes sense).
The wall is broken down a bit, and Sara instantly feels more comfortable. The night is like the one before, but their conversation at dinner comes easily. They laugh over embarrassing high school stories while doing the dishes, and Sara lets herself wonder if this is what their life would be like if they had met under different circumstances.
After that, the days fall into a pattern. They talk, and go grocery shopping, and do such normal things. Sara loves the normalcy of it, but there's still something so awkward about the night. It like's the sun goes down and she suddenly realizes all that is wrong with her, with Michael, with the world. She spends every night holding back tears, because she is proud of being too strong for crying, and Michael is far on the other side of the bed.
Then one day, they are sitting on the couch together reading. Well, pretending to read. Michael's been staring at her for the past few minutes and it's so unnerved her that she's read the same sentence fifteen times over.
"Remember how you said certain memories will hit you at weird times?" he asks. Sara nods. His voice is shaky as he continues, "I'm getting bombarded with images of the time you were caught in the infirmary with all the prisoners trying to break in."
Oh God, why is he bringing that up? The only time she had ever truly been scared was in that moment: crouching behind a cot with the threat of gang rape hanging over her head and no way to get out. She hates to think about it, and she turns her head so he can't see the tears forming in her eyes.
"I was so scared for you. I had cut the air conditioning, it was my fault for the riot, but I didn't think you would be there."
The memories are flooding into her brain. Cackles of prisoners filtering in through the doors, the feel of the glass in her hands, Michael pulling her into an air duct, Michael trying (and failing) to make her feel better, the sick feeling she got going into work the next day.
"It was the one consequence I hadn't foreseen," Michael says. "I was scared of what might happen to you. Sara…"
It's the way he says her name that breaks her. The next thing she knows, she is crying, and Michael is beside her, helping her up, leading her to the bedroom. They both sit on the bed, Michael with his arms around her, and Sara crying into his chest.
He leaves for a moment, and Sara feels empty. God, she wishes he would come back; she wants something to hold onto. But he is back in less than a minute with a glass of water that she gulps down.
She starts to babble about her life. It certainly wasn't as horrible as Michael's, but she hates it as much as he hates his. Sara tells him about being a "political orphan", the string of nannies she went through, her fights with her father, the nicknames the inmates had for her which ranged from the mocking "Doctor Pretty" to ones that she could barely choke out. She wonders if he can even understand what she is saying; hell, Sara lived through this and doubts she could understand it.
All the while, Michael is holding her.
By the time her nervous talk has finally petered out, and the only sounds she makes are muffled sobs, Michael has her cradled in his lap, kissing her forehead, cheek, neck, wherever. Sara feels so weak, so decidedly un-Sara, but she doesn't want him to let go.
As her breathing begins to return to normal, Sara is surprised to find that Michael is slowly moving her into a laying position. She has not realized until this point how tired she is, and she's so grateful that she almost begins to cry again. But only almost.
Instead, she looks at Michael through still-blurry eyes. "Thank you," she begins to whisper, but then Michael kisses her and her mind goes blank.
The few times she had allowed herself to fantasize about Michael kissing her, it had been in the infirmary, or her apartment, or Baja. Instead, she is in bed with Michael, albeit snuffly and looking like hell warmed over. But the kiss itself is more than she had dreamed of. He is so deliberate as he kisses her, and she feels more comfortable as the kiss goes on.
When Michael pulls away, his forehead touches hers and he whispers, "Go to sleep, Sara." As though he's a hypnotist, she obeys. Her eyelids are heavy and unlike the entire time she has been here, she falls asleep within minutes, still in Michael's arms.
The next morning, Sara feels colder than when she went to sleep. After sitting up, she realizes that this is for two reasons: she fell asleep in a tank top and khakis, and Michael isn't there anymore.
Sun is streaming in through the windows; the clock reads four in the morning. She listens to the quiet for a moment, and Sara's first, horrible thought is that Michael has left. Apprehensively, she walks down the stairs.
But Michael is not gone. She finds him out on the veranda, drinking coffee and looking at the sunrise. She leans against the column to stare at him, and he turns around to look at her. They both smile apprehensively, but Sara feels more comfortable now than she has in days. She is carrying some of his burden, and Michael some of hers.
"It's a beautiful day." Michael says to her.
"It really is." Sara responds.
As Michael moves towards her, the silence fills the spaces for them, and she feels complete again.