AN: Thanks for the awesome reviews I've been getting! I always welcome comments so be sure to let me know what you think, and if there are things you want to see happening in the following chapters I'd love to hear about them. Enjoy!

What was most surprising about the whole affair, probably, was how little he was Sara's type. Scratch that. Actually, it was more accurate to say how little he resembled the men she had dated in the past. For starters, Sara had never been one to swoon at overly handsome men, which was just what Michael Scofield was, beyond doubt, unmistakably. Ridiculously handsome. Maybe it had only been arrogance that'd made her prefer more down-to-earth looks in men. She never minded the missing six-packs or Hollywoodian ruggedness, and least of all the secret satisfaction in her girlfriends' eyes when she went with them on double dates and they introduced their admittedly more attractive companions.

It had always struck Sara as a funny fact of life, that so many women seemed to value themselves according to the man they were seeing. If he's more handsome than hers, it must mean I'm prettier. Or was it smarter, or sexier, or whatever was fashionable for a man to look for in a woman? How gratifying, to be please, to be desired. Yes, perhaps Sara did feel slightly condescending to those who adopted such behavior. Her own esteem would not be built on what men thought of her, or other women for that matter. Maybe she'd been set free of this desperate search for approval when she'd realize she'd never get her father's.

But though exceptionally charming, Michael Scofield looked nothing like the prototype of the Ideal Man she'd pictured and had done her best to elude.

There was remarkable kindness in his eyes and voice when he addressed her, and some sort of caution. He's had to work at it, she realized, to earn it, the way only an unlucky few have to.

Yes, in truth, nearly from the beginning, Sara felt there was something in that stranger, on a blood-and-bone deep level, that was exactly like her. She could sense it, in the way his polite smile didn't quite reach his eyes, brimming with hidden depths. Behind us both, she reflected, there're waters that run deep as abysses. But the question is, are they the same waters? Have we seen the same things?

They hadn't yet gone past introductory topics. The train had been rolling for nearly an hour, long enough for them to cover what jobs they did and a shallow glimpse at their family backgrounds. It wasn't Sara's habit to share personal things with strangers and a stubborn part of her refused to, as if it were a matter of principle. What was more, she could tell he was avoiding it, too.

"Are you and your brother close?" She asked at some point, in one of those fifteen-second pauses that came in every ten minutes or so. She deemed it a safe subject, Michael didn't seem to mind talking about his brother.

"We are actually," his eyes lowered for a split second. She'd noticed they did when he became earnest. "Linc and I were inseparable as children. We always took care of each other, as far as I can remember."

"He's a lot like you, then?"

The chuckle on his lips was moving, honest. Sara had seen girls swooning for less. "He's really not. I guess that's what is most amazing about it. You couldn't find two least similar boys in a class room. He'd have been messing around and playing tricks on teachers while I sat and read my books."

"I'd have liked to see that." Had she said this out loud?

"Linc's always been very keen on…" Michael was silent for two, maybe three seconds, debating on how to put this. "Defying authority."

"He was?" She said on a casual tone, and thought: You weren't? Maybe only because she wanted to believe that stranger was much like her, Sara was tempted not to believe that. Yet again, there was that nearly imperceptible degree of shame in his voice – there's something he admires in his brother's rebelliousness. Something he envies. So maybe he was telling the truth.

"Oh," Michael resumed, taking advantage of the fact that the train was presently going over a bridge to direct his gaze at the window and avoid hers. "Lincoln could never bear people telling him what to do."

"Yes. I can't say I blame him."

The young man's lips broke into a slight grin. It very much became him. "What, are there forms of authority you've had issues with in the past?" He made it sound like a joke, but she'd wager he genuinely cared about the answer.

Sara didn't usually talk about these things, even with people she'd known for years. For some reason, right now, it felt easy. Maybe precisely because she hadn't known Michael longer than an hour, because she would not know him longer than ten.

"Me?" She said, without sarcasm. Beyond sarcasm. Michael had stopped pretending to be interested in the view by then and was looking at her, rather intent. "I have issues, I'd say, with all of them."

"All of them?"

"Of all the things America promises its citizens, I've always valued liberty above all. The pursuit of happiness is all very well, but one's got to be free to pursue anything. Equality, I've given up on a long time ago. But freedom, being the master of one's own decisions, owning up to everything you've done, the good and the bad – that's what does it, isn't it? There's no point to me, without that."

What cold intensity in his blue eyes, she thought, silence hanging taut and bristle between them, like frost. You'd think he was gazing at me from another world, from another universe. Why did she have this strange feeling that something of cosmic proportions was taking place, just then? She'd never felt before so aware of being such an infinitely small being in an infinitely wide place, so aware of chance, her path in a billion others somehow intersecting with somebody else's.

"What is it?" She asked, at how serious he looked. But maybe she was also asking to know the reasons of these private thoughts. I could have taken any train, any day. Dad wanted me in Washington weeks ago, I could have gone yesterday, have had anyone else on the seat next to mine.

She remembered reading somewhere – was it in one of those silly magazines she sometimes picked up in a waiting room? – that life turned on a dime. She could picture it so well, spinning fast like a carousel, round and round.

"I don't know." Michael answered, a puzzled, slightly upset line barring his brows. "It's just a feeling I got, looking at you just then – I don't know." He repeated. "For some reason, I'm very inclined to invite you to my brother's wedding. I feel like he'd really like you."

The stark honesty of his reply got Sara laughing. She marveled at how simply it came to her. "Well, I've got a week cleared from work and I don't know what my father's got planned for me, on Saturday. If I happen to be in Chicago, I'll give you a call."

She'd meant this to sound playful, teasing at best. It'd be absolutely ridiculous to give serious thought to crossing seven hundred miles to make it to the wedding of a man she had never met, who happened to be the brother of a man she barely knew.

"I'm sure I'd like your brother," Sara went on.

"Yes," Michael's reply was numb.

"We could talk about the authority figures we stood up to – teachers, I take it." Maybe parents.

"Yes," he only said.

Sara started laughing again. "You know, this is very strange. You tell me you aren't alike your brother at all, and it certainly sounds like he and I have much in common. And yet, I feel like –" Interrupting herself, for a moment. What had got into her, saying such things, talking so freely? Doubt came over her like a gossamer cloud, she could still see through it, see how easy it would feel to continue. She decided to cross over before giving it a chance to thicken. "I feel like you and I are the same, on some invisible level. Like we're cut out of the same material." She shook her head, broke from the intensity of his blue eyes. If he's not laughing in ten seconds, I'll apologize. "Does that make sense?"

"More than you know."

Time was suspended, heavy and dense, you could sense it, taste it, and yet the landscape was still flashing them by past the window.

Michael cleared his throat, she could see he aimed to start on a lighter tone. "Well." He said. "It's funny how things happen. I mean, chance encounters."

"Right. We've both been living in the same city for years, too," she shrugged. "We might have met anywhere. Drunk, out of a bar." If it had been a few years ago, she would have been beyond drunk and wouldn't have looked at him even if he were sitting right beside her.

"Or," he continued, amused, "I could have broken my leg or my arm and wound up at your hospital."

"Then, we probably wouldn't have been talking like we are now." She added, teasing but honest, "I'm a professional."

"Of course."

Michael quickly ran a hand over his scalp, she wondered if it was something he did when he was nervous. The watch on his wrist read a quarter to one. "So," he chuckled, charmingly embarrassed, "would you find it awfully inappropriate if I offered to buy you lunch?"

Sara felt ridiculously taken off guard for a few seconds. "No."

"Oh, good."

"I think I'd love to."

They both got up in an awkward, somewhat giddying state of disbelief.

If I woke up right now and found out I'd dreamed the whole encounter, Sara thought, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Meanwhile, Michael muttered, as if to himself, "Of all the gin joints in all the world –"

"Did you say something?"

"Not at all."

And side by side, they made their way to the dining car.