AN: at this point I didn't know how to write a realistic chapter featuring T-Bag without it getting cringy at times. Don't hesitate to skip if you feel squeamish. Warnings probably in order: threat of sexual assault and violence. So you've been warned. Enjoy the chapter!

…

Of all that was going on in Sara's brain, sensations getting mixed up with thoughts and fear, she couldn't begin to say how she felt. Like being hungry and nauseous at the same time, not sure whether a bite of food will help or make you sicker.

She imagined – maybe fantasized – sitting inside a police station, being asked by a tender-eyed officer, 'What did it feel like?' while she'd just shake her head. I don't know, I don't know.

Obeying orders was easier than to pause, think, debate. Sara was in a state to do nothing else. How strange, to have heard so much about Theodore Bagwell and to have him now in her father's cabin. Frank Tancredi loved to have things to say about such sadistic individuals, it made him look good as he was all for being tough on crime and 'Really, Sara,' he'd once told her, waving his head at a poster where Bagwell was shown wanted for serial rape and murder, 'these are the people you think are worthy of redemption?'

When T-Bag had immobilized her, Sara felt herself ceasing to feel, to think. She knew then, in her bones, that something was different about him, that he was much, much worse than the four inmates who had broken into her home yesterday evening. There'll be no mercy killing from this one. There'll be no mercy anything.

Sara didn't know how a man who'd lost so much blood, who'd had his hand chopped off and grossly sewn back on a few days ago, was capable of threatening her so completely. Though he was unarmed, she didn't try to break away from his grip more than once – he held her by the neck with his good hand and squeezed hard enough that she knew he'd be strong enough to strangle her, even injured as he was.

There's more to him than it looks. Had to be, since he'd managed to knock Sucre out cold when he was clearly at a physical advantage.

So Sara let him walk them both to the kitchen, passing by Sucre's inanimate bulk in the corridor, where Bagwell got his hand on a knife and let her go.

"Careful, honey," he warned, serious, a thick southern drawl. "You so much as look in the wrong direction, I'll cut you open."

Immediate relief at no longer being pressed to his body momentarily made her forget to be afraid. Things had gotten very two-dimensional. Her mind and body a chaotic whirling confusion, there was room only for one thing at once. Relief. A long breath of unpolluted air. Then appraisal. For the first time, Sara got a good look at her assailant.

Same blue uniform as the others though much shabbier. Mud and blood caked on his pants and shirt, the one indistinguishable from the other. Once in a while, she noticed the man's tongue flicked out from between his lips in a chillingly reptilian fashion.

Sara realized while she had been looking at him, he had been looking at her, and was suddenly aware again of being covered only by the thin robe she'd been sleeping in. There was no lust in how he was looking at her. Right away, she knew his cravings to be more primal. What his eyes showed were appetite. Hunger. You could tell this longing for crime was there always, in a corner of his mind, despite how physically exhausted or challenged he was, that it roused in certain situations and then the urge was nearly beyond his control.

A professional thought flashed through her mind. This man lives with an animal inside him. He's learned to accept and indulge him but given the right treatment and medication maybe –

No. Now was no time to try and save him. Bagwell probably had seen more psychiatrists than she could imagine and no doubt had nothing but contempt for them.

Let him think I'm a poor defenseless damsel. Please, let him underestimate me.

But if she gave him a chance to despise her, there'd be little hope of besting him.

"Now, now," hissing through his teeth, moistening his lips. How obscene his tongue looked, piercing through his mouth. Had he started doing this to shock doctors, was it an act of defiance? Or was it the animal gaining ground on him? "I can see I wasn't the first to come a-knocking. Scofield sure picked the right house, the poor boy," grinning, "you must have given him the scare of his life. Now, that little team of backstabbing traitors is going to come back here eventually, but I'm sure with your cooperation, we can get the better of them – give them a little surprise to thank them for what they did to me. And I've got your full cooperation, don't I, honey?"

Nodding. Let him think you won't be trouble, won't try anything. Play the model captive. This one's a sly one. You want to get out of this alive, you'll have to out-sly him.

…

"Little tighter."

Sara added an extra layer of tape around Sucre's legs. The young man was still unconscious. T-Bag had left him exactly where he was, in the corridor, had had her fetch some tape and tie him up, insisted on her using almost all the roll of tape. No pointless precaution. Sucre was a strong man. Absently she thought this was good. Maybe there'd be no more left for her.

All the time, T-Bag was pointing the kitchen knife at her. "Yes, that's better. Now, can you try hauling him into the next room?"

When he forgot to sound threatening, saying certain things, he actually sounded very charming. People who try to lure in the woods and kill you always do. There were two sides to this coin and both were dangerous.

Though she was sure it should look ridiculous, her trying to draw an unconscious twice-her-weight man into the living room, there was never a moment when the grotesque of it made her think of laughing. They got there inch by inch. The man Bagwell showed no trace of impatience.

Stealing stealthy glances at him, trying to estimate in how bad a shape he was. Could he be trusted to collapse at any moment? Had his earlier show of strength left him physically drained?

"That's good enough."

Sara left the inmate on the living room carpet. T-Bat caught her glancing at his hand, immediately defensive as any decent predator. Her mouth ran without her, "I can take a look at it if you like." Better for him to think she wanted to nurse him rather than that she was studying his weaknesses.

A brow arched on his face, swarthy with dirt. Flicking his tongue. Sara's heartbeat invisibly racketing.

"What are you, a doctor?"

Lie. "No. I just went to med school."

She kept a calm surface, raked her brain for ways to stall. Why had she even brought this up, offered to help, if not to buy some time, to keep things decorous between them, to appeal to the man and keep the animal at bay?

Already Sara knew things would get dangerous if they ran out of things to do. Tying up Sucre. Moving him. But when there was nothing between them anymore, nothing but silence and the weight of his screaming eyes on her –

"Why not?"

He let her lead him to the bathroom at knife point, sat on the edge of the bathtub while she fished for supplies in the medicine cabinet. In the corner of her eye, she kept seeing the mud imprints he'd left on the tile floor and found it absurd, like waking up to find a bear in your bedroom; or maybe a snake.

"I reckon Scofield's merry little troop gave you a proper thanking for your hospitality."

"Pardon?"

Playing the fool. Stalling for time, gazing over the nearly empty shelves – her father had the meds cleared out of the cabin when he decided to send her there instead of rehab. Better to quietly disappear rather than cause an opportunity for scandal. Sara hadn't minded. She hated rehab. Right now, though, she'd gladly made the trade if she could.

"Well, just barging in, restraining you in your house – hardly seems a way to treat a woman. That never would've happened if I'd been around, let me tell you."

Even with panic in the way, Sara managed to focus, to try and read him. The very way he'd spoken the name Scofield had been heinous enough to spread gooseflesh down her arms. There was rivalry there, possible something she could exploit. But she must remain careful, extremely careful. Bagwell was a manipulator himself, the kind that knows the taste of his own medicine when you feed it to him.

He let out a sudden sigh. "This is taking awfully long."

Sara shut the door of the cabinet right away, grabbing band-aids and a bottle of antiseptic. No more stalling or gazing enviously for a razor blade. No doubt, her father had had those removed as well.

His proximity when she crouched next to him was intolerable, the smell of him in her lungs. Struggling for a professional, strictly medical approach. The irregular constellation of stitches on the bright-purple skin of his wrist, occasionally leaking with blood and pus.

"Did you clean it?"

"Afraid not."

The air in his mouth was thick, aroused. She thought she could get him focused on saving his hand, that practicality would save her in turn. But Bagwell seemed to her an intelligent man, and if he'd been capable of unflinching pragmatism he would never have been caught in the first place.

No. His type was starting to emerge more clearly in her thoughts. Rape was the means to assert his authority and existence, a brutal reaction to having felt debased and probably been subjected to enduring abuse himself. So it would make sense, in a way, after he'd been betrayed and mutilated by his fellow inmates, that those bestial urges that had got him in prison would resurface.

"What happened?" She asked.

Looking only at the hand. Talking because the sound of his ragged breathing was terrible.

"Oh, some dumb luck. I ran into a couple of hikers that happened to have a first-aid kit. Sewed me up."

"While you were awake?"

Sara deliberately glanced up at him, watched as his eyes glowered with pride at her surprise. Flattery doesn't always work, but when it does, it works like a charm.

"That's right."

She set her eyes back on his hand before she disinfected the area. He wouldn't want her to see him flinch. "I actually didn't mean how you patched it up but how you lost it."

"Ah." You could tell he was enjoying this – in an albeit strange and masochistic fashion. That he was so little used to being taken seriously, to being listened to as if he mattered. Why else would he need to kill people? "Classical tale of betrayal, honey."

"Did Michael do this?"

"Michael?" The name slick on his tongue, smiling, as if he'd caught her red-handed. "Why'd you think that?"

"I don't. Just –" She hesitated. Why had she wanted to know in the first place? "It just looks like he's in charge, now. So I thought maybe –"

"He'd had to take me out, first?"

Yes. It was difficult to frame it in a narrative that Bagwell would look good in. Two alpha males competing for leadership. Miles away from the truth but the truth had never mattered least to her.

"Let me tell you a thing or two about Michael Scofield, darling."

Padding the wounded area, the angry-red suture line. No choice but to listen. Gritting her teeth at the feel of his eyes on her, skimming up and down, resisting the urge to clench a fist to her robe. Drawing attention to her nudity would show weakness, which would be nearly as dangerous as showing strength. Right now, Sara was going for absolute professionalism – a blank slate.

"The boy hasn't got half the nerves it'd take to bring an ax to a man's hand. Know what I mean? Sure, he's got the looks and the brain, but there ain't much happening on the inside. No. The man's empty as an ice box in there, let me tell you. No passion. Know how I call him?"

Though Sara couldn't see him smile, was still focused on his hand, she could smell it, feel the hot air of his breath.

"The virgin." She cleared her throat. He chuckled softly to himself. "Say, are you nearly finished here?"

"Well –" She actually was. Past giving him a clean bandage, there was little she could do. Still she felt the need to deny, wanted to run from facing the void between them. "Yes, almost."

"Good." This time she got a glimpse of his brown-toothed grin. His voice had taken a chiming ring of excitement. "I'm not usually so forward with a woman, but how about dinner? I don't know for you, love, but I am hungry like the wolf."