He hadn't expected they'd be so silent afterwards. Hadn't known what to expect, had never kissed a woman he'd barely just met. There was a round look of disbelief in her brown eyes. They hardly exchanged a word, going back to their seats. At first, there was no embarrassment, because the memory of her lips on his was fresh and intoxicating, so close he felt he could reach out to her any moment and kiss her again.

But with each footstep, each minute, the kiss became a moment out of time, something you can't decide what to think of. Like a dream that feels so vivid you're sure you'll remember it forever but, the next moment, it's gone, creeping out of your addled head, giving way to dawn.

When they stood in front of their seats, Michael felt like he should make a joke, say something about what had just happened so it didn't just disappear into oblivion, but everything he could think of would come off as awkward or crude.

Michael brushed past Sara to regain the window seat, saw her blushing at the slight feel of his body. Sudden panic swam to his mouth, blocking any already awkward effort at a casual sentence. Don't do this now. Stop the thoughts from shooting like arrows, block out every noise that storms your senses. In his chest, he could feel his heart beating, the quick despair of a panting dog, resisted the urge to over-analyze every detail. Had he ruined this? Was there anything to ruin to begin with? Would those few hours feel like a distant bubble of absurdity years from now – remember that girl you kissed in a moving train? Thought you were in love. Idiot. She went down at her stop – 'cause what else could she do? – and that was all, soon you were both jumping back to your busy lives, following the threads you'd left suspended on that train ride, while the train ride itself became some nonsensical interlude. An interruption from normal life.

Hot beads of perspiration streamed down his shirt collar. Michael undid the first three buttons without thinking, would have undone more if Sara hadn't set startled eyes on him – she still looked bemused, as if he hadn't really kissed her a few minutes ago but cast a spell on her, and she was very afraid to find out if it was as strong as she thought.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"Hot," he said without thinking.

The red on her cheeks turned crimson. How could she be embarrassed? Weren't they both consenting adults? All of the things they incredibly happened to share – didn't that outshine whatever awkwardness is in order for kissing strangers?

"Are you?" He returned. "Okay?"

Sara didn't look back at her lap, but her eyes became somewhat vacant, escaping him even as she was looking at him.

"Yes," she said. More honestly, a few seconds later, but still cheating his eyes. "This is strange for me."

"Do you regret it?"

"No."

He could tell she wasn't lying. So where did that leave them?

Nowhere. He almost couldn't believe it. Nowhere at all. They hadn't exchanged phone numbers. After the last of their trip had expired, he wouldn't know where to find her.

But there was still the invitation to his brother's wedding, tucked inside her book. Michael held on to that, thought it must count for something, thought it must give. Thought that of all that had happened on this train ride, something had to.

…

Sara wasn't sure exactly what cloaked her into silence. She knew what it wasn't. Shame. Regret. If she didn't regret it, how could she not make up her mind to say something? Anything would be better than this, than just sitting next to each other, wordless, when it had been so easy to know him, to know in each other even what they hadn't known themselves.

And the kiss had been wonderful, a little awe-inspiring, like watching a great flock of birds rise into a black-winged sky. Sara felt she and Michael were so alike in spirit that uncovering his layers of social conversation was hardly like plunging into the unknown, but kissing him was different. Different because she didn't feel like she'd known his body all her life, like there would be amazement there but no surprise. At the merest touch, the palm of his hand brushing her waist, she'd known Michael could make her feel things that had never entered her thoughts before.

It wasn't that Sara didn't usually enjoy this. There'd been pleasant lovers and even a few outstanding ones. With them, Sara was never uncertain, was never afraid that peeling off her clothes would expose something inside herself that she'd forgotten, that she never wanted to find.

That's it, then, she could do little but realize. I'm afraid.

Afraid of what? Surprisingly, she discovered she knew the answer to that.

Of course, she knew. From the first, Michael had seen through every wall she'd ever built to keep people at bay, had pierced through every loop that was meant to keep them wandering on the right track. Sara hadn't thought of resenting it because she'd been able to do the same thing. But now –

Yes, there was something Michael was hiding, too, but it was something easier to put into words. It smelled of childhood trauma and probably abuse. And anger, anger like you've never seen the colors of, blacker than anything you can dream of – you might have thought anger was red, but it's black, you must believe her. Sara could relate to that. But what would Michael find, if she let him in, if she surrendered control, if she stopped fighting?

He'd find what Sara herself had spent her life trying to hide from. That had been the use of almost everything in her life – yes, sadly, everything – from morphine to medicine.

The truth was that Sara had no reason to be this angry. A dead mother and a father that was nearly as absent, yes, but most of the time Sara hadn't missed them – hadn't known her mother or liked her father enough for it. Surely enough, she'd found herself in bad situations, had been with men who were just a little too easy on the booze, but she'd never stayed a day with them past seeing the back of their hands – or any other body part their inebriation happened to unbottle. And anyway, this thing inside of Sara predated all of that, had not been born with trauma.

It was born with her. In her. All her life, as far as Sara could remember, any occupation was only ever an excuse to distract her from the emptiness, from the fear of facing herself and finding there was something there completely unknown, a black-as-midnight abyss sucking in her energy. If she let go, if she lost control even for a minute, if she wasn't thinking about school or work or men or drugs – God, drugs were what worked best – then she was thinking about these unknowable depths, her identity bare to the bone as she'd never dared to approach it.

The more time passed, the more Sara became convinced she wasn't the only one. Other people, normal people, were running, too, sometimes even without knowing it. You strip them clean of their jobs, their money, all of their social markers – what does that leave? Would they know it?

But people mustn't be so afraid of the thing inside them as Sara was, because they were able to simply forget it was there. Sara couldn't. Because that unspoken voice, that ghost of a spirit, was so angry, so unknowable, like a black figure on a black wall.

With time, Sara had simply found it easier to think all those things she'd done to run from herself were who she really was. A doctor. An addict. Any label was fine, was something finite, definitive.

There was a slight tremor inside the train, making Sara newly aware of Michael's proximity, his thigh brushing her knee.

If I fall in love with him, she thought, knew this to be the absolute truth, if I follow him, then I'll let go. I'll stop. The idea of no longer maintaining this exhausting control over every little thing in her life was incredible, relieving and terrifying. If anything I've done has become a part of me over the years, it's not my job, it's not all the charity work or who I vote for. It's the control. She imagined herself sitting in a circle full of faceless people. Hi, my name is Sara, and I'm a control-addict. I control even the most pointless things that I do, because it feels like if I don't, everything I know will crumble into chaos and blackness, and yet if I keep doing it, I'm pretty sure I'll explode.

Sara's life had been a never-ending ride, racing through the waves as fast as she could and not stopping to think when she could help it. And she had never wanted out, had never thought she could get out in the first place. Had never thought life could be any different, but then –

Then came that stranger with a flash of a smile and Sara hadn't wanted to keep on running and just pass him by.

Because he's like me, she thought. Yes, Michael Scofield probably knew a thing or two about flight. But he'd known how to stop.

For the few hours that followed, Sara felt he wanted to talk to her multiple times – clearing his throat, looking intensively at her, but she never found it in her to look back. Wanting to, but finding she couldn't open her mouth, as if she'd turned to stone inside out.

The end of that train ride to Washington was quieter and graver than you'd have ever thought was possible, at the beginning, that crossroads of brown and blue between their eyes and something in them igniting.

"This is where you go," Michael said at some point, when an announcement warned them of their immediate stop to Washington.

"Yes," she tried not to meet his eyes. The traces of disappointment in his voice were bad enough.

"Sara," he started, "if I did anything that offended you –"

"No." She wanted him to hear she was honest. "No, Michael. Really. I had – I had a wonderful time."

Silence filled in for what she didn't add. Michael sighed – deep, earnest. "But you don't want to hear from me again, do you?"

"It's not that." No, it wasn't, he must understand. What she wanted wasn't what mattered. It wasn't even that she was being a coward – although she was, a little.

Then she did look at him, as if to evidence bravery, and because she wanted him to know the truth.

Michael Scofield, you are the single most amazing man I've ever seen. For you, I'd have overcome my hate of romantic stories and my love of freedom. I'd have accepted to become addicted again, not to be able to sleep one night without the feel of your arms around me and the smell of you in my sheets.

I'm just not ready for the revolution that falling in love with you would mean. I'm not ready to let go of what I've built my life upon, even if it was just a hiding place – it got too safe here, too familiar. Like sitting in the dark in a small closet where everyone stopped looking for me. And I'm not ready to be found yet. I can't.

Maybe the words were clear as rain water in her eyes and they reached him without effort, like all the things she'd known about him without needing to ask. Or maybe they were lost.

"I don't understand," he only said. "It's strange. Since I've met you, I felt like you made sense of everything I've ever felt in my life – and yet I can't make sense of you."

The train slowed, a final announcement for Washington filled their car.

"I'm sorry." The words felt cheap and inappropriate. A warning crept in her brain – you'll hate yourself for this one day. "I have to go."

"Wait," he took hold of her arm when she got on her feet. The gentleness of his touch startled her, shivers crawling down her skin. "I know you don't owe me anything, and I know it's insane to ask you – but I want you to come to my brother's wedding. I want you to meet me in Chicago next Saturday."

"Michael –"

"I know you don't want to. Actually, I think you want to but can't for some reason. I don't know why that is and I'm not trying to make light of it. But we have to see each other again, Sara." He said it like it was bound to happen, had been written in the stars for thousands of years. "I just know we will, in my bones. And if I'm the only one of us who feels that way, then don't come – prove me wrong."

Sara withdrew her hand, feeling stunned, a little afraid. The resolution in his eyes, burning blue and beyond serious, with a sort of faith that said he'd find her someday, even if she was at the other end of the world. As if something between them had been born today and would always lead him back to her.

And why?

Because of all the trains in all the country in all the world, you walked into mine.

"Goodbye, Michael," she said before she walked away and out of the car, struggling not to cast a single look behind.

But he never said it back. Goodbye.

…

AN: believe it or not, I wrote this chapter waiting for my train ; ). I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. Though I've been having a lot of fun with this story, I'm afraid the next chapter will also be the last… you've been warned ; ). Title was inspired by Nancy Meyers' movie Something's Gotta Give.