Week 4
The family therapist Sara found had a bunch of fancy credentials after her name, but insisted Mike call her Dr. Kate. She shook his hand first, adjusting her jovial greeting to match his solemnity at meeting a new person. Watching the interaction, Michael had to give her credit for knowing what she was doing. They talked all together first, in a living room sort of configuration he figured was supposed to feel non-threatening or familiar.
Dr. Kate began by asking Mike how school was going. "My dad picks me up now," he supplied. A box of toys sat on the side of the couch, and he began piecing together LEGOs.
"And how's that going?" she asked.
He searched the box until he found a flat foundational base, then fitted a series of blocks on top of it. "Mom already asked me about that. I said 'good'."
Dr. Kate didn't give him a pass. "It must be weird though, right? Your dad back, after hearing so much about him all your life?"
Mike pondered this. His jaw clenched slightly the way Sara's did when she felt tense. "He is super important," he finally conceded.
"Who? Your dad?"
"Yeah."
Michael started to contradict this, but Kate silenced him with a hand. Mike didn't notice, looking carefully at Sara over the top of his LEGOs, which now formed a tower. "Especially to my mom."
Sara leaned forward toward him. Michael didn't know why she was allowed to interject, when he wasn't. "You're super important to me too, baby," she protested. "So important."
He flicked a finger against his LEGO tower to test its strength. It held. "I know," he said softly. "And now you don't look sad sometimes."
"I didn't used to look sad," Sara said swiftly, and this time, Dr. Kate tried to shush her as well. "Not in front of Mike," she amended, directing this toward the other adults.
"You did," Mike corrected blandly. "Lots. But not anymore," He offered Michael a shy smile, which he returned around a lump in his throat, his eyes locked on his son's.
After Kate released Mike to finish his LEGO building in the room next door, she closed the door softly. "Okay you two," she said, sinking back down into her chair. "I thought during this first session, we'd start at the beginning, and see where it leads us. Sound good?"
"The beginning?" Michael probed.
Kate glanced at her note pad on her lap. "Yes, which for you would be…Fox River?"
Sara frowned. "Shouldn't we talk about Mike? How he's doing?"
"Yes," Michael agreed. "Fox River is old news."
"Not to me," Kate said mildly. "And sometimes, re-establishing the known can shake new things loose. For instance, Michael: how did you feel about Sara, while you were in Fox River?" Michael glanced toward Sara, but Kate called his attention back. "Don't look to her, Michael. Just say what comes to your mind first."
He wasn't sure what she wanted, so he decided to cut straight to the chase. "I fell in love with her in Fox River," he said simply, forcing himself to keep his eyes forward. "So I suppose I felt…positively." Without looking at her, he could sense Sara's slight smile.
"And you, Sara? How did you feel?"
"He knows how I felt," she said softly. "Too positively for my own good."
"What do you mean by that?"
"He knows," she repeated. She didn't look very happy to be here now, answering this line of questioning. Michael was tempted to remind her this whole thing had been her idea. She cupped her chin with one hand and looked steadily out Kate's floor-to-ceiling window; he followed her gaze to the Japanese maple swaying in the breeze on the other side of the glass.
Kate seemed to get the gist, because she asked the right follow-up. "And how did you feel after he escaped? One word."
Sara continued to stare outside. "Betrayed. Angry. Foolish. Devastated."
"Okay, that's four." She kept her face passive, but Michael could tell the therapist felt pleased with herself, finding such a rich vein to tap. In that moment, he disliked the woman deeply. "Did it ever occur to you that you didn't have to feel these things? That when Michael told you he planned to escape with his brother, you could have simply blown the whistle?"
Sara lifted her head from her hand. She blinked like she was just waking up. "What, report him? No." She resumed her study of the window. "Never."
Kate leaned forward to keep her attention. "Then what made you take the morphine that night, Sara? Guilt?"
Sara tensed in her chair, which had Michael itching to rise to her defense. He knew how much she hated talking about this part. "No, not guilt."
"What then?"
She fell silent for a while. Michael felt torn: he wanted to hear her answer, but also wanted her released from reliving this. "The idea that he used me…that it had all been a lie…I needed to not feel the crush of that." She forced a sigh. "It was that simple."
She looked so resigned as she said this, suddenly so weary, Michael heard himself hiss, "She doesn't need to talk about this." Did this woman think they'd never scrutinized all this before? Hadn't tortured themselves enough? "She already said…I know all this. I already feel all this."
Kate said, "Sometimes, there are cycles of behavior that can be discovered when you analyze…"
Sara turned from the window. "Like being lied to?"
Michael looked away from the raw pain in her eyes. "Sara. This time…this whole lie? It was for you." This too, she already knew.
She leaned toward him, forgetting the therapist. He noted her hands tangling into the hem of her sleeve, such a painfully familiar nervous tic. "I get that Michael, I really do, but here's what I don't understand: why couldn't it have been our lie? Why does it always have to be Michael Scofield against the world?" He opened his mouth mutely, no answer forthcoming, but she didn't wait to hear one anyway. "Because being kept in the dark all this time? It felt like Fox River all over again. And that's not a good feeling."
"You wanted me to tell you," he realized slowly. "When I was first contacted? When you were pregnant and we were still together?"
"Yes. Of course I did, Michael." She raked her hands through her hair. "Why couldn't we have figured out what to do together?"
"Faked my death together?" He leaned forward, forcing himself to stare down the hurt on Sara's face. It was formidable. "That would never have worked, sweetheart." He held his hand out to her across the couch, and waited for her to take it. She sat stubbornly for only a moment before yielding. Her fingers felt cool in his. "We never could have sold that." He rubbed the pad of his thumb softly over her knuckle. They both completely ignored Kate watching them.
"Why not? I could have—"
He let out a hard laugh. "Even as it was, I couldn't leave you alone," he said. "If we'd both known—"
"What do you mean, couldn't leave me alone?" Sara asked sharply. "You mean the cranes in the gutter?"
He bit his lip. He'd meant the zoo. And all the other times he'd taken a terrible chance just for a glimpse of her and their son before he'd been locked up in Yemen.
She pinned him with her gaze. "Michael."
"I had to see you sometimes," he admitted wretchedly. He gripped her fingers more tightly. Willed her to stay with him right now. "I had to lay eyes on Mike."
"Where?" she breathed. She returned the squeeze of his hand.
"The zoo," he admitted. "Mostly."
Her face froze, her fingers pulling from his reflectively to curl into a fist. Did she want to hit him? He couldn't rule it out. He faced her miserably. "You were…that close?" she whispered. "All I had to do was turn around? "
He understood the horrific frustration of this, he really did, but…"Sara. Say you had. And let's say we got away with it, in the zoo, in front of the aviary or at the primate habitat or anywhere else. Okay?" He lay his hand back on top of hers, covering her fist like paper over rock. He looked straight into her eyes, willing her to let him walk her through his logic. "Then what? We're content with that? We can walk away from each other?" He shook his head. He'd thought this through so many times. Tried so hard to find a loophole. There had been none. "So then what? We make plans. We meet up again. Maybe we're even really careful. But not forever, Sara. Eventually they catch us. Okay? There's no way they don't. And you're back in prison in what? Days? Hours, maybe. And where's Mike? Sure as hell not anywhere we want him. In some foster home with dark closets and…" he spit out an curse. "Do you really think I'd do that to him? Pull him from his mother? Do you think I'd take Mike from you? Never."
Her hand had relaxed beneath his grasp, and she let out a long, slow breath. "You're right," she said eventually. Tears of anger rolled down her face. "And I hate that you're right. It's just what they do," she told Kate forcefully, who gaped at them. "They keep coming, from every angle."
She sat rigid on the couch, and abruptly, Michael thought of the scars that laced her back. They were nothing, nothing compared to what damage lay beneath…for both of them. She had been right to bring them here. He felt ashamed at having fought her on it. At having been uncooperative. "But not anymore," he said softly.
Sara closed her eyes, but the tears made their way around her eyelids. "I guess not."
She guessed? "It's over, Sara. Really."
"I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop," she admitted softly.
"And that's a reasonable response," Kate interjected. This time, it was Michael who silenced her with a look.
"We have to have faith," he told Sara.
"And is that still enough for you?" she asked him.
He looked at her, looking at him for answers, grasping for any lifeline, and felt the weight of her happiness on his shoulders, as he so often did. He knew she didn't intend for him to carry it, but how could he not? Had he not walked into her life, she'd be in Chicago right now, her father would be alive, she'd have a job she liked and be making her way in the world. "It has to be," he told her. "It has to be enough for all of us."
Over her coffee cup at breakfast, Sara said, "Maybe we should go to Chicago this November."
Michael paused by the fridge. "I kind of promised Mike somewhere warm, where he could still try surfing lessons, remember?"
She thought about this. "Maybe a stopover, then. Before heading somewhere south?"
He paused, slicing a banana for Mike, still upstairs. "Do you miss it? The city?"
Honestly, she wasn't sure. She hadn't allowed herself to think about her life in Chicago for some time. "I thought maybe we should check on your loft," she said.
He looked at her quizzically. "I don't need to," he said. "We can simply sell it, or maybe rent it out. Make some income from it."
"I want to see it first," she said again. She wasn't sure why it mattered to her, but it did. She could have gone when she'd been in possession of the property, of course, but it had seemed wrong somehow, to peek into this part of Michael's life pre-Fox River. Like it didn't belong to her, no matter what the property deed said. With him with her, it felt different.
"Alright," he agreed easily. "We'll stop in Chicago. Spend a few days. Take Mike to the Field Museum and Millennium Park." He looked at her like she held the answer key to a quiz. "Would that be good?"
She forced a smile, wanting to reassure him that there were no wrong answers. But inwardly, she tried to picture it. Could she handle bringing her family to Chicago, where her pre-Fox River life still lingered in the shadows, too? "I think so, yes. Thank you."
He squeezed her shoulder as Mike trotted down the stairs, then set out his favorite breakfast, down to the orange juice he liked without pulp. He already had Mike's favorite foods down cold, Sara noted, another test Michael had evidently studied for, determined to pass. Sometimes, if she was honest, Sara had to shake the feeling of their whole lives here being analyzed, compiled on a new dossier in Michael's brain. He dropped gracefully into the chair next to her as Mike started eating.
"How is the job search going?" she asked. It didn't really matter to her if he worked, but she knew it mattered to Michael.
He was slow to answer. "There's really nothing in Ithaca."
Sara had thought of this. She loved her job at the clinic, it had been exactly what she'd needed when she needed it, but there was very little for Michel here. Next to her, Mike swallowed a bite of cereal and asked, "What kind of job do you want, Dad?"
"Probably an engineering job," he told him. "A long time ago, I worked for a team of architects, and I really liked it."
Mike pondered this. "An architect builds houses and skyscrapers," he noted. "So what does an engineer do? Build engines?"
Michael pushed the tumbler of juice toward Mike to encourage him to finish breakfast. It was such a parent-like thing to do, Sara suppressed a smile. She wished he could see himself as she did: a natural at being Mike's father, at being her husband. He didn't need whatever research and facts and figures swam in his head. "No," he told Mike now, "an engineer solves problems. Figures out the best way to build things."
"Like puzzles?"
"Yes, sort of."
"Okay. I want to be an engineer, too."
Sara smiled. "Of course you do." She pat him on the head as she got up from the table. She needed to get ready for work.
"What did you do after being an engineer for the architect?" Mike asked.
Sara saw Michael pause, then toy with the handle of his coffee mug. "I worked on other puzzles for a while."
"When you were away from us?" Mike said this around another bite of cereal, and Sara said sharply (too sharply, perhaps):
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Mike."
He looked a little hurt at her tone, and she sighed in frustration. "I really have go," she said. She looked imploringly at Michael.
He rose and kissed her cheek. "Go. I've got this," he said softly. She assessed him, and he really did seem in control of the situation. To Mike he said, "Yes, when I was away, when I had to be away even though I wanted to be here," he emphasized, "I had to solve puzzles for other people. Now, I want to solve them for us. But mostly, I want to take you to school before Mrs. A has to give you a tardy slip." He raised a eyebrow at Mike, who shoveled in a few more bites of breakfast.
He smiled at Sara, shooing her out the door. "We're right behind you," he said. The last thing she heard as she walked out the door was Mike asking if engineers have time in the afternoons to pick up their kids school each day.
"This one does," Michael told him definitively.
"Right here?" Michael asked Mike, moving to turn his blinker on.
Mike leaned forward to study the road in front of them. "No, the next one."
They turned at the entrance of the outpatient clinic, and Michael parked where Mike pointed, in front of the medical office. Inside, the buxom receptionist at the front desk greeted Mike with a high five and a lollipop from a dish on the counter. "Good timing," she said, smiling at them both. "Your mom is just finishing up with her last patient of the day. You want to wait in her office?"
"Uh huh," Mike said, and led the way down the hallway behind the counter. Michael followed, offering a quick wave of thanks to the woman. The county clinic employed three medical doctors and one psychiatrist, and Mike passed two closed doors before pushing open the one marked with a metal name plaque reading Dr. Scofield, Internist. Michael smiled.
Mike noticed. "An internist can be a general doctor or a special, I mean specialist doctor," he told Michael. "Mom is a general one, so she can help with lots of problems." Michael nodded as Mike pushed open the door. Sara's office, predictably, was devoid of clutter. "Sometimes she works at the hospital too, when someone has to go there for taking too many drugs. The bad-for-you kind."
Mike plopped himself down in the swivel chair at the desk, and spun himself around. Michael stood near the door, taking in the framed photo of Mike on the shelf by Sara's Northwestern diploma and medical license. It made his heart feel full. She really did get it all back, one piece at a time. His eye snagged a spot of red, and he moved toward the cabinet over the desk to study her origami rose set in front of a line of cardboard patient files. He touched a finger to the glass. Mike turned on the desktop computer, his face lighting up in the glow of the screen in the dim room. "Are you supposed to be…" Michael started, then stopped when he saw he'd opened a folder named MIKE, the contents all games for him to play.
"I do it all the time," Mike confirmed. He began a game with math questions and rockets, and Michael watched for a moment until the door opened. Sara walked though in her white medical lab coat, stethoscope around her neck, a patient chart tucked under one arm. "Hey," she said happily, but Michael simply stared.
He supposed he should have expected this, but the sight of her in full doctor mode caught him completely off-guard. He gaped at her. "Hi," he breathed. I'm Michael, by the way, his head echoed. God, he was right back in Fox River. Suddenly, she was once again tantalizing, intriguing, and completely unattainable. She looked at him oddly, then flicked a strand of hair back over her shoulder before turning from him to file the chart. The gesture, so familiar, sent a swift and powerful ache to his groin. He suddenly wanted to grab her and kiss her and tear that coat right from her body. He gulped a breath instead, and turned back toward the rocket ship game on the screen in an attempt to pull himself together.
"You okay?" she asked him, shrugging out of the coat. "Mike got you here alright?"
He nodded, watching her hang it up behind the door in way too civilized a manner. Suddenly, he saw recognition click in her eyes. She paused, the jacket still in her hands, then leaned into him. "This doing something for you?" she whispered incredulously, her lip twitching upward. Her hair fell forward over her face, and it was all he could do not to rake his hands through it, brush it back, and tuck it behind her ear.
"It always has," he breathed. His voice sounded odd to him. Husky. He watched her swallow.
"Mike," she said, her eyes never leaving Michael's face. "Will you go ask Denise if my nine am is confirmed tomorrow?"
Mike glanced up from the screen and reached for the phone. "We can just ask her on the intercom thing," he said.
"Please? Now?" Michael bit back a smile, watching her beg. Mike shrugged, and darted out the door.
Michael was on her the second Mike's feet disappeared down the hall, his mouth hard on hers, his hands sliding up to her stomach. The sight of the stethoscope still around her neck sent a new wave of blood south as he pinned her against him. She moaned softly, and yet another wave followed the last. He nearly growled into her neck. "How long do we have?"
"Maybe ten?" she gasped. "Seconds, I mean."
He laughed ruefully, but made use of them, his fingers digging into the skin at her waist in frustration as they heard Mike's footsteps padding back. He was skipping.
Sara pushed Michael's body off hers. "Maybe go stand over there," she gasped, then turned away to shut down the computer as Mike bound back in.
"She said she already told you," he accused. "Confirmed."
"Thanks baby," Sara answered, her voice a bit shaky. "I must have forgotten." She straightened, tucked her ID in her purse, and headed out the door. Mike and Michael followed. "Ready for dinner?"
She'd had every intention of picking up where they'd left off in her office later that night, but by the time Sara lay down in bed, her head hurt from the long day and she felt herself fading. When Michael climbed in next to her a few minutes later, her eyes had already closed. She felt his lips on her cheek and nose, brushing light kisses against her skin. She smiled, but didn't move. He nudged a knee playfully between her legs in request, and she rolled onto her back lazily to cradle him between her hips. "Not happening," she said sleepily.
"Okay," he said agreeably, but he continued to kiss her softly. He rotated his pelvis in slow circles against hers.
"Michael. I'm serious."
"Give me five minutes? If you're still not interested, I'll leave you alone. Promise."
She rolled her eyes, or would have, had she opened them. "Five minutes," she agreed sleepily.
She felt him smile against her jaw. His kisses dropped to her neck and the back of her ear, and the rhythm of his hips continued in lazy arcs. It felt good, but she wasn't going to admit it. He was already very hard, but she resisted the urge to grind upward against him. Mostly. She felt him smile against her skin again.
"Don't be smug," she whispered. "That's just biology."
"Mmmhmm." She felt the vibration of his voice against her breast. He cupped her, then his mouth closed over a nipple. She met his next slow thrust of his hips with one of her own, but he didn't pick up speed. If anything, he slowed down, stilling his body to a very gentle rocking motion. This made her open her eyes in frustration. He glanced up at her sideways from her chest, then let his tongue slide lazily back over her raised nipple. Dammit. She was losing this battle.
He rocked into her one more agonizingly tender time, then rolled off of her entirely. She barely bit back her protest. "Alright," he said, "You can sleep."
She sat up on one elbow, narrowing her eyes at him.
He kissed her mouth softly, letting his tongue linger on her lower lip. "You said you weren't interested."
She laid back down on her back. "That's right," she said. She tried to hide her smile.
Very deliberately, Michael ran one hand down her body, over her chest and along her belly, then continued downward until two fingers stroked her between her legs. She knew what he'd find there…the silk of her underwear was more than damp. He feigned confusion. "But you seem interested," he whispered. He slid himself down her body, until his mouth settled on the curve of her stomach, below her belly button. He let his tongue flick at her skin again. Her hips arched upward toward him of their own accord, betraying her.
"You win," she whispered.
"What's that?" he teased.
God, just fuck me already, she thought. She said, "Or not. Whatever."
His breath tickled her as he slid her underwear off. "It doesn't seem like you mean that." His eyes flicked back up to her, seeking and finding permission in her face. He dipped his head to taste her, very lightly, with his tongue. She bucked up into him a bit wildly, and he grasped her hips firmly, holding her still against the bed. He grazed his mouth over her again with incredible discipline; she felt only the tip of his wet tongue as he let it slide across her.
"God damn it," she groaned. "You do not play fair."
She felt another smile, which she tried again to arch into, in vain. He pinned her against the mattress for another slow, tantalizing flick of tongue. She nearly wept.
He moved from between her legs to kiss her inner thighs, one side, then the other, while she tried not to squirm. He laid his head against her knee. "You know, I'm feeling a little tired now myself," he said, lips against her thigh.
"Michael," she whimpered. "Please."
He nipped at her skin. "Please what?" He let his fingers stroke with featherlight touch against the dip in the uppermost part of her thigh, a millimeter from where she wanted them. His voice sounded the way it had in her office. Rough around the edges.
"Please use your mouth on me." She rolled her hips toward him again, beyond caring about telegraphing her need.
He still took his time, running his hands up her first, parting her with his thumb. He stroked her twice more, each time sending a violent quiver from between her legs to twist achingly in her belly. He brought his hand to his mouth to taste her there, and she nearly spasmed with want. His head dipped down again, and finally, his mouth opened against her in earnest, his tongue devouring her. She gasped, grinding into him, her hips rising from the sheet despite his attempt to hold her at bay. She felt him groan in response, the sound vibrating in her, and she didn't last a minute. She came hard against his mouth, biting back a cry she knew would wake their son.
He lifted his face to look at her, his expression almost awed, despite the fact that he'd been the one to work wonders. She ran a hand over his scalp, and he slid up her body to settle against her. She could feel his desire for her, hard against her skin, and she rolled them both over, bringing him back into the cradle of her hips. He sank into her with a shudder of relief, his face buried in her neck.
He started slowly again, waiting for her to catch back up to him, though she could tell it cost him. She met each arc of his body with her hips, gripping him tightly around her. She felt swollen and raw and spent, and he moved as languidly as he could, giving her the full length of him with each careful thrust. She felt the hum of pleasure start to build again, and closed her eyes, floating on the sensation, until she opened them to see the intense look on his face.
"Don't be a hero," she whispered. "I am beyond satisfied, Michael."
He smiled down at her, but didn't change his rhythm. "Ladies first," he said. "Or rather, ladies again."
She couldn't argue with that, but she could grab his hips and urge him harder and faster, locking her legs around him. He tried to resist her new pace, but failed quickly. "You do that, and this will be over very soon," he gasped.
"Shh," she said. "I'm with you." Something in her face convinced him, and she gripped his shoulders as he turned it on. The abandon to which he now surrendered had pleasure sluicing through her in response; his muscles shook with unrestrained need, his breath came hard and fast in her ear. His face bent into the crook of her neck as he lost himself in her over and over, until he groaned her name, sliding a hand between them to touch her, ensuring she came again with him.
They both gulped air for a few seconds while their heart rates gradually dropped to normal. Michael nestled back against her, both their bodies slick with sweat.
"Maybe a shower?" she suggested, pushing the sheet away from her skin.
Michael exhaled against her breast. "We may never get any sleep if we do," he acknowledged.
"Sleep's overrated," she said.
"Like toes?" he breathed.
She laughed lightly into her pillow. "Like toes."
