"Well fuck me." John Abruzzi said when the images on the screen of his telephone came to life, sitting up in his bed, possibly waking up his wife.

The white, loose tank top he wore for sleep already felt sticky on him – night sweats may be the price of leading a criminal organization with confidence and style during the day.

Right at this second, he probably looked nothing short of a dirty old man. The images weren't perfect – no light show or close ups like in an adult movie, more figures than flesh, but on two or three occasions you could see a clear shot of the woman's face, clear enough that even those who'd declined to show the mildest interest for the presidential race could identify who was starring in this most unofficial M-rated film.

After a moment of silent stun, John Abruzzi burst into peals of laughter – tired and astonished and, what the hell, a little wicked.

"We got you now, Miss Tancredi. We sure got you."

At the other end of Chicago, two hundred miles from Abruzzi's private lodgings, Lincoln Burrows was crouching in a decrepit building, forsaken by all but a few roaches who in the past couple of hours had got used to his presence. Lincoln's jaw was slack with shock even as he held up his phone, recording the very images that were being transmitted to John Abruzzi's cell phone.

The horror of what he saw drenched him like a black rain, icy and piercing through to his bones, frying itself in the fashion of a red-iron tattoo in the back of his brain.

"Oh God."

The words dropped meaninglessly in the dismal atmosphere of the desolate building. On the wall opposite him, a cockroach crept its way up to avoid the drizzle coming in through the holes in the window, whose shattered edges made Lincoln think of a set of ragged teeth.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

To himself (maybe also to the black roach) the apology sounded valid.

Lincoln couldn't even think of switching off his phone – and what good would it do?

He might delete the recording immediately, but John Abruzzi certainly wouldn't, and it had caught enough to do damage already.

The transgression of violating a woman's rights to privacy had been enough of a stain on Lincoln's conscience – but by that time, he'd thought, it was foul enough that it could take one more – and the knowledge of what he did it for. What amounted to rigging the presidential election, so that a snake-smiling bastard could be sworn in as the forty-sixth president…

Even if it had been a total stranger in that motel room with her, it would have already jumped to the top of Lincoln's evil actions.

But this.

There were no words.

His brother's hand stroking its way across Sara Tancredi's bare stomach, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his lips she turned to, craning her neck backwards – they stood by the window, his front to her back – and kissed with no less desire than Lincoln had ever felt in his luckiest hours. And something else (worse), another kind of hunger, that Lincoln had never witnessed before, but wasn't enough of a fool that he couldn't see it for what it was.

As he heard Abruzzi's laughter at the other end of the line – We got you now, Miss Tancredi. We sure got you – the enormity of what Lincoln had done sank in. Cluck as he dropped his phone; a rustling noise when the roaches on the ground naturally shrank back in fear.

At any time, Lincoln felt, a lightning was going to burst through the roof of that building and burn him on the spot.

Divine punishment.

What could better suit his own biblical betrayal?

A couple of weeks before any of this took place, Lincoln was determined nothing like it would ever happen again.

Yes, he had been back to see his old boss, which in itself could be viewed as fishy – I smell a rat, Linc's mother would say, as she always did when she caught him lying – but he had been summoned, after all, and John Abruzzi wasn't the sort of man you just sent packing.

Their working relationship went back big time, but eighteen months in prison was the sort of thing that made a man take a step back and look on his own life with some distance.

And Lincoln had known, even as he met with fellow inmates who were at their sixth stay in the hole, that this one would be his personal last.

No more messing around.

There was a point when a man just had to look in the mirror and be honest about what was looking back.

I go on like this, Lincoln had thought, I'll be dead before I'm fifty, facing a not-so-difficult choice between eating my own gun and being found dead in some alley with a couple bullets in my kneecaps.

There had to be a different path he could find his way on, even now.

But he'd found himself on this one enough times that it was harder than he had planned to determine whether he was right.

His first few interviews with John Abruzzi, after Lincoln's stay in prison, actually went down fine.

John slapped him on the back as a greeting, and the smile on his face – albeit devious – was honest. Though that might not mean Abruzzi would have any trouble shooting Lincoln in the head one of these days, it was worth something that the two men's getting along wasn't for show.

Lincoln despised hypocrisy and supposed John did also.

Killing people he liked could be considered ruthless, but at least John wouldn't pretend to like people he'd later kill all the same.

That didn't make it any easier for Lincoln to crawl out of this hole he'd dug for himself over the years, like he was trapped in some excruciatingly narrow passage miles-deep underground, upside down, so tight all he could see and breathe was dirt – and heaven knows, to keep going down was easier than to try and scramble for a way back to the surface.

The look on John's face was cool as cucumber when Lincoln told him about wanting to quit the drug-dealing business. No half-mouthed reluctance or anything like that. Lincoln wasn't one to beat around the bush, and John always appreciated a man who knew his own mind.

"You telling me you're done working for me, Burrows?" No audible threat or vexation.

This talk took place in Abruzzi's office, although Lincoln had no idea he was sitting where Senator Bagwell himself had sat quite a number of times in the recent past.

Lincoln shrugged his shoulders. "Only your drug-related line of work, boss. I'm cool if you're going to offer me a job in one of your restaurants. I can't cook for squat, but I'll do the dishes and mop the floor shiny as well as any guy."

A chuckle broke past Abruzzi's mouth – it had an odd, doggish sound to it. "And you don't think anyone will find it remotely suspicious that you're working for me, in the open?"

"I never got myself in a predicament that the cops could trace back to you."

"Which is why I like you, Burrows. Why I'd be…" A short pause while he pondered over the right word. "Disheartened to see you go."

Lincoln kept silent. Unmotivated talk would only sound nervous.

"It isn't in my habit to give legal work to my drug-dealers."

Silence once more.

Two, maybe three full minutes.

"I'll tell you what." Abruzzi joined his hands over the surface of his desk. "You've always been straight with me, and you've had the decency to come here and face me rather than try to screw me over – which I respect, I do. So here's the deal."

One more pause for effect. Not that Lincoln needed to be impressed, but he reckoned Abruzzi could no longer help it – when you'd done the act enough times, it came back to you before you could snap your fingers, would inevitably put a telling tint on your tone and facial expressions, like a law of nature, the way your cheeks grow red at the slightest breeze once they've been frozen once.

"You do one last job for me. One of my choosing," John said. "And then, I'll see to it that you're hired for life doing whatever boring and normal stuff you've apparently decided on."

Lincoln considered this. Not so he'd look tough in negotiations – contrarily to the mobster's theatrical disposition, there was nothing superfluous, or indeed, artificial, about Lincoln.

"I can't be caught with drugs again, boss. You know that as well as I do. Laws are tough on dealers who lapse. It could be twenty years, next time – it could be prison for life."

"And if it isn't drugs?" Lincoln waited. Abruzzi was to the point. "The reason why you haven't been caught more times, Burrows, is you're good at hiding. You blend in when you have to. You're resourceful when you need to disappear fast."

"So?"

"There's a woman I'd like you to follow."

Surprise was such, Lincoln actually arched both brows. "What?"

"Just long enough for you to dig up some dirt – anything scandalous will do."

Relief fell warmly on Lincoln's chest, easing the beats of his heart. Scandal, he thought, was not so bad, considering Abruzzi's line of business.

Still, he knew a job like this could hide darker truths – following the woman and taking a couple pictures wasn't a lot, but if she wound up dead because the man who'd hired him happened to be a jealous ex…

"I'll accept on one condition."

Though Abruzzi wasn't quite smiling, his blue eyes gleamed a little, as if amused to see Lincoln, too, came with conditions.

"Yes?"

"You give me a full briefing on what it is I'm doing. Before I collect any evidence, I want to know what the consequences will be – no bullshit."

"No bullshit," John agreed, and was quick with an answer. "The woman I want you to stalk is Governor Sara Tancredi. And when you've come up with enough dirt on her – I'll use that to blackmail her into quitting the race."

It's possible Lincoln's jaw fell slack when he heard this, however well he usually dealt with surprises. There was no need for Abruzzi to explain his game with Senator Bagwell. It was enough for Lincoln that he'd asked him to do something that didn't require killing or physically harming anyone –

Although taking the blame for Senator Bagwell's presidency could amount to quite a death toll (you never knew when a good candidate was going to wind up bad, but you sure enough knew when a bad one was going to wind up really bad).

And Lincoln had liked this year's Democrat candidate. Had liked her a lot. Not only because she sounded smart and decently human on television – a rare gift for politicians – but because Michael had had this huge crush on her that had tremendously endeared her to Lincoln's eyes.

Still, this was an honest deal, and surely if Michael would be disappointed for his favorite candidate to back down, it'd be a small pain compared to his joy in seeing Lincoln was finally turning himself into a law-abiding man.

"You got it," Lincoln said.

Then – probably as one of those theatrical reflexes he couldn't help – Abruzzi's lips shifted into an ear-wide grin, and full-blown wicked.

Almost as if he'd known how much this one job would be the trigger for consequences much graver than Lincoln could guess.

Sara's birthday was an especially strategic event, the year of the campaign. October 31st. Only a week after the third and final presidential debate, and just a couple of weeks before election day –

It was amusing enough, having Kellerman planning that day for her over the phone, without so much as thinking to ask if she had other plans, or if she actually intended to make it into a popularity-booster. "Just a precaution," he was sure to specify. "After those debates, no one's got the least doubt about where to put their votes. But more good press can't hurt."

And so, Sara spent her morning at the Charity Center – nothing better for people to love you than going back to your roots, Kellerman assured, obviously unaware the place meant anything special to her. Seeing Michael was both an awful knot of tension in her stomach and an unplanned delight. Of course, this was a televised event, though the Center had been taken by (relative) surprise, getting Charles's approval the preceding evening.

All the while that Sara was smiling her way through unpacking boxes and delivering meals – funny how a camera's eye could take the pleasure from even the activities you were most fond of – her pulse was setting worldwide records.

When she spotted Michael with the corner of her eye, carrying boxes, not looking at her –

(If I so much as blush, I'm doomed, they'll know, everyone currently watching television will know)

Wishing she could rush time forward, battling against any tremor in her hands that would betray nervousness, as she poured a brimming ladle of chicken soup into small plates, one after the other.

When at last, it was over, and Sara was safe, in the privacy of her own bedroom, she let out a full ten-second exhale. It was late, though not late enough that she thought she might wake Michael when she called – naturally, it had been impossible to call sooner. Her day had ended somewhere near midnight, after a dinner with Paul that had dragged on and turned into something of a premature celebration.

Sara didn't like those, really. Wasn't superstitious and yet, there'd been a bad feeling in her stomach when Paul had said, oddly without his joking-tone on –

"What an honor to be dining with you, Madam President."

Of course, even though it was the only part of the day that Paul hadn't planned to be for show, it had been a show, for Sara, all the same.

Which was maybe why she didn't resist dialing Michael's number, even if by all standards, it was sheer self-indulgence on her part.

"Hi," Michael's voice was its usual great quiet, an ocean where the smoothest waves carry you to immediate happiness. "Happy birthday."

Sara smiled. Now, between the four walls of her bedroom, it was safe enough to smile. "Jesus. I feel so relieved it's over."

"Paul let you off the hook yet? Didn't suggest you spend the night playing vigilante, driving around in your limo and feeding the homeless?"

"Don't tease."

"It's just so pointless," Michael said, with such an absence of reproach or mockery that Sara never thought to resent it. "The people already love you. They couldn't love you more if you rescued a baby from drowning."

"I'm just glad that example occurred to you and not Kellerman."

"Ha."

For a short moment, both were silent, aware of the sudden need to see each other whose liveliness increased with each second.

Honestly, all Sara had had in mind after hearing her boyfriend's voice was badly needed sleep.

Yet the sound of each other's breathing and tense silence had led to a definite turn in both their minds.

If we were standing face to face right now, she thought, it would be one of those moments when we're trying to talk but we simply see that's not going to be possible until we've gotten something else out of the way

"You've got plans for the evening, Scofield?"

Occasionally, Sara would still try to be reasonable, would fight off the urge as long as she might – sometimes pushing it back as far as ten minutes of conversation before she caved in and told him to meet her in half an hour.

But tonight was no time for a show of endurance.

When you thought about it, the faster she surrendered, the sooner she'd be back in her own bed and resting.

Resistance had never seemed more pointless and out of reach.

They agreed to meet at one of their regulars, an anonymous enough motel where Michael would make a phone registration, before he'd pick up the keys at the reception and wait for her in the room, after texting her the right number. Sara liked this one best, because of the view – not to say that the surroundings were especially sophisticated. Quite the reverse. The motel rooms, whose doors were a deep shade of red (the very color of sin if you'd set your mind on finding one for it), were elevated and accessed by a funnily winding stair, more rust than metal. But Sara liked making her way up it, watching her steps – how anticlimactic if she were to break her neck and just elude the presidency by a few weeks? – before she would finally reach the right room. Push open the door (no knocking, no words of warning), and there would be her lover, waiting in the darkness, sultry eyes planted on her, blue fragments of gleaming stars shining in the soft lighting.

And the view, from the window? Nothing but the parking lot, deserted to the point that it'd make a decent sequence in a post-apocalyptic flic, and an uninhabited building whose shabbiness Sara had gotten used to, had actually even gotten to like.

"It's like we're alone in the world," she'd told Michael once, when he wanted to know what was so special about it – not like she of all people hadn't been privy to better sights in Chicago.

She might be fighting against an elitist government, she was from the elite herself, and wouldn't have gotten so far if that hadn't been the case. Often, it takes an insider to tear a structure down, however slim the odds are that someone that's been raised to silver spoons and caviar – the only way to really be rid of the cliché is through self-derision, ladies and gentlemen – will actually care about a people they've been disconnected from all their lives.

One in a million, Michael would probably say.

He liked to call her that, My one in a million, and whether he was referring to the odds of meeting the right person in love or a politician whose views he actually adhered to, Sara couldn't say; didn't think, really, that it made a difference.

Probably, it's both.

Michael might not like the risks that came with her running for president, he loved her at least in part because she'd gotten there, and why

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

Weren't some beliefs like this worth living by?

The night of Sara's birthday this year was unequivocally superior to the day that had preceded. Michael was the sort of man who didn't require an excuse for generosity – and lovers who seem to take more pleasure in your satisfaction than their own are rare to come by; Sara reckoned you could count them on the fingers of one hand (more of which were made use of tonight than she would have needed to prove her point). So, really, none of what took place in that particular motel room, on that particular night, was unusual by any standards, only pushed to the extreme. Michael's hand closing on her wrist, his warm touch contrasting with the firm strength of his hold, when she tried to touch him –

He would rarely let her touch him until long after he'd started touching her.

Sara's heartbeat was racing too fast to establish any plausible hypothesis –

His revenge on her? (See how you like to wait for me, dear)

– but the fact, plain and simple, was that Michael proved an especially apt tease, and the couple didn't get around to conversation for a longer while than they'd planned.

"How long," Michael asked, "before you have to go?"

Sara checked the time on her cell phone, which lay quietly minding its own business on the bedside table.

"Oh," a sigh escaped her, and she started dressing at once – still holding her phone in one hand, reflexively thumbing the screen to unwind the list of news events whose gaudy titles flashed her by, five by the second. "I should already be gone."

Michael nodded without complaint.

The origami rose was tucked carefully in his coat pocket. Since he'd made it, after another one of those sleepless-hotel-nights, there had been several occasions to give it to her – but none, he'd ultimately found, which had been quite right.

It'd be hard for him to explain why it mattered to him on such a level – why he couldn't simply brush the gesture away and give her the flower as a by the by moment, why it just didn't seem to call for a random parenthesis from their rushed limited time together. Why it had to be special.

Not like it's an engagement ring I'm keeping in there, Michael thought without humor – because part of him felt that was exactly like it.

That no symbol, ring or other, could better embody the permanence of his feelings than this spontaneously crafted piece of origami. The idea was amusing; Michael didn't think to stop himself from smiling.

Over the screen of her telephone – that woman was addicted to reading the news like some are addicted to drugs or booze – Sara smiled, too, giving her face an especially young and lovely look. For a second, you'd forget she wasn't just any twenty-nine-year-old, whose mind might still be caught in near adolescent immaturity, and who might party on their birthday as they had when they were eighteen. Short skirts. Tequila. Only the choice of music from the nineties and its discrepancy with the current atmosphere, which had moved and changed faster than the birthday person could realize, would give you a real hint as to the passing of time.

"A penny for your thoughts?" She asked.

"I'm feeling generous. You can have them for free."

Sara hadn't put on more than her skirt and pantyhose by then. Michael suddenly felt it would be criminal she should add any more layers before he'd touched her again.

Though the room was unlit, Sara had moved close enough to the window that he could see her well enough in the moonlight. That drew his attention to the fact that the drapes weren't drawn – something they were both usually careful about.

Oh, but the room was at least three stories above the parking lot, and anyone wandering around there – provided anyone actually roamed parking lots at such ungodly hours – would only see a shadowy figure at the window, if he had good enough eyes to make out anything at all in the darkness.

Then, there was that uninhabited building immediately opposite theirs, but deserted places are deserted for a reason –

"Please," Sara said, pulling him from his thoughts, and reaching for his cheek with her palm.

Michael was only vaguely aware to have moved behind her and locked his hands around her bare stomach. Holding her was natural, so exquisitely familiar – you'd think they'd spent years together, getting used to each other. Sleeping alone now was like sinning against the highest laws of nature.

"Don't get distracted, now."

"What?"

Prickling sensations broke loose in Michael's body at the sound of Sara's laughter. He didn't think to ask what was so amusing – possibly, he sounded boyish or unfocused. One can only go on without sleep for so long before the brain starts following its strange fancies.

"You were going to tell me something."

"Nothing in particular, I'm sure."

"Yes." She objected. In the window, Michael could see a vague reflection of her face and nude upper body, saw his own hands tracing the curve of her breasts before he was conscious of his own will guiding them there. "You were going to tell me why you were looking at me like that, just then."

Shrugging his shoulders. "Like…?"

"Don't play innocent."

Michael sighed. "Governor Tancredi, you're far too clever for me. Have mercy, woman."

"Mercy is nice," she admitted. "But nice girls finish last. I prefer justice."

The vibrancy in her tone as she spoke that last word – justice – conveying such undisputable power, and so effortlessly, sounded inexplicably arousing to Michael's ears.

He might as well give in.

Though he hadn't yet told her about the train of thought that had led to his making the flower, either – that Lancelot-and-Guinevere feeling, a desire as old as time to protect the woman he loved, or at the very least, to become part of the world she lived in. No longer tolerating for her to be ungraspable as a shadow, just a pixelized image on a television screen.

Pretty soon, I'll have to.

If I'm going to do anything serious about it – I'll have to.

"Well, all right."

Michael made a show of sighing (did sometimes enjoy the theatrics for which his brother had no patience) before his hands slowly glided away from the soft flesh of Sara's body. Amusement morphed into surprise on Sara's face when she saw him making his way towards the small wardrobe – motel-sized, where there's only room for one set of spare clothes – where Michael had taken the time to hang his coat, before Sara joined him.

By the intense attention she paid his every movement, Michael could tell the young woman was nervous, in her cool, collected way, but he gave her no further hint as he opened the door of the wardrobe and slid his coat off the hanger. In fact, her reaction was far from unpleasant – how more frequent it was for him to be at a disadvantage? This woman knew her way around the world and its inhabitants a little too well, always made it look like she'd been swimming those waters all her life, could make the most of its swift currents where some occasionally drowned. Michael himself was quieter – confident enough to make his way around, but with no born-talent or ambition that might guide him to claim kingship over that wild ocean.

But right now, as Sara's eyes were hooked on him, following his fingers carefully as he reached for the inner jacket of his coat, he'd momentarily, half-accidentally taken control.

"You didn't get me a gift, I hope." Already, her tone was admonishing – and a little worried.

Probably, Michael thought, she worries I have an actual ring in there.

"Relax," he said and meant it. "It's nothing expensive."

"Michael –"

"I know."

"You ought to."

She wasn't wrong. They'd gone through the whole no-birthday-gift speech, where she had carefully listed every reason why she'd hated birthdays for the first two decades of her life. The luxury of unneeded things – jewels, dresses, always things designed to make her look pretty – extravagant meals, mountains of dark-chocolate cream and berries mounted on cakes that had been crafted by renowned chefs. The gifts and food were in themselves strategies. Publicity for this or that famous brand in exchange for funds for Frank's campaign. Every bit of it was hateful, when Sara was already so aware of all those in need around her, the vacant faces of homeless people, so used not to be looked at they didn't seem to really look at you anymore.

Past the age of six or seven, Sara could never eat a single spoonful of cake without the image of hungry people conjuring itself up in her mind. The hungry all around the world and those daily ignored in America.

"Really," Michael promised, with a solemn enough tone to indicate he'd taken her demand seriously. "This is different." The gloom in her eyes stood firm and solid, so he added, "For one, it didn't cost me a penny."

"Oh."

He chuckled at the mix of surprise and puzzlement in her response. In all likelihood, homemade presents were a vague idea in her mind, something she'd merely heard of or which made her think of noodle-necklaces in kindergarten.

"Well, then I suppose –"

Loud knocks were pounded on the entry door of the motel room before she could get any further.

Color drained from her face so radically Michael wanted to laugh – like part of him was watching this happen to other people, in some movie – only his voice was trapped out of his own body, to which he currently felt unconnected as to a random piece of furniture.

More knocks.

Strong and urgent and ominous as the nearing approach of the Apocalypse horsemen.

"Oh God."

Somehow, Michael snapped out of his paralysis as fast as he'd entered it. "Get dressed."

"Michael, I can't be seen here."

"I know."

Still, she grabbed her shirt that had been lying on the floor and buttoned up fast enough to set a record. Her hands, he noticed, didn't shake even under high pressure. If she hadn't turned to politics, she could have been a fine surgeon.

All the while, there had been no more knocks from their nightly visitor. "Hey, this could be a joke," Michael said, struck by a sudden illumination. "Tonight's Halloween. October thirty-first."

"Right." Sara didn't look completely relieved. "A little late to go trick or treating," she remarked.

"Probably a kid messing around, who snuck out of his parents' room."

Michael pressed his eye to the peephole on the door – and suddenly, turned white as Sara had when she'd first heard the knocks.

"What is it?"

Michael's gaze stammered its way back to her, as if what he'd seen was closer to yet another question than an actual answer. He spoke in a voice heavy with disbelief, "It's my brother."

End Notes: I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Please let me know your thoughts and theories for later chapters, and note I still take requests if you have ideas for Prison Break fanfictions (one shots or other).