"Death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exit"

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

Sara had always been a lucid dreamer. She knew she was dreaming right away because she was sitting at the table of her apartment in Chicago, and she hadn't been there since she had moved into the White House two years ago.

Her father was sitting opposite her, dressed in a suit, a red tie straight as a ruler over his shirt. Sara said, "Sir," without meaning to, as she did when she was a child. Kids are instinctive creatures and Frank Tancredi had always looked more like Sir than Dad to Sara.

He sighed. "I told you so, didn't I?"

Frank had a way of saying 'I told you so', like he wasn't repeating the most annoying sentence in the world but rather delivering insightful news.

"Told you that you were running into a wall. And what did you do, Sara? Did you listen?"

"I guess not."

"I don't care about your guesses."

"I didn't listen."

Sara could have answered something smarter, but all the tools usually at her disposal for clever speech-making slipped out of her grasp.

She was not Sara-the-fearless-politician, the woman who had speared through hundreds of debates and become the first woman president. She was younger, not just pre-presidency but pre-adulthood. The Sara who stamped her foot on the ground, infuriated, when she could feel the passion of what she wanted to say, but not the right words to express it.

"No, you didn't," Frank said. "You always were proud, even as a girl. That's the worst flaw a kid can have. Most of them, a parent can check if they're strict enough. Gluttony, sloth."

Sara didn't react. She was in a dream, her father could quote cardinal sins at her if he liked.

"But not pride," he said. "Because the proud are always convinced they're right."

Someone knocked at the door.

Sara looked behind her shoulder and she saw a red door, floating in the middle of a white desert where the rest of her apartment should be. There were no hinges, no walls: the door just stood there like an exclamation mark on the middle of a blank page.

"Should we get that?" Sara said.

Her father shrugged. "You remember the day you burned your hand at the Bennetts' house?"

Sara remembered. She'd been three years old, so she didn't remember much. Only a red flash of pain pulsing in her palm, her brain, her heart.

"I told you not to go near the stove. But you could see the fire and you just pressed your hand there, flat against the glass."

"I was a child."

"Are you still a child?"

Sara exhaled. She didn't want to go through this again. With time, she'd learnt the pointlessness of arguing with her father.

More knocks rapped against the door. Sara stared at it, but her father took no notice.

"Sara," he said sternly.

"No, I'm not a child."

"Then what are you doing with your arm stretched out, ready to put your hand into the fire?"

"I didn't –"

More knocking.

"I want to get that," she said.

"Do you? Interesting."

"Who do you think it is?"

Frank shrugged. In real life, Sara knew her father would have never shrugged twice in the same five minutes. He thought shrugging was for bored teenagers.

"Right," she said, "it's what I think that matters."

"Who's at the door?" Frank said.

Sara looked at it for a while longer. "Michael."

"Are you sure?"

But the longer she looked, the more she became aware of a creeping discomfort – fear – in her stomach. "No," she said.

"Better not open it, then. Until you're sure."

She nodded.

"So?" He said.

"I'm sorry, what were we talking about?"

"The fire, Sara. The fire."

A burning sensation spread through her chest. It didn't feel like a dream. The pain made her see pieces of bones and tearing flesh and organs. It struck her she didn't remember going to sleep. What day was today? What had she been doing?

The speech at the cathedral. It had gone well. She must have dozed off on the ride back inside the beast. But –

The knocks at the door became a loud pounding, and she realized she could feel each blow in her own heart. Her eyes froze on the red door. It must be Michael behind it. She dreamed of Michael a lot, as most people dream of the things they've forbidden themselves to want.

Yet fear froze her to her seat, when she thought about opening that door.

"Do you want out?" Her father said.

"Of this dream?"

"Of everything. The presidency. All the pressure you're under." Frank chuckled. "All your life, you told yourself you'd make a difference in the world. But if you just sit back a moment, is that still what you want? Aren't you tired?"

"Very tired. But –"

It was hard to talk past the pain in her chest. Now that Sara had noticed it, it swelled to ever-greater proportions, sending wave after wave of unwelcome images to her brain. Bursting ribs. Skin tissues shredded. An ocean of blood.

The door cracked, and the sound wasn't like wood but glass. A cobweb-imprint the size of a fist appeared on its red surface.

Sara heard the breaking glass of the window at the church.

"I didn't finish the speech," she said. It seemed suddenly important.

Her father's face was grave when she looked back at him. "I told you this would be your undoing," he said.

The knocking got so loud Sara jumped to her feet. In a moment, she had flown to the door but just as she reached for the knob, she realized there wasn't any.

She pressed her hand to the door and pushed –

(Like that little girl, pressing her hand against the glass toward the fire)

And gasped.

She had to hold on to the doorframe not to fall down. The door opened into darkness as wide and black as space.

Her father spoke behind her. "Well, what are you doing? Jump."

"What?"

"Isn't that what you do? Touch the fire. Take the bullet. Jump. That'll teach you."

"But –"

His hand was on her back, between her shoulder blades. The ice cold of his touch froze her from her toes to the roots of her hair. There was that same pain in her chest, bleeding between his fingers.

"Don't push me," she said.

"Why would I push you? Who's ever needed to push you? You do it yourself."

Sara looked into the darkness. "Not yet," she said.

Her eyes opened on a white-walled room. She took in the IV drip, the TV hooked on the wall, the bodyguard sitting in an armchair, doing crosswords puzzle.

I'm at the hospital, she thought.

The sound of breaking glass and how it echoed throughout the cathedral came back to her.

But first, the pain.

It wasn't a huge red fist beating into her chest, now. The drugs had tamed it somewhat, but she could feel it there, buried under a layer of snow, ready to rear its head at the merest movement. So she didn't move. Her eyes scanned the room, once then twice, then again, until she was convinced everything happening was real.

When she was at her third appraisal, the eyes of the bodyguard gave a quick glance toward her, mechanical, as he must have been doing every fifteen minutes since he'd taken watch.

The crosswords puzzle book flew out of his hands as he started, letting out a cry of surprise.

Sara opened her mouth to say she was sorry to have alarmed him, but her throat felt so dry. She cleared her throat. "Do you think I could have a glass of water?"

"Oh my god," he said. He jumped to his feet, then he was the one trying to determine if he was dreaming. "Madam President, you're awake – I have to call a doctor!"

He popped out of the room before Sara could call him back. He probably knew best, anyway.

Barely ten seconds later, the door opened again, but the next person to step into the room was no doctor.

"Paul," Sara said.

He looked almost unrecognizable. The bags under his eyes were black craters, worse even than when he was slaving over her campaign. His face was paler, too, but no single change in him could account for the difference.

That's when she realized he must have believed she was going to die.

He didn't sink to his knees and take her hand. It couldn't have occurred to him, not Kellerman, who believed too much in respecting etiquette.

But Sara knew him enough to know there was a second man inside him, one he always kept on close leash, and it must have occurred to him.

For a moment, he didn't speak. She didn't rain down on him with questions. For starters, she wasn't sure just how much talking she could handle, and she knew he needed time to rebuild his armor, to talk to her and not crumble into Thank Gods, I thought you were going to die, you're alive, you're alive.

"Morgan's outside," he said. "I told her to stay in the waiting room."

Sara nodded. Surely, as few people as possible should see her in the state she was in now. They wouldn't have much time before a doctor arrived, and Sara could see Kellerman reigning in the urge to break the distance between them. If she hadn't been lying in a hospital bed right now, he would have swept her off her feet and danced with her, and she might have let him. Lord knew, she was tired of treating her friends with more caution even than her enemies, tired of expecting the worst of everyone.

(The sound of breaking glass came back to her mind)

She had not expected that.

"I'm sorry," Kellerman said. Whether he was apologizing for his lack of professionalism right at this moment, or for everything that had happened, Sara couldn't say.

A doctor arrived before they could talk more. He checked Sara's chart, adjusted the drugs coming in through her IV drip, and told her he was "astonished" to see her awake so soon.

That's when Kellerman told her, with his usual finesse, "You've been shot in the chest. Earlier, at the cathedral."

"Uh," Sara managed. She had figured something like this must have happened. "Can I have some water?"

"I'm afraid not," the doctor said.

"How far into the speech did I go?"

Kellerman smiled. It surprised him as well as her, and Sara realized with momentary horror that she felt like crying. Kellerman was right to have told her other advisors to wait outside. It had been such a long time since she had seen anyone without being in perfect control of the image she was giving.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I was in a conference at the time, and I didn't get around to watching the replay."

The doctor stepped out of the room. The bodyguards were outside, guarding the door. When they were alone, Kellerman told her what happened. The bodyguard who lost his life. The heart surgery. The response from Bagwell and Ness and other major players on the exchequer.

"I'll find out who did this to you," he said. Not 'we', meaning the administration. Sara knew he meant 'I' at this moment. "This is my fault. If I hadn't cut a deal with Jacob Ness about the NRA, while you were still running –"

"Wait, you think –" She had to stop halfway and start again more softly. "You think I wouldn't have launched myself into this battle if you hadn't gone behind my back? Paul, that's not what this was about. You're no better than my father, if you think I've done it out of pride. It was never about me."

"I know," he sighed. "The people."

Nothing she said could convince him this wasn't his fault. She felt this acutely. Even if it hadn't been for his betrayal, he would have felt the same, just because he happened to be at a conference on the other side of town while it was happening. Because he loved her. In this moment of clarity, she didn't have the power to ignore it.

"I should rest," she said.

"Yes," he agreed.

He turned to leave. Knocks were pounded on the door before he could reach it, and a bodyguard popped his head into the room. "Madam President, Bruce Bennett is here."

Sara's chest constringed. She hadn't seen Bruce in what felt like forever. "Send him in." She looked at Kellerman and considered a joke, I'll sleep when I'm dead, but one more look at his haggard face made her certain that it was too early for jokes.

Kellerman went out the room. A moment later, Bruce walked in, and he looked so grave, so old, that Sara felt like she had not seen him since she was a child.

"Bruce –" She stopped.

Maybe she was dreaming still.

A second after Bruce entered, a young man followed into his footsteps to stand beside him. And that young man was Michael Scofield.