Chapter 26

Once he had broken out of prison, Teddy realized that all his plans didn't matter, and he found himself lost for the first time. Because he had thought it would be easy. That wasn't the case though, for even as he was bound to Michael Scofield even as he was standing in that barn handcuffed to the man, Teddy thought it would be so simple to get them to bring him as far as he needed to go to get back to the place he needed to be, but it wasn't that simple. He didn't completely understand that until his hand was cut off. It was then that Teddy knew as they all left him to die that all his plans were out the window and now, he would have to figure out how to get back to that place some other way. After that, all plans were gone, and Teddy had never wished to be with his Lizzy more even as he was devising a plan to get back to her in the first place.

"First though, I have to get my hand put back on" he was running through the woods now with his hand still hanging from the cuffs they'd left behind, the flesh clutched to his chest, and Teddy didn't know how anything was going to play out going forward yet in that moment, he kept running always wondering what was going to happen next to derail him from his path. Because on that night the truth was Teddy had been prepared for many things. He had been prepared for his fellow inmates to ditch him along the way, he had been prepared for them to try to leave him behind in Fox River even, but when they cut off his hand, they didn't realize that they were making an enemy of him. They were taking away his chances at redemption, not just with God, but with the woman he loved. They were taking away his chances of ever seeing Lizzy again and that was something Teddy wouldn't allow which was why he ran all the harder now. It led to Teddy having to improvise and though he didn't plan it, he got his hand put back on, and found himself driving the late doctor's car as his getaway.

As he made things up this way, Teddy found there were times he didn't know what to do. He found his mind moving quickly as he tried to figure out what to do. There was Wes Moreland's money to think of, but more importantly there were the things he thought of that had always been in his destiny once he was free. There was Lizzy to think of, for he always intended to be reunited with her, but he knew that would take longer now. Longer still because of the revenge he sought before daring to see her again. Before he saw Lizzy, Teddy knew he had to find Susan Hollander, and in doing so take the revenge they both deserved. Yet as he drove, he was always seeing Lizzy in his mind, and her image always made him want to forget everything else just to go to her. So much so that Teddy often found himself unsure of what direction he was going. He knew Lizzy wouldn't greet him with the affection that she might have once. That he had ruined many of his chances to get her back, but Teddy wasn't prepared to give up. Because they shared something that didn't come into this world very often, they shared a love that most weren't lucky enough to know, and though he had ruined many things between them, he knew he could make her see that they were still meant to be together. Yet he knew that the matter of Susan Hollander would always stand between them if he didn't get rid of her first, just as he knew that they couldn't just go on as they had, but that with Wes Moreland's money they could go somewhere where they might be happy again. It left him unsure of his path especially as Lizzy loomed all the more in his mind. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and explain his actions for the many wrongs he'd done her, but Teddy also knew that was the first place anyone would look for him. Yet that didn't keep him from wanting to see her before anything else. Teddy sometimes thought as he drove that it might be worth it, seeing her just once before being returned to Fox River, but his mind always overruled his heart on the matter. Because he didn't want five minutes with her, but the rest of his life. He wanted to be with her and redeem himself in her eyes. He found he longed for her as he drove, he found he could see her face, and he desperately wanted to make things right between them.

Yet Teddy found himself almost scared of what would happen between them.

"She has every right to turn me away…I've forsaken her in far too many ways" he couldn't deny anything he had done, he knew that, and Teddy knew that was yet another reason why he couldn't just rush to see her because she had every right and reason to turn him away, yet Teddy hoped if he killed the woman who had caused their misfortune that she might see him in another light, but he didn't know that for sure which worried him all the more.

"She might never take me back. What do I do if she won't forgive me?" the possibility of it all making the decision to find Mrs. Hollander first all the easier even as Lizzy dwelled in the back of his mind. For though Lizzy always laid at the very center of his heart, so did the revenge he demanded from Susan Hollander. She was responsible for Lizzy's pain just as much as he was, for she had turned him in, and if she hadn't, he might have come to his senses. He knew he would have come to his senses and returned to Lizzy someday. She wouldn't have ever felt the need to divorce him. Her bar would never have been shot up by Abruzzi's men and her best friend wouldn't have been killed. So much pain, she had suffered, and it all could have been prevented if she had never turned him in to the police. Teddy intended to pay her back for that now and that single thing took precedence over seeing the woman he loved. It was the only thing that would take precedence over her ever again. As much as he wanted to, there was another woman who he needed to see first, and if he didn't Teddy sensed that things would never be right between the woman he loved and himself again.

So, Teddy bypassed Lizzy altogether for the time being as he went in search of Susan Hollander. He drove to where he thought she would be then he walked when the doctor's car finally gave out. As he did, he found himself thinking of all the ways he could torture her, and all the ways he could show her the pain that his Lizzy had suffered. He thought of the things he wanted to do to her. Of the things he would do to her and to her children just so they would know what suffering was. He could see the blood and the pain all so clearly that sometimes he became distracted. He had to punish her not just for her betrayal but for the pain that his Lizzy had had to suffer because she had turned him in. Teddy was well aware that he himself was responsible for the pain Lizzy had been through, but for the last half of that ordeal, Teddy did blame Susan Hollander. He was sure that if she hadn't of turned him in that he would have made his way back to Lizzy. Teddy knew he never loved Susan.

When Theodore Bagwell thought of himself, he considered himself a very smart person, but that hadn't been the case when it came to Susan Hollander. The fact was that Teddy truly believed that he had lost his mind when he left his Lizzy. He had thought he was doing the right thing; he had believed he was doing what was best for her, but then he had met Susan. He had tried to make himself believe that he was in love with her, but there had never been any emotion of the kind in his heart for her. In his heart, he knew that if she had never entered his life at all that he would have gone back to Lizzy, and they might have been happy. She would have forgiven him for leaving in the first place, but none of that had happened because Susan Hollander had taken away their chance. It made his need for revenge all the greater. Because he could picture the life they might have had so clearly. A life where they would live in her little apartment over the bar, where they could be as they were before, with him sitting behind the bar admiring her and laying in bed with her at night. They would have been happily married or as much as was possible for them. He could see it all so clearly, but that hadn't been what happened. Instead, he had ended up in Fox River, and Lizzy had been shot. There was so much he wished he could take back and, in his mind, the death of Susan Hollander was the beginning of that, so he put all his energies into getting to her, and it was harder to do without being seen then he believed.

"She might know I'm coming, but that won't matter. Nothing can save her now" his plans fully plotted until they too were changed abruptly, for once he made the move on the girl whose father had picked him up, he was abandoned, and Teddy knew he wouldn't be able to get to anyone without money, yet he knew exactly where to find some and it would give him more time to think about how he was going to kill Mrs. Hollander which Teddy found he didn't mind as he changed directions once more. Teddy thought he could get to Wes Moreland's money. That he should have went for it all along because he knew that money would help him on his hunt to kill Susan Hollander and his hunt to redeem himself in the eyes of the woman he loved. He suddenly thought he needed it and it made him all the more desperate. Teddy didn't think that was possible, but it appears it was as he suddenly had a new mission to go along with all the others. The plan had always been to kill Mrs. Hollander, to get back the woman he loved, but not until he had spied Moreland's last words did the money even begin to factor in. Not until he realized that he needed it did it begin to come before anything else. He had planned out Mrs. Hollanders death so perfectly, planned out how he would beg Lizzy for forgiveness that he hadn't thought anything else mattered, and nothing else had until now. Until he was going after something he didn't even know if he would find and risking all the other things, he'd planned out so well. Teddy found though he was willing to take the chance as he figured out this new plan just as he had all the others.

His plans for murder would have to wait. His plans to tie the kids up and let them watch their mother die. To tie Susan like a pig, so he could gut her in the same way, but Teddy would have to wait for blood. First, he needed money, and he knew once he had it that it would solve all his problems. It would help him in his revenge. When he went to Lizzy, he would tell her how it would solve all their problems and he would tell her how they could run away now. They could get a fresh start and that was what both of them truly wanted. Teddy knew that just as he knew that Lizzy would see the truth in him just as she always had. He believed in himself and as he got closer to the money and farther from what he had originally wanted, he needed to believe in his future now, especially if he ever hoped to see it through.

"I will get everything I want…I have to or what was any of this for?" Teddy thought that as he came face to face with all the ones who'd left him for dead in that barn, he would have to work with them to dig up Moreland's money, but he didn't plan on them keeping any of it as he started distracting the woman who lived in the house that had been put on top of the money. Elizabeth was just as determined as he was though for much different reasons. She kept seeing Teddy's picture there on the TV screen. It had created delusions in her head of him simply walking back into her life, but even as she knew this couldn't happen this way it didn't stop the images from flashing behind her eyes. It didn't stop them from making her on edge, so much so that she was sure the cops that frequented her bar had noticed. She could almost feel it approaching to disrupt everything that she had just built up again, and it distressed her even as she remembered the things that had passed between them since they had seen each other last.

There were times when she would stare at the door with the sun unable to blind her. Sometimes, she would see Teddy's silhouette in the doorway, and everything would go white. She could feel the cold chill go up her spine every time and nothing would take it away even after she realized that he wasn't really there. She could feel him coming and she was watching for him though she had no idea what she was going to do when he finally appeared. Part of her had expected the police to come to talk to her after hearing of Teddy's escape, but no one had.

"You just keep yourself safe, little lady, and if you need help with that remember that a lot of the guys in this bar have come to like you" Mac was the only one who knew that she had an ex- husband at all and his words had helped more then he knew though Elizabeth hadn't let that show as he walked out of the bar that night finding that she was only glad that no one else said anything about it. They acted as if nothing had happened, and Elizabeth found she greatly appreciated it.

"If Teddy comes anywhere near you, Elizabeth, you had better call the cops. If you don't, you're stupider then I thought" her brother didn't show the same kind of support, if anything he made her anxiety over the whole situation all the worse.

Elizabeth found her anxiety over Teddy was the worst when she was alone in her apartment.

"He could come in here and I don't even know what I would do" the thought shook her more then she cared to admit. She laid in bed at night and thought of him. Sometimes, she found herself wondering where he was or if he really was as close as she felt. It shook her, even as she pictured him just walking back into her life the way she had wanted him to once, but that she reasoned was another time. She had been another woman then and now, she was just recovering from everything he had put her through before, and now just as she thought it was over, it wasn't. Elizabeth didn't know how to feel about that now especially as she seemed to always be waiting for him to pop back into her life. She saw Teddy in the shadows. In the shadow of sunlight that went through her curtains in the morning, she saw him smiling at her, and it wasn't altogether unpleasant. That was what scared her because even as she was worrying over the idea of him appearing out of nowhere, Elizabeth wondered what he would say if he appeared, and if he would manage to make her love him again. He always had a way of making her do the exact opposite of what she wanted to do, she saw that in the way he had made her kiss him, and they hadn't been divorced not five minutes. It scared her sometimes, the deep hold he had over her, and she didn't know what she would do when he came. Elizabeth swore sometimes that there was someone trying to break into her apartment.

"You need a gun, it will make you feel better, and you'll be able to protect yourself" Elizabeth had never considered going to such lengths, but it was Mac saying it now which seemed to change any doubts she had.

She decided to buy a gun. Just a small handgun that she could use if she needed it. It made her wish she had bought a gun sooner. It made her think of the past, of when they had first opened all those years ago back before anything bad had ever happened to her, and the future had been ahead of them. Now, it was solely behind her in a way that scared her. Back then, Bobby had wanted to buy a gun to keep under the bar, but she had said it wasn't necessary. And it hadn't been, until now where she found herself taking money out of her bank account to buy one.

"I don't know what I can handle anymore" the sudden image of what she once was appearing behind her eyes because back then she had been able to handle anything the world through her, but not now. Now, she felt the overwhelming need for one.

It wasn't that she wanted to shoot Teddy, in another life before visiting him at Fox River she might have had a different opinion, but now she just wanted protection for herself. When she went to the gun shop, it took her two hours to go inside, but when she did, she was shaking. She didn't know what she was looking for or what type of gun she needed. It took a nice shop keeper coming up to her to make her calm down and when she walked out of that shop, Elizabeth now owned a small handgun.