It was terribly unfair that teenagers were the class of people that most often got grounded, when they were the ones who most fully appreciated the punishment.

Sara was never so bored in her life as in the weeks that followed her getting her father's Bentley trashed by accident. On the upside, Sara finished BRS Gross Anatomy in just one week, and learned not only the names of all hand bones but got through foot bones as well.

The worst thing was, if she hadn't been dying to see Michael, she might have enjoyed being grounded. She might not have even noticed she was grounded. But the thought of walking side by side with Michael in the cold, taking his hand, marveling at her own boldness, or sitting in his apartment and reading lines with him… Until recently, there wasn't much in the outside world that could draw Sara's eye.

"That boy!" Caroline Reynolds hissed, drawing Sara out of her thoughts.

She shifted on her feet, arms wrapped around herself, because it was always cold in the auditorium.

"Did he tell you he couldn't make it today?" Caroline asked her.

"Um – no."

"There must be a mistake. We're a month away from the show. Please, call him and tell him we're expecting him."

To call Lincoln, ever, was about the last thing in the world that Sara wanted. In truth, a breath of a relief had seeped into her lungs as she realized he was bailing on their Hamlet rehearsal today. While Reynolds fumed and bemoaned the selfishness of teenage boys, 'especially sports team captains', Sara tried not to think of all the things she could be doing instead of standing there, alone with her drama teacher.

If she had skipped drama, she could have walked home with Michael. They could be talking right now, and she could steal glimpses of him – the dimples in his stubble-free cheeps, the hot intensity of his blue gaze.

"Sara?"

Sara snapped out of her thoughts. "I don't think that would help, professor. I mean – Lincoln has kind of lost interest in the play lately."

Caroline Reynolds acted like Sara had just said Lincoln considered getting a Hello Kitty tattoo on his bicep.

"Lost interest?"

"Y-yes."

"What does he think this is, volunteer work!"

Sara didn't point out that technically, they had volunteered for the school play. Instead, an idea sprouted inside her head – one way she could manage to see more of Michael while still being grounded.

"Actually" she said, "I know a boy who'd make a terrific Hamlet." It sounded almost wicked when she said the words, like the idea would bring Sara so much satisfaction it must be selfish and shameful.

Caroline squinted suspiciously. "What boy?"

"Michael."

"Michael?"

"Scofield," Sara volunteered.

"Isn't he the janitor?"

Sara couldn't see how to answer without specifying that, actually, he'd been fired, so she stayed silent altogether.

"Hum," Caroline said. "I suppose nothing can be worse than no Hamlet."

"He's very good," Sara said, and couldn't get over how stung she sounded to her own ears. "Ten times better than Lincoln. And he'll be there on time to rehearse, you can be sure about that."

Exactly why was she selling Michael to her drama teacher, before she'd even asked him if he wanted the part?

"Fine," Caroline said, "get him here as soon as you can for an audition. If we don't get a Hamlet soon, we'll have to cancel the performance. Can you think of a bigger disaster?"

Sara shook her head, no, to humor her.

A few months from now though, she'd wished she hadn't saved the school play. Wished more than anything that the performance had died before it'd even started.

…

Michael never saw a smile like the one on Coach Hopkins' face when he told him he'd given it some thought, and yeah, if the offer still stood, he'd like to join the swimming team.

"Damn right the offer still stands!"

The coach slapped a beefy palm on Michael's naked shoulder. Michael repressed a groan. It's not that he was uncomfortable to be touched while he wore nothing more than swim trunks. He could be covered from head to toe right now and still, he'd think of nothing but that huge palm on his shoulder, the weight of it pressing him into the earth, digging into his skin like acid.

Only when the coach removed his hand did Michael start breathing again.

"That might prove to be the most important decision you've ever made, kiddo," the coach said. "Might get you to college."

Michael nodded. "Cool."

Fortunately, he was strategic enough to save this for the end of class. If not, he wasn't sure the coach would have left him alone for the whole hour.

"Well," he looked behind his shoulder toward the lockers, "I'd better get going."

"Right, right. Er – kid?"

Michael looked steadily into his eyes as the coach wetted his lips. What remained of Lincoln's beating – the purple bruise below his eye and the one that engulfed his broken nose – didn't prickle under the coach's stare. Michael didn't feel ashamed, and shame seemed precisely the thing Coach Hopkins was waiting for. Maybe, if Michael had shifted from foot to foot and looked at the ground, the coach could have slapped him on the back and given him a paternal lecture.

But under Michael's steady gaze, his confidence ran thin. What a weird kid, he thought. A good swimmer, and for sure he was glad to have him in the team. But if Coach Hopkins had been back in high school, he couldn't help but think Michael Scofield was the last kid he would have hung out with.

"Nothing," the coach said.

"Okay," Michael turned back and disappeared into the locker room without another word.

Michael was alone in the locker room by then, which was lucky enough. After what had happened, Michael would rather not see his brother for a while, and it was just easier to avoid him in the halls or in class, rather than in a locked room full of their classmates.

The bell had rung, and Michael slipped his pants on even though his thighs were still wet and his whole body smelled like chlorine. Now that his face looked the way it did, he couldn't afford to be late for class.

He dashed out of the locker room, so focused he wouldn't have seen Sara if she hadn't spoken, "Hi."

Michael stopped his tracks, the importance of punctuality diminishing increasingly with each second – her smile, the smell of her lemony shampoo, even the color in her cheeks was quite charming.

"Hi," he said. "I didn't realize you were waiting for me."

"Well…" She seemed about to make up some excuse but decided against it.

"I was just talking to Coach Hopkins about joining the team," he said. "Since my days as a janitor are over."

"About that," Sara said, "I was thinking since you'll have a lot of time on your hands – maybe you'd like to join the school play."

In how she blurted the words and looked breathless, Michael could tell she'd been given a lot of thought to them.

"You were just thinking that," he said, "randomly?"

"No."

He appreciated her honestly. "Didn't the casting take place in September? Who would I play?"

"Hamlet."

"Hamlet?"

Sara sighed, and when she took his hand and had him sit down with her on a bench nearby, the thought of his next period vanished from his mind entirely.

She told him then, about everything. How Lincoln dumped them without warning. How the school play was 'doomed' if someone didn't step up to fill those empty shoes.

Michael tried to listen to her, because she obviously took the whole thing very seriously. But details kept grabbing at his attention: the strand of hair that hung loose from her ponytail, and that she kept pushing back behind her ear.

What dimension was this that the Sara Tancredis of this world would wait up after class for him?

"So will you do it?"

Sara looked back at him, and he didn't pretend he hadn't been lost in his contemplation of her. By now, she must be used to it – his looking at her. From some table at the cafeteria. Mop in hand, at the auditorium.

For what was maybe the first time in his life, Michael wished he could do the chivalrous thing. To his brother, it probably came naturally. A girl asked for his help, she became a damsel in distress. Had it been Lincoln standing here, he would have pushed up his pecs and said Yes automatically – except Lincoln had been the one who created the whole mess to begin with.

Michael looked down. Sara still held his hand firmly, and he ran his thumb over her wrist. Her chest filled up with air, and he thought he'd like to hold her flush against him, the way she had when she stopped by his apartment last week.

"I don't know," he said. "The school play – it sounds like a lot of visibility." Her eyes worked hard at containing traces of disappointment. "It's not that I wouldn't want to do it – to be Hamlet with you, in private. But it'd be different with the whole school watching."

"Right. You mean – you're afraid of how they'll react."

He shook his head. "I mean, it might not play out like you expect."

Her gaze steadied, and he knew she was thinking about it too: the way her girlfriends reacted when he walked up to them at the Hive.

"You might think Lincoln's a brute," he said, "but playing Ophelia to his Hamlet on stage wouldn't get you into trouble."

"What kind of trouble are you talking about?"

He shrugged. Though she hadn't talked to him about it, he had seen her become stiffer around her girlfriends, and how the girls' smiles looked bright as knife blades now.

It was only when she spoke and he heard her anger that he knew what to make of the turmoil in her eyes. "You think I'd be ashamed to be seen with you?" Her hand squeezed his. "Anyone can walk by and see us. I'm not doing a very good job at hiding you, am I?"

"I didn't mean it like that. I just don't want you to get hurt. It's not just that, though. I don't like the spotlights much."

Sara's eyes lowered to her white trainers. Such clean trainers, Michael thought. Since he'd gotten emancipated, he'd owned exactly two pairs of shoes, and had only thrown the first one away when hours of walking on asphalt had melted the sole right through. The pair he wore now had cracks at the bottom, and he could feel the end getting thinner against his toes. The mildest rain soaked them through, but they'd last him a few more months if he was careful. Not that Sara would ever look at his shoes. But for a moment, the pure whiteness of her immaculate trainers seemed to encapsulate the whole world that existed between them.

"This is very important to you," he said.

"Yes," she said, and though no blush rose to her cheeks, he could tell she was surprised by her own honesty. "I don't know why. I think ever since we practiced Hamlet together at your apartment, I've started falling in love with you."

She looked up, and Michael's heart somersaulted up to his throat.

"I don't know why I said that," she admitted. "You make it so easy."

His hand felt burning hot around hers, and without thinking he raised it to his mouth and kissed her fingers. Her skin still smelled like chlorine.

Part of him felt he should say something back, something meaningful. Like an exchange. Those words had come from the deepest of her. Maybe she hadn't even known they were there until she spoke them, and it had cost her, because the truth always costs you. As if she had taken a scalpel and cut her skin clean through to pull out something from inside her and handed it to him, bleeding and dark. Now he had to reciprocate.

Yet when he opened his mouth, a terrible fear spread like ice through his entrails. He realized he wanted to tell her to run, to get away from him.

Like her, he hadn't been aware this truth existed until he almost spoke it.

She should stay away from him. Because the only people who had ever loved him had died. Because he brought about disaster.

Instead, he said, "Then I will do it. If it matters to you."

…

End Notes: OK, so I looked at the date when I last updated and I am shocked and really sorry for the readers who've been waiting and waiting! The crazy thing is, this is one of the stories for which I have the end all planned out! I've only been very busy… Please leave kudos if you've enjoyed it and share your thoughts in the comment section!