Disclaimer: I do not own Prison Break, or any of its characters or plots. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.
Being embraced by Linc brought back memories Kate had buried very deep five years ago. Many things had happened since then, and she was no longer the newly grad from Baylor that had hopelessly fallen head over heels for him, but the way her body molded into his strong frame had not changed at all. The time and place she had broken up with him still haunted her to this day, and over the years she had done her best to forget all their happy times together in order to distance herself from their short but intense story.
"Self Protection," Kate had thought whenever she had regretted the way she had ended things between them, with a blunt 'I'm sorry, this isn't gonna work. Please don't call me again,' blurted out one night in his old beaten up Camaro parked in front of her parents' house, only a couple of days after his arrest.
Ultimately, she had excelled at burying all that over the years, had even succeeded at building herself a new life (new job, new partner track, even new boyfriend, who happened to be her boss, for two years...) but suddenly all those memories of her time with Lincoln were flooding her mind again, and, overwhelmed, Kate hugged him tighter.
Yet she did not have much time to linger in the sensation. Linc had just started to whisper in her ear when they both turned to the sound of the lock of the door of the room. Someone was clearly trying to open the door, but fortunately for them the card was not working properly.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay and ..." were Lincoln's words before Mahone's voice was all of the sudden audible through the locked door.
"No more mistakes, Lang," Alex instructed into his cell when he finally was able to unlock the door and step into the room. By then Lincoln had quickly kissed her temple and rushed out of the balcony, leaving a stunned Kate behind, standing by the glass door as she watched Mahone come into the room.
"What the hell's taking you so long?" Mahone exclaimed right before he was able to glimpse a dark grey shadow disappearing down the balcony (at least it had looked like that, the bright morning sun was shining and it was difficult to tell for sure), while Kate stood frozen by the sliding door. "Who's there?" Alex then questioned rapidly heading for the balcony.
Kate could feel panic washing over her as she realised Mahone was about to discover Linc's presence, and most likely apprehend him. She remembered she had reached a deal with the FBI agent to protect her parents and that same agent had promised her Linc would get fair treatment, but the truth was that if Lincoln were caught he'd very probably still end up in the death row again.
So as Alex got closer on his way to the balcony, Kate did the only thing that she could think of in order to prevent him from figuring out what was going on: she took a step forward and stood between him and the sliding door, raising on her tiptoes to kiss him.
Her quick action took Alex off guard, and he tilted his head back with surprise, his brow furrowed and his blue eyes looking at her with confusion. "I thought you'd asked me not to..."
"We're being watched," Kate quickly interrupted him, her mind spinning as she thought about a good and believable excuse to be kissing him out of the blue, and not registering his words about honoring her wishes regarding physical contact. "Building across the street," she added as she placed her arms around his neck. "Just noticed when I opened the drapes," she whispered, trying to convince him that they were indeed being watched. She could feel her whole body shaking, and she hoped Mahone would buy her enormous lie. Linc's life was at stake.
And much to her relief, he bought it, thinking that the realisation that they were being watched had really scared O'Hare. After all, she was even shaking and she looked terrified. And the Company was certainly following him. It all made perfect sense.
Thinking that everything added up, Alex's left arm snaked around her waist and then cupped her face with his right hand, and even tried to calm her down by caressing her cheek with his thumb. Little did he know that she was completely oblivious to his attempts, too busy trying to recover from the impression of unexpectedly seeing Linc and gauging the distance the escapee could have put between them by then.
"So we have an audience, uh?" he softly asked, bringing her face up to his and meeting her frightened gaze, and weighing his options. If the Company was watching him, he needed to stick to what he had told Kellerman about Kate; any significant deviation could launch an unwanted reaction from Mr Kim and his crew.
"Yeah," Kate was able to mumble, not daring to elaborate until she could figure out if he was believing her or not.
"So let's give them what they want, shall we?" Mahone said, resolving to keep acting as if she were not related to the case at all in the eyes of the Company, and raising his eyebrows as if he were asking for permission. Kate just nodded, thinking that she was fine with whatever would give Lincoln time to get as far as possible.
After her nod Mahone leant in and kissed her, gently at first as he swiftly turned them so whoever was watching had a good view through the glass door. Once he thought they were in the perfect spot he deepened the kiss, his hands roaming around her back on her t-shirt as she buried her fingers in his hair, stroking his scalp and kissing him back pressing her body against his.
The truth was that Mahone was only trying to make sure that the Company nod no doubts at all that she was a fling and had nothing to do with the case, and Kate was only trying to give Linc enough time to safely flee the scene, but to someone who did not know that they did actually look like a passionate couple sharing a motel room, with everything that it entailed. In no time he was planting open mouthed kisses down her jaw as her hands had found their way under the hem of his shirt, tugging it out of his suit pants and caressing the skin of his back.
"You still see them?" Mahone mumbled between kisses, wondering for a second if he should keep on with the show if they were.
Kate opened her eyes and looked across the street while he kissed the side of her neck. Of course she saw nobody, but she thought it could be the perfect excuse to provide Lincoln with even more time. "I think so," she muttered, turning to face him again, cupping his face and beginning to kiss him once more.
"Okay," Alex agreed, briefly breaking the kiss as he slowly led her towards a dresser that sat by the sliding door, resuming his ministrations on her neck as he kept pushing her backwards. Whoever was watching them from across the street would also have a good angle to see them there, and he needed more than a few kisses to make the Company believe that she was a fling. Given that the king sized bed was not visible from outside the balcony, that dresser beside the sliding door was perfect for their purpose.
Guessing what he intended to do, Kate leant on his shoulders as he held her up enough to sit on the dresser without breaking contact. She then opened her legs and he slid between them, possessively resting his right hand at the back of her neck and kissing her jaw, until he reached her collarbone. Her head fell on his shoulder as Kate was doing her best to catch her breath when his cell phone started ringing. He quickly stepped back and flipped it open as he ran his other hand through his hair, going back to his bossy mode over the phone and acting like he had not been sucking on the spot between her neck and her collarbone just a few seconds ago. Meanwhile Kate was panting and rested her back on the wall, briefly closing her eyes; she could only hope that after her hard effort Linc would be very, very far away by then.
As Mahone was once more repeatedly barking orders into his cell, she hopped down the dresser, rearranged her clothes and her hair and looked out the balcony. She then turned around and shook her head at Alex, letting him know that they were not being watched anymore, hoping to be convincing. As much as she had liked their interactions, Kate realized with surprise, her sole intention had been to buy some time for Linc's escape, and she presumed she had already achieved her goal. No need to resume her otherwise surprisingly pleasant making out session with Mahone.
"Come on, it's getting late," were his only words when he hung up his phone and headed for the door of the room, not bothering to look at her at all.
They were already in the black SUV when Mahone spoke again. He had not missed the way Kate had been worriedly looking out the windshield and the windows since she had hopped in the vehicle, and had wrongly assumed that she'd be concerned about the surveillance they had on them.
"They're probably gone by now..." he almost grunted.
Kate shook her head and turned to look at him. "Who?" She was distracted trying to check their surroundings and make sure that Linc was nowhere near to be found.
Alex frowned. Although he was well aware that he was high as a kite, he thought that he was managing himself well, but apparently he was not capable of reading O'Hare. "Whoever was watching us..."
"Right, I should be worried about that, and not about Linc showing up on a hotel room balcony," Kate thought. "Yeah, I know... I mean, I suppose so..." she stammered at last, which was not like her at all.
Hearing her hesitant words, Mahone turned to face her for a second and narrowed his eyes. Why was she so distracted? If anything, she should be scared, but not distracted, he thought. Unless,... well unless she was somehow attracted to him, and the show back in the hotel room had not just been a show for her. "Don't go there, Alex. Concentrate on your case and on complying with the Company's wishes. Pam and Cameron's lives are at stake," he thought, trying to focus on his driving. He had to admit that he was finding out that he was truly surprised at the way he had felt while he had been holding and kissing O'Hare. He had not felt that way since his first years of marriage, but those confusing feelings could only lead to disaster under the current circumstances. And, besides, didn't he want his family back? So, why had he felt so good in somebody else's arms? He kept telling himself that he certainly had no time to answer those questions, but it was probably more that he would not like his honest reply to them. It was easier to blame those confusing feelings on the considerable amount of Veratril he was consuming lately, and not to even consider what O'Hare actually thought about him.
"Thanks, by the way..." he finally said, pushing those troubling thoughts to the back of his mind and keeping his gaze of the road in front of them.
"What for?" Kate distractedly asked once more, her mind still on Lincoln.
There was definitely something going on with her. She was usually more focused, but he chose to blame it on the Company's surveillance instead of on any feeling she could harbor for him. "For putting up that show for them..." Mahone replied, hoping that she would not insist on knowing who they were and what was going on. He'd have to lie if she did, and he was beginning to realize that he was not comfortable at all lying to her. "When did she stop being collateral damage?" he wondered, resolved to push all those crazy ideas aside and treat her according to her status, a key witness in the case that could cost him his family and his career.
But Kate was far from insisting on it, as, unlike the last time, now she had made it up to have an excuse to distract Mahone. "Ah, it's okay," she firmly downplayed it, not even stopping to think about the nature of their interactions in the room just ten minutes ago. Hearing her say that was difficult to believe that she'd be sporting a purple mark on her collarbone for the following days. "Where are we going?" she suddenly inquired, now relieved to see that they were moving onto the highway with no trace of Lincoln near them. "Now I just have to pretend Linc didn't come," she tried to convince herself.
"Looking for a witness. We'll canvass the area ..." Mahone mumbled. He was searching for Sarah Tancredi, the young doctor that seemed to have helped Scofield escape from Fox River, and then had attemped to commit suicide. According to Lang, Scofield had planned to meet with her in Gila, a small town of New México the following day, and had communicated with her through an ingenious system based on dots drawn on origami sent by post in separate envelopes. Alex intended to locate her beforehand in order to apprehend both of them during their rendezvous.
"Okay," Kate tiredly agreed. She suddenly wasn't interested in the case at all. All she cared about was Linc, and for the first time since she had briefly seen him that morning it hit her: why had he taken all the trouble to meet her behind Mahone's back? He was on the run, with a death sentence over his head! What did he want to tell her? Was she in danger? If that were the case, who wanted to harm her? That mere thought made her sit straight on the passenger seat, and the change in her demeanor did not go unnoticed by Alex.
"You okay? I'm sorry if I overstepped, I was certain we were on the same page, otherwise I'd never..." he explained briefly, diverting his eyes from the road and the mirrors to face her.
"No, it's okay, I just want all this to be over, and go home," Kate stated. Her words brought back her concern about her parents. "You're keeping an eye on my parents, aren't you?"
Alex did not blink at her question, although there were no FBI agents watching her house. He had only promised it to keep her under his custody. Something that felt very much like regret washed over him and he made a mental note to order Lang to have a look around their neighborhood. It was only fair as she was holding her part of their deal. "Of course," he lied, "as long as you honor our deal as well..." he added, looking at her intently with those piercing blue eyes.
"Well, I'm here..." Kate responded, realizing for the first time that by not sharing with him Lincoln's visit she was in fact dishonoring their deal. "I'll tell him eventually," she said to herself, not wanting to jeopardise her parents' safety and, at the same time, trying to protect Lincoln for as long as possible.
Little did she know that it would be impossible to keep that balance, and that the next hours were about to change her life forever.