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.

Kate chuckled at his comment. "That sounds like a lifetime ago…", she muttered, still surprised by the fact that Special Agent Mahone had bothered to inquire about her, and trying not to read too much into it. "Don't get your hopes up, Kate," she told herself, keeping in mind that they had just run into each other by chance at a crowded book store.

"But I don't see any ring now," Alex cautiously said, gesturing to her hands, which were wrapped around the hot cup of coffee. No wedding or engagement ring could be seen on her fingers. His heart had skipped a beat at the realization when he had taken the shopping bags from her, and since then he had been doing his best to convince him that it didn't mean anything. She could still be married, and, why did he care?

Kate shook her head as she raised her hands in front of her, unintentionally fixing her eyes on the very spot where Connor's engagement ring used to be. "No," she softly said, and then diverted her gaze to him again. "What you're describing was just my clumsy attempt at leading a normal life after… after…" She was about to say 'after you', but refrained herself. After years of thinking that the object of her, let's say, unrequited love (if you could call the attraction she had felt towards him that) was dead, he was finally there, casually having a cup of coffee with her. Never in all her dreams she would have thought that this could be possible, and the last thing she wanted now was to scare him. She felt that his company, by itself, was too precious to risk it. "Well, you know, after the Burrows case…" she ended up saying.

Alex sighed. This was his golden chance at apologizing, at last. "O'Hare, I'm really sorry for everything that went down those days…"

She sadly smiled. Those days had been a turning point in her life in more than one way. Still amazed at his presence there, in the book store, with her, she hadn't had the time to make up her mind about how much she wanted him to know about that. But now, what really looked like his sincere apologies triggered something in her and she suddenly found herself starting to talk. "Believe me, the worst came after that. An FBI security detail took me from Gila, and I met with my parents at a safe house in some place in New Mexico. You can imagine their surprise and terror when they were taken away from their home by Bureau men with very little to no explanation at all… But according to Agent Lang, your call arranging our custody before you left for Panama saved our lives, so I really thank you for that…" she trailed off. She remembered those days at the safe house in a blur of worry and fear, and a couple of visits from Lang had been her only contact with the outside world and had made her think that, at least, she was in the best possible hands given the circumstances.

Alex shrugged. "That was the least I could do…" He would erase those days if he could; among other terrible events, he had even murdered people in cold blood to comply with the Company wishes. But he was glad to see that in the middle of all that mess he had been able to do some things right, despite the fear, shame and drugs that had governed his life back then. At the very least, he had been able to save O'Hare and her family.

Kate continued, disregarding Mahone's last words. She felt she was on a roll. "We were at the safe house for over a month, and when we returned home we found my mom's cancer was back…" she explained, struggling to keep a neutral tone of voice when she mentioned her mother.

"I'm sorry…" Alex apologized again, burying his gaze in his cup of coffee as he felt guilt wash over him again. It was a very close sensation to the one that came upon him whenever Cameron's death came to his mind, and he kept looking down waiting for the wave to pass.

Completely oblivious to Mahone's current thoughts, Kate kept talking. "So, I dove into work as if it was my last chance at getting my old life back. I divided all my time into my job and my parents and after four months everything seemed to be under control again. Mom was responding well to the treatment and I was back on the partner track… I… I felt I could breathe again. Then one day Agent Lang called out of the blue…"

The reference to his former colleague urged him to finally raise his head and lock eyes with her. "She told me that you had been willing to testify in my favor to get me out of Sona, transferred to a federal prison in the States," he elaborated, gratefully smiling.

Kate nodded. "That's right. About eight months after Gila, Agent Lang contacted me again. She came to my office with Agent Sullins, from FBI Internal Affairs she said, and they told me you were in Panama, in one of the most dangerous prisons in the continent after chasing Burrows and Scofield there. They stated that since you had important information, you could be transferred to a federal prison stateside, and your name could be cleared, but they needed testimonies in your favor. I was asked to testify and I agreed…"

This time it was Alex the one that nodded. "I know, Felicia told me…"

It wasn't lost on Kate the fact that he was alluding to his former colleague by her first name, but she tried to keep track of what she was recounting. "She said that they had to fly to Panama for the hearing, and they'd contact me again once you were back here… Those days I was… I mean… I'd often wondered about you after Gila… Linc and Michael escaping the country was all over the news but you, you seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth… And then all of the sudden I knew that you'd …" She stopped herself trying to hide her feelings from him. "But weeks went by and I never heard back from the Bureau…" she added after taking a deep breath.

"I blew it up…" Mahone mumbled, ashamed, looking at his cup again.

"What?" Kate asked, lowering her head to make eye contact with him.

"The hearing, I blew up all my chances…" he whispered, looking up to meet her green eyes.

Kate furrowed. "But why?"

Mahone sighed. It had taken a long time for him to come to terms with some events in his life, but sharing them with O'Hare was like exposing his soul to her. He then realized that her opinion was one of the very few ones that really mattered to him, and that revelation both thrilled and scared him. "I'm sure it's no secret to you that during that time chasing the Fox River Eight I was on drugs most of the time…"

She rapidly nodded, like if she could erase that memory. "I remember, Veratril, was it? And alcohol too, if you don't mind me saying…" Kate found herself adding.

Alex's eyes widened at her comment, but his expression immediately relaxed. "No, you're right… When I entered Sona there was no Veratril available, and symptoms of withdrawal started to show up soon. I became… sensitive and, let's say… unpredictable, and I resorted to heroin to calm myself…" He stopped to watch any reaction from her at the mention of the word 'heroin', but she showed none. "So when the time for the hearing came and I wasn't able to get a new dose, I was no longer able to hide signs of my drug addiction, which of course damaged the credibility of my testimony, and I was forced to return to Sona…"

"So that was what really happened down there," Kate thought. She had often wondered what had gone wrong, because Lang had not been explicit at all, probably doing her best to mask her own feelings. Kate chose not to mention any of that and went on with a neutral version. "When I reached out to Agent Lang again, she said that circumstances had changed, and you'd have to face trial and serve time in Sona, so it was highly unlikely that you'd ever made it out of there…". The truth was that sensing Kate's conflicted feelings about Alex, Felicia had also encouraged her to forget about him and move on with her life. But Kate kept that information for herself. Instead, she thought that an explanation was in order. "That's why I thought you were dead, and the reason I reacted the way I did when I saw you… I'm sorry…" she explained.

"Don't be, I totally understand…" Alex hesitated before he spoke his next words, but he was curious. She hadn't approached her marital status yet, and now that he had already apologized, he honestly felt that his next focus should be finding out about it. He didn't contact her two years ago because she seemed to be leading a happy life, but he had to admit that he would have probably found a way to reach out to her had she not been engaged. "So, no rings?" he insisted, hoping he didn't sound too adamant or too anxious.

"No," Kate shook her head, surprised by his insistence, and secretly glad that he was insisting, because that could mean that there was a slight possibility that he had an interest in it. She could feel her heart beginning to race and focused on her bad experiences with him to calm down. "Right after my last conversation with Agent Lang my mom relapsed again, and passed away in less than four weeks. My world was crumbling again in less than a year… Connor came to the funeral. He was moving back home to take over his dad's business. We hadn't seen each other for a long time and… well, let's say that I clung to him for dear life. This time only diving into work was not doing the trick, and being with him was easy, and predictable, and I guess that's what I really needed at the time. Totally selfish on my part, but I think he needed it too. We got engaged after three months together, much to his family and my dad's delight…" A big wave of gratitude overwhelmed her as she recalled those days with Connor. He had really helped her to get back on her feet, and, not for the first time, she wished she had been able to repay him other than with a broken engagement. Fresh tears threatened to fall down her cheeks and she quickly wiped them off with her hands.

Mahone kept quiet, regretting having insisted on something that obviously upset her. Kate took a deep breath and calmed down once she felt her tears at bay.

"But as the date for the wedding approached, I felt as if I was drowning;" she explained. "First, I attributed it to my job," she stated, shrugging. "I had a couple of cases that reminded me the hard way why there had been a time when I had wanted to change careers." She stopped for a second, wondering if he remembered that conversation in Gila. She had a vivid recollection of what had happened that day, first their making out session at the hotel, and then the way she had felt a strong conexion had grown between them at that diner, but she doubted he did, as he had been high most of the time. She concentrated back on what she was telling him. "I talked to Connor, and, always supportive, he encouraged me to quit if I really didn't like it…" Kate shrugged once more. "He assured me that we'd manage until I found a new job. So I resigned from my partner position at the law firm and was out in two weeks, after negotiating my exit package with Jack. Seeing that I was not going to change my mind, he referred me to the Dean of Loyola University for a teaching position in their Law School ...," she said before taking another sip from her coffee.

"You did it? I recall that day in Gila when you said…" Alex mumbled, surprised and pleased that she had finally followed her calling. He had to fight the urge to reach out for her arm to congratulate her.

A wide smile showed on her face, reaching her eyes. "Yeah, I did." She then decided to bring up that particular talk. "That conversation we had in that diner in Gila, about changing careers, I often remembered it over the years … Even Connor told me you sounded like a good guy when I told him about it…"

"Well, he sounds like a good guy, too…" Mahone managed to say, feeling a lump in his throat. Maybe it wasn't him the only one that had felt a strong bond between them that day in Gila, and the mere possibility almost made him jump with joy, an emotion long forgotten for him.

Kate sighed. "Yes, he is." She carefully evaluated the way she should share with Mahone the reasons that had led her to almost leave her fiance standing at the altar, and she finally opted for a somewhat revised version, purposely avoiding to quote the active role that he himself had played in it, totally unbeknownst to him. "That's why it was so hard to tell him that I couldn't marry him. After I started teaching, I realized it was not only my former job that was suffocating me. It was also my relationship with Connor. So I told him that no matter how good he was and how much he loved me, he really deserved someone that could actually love him."