Disclaimer: I don't own Prison Break, but I should seeing as the evil producers decided not to air it for a couple of weeks. I would never do that to the loyal fans. Shame on them. :)

Rating: M for mercurial.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter. Up until now, I have been ignoring the entire plot-line of the story that's given by the show because I was going my own way with it, and I think I may just keep doing that. Just in case you were wondering if I was ever going to actually start writing with the plot. Probably not.

Hanging On

He was a package full of contradictions. The mouth against her own had been rough and hot, but skilled and generous as well, willing to put out as much as it was receiving and more. And the tug of his hands at her clothes may have seemed impatient, if not for the ease with which he lingered over her mouth, her neck, her flawless porcelain skin. Those eyes that she had seen narrow in hatred, squint in pain, and well up with tears in frustrated guilt had watched her with an even intensity: carefully measured, yet undeniably out of control.

Sara had always wondered if he'd leave bruises, if those dexterous hands would feel as a woman thought that they would, dragging fiercely at the supple softness of her skin. She had quickly learned last night that fantasy paled in comparison to the passion his surprisingly impatient hands had ignited in her as he ran his palms over her fully clothed figure.

With any other man but Michael she would have chalked up the desperate depravity of being in prison as the reason that he could look at her like a man dying of thirst, but she knew that with him, it was different. He seemed to have had his sights fixed on her from the very beginning, and it almost mortified her to admit that she hadn't minded one bit. She had never had sex with a convict before, never even thought of it, but in that reckless moment it was she who had felt like the felon as she had shamelessly groped for the hem of his shirt, trying to toss it easily over his shoulder. But she didn't even get that far before he had casually cast her off as if they hadn't been making eyes at each other since the first day they'd met. As if there hadn't been a clear invitation issued and accepted.

It hadn't even been twelve hours since the incident, and already she was regretting letting him off the hook like she had. Liquid hot anger churned in the pit of her stomach as she thought of the easy motion with which he brushed her off, the complacent look on his face as she finished his medical exams.

"Fool," she murmured to herself, remembering the wounded look she had given him. "He played you and you believed him." But even as she spoke the words into the eerie silence of the infirmary, she had trouble believing them. Michael had never seemed like the type to use. And she wouldn't easily forget the look of quiet desperation on his face as he pleaded with he not to get involved in his life. It was too dangerous, he had said.

"Doctor Tancredi?" Sara heard someone address her from the doorway.

Clearing her throat and swiveling in the tweed office chair, she turned towards her name. "Yes?"

"Your next patient is here." The nurse that had walked in and handed Sara a file-folder was in her mid-fifties and lines of worry were beginning to crease around her eyes and mouth. Her thinning hair had been pinned back dutifully, as was policy, and was held away from her face with a bright orange clip. It was slightly juvenile and looked as though it may have at one time belonged to her daughter. Instead of metal clasps to keep her hair in place, it was constructed of pliable plastic; the staff here learned early on never to carry anything on them that could be an easily accessible weapon for an inmate. If the woman had finished her degree in University, Sara thought, she might not be standing here reporting to a doctor nearly half her age.

"Thank you, Claire." Sara murmured, and took the relatively thin file folder that was handed to her. She glanced at the name that read "SUCRE, Fernando" and shifted in her seat. The name didn't ring a bell, as she had most likely not seen him for months. Opening the folder, she sifted through his short medical history, noting that he hadn't had a significant visit in almost a year. Her gaze slew over to a darkened area of the med-bay, and with what she told herself would be the last thought of Michael Scofield today, Sara stood and made her way to the examination room of the infirmary.

Waiting for her in the small, sterile room was a man she recognized to be no older than she was. His face now registered in her mind, and she approached him with a friendly smile, remembering that she had always thought highly of him as an inmate.

"Fernando Sucre?" she asked, expecting some affirmation from him.

"Just Sucre," he indicated, sitting on the bed in front of her and fidgeting with the paper that covered its vinyl surface.

Sara nodded amiably, having no intention of calling him by his prison nickname, but trying to put him at ease. She had been around enough patients in her life to tell when someone was uncomfortable in their surrounding. Eventually she had come to face the fact that not many people were fond of the doctor, nor even liked to be in a doctor's office, and naturally had spent her time convincing many people that it wasn't as intimidating as it was made out to be.

"Your file says that you're due for a routine physical exam this month, so that's all we'll be doing today." Sara glanced around the room, as if looking for something, and on her way by him, she caught the glance of the tense inmate. She smiled again, for reassurance, and told him what he wanted to hear.

"No needles or shots this time, as I recall you're not fond of them." It always amazed her that these men who were in prison for breaking the law, and who dealt with the casual abuse that everyday life afforded them here at Fox River, could shrink at the mere sight of a hypodermic needle.

"Yeah," Sucre replied with a chortle of nervous laughter. "I don't know how Fish deals with it all the time, the needles. I can't even handle them once in a while, and he has them every day. They creep me out."

Sara jerked involuntarily. There were few patients who came to the infirmary for regular shot administration, and even the insinuation set her to break the promise that she had made to herself not to think about Michael today. He was not to be a part of her daily regiment, even though that was where he was headed as thoughts of him invaded every aspect of her daily life.

Recovering, she cleared her throat and responded. "Some people take it better than others. It's all personal really." As she instructed him to stand up, directing him towards a chair in the corner of the room, Sara fought to control her raging curiosity.

"What's that for again, Doc?" Sucre asked, motioning towards the station set up at the chair and looking questionably at the machine hooked to the chair.

"It's a sphygmomanometer," she replied, rolling the word around in her mouth. "It measures blood pressure." After she explained how to wrap the pressure cuff around his upper arm, she decided that it would be the smallest of evils to take advantage of his anxious state, recalling that he had a tendency to chatter unchecked when he was edgy.

"So," she began. "Who exactly is Fish?" Licking her lips nervously, she tried for a casual state of friendly disinterest.

For a moment, he looked at her as if checking to make sure that she wasn't really listening, and then began to talk to the side of her face while she shuffled through a drawer for a pencil. Thinking that she was insinuating that he and Fish were something more that just inmates, he began to quickly explain his comment. "He's just my cell-mate. He's diabetic, so he comes here a lot to get drugged up."

Hiding her emotions under a muffle of laughter at his idiom, she shot a look at him from the corner of her eye. "I see. I probably know him," she began cautiously. "Seeing as I do administer all the injections here." Pausing for another second, to jot down a note on her clipboard, she decided to press him further. "What's his name?"

"Fish?" Sucre asked, trying to read through the tangle of her hair what she was writing about him in her notes. "His name's Michael. Scofield, I think," he answered the query with little prompting seeing as he was distracted.

"Michael," she let out his name on a long breath she didn't even realize that she had been holding in. Shaking her head slightly, she quickly corrected herself. "Michael Scofield." Getting back to the physical, she added another comment. "He's in here every day for administrations. And not that it will make you feel any better, Mr. Sucre, but he takes the needles like a pro."

Sara walked to her desk, never taking her eye off of Sucre, while trying to come to terms with the fact that if there was anyone, anyone at all in this prison who may know something about Michael's past and present, he was sitting right here in front of her, nervously chewing on his bottom lip and awaiting further instruction. All rational thought fled her mind, and she failed to recognize that this was in fact prison, and any information that she gleaned here would not be so easily given up as the nugget that she had just pried out of her willing patient.

"Stand up please." She directed Sucre with a suddenly soft voice as she headed towards the next part of his examination. Pulling an otoscope out of her desk drawer, she turned her face towards the window in the process. It was raining again, and for some reason, today it made her feel like sunshine inside.

"So," she began. "Michael is your cell-mate. Does he tell you more about what's going on with him than he does his doctor?" A slightly possessive note entered her voice. She was his doctor; he was her patient. That was how the relationship worked. But it had the potential to be so much more than they made of it.

"What do you mean?" he asked, trying not to squirm as he thought of her shining that little light deep into his ear.

"Well, you must know about his toe."

At the mention, Sucre stiffened and turned sharply towards the doctor, knocking the otoscope out of her hand and causing her to gasp as it clattered to the floor. A high blush appeared on her cheeks, and she now recognized the guarded expression, the same one that Michael had worn with her many a time, creep onto his face.

"Why do you want to know so much about Fish, Doc? You got a crush on him or something?" he asked, no mention of humour in his voice, no hint of uncertainty in his tone. He was sure that she understood.

"Nothing," Sara whispered, in answer to a question that no one had asked. "I was just wondering how a deliberate man like him could have such an accident."

"Everyone has accidents, Doc." The steel flint in Sucre's eyes was unmistakable.

As she leaned over to pick up the missing piece of equipment, a thought solidified in her mind, a reasoning that she couldn't simply ignore. Something was going on here. And of she had to cheat and lie like a convict to get at what it was, Sara Tancredi was prepared to do just that. She was finally prepared, she convinced herself, for once in her life, to hear the truth.

A/N: I know, the ending was slightly vague and a little abrupt, but at least I'm making an effort. The next chapter should be really interesting because I am planning a little bit of confrontational anxiety. I'll just let you brew on that. Sorry I haven't updated for so long, but my weekends have been taken over by the evil monster that is work.