Title: On Fire
Fandom: Prison Break
Characters: Michael, Lincoln, Sara
Prompt: 084, He.
Word Count: 4,295
Rating: PG
Summary: The last day of Lincoln Burrows' life (part 2 of 3)
Author's Notes: I started this after watching the previews following ep. 13 (yes, I watched them in slow-motion several times), but aside from the one brief bit of a scene I caught, there's nothing spoilery beyond the first 13 eps and anything unrecognizable (like Sara's family stuff) is totally made up. Also, this part is wicked long, I have no idea how that happened. They just kept talking and talking and all of a sudden it was 10 pages long and I had to cut some out. So, yeah, hopefully it's not tedious or anything.

"All set," the guard tells her, and Sara walks into the dank cell towards the condemned man. All the foolishness she's felt at this part of her job, at this ridiculous thing she has to do – determine whether or not a man is healthy enough to kill – quickly evaporates when she sees Lincoln sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up as far as the chains running across the floor will allow, hands splayed across the top of his head. His eyes are closed and remain that way until Sara's pulled a chair over beside the bed.

He looks completely exhausted, but flashes her the briefest of smiles and sounds distantly like his brother when he says, "Hey, Doc."

The words are laced with charm, but it fades from him quickly when she doesn't smile back.

This is the last physical exam he'll receive before this evening. The last he'll receive of his life. The thought makes her sick to her stomach, so she pushes it out of her mind and takes out her clipboard and pen and tries to stick to the exam.

"How've you been feeling?" she asks him as she begins to jot down notes on the clipboard. "Your stomach okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says easily, but with a shaky breath out that belies the flippant words. "All better."

He's moody, alternately chirpy and soft-spoken, but bizarrely responsive throughout her questions and tests, which she didn't really expect from him, especially today. It's easy, for a while at least, to pretend that this is a normal day, but there's a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach that grows with each question, each test she goes over with him.

"Well," she sighs finally. "Mild food poisoning aside, you seem to be in pretty good health. Your blood pressure is a little high, but that's, um – that's understandable." She stumbles over the words and looks down uncomfortably.

He gives a short laugh and she looks back up at him. She knows she should say something else, but this is not a scenario they ever went over in med school, and this is the first time she's ever spoken to a dying man in nearly perfect health.

"I'm sorry," she settles on finally. Short, to the point, mildly condescending, but it's honest, and he seems like a decent enough person – for a murderer, she reminds herself – to not hold it against her. "I wish there was something else I could do."

The corner of his mouth tips up and he moves his feet to the floor, hands falling into his lap. "S'alright. Not much you can do. Anyway, I'm not really scared or anything. I'm pretty, you know, okay with things at this point."

She gives him a shrewd look. "That's not true, is it?" It's a statement, not a question, and he laughs again in response.

"No, not really." There's a long pause that makes her stomach hurt again, reminding her of the nauseous ache she couldn't seem to get rid of in the days following her mother's death.

"Just, you know, uh… not knowing what's gonna happen in a few hours. After, I mean."

Her brow furrows and he tries to clarify.

"Weird to think I won't be here tomorrow." His voice breaks a bit at the end of the sentence and she's briefly afraid that he might start crying – she has no idea how she would react to that, and she wonders at how easily he's sharing this with her. But he goes on steadily. "I'm… I don't know what's going to happen, where… what happens to you when you die, that's…" He shakes his head and trails off.

Sara doesn't always hate her job, but some days she wishes she'd gone to veterinary school.

"Been thinking about suicide bombers a lot the past couple days."

She cocks her head back, shocked at the non sequitur and, frankly, rather bizarre statement. "I'm sorry?" she asks, confused.

He laughs briefly but with little mirth. "Yeah, I know, that sounds really screwed up, huh? But it's these guys. They just wake up one day, have breakfast, go out and… blow themselves up. They wake up knowing that it's gonna be their last day alive. I don't get that, you know?"

She nods, starting to understand what he's getting at now, though in a rather strange way. Regardless, she's glad he's talking and hopes he'll continue – he's the first inmate to talk to her sincerely in… ever? Certainly for a long time, at least, and while she's vaguely aware that he's probably talking more to talk, that his diatribe has little to do with her personally, she's happy – relatively speaking – to be able to do something for him, even if it's just sitting here with him for a while.

"I read this story in the paper once, 'bout these two guys in… Iraq or… I don't know, one of those places over there. These guys, they just went to a café, sat outside and drank tea, talked for like an hour or something. Then one of 'um gets up walks down the street, blows himself up."

It's a startling story, and it scares her a little bit that this is what the man is thinking about so close to his execution.

"And I keep thinking about that… about this guy, sitting there talking… drinking tea… knowing that he's about to die. "I mean, how'd he do that? Just…" And he trails off again, looking a little lost in the thought.

"From what I understand," she says. "These people have very strong beliefs about… religion, the afterlife…"

This breaks him out of his daze and he turns to look at her again with wide eyes, as if excited by her understanding. "Yeah, yeah. That's what I… I mean, to have that kind of… absolute faith in something, in God and heaven – or, you know, whatever they call life after death… to just know for certain what's coming after you die, I wish I had that."

She nods hesitantly and he quickly clarifies. "I mean, you know, I don't like what they do, terrorists, that's just…" He shakes his head while he searches for the word and can't come up with anything more articulate than, "…evil. Horrible, awful, I don't…" It almost makes her laugh, listening to a convicted murderer speak as if he's afraid she'll think him a terrorist. But, she supposes, they are very different acts with different intentions even, and she guesses that's probably not how he'd like to be remembered, even though he'll still be remembered for killing someone.

"But I almost wish that I had that same faith, that I knew for certain what would… what's coming after. It'd make some of this thing a lot less… scary," he finally says, his face falling a bit before he shrugs off the despondent look and tries to replace the charm. "Don't tell anyone I said that," he warns with a half-smile.

"What, that you're scared of dying?"

"Yeah," he chuckles dejectedly.

"Do you believe in any of that?" she asks. "'God and heaven or whatever'?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I do. Haven't gone to church regularly since I was a kid, before I got in here, before I knew what was gonna happen. Been going to services, talking to the chaplin a lot, and it… helps some, thinking about things – things I've done in my life, having someone say… it's okay, I'm forgiven – that God forgives me and will take care of me. Makes it seem a little less…" The sentence fades away into the stale air between them, but she knows what he means and it makes her heart hurt a little bit.

It makes her wonder what her mother would've said or thought about if she'd known her death was coming. Her mother was a very different person from this man – in so many ways, not the least of which is the fact that she never killed anyone, save one of Sara's goldfish when she was six, but that was purely accidental. She wonders if her mother would've prayed, talked to God, asked for forgiveness for anything she did wrong in her life. They were told that she died immediately, so Sara knows that she shouldn't assume that her mother had any idea what was about to happen. But the knowledge doesn't stop her from wondering about her mother's last moments – did she see the other car coming just before it slammed into her own? Did she realize that these were her last moments of life? Was she scared? It occurs to Sara that she doesn't even know if her mother believed in God, as their family was never particularly religious, and now she wonders if her mother was more scared of the car coming straight for her, or what might happen after it ripped her body apart.

She tries not to tear up, but the subject in front of her is just as hard to face as thoughts of her mother. Lincoln moves to brace an arm on the bed and Sara notices the broken rosary lying next to his hand.

"What happened there?" She nods to the rosary and he looks down at it for a moment before picking it up to turn the crucifix over in his hands, chewing on the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, my brother gave it to me. I must've… dropped it or something…"

She can't help but smile at that. "You know, he doesn't really strike me as the religious type for some reason." She hates that she still – and so obviously – is fishing for information about the younger brother, but when the opportunity is presented so conveniently in front of her, with only one small statement necessary for more, it's hard not to give in to her ridiculous addiction to Michael and give a tiny push. After all, she tells herself in the midst of alternately berating her weakness when it comes to Michael and trying to assuage her guilt over vaguely using Lincoln during his last hours, she's glad he's been so open with her and wants him to keep talking.

"He's not," Lincoln agrees, nodding. "I think he thought it'd…" With a sad smile that she doesn't understand, he takes a long pause, apparently searching for words. "…Make me feel better, I guess."

The smile quickly fades and his mouth settles into a frown as his eyes turn to the floor. He continues after another long pause, speaking slowly like he's thinking around the words. "Yeah, he was never much into any of that. Stopped going to church after my mom died."

"You think he… lost his faith after your mother died?"

He shrugs and cocks his head to the side. "Don't know really. Maybe. I always figured it was just 'cause she wasn't there anymore to make him go. But maybe he stopped 'cause she died, I don't know… I asked him once, a little while after, if he believed in God. He said no, he has faith in people, not an abstract idea."

Sara tries to hide the smile that's forcing it's way to her lips.

"I don't know why I remember that," Lincoln says quietly. "He says a lot of stupid shit that I don't even think about. Don't know why that one stuck with me."

"That makes sense, though, I guess, for someone like him."

He blinks at her and asks, "'Someone like him'?"

"He seems – from what I know of him – seems like an optimistic kind of person. Talked to me once again having faith. But he also seems like someone with… very concrete thinking, like he'd need proof of things to believe. It just struck me as interesting, especially considering – considering…"

He nods, regarding her for a moment, and then says, "Guess so. I'm worried, though, 'bout what this'll do to him. If he'll be okay after. He's been…" He shakes his head and trails off, his eyes wandering around the room looking lost once again.

"He was there when my mom died. In the room with her." She's once again surprised by his non sequitur but he doesn't notice it and keeps speaking, gesturing with one of his hands as he does.

"She was in the hospital the last few days. We knew it was coming, but we thought it'd be a few more weeks, a month maybe. This one afternoon I went out for a smoke."

She raises her eyebrows at this, eyes wide despite her best efforts to remain nonjudgmental. He looks at her and laughs.

"Yeah, I know. I started my… self-destructive ways pretty early."

That's much more self-aware than she expected from a man like him, one who seems to act quickly and without much thought, from what she's heard of him. There's such a strange division between the things he's done – robbery, drugs, assault, murder – and the generally quiet, sad demeanor he holds when she speaks to him. But, she supposes, he's had little to do in here for the last few years, and the last few months leading up to his execution date especially, besides sit and think. And she remembers a conversation with Michael that seems like so long ago now. My brother said that fear isn't real, it's just…air, not even that… It was strange, when she first met Lincoln, to think that such a violent man could be so quiet and reflective, but now she's starting to think that it's strange that such a quiet and reflective man could be so violent.

"So I left Michael there with my mom," Lincoln continues, oblivious to Sara's conflicting opinions of him. "I'm gone maybe… twenty minutes, half-hour. I come back, and… She's just lying there, eyes closed. Looked like she was sleeping, almost, 'cept that heart monitor thing was doing that one long beeeeeeep."

She's starting to feel nauseous again, and suddenly doesn't want to hear any more, almost wishes he would stop talking altogether. She feels guilty, like she's intruding on a private moment and shouldn't be listening to such a personal story, especially as he's not even looking at her anymore; he looks like he doesn't even notice she's still there in front of him, that he's revealing such a story to a near stranger. She knows the reason he's still talking is because she asked him to, pressed him ever so slightly about Michael, and it makes her feel even worse, knowing that she's still hopelessly entangled with the younger brother, with both of them now in fact, in a way she swore to herself she wouldn't be.

"Guess it'd just happened, 'cause no one'd come in yet," Lincoln continues, eyes narrow. He draws his knees up on the bed again and rests his folded arms across them, looking almost defensive as he relates the rest of what must be a painful memory. "But Michael, he's just sitting there, curled up in a chair with his head on the bed next to her. Wasn't crying or anything, just… sitting there, holding her hand." He takes a long pause and she thinks of the phone call from her father on that sunny afternoon, how his voice broke in a way she'd never heard from him before when he said Mom was in an accident…

"He looked so small. He never looked that small before."

Images form in her mind of little-boy Michael, borne out her quiet experiences with him, when he speaks softly, his voice thick and eyes steady. It reminds her of the day he was brought into the infirmary down two toes, looking scared and lost and, for a moment, every bit a small beaten up kid on the playground, and she can picture a small boy clinging to his mother quietly as she died. She wonders what it'll be like for him to go through it again; trying to hold onto someone he loves when there's nothing he can do but watch him die.

"He's a strong guy," she says, speaking as much to herself as Lincoln, trying to calm her own fears along with those she's sure he's feeling.

"Yeah," Lincoln nods. "You wouldn't really know it to look at him, but he's, you know… he's been through a lot of shit, from a lot of people. Including me. And he's smart, so smart, been smarter than me since he was twelve. But that's not much of a feat," he says, and chuckles at his own joke. She smiles as well, happy to see the genuine laughter and pride from him.

His smile changes after a moment to a grin that shows off most of his teeth, while his eyes narrow.

"Why're you so interested in my brother, anyway?" he asks with a suspiciousness to his expression that he doesn't try to hide.

She looks up at him sharply, alarmed, feeling suddenly caught but hoping it doesn't show. "What? No, I'm not – "

"Yeah, you are," he cuts her off before she can fully deny it. "You've asked me about him before, too. What's got you so interested in 'im, huh?" He raises an eyebrow at her in mock reproach and she knows it's all over, she might as well confess.

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "I'm trying to distance myself from him, not get too… involved, but there's something about him…"

"It's the eyes, right?" He smiles knowingly and she blushes, rolling her eyes in an effort to hide it. "They're killers, those things. I don't think he's ever noticed it, but girls just love 'um."

She laughs, though part of her wishes she could crawl into a hole and die. "I'm not sure I can see that, actually. He's always trying to lay on the charm with me – I'm not even sure he means any of it, or if it's just because I'm one of the only women around."

"Really?" Lincoln seems genuinely surprised by this. "Huh. Don't worry, though, I think he likes you too."

She has to look away from him now and hates herself for the smile that she's hopeless to bury. "I think he'd be mortified to hear you say that."

"Eh, s'alright," he says with a shrug and a wave of his hand. "He's used to it. And I won't be around much longer for him to bitch at anyway, so…"

He's still smiling, but the statement sobers her immediately, throwing her violently back into the moment as she realizes how ridiculous this conversation has become under the circumstances. She's amazed at how easily the murderer in front of her who's going to be killed in a few hours is able to vacillate between morbid and depressed to light, almost youthful, telling her he likes you too as if they're in junior high and he's playing matchmaker for his little brother. She wonders again at the multiple personalities both men seem to possess.

She brings the conversation back to the original topic and says simply, no longer smiling, "I just want to understand him."

"But why him?" Lincoln asks and, while a valid question, one she's asked herself several times before, she's not sure how to answer it. "There's tons of guys in here, why so focused on him?"

She's looking him in the eye, and he seems more speculative now than curious, with a hard stare more startling than even Michael's. He looks almost cautious, deep lines in his forehead now, like he's wary of her interest in his brother, concerned maybe that it's genuine attraction and not something that will hurt Michael or be used against him.

She shrugs, not sure how to respond and her tongue trips over the words as she tries to work out her thoughts. "I don't – he's not like… he saved my life. During the riot, he… he rescued me," she says, feeling faintly ridiculous for the Damsel-in-Distress-like words, but it's the truth.

"Really?" He looks surprised once again at hearing something from her about his brother. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and he beams at her, the caution fading from him instantly.

"I was… stuck in the infirmary. He came and found me."

She doesn't elaborate, hates even thinking about it most of the time, and that's all he really needs to know anyway about how close she came to being raped and probably killed.

"Most of the other men in this place… maybe all of them, they'd have left me there, or – but he didn't. There's that and there's… he says things to me sometimes that just don't mesh with this place, with what he's done. He acts like two different people sometimes. I want to understand that."

And that's the best she can do to explain it.

"He never told me that," Lincoln says, a mixture of pride and fascination in his widened eyes and tilted head. "Believe it or not, that's probably closer to the real Michael than you realize – trying to help you and all."

She wants to believe that, and she did at one point. But then he lied to her, and he pushed her away when she tried to help, and she found out he was married, and things changed between them. She's learned more about Michael in the past 30 minutes from his brother than in more than a month of daily meetings with him, and that makes it hard for her to trust him.

"He's always been like that, and I really don't get him sometimes," Lincoln continues. "He's always… there was this one time when we were kids, I think he was seven or eight or something, and we're walking home from school. We're stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, when he suddenly just takes off across the street." He slaps his hands together for emphasis and the sound echoes through the dark cell.

"Turns out he saw a damn stray cat hiding by some parked cars across the street, was afraid it'd get hurt. So he just ran out there, dodging cars and stuff. Like he didn't think they'd touch him. Either that of he didn't care. God, I kicked his ass so hard for that," he finishes with a short laugh.

"What happened to the cat?" She asks with a smile.

Lincoln shrugs a shoulder. "He insisted we take the ratty little thing home, the brat." Looking away, he scratches his chin and his voice slows. "It was pretty sick, though. Died a few weeks later."

Sara's not sure why something that happened decades ago should make her feel so… sad. But the haunted look that crosses Lincoln's face as he closes his eyes and leans his head back onto one of his hands brings the pain back to her stomach, and it's like she's watching him fade away right here before her eyes.

"Sorry," he mumbles without opening his eyes. "Don't know why I keep… babbling about all these stupid old stories and shit. I know you've got other stuff to do than sit around here."

He's slipped back into a tense despondency; she can see the muscles in his forearms tightening slowly, one of his thumbs absently tapping against his knee, and all of her years of medical and counseling training suddenly seem completely inadequate. She wonders, for about the millionth time today, if her father has been right all along about this job, if this is really worth it – if she'll ever be able to do anything here that means something, help anyone more than just physically. She can't think of what to say to him that won't sound like complete bullshit, like a vain attempt at reassurance that will probably come off sounding completely hollow because, really, what is there to say to a man with a handful of hours left that will make things any better?

But before she can open her mouth to try, he says, eyes opening slowly, "It's just all these things, these… memories, thoughts, old stories about me, my brother, my son, my mom… things that happened, whatever." He shakes his head, eyes staring at the floor but not really focused on anything. His pupils are as wide as saucers in the dim light of the cell, darkening the whole eyes, so different from Michael's strikingly bright ones, and she wonders how two brothers can look so alike, yet so different at the same time.

"All these things in my head, these memories I have, it's weird… scary," he admits, breathing the word out intensely. "To think that they'll all just be… gone in a few hours. Almost worse than worrying about what's going to happen to me after I die, I think – everything that's happened, everything I think about and remember, it'll all be gone soon, no one'll… no one'll remember them."

It's the first time since they've been talking that either of them has actually said out loud that he's about to die, like they've both been afraid to actually say the words until they roll off his tongue, but that's what's coming - death, dead, die, dying, death… He'll be dead in a few hours, and it just makes her furious at how pointless it is.

"I can stay, talk some more if you'd like to. I don't have anything else important this afternoon." It's a lie, she has several things to do, including a couple of appointments, and she's supposed to be back in the infirmary in a few minutes. But the paperwork can wait, there are others around to cover appointments, and she knows they'll call her if she's needed. "I'll remember for you."

He laughs quietly and scrubs at his face with the hand that had been on his head, and she feels stupid for the cheesy words until he launches softly into a random story about his son, laughing sadly the whole time and not meeting her eyes, voice breaking at points, but talking, and at least that's something she can do for him.