Title: The Tide
Rating: PG
Summary: The last day of Lincoln Burrows' life (Part 3 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, I have no idea what Louis the Not!Warden's name actually is, but the folks at seem to think it's Patterson, and IMDB agrees, so I went with that.

--

Sara stands in the back of the cell near Michael, who is also lingering near the door. She looks at him for a moment, hoping to catch his eye, but his hard gaze is fixed upon the floor, unmoving, so she turns her attention to Lincoln and his lawyer. The dark-haired woman, who's name she can't remember even though it's been in every newspaper over the past month – she stopped reading the news about the time that she found out that Michael and Lincoln are brothers – is hugging Lincoln, holding it together rather well for someone who, Sara's heard, used to be involved with the condemned man. There are a few whispered words between them and some tears escape the lawyer's eyes, and then Sara looks away, a vain attempt to give the pair some privacy in their final moments together.

Their final moments together is a bizarre and somewhat sickening thought, one that Sara has trouble taking in. She knows what's going to happen, but to see this man standing here, alive and breathing and speaking and living, and knowing that he won't be two hours from now is an idea that's almost too foreign and strange to grasp.

Her mother's death had been sudden and shocking and horrible, but they had no warning of it, obviously, so it was just… one day she was there, talking to Sara about job stress and making plans for Thanksgiving, and the next day she was gone. She'd had no chance to say goodbye, no chance to tell her mother how much she'd loved and appreciated her, because those are things you tend to take for granted, she'd realized later. Sara hadn't even said "I love you" the last time they spoke on the phone, and she hurts every time she thinks about that.

She's always had a hard time getting over the sudden loss of her mother, but standing here now, watching this small family saying their final words to each other, Michael's voice in her head, I can't touch him knowing it's the last time, she's not sure which is worse – loosing someone suddenly, without the opportunity to plan or say goodbye, or knowing what's coming and having to count on the exact moment when they are no longer in your life. Sara didn't have to agonize for months over the ending of her mothers life, had no idea that her family would be broken up before the next Christmas rolled around. She, at least, had been able to expect to see her mother the next day, to have a normal amount of hope for the future; Michael has none.

The lawyer is pulling away now, wiping a stray tear from her cheek, and wraps her arms tightly around her waist as she moves to stand back towards the edge of the room. Sara looks over to see Lincoln staring expectantly at Michael, but the younger man hasn't moved from his spot near the door, eyes still set on the floor.

"Michael," Lincoln says, trying to catch his brother's eye, but Michael makes no move to look up, and Sara notices his hands have clenched into fists. It hits her suddenly, Michael's casualness, his flippancy, his easy avoidance of all serious discussion surrounding his brother these past few weeks is not indicative of a disconcern for his brother, but of a desperate desire not to face the situation. But the casual façade, she can see, is slowly crumbling, particularly when Lincoln takes a step towards his brother and Michael shakes his head and backs away.

"Michael," Lincoln says again and keeps approaching the other man, backing him up against one of the cell walls. Lincoln reaches a hand out to Michael's shoulder and Michael bats it away quickly, still shaking his head, and makes an attempt to move away from him.

But Lincoln is twice the younger man's size, and easily blocks his escape, grabbing Michael hard by the shoulders and keeping hold of him despite his brother's struggles to push him away.

"No, no, no," Michael keeps mumbling, still refusing to meet his eyes. Sara's heart breaks a little as she tries not to watch this, knowing that she's watching Michael's heart breaking.

Michael continues to struggle against his brother, but Lincoln finally grabs him by the back of his head and pulls him forward, winding his arms around him and holds fast. After a moment Michael's arms follow, wrapping around Lincoln's shoulders, his hands fisting in the other man's sleeves. Michael lets out a shuddering, coughing breath and Lincoln replies with a hard sigh.

It occurs to Sara that this is the most frantic, emotional, raw she's ever seen Michael in their short acquaintance. Despite several injuries she's seen him through, he's always kept his cool, charming demeanor. Even after loosing two of his toes, crying and shaking and scared, he managed to keep hold of just enough control to keep secret the truth of that "accident." Lincoln, she realizes quite suddenly, although she knows it should've occurred to her much sooner, is a much more important part of Michael than his foot, and the loss of his brother is cutting him so much deeper than anything anyone could do to him physically. Even that morning he was quiet, out of touch, but calm. Now he's crashing.

Sara can see Michael's lips moving now, but it takes her a few moments to catch what he's saying.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says over and over into his brother's shoulder. Tears sit on the edge of his eyes but refuse to fall.

Lincoln shakes his head and pushes Michael a step away, far enough to look him in the eye but close enough to still hold onto his shoulders.

"Just shut up with that shit," he says firmly, shaking Michael a bit. "This was me, all me. My fault. I was there that night, I was gonna… I did this. Nothing to do with you, you understand?" He sounds almost angry, like he's reprimanding his younger brother, and she wonders, not for the first time, what it must have been like to grow up with a brother like Lincoln.

Michael raises his head to look Lincoln in the eye for the first time all evening and takes a deep breath in before nodding slightly.

Lincoln nods back, easing his grip on Michael's shoulders and continues speaking, gently now. "I just don't want you thinking you did something wrong, that any of this is your fault. I fucked up my life, I fucked things up – with you, with LJ…"

Sara bites her lip when the tears finally start to spill out of Michael's eyes. He makes no move to wipe them away, arms hanging limp at his sides, and one trickles down as far as his chin to drip onto his shirt, leaving a silvery trail along his cheek. She wants to touch him, hates seeing anyone with this kind of obvious, naked pain etched throughout them, but she knows he'd brush her off if she tried.

"I wish I'd…"

"Lincoln," Michael says, a rough edge to his voice reminding her of the cold tone he took when she questioned him after the riot. A tone of warning, almost.

Lincoln continues speaking as if he hasn't heard him. "I should've done better with you, should've taken better care of you." Michael's closed his eyes and she notices that Lincoln's not even really looking at him anymore, not touching him anymore, as if he's speaking more to himself than his brother. Michael's fidgeting again, looking uncomfortable and shaking his head, raising his hands to lock them around the back of his neck.

"She told me to take care of you, and I… I took off when things were hard, when Lisa got pregnant. I wasn't there when you needed me – Michael, I'm really sorry, I – "

"Stop it!" Michael barks, and Sara's so surprised that she blinks a few times and takes a step back. She's never seen him do that before, never even imagined that he could raise his voice. "Just stop it, it doesn't… I'm fine."

Lincoln seems to consider his brother for a moment before nodding. "Yeah."

No one says anything for a few minutes and Sara glances from the brothers to the lawyer, who stands with arms folded, looking at the ground with glassy eyes and chewing on her bottom lip, to Patterson in the corner rubbing his creased forehead and looking like he wants to be here just about as much as Sara does. She wonders when someone will say something, but it feels almost too tense in here to say anything at all. How do you put a lifetime's worth of words into 10 minutes?

The silence continues for a few more moments and Sara looks back over to see Lincoln grab onto one of Michael's shoulders again, his hand clenching so hard that the tips of fingers are turning white.

There's a beat before he asks tentatively, "You'll take care of LJ? You know, when…" and lets the sentence hang in the air.

Michael exhales audibly through the unshed tears framing his eyes and replies, "Yeah," on the end of his breath.

The older man nods and looks like he'd like to smile at that. "I need you to, uh… you know, look out for 'im. I don't want him to be like me."

"You took care of me. You did okay," Michael squeaks, his normally cool voice uncharacteristically wavering and small, laced with insecurity and fear and grief.

Lincoln's face breaks into a sardonic smile. "Liar."

Michael doesn't smile back. Time's running out, Sara can feel it tick, tick, ticking by, painfully ratcheting up the tension between the small, mostly silent group of people.

"I don't know how to do this," Michael says finally, voice cracking and looking completely lost as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

"I know," his brother replies. "Me neither. It's…"

Michael nods in reply and she marvels at how the two understand each other even without completing a sentence.

Lincoln drops his hand from Michael's shoulder and takes a step back, releasing a long breath that sounds much louder than it should in the heavy silence.

"Oh man," Lincoln says tightly, locking his hands behind the back of his head the way Michael did a few minutes ago. "I don't want to die."

Michael's in front of his brother instantly, arms thrown around him and holding on fiercely, and Sara guesses that there's not much else left to say or do at this point. They stand there and hold on wordlessly until the cell door creaks open and the Warden slowly walks in.

Sara sees him watching the brothers for a moment before he reluctantly says, "Lincoln," looking like he's hating himself. She understands the feeling.

She looks back to see Lincoln lower his arms, but Michael remains unmoving until Lincoln pushes his brother away none too gently. The younger man's hands ball into fists again and for a moment they continue to just stand there and stare at each other looking almost like they're fighting – and maybe they are, but not against each other.

"Tell LJ… tell LJ I love him," Lincoln says, starting to look sick. "And that I'm sorry. That he's a good kid and I'm proud of him and… well, tell him whatever, just, you know… Make sure he knows I love 'im." Michael nods furiously, eyes dry now, while the Warden tries to check his watch inconspicuously.

"Hey, you think she was scared?" Lincoln asks suddenly. "You know, towards the end, when she knew it was coming?"

Michael takes a moment and then answers, "No."

"Yeah. Me neither."

No one moves and the air feels tense and severe when the Warden says again, "Lincoln, it's time."

Lincoln nods and ducks his head as his hands start to shake. Sara can see with a glance that Bellick is pacing just outside the door and wonders fleetingly if Lincoln will fight his escort to the chair or walk to his death calmly.

"Hey, you know I love you, right?" Lincoln says to Michael in a rush, looking up to catch his brother's eye for the last time. Michael nods tightly.

"Love you, too."

"I, uh, I don't think I ever told you, but I wanna make sure you know that I'm, you know… I'm really proud of you. There's nothing you could do – ever – to change that." He reaches over to squeeze Michael's shoulder, as if punctuating his sentence, then steps back and that's it.

Michael opens his mouth to speak but seems to choke on the words, looking like he's about to break, and Bellick's stepping forward to replace the handcuffs on Lincoln's wrists, and the lawyer is weeping openly, and Michael's visibly shaking, mouth tight and eyes clenched shut, and Lincoln's being led away, out of this room and into that one, and Sara hates this. She takes one last look at Lincoln as he shuffles past her, out the door, sweat and tears beginning to streak down his face, and then the door slams shut behind him.

The small group that's left is completely immobile, mute, and Sara doesn't know what to do. Her throat is tight, like she's going to cry, and she feels weak, but maybe she shouldn't feel weak for getting teary at watching a man's last moments alive. Maybe it's okay to let a few tears go when you have to watch someone die. But one glance of the younger brother's tense form and she's completely ashamed and sniffs the tears back inside.

Michael has stopped shaking, but his hands are still tight fists and she can see that every other part of the man is rigid, probably every muscle is drawn tight, though it's hard to tell under the layers of t-shirt and button-down uniform. Sara sees the lawyer step towards him, the first motion in the room in more than a minute, and she wonders if the two of them are close. One hand is covering her mouth while the other reaches out to his arm, but before she can touch him Michael's arm flies up to push her hand away, as if he could feel the touch even before it came.

"Don't," he hisses and the lawyer takes a step back, looking shocked. The expression quickly dissolves into tears and Michael moves to lean his head against a wall on the other side of the room. Sara remembers a desperate, awful desire not to be touched, not to be comforted after her mother's death, one that soon transformed into a need to never let go of her father and sisters, and she suddenly understands Michael in a new way, in a way that she wishes she didn't.

Sara watches him release a shuddering breath, reminiscent of the one he made such a short time ago into his brother's shoulder after Lincoln had forced him into a hug. Except it's different because his brother's not here now.

Patterson clears his throat and the lawyer gives a loud snuffle, but no one else says anything while they stand and wait for what's coming. Sara tells herself that she would say something to Michael if she weren't so sure she'd be rebuffed, but if she's really honest with herself, she knows she probably wouldn't have the words anyway. But she'll try with him tomorrow, she thinks, when things have calmed down and there's a little more distance from these horrible last few moments and she doesn't have such an intense ache for her mother and such a queasy pain in her stomach. She can talk to him tomorrow. He'll be here tomorrow. Or maybe he won't be. Maybe he's already gone, like his brother.