Hi, everyone,

first off, I'd like to thank you for liking the last chapter :) I think it is one of the best things I have ever written and I am super proud of it, but I didn't think people would like it that much because of the subject matter :)

a few responses to those who reviewed -

Elena - they are good-looking, aren't they? ;) I'm happy to hear that the emotions resonated with you. Jane - emptiness was exactly what I was going for! So glad it came through! Sibongile725 - wow, then it must have been a really good chapter. One of the biggest compliments I have gotten, thank you. Sarascofield72 - tell that to my professors :) to the anonymous reviewer - thank you :) :) would you believe I wrote that sentence at 4am and my blurry eyes didn't find it remarkable at all?

Anyway, so this chapter concludes the first part of the story. It is a bit sad, a bit cute. I hope you'll like the end, haha.

Enjoy, thanks for reading, and please review :)

much love, winter.

Sandcastles

Chapter Six

It took Lincoln over a week to trust himself enough to meet up with his brother and be confidently sure he wouldn't flip out. Luckily for him, Michael had flown to Boston almost immediately after breaking up with Jessica to oversee the start of the construction of the building he had designed. Lincoln had seen those plans and they were so intricate that he fully believed his brother should stay there another week, just to make sure that the contractors knew what they were doing and that Lincoln's anger completely dissolved.

"Uncle Mike is coming home today," LJ had reminded him in the morning, as if he could forget. The date was burned in his brain with horror. Because as long as Michael was in Boston and they communicated with short texts of acknowledgements, he could reread those few words (he was never big on texting anyway) and be reasonably sure they were as neutral as he could make them. Once they'd be in the same room together, and he'd stare at those obdurate eyes of his brother's, well, losing it wasn't an impossible contingency.

"Are you gonna go see him?" LJ asked, and Lincoln wished his son wanted their upscale place to himself for the day to bring over a girl. He knew better, though. In his opinion, LJ was spending way too much time with people who thought the past should be dissected and mulled over and fucking never buried. He had never given the permission neither to his son nor to the agent (he refused to even acknowledge her surname these days), but they were meeting behind his back anyway. There could not possibly be any other reason why LJ, too, spoke about Sara as if he expected her to drop by at their party for the Fourth of July.

He really had gone to his brother's with the best of intentions, Lincoln later mused, sitting under the sun of Panama, so unbelievably hot it made him long for the bitter winter of New York. It was a struggle to find the sound of the ocean pleasing when there was a maelstrom of the language he didn't speak all about him and the fucking sand irritated his skin. Nothing, absolutely nothing about Panama was as he had imagined it to be. If this was comeuppance, though, he would bear it. Because a return to New York was out of the question. He was done with that shit.

He waited for Michael in front of his building, every second fighting an urge to smoke. But when his brother finally showed up, he did think for a handful of minutes that it would be fine. Even as he walked through his apartment to the living room and turned on the TV, he was fairly confident. Sure, the walls were no longer adorned with framed photographs of promises of what life could offer if you kept an open mind. And, yeah, the shelves were filled with books so symmetrically as if someone sacrificed an afternoon making sure they were somehow both alphabetized and sorted by the height, and there were no orange pillows on the couch anymore to fall back onto and to love for chasing a bit of the greyness away. Lincoln could even deal with the two coasters his brother laid on the brand new coffee table in front of the television. When he later recalled his last day in New York (which of course he never did, just as he had promised to himself when the elevator stifled his son's sobs), he always concluded that everything started off fine – as fine as the rapport between two brothers who were both fucking broken, each in their distinct yet identical way, could be.

The game was in its last quarter, and Lincoln's favorite team was winning, and the beer was refreshingly chilled, and he was feeling foolish for having worried so much, and then he descried it.

At first he thought his eyes had only caught a shadow at an odd angle. Then his favorite player scored, and he kept staring at it because it was so small and his brain refused to compute it.

Michael was aware of the stare directed at his hand; Lincoln could always tell when his little brother was intentionally looking away, following the players' actions as though it was the finals and he was the staunchest fan. He was never that into basketball anyway.

That was the trigger, he later decided. Michael's blatant pretending that it had always been there and that it was a fucking normal thing to have.

"What the fuck is that?" Lincoln reached for his brother's hand before he could stop himself. Apparently, Michael had been expecting such a reaction, as he pulled his hand back. Of course he would, Lincoln thought. He was a fucking genius. A fucking delusional maniac. They always said there was a fine line between brilliancy and lunacy.

"Just watch the game, Linc," Michael sighed, and his voice was so forcefully devoid of reaction to what had just transpired that it inevitably infuriated Lincoln more.

Lincoln had liked Jessica. She was pretty, chatty, smart, and kind. Of course he never thought that his brother felt some sort of grand love for the woman, but Lincoln had had his heart broken enough times to know that the great passions didn't mix well with reality. A relationship built on affection, respect, and companionship was something he came to wish both for himself and for his brother. Nothing too wild; something containable, something to be there, every day, in just the right amount to keep you grounded. Jessica was such a safe, perfect choice that Lincoln couldn't have made her up even if he had tried. She had that habit of always looking forward without much regard for what was no more, and, fuck, that was something Michael needed. Someone to get him out of his head, to get him moving forward.

And he had thrown it away and marked himself with even more binds of what would never be again. Lincoln couldn't stand looking at it; just knowing that it existed, so profound yet meager, sent his mind into a frenzied spiral. The ink Michael had spent on him was so much vaster than it that Lincoln could not suffocate the nagging reminder that he was the one causing his little brother all this pain.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Michael, breaking up with her?"

"I'm trying, Linc," Michael said, his eyes still on the television. It was less than two minutes left of the game and their favorites were winning, but neither of them cared.

"No, you're not. You're giving up."

"I love her, Linc. And that's why she's dead. If you're so smart, why don't you tell me how I'm supposed to just deal with that?"

That was when he snapped. The use of present tense had nothing to do with it. Later on, Lincoln wasn't even sure anymore whether Michael had used it.

"Wake up, man! It's been five years! She is never coming back. You can't save her and there's nothing noble in your insistence that you can! You gotta move on."

"Not like that."

The motherfucker had resolved to have his left hand hold a woman who was no longer alive to feel the touch, Lincoln realized. He wished he could just entertain the thought of never having a woman again, of never being so captivated by one he'd act out just so that she wouldn't see how hopeless he was around her. He wished he could be as loyal to Veronica, a woman who had given her life for his freedom; the thoughts of his first love had lately been replaced by images of another woman, one who had no place in his head and absolutely not in his heart, and their persistence and his inability to combat them maddened him.

But Lincoln would of course never admit any of this to himself.

"I'm not gonna watch you destroy yourself, Michael," he said and got up. He stormed past the coffee table and the half-empty beer bottles, and there were cheerleaders on screen and he wished he could watch them and appreciate them, and god, he wanted to talk to her and he hated the grip she had on him and how nonchalant she appeared to be about it whereas it was driving him crazy.

"Don't act like you are doing any better than me, Linc," Michael said. He should have kept walking, Lincoln scolded himself afterward. He could never decide whether turning on his heels made him a good brother or the shittiest one.

"What?"

"There's a woman you can't stop thinking about. And you pushed her away because she's not Veronica."

"Don't you dare talk about her like that," Lincoln hissed.

"Which one?"

"Veronica died trying to clear my…"

"So did Sara. How do you feel when someone throws it into your face that you should just move on, huh?"

Lincoln knew which one Michael had meant. As soon as he thought of her, everything he tried to erase from his mind gleefully returned. There they were again, her outrageous nails, the offensive smell of her hair, the overwhelming grace bestowed upon him, the man who destroyed everyone he ever dared to care about.

He should have called her after Morenci. Fuck, he should have taken her out before the bottles they had cracked impaired his decency. He was about to call her every day before and since then, but sitting with his phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, just to prove she had no reign over him, nah, the almost didn't count.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Michael still pressed.

No, that was the real trigger. They were never this honest with each other. Maybe that was why they were so broken. He didn't want to find out, and fuck Michael for wanting to change it.

"Except that you don't love Sara. At least not in the way you are trying to get across." He should have stopped there. He knew it later when the blazing sun and mosquitoes buzzing around his head made everything so fucking simple in retrospect. But he had certainly known it then, too. "You martyr her because it's easiest to deal with it. Boy loses girl. Way simpler than grieving Westmoreland, Tweener…"

She had put it in such fancier terms. What had she said again, something about representation? What the fuck did he know about representation? All he knew was that speaking her words from memory was the only way he could be close to her these days.

As the game on the TV resumed, Michael stood up, and the next thing Lincoln was fully aware of was an aching feeling splashed across his lips. He tried to swing back, because he was Linc the Sink and his brother was planning nerd, but Michael pinned him against the wall with strength and ease that would have filled Lincoln with pride any other day, just not today. Today they intimidated him.

"You say that again and I swear to God," Michael hissed, and the hand around Lincoln's neck squeezed a bit tighter, just to prove he wasn't kidding. Lincoln didn't try to fight him off, then.

Michael let go of him as swiftly as he had taken hold. He took a couple of steps back, ran his hand over the bowed head, and Lincoln knew he was about to apologize. And there was no way in hell Lincoln was going to hear it. If there was anything he ever tried to teach his little brother, besides the origami crane, was that you never apologize for fighting when you are in the right.

He jumped forward, grabbed his brother by the shoulder and forced him to turn before launching a blow that smeared Michael's face with blood. Soon there was that familiar taste of blood in his mouth as well. It didn't stop him; he kept throwing punches, hitting Michael and hitting himself back into the evasive reason. Then one of them got caught on the weak leg and lost balance under the full weight of the other, and they fell back in unison, right onto the coffee table, breaking it. The game must have just ended, for there was clapping and cheering emitting from the television and the announcer was running out of superlatives for what he had just witnessed on court.

LJ got home two hours later. He must have gone over to his uncle's, to watch another game with his dad and uncle or something, for he knew. He didn't glance around their living room, where two bags packed with Lincoln's belongings were placed on the couch, boarding passes next to them. His eyes went straight to his dad, and the exasperated look should have alarmed Lincoln, but he was in anything but a normal state of mind.

"You hit Uncle Mike?" LJ said.

"Just so you know, he hit me first," Lincoln said, and his sore lips didn't impede his speech. Whatever he was on, it gave strength as effectively as it was making him irrational. It wasn't that he wasn't fully aware, that he was just a mere observer as his mouth was roaming. He soberly believed he was doing the right thing, yet simultaneously knew what a fucking asshole he was being.

"Oh, real mature, dad. You are always giving people reasons to hit you!"

"Pack your bags, LJ, we're leaving," Lincoln said, grabbing the boarding passes and handing them to LJ, who jumped back as if they were red-hot steel.

"What? No way. I'm not leaving New York to go to …. Panama?! Really? You're crazy! Why can't you …"

"Fine, then stay here. Rent's paid for the year. Or go live with your uncle."

Lincoln let go of the boarding passes with his son's name on them, and they fell onto the carpeted floor, slowly as if they were feathers, as though they were waiting for someone to intercept their descent. But neither did. Now LJ was in disbelief, his mouth agape as he watched his father pick up the two bags and walk straight to the door.

"You can't go, dad," LJ tried to reason with him. "You and Uncle Mike are the only family I have left."

But Lincoln was no longer inside the same walls. He had opened the front door and was walking down the hall towards the elevators. For the first time he was living in a building with elevators and was able to afford it, it suddenly struck him. How ironic that this was also the first apartment he vacated voluntarily. Perhaps the glory of money was really nothing but froth.

LJ came running after him.

"What the fuck, dad? Uncle Mike loved Sara yesterday, or last week, just as much as he loves her today, and you didn't find it impossible to be around him. Is this because of the tattoo? Dad! Dad! Where are you going?"

Lincoln didn't respond, only sped up his steps as his son was screaming after him. What could he possibly say to him? That he was ashamed, not just because of the punches he had incited Michael to throw at him? That he couldn't be around his uncle because his resolve to mourn abashed him, for Lincoln had no idea how to start dealing with his own remorse? That he had been free for a bit over a year now, yet had fucked it all up again, without even having applied himself? All he knew was that he needed to get the fuck out, for his sake as much as for his family's.

LJ's desperate screams, now wetted with tears, got some of the doors open. Someone was asking if they should call the police. Lincoln's battered face had to be the only answer they needed, for they shut the door almost immediately.

An elderly lady stepped out of one of the apartments and embraced LJ, who leaned onto her as sobs were convulsing his body. Somehow he managed to yell after his father again, and this time Lincoln almost smartened up. But being a good father meant being a good brother, a good man, as well, and he was just tired. So with anguish piercing through him, he kept his stomps unbothered, like a child.

The elevator door opened, and Lincoln stepped in. He pressed the button for the ground floor and turned around to face his son one last time. The weight of the bags on his shoulders could trick him into believing he was the richest man in the world, carrying around the enviable valuables.

"He gave up everything for you," LJ wept, and Lincoln had never before felt so worthless.

"I didn't ask him to do what he did," he said the wrong thing again; this time, on purpose. LJ would be better off without him around anyway. What did he know about picking colleges or volunteering abroad? All he knew was how to bring people down and his only skill was demonstrating it again and again.

"They were gonna kill you, dad."

"Well, maybe he should have let them," Lincoln said just before the elevator door closed.

On a Wednesday, the FBI announced the capture of a serial killer who murdered at least seven young women in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. They held a press conference, showed enlarged photographs of victims – Linda Alexander was one of them – and told the details of what had led to the arrest. They left out, of course, that the murderous pattern had been spotted by one specific individual. He, after all, had asked not to be mentioned when they offered him a job.

On Monday, Agent Abigail Spencer was informed that the Scofield/Burrows case was officially closed and that she was to be transferred to Oregon.

She waited until Friday evening to tell Michael.

"I'm so sorry, Michael," she said. "But there hasn't been anything for over five years. My bosses think resources would be better spent elsewhere, so, yeah."

They were seated in his living room, as there was no one to hide from anymore behind the shut door of the office. This was undoubtedly a place of a man who had spent too much time in enclosed spaces, she thought. There were drapes on the floor-to-ceiling windows, but they were undrawn and dark blue rather than still orange. It was nighttime already, and she could see the sanguine lights of New York. Maybe that was why he insisted on having such majestic windows and the unobstructed view. He wanted the light of freedom to reach every cranny of his apartment. Perhaps this was as okay as he would ever get.

Michael shook his head, only once. He had known that the case would eventually close. If anything, it surprised him that it hadn't happened sooner. There was nothing more anyone could do. They had survived. Now it was about the continuance of their existence. Not that long ago he had thought he would never get that much.

"Are they transferring you?"

"Yes. I got promoted believe it or not."

"I don't find it at all surprising. Congratulations."

The word left a sour taste in her mouth, just like the celebratory blueberry pie her father had baked for her when he heard the news. He was always giving her those damned blueberry pies. It must be the only thing he knew how to bake, she had eventually decided.

"I still feel like I failed you," she admitted.

Michael looked down on the stainless carpet with a decoy smile he didn't even hope would trick her.

"I've come to realize that remembering her must be enough for me," he said. For a man so reliant on being in control, she couldn't imagine the strength it had taken for him to let go.

There wasn't anything left to say, and her protracted stay would do neither any good. He walked her to the door and surprised her when he pulled her into an embrace. As he held her, he thanked her. He told her she had done more for him than anyone, and that it was probably more than she should have. There was nothing more anyone could do, he repeated, and she acquiesced with a swift nod, hoping he didn't see the vibrant lights reflected in her teary eyes. Frankly, she would be lying if she claimed that anything about their goodbye made her suspect there would ever be a reason for knocking on his door again.

As Abigail was leaving the apartment in New York, a little boy was waking up in Lille, Northern France. They had forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, and now, blinded by the strip of the early morning sun, he had to squint. His wristwatch, the one he never took off (he made sure it was waterproof when he had left "Santa" a very detailed description of exactly what he wanted for Christmas) and the one mom swore was just like the one his dad liked to wear, said it was barely past six.

It would be hours before mom would wake up. She was always horrible in the mornings. He, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get up. There was so much to do every day, so many new things to discover that his mind was buzzing and rendered it impossible to sleep.

Mom said that was just one more thing he got from his dad. Sometimes she joked that the only thing he got from her was her love for kale, but even that he would very likely soon outgrow. As happy as he was to be like dad, he sometimes wished he was a little bit more like mom. Like when they were doing the puzzle together, and he could put together the frame before mom would pick out the edge pieces from the pile. Afterward she'd stare at him with a look that made him think not everything he had gotten from his dad was a good thing.

Mom's dark hair was draped over his tiny shoulder. Careful not to wake up, he wriggled out of her arms, then tiptoed to the window and drew the curtain. Now that his eyes – their hue matched his dad's perfectly – were used to the bright light, he could see that the cloudless sky carried a promised of a lovely day.

On his way to the kitchen he stopped at his bed (he did have his own bed, though most nights he just slept next to mom. The bedspread was carefully chosen – it was an American flag. For although they lived in France, mom always said they were Americans. Even though she kept telling people they were from Canada). He fished for his favorite book underneath the sheets, then went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and poured himself some milk. He could make himself cereals, but it was Saturday and mom didn't have to hurry off to work and could make him pancakes later.

Mom had such a funny way of talking about his dad. She could talk for a long time, yet somehow always chose words that didn't really tell him much. But she had told him plenty of times that his dad loved Baja. And Thailand. And Panama, of course. He knew that it had been originally planned that he would grow up there, with both mom and dad. But then his dad died and mom went to France, to Aunt Geraldine.

Mom didn't know why dad had chosen Panama (or maybe she did, but just didn't want to tell him. He knew there were many things about his dad he was still too young to know. You are a very smart boy, mom would say, but you don't need to know everything right now. It was kind of like the whole deal with Santa – they both still pretended that the letters he addressed to Santa didn't end up in mom's hands. It made mom happy, and he was certain that dad would want him to make mom happy.). But it was clear to him that dad must have liked it for some reason. And since he had never met his dad and never would, getting to know as much about Panama was one way to feel close to him. So he perused books about Panama. His own library of travel guides had three such guides; there were only more books about America. But the USA was so much bigger than Panama (and he was American) that it seemed fair.

He did know what his dad looked like, of course. There were pictures. Not many of them, but its scarcity only made them that much more precious. It was because of the photographs that he knew he looked exactly like his dad. Except for the hair. Dad had shaved his head. Mom said he was too young to be sporting a haircut like that, so he wore beanies as often as he could, careful to tuck all his hair underneath it.

He never showed the photographs to anyone, not even to his big sister, even though he told her everything (she wasn't his REAL sister, of course. But she had lived across the hall his whole life and was the closest he would ever come to having a sibling). Mom said it was very important that no one knew who his dad was. He wasn't allowed to tell dad's name – or mom's real name – to anyone. And since dad had died so that he could have his mom, he knew it was imperative to do as mom said.

When it was a quarter past eight, he decided it was time to wake mom up. He climbed onto the couch that folded out and wrapped his little arms around mom's neck, careful not to touch the scar on her arm.

"Mom," he whispered in her ear. "Wake up."

He had to repeat his words three times before mom finally opened her eyes. She looked at him for a few seconds, then shut her eyes again.

"Morning, baby. Breakfast, right."

"Mom, let's have breakfast in the park."

"You want to go to the park, baby?"

He nodded. He liked open spaces.

"And maybe zoo in the afternoon?" he suggested. They had annual tickets. They were Aunt Geraldine's Christmas gift. She knew how much he liked the zoo. It was like a microcosm of the world, almost every continent represented by animal species.

"If that's what you want," mom smiled, slowly lifting herself up. She gave him a kiss on the head and ruffled his hair, then looked at him with that mischievous look he knew not all moms had. "Let's race to the kitchen!"

And he laughed as his little feet ran on the parquet floor after mom. He caught up with her just before they reached the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around her waist and they entered the kitchen in the same manner they did everything. Together.

END OF PART ONE

To Be Continued.

broughttoyouby:::winter.