Dear all,
I love you. Thank you for all your beautiful reviews, they make me so happy :)
This is another veeeery long chapter, but it is in sections, so just read as much as you feel like it in one sitting. I hope you like where it leads to.
As always, feel free to reach out with any questions/comments, either PM me here or get in touch on tumblr (link in bio)
I hope you like this as much as enjoyed writing it.
Please review,
much love, winter.
Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us
Chapter Nine
Five hours later, Bryce was feeling much better. Not yet okay, but better.
No bad guys had come when mom said her name aloud. No one had taken her away. Laura excused herself and disappeared through the door behind her, only to return a couple of minutes later with a man in a grey suit that was clearly trying to hide how perplexed he was. He led them upstairs, to a large office with a roundtable. There was a jug of juice on it and a box of both croissants and donuts. They smelled so nice and were still warm and it made Bryce feel a little bit hungry. Bad guys wouldn't give him food, right? But the circles under mom's eyes were still in stark contrast to her pale skin. He decided not to eat until mom would, too.
Every time they heard a sound of steps, mom squeezed his hand so hard it hurt a little. But nothing bad happened. A woman took mom's photograph while another distracted him with a bunch of T-shirts with American motives. He asked if they had any books about New York, and she gave him three different ones! He got a toothbrush and could finally clean his teeth, and mom looked a bit better after she washed her face and brushed her hair. They got to call Aunt Moni and Selena (she had woken up in time for school. But she told him that she had decided to stay home, as they were all idiots and there was only a week left before the summer break anyway). The day was really looking up at that point, but he knew better than to assume everything would be fine. He may be only five and a half years old, but he had witnessed himself how something promising can turn into a calamity in a blink of an eye.
Last year, Selena's father had parked his truck in front of their home. He had a chip he was very proud of and had brought Selena cake, presents and promises of a large house, and even though she had thrown the cake in the trash, refused to open the presents, she eventually asked if there would be a microwave in the house. Bryce didn't like the prospect of his sister moving out, and when he tried to picture his day without her, she kept popping up in his plans. But he was happy for her, for you were supposed to be happy when people you loved were happy, and he knew how ecstatic he would feel if one day a car would stop in that spot and his dad would step out.
Three days later, Selena's father found out that Aunt Moni sometimes spent a night at another man's house, and it enraged him so much that he hit her so hard Bryce's mom couldn't patch her up and she had to go to the hospital. Selena threw all the shoes he had bought her in his head, cursed him, cursed himself, and then the police came and put him in prison.
And Bryce still wasn't sure whether his dad was a good man or not.
The next person that came to him and mom was a man with a badge. He called himself an agent, and mom's face turned even pastier as she asked him not to do it in front of her son. Bryce didn't know what she meant by "it", but then the man took mom's fingerprints and not only let Bryce watch, but took his as well. Honestly, he couldn't understand why mom wouldn't want him to have his fingerprints taken, as it was fun.
Besides, Bryce knew that agents were a special kind of police officers. And should dad turn out to be a bad guy, he was certain agents would stop dad before he could hurt him or mom. Surely mom had to realize that as well? So while the idea of seeing dad still terrified him, he was sanguine enough to have a little faith again.
By all accounts, Lincoln Burrows was having a time of his life in Panama. He started his mornings just before the sunrise and headed for a run along the beach. On his way back, he stopped at his favorite bar and had his first beer of the day. He was usually joined by a pair of leggy blondes in a skimpy bikini. Some days he relented and put tanning oil on their backs before they handed to the beach, but most mornings he just kissed them both on a cheek before heading home. There he showered, put on one of the multicolored Hawaiian shirts he kept in his closet and got into his 1972 Vista Cruiser, which he had bought for a bargain unattainable in America. He drove five miles up the coast – the cruiser likely wouldn't take him much farther anyway – to a bar where a group of expats congregated every morning until early afternoon.
Tough guys like Lincoln didn't cook, of course. His fridge was always empty except for beer and ketchup, for despite living in Panama for over a year, he still hadn't found a pizzeria that used enough ketchup. If he had to name one thing he missed most about his life in America, it would be the pizzas.
His seafront house was the most expensive one in a twenty-mile radius, and he couldn't fill it with enough furniture to stop the echoes wherever he made a single step. The abundance of space, though, turned out to be a great excuse for hosting barbeques in the evenings. They were open door, and everyone was invited. Some nights he moved from beer to something much stronger and the next day could never remember why he ended up falling asleep on a beach, half buried in the sand. One time he returned to his house to discover that someone had snatched his brand new TV. He didn't bother reporting it to the police; he just went to the mall and bought a new one. He could afford it, after all. And he fucking deserved to be able to do so.
He hadn't opened a bar like he had told everyone he would years ago. There were more than enough good bars around his house anyway. A surf or diving shop also hadn't come to fruition, as he realized he had no fucking clue about neither. His only obligation these days was helping his elderly neighbor bring groceries to her house. Sometimes he helped people with repairs; he took off his V-neck shirt, and as the sun reflected off his sweaty, muscular chest, adorned with tattoos that captivated women and men alike, no one had any doubts. If there was ever a rock star, their name was Lincoln Burrows. He'd lie if he purported he disliked the attention. It had been years since he had last felt indomitable.
Lincoln Burrows was absolutely miserable in Panama, but of course he would never, ever admit that to anyone, let alone do something about it.
It was the day of the first World Cup semi-final, and he was to host a viewing party. He had stacked his freezer with meat, emptied the nearby store of beer, called everyone he knew to remind them to bring ice, made sure that the grill was working and hosed the chairs, and he was going inside to grab a cold beer after having cleaned the pool when his phone rang.
It was LJ. It had been over a year, but he still hadn't forgiven his dad for moving to Panama and rarely visited, especially now when he was working as a freelance photographer in New York. Lincoln suspected that the only reason he came those few times was that LJ's uncle suggested it.
Lincoln wasn't at all surprised that LJ's voice was disgruntled. It was the words that caught him off guard.
"Dad, come on, just call Abigail back," LJ said.
Lincoln's breath got caught in his throat. It was a weird sensation, hearing a name that had been so prominent in his thoughts for so long, and his tongue tumbled as if he was a fucking schoolboy. Seriously, the beads of sweat that sneaked on his forehead were an embarrassment.
"Agent Spencer?" LJ added, thinking his father was reticent because of his stubbornness, which, Lincoln had to admit, was an explanation he wished was true. "She's been trying to reach you for an hour and you're not picking up. She told me to tell you to call her back."
"Why…"
"I don't know. Call her."
He sat down on the couch in front of the television (how come he never realized how gigantic the thing was? And why the fuck did he need this big of a television?). He checked the answered calls and there they were, all ten of them.
Fuck.
It was a little late for her to be calling him to berate him in every way he deserved. So she had to be calling about…
Fuck.
He remembered how out of place her hair had smelled the day they had been in the morgue; how it annoyed him, because he knew that he could never dissociate her from the desolateness in which he had been when he had first seen her. It was as if the proximity of her, regardless of how much he longed for it, inevitably returned him into that interrogation room when everything was broken.
Why a woman like that would voluntarily work as a Grim Reaper (for Lincoln still refused to believe agents could do good things), he could never figure out.
He almost ended the call when it first rang. By the second beep, he told himself that he was a fucking man and should act like one. Thank god she picked up after the third ring, because his finger was already reaching to end the call.
He spoke before she could greet or condemn him. Or maybe she had spoken first, but his nerves were too loud to register.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't have the pho…"
"Lincoln, you need to come to New York," she said and sounded out of breath, like she was running. He wanted to tell her to slow down, for that woman had always worked too much. But of course, he had squandered his right to say stuff like that to her.
"What?" was the genius response he came up with.
"New York. It's Sara. Lincoln, she's alive."
"What?"
"I don't know. She turned up at the embassy in France. I'm on my way there. I'm still waiting for the fingerprint comparison, but Lincoln, I've seen the photograph, and it's her. I haven't told Michael yet. But I think you should be there when he finds out."
He would do anything that woman asked him to, but he wasn't grabbing the car keys because of her. Lincoln was ready to go home; he had probably never wanted to leave in the first place, but his damn pride had careened him away. But now, god damn it, he finally had an excuse to return.
By the time the door of the American embassy in Paris closed behind her, Abigail estimated she had been up for over thirty hours.
She had gotten the call just after one in the morning and she had just pulled the covers to her chin. The clothes she had on smelled of dirt, decomposition, and death, but she hadn't bothered changing. In six hours, she would be back at the gravesite anyway, combing through the vast woodland, looking for anything the killer might have left behind and more bones. But mainly only the latter, for her team had been up there in those fucking woods for a week now and all the soil revealed was more remains. Eight young women, making their way in the world one day and dropping off the face of the earth the next.
The only hours not spent in the hilly areas of the greater Seattle she was either in the morgue ("bones show no evidence of trauma and no apparent cause of death") or notifying another family that their cherished daughter was never coming home.
She was so fucking tired of dead women. Every day before falling asleep, she decided to quit, the first thing the following morning. She didn't need this, the bones – or the lack of them – and the answers she didn't have. Some days she was in the shower for an hour and her hair still reeked of fir. It never failed to remind her of that one time Lincoln Burrows had told her that her hair smelled too nice for the grim job she had. Maybe if he was still around these days, her hair would finally meet his approval.
At first she absolutely refused to answer the phone. If there was another body – no, bone – found, it would still be there in six, no, five and a half hours. If they had a lead, well, they didn't, so there was no need for her to reach out for the phone on her nightstand.
Tomorrow, she repeated to herself, I am quitting tomorrow. She couldn't remember the last time she had gone to sleep and the morning was still a tomorrow.
But it wouldn't stop; the ringing, it seemed to be getting louder and god damn it, the neighbor would start banging on the wall any second now. She would shout out an apology but didn't even know the gender of the neighbor, and she had claimed this bed as her own over a year ago.
"Hello?" she mumbled into the phone.
"Agent Spencer?" a voice she didn't recognize asked. People in dispatch kept rotating, but they always said the same fucking thing. "I understand you were the last agent in charge of the Scofield/Burrows case?"
She wished there had been a bone fragment uncovered instead. These calls, from Langley, were the only thing worse than matching the remains to the missing women on the wall of her office. They told her of a body part recovered that fit the parameters she had entered into a database under the name of Sara Tancredi. There must have been a couple of dozen of them since she had been transferred to the West Coast. She never told Michael about any of them. None was a match, of course, for there would never be a match.
That was why she was reluctant to quit, she told herself those mornings. Because whoever would get the case after her, would definitely let Michael know about every fucking call.
"We have a lead on the whereabouts of Sara Tancredi," the voice (it introduced itself, of course, but the voices had lately started to blend in her mind) told her. That was a wording she hadn't heard before. She wished she could be excited by it, but the person had to be new and she felt sorry for their rose-tinted spectacles.
"Could you give me the name of the county so that I can get in touch with their medical examiner?" she said the same words every time. But this time, there was no county to be given. She had laughed when they told her about the woman at the embassy, because France was on a different continent, and alive, well that was impossible.
Now she was running up the stairs in the said embassy, for she had been shown a photograph and the alikeness was too great to be caused by the lack of sleep. And as the agent opened the door of an office, there she was. Sara Tancredi, the Governor's daughter, the doctor that had aided and abetted the Fox River Eight. A woman tortured and effectively killed six years ago.
Alive.
She was sitting on a chair behind the roundtable, the chair that gave her the best view of the door. Her arms were firmly crossed on her chest, as if she was desperately holding herself together. As their eyes met, Sara's were militantly devoid of any expression. The hair was longer, darker than on the photographs, but it was her.
No wonder they hadn't found her. There had been no body to find.
How?
The expression on Abigail's face was far from deadpan, much less professional. So she turned to close the door in a manner prolonged enough to get in a few deep breaths.
They didn't stay in long. As she turned to face Sara again, she realized that there was someone else in the room. Standing in the corner left of her, by the trash bin and with an empty plastic cup in his hand, was a little boy.
Of course there were millions of boys with the same eye color as his, but this was not just any boy. He looked nothing like Sara, but so much like his…
Holy fuck.
She hadn't been around Lincoln Burrows for over a year, ever since that chickenshit had fled to Panama, but his language was increasingly spilling all over her tongue.
As she slowly neared the boy, his eyes didn't move off her face for a second. They retained caution, and his lips were pressed together in the same guarded, indiscernible fashion that had peeved her so many times when she was talking to…
"Hey," she said, squatting in front of the boy. His eyes didn't flicker. "I'm Agent Spencer, but you can call me Abigail. I came to talk to your mom. What's your name?"
The boy's eyes darted in Sara's direction, and she must have nodded.
"Bryce."
"That's a very pretty name," she smiled. "How old are you, Bryce?"
There was no need for the question, of course. Turning the answer around in her mind would tell her something she had already known.
"Five and a little."
"You're a young man, then," she said and, holy fuck. But she had drunk too many cups of coffee and emptied too many cans of Red Bulls to still be sleeping. "Listen, there's a friend of mine outside the room. And I'm sure he could be coaxed into getting you some hot chocolate or juice, whatever you want. What do you say?"
She had never seen the agent before and had no idea what his name was. But it should do the trick. Or so she figured.
The boy didn't answer right away. His eyes lingered on her face and their intensity provoked the same anxiety as the stare of his…
He took his time to answer, just like his father, never doing anything without thinking it through first.
Well. There might have been one thing Michael Scofield hadn't thought completely through.
If only everyone's shortcomings resulted in this kind of a miracle, she smirked.
"I say you are just trying to get me out of this office so that you can talk to my mom alone, Agent Spencer," Bryce said.
Well, of course she was. It was only after she heard Sara chuckle that she let out a laugh. She tried to cough it away, but her lips were still out of control when she sat across the table from Sara, the black folder she had come armed with placed in front of her.
"Hi, Sara. I'm Agent Spencer. I'm the agent in charge of your case," she said. She should have called her Miss Tancredi, but she had been looking for her, hearing about her, for so long that it was impossible to think of her as anyone but Sara.
"I was told you were coming."
"I'm sorry it took so long. Paris is quite far away from America."
"Not far enough, obviously."
"How are you?" the agent asked. Sara looked okay, apart from the weariness of her eyes and tense posture. But that was to be expected, Abigail figured, after spending six years looking over your shoulder, both for malice and solace of what had passed.
She couldn't resist scanning Sara's hands for a ring. Nothing, not even the skin discoloration indicating there used to be one there. It definitely shouldn't buoy her up as much as it did.
"Can we just get down to it, please?" Sara sighed. "Look, I'm not expecting the charges to be dropped, no jail time. I jumped bail. I left the door open. But he escaped. Isn't that automatically ten years? So maybe they'll have some mercy on me?"
"You think you are still a wanted criminal?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"So you came here, to the embassy, to turn yourself in?"
"Michael Scofield should know he has a son."
"You thought Michael Scofield was in jail?"
"No. I thought he was dead. Then I saw him on the news yesterday. Apparently he got named an engineer of the year," Sara tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice wavered. What was it about him that held such sway over her? Six years. They hadn't been on the same hemisphere for six years and had been in each other's proximity for only two months. Yet after all the winters she had ached for him and all the summers she had spent hating him, just saying his name out loud threatened to break her shamelessly.
"So I take it you don't know what happened in the last six years?" Abigail carefully asked, and Sara shook her head, just once. Her arms were no longer crossed on her chest, as if subconsciously she had given up fighting. "Um. Sara, all charges against you have been dropped. Your medical license has been reinstated."
"My medical license?" Sara repeated, aghast. "How?"
How do you think, Abigail almost laughed before it dawned on her that Sara's surprise wasn't affected. She had no idea.
It was incredibly sad telling families of those poor women in Seattle that all that was left of their smiling daughters were incomplete skeletons. Some parents deafened her with their anguished screams, others made her want for a break of silence. This, though, filled her with a completely different kind of sadness. You are someone's entire world and you don't know. You don't hear the love in their voice when they say your name and you never count the tears imbued with the absence of you.
"Okay, let's get some stuff out of the way first, okay? I know that you and Michael Scofield met up in Gila and that you were abducted from the parking lot. And now you are in France. How did you get here?"
"Didn't Michael tell you?" Sara snorted, once again crossing her arms on her chest.
"How would he know?"
"Well, he asked Bruce Bennett to get me out of America, for one," Sara said, wrapping the jacket she was wearing tighter around her, as though it was her carapace. As though she couldn't muster enough of the spite she whole-heartedly believed Michael deserved.
Abigail leaned forward.
"Sara… Michael has no idea that you are alive. He thinks you were murdered by the Company," she intoned. Murder was an understatement, but there was no need for details, the binding, whipping, beating, decapitation, all of that caught on film.
Sara's laughter was not the reaction she expected.
"He told you that? Then I guess you don't know that Michael Scofield says a lot of things he doesn't mean."
"You really think that Michael Scofield, a man who got his brother out of prison regardless of the consequences, would get you to safety only to never check up on you again? That he would abandon his own son?"
Of course she didn't. Some may say that she hadn't known him long enough for such a claim, but they had met in a situation that was the embodiment of what family meant to Michael Scofield. Underneath the rage, the betrayal, of course she knew it. But it was easier to be mad than to cry all the tears she had been keeping in for six years, even though now they could no longer break her beyond repair because it hadn't been real. And as long as she was mad, she couldn't get too hopeful, only to be disappointed once more.
"So I'm guessing Bruce Bennett is dead?" she asked.
Agent Spencer nodded, adding that it had been a heart attack a few months after her disappearance. Then she told her about the Company and the four years it had taken Michael and Lincoln to take them down, careful to only mention the most important events. What she hadn't told her was that Michael had done it in exchange for Sara's full pardon and she only briefly glossed over his efforts to find her. Sara told her about Lance and the blueberry pies and Costa Rica and Geraldine, but time for details would come later. Without saying it out loud, they both agreed that it was high time for a little boy to meet his father.
Bryce had had quite a few good days already. There was that day he and mom had been on a sandy beach and built sandcastles. When it started raining, out of the clear blue sky, they ran back to their hotel and straight to bed to warm up their toes while sipping the best hot chocolate he had ever tasted. Or that day when Aunt Moni borrowed a car from the man she had been spending time with and all four of them drove the secluded roads of the countryside and mom let Bryce sit in the front for a few minutes so that he could help Aunt Moni, who was hopeless when it came to maps, find the right road. Never before had he felt so grown up as that day.
Yet today might just be unprecedented in its glory. He could drink all the hot chocolate he wanted and eat as many donuts as he could and he got new books for his collection of travel guides. He was assured that he would meet his dad very, very soon. And mom was happy when she told him that. As they got in the largest black car Bryce had ever seen – it looked just like the ones detectives on television drove –, mom was smiling. It was in such contrast to the start of the day that he wondered if he perhaps had dozed off and today was a whole different day.
"Have you ever been on a plane?" Agent Abigail (she said he should just call her Abigail, but he thought she deserved the title because she really buoyed mom up) asked him as they drove up to the airport.
Bryce shook his head enthusiastically. He knew all about airports, of course. Thibaut traveled by planes all the time and never forgot to mention every detail of it. He couldn't imagine airport windows that were bigger than their entire apartment. And all the information signs that guided you to the terminal! Airports sounded like gigantic mazes you had to find your way out of and he was sure his eyes would never get bored.
So he was a little disappointed when they didn't enter the airport at the main entrance where the stream of people never seemed to cease. They drove past the long row of taxis and the people on sidewalks were getting fewer until there was no sidewalk anymore and they were on a runway. It was wider than any highway he had ever seen and so long that he could not see its end.
They got out, and then there was a sound so loud he almost had to cover his ears. Mom mouthed something and pointed upwards with her hand, and when he looked up, his jaw dropped. A plane was flying right above them! He could see its wheels, its engines, and it was the largest thing he had ever seen.
But they didn't board a big plane. Their plane was much, much smaller, and its nose was more pointy than that of the larger plane he had seen. Mom's jaw dropped at the sight of it, too, and Bryce knew this was way cooler than the big plane, for he didn't know anyone who had ever been on a private jet.
They climbed the stairs that he later watched being pulled up so that there wasn't a hole in the plane anymore. The seats were black and so big his legs dangled in the air. He was pretty sure another boy his size could easily fit into the seat with him. A woman named Kelly brought him a glass of apple juice, and then Agent Abigail took his hand and led him to the cockpit. It was there that he decided this was his favorite day.
The pilot, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a smile so wide that his eyes became nothing more than straight lines, sat him on his lap and told him about the instrument panel. He pointed at different small screens and buttons and explained what they were. There was the radar, a meter that would tell him how high they would be flying. He even let Bryce touch the control wheel.
He had to finish his juice before takeoff. He held mom's hand as the pilot turned on the engines and the plane started moving and he was sure that no bus he had ever been on drove so fast. Something pressed him into his seat and they were airborne. Looking through the window, he could see the buildings getting smaller until they were mere dots and then he saw brown patches that were probably fields and blue curvy lines that were rivers, and then suddenly, the clouds were everywhere. It was such a fascinating sight that he forgot he had planned on reading and learning about the city in which dad lived.
Exactly two hours and forty minutes later (he looked at his watch), the clouds began disappearing, just like the cities and the land had, and it was night. He tried to fight his heavy eyelids, for this was the best day and he didn't want to miss anything, but no one remembered to turn on the lights and he couldn't read about New York, and after a glass of milk, he fell asleep.
When he woke up, there was still dark everywhere. He looked at mom, but she was sleeping, finally. Glancing around, there was only one light on in the cabin. He opened his backpack (silently, for he didn't want to wake mom) and took out one of his new books, then undid his seatbelt and walked over to where Agent Abigail was sitting, perusing a bunch of papers.
She was surprised that he was up.
"How long till we get there?" he asked and climbed into a seat next to her. She put the papers in a folder and smiled at him.
"A couple of hours, I think. It will still be dark when we land, so you'll see all the lights."
There were pictures of New York at night in his books, and it looked majestic, even more so than Paris. He opened his book to find the said images and ask if that was how it would look like, but he realized that there was something else he wondered.
"Do you know my dad?" he asked.
"I do. I worked with him for a while."
"What is he like?" he inquired, as it was the first time he had ever met someone who knew his dad.
"You want me to ruin the surprise? Okay. You are a lot like him, you know," she gave him the answer she knew he craved. She still remembered how once upon a time she had idolized her father and wanted to lead a secretive, super important life that he had. That had been before she realized he had been killing people, his badge excusing it as the protection of his home country. What electrocuting innocent women and leaving them to drown in motel bathtubs had to do with national security, she had no idea.
"I know. I have photographs," he said, flipping the pages filled with monuments and attractions he would soon see.
"Not just that. He has a watch, too, and he is always checking the time. And he is good with maps, like you, and he notices everything. And he's always been very protective of your mom, like you."
He found the pictures he was looking for and followed the skyline with his finger.
"Do you think he'll be happy to see me?"
"He'll be so happy he'll hold you for so long you'll ask him to let go."
Bryce was sure that that would never happen. He would never beg his father to let him go, not after having spent so many years imagining how good it would feel to hold dad's hand.
"And mom? Will he be happy to see mom?"
"Your dad misses your mom very much."
"Mom misses him, too. Do you think he will buy her a microwave? Because mom really wants to have a microwave. But we never had the money or the space for it."
She barely contained laughter she knew would wake Sara. Of all the things he could want, he wanted a microwave for his mom. Only Michael Scofield's son.
"I think he could be talked into it, sure," she said.
It was just after five o'clock when Michael suddenly woke up. He wondered for a second what could have possibly disturbed his slumber, as for a change he couldn't recall his subconsciousness getting the best of him while he wasn't awake to control it.
Then there was the doorbell and a distant sound of someone banging on the door.
LJ.
He had no one to wake him up this early – or late – but LJ. If anything, it surprised him it didn't occur more frequently. LJ had been through just as much as his dad and uncle, having almost lost his father more than once, lost his mother, all the while fighting for his life. It was a little miracle that he had turned out the way he had, refusing to accept his father's (or uncle's) money and working toward a degree in the evenings while working through the days.
The knocking didn't relent as he hurried toward the door. In moments like this he hated the size of his apartment. Usually he liked the open floor plan and the freedom it gave him to walk for more than those eight feet of the prison cell, and there were so few walls that at least his body felt unconfined.
But it always took him forever to answer the door, and he had been told too many bad news in his life for his mind not to race to the worst possible contingencies.
It had been over a year since he saw Agent Spencer. She called on his birthday and they exchanged greetings on holidays. Neither thought there would ever be a need for them to resume their working relationship. Yet now it was five in the morning and she was on his doorstep, and before she could open her mouth, he knew she had come to deliver him the news he had let go hope of ever hearing.
They found her.
The realization hit him in a strange, unexpected way. There was the relief he had craved for years. He would no longer wonder where she lay, and there would be no more nights when the demons got the best of him and he paced up and down his office in cold sweat, going over all the information that would never leave his brain, making sure for a millionth time that he hadn't overlooked something. Now he could take her back to Chicago, give her a proper burial and a tombstone with her name so that she would never again be forgotten in the cold ground. He could bring her flowers, the paper ones so that they would not wither, and he would tell her about his day. She deserved so much more, but no matter what he did, he couldn't give her more.
What he hadn't expected, though, was the recurrence of the crushing, debilitating grief. After six years, it hadn't waned, still making it impossible to breathe as though he was in that darkened room again, watching the tape. His legs weakened, threatening to give way completely, and he leaned on the door as the room around him spun. He heard Abigail's voice somewhere in the distance, but the commotion in his head stopped him from focusing on her words. He felt her hands on his shoulders, then on the side of his face, and her words urged him to look at her.
"Michael, no. No," she repeated and he finally opened his eyes and he couldn't believe how easily it had broken him, still, after all these years.
"Michael, it's… it's a miracle. She's fine. All ten fingers and ten toes, she fine."
His eyes raced all over Abigail's face, as though searching for a feature to focus on because the words she had spoken were too slippery to hold on to. She kept talking, but between his ragged breaths, fractions about France and Bruce Bennett made little sense. Fine, that was what he repeating in his head, she's fine.
"She's fine?" he whispered because he needed to hear it one more time.
"She's fine," Abigail nodded, and he let out a breath he had thought would forever ache him.
"I take it you'll talk to her?" he asked. "Would you please tell her how incredibly happy I am that she is okay?"
"Don't be ridiculous. You'll tell her yourself."
"Are you sure she would want to see me?"
Of course she wants to see you, she wanted to scream. And you have a little boy who is so much like you it's insane. And he reads and knows numbers and adores you.
But it wasn't her news to tell.
She cleared her throat instead and prayed he wouldn't notice the professional tone she hid behind.
"I think she will be glad to see someone she knows," she lauded herself for producing such an effective bullshit statement. "Now get dressed and I'll take you to her. And take the car keys."
So that you will take your family home, she added in her mind before realizing she was an agent and usually the one behind the wheel of a government-issued vehicle.
"I, um, I took a cab," she added aloud, definitely too loudly, and thank god Michael was too overwhelmed to pick up on it, because otherwise he might start suspecting there was a little something she wasn't telling him.
The second time Bryce saw his dad, if you don't count the photographs, was just as unexpected as the first.
Mom was talking to one of the agents, and he sat in front of the room, waiting for her. She was having long conversations with a lot of people, and Bryce wondered what she could possibly be telling them. But he didn't want to muse on it too much. Agent Abigail had gone to get his dad. Almost two hours had since passed, and she still wasn't back. It was probably the morning traffic, he decided. The bus he took to school was often late because it got stuck in gridlock, and no one referred to Lille as the capital of the world. There had to be many more cars and buses and trucks here in New York, clogging the streets in the mornings.
According to his wristwatch, it was just after seven. He tentatively figured that he would stay in America for at least few days, and starting his day with a cup of cocoa, like he did every day in France, sounded like a good idea.
So he jumped off the chair and set off to find a vending machine that would make him a cup. He finally found one on the first floor. People were more than happy to give him the coins, and Bryce decided he really liked this day as well – if only dad could get there! As excited as he was, he felt a little bit of that cold in his tummy again. What if Agent Abigail had been wrong? What if it was taking so long because his dad didn't want to come?
He didn't want mom to wonder with worry where he had disappeared to in case she was done talking to the man. With the plastic cup that was a little bit hot, he walked down the corridors, back to her. He was hurrying, for the heat of the cup was increasing and it started to hurt a little bit.
But he forgot all about it when he saw dad.
It was on the second floor. Dad stood by the elevators, wringing his hands with a very serious look on his face. He was dressed in a suit and was just as tall and handsome as in the photographs. Bryce's jaw dropped when he saw a watch on dad's wrist, and mom was right, for the one on his tiny wrist looked just like dad's.
Dad didn't see him. He was looking down.
The plastic cup slipped out of Bryce's hand and the hot cocoa spilled across the floor, but he didn't notice. All he could see was his dad. Right there, just a few feet away. And he was just like the pictures and the video, and he had the wristwatch, and Bryce forgot to worry that he might not want him.
"Dad!" he exclaimed and started running toward him, nearly skidding in the puddle of cocoa. Then he screamed out again, because it was the first time he got to say it with dad in sight.
Michael registered the first exclamation already, for he had always noticed everything, whether he wanted it or not. Yet it didn't occur to him that it could be directed at him. Who could blame him; until just a couple of hours ago, he had renounced the possibility of ever having someone call him that.
Upon the second the repetition, he turned his head to look, more out of instinct than intention. There was a little boy running in his direction, directly to him. Michael figured someone was standing close to him, a man luckier than himself, but as he glanced around, he realized there was no one. The boy kept running, and so prevailing was the determination in his tiny legs that he didn't toddle one bit. His eyes didn't move off Michael's for a morsel of a second.
For the second time in less than two hours, Michael's heart did a flip. He always registered everything, whether he wanted it or not, so it didn't escape him that the boy's eyes were identical to the pair that stared back at him every time he caught his own reflection in a mirror.
"Dad!" the boy yelled again, and no later than when Michael dropped to his knees, the boy was in his arms with such force that it almost knocked Michael over. It effectively knocked the air out of his lungs.
The little boy wrapped his small hands around his neck and leaned his head against his chest. Michael wondered if he could hear his screaming heart, and his mind froze upon realizing that this was so impossible it could not be anything but true.
"Hey," he managed in an unsteady voice, but the boy didn't move. He clung to him as though there was a threat of something tearing them apart, again, and, god, Michael had known the feeling all too well, yet it had never been this profound before.
"Let me see you," he said softly, and the boy reluctantly unlocked his arms. He leaned back onto Michael's arms so that they faced each other, for the first time.
The boy returned Michael's look, and it was just as searching as his, just as telling. Neither said anything out loud, but there was no doubt. It wasn't just the eyes, their hue, their focus and intensity; there was the shape of the mouth, the chin. Michael would fight anyone who would dare say the boy was not his son.
"Hi," Michael said, and a smile adorned his face.
"I've missed you, dad," said the little boy and flung himself back into his father's welcoming arms. Michael placed one hand behind the boy's neck and the other in the middle of his neck, just to make sure he couldn't slip away. He closed his eyes and the time stopped. He didn't dare to speak, let alone move for fear of it dispelling the unfamiliar warmth that rippled through him. He knew it was there to stay and he wouldn't have it any other way.
He felt the boy stir in his arms. Reluctantly, he loosened the embrace, refusing to let go completely.
"What's your name?" he gently asked, and his hand reached out to touch the boy's face, just to make sure once more that he wasn't a figment of his desperate imagination. Yet he kept the caress soft; if there wasn't a boy in his arms and he'd wake up in malicious sweat, he wanted him to stay for just a little bit longer.
The boy leaned into his touch, as if he knew Michael needed a reassurance. Perhaps the boy needed it, too.
"Bryce," said the boy, and Michael wondered how it could not have occurred to him ever before that it was the most beautiful name in the world. "But you don't need to tell me your name. Mom gave it to me as the middle name."
Mom. Michael didn't know whether he was simply overwhelmed, or it was because of this boy in his arms and Sara being not only alive but in the same building, possibly just a hallway away, or the realization that he might just get the future he had thought he had lost forever six years ago. Suddenly there was pressure behind his eyes and a lump in his throat, so he bit his lower lip to prevent the trembling breaths from escaping.
He needn't have worried about Bryce noticing. The boy's eyes widened in the way that made Michael desperate to know what caught his attention. The suspense was unbearable as he studied his son's face for a clue. Then he felt a little hand on his.
The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing his inked skin. Michael felt a rush panic, fearing that it scared his boy, and he tried to think of an explanation why he was marked like that, but his mind wouldn't cooperate.
He needn't have worried, of course.
"Wow!" Bryce gasped. "They really do go all the way down to your wrists, just like mom said!"
There it was again. Mom.
Then, with astuteness and speed that made Michael skip a breath, the boy's eyes focused on the writing on Michael's left ring finger, a tattoo he had gotten just a year before. He turned dad's hand a bit to see the letters better.
"Be the change you…" Bryce started reading out loud, but then his lips shaped into a grin rather than form more words. He was so small, Michael thought, but he could already read fluently. It made him so proud that he had to fight again to stop the tears.
"…Wanna see in the world," Bryce finished the words of the tattoo without looking at it. He locked his eyes with Michael's again, and there was such awe in them, such joy, that it filled Michael with dread of a day his son might think he was no longer worthy of it.
"That's what mom always says," Bryce told him. "That, and that we should have a little faith. Which is funny, because of all the people I know, she is the most cyn…"
He frowned, searching for the rest of the syllables, but couldn't remember them. An abashed blush tinged his cheeks.
"Cynical?" Michael offered and sighed with relief when the boy's eyes went wide in wonder again, and he nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes!" Bryce exclaimed. He wanted to ask dad how he knew, but then realized that he was his dad. Of course he would know that.
But there was something he needed to know.
He bowed his head down again and tilted it slightly to the left as he studied dad's newest tattoo. It was on the special finger, the one on which people put rings as a promise to love each other forever. Mom sometimes put a big ring on it so that people would know he had a dad.
"So I don't have a stepmother?" he asked, trying to sound casual, but Michael felt his eyes burning on the tattoo.
"No. You don't have a stepmother," Michael smiled and was absolutely sure that no one had ever been so happy to hear they didn't have something, let alone be able to say it.
Bryce tried not to show it, of course, for he was a very polite boy. He tried very hard and succeeded in not throwing himself back into dad's arms that felt just as good as mom's.
"Good," he said instead resolutely. It might have only been early morning, but it was indisputable that today was the best day of his life.
To Be Continued.
broughttoyouby:::winter.
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