Dear all,

thank you for reading and for all your wonderful reviews and I'm sorry it took much longer than usual for me to update. Unfortunately, we had some problems in the family that took quite a toll on me and I'd say on my writing as well. I wouldn't call this chapter special in any way and I will be the first to say that it could be better. It is about their first morning as the family. It raises a few questions that will be addressed in the following chapters. The next one will (finally) focus on Sara and Michael; however, I have an exam at the end of the month and I will start preparing for it now, so it will probably be a few weeks before the next update. I'm sorry!

As always, if you have any questions/comments, feel free to get in touch either here or on Tumblr or ao3.

I hope you'll find something to like in this chapter :)

please review.

Till next time, winter.

Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us

Chapter 11 – The Morning

Bryce didn't need to open his eyes to know that there was something different about this morning. The pillow wasn't as soft and the covers smelled differently. He wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep at Aunt Moni's, but she was always out of the nice-smelling fabric softener, and then there was a hand stroking his hair and it was as light as if yesterday was only a dream.

Opening his eyes to make sure it had really happened, he found dad's smiling face just inches from his. He must have fallen asleep while they were reading the story, for he couldn't remember how it ended and was still cuddled up to dad, his head resting on dad's chest.

Dad put a finger to his lips and glanced over Bryce's shoulder. The boy turned his head, and there was mom, still sleeping, her hair draped across the white sheets that covered her all the way to her chin. The night had taken away the dark circles under her eyes and kept the serenity on her lips. He was about to remark how happy she appeared, but dad's eyes were still on her and Bryce didn't want to interrupt.

There was something special in the way dad looked at mom, right from the moment they had first seen each other yesterday. He effortlessly found her wherever they were, just for the sake of knowing she was there and without intent to speak to her. It didn't matter if there was a crowd around them and the chatter encompassed them, something Bryce knew dad's brain could not brush aside; it was as if the world pared down to just the two of them and yet dad still couldn't quite believe she was not a mirage. It was completely unlike Thibaut's parents. Thibaut's dad only spoke to Thibaut's mom when he couldn't hear the person on the phone while she was watching her series, and while Thibaut ignored the tone used, Bryce knew it was not a nice one. He couldn't imagine his dad ever being like that to mom, especially when he placed his hand next to hers without her knowing. It seemed like he didn't care if she took it or not; he cherished the sheer proximity of her. Thibaut's dad couldn't get out of their house fast enough, especially on Saturday mornings.

"Morning," dad whispered, kissing the top of his head. Bryce giggled into the sheets, careful not to wake mom. Of course it usually took much more to wake her in the mornings, but so many strange, wonderful things he had deemed impossible were happening that that too could easily change.

"Do you have to go to work today?" he asked. His tiny fists grabbed the sheets covering him, not wanting to let go of them in case he'd need to pull them over their heads to keep in their perfect morning.

"No," dad said, ruffling his hair. "We'll be together all day."

Bryce repositioned himself so that he was now looking directly at dad. He knew that his elbow must have hurt dad's stomach a little bit and the apology was already on his tongue, it didn't seem like dad minded at all. He was still smiling, his lips curled inward, and his fingers were intertwined on Bryce's back as if to ensure the boy's full weight was pressed against him.

"Are you hungry?"

"That's a very dad thing to say," Bryce said, convinced that it was something dad would love to hear. And he wasn't wrong; dad laughed, as if he had forgotten mom was still asleep.

He then scooped him up and Bryce wrapped his hands around his neck. Of course he already knew that his dad was the best dad in the whole world and mom had said that he was quick on his feet, but Bryce gained a whole new respect for him when they exited the bedroom with no sound whatsoever. He thought he dad would carry him all the way to the kitchen, but his bare feet were on the spotless parquet as soon as the door behind them was left ajar.

Mom would never let him run to the kitchen, and when dad didn't immediately follow, he thought he too would say something. But when he looked over his shoulder to check, dad didn't seem to mind the sound of his steps. Maybe he didn't even notice; his eyes were closed and his right hand was across his heart. And he was smiling in that distinct way Bryce couldn't quite figure out. Unlike with all other people he knew, the smile was not splashed across dad's face; only the corners of his mouth were furled upward as he kept his lips together. Yet somehow, dad looked incredibly happy. Bryce wondered if perhaps he didn't want to reveal his bliss to the world in case someone might want to steal it away.

"What do you usually have for breakfast?" dad asked him once they were in the kitchen. He had picked him up again and sat him on the counter, knowing without being told that Bryce liked sitting there the most. His legs dangling in the air, he told dad about cereal, but dad didn't have any. The promised to buy some today, but there really was no need, for there was enough food in the fridge to last them for a week. Dad offered to make eggs in pretty much every way they made them on the TV cooking competitions, but eggs were the boring kind of breakfast, and then there was flour on the counter for pancakes, buttermilk, bananas, blueberries, and a waffle maker also appeared out of nowhere.

"Well, let's just make a little bit of everything," dad finally decided after Bryce just stared at all the options. Two pans, both looking brand new, the fridge, whose top shelves Bryce couldn't reach even on toes, and all the talk last night about the books and the desk and everything else he might want in his room were suddenly reminiscent of the answers Thibaut had given him every time he asked about what it was like having a dad. Thibaut's dad never had time for breakfast in the morning and by the time he was done with work, it was too late for a bedtime story. Thibaut never seemed to mind, as he had all the latest video games and a television in his room. And dad would eventually have to go back to work, right?

"Dad, can I talk to you about something?" Bryce started as dad took a bowl out of the cupboard.

"You don't need to ask me that. You can talk to me about anything, anytime," he replied, putting five large spoons of flour into the bowl. Then he added definitely more sugar than mom would approve, and it seemed like he didn't even need to think about which ingredient came next. And he absolutely didn't weigh everything like Aunt Moni did.

"You know how you said we would go buy books today?"

"Any and as many as you want," dad nodded, whisking the mix three times before handing the bowl to Bryce. Mom had told him that dad was like a storm once, and while it hadn't made much sense then, now Bryce understood. Dad somehow just knew things; where to get the car seat, just how much flour was needed for waffles, and he did it all with sterling confidence that rendered it impossible for him to be mistaken.

"And a desk for my room and the bed linen I want?" the boy went on. His fingers didn't feel like part of his body anymore and it was like he had never held a whisk before. An abashed red spread across his cheeks, fearing dad might think just that.

"What's wrong?" dad softly asked, and his large hand covered Bryce's to steady it.

"Dad, I don't want you buying me things. I just want you to be with me and mom. Because Thibaut always says that the only time he sees his dad is when he buys him a new video game or something."

He didn't answer right away. His thumb ran circles across Bryce's hand, and as though it was a magic trick, each made Bryce feel sillier for having worried.

"Okay. Then we'll just get you what you need and what you really, really want," dad eventually said. His hand stilled the movements and his long fingers wrapped around Bryce's wrist, only to let go way too rapidly. Bryce quickly looked at his face, just to make sure dad hadn't changed his mind and was offended nonetheless. Dad's eyes were closed and his forehead furrowed. As good as he usually was at reading people's reactions, dad's left him in the dark. He was gathering the courage to ask if he had said something wrong when dad opened his eyes and spoke again. "Bryce, I wish I had been with you and your mom all along. I hope you know that."

Of course the boy never doubted that. But there was something no one had told him in the chaos of transatlantic flights, people in serious suits, and all the things he had not yet known about dad.

"What kept you away?" Bryce asked.

"Has mom told you anything about it?" dad carefully said and walked to the fridge, opened it and let his eyes scan the shelves inside as though he was looking for something more concrete than right words. He finally reached for a carton of eggs. Bryce didn't point out that there was one already on the counter. He was sure that dad knew about it anyway.

"No. Just that there were bad guys you fought with. I mean… you don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

But dad just shook his head and, smiling faintly, said that he deserved to know. He told him about a group of very bad men who were extremely powerful. No names were mentioned, but to Bryce, they sounded a lot like the politicians the news reports always berated. These men accused Uncle Lincoln of some nefarious things, and dad was determined to prove them wrong. Bryce nodded enthusiastically at this part, for he knew how much it hurt when people spread lies about those you cared about.

"It made these men very mad. They were so angry with me that they were willing to hurt the people I love."

The careful phrasing and intentionally detached delivery could only relate to one person.

"That's how mom got the scar?" Bryce asked, remembering dad's reaction when he had seen the mark on her arm. Without a confirmation, he could tell he guessed right. Dad pressed his lips together so that they almost vanished, then opened them, as if he needed to remind himself to breathe. Bryce didn't like mom's scar either, but it almost never hurt. He thought knowing this would make dad feel better, but he didn't believe the smile dad gave him.

"Afterwards," dad went on, "before I could get to your mother, someone else helped her. But they never told me about it, so I thought…"

This was where what he had grown up believing converged with dad's story. The word he was the same word that had always saddened Bryce when he had thought about dad. He figured they had both heard it too many times, even though it could no longer hurt them now that they were together.

The first pancake was done and dad put it on the plate as skillfully as though he had been making them for breakfast every day of Bryce's life.

"You know, it is pretty clear that you never expected mom and me here," Bryce remarked.

"How so?"

The boy pointed to the socket on the wall behind him.

"You have to cover them so that kids don't stick their fingers in. I mean, you know, the little ones. I know that it is dangerous," he explained, and dad smiled, as if proud he had a son who knew the dangers of electricity. It wasn't exactly the reaction Bryce was aiming for, but a pancake that smelled like vanilla and tasted like Panama in his mouth kept the chagrin at bay.

In her days of the most perverse highs and shattering lows, waking up in an unknown bed hadn't been an unusual occurrence for Sara. The smell of the unknown sweat or cigarette smoke had hit her before she had opened her eyes, and the blanket someone had covered her with irritated her skin. Sometimes a man whose name she could barely remember lay next to her, his arms on her as if she still was the woman he had met the previous night. Some mornings, it had all joined to wait on her and aggravated all the feelings she had sought to quell.

Nothing was familiar about the bed she woke up in today, yet it felt like home. The caress of the silken sheets on her legs made her want to indulge, to leave the worries about bills and the trepidation of the future outside of her little cocoon. But there was something she missed, something miraculously gained, a lot she ached to put to rest, and a note written in blue left on the other pillow. Kitchen, it spelled out in her – their – son's handwriting, impressively neat for a five-year-old. The size of "k" intentionally stood out because it was the first letter, and the "h" was a bit smaller than the rest of the letters because it was Bryce's least favorite letter.

The apartment was as majestic in daylight as it had seemed under the artificial lights of the evening. She would struggle to locate the kitchen as there were so many doors, but the meld of their voices served as her guide. Somewhere along the way, she passed the laundry room, and the smell of freshly done laundry accompanied her, as pleasant as a dandelion growing among grey cobbles.

Pausing at the entrance of the kitchen was unplanned. There was no need to spy on them and she should not let herself be overwhelmed in the morning already. Yet seeing them together, listening to them making plans for their second day together as a family, she couldn't help herself. She noticed how Michael's body was always turned to their son, whether he was pouring more pancake mix into the pan or opening the overhead cupboard to get another plate. When Bryce's eyes were deployed elsewhere, Michael's rested on him in warmth she could feel from across the kitchen, and when dad was flipping a pancake, Bryce watched him with admiration that left his mouth agape.

"Morning," she said and entered the kitchen. There was absolutely nothing normal about the normalcy of the scene in front of her. Since getting clean, her method of dealing with overwhelming situations was always to plunge right in and march through it. This morning, though, it didn't get her far. Upon seeing her, Bryce sped into her arms, forcing her to cease her steps, and as soon as Michael heard her voice, he turned, and the sight of him took her breath away. He was beautiful, as if no day had passed since their first meeting in Fox River. But the smile he sported today had renounced that smirk and what was left made her heart race. She wondered if he would ever stop feeling like a dream.

"How long have you two been up?" Sara asked, and even though their son assured her it hadn't been long, the abundance of food on the table suggested otherwise. Bryce took her hand and led her to the table and there were pancakes with bananas and blueberries and chocolate chips, and a bottle of golden maple syrup that glistened in the morning light.

She didn't notice Michael moving away from the stove. It wasn't until she was sitting down and a tattooed arm placed a plate in front of her that she realized he was standing behind her.

"You needed sleep," he told her. "Our boy was out before the second chapter finished as well."

"I was," Bryce nodded and reached for another pancake. Usually Sara wouldn't let him eat so much at once, especially something that definitely contained too much sugar, but it was a special day. A very special day and it was taking over her as abruptly and thoroughly as the storm overtakes the blue calm of the sky.

"Anyway," Michael went on, "I've been told you don't drink coffee in the morning, But I'm hoping that this is okay."

He needn't have put a glass of orange juice next to the plate for her to know what he meant. Just like the paper rose he had given her for the only birthday when there had been only a fence separating them, it was so much more than a simple sum of parts. It was a reminder, a reassurance, a promise, and his hand waited for hers on the glass, because he knew it, too.

Her fingers tentatively touched his, and as much as he had craved something simple and ephemeral as this during the past six years, it suddenly wasn't enough anymore. His slender fingers enveloped hers, and, bending down, he brought her hand to his lips. After kissing her knuckles, he kept her hand gently pressed against his lips, and she wished it would never end.

He sat down across from her. He had told her to eat, remarking she was too thin, but now wasn't setting an example. His fingers circled the rim of his own glass of orange juice, and his eyes caressed her face, departing only to check on their boy.

It was just a simple breakfast, the kind of start their every morning in Panama would have if she hadn't left the room in Gila before he woke up. Orange juice, banana pancakes, childish laughter piercing through the quietude of freedom. But, it dawned on her, had that morning gone according to their lovers' plan, she would have taken that pill and there would be no Bryce. Of course there would be another child, probably more than one baby by now, but the idea of neither of them being Bryce was daunting. As nonsensical as the past six years had at times felt, they were perfect, had to be perfect, if they led them to this.

Her heart swelled when their son exclaimed they were out of banana pancakes, his favorites.

"Well then let's make some more," Michael said, already getting up.

By the time Lincoln finally reached his brother's apartment building, his shirt carried a distinct smell every hour he was late for. There was the atrocious perfume the lady in Panama wore and all the coffee that had missed his mouth; more sweetness from bananas, and the sand, he could swear the sand had a fucking smell as well. The blood was detectable too, of course, but that was something he was inured to.

Both elevators were in use and he was done waiting. He took two steps at the same time and didn't slow his treads to knock on his brother's door when he reached it. They had to be expecting him, for it wasn't locked.

"Where are they?" he exclaimed before the door behind him closed.

They were in the kitchen. Sara was sitting by the table, a glass of what he presumed was orange juice in her hand. If he were as perceptive as his little brother, he would notice the hair didn't match the shade from his memory, but all that Lincoln saw was that she was alive, breathing and just … okay. Not lost forevermore in the gorging desert or taken apart and tucked away forever by the currents. Her bones weren't being arranged into a shape of a skeleton on a cold, metal trolley while the medical examiner was counting down hours until they would get to forget about her until the morning.

The boy was on the counter, a plate of pancakes in his hand and a bit of chocolate around his mouth. His eyes widened at the sight of Lincoln, and Lincoln suddenly couldn't remember a single thing he had meant to say. He just ran his hands over his scalp and reminded himself that this wasn't a dream and he hadn't gone back in time. The latter he could so swimmingly believe, for the boy looked exactly like Michael had when his legs too had been too short to reach the floor when perched on the counter. But now Michael held a pan in his hands and was making breakfast for his family like any other dad, like he had never incurred the past six years.

"Uncle Lincoln!" Bryce shouted, hastily put down the plate and jumped off the counter. A fork he had been holding had fallen to the floor after him and Michael bent down to pick it up. It was such a normal thing to do that it should go unnoticed; however, almost a decade had passed since Lincoln's life swirled off the route of normalcy. He would never admit it, but tears invaded his eyes at the sight of a dish towel draped over his brother's shoulder. Holding his nephew in his arms for the first time definitely didn't help the matter.

"Uncle Lincoln, are you hungry? Because we have a lot of food," Bryce said and, once out of his uncle's embrace, ran back to the counter to get another plate. He enumerated five different kinds of pancakes they had and explained the difference between Belgian waffles and the regular ones. Lincoln did his best to follow the stream of words that absolutely reminded him that, excluding the airplane meals, it had been over a day since he had eaten, but every step the boy made captivated him. He was so pure, so happy, despite having been conceived in the world where a tomorrow was as feeble as hopes of survival. And yet somehow, there had always been a tomorrow, even and perhaps especially when a wish for it had evanesced. If Lincoln had ever doubted whether survival had been worth the marks it had left on him, those doubts departed when Bryce looked over his shoulder to ask if he was hungry enough for the big plate.

Lincoln looked at Sara. Could it be that the last time he had seen her they were still in Fox River and the greatest nightmare tormenting him was his impending execution? He would be dead if she hadn't risked everything by leaving the door unlocked. As a thank you, he had thought he had placed her name on the list of those whose demise he had caused. The weak smile she was giving him now was absolutely insufficient.

He pulled her onto her feet and clasped his arms, tanned enough to render some of his tattoos barely discernable, around her.

"Thank you for being alive," he whispered, and the alternative that had been such a seemingly irrefutable fact for so long made him wrap his arms around her even tighter. Perhaps a bit too tight, since she chuckled, claiming that she couldn't breathe. He let go of her, but before she could sit down again, he couldn't help himself and hugged her again, disregarding her previous remark.

"Here," Bryce returned, and the plate was so full he had to hold it with both hands. Then he spotted a stain on his uncle's shirt that alarmingly stood out from the pineapple yellow. "Uncle Lincoln, you're bleeding!"

"What?" Lincoln frowned before remembering the bandage on his left forearm. He had it changed before the last leg of his flight from Nicaragua, but apparently he had bled through it again. He truly couldn't care less as he had bled much worse many times before, but Bryce was such a perfect little boy in their senseless world that it seemed sacrilegious for him to know what blood was, let alone watch his uncle bleed. "Oh, yeah…"

He sought Sara's eyes for assistance, but Bryce was completely in control of the situation.

"Don't worry, mom can fix it," he assured his uncle, placed the plate on the table and asked dad where he kept the first aid kit. After learning it was in one of the bathrooms, he took mom's hand and together they disappeared down the hall under the watchful eyes of the two men.

"You know, Linc," Michael said before Lincoln could decide whether congratulations would be too mawkish and the proper thing to say would be the word that had plagued him ever since they had last seen each other. "As happy as I am that you are embracing my family, I wouldn't mind if you changed your shirt first. Because I can smell Panama from here."

The two brothers grinned at each other before each of them closed half of the distance between them. It was so overdue, Lincoln thought as they embraced. Back in Gila, he had put his own indignation first while the only plan his brother had made for himself was slipping away. It had been the first time he had failed as the big brother Michael for some reason thought he was, and his shortcomings kept piling up – until today. Maybe he was a coward for smartening up only when the woe had passed, but damn it, the roughed up knuckles of Linc the Sink had never made an admirable decision.

"I didn't mean it, Michael, none of it," he said. "I wanted to come back, so many times …"

"I know."

"… but then it had been so long that I just…"

"I know, Linc, I know," Michael said again, moving back so that they faced each other again. Shaking his head, he ran his hand over his head, and said with joy Lincoln had thought had left his little brother forever, "I'm a dad, Linc. And I, I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Bullshit," was obviously the only encouragement a big brother like Lincoln could come up with.

Ten minutes later, Lincoln had his shirt off and was sitting at the table with Bryce perched on his right knee. They were sharing a blueberry pancake (Lincoln of course didn't neglect to tell his nephew that if he thought this one tasted good, he should try his. Bryce glanced at dad to make sure Uncle Lincoln's remark didn't offend him, and to his relief, dad was grinning).

"Anyway, then things got even worse," Lincoln then continued the recount of his circuitous return to New York.

"What's worse than being attacked by a sheep?" Bryce asked, completely enthralled by the story and thus unbothered by the bloody bandages that had come off his uncle's arm. At least that was what Sara hoped Michael thought. She felt his eyes on her as she was tending to Lincoln's puncture wound. A clean-up crew, that was what he had once called her. It didn't require any effort to act as though they hadn't been apart for six years. There was a wound to clean, like practically every day they had shared, and a pair of eyes to avoid because they stopped the time whenever she gave in. Maybe it was a lid, covering all that had changed since they had last laid eyes on each other. Or maybe somehow, despite distance and time, they were still the same people who had eyes only for each other under the watchful eye of propriety and armed guards. Under Michael's tender gaze, it was almost impossible to believe anything but the latter.

"Cops showed up," Lincoln said. "With lights and the siren and all. Someone called them about sheep blocking the road. And … it was just after that ram ran into me horn-first. I wasn't just gonna stand there and bleed, you know? So I went after him. And cops thought that I, um…"

"Uncle Lincoln, did they arrest you for animal cruelty?"

"I'm not really sure what for, because they didn't speak English."

Bryce's forehead furrowed. Sometimes the police officers mom worked with in Lille took him for a ride in their squad car. They told him enough about their work for him to realize that it usually took more than a day for a person to get out of jail. He gasped when a possible answer dawned on him.

"Uncle Lincoln, did you escape from jail?!"

The caress of Michael's eyes was instantly replaced by alarm. Lincoln's eyebrows shot up as well. But Sara had spent years fearing a variation of this question and practicing the proper tone. The encompassing feeling of rubber gloves, the one thing that had given her worth before she became a mom, steadied her further.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bryce. Of course your uncle didn't break out of prison. He explained that it was all just a misunderstanding and they let him go. Right, Lincoln?"

Lincoln nodded, even though neither of the two versions was correct. But he really didn't need to get into that at the moment, so he coughed it away. Bryce seemed disappointed by the answer but quickly cheered up when his uncle started talking about the turbulence he had experienced when the plane flew right through a storm. She didn't dare to check the effect the innocuous remark had on Michael, and consequently, Lincoln definitely wouldn't bleed through his bandage again.

She was avoiding him. Preventing Lincoln from buying Bryce all the sports equipment they stumbled across and meeting LJ for the first time were perfect covers that didn't fool him.

It wasn't that she didn't talk to him. As they were choosing the furniture for Bryce's room, she wanted to hear his opinion on every bed they saw and how many chests of drawers they should get, as if he would know better than her. They talked all day but barely said a word to each other. And every time they walked through the part of the store with master bedrooms, she made sure Lincoln was the one talking.

They bought a room's worth of furniture without any of them mentioning France out loud, let alone making it clear that Michael's apartment was more than a temporary home. They had never been a couple of grand or even transparent words, and it never unnerved him until now. The more his mind was telling him that it was just the space she needed, that she was just as overwhelmed as him, that right now all it matter was their son, the less his body listened. His feet somehow always found a way to inconspicuously get closer to her. His hands kept finding excuses to reach out for her without his conscious consent, and it took an incredible amount of volition to pull them back. His heart skipped every time she turned to him when they weren't discussing something, as if she had forgotten he was there, or, as he hoped, because he was there.

In a way, it felt like Fox River again. He was in the yard, knowing without glancing at his wristwatch that it was time for her break, and without his eyes ensconced on the entrance to the infirmary, he knew when she was only one turn of his head away. Refusing to follow her with his eyes was as unbearable as watching her, so he opted for the latter, for at least he saw her. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and it abashed him to hope it was because of him and not the chilly wind. And when she kept her focus on the path under her feet, he longed to be the reason. It was wrong, undeniably and shamefully wrong, but never before had it felt so right.

Now, of course, there was no fence to obstruct his view and to curl his fingers around. Now all he could do was keep them deep in his pockets, denying them the freedom to touch her for the sole sake of checking once more that somehow, they had beaten the impossible odds, again.

Those few moments he felt her warmth under his fingers, she seemed to welcome it. But accepting it as a woman or as a mother of his child were two different, not necessarily inclusive things. As much as he longed for the former, the latter had been a cruel mirage just two days ago, and disappointment should shame him. It had been six years since desires of their hearts matched. Even if there was no one else, her love for him could simply melt away, like a snowman after the first kiss of the spring. He would be the first to admit that he had taken so much from her, her hard-won sobriety, the cherished job, her father, the unmarked skin, that it was astounding she had kept his name on her lips throughout the years.

It wasn't until they were in the grocery store that it was just the two of them again. Lincoln was introducing his nephew to American brands of candy and Bryce duly pretended not to have tried most of them before. Sara's lips were getting thinner as the pile of colorful wrappings in all shapes and sizes grew until finally, she told them not to go overboard with it and headed toward dairy products (or the boring section, as Lincoln called it, failing to make his nephew chuckle).

Michael combated the urge to follow her for seconds that dragged like the years without her. But then she vanished among other shoppers and it wasn't a choice anymore. It wasn't danger that concerned him; there was no rational reason to follow her if he discounted the irrational need to keep his eyes on her.

He sped up his steps, his hands grabbing the insides of the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders slouched slightly forward. He hadn't walked like this, trying to knock a few inches off his stature and conspicuously blending in, since the early days of his escape from Fox River. It was a thrill his desk job didn't offer him, and as much as he didn't miss it, it felt good to have the adrenaline in his bloodstream again.

Just as he again caught a glimpse of her, someone crashed into him. He would have walked on as if it hadn't happened, but the person said his name and he turned, thinking he'd see a familiar face from work.

It was a man Michael didn't recognize, but for years strangers knew more about him than he would be willing to share. If at first The Company had looked for ways to defeat him, everyone now knew him for destroying The Company. It wasn't just the people who never missed a breaking story; he was the face of the most sensational story of recent decades and somehow all media outlets, even those that usually avoiding the political sphere, found a way to sneak him onto their front page. Maybe it was his looks, his daring plan or the damn tattoo that had the staying power. Maybe it was a combination of everything; regardless of the cause, his celebrity hadn't faded in the years since the news first broke out. And the award he had recently been given was the perfect excuse for reporters to remind America of its fascination with Michael Scofield.

It usually didn't bother him when people approached him, but in all honesty, there wasn't much he had cared about in the recent years. The man shook his hand that was uncharacteristically stiff today, then expressed his opinion of the current political situation. Michael tried to look the man in the eyes, but it didn't escape him that Sara disappeared from his view once more.

Sara got further away when a young woman asked for a picture between hyperventilating breaths. By the time he found her at the refrigerator with dairy products, he knew his steps were loud enough to give away his presence. She didn't react. She didn't turn her head to look at him, nor did she seem to be choosing yogurt. It was as if she sought the cool as a reminder that the warmth he knew she was basking in was real.

"You've been avoiding me," Michael said.

"A little bit, yes," she replied, granting him a sheepish smile, and he took it as an invite to step next to her. As soon as he did, her eyes dashed back to the shelves offering every yogurt flavor imaginable. He was sure that she picked up one completely at random, just to give her hands something to do. "Look, Michael … Thank you for everything. For giving us a place to stay, the food, all of it. Abigail said that I should be getting my credit cards back soon, so… I just, I don't want you to think that you are obligated to me in any way. That I demand or expect something from you just because we have a son. I just want you to have a relationship with Bryce, that's all I would ever ask of you."

"Sara…"

He reached out for the yogurt she was holding, intentionally covering her hand with his. A breath wavered on her lips, and his heart skipped a beat, because it had to feel the same for her as it did for him.

The life in which he had previously known her would deny him the right to take his time. He couldn't afford more than a fleeting feel of her, on the account of guards peering in through the infirmary windows or someone reaching for a gun in the name of justice. They had all the time in the world now and somehow it only augmented the significance of every second they touched. He had learned the brutal way that time was not something stored in jars and sold on the discount shelves of the supermarket.

They ran out of time again for him to tell her that it was a privilege, rather than an obligation, to be with her, and that what money could buy was at the very bottom of the list of things he craved to give her. When it had been just the two of them, it would have frustrated him, but seeing their son run into Sara's hands, trying to conceal his distress at the mound of sweets his uncle had thrown into the cart, was an interruption he would never grow tired of.

To Be Continued.

Broughttoyouby:::winter.