Dear all,

thanks for reading and all your reviews and your input! I'll try to include family AND MiSa scenes in the remaining chapters.

So, this chapter ... originally it was supposed to be the opening sections of the next chapter, but I decided to post it separately, since the next chapter revolves around a single event and I would like to keep it in focus. You'll see :) thus this chapter might be a bit of a filler, but I think it is still important, as it shows character development and some relationship progress. Or at least that's what I have been telling myself for a few days now :)

I am almost done with the next chapter already, so it should be up by the end of the week. That's good, I guess.

Anyway, thanks so much for reading, feel free to review, and see you soon :)

As always, reach out with any questions/comments.

much love, winter.

Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us

Chapter Twelve

For the second morning in a row, Michael didn't wake up alone, and just like the day before, he inhaled deeply twice to check he was still breathing.

Sara still rested on his chest, her eyes still closed in slumber, and it matched the last memory of the previous night. Her fingers were intertwined with his and her foot was still laid across his. He felt her chest rhythmically rise, then fall against his, completely relaxed despite and because of his arm that sprawled around her waist, keeping her in the place she had been absent from for so long.

Loose strands of her hair obscured too much of her face for his liking. He tucked them behind her ear, gently untangling the knots. She didn't stir, so he dared to trace her jawline with the pad of his thumb. Six years he had spent wishing for one more day, just one more moment, and now they had forever and it still didn't feel like enough.

His smile grew even bigger, somehow, when there was a soft knock on the door. Breaking their embrace, he laid Sara next to him, careful not to wake her while a part of him wished she would open her eyes at the disturbance and they would start the day together. He couldn't resist kissing the crown of her head, and the hair may not have been of the shade he remembered, but the scent was identical to the one that lingered every time she had leaned closer to him than to any other inmate in Fox River.

He picked up the t-shirt he had discarded the previous night and, pulling it over his head, walked to the door. There he was, their perfect little boy, looking up at him. Michael thought he descried the tiniest tinge of fear on his son's countenance, as though he worried that either this interruption, or the one from the night before, would be unwelcome. It wasn't, of course, and to his relief, Bryce's face was nothing but a gigantic beam as soon as he realized vexation was the furthest thing from his dad's mind.

"Ready to make breakfast for your mom?" Michael said, then scooped the boy up and they made their way to the kitchen, accompanied by giggles.

After having spent two days jetting around the country, promising an early parole to the infamous passport dealer and tracking down an aspiring actress who had almost gotten a credit in an indie movie that never got released (or had more than just one specific scene filmed), Abigail had a pretty good idea why Sara's fate was misconstrued for over half a decade. Yet none of the papers she had brought with her to Michael's place this morning had anything to do with it. Technically, it was still an ongoing investigation and statements would still need to be taken before she could disclose anything, but it was all just bureaucratic bullshit and she had crossed the line of professionalism with this case a long time ago. Thanks to her dear father, the odds of that never happening had never been in her favor, she mused when knocking.

It was Bryce who answered the door, excited as though they had seen each other more than once. And god, was he his father's son, standing so confidently in the entryway like he had taken his first steps there. He stared at her, his eyes as eloquent as the dusty old dictionaries on the back shelves of libraries and undoubtedly telling her something. If a day ever came when she could grasp his existence, she might just understand him.

"He wants you to lift him up," someone supplied.

Lincoln. Of course. He was a few feet away, kept hidden by the miracle of his nephew. Whatever he had been up to in Panama made him even larger, and the wardrobe he had apparently not yet refreshed emphasized it.

In the scrawny second their eyes locked, it didn't look like he already knew about her father. He stood absolutely still, with the exception of his fingers that didn't know whether to rub his forehead and grab the insides of his pockets. She had seen Lincoln Burrows dismayed enough times to know that thrashing and cursing was how he responded to the smallest trigger; what her father had done was an off the scale one, especially now that the little boy stood between them.

She wished he knew, though. Then she wouldn't have to be the one to tell him. And she absolutely despised herself for caring about his reaction.

"Lincoln," she nodded to him as she picked the kid up; not because of his words, of course, but strictly because the boy raised his arms, laying all his cards on the table.

"Abigail."

"Dad is making breakfast," Bryce informed her, and hurrying towards the kitchen was of no use, since Lincoln hovered behind them the whole way, looking as out of place as she was feeling.

She remembered Michael's apartment as a frightening emptiness that induced the feeling of entrapment. Walls were few and festooned with paintings as personal as the ones supermarket chains had to offer, and one would be hard-pressed to find something, anything that distinguished the place from a hundred others that awaited tenants. Nothing was out of its place, all the books always on the shelves and no piece of clothing was ever laying around. The place seemed as barely alive as the man who lived there was.

Now there was a kids' jacket on the floor, having slipped off the hanger. She had to step over tiny sneakers someone had been too excited, or tired, to put away the night before. She could swear the walls no longer appeared white, even though they hadn't changed the hue since the last time she was here. The air smelled of actual breakfast, not the sole cup of coffee, and somehow her steps no longer echoed as she walked down the hall that finally led somewhere.

"Mom's not up yet," Bryce said as they entered the kitchen, and there were children's books on the table and a basket of laundry on one of the chairs.

"You mom should get to sleep in every day," she told him, putting him back down.

"And she will," Michael assured her, and the pancake pan fit his hand so perfectly that all words she could think of fell flat. His shoulders were relaxed and the smile on his face looked like the most natural thing. It seemed impossible that he was the same man she had once found collapsed on the floor, his lifeline torn in pieces around him.

"Breakfast?" he asked her, and he didn't even sound the same. He no longer mulled the words over, modulated his voice to keep up a collected appearance. It wasn't a role; it was as if he had finally shed off the mask and came into his own.

Lincoln apparently considered himself to be a distraction, for he piled pancakes on a plate, took Bryce's hand and declared they were off to see what was on TV. It gave her a minute she needed to reclaim her voice.

"So how are you?" Abigail asked as Michael poured pancake mix into the pan despite her protests ("To go, then," he just said when she cited the meeting she was already late for). There looked to be at least three different kinds of pancakes he was making, and he juggled it all with a poise that would never give away this was only the second morning he had woken up to having someone to make breakfast for.

"You've always done a pretty good job of figuring that one out by yourself," he laughed, and yeah, a proper answer would be redundant.

"You feel guilty? For not finding them?"

"Of course," his smile faded somewhat, but he continued before a sigh of pity could leave her lungs. "But I know that I did everything I could. And that is something I have to thank you for. I've told you a couple of times that you missed your career path. I was wrong."

She was pretty sure it was time to flip the pancake, but his eyes stayed on hers. She wondered if he knew. It wouldn't be surprising; he had tracked down a serial killer once using only public records after all. Or twice, if you counted Oscar Shales. But then again, she doubted he would be making her breakfast if he merely suspected that all along she had part of an answer he had been desperate for.

"I have some papers for Sara," she broke their contact, opening the folder and flipping through documents that officially brought the love of his life back to life. When they reached the last one, Michael's heart swelled, and whatever doubts he might voice she silenced with a single glance.

"And I have something for you," she smiled, and from under the folder she pulled a blue card. She held it out and he saw it had Happy Fatherhood written on the front. He carefully took it from her hand and stared at the letters, still in disbelief that the message they spelled out was aimed at him. "I, um, I wanted to get the blue "it's a boy!" balloons, too, but I thought it might be overdoing it."

"Don't hold yourself back next time," he told her.

"I have one for your brother, too."

"Thanks for getting him out of jail, by the way. I would hate to be the one breaking him out again. In Central America, of all places."

"I thought he deserved something for, you know, communicating," she dared to say although she was now the one leaving something out of the communication.

Lincoln absolutely seemed to still be in the communicative mood when she got to the living room. He must have been waiting for her, as he was immediately on his feet. She wondered whether it was because of the instruction or out of intuition that Bryce increased the volume of the television and, together with the plate of pancakes, moved to the furthest end of the sofa to give them privacy.

"They didn't have any for uncles," she said as she gave him the card, just as blue as the one she had given Michael; she had crossed out father in fatherhood, writing uncle above it. She figured she could do it in a prettier way and was absolutely sure better-stocked stores did have cards for uncles, but if one was to exclude their professional relationship, this was her making the first step. And besides, she was pretty sure that in the wake of what was coming, he would throw it away in a true Lincoln Burrows fashion.

For a moment she thought she had misread him earlier and he already knew, for he didn't take the card.

"Your nails are not pink," he then said, and her face had to look as confused as she was feeling, because he ran a hand over his scalp. "You used to always have pink nails, that's all."

Before she could figure out what to make of his observation, he went on.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for storming off in Morenci, for ignoring you, never calling from Panama…"

His words were rushed, but she got the gist of it. Lincoln Burrows, apologizing. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the boy looking at them rather than watching the documentary on airplane crashes. After flying for the first time, he probably developed a fascination with how planes worked.

It didn't really matter how she responded, since it would be annulled as soon as the contents of another final report on the Scofield/Burrows case was made relatively public. But there was a kid watching, and acknowledging the shortcomings was undoubtedly an achievement for someone who had built his reputation on toughness. As a firm believer in positive reinforcement she refrained from saying that there was enough stuff he should be sorry for that the phone battery would die on him before he could apologize to everyone.

"Lincoln, I think it is very easy to be in a forgiving mood right now. So why doesn't this wait for the dust to settle?" she gave him a response that was as much aimed at her as it at him.

Michael knew Sara was up when he heard their son excitedly greet her. His hands were sweaty as he waited for her to make her way to the kitchen. He tried to busy himself with flipping pancakes but settled for leaning on the counter, his head overwhelmed with echoes of his pounding heart.

He remembered last night, the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her in his arms. How overwhelming it felt, yet wasn't nearly enough. She had backed away before seeking his warmth again. It was just the way they were since having found each other again. A tentative step closer, then their eyes retreated and he was left wondering when they would run out of excuses to maintain the distance and have all the reasons to never part again. They could talk it out, of course, probably should, but somehow they never touched upon anything deeper than veneer. Whether they feared what would be uncovered or the havoc it might wreak, he didn't know.

They could never get out of the circular dance they were trapped in without testing the limits, he reminded himself, hoping it would not loom over them this morning. He forgot to breathe as his eyes landed on her, overusing her face for any sign of regret. She was smiling. If there was a bit of shyness in her eyes, it disappeared almost immediately, like she too hadn't been sure until something about him reassured her. As he breathed out the pointless fears, he somehow managed not to close the distance between them, erase the hour he had been awake for and rewrite it as waking up in each other's arms. Thank god she noticed the folder on the table, for he could no longer think of a single reason why the space they insisted on worked for either of them.

"Abigail brought something for you," he told her.

"Did I get my credit cards back?" her eyes widened as she hurried to the table, so close to him he could catch her in his arms. He tried not to take her words personally. Her strength was something he had admired from the moment he first placed her on the wall of his place in Chicago. A well-born, pretty young woman who could do anything, work anywhere, opted for a federal prison, tending to the vilest men the society had to offer. He watched her stand up to Bellick and budget cuts that would make any other doctor miss his sugar levels that first day in Fox River; then he put her through hell, made her crawl around the ceiling with him, a man she barely had a reason to trust, and she was scared out her mind and never showed it, kept going when most would break down on tears. And now she had brought up their boy, all by herself, turning a possible liability into her greatest strength with absolutely no indignation.

He wanted to pull her into his arms right then, forbidding her from ever again thinking she hadn't given their son enough. He had wished for many things in his own childhood, but what he had craved the most, love, that was something their son had in abundance. No toys and no appliances mattered when you were as loved as their boy was since before he had even been born.

He stood behind her as she glanced at each of the documents that bore her real name for the first time in years, waiting for her to get to the last one. He stepped a bit closer with every piece of her true self she reclaimed until he was so close that the smallest of moves would land his lips on the back of her head. Tilting his own head, he watched her reaction when she finally held their son's birth certificate.

Her jaw dropped when she realized their names were listed as the parents. Michael held his breath as she took in their son's name; it wasn't something they had discussed, and he wasn't arrogant enough to think it was the logical thing to do, nor claim it as his right. He would be the first to say that their son should have her surname rather than his, but when she looked at him and tears glistened in her eyes, he knew she wouldn't have it any other way.

"We have a son," she said with wonder, as though she was the one that had known about it for mere days.

She turned around and flung herself onto him, the side of her face nestled against his neck, her arms united behind his back. The force with which her body landed on his would impact his balance if he didn't welcome her with equal want. As they clung to each other, he couldn't believe that despite the years during which he had refused to let her go, this was the first time he held her like this. One of his hands was placed on her back, the other cradled the back of her head, both pressing her closer, even closer to him, so close that nothing could come between them again, ever.

To Be Continued.

Broughttoyouby:::winter.