Dear all,
thank you all for reading and and especially to those who reviewed. I have to say I was pretty relieved to read you guys liked the last chapter, haha. I would insert a heart symbol here, but the site doesn't allow it, so a simple I love you all will have to suffice :) your encouragement really does mean so much to me. To the anonymous reviewer who has recently started reading fics - welcome. So glad you discovered the world of fanfiction. It is a splendid place ;)
As far as the story is concerned ... yeah, they will start talking more.
As always, you can always get in touch with any questions, comments, or if you just wanna chat, either here or on tumblr (link in bio/same username)
Anyway, I hope you will like this. Please please review.
much love, winter.
Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us
Part Three - Forward
Chapter Fourteen
After the story reached its closing line and their son was tucked in, his eyes no longer fearing the challenge of sleeping by himself, Sara headed left toward the bathroom, like every evening, and Michael was to retreat to his office, for the first time since he wasn't alone anymore. If her steps were hasty, his were hesitant in question, an invite she disregarded.
She felt ridiculous about it as soon as the bathroom door closed. Taking off her clothes did nothing to shed her of the feeling, and once again it failed to escape her just how perfectly two people would fit in the shower cabin. She adjusted the temperature of the running water, but regardless of the effort, it was as scorching as the strip of fading sun that had fallen upon Sucre's backyard when her heart still beat in the rhythm they had shared and she could still enumerate the places his lips had kissed.
He had rushed out after her as inconspicuously as being surrounded by people allowed him. Sucre played music loud and one practically had to scream to be heard, but it couldn't eclipse his steps nearing. They had always had a way of erasing the reality, so egocentrically only seeing, feeling, falling for each other. She shut her eyes as he stood behind her, close enough for her to know that his bloodstream still raved as well. How she managed not to turn on her heels and crash her body into his, was a mystery to her, especially when his hand slipped into hers.
He leaned closer and his breath, heavy with the consequences of their tryst while she was breathless in elation, was on her skin.
"Sara, we didn't use…" he started, because of course that would be the thing he would focus on. God forbid he would kiss the hollow behind her ear or gaze at her with the insinuation that would make her want to leave the party early and find a way to get Lincoln off their couch as soon as their son succumbed to slumber. But that was Michael Scofield for you, following his own moral code that didn't give anyone else a say and gave him absolutely no pleasure everyone else would take for granted. Maybe she was still too much in love to call him out for it. Maybe she just wasn't used to always being unconditionally put first, even and especially when all she wanted was to hold his hand. And she definitely should be more alarmed that they were talking about this, again.
"I know," her head jerked toward him, stopping just before her cheek could touch his lips. She watched them shudder, then walked away before he could speak the words she knew beleaguered him.
Now the little pharmacy bag with the pill was next to the sink. It wasn't that she was thinking of not taking it, but she had the identical intent once before and right answers had always been an abstract concept with Michael Scofield. If she was to recount, the first right thing to do would have been to tell Bellick about a prisoner crawling around the ceiling and knowing his way around Fox River. And the absolute wrong would have been to keep the door closed and send a convicted murderer to his death.
Things had never been simple with the two of them, escaping prisons with the other's help and running from bullets together, yet something as natural as talking seemed to be the one insurmountable thing. But since they had gotten so good at pulling off the impossible, she wiped the tears that slipped from her eyes.
Her steps stilled when the door of his office came in sight. He left it too open to call it ajar, yet it was closed just enough to give her an excuse not to enter. She didn't take it.
Who knew how far she had still been from the office when he first heard her approaching. His eyes awaited her, though he kept them too low for their gazes to meet. Still in the shirt she had creased between her fingers just hours earlier, he was sitting in his desk chair, whose blackness inevitably sent shivers down her spine just thinking of subfusc days he had greeted in this room, before.
Even though he was leaning back, his shoulders were in perfect posture. The elbows were placed on armrests, the hands joined together with the pads of his fingers. There had never been a need to put an additional chair in the office, so now she had no other option but perch on the desk, on its very edge, hoping the distance she put between them didn't reverberate in his mind. Still avoiding his eyes, she glanced at the blueprint that was laid out on the desk. The newest notes he had made the night she and Bryce were flying to him, unbeknownst to him.
"Are you sorry about what happened today?" she asked, her eyes still on the shapes drawn with painstaking precision that was the answer Lincoln had refused to give her.
His hand moved closer to hers. If until now there had always been an apparent excuse to ignore his attempt, this time it was impossible for her to turn away without implications. To assure him that putting distance between them, the one worse than the physical one, was the furthest thing from her mind, she covered his hand with hers and squeezed it. Relief permeated his sigh, and not for the first time she wondered why it was like this, all the time, when what she wanted was to be in his arms, always.
"For making love to you, no. I'll never be sorry for that," he responded. He tilted his head to the side and the pad of his thumb caressed her knuckles with gentleness that remained intact as the days passed. "I just wish it didn't happen like that."
"How has always been a bit of a problem for us," she laughed, but he didn't laugh with her. She finally dared to raise her eyes to the face that could be so damn unreadable. He didn't meet them; he still watched their hands that made it look so easy, being with each other, every touch feeling like home, as though no time had dwindled.
"Why is this so difficult?" she asked. "I mean… I'm here. You're here. And it's like there's a whole new set of bars between us."
Something about her words incited a smile. His hand slowly slid away from hers, though he let it linger as he pondered on the response. Then he got up, and there were only a few feet between them, but the seconds it took him to cover them felt like slow motion. When he finally stood in front of her and their gazes met, the softness and love she saw took her breath away. He leaned closer, his eyes still on hers, and his hands cupped her face.
"It's not difficult," he told her as his fingertips delicately traced her hairline, her jaw, ran through her dampen hair. She wondered if he could discern the path the few tears had taken before she quelled them. "It has just never been like this before. We have the time we have always wanted. And it is not a maybe anymore. It is, and it is now."
His hands left her face as she placed her arms on his shoulders, the insides of her wrists embracing the nape of his neck. His hands slid lower, too fast for their touch to linger in innuendo. He tried to hide it by settling his eyes on hers, once again slipping into their old habits of conveying more with silence than in sound. Not for a second did she think it was by accident that the position of his hands on her hips matched the one they had claimed hours earlier.
"If you're looking for any bruises, there aren't any," she told him, pressing into his examining touch in case he didn't believe her words. "And even if there were, I wouldn't care."
His hands left her immediately, and the love in his eyes turned into spite of which she wasn't the target. He braced himself against the desk, and from the way his mouth opened and closed as he breathed, one would never guess it was their lovemaking that he was remembering.
"Hey," she placed a hand on his shoulder to make him focus on her again. "I wanted it as much as you did."
It didn't placate him. He looked at her hand, and for a horrifying second, she thought he would move away from her touch. She knew better than to exile the fear when the muscles under her hand just tensed.
"I can't treat you like that, Sara."
"Like what? Like you love me?"
He didn't appreciate her interpretation, so undeniable in her eyes and absolutely false in his. She didn't need him to raise his eyes to hers, with the reprimand that could never really keep the warmth at bay when it was aimed at her. Cold pierced through her when he finally opted for taking a step away from her. His back was once again perfectly straight and his hands slid in the pockets of his trousers. As he kept his eyes on hers with resolution that was in perfect sync with the rawness of the expression ensconced on his face, she could easily believe they were back in Fox River and he came to tell her he was breaking his brother out. Regardless of the time passed and things changed, it too often felt they were still in that place, in that room, fooling the world and themselves.
He had once promised to never lie to her again. Maybe now they would finally start being honest with each other.
"You spoke to Lincoln today," he said.
"He told me about the video."
She could see it was an answer he didn't expect. The distress it caused was even clearer. He pinched his eyes shut and bowed his head as though the burden had only multiplied, just like the conjectures and their horror the scarcity of Lincoln's words had left her with.
"You shouldn't…" his response of course again focused on her, and she'd sigh with disappointment if the frustration didn't win.
"Would you rather I didn't know?" she countered, and an answer would be redundant. Maybe that was why he didn't bother with it.
"Sara. There is something I need to tell you," he started again. "Last year, I was with someone."
When her lips parted in relief that it was this, just this perturbing him, he inevitably thought the worst of it.
"I had to try," he said, and even though his eyes were still intent on her, it was himself that he was convincing. "You need to know, Sara, if I had known, I would have never…"
"Has Bryce told you how we found out about you?"
The calm of her voice was in stark contrast with the urgency in his, and just like she knew it would, it brought his focus back to her. In the end he just couldn't help himself, always putting her first.
"No."
"You were on the news," she said, and the memory of him, so unchanged from the images she had obstinately clung to for six years brought a smile to her face. She skipped that part when she thought he had never cared and how she wanted to forget him with a needle in her arm and the number of dishes she broke, wishing it was the sound of his bones cracking. "You won an award. The Engineer of the Year."
"You saw me…" he wouldn't be Michael Scofield if he didn't draw conclusions.
"I'm not telling you this to give you one more thing to obsess over, Michael," she stopped him before he could ask questions whose answers would do neither of them any good tonight. "You did the right thing, moving on. I'm glad you tried. And I would have been just as glad if it had worked out."
Something about her mien must have convinced him she meant it. Maybe he pretended for her sake. Tension left his shoulders, albeit still torturously slowly, and he nodded, suddenly looking tired. His eyes rested on the wall covered with blueprints, and she wondered which of them, if any, had been the one he had drawn without knowing he was guiding her back to him.
"I have something for you," he then said, and the width of his smile was definitely for her. His eyes were on hers just long enough to spot the surprise that raised her eyebrows. He turned and she didn't hate the sight of his back any less. Opening the top drawer, he took something out, something that seemed to have awaited his hand. She craned her neck, tilted her head, but he made sure to keep hidden whatever he was holding until he was ready to show it to her.
"For all the occasions we have missed," he finally said, his eyes shy and the origami between his fingers.
It was the rose he had given her for her birthday, just bigger. The blossom was redder and the stem was greener. The paper was more expensive looking but folded with the same care, same precision that had elicited a smile that day, against all odds. If he had watched her reaction stealthily, over his shoulder as the guard placed the handcuffs back around his wrists, tonight his heart swelled with repose as her hand reached for the rose and held it as though it was the most precious thing in the world. She neared it to her face, just like she had the one she still kept, before she raised her eyes to his with such intensity, such clarity that it would knock him back a step if he didn't feel the same way.
"I love you," she said.
If it had taken him six years to tell her how beautiful she was, this was the first time she said what all her actions had made irrefutable. He had known it, of course, when he let himself admit it amidst the debilitating guilt. It had been her hands that tended to him with misplaced care; the lips that caressed his when hatred should have been leaving them. And now, when somehow they found their way back to each other without crossing over to the other side, it was indisputable. There was the crane she kept as if it could still lead her to him, but nothing could speak louder than their boy. Whenever Bryce looked at him, there was love in his eyes, the love he could have only gotten from Sara. She could have erased him, so easily, but she kept him alive without the hope of ever seeing him, again. She could have built a life for herself, for their boy, and it would be a better one without him in it, but she sternly kept his place at the table, as though he had ever done anything to deserve it.
"I love you too, Sara," he whispered, and she was already in his arms. Her head was nestled just above his heart, right where he loved her to be the most. He felt one of her hands on his shoulder blade, while the other was still holding the rose, and he knew she would never let it go, just like she hadn't the first one. He cupped her nape, his fingertips like always getting lost among the strands of her hair, and whether he wanted to count it or not, he couldn't believe this was barely the second time he got to hold her like this.
Much later, after they had made their way to bed and she put the rose on the nightstand to free her hand for holding him, he asked her if she wanted to make love. She nodded in acquiescence to the question he would never again pose with doubt in his voice. She rolled off his chest and onto her back to feel his weight on her, so encapsulating in its lightness. They kissed, they touched, they moved, this time as slowly as the years that had denied them each other allowed them, and tomorrow slowly turned into their today.
After a couple of weeks, they had been together long enough for a routine to develop.
He fought with his intellect and his hands, and his lips fought on both fronts, when Sara told him he should go back to work. He had enough money and even more reasons to spend every morning making breakfast for his family, never go an hour without wrapping his arms around them. But when she pointed out that they couldn't go on pretending this was a vacation, the idea of them being there when he came home, day after day, was just as mesmerizing.
And thus reality slowly started claiming its place in their cocoon.
If she could sleep through the morning with ease, the nights had always been a challenge to get through without startling awake. Most of the time it wasn't a nightmare that woke her, but rather an empty darkness, and it matched what she woke up next to. Her arms reached for a body that wasn't lying next to her, and the cool of his side of the bed felt so much like the years without him that it brought tears to her eyes.
She reached out for the clothes scattered around the bed, putting on whatever covered her most. He didn't have a specific place where he waited for his eyelids to entertain the idea of sleep again. Some nights she found him in the kitchen, an untouched glass of water in front of him; others he was in his office, the blueprints bereft of attention. If he was in the living room, the television was never on. Whatever kept his slumber away dissipated the moment he saw her. He held her hands between his as though she was the one waking in cold, and she sat on his lap to be the only thing in his sight. She asked what kept him up, ran a soothing hand over his scalp, kissed the stubble on his chin, and he relished in her touch, with his eyes shut and a smile that relaxed his tense lips. No one would pick him as the perturbed one, so well he hid his demons when his angel was in his arms.
Her fingers traced the deepened lines of his face as she begged him to talk to her, and he insisted he was fine so patiently and calmly that it had to be a lie. When he realized she wouldn't believe his words, he let his hands talk. The pads of his fingers caressed her chin, her nose, the cheeks, the worry on her forehead, every touch followed by his lips. He paused at the invisible line on her neck that thanks to his inescapable attention she too had begun seeing, then lowered his hands to continue loving her. Some nights she stood her ground; most of the time, though, he carried her to their bedroom, and with the sheets crumpled by their feet, she let him finish what he had started, for she needed it as badly as he did.
She asked him to wake her in the mornings before he left for work, but he didn't need an alarm to go off and usually she woke up to nothing but empty sheets, save for the little origami crane he always placed on his pillow to watch over her.
It didn't happen often, but sometimes she was the first to wake up. As tempting as the idea of cuddling up to him was, kissing him awake won over.
"What time is it?" he would ask, his eyelids still closed under the weight of sleep, his arms already reaching to pull her closer.
"Almost five," she would say. Neither of them reached for the light switch, but their lips found what they wanted nevertheless. They pulled off the clothes they had bothered putting back on just hours earlier, and their hands reveled in the aimless roaming that effortlessly pleased and teased. His fingers followed the curve of her spine lightly, teasingly, until it got the best of him as well. The rhythm she set rocked them both fully awake, and as she kissed him, her hair fell down the sides of her face, sprawling across his shoulders to shield them from the world.
"Slower," he said, his hands on her hips to still them.
"Michael Scofield actually asking for something?" she chuckled, nonetheless complying. He let her kiss him from his mouth and down his chin, making her think she would actually get her way with him this time. But he used the hold he had of her hips and rolled them over, his hand cupping the back of her head to absorb the impact.
He moved out of her, and unlike her, he didn't seem to mind at all. She was about to chide him for it, and he knew it, covering her mouth with his. The deeper he kissed her, the closer his fingers got to where she wanted him. They caressed and teased and satiated the spot he found without guidance. He left her gasping as his mouth moved down her body.
She slid her hands down his stomach, and he couldn't conceal that it was making him as breathless as she already was. He rested his cheek on her chest and the pad of his thumb massaged the underside of her breast as her hand strived to make him feel as good as his had already made her. She touched him in the rhythm that matched the one his fingers initiated, and for a few seconds, sybaritically long and torturously short seconds, she again thought he would let her.
"Don't."
His eyes were still closed when fingers of his free hand wrapped around her wrist and he gently pulled her hand away. He didn't let her touch him anywhere below his shoulders, because Michael Scofield never played fair; not as far as his plans were concerned, the masterpieces no one could spot, much less understand at the first umpteen glances, and he definitely wasn't fair in bed. In her opinion, at least, but he made it impossible to argue, knowing just when to lighten his caress to draw it out before making her arch into him and how to position his hips to knock any rational thought out of her, again.
Later, as the first ray of the waking sun joined them and his hand ran lazy circles across her back, she watched the dark circles under his eyes that marred his beatific face.
"You're not getting enough sleep," she said.
"You're right. Maybe sex should be the first thing to go," he smirked, even though he knew she meant it.
To prove his point, he pulled her from the bed, covering her mouth with his hand to stifle a shriek, and lifted her, again without asking for permission he knew would always have. With her arms around his neck, he carried her to their bathroom. Her feet touched the cold tiles and he flicked the light switch. If it blinded her for a second, he was completely mesmerized by the sight of her, like he hadn't studied every inch of her skin in detail just minutes ago.
His kiss relented only to turn on the water; then they were in the shower cabin, their bodies pressed together, the steam enveloping them. She should have known better, they should know better than substituting words with sex, she thought, but his hands were in all the right places, again, and whatever words of reason she had mulled over didn't materialize, again. Later she pondered if he knew and kept it up on purpose.
"We'll fall," she laughed, and if she said it early enough, he acquiesced, and she soon wondered why they would even need anything but their hands.
"We won't," he assured her other times, and after years of broken promises it was a good one to keep. Her back was against the tiles and his hand caressed the insides of her thighs, just in case she still doubted him. He hooked her legs around his hips, taking on both of their weights, then moved closer, deeper. The cool of the tiles mixed with the warmth of the body she clung to, digging her fingertips in the skin of his back, sometimes forgetting about the patch that was redder and uninked. Neither bothered turning the showerhead away from them and the water now irritated her eyes. She closed them and not seeing him only augmented the feel of him. The steam made sure that her lungs seemed on fire, just like the rest of her, and the insistent movements of his hips continuously burdened her breathing.
And god, was she so easy to read, for his hands were sliding over her slippery skin with just the right amount of pressure. She came fast, so fast it would put a smirk on any other man's face. His head fell onto her shoulder as she throbbed around him and he stayed until her body felt limp. He told her he loved her, and she definitely should know better than believe a word a man said when she was naked in his arms, but this man was the only exception.
As he was getting dressed, she made him coffee in the kitchen. His tie was still undone when he hurried after her for just a few more stolen moments. He poured the coffee into the thermos, even though she wouldn't mind tasting it when he inevitably leaned closer and kissed her, chastely and carefully at first. Just as he had to leave, he suddenly deepened the kiss. The arm he had wrapped around her caught her in case her wobbly knees gave way.
"Tell me to call in sick," he said and laughed as she pushed him toward the door.
Some mornings she managed to let it all go in slumber until her son cuddled up next to her. If it happened to rain, they left the window ajar and listened to the dance of raindrops, as though it was just another lazy Sunday in Lille. When they could keep their eyes open without their eyelids aching, they made a short video message for Michael, just the two of them smiling and wishing him a good day (of course he had gotten her a new phone. "I plan on calling you a lot, so please let me get a say?" was his response to her objections). Even if he was getting ready for a meeting or already in the middle of one, he always called back almost immediately, never failing to tell them he loved them. Afterward, they texted back and forth until he came home, which was always sooner rather than later.
Most mornings, though, she couldn't place her limbs in a soothing position. She pulled Michael's pillow closer, laying her head on it and nestling it in her arms. She closed her eyes to let her other senses convince her he was there; all she got out of it was wondering what it had been like for him, alone in this bed for years, waiting for the morning to chase the torment of her, provided she ever left his mind at all.
While the sun was barely rising in New York, the morning had already passed in Lille, so she relented and called her other home. Selena downplayed her summer days in order to learn more about the uncle she hadn't known she had. Geraldine had had to hire a substitute doctor and refused to listen to Sara's apologies. She followed her patients' progress, but as the days sprawled into weeks, the smaller the numbers of those still in care became. Karim's family went to live with a relative, but Geraldine had the address and encouraged Bryce to exchange letters with his friend. Life in Lille went on, Sara mused, each day bringing a change that rendered a life she had thought would be forever her own increasingly unrecognizable.
Lincoln now worked for C-Note's company, again, but Sara wondered just how much he actually got done since he stopped by during breakfast every other day. She begged him to cut down on the pastry he brought without fail, for she still tried to ingrain healthy eating habits in her son and an overload of sugar first thing in the morning wasn't one of them. Lincoln didn't really listen, obviously. Sugar had been an important component in his breakfasts his entire life and he never thought of his nutrition as unhealthy.
"But potatoes are vegetables," he was perplexed one evening when she served celery root mash instead of mashed potatoes. His brother shot him a disapproving look, but Michael had been brought up on the unhealthy food, or whatever they were to fucking call it, and had absolutely always considered potatoes to be vegetables. But these days he'd claim black was glitter if Sara thought so, Lincoln smirked in silence.
Most mornings they talked, Sara and Lincoln, when they were sure Bryce was too immersed in writing postcards or reading to overhear them. He told her about Aldo, the Company, his brother's plans, those that worked and especially about those that failed. It was just fragments, for he wasn't much of a talker, not even when he liked the topic discussed. As frustrating as it was, hearing about Michael's darkest days from Lincoln, at least a bit of the fog in her mind was clearing.
Even though they were now in New York, Sara and Bryce retained some of their habits from Lille. They visited all the markets nearby to find their new favorite one. In thrift shops they found some records they had listened to in France and bought some they didn't yet know. And they went to the park, of course, and after a couple of weeks of feeling all the eyes on her, Sara had a group of other moms to chat with and Bryce knew the names of all the kids that came to the playground regularly.
And most days, as she was sitting on the picnic blanket they had bought on their first morning as a family, she heard the steps he didn't bother to conceal nearing. He placed his hands on her shoulders as gently as only he could, then sat down behind her and she leaned onto his chest. His arms circled around her waist, pulling her closer, and he tilted his head to kiss her temple, so delicately that it rudely messed up her heartbeat.
"Skipping work again?" she laughed, and both of their eyes traveled to their son. He sat on the swings, playing cards with the boy he had befriended.
"I missed you," he said the words that would never be a platitude for him.
"Just so you know, I haven't yet started on dinner," she said, and he leaned closer to kiss the corner of her lips. She would kiss him back if she wasn't preoccupied with smiling, and he didn't mind, for his mouth lost the battle as well. They chuckled together under the early afternoon sun, and he nestled his cheek against hers, running his fingers through her hair. Never did he seem to be able to resist the gesture, not when they just sat with or without any space between them, nor when he was in her and so many other parts of her ached for his attention. It was one of the questions she had dared to ask one night.
"You often wore your hair down in Fox River," he had told her with a smile he wore when he didn't hide his remembrances. "When I kissed you. When we met, too. And while I could touch you those few times, your hair…. it always seemed too personal."
"I am thinking of dyeing it," she now said the first of the things she had been pondering on lately.
Before he could decide how he felt about it, a mom Sara had become acquainted with walked up to them. She was one of those moms that were the first to spot and practically interrogate any newcomers to ensure the kids' safety as well as satisfy her own curiosity. Sara liked her because besides knowing all the parents, she also had an opinion about all the schools in the vicinity and knew which stores offered the best deals.
"Mr. and Mrs. Scofield," she greeted them with an accent of a lifelong New Yorker. If there was anything else she had noticed about Michael, in addition to this being his first time at this playground, she hid it marvelously. "Nice to finally put a face to a name, Mr. Scofield. I'm Deena."
"Michael, please," he smiled, and Sara wondered if it dismayed him to move his arm off her to shake Deena's hand as much as it made her feel incomplete.
"I'm Jake's mom," she pointed to the boy who sat with their son. "So nice of you to spend an afternoon with your family. I barely see my husband before dinner. He's an investment banker."
"He doesn't know what he is missing," Michael said, tightening his arms around Sara. Deena either didn't care or notice, as she was just about to suggest what Michael presumed was a play date when her shoulders slumped at the sight of the sandpit.
"I'm sorry, my daughter is about to eat sand right now," she said and rushed to save the sandy cupcakes from her daughter's experimental hands.
They both watched her walked out of earshot, though Michael leaned so close to her than Deena could be standing right in front of them and yet the whisper would be only for her.
"Mrs. Scofield, huh?"
"She assumed," she shrugged in her trivial defense, and one didn't need to be as observant as Michael to spot the blush besieging her cheeks. "And, um, I didn't exactly clarify."
He didn't mind it at all, of course, the small piece of misinformation that was so potent in what it suggested.
While his right arm remained enveloped around her waist, the palm of his left hand slid down her forearm, for once disregarding the mark in the crook of her elbow that had once almost taken her when she thought he didn't want her. The pad of his thumb brushed her knuckles and it felt like they had skipped all the usual steps and went directly to the honeymoon phase.
"I'm glad you didn't," he said.
His thumb came to a stop on her ring finger, right where he hoped there would soon be a ring that shone like her eyes, then a band that would match his own. She rested her head on his, an answer to a question that didn't need to be asked.
It took Bryce unusually long to notice his father sitting with his mom. When he finally did, he just stared for a moment, as though unsure whether to feel happy or cheated that no one had alerted him. He had been a bit scared when his parents told him dad was going back to work and it would be just him and mom in the mornings. He didn't know many dads, but the ones he did all worked and rarely came home when the sun was still up. So on the first day, he counted hours, checking the time as he and mom were getting produce for dinner and decorative pillows to give color to the living room. It was barely past noon and he thought he hadn't yet made it to the middle of his wait when dad walked in, not only in time for dinner but early enough to help him and mom make lunch. He didn't catch up on work in the evening either, reading the bedtime story until Bryce fell asleep at the sound of dad's voice. It happened every day, and even though mom berated dad for it, Bryce knew it made her happy.
His parents waved at him in greeting, but waving back was out of the question for Bryce. He hurriedly mumbled something to Jake before running toward them, straight into his father's arms, like every chance he got. Sara doubted she would ever become inured to the sight, just like Michael still didn't seem to completely grasp the fact they had a little boy. His eyes found hers, still in disbelief, still seeking to share the elation.
"I see you have a friend," Michael said to their son.
"That's Jake. He knows so much about cards. And," his voice dropped to a confidential whisper, "he has three brothers and sisters."
"Interesting bit. About the siblings, I mean," Michael said later after they had convinced their son to go play with Jake some more.
"Nah, he's just used to it. He grew up around large families," she said, but as per usual, Michael wasn't interested about the past. For a change, despite all the objections, she didn't mind one bit.
"Do you want more kids?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice neutral, but his eyes gave away the answer he hoped for.
"Yeah, I do," she said, remembering all the little girls that had sat on her knees as she plaited their hair, wishing she would get to brush it before tucking them in for the night. "I always have."
"Then we'll make more babies," he said, somehow managing to pull her even closer and keeping his face from erupting in a smile. "As many as you want."
"As many as I want?" she laughed. "You don't get a say?"
"Well," he started, his eyes checking on their son as he searched for a proper comeback. She chortled, even though he hadn't yet spoken. "Sucre has three. But they are all girls. And since a boy must be for two girls…"
"Keep dreaming, Scofield."
"A lot of them," he said, the smirk long gone when he kissed her temple. "I want a lot of them."
"We always do this," she told him, stroking his cheek. The unscarred skin almost tricked her into believing their past had glistened as brightly as the future she once again had in the palm of her hand. "We always plan out our life before we are actually together."
He intercepted her hand, as though to keep her from dwelling on what had faded, and kissed the exact same spot his thumb had caressed.
"This time it's forever," he promised.
"We should wait a few months, though. Get used to each other first," she said. And talk, she silently added. God, here they were, practically choosing furniture for the baby room, yet pretended that parts of the night not spent making love didn't exist. But she didn't say it, of course. Sometimes, like right now when she was in his arms, she could almost believe it didn't really matter, the things that had happened before their son had run to him for the first time. "To the three of us."
When he kissed her lips, for the first time that afternoon, he might as well say that he knew what she meant.
To Be Continued.
Broughttoyouby:::winter.