Part Four
Alex's head ached in a way that it had not ached since he had given up heavy drinking as a younger man, and his face was pinched and tight. He shifted and tried to touch at the bridge of his nose and see what kind of damage had been done there, only to discover that his hands had been secured behind him with, as he curved his fingers around the skin-warmed metal, his own handcuffs. Alex first froze, and then began directing a calm, measured litany of obscenity into the upholstery beneath his cheek. He could feel the vehicle moving all around him and heard the whir of the engine.
At the sound of Alex's low outburst, the conversation that had been taking place in the front seat creaked as whoever was sitting in it shifted their weight around. The driver did not move. Alex swore again and finally opened his eyes, wincing when the light hurt them. There were bloodstains, he noted, on the upholstery on which he had been resting. It would appear that he had miscalculated when he had decided that being incapable of killing meant that Scofield was incapable of any violence at all. A mistake that would not be made again.
"Hello," a feminine voice from the passenger side said as Alex struggled to sit up. He raised his eyes up to meet the gaze of a pretty redhead, the Tancredi woman who might or might not also be Scofield's paramour.
As he fought to sit up without using his hands and while his head still felt as if it had been placed inside a drum kit, Alex found himself hoping that Scofield and Tancredi were, not only involved, but outright sleeping together. If he found out that she had joined this whole mess with no personal angle in mind at all, then he might have to hate her.
"Hello," Alex answered her when he was finally upright again. He ran his eyes across Tancredi as he did so. She had a cut at her temple that was still a bloody, clotted mess. She had a bruise that bore a suspicious resemblance to the top of the steering wheel forming across her forehead. She was moving as if it hurt her when she twisted around in her seat, and all things considered, she was lucky that she had not been taken away from the scene in an ambulance.
'I kept you from being tortured,' Alex thought, looking at her, and then, 'I might have sacrificed my family for you.' The thought came accompanied by what was the closest thing to pure panic that Alex had felt in a very long time. Allowing his better nature to rise up had been an instinct, something that he had not allowed himself to think about too deeply or too long in case he should then change his mind. There had been only a vague accompanying thought that he could manage any fallout that came his way. By the time that his masters managed to find his leash again in order to give it the appropriate jerk, Scofield and Tancredi would already be dead and he could then play it off as a mistake in communication. His services would still be needed in order to hunt down Burrows. Possibly Alex would wind up paying for that mysterious mistake later, but his illusions that he would might make it out of this predicament alive had been slipping away from him for some time now. He simply knew too much.
'So do Pam and Cameron,' that damning voice in his head began again, the one that Alex hated because it managed to sound so moral and so logical at once. 'Or at the very least, they do in the minds of the people who wanted you to kill David Apolskis.' That, coupled with the convenient way that his supposed kidnapping had coincided with the exact moment when he had begun to break ranks…
Alex felt his breath catch in his throat, and any pretense of control that he might have been maintaining up to that point dropped away from his as abruptly as shrugging off a coat. He swore in a ragged voice and with a vehemence that he had not heard coming from himself in a very long time, and began twisting hard at the handcuffs that were holding his wrists behind his back. The cuffs were not about to break from the power of one crazed man throwing himself against them, and Alex soon moved past the point of bruising and until he could actually feel blood running down his wrists. If he had given a good goddamn about his own personal welfare at that moment, he might have stopped, but the strength of metal against the strength of human skin was not something that he was thinking about at that moment. It was too crisp, too calm, too unemotional, and Alex was in a place far beyond logic.
Tancredi was exhorting him to stop before he wound up hurting himself, and Scofield was watching him in the rearview mirror with those cool, clever eyes that Alex, in a burst of fury, wanted to put out so that they could not continue to ask him what had happened and why he wasn't better . "Let me go," Alex growled instead, bringing both of his legs up and driving them with all of his strength into the back of Scofield's seat. He saw the wince in the way that the skin around Scofield's eyes tightened, but Scofield only pulled the car over to the side of the road.
Tancredi hardly waited for the car to roll to a halt before she, ever the doctor, was reaching for her door handle so that she could get out and presumably come around to the backseat. She was stopped by Scofield saying sharply, "That's what he wants you to do."
As if Alex was faking the utter and complete panic that was coursing through his system. As if he was imagining his wife and child dead in a crime that would never be solved or worse, simply disappearing without a trace, so that he could get one over on Michael Scofield's overly caring little girlfriend. It was a particularly twisted new form of method acting. Alex kept himself from laughing only because he knew that if he started, it would be only seconds before he was sick.
"Let me go, or I swear to God-" he said again, only to make an impatient sound when Scofield only stared at him. "What do you want? Do you think that you're going to get a ransom for me? Do you think that you're going to make them leave you alone by holding me hostage?"
"No," Scofield answered calmly. He was looking at Alex as he would an interesting new math problem, and Alex did not like it at all. "I don't think that you mean anything to them at all."
"We've already established that you're not going to kill me," Alex said, still struggling. He could feel the blood seeping into the seat behind him.
"No," Michael said, though Alex saw a betraying flicker around his eyes. He did not seem inclined to say more.
Alex swore again without caring that he sounded like a wounded animal and threw himself back against the seat. He spent several long minutes continuing to struggle, thinking that it would soon not be a matter of choice before he was sick, as visions of what would be done to Pam and Cameron in order to punish the errant soldier filled his head. Scofield and Tancredi watched in a silence that, broken only by the sound of Alex's hasty breathing and whispered curses, steadily more oppressive.
Alex twisted enough so that Tancredi could see what he was doing to his wrists. "Michael, the blood," she said in a worried tone.
"Shh," Michael responded, and continued to watch Alex with those eyes.
Alex had thought that his fear and his fury would never run out and was so shocked when they did scarcely ten minutes later, leaving him exhausted and empty in their wake. He closed his eyes and felt the sweat prickling all across his body. From the front seat, Scofield asked in a curious tone, "All of that was about Shales?"
"Shut up, Scofield." Alex's voice was scarcely audible.
Scofield was silent for so long that Alex had even begun to hope that he would listen, but the universe was not interested in being so kind. "We only have to keep you captive until the border," he said. "Then you can do whatever you want. Chase us across it, go back to your masters-" There was a contempt in Scofield's voice as he pronounced 'masters' that made Alex's eyes flash open even as he had heard it coming from his own mouth many times before. "Just disappear, if you want. I don't care."
"Thank you so much for keeping me informed of our itinerary."
"I only thought that you might like to be told again," Scofield said as he pulled the car away from the shoulder, "that your life is not in any danger from us."
"Well, there's that." Though Alex could feel the car picking up speed beneath him, he did not sit up to see where they were going.
---
The car rolled to a halt when the sun was slanting low through the windows. Alex could feel it on his face, though he did not open his eyes. The fit-the tantrum, he supposed it ought to be called, but that made it sound powerfully as if he had been upset over not getting his desired candy or a cheap new plastic toy rather than the fact that he very well might have condemned his ex and son to death-had left him cocooned with a sick, exhausted kind of apathy. He could hear Scofield and Tancredi talking to one another in low voices in the front seats. Alex made little effort to attend to the ebb and flow of the words, least of all Tancredi's. 'I kept you from being tortured,' he thought in her direction as he had before. Unlike before, however, there was no reluctant tinge of pride, not knowledge that at the very least he was not so far gone that he could stand by and allow that to be done to another person (yet). Now, knowing that his moment of better instinct might have killed Pam and Cameron, he thought that he hated her a little bit.
The car rolled to a stop, and Scofield and Tancredi began another one of their low conversations in the front seat. In spite of himself, Alex rose out of the fog long enough to listen. Testing the cuffs had been fruitless, as he should have known that it would be and would have known if he had been in his right mind when he had tried it. That did not mean that another opportunity would not arise, if he was clever and calm.
"I don't want to leave you here," Scofield was saying, his voice low and distressed. "He's…" There was a lengthy pause in which Scofield was audibly struggling to discover the best way to describe Alex. Funny. Most of the time, Alex had the same problem when it came to Scofield. "He could be dangerous."
Tancredi's response was a soft and disbelieving laugh. Whether that was because Scofield had needed to say that Alex could be dangerous, when Alex had already chased the two of them through a factory with a gun in hand in the determination of killing at least one of them, or because everything in her life had taken such an abrupt turn towards the dangerous that protesting a slight increase was ridiculous, Alex could not say. "I look like I've just been in a horror movie. There's no one else who can go."
Scofield made an angry huffing noise, followed by a scuffling sound that made Alex think that he was dragging his hand over his hair. "Yeah. Keep the safety off."
"Will do."
Alex gave up on playing opossum, opening his eyes again and sitting up even though his head continued to ring like a gong as it expressed its displeasure with him. The once firm hypothesis that Scofield could be counted on to avoid violence at all costs was falling onto shakier ground by the moment. Alex closed his eyes, waited for several moments until the sick swinging sensation had halted, and opened them again to see that Scofield was watching him in the rearview mirror. He was still wearing a look as if Alex was a particularly interesting puzzle that Scofield was still invested in figuring out. It was all that Alex could do not to sigh.
Scofield finally turned his eyes away from Alex, and Alex took the opportunity to take stock of his surroundings. The car was parked in the shadow of a darkened alley, the engine still running. There was no one around, no way of knowing where he was, and Alex allowed himself a moment to swear softly under his breath for failing to pay more attention to his surroundings. Personal worry did not make an excuse. Alex exhaled and vowed that it would not happen again. He knew that they would not head south immediately, that they would make some running room for themselves before they crossed the border. That was a start.
Scofield went through his wallet for a few moments before he confessed, "I'm not sure that I have enough for everything." He gave a rueful snort and flashed Sara the kind of smile that Alex was fairly certain he was not supposed to be a witness to. "I agree that I'm not a very good thief."
Though Alex could only see a glimpse of Tancredi's profile around her headrest, she appeared to be smiling. "Probably a good sign." She ducked down low, and Alex presumed that she was going through the purse at her feet. There were several moments of hustling before Tancredi said in a tight voice, "My wallet is missing." She exhaled sharply, sounding more panicked than Alex had heard her even when Paul Kellerman had been holding the gun on her and her chances of escape had been slim, and began rummaging through the purse again.
Scofield leaned over Tancredi and put his hand against her shoulder. His expression was concerned. "Sara, it's okay, they already know who you are-"
"Not that." Tancredi continued to go through her purse without looking up at Scofield. At long last, she let out a sigh of relief so deep that it sounded as if it hurt her. "It's still here." She was hunched over to look at something in her hands that Alex could not see, and that he was not going to crane his neck in order to catch a glimpse of. Scofield was doing enough of that for him, his expression concerned. He cast a glance into the backseat at Alex once, as if he was concerned that Alex might be seeing and hearing too much. Alex felt his face twisting into an even deeper scowl. Kidnap a federal agent and involve him in your jaunt to get a series of several escaped offenders across the border, deal with the consequences that arose.
"Sara," Scofield began in a tone that was half-concern and half-warning.
Tancredi twitched and glanced over her shoulder at Alex as if she had forgotten that he was there for a few moments. "I'll explain later," she said to Scofield. "But that means that I don't have any money, sorry."
"Guess I get to learn how to be a better thief," Scofield said, sounding equal parts rueful and resigned. He raised his eyes to meet Alex's in the rearview mirror for a moment before he exited the car. "Don't kick me," Scofield warned as he walked around the car and opened the door to the backseat.
"I have more dignity than that," Alex snapped back, employing a strategy of refusing to acknowledge that his earlier fit had occurred at all in the hope that Scofield would do the same. He watched Scofield carefully in spite of his promise not to do anything so crass as kick out at Scofield like a striking mule, waiting for any opportunity that he could turn to his advantage. Scofield had left the gun behind in the front seat, however, and did not seem inclined to let his guard down anytime soon.
Scofield flicked his eyes up quickly to meet Alex's when Alex spoke of dignity. If he was busily turning over in his mind different things that could make Alex break that thoroughly, then Alex swore that he was going to kick Scofield right in the gut and consequences be damned. It was not as if he was not neck-deep in consequences and barely treading water as it was.
"You do," Scofield said matter of factly before he leaned forward and into the backseat. Alex was so surprised that that he did not resist when he felt Scofield's hand enter the back pocket of his slacks and draw out his wallet.
"And here I thought that you faked the bank robbery," he said sourly as he watched Scofield pull out the considerable amount of cash that he carried on him. As Scofield briefly considered each of the credit cards in turn before he shoved them back, he added, "Give the cards a whirl. You could probably get more out of them, and they wouldn't be able to trace the purchases until you were already over the border." A blatant lie, but one never knew what would stick and what would not.
Scofield's only response was a soft smile, as if they both knew that Alex was capable of better than that. 'You're too frightened to remember that you used to be a good man.' Alex stiffened, remembering, and would have pulled back further against the seat if he had not caught himself in the nick of time.
"I don't want them to think that you were helping us voluntarily," Scofield finally replied.
Alex was beginning to think that Scofield said such things solely so that Alex would be so surprised that he would remain still and not fight as Scofield touched him. His fingers brushed against Alex as he put the wallet back where he had found it and then leaned back out of the car again. His expression was inscrutable as he said to Tancredi, "Be careful."
Alex's head was beginning to ache and his hands to shake. He needed another dose of his pills at the exact time that he would be damned before he asked. Alex noticed that Sara only nodded, and that her expression was troubled as she watched Scofield exit the car. He wished, watching Scofield walk away himself, that they had pushed the issue of the tattoos harder with the local media. The reasoning had been that any man who was smart enough to break out of a maximum security prison using little more than the resources within his own head would not be so foolish as to put his very distinctive body out on display. It would then figure that the escaped prisoner who could think around more corners than any other that Alex had ever encountered before in his life would turn the other way and put them on display.
Tancredi waited until Scofield had disappeared around the corner before she twisted in her seat again so that she could study Alex without speaking. She was a doctor, he remembered, though the way that she was sweeping her eyes across him from his head down to his knees was more akin to that of a scientist who would much rather study him under glass. "How's your head?" she asked.
Throbbing like a tooth that needed to be pulled out by the roots, but she did not need to know that. "How's yours?" What had once been a red mark had since darkened into an ugly stripe stretching from across her forehead. Small wonder that Scofield had chosen to go out into public even though his tattoos were showing. While he was still taking a risk, Tancredi would be immediately stopped and asked who had mugged her.
Tancredi's only immediate response was a small, Mona Lisa smile. As she continued to watch Alex, he became very aware of how the dried blood on his face was beginning to itch. "Those could use stitches," Tancredi said, nodding towards the places were Scofield had split Alex's face open with the cuffs. She winched and touched at her head as she did so, and Alex realized that, no matter how articulately she was managing to converse with him now, the only way that she didn't have a concussion was if she had a head of solid granite. Alex began surreptitiously testing the cuffs behind him, wondering if Scofield had left the keys with Tancredi on the off chance that an emergency would arise and he would have to be unlocked.
"Fine," Alex said. "Drop me off at a hospital, I'll get myself patched right up."
"You're going to scar either way," Tancredi said, for a few seconds longer wearing that puzzling smile. She had the same way of staring at people that Scofield did. "I can clean them up with butterfly bandages and alcohol. The marks won't be any bigger." She dropped her eyes to Alex's shoulders, which were moving slightly as he continued to test the cuffs and ignore the pain that rose from his wrists as he did so. "I still have a gun," she said softly. Alex did not hear any threat in her quiet and nearly gentle inflection. That did not mean anything, as Kellerman himself sounded like quite the gentleman most of the time. Recognizing that this was not the way that the world worked did not mean that Alex was going to stop wishing that it was, even as he realized that his days as an agent of order were long done.
"What are the odds that you'll actually fire it?" Alex continued to struggle against the cuffs, more for show than anything else. He was under no illusions that the properties of steel were suddenly going to change because he was feeling appropriately stubborn, but he had not missed the concerned way that Tancredi had been watching the damage that he was doing to his own wrists earlier. If he could only lure her towards the backseat…
"Michael thinks that you're a good man," Tancredi said in that same soft and nearly contemplative tone of voice. If she was feeling any doctorly inclinations towards coming into the backseat and stopping him from injuring himself further, then she was doing an admirable job of keeping them hidden.
Alex was surprised enough to cease his struggling, but only for a second. He barked out a short and bitter laugh. "You paramour has shown questionable judgment in a great many areas, Dr. Tancredi."
The paramour comment was meant to throw Tancredi off of the trail, but she only blinked at him for a moment or two before she subjected him to that steady stare again. Alex could not shake the feeling that she had gained more points off of him than he had off of her. "When I still worked at Fox River," she began, "I got used to seeing men who could never be called 'good' on their best day. Every once in a while, I still met one who could surprise me. They gave me hope."
"If you're going to sing to me of Scofield's virtues," Alex said back to her dryly, "then as a gentleman, I feel I should warn you that you're wasting your time." The only response was a slight narrowing of Tancredi's eyes.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," she told him. "One of the men that I thought was a good man had just had a knee surgery. I treated him, he flirted with me, I thought that he was harmless. An hour later he tried to rape and murder me." There was a soft clicking noise from the front seat and the hand that Alex could not see. "The safety is off of the gun. If you're doing that so that I will go back there and stop you, then you might as well stop. Save yourself the blood."
Alex paused and stared at her. Another one of those laughs was bubbling up again, the ones that hurt his throat. "Forgive me for saying so, Dr. Tancredi," he told her, "but when I think of the kind of woman who could help a convict escape prison because he asked nicely, you are not the one who immediately springs to mind."
One corner of Tancredi's mouth quirked upwards. Under different circumstances, Alex thought that he might even have gotten a full smile out of her. "Michael has convinced me that he's a good man," she said. "So has Lincoln. The jury is still out on you."
Alex leaned back against his seat and ignored the way that putting weight back onto his wrists made them hurt. He had a mind that he was smiling at Tancredi. With the strange way that his face hurt, he could not be sure. He was certain that it was not a pleasant one. "Michael Scofield knows a great many things," Alex said. "He does not know everything."
Something flickered in Tancredi's eyes, gone before it could be measured and quantified. "I am well aware of that."
Scofield returned then, walking back around the corner in a gait that was far too loose and casual for it possibly be uncalculated. He had bought a cheap jacket with some of the money that he had taken from Alex and a baseball cap as well, so that the tattoos were covered beneath canvas and his eyes were shrouded in shadow. His eyes were the most visible part of his face as he strode quickly back to the car and got into the front seat; for the first time, Alex realized how far the evening had gained ground on the day.
'Lock the doors, Pam,' he thought, tallying up all of the hours that he had been gone and all of the conversations that he could imagine taking place between blank-faced men. 'Get one of those instincts that I teased you about, got to the movies, take Cam to visit a friend. Don't be home tonight.' The urge to have another fit was very strong, and would not yield easily to bloody-minded rationality.
Alex met Scofield's eyes again in the rearview mirror, took a breath, looked away. When he gathered himself enough to look back again, Scofield was touching Tancredi's arm in a warm, familiar way that still made her twitch. He handed her the bag that he had been carrying with him. None of the three of them acknowledged that the twitch had happened at all. "Everything that you need?"
Tancredi opened the bag and gave it a kind of sweeping, clinical glance that let Alex know immediately that she was looking at medical supplies. "Yes," she said before she looked up and gave Scofield the long, slow smile that she had kept hidden from Alex while they had been speaking. It was enough to make Alex feel as if he was intruding upon an intimate moment, but still he did not turn his eyes away. The people who were keeping him captive did not have the right to demand privacy from him.
Tancredi caught Alex's eye and, smothering a small cough, turned her head away. Alex thought that he saw a blush creeping up her neck, as if she was embarrassed to have given Scofield that smile in the first place. "We need to talk," she told Scofield in a voice that was clearly meant for the two of them alone. That was not even remotely possible in the closed confines of the car, but Alex thought it was cute that she tried.
Scofield glanced one more time at Alex in the rearview mirror before he said, "I know." Alex leaned back against the seat and sighed as he continued his litany of prayers for Pam, for Cameron. He had not even been of age when he had left the Church, save for the day that he had married Pam, but that was seeming like a worse mistake by the day. Atheists and foxholes, all of that.
Scofield put the car into gear and eased them slowly from the alleyway and back into the sparse flow of traffic. It was twilight now and deepening rapidly towards full dark, but Alex still straightened and immediately began taking in as much as he could. Someone named Mahill owned a flower shop that desperately needed better shrubs lining its front walk, and he was in a town called Edgeworth. As close as Gila already was to the border, Alex could only figure that Scofield and Tancredi had not felt comfortable spending another night in a town that was undoubtedly swarming with federal agents by now. At least one of those details could be useful to Alex, if he kept his head and put it to judicious use when the opportunity arose. He certainly had the motivation for it.
Scofield pulled the car up to a motel that may very well have been inspired by the one that all three of them had left earlier. Alex could not stop himself from making a faint scoffing noise. "Four star draws attention," was all that Scofield said before he slid from the car and walked towards the office, pulling his hat down low over his eyes. Given the very public standoff that Scofield and Tancredi had had only a few hours before, Alex supposed that he could hope that a fortuitous news bulletin could flash across the screen and the clerk would be even half awake, but given the abject failure of the news bulletins thus far he wasn't going to put money on it.
As soon as Scofield left the car, there came that quiet click from the front seat again. Looking out the window at the shadows as they grew longer and more capable of hiding all number of crimes, Alex could not stop his mouth from curving into a small smile. He was not certain that he was operating on anything other than autopilot now. "Jury's still out?" he asked her without looking around.
In the front seat, Tancredi shifted her weight back and forth before she answered, "You're not really a talker. I haven't seen anything to change my mind one way or the other."
Alex made a soft sound that Sara could have interpreted as laughter if she had so chosen. Scofield chose that moment to return, opening the driver's door long enough so that he could toss the key to Tancredi before he circled back around to Alex's door. "Come on," he said as he opened it and gestured with the gun for Alex to get out. God bless those shadows and the general inattention of the American public, Alex thought dryly as he complied. The blood at his wrists was a heavy crust that flaked when he moved.
"Was this a part of your plan?" Alex asked when he was standing before Scofield.
Scofield flashed him a look that Alex was delighted to be able to call bitchy before he responded, "Right from the beginning." He left the 'fuck you' implied. Alex immediately felt much better.
Scofield concealed the gun with his body as he stood behind Alex and walked him into the hotel room, which Tancredi entered first and helpfully left open for them. She walked straight into the bathroom without saying a word. As Alex took a seat on one of the beds, he could hear her turn on the faucet.
Scofield took a seat opposite Alex in the room's single chair, which was riddled with cigarette burns that he toyed with idly as he continued to watch Alex. He looked no more comfortable with a gun in his hand now than he had the first time that he had picked it up. Alex was in no mood for Scofield's alternate threats and moral pleas and turned his face away, watching what little that he could see of Tancredi's shadow as it moved to and for in the bathroom, but Scofield was not feeling inclined to obey social cues. "We'll leave for the border in the morning," he told Alex, always watching him with those impossible eyes. Alex felt as if Scofield was watching every move that he made from some clue, some hint as to why the puzzle before him was not fitting together as logic dictated that it ought. Alex was not sure which careless movement was going to be the betraying twitch that finally let Scofield's admirable mind figure it all out. He kept himself very still as a consequence.
"As soon as I'm sure that you'll no longer be able to interfere, I'll let you go," Scofield said as he continued to watch Alex closely. "You'll be free by noon tomorrow."
"Thanks for the itinerary." Alex closed his eyes as his head spiked and even the dim lights of the room became much too bright. He had to clench his hands into fists behind him in order to keep them from trembling, and he could feel his heart beating too fast against his ribcage. It wanted to escape, too. He nearly swore.
Even with his eyes closed, Alex could still tell that Scofield's gaze was on him. He could feel it against the side of his neck, a heat, and Alex absurdly thought that it was akin to the laser guide on a gun. The bullet should follow only a few seconds later.
"With luck," Scofield continued, "your bosses will believe you when you tell them that you came against your will." Ah, now there was the anger, there was the faint, edgy undertone, there was the man who had discovered earlier that he might be able to shoot someone, after all. Alex felt his lips curving in spite of himself. "What do they have on you, Agent Mahone? Or do you really expect me to believe that you would allow a woman to be tortured to death because you didn't want Shales to be discovered?" There was a terrible kindness that was creeping into Scofield's voice along with the curiosity, chasing the flash of fury away as if it had never been. There were a few seconds in which Alex thought that Scofield might tell him that, whatever it was that his masters were using to blackmail him and keep him on his leash, he, Tancredi, and whatever merry band of convicts that he had picked up along the way could help. If that happened, Alex decided, then he was going to have no choice but to throw himself at Scofield, gun and cuffs be damned.
"What makes you so sure that I'm being blackmailed?" Alex asked. He struggled hard to keep the fatigue out of his voice. They just kept having the same conversations over and over again, circling one another. "Could it be that I'm doing all of this just because I want to?" He opened his eyes at last to find that Scofield was still staring at him. Alex was not surprised.
Scofield moved his eyes across Alex's entire body, as if there would be some physical stamp of Alex's allegiance on the flesh that Scofield would then be able to read as easily as his blueprints. Alex twitched irritably under the stare but did not look away.
"No," Scofield said finally.
Alex snorted and was saved from answering by Tancredi emerging from the bathroom with the bag that Scofield had brought her still in hand. She had cleaned up the cut on her head and then pulled it closed with three neat butterfly bandages in a row. Even closed, it was unpleasant to look upon, and Alex thought that he was not the only one who would have been well-served by a trip to the hospital. She paused for a moment when she saw Alex and Scofield and felt the tension in the air before she gave herself a visible shake and came forward. Alex saw that she was carrying a dampened motel towel in her hand, spotted her and there with her blood.
"Your turn," she said to Alex as she took a seat next to him on the bed. Scofield tensed to see Tancredi so close to Alex, given what Alex had just said, but he made no effort to intervene. It was almost enough to make Alex want to try something based upon that alone.
Tancredi touched the dampened towel to Alex's face, cleaning away the blood that had been allowed to dry there. It was not until he saw the redness spreading across the cloth that Alex realized precisely how much there was. It was an even greater miracle that Scofield and Tancredi had accomplished all that they had over the past several hours, given that two of the three of them looked like refugees from a slasher film. Alex was no stranger to a general frustration with the American people's inability to pay attention to I anything /I , but it was nice to know that there were some aspects of himself that had still not become altered and corroded.
"This is going to hurt," Tancredi warned him as she pulled a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the bag, doused one end of the towel with it, and then held it to the first of the cuts on his face, muttering, "Sorry," when he stiffened. She cleaned each of the cuts with a gentle efficiency before she pulled them closed with the butterfly bandages. "Okay, now turn around so that I can see your wrists."
"It would be much easier if you took the cuffs off," Alex said as he complied.
"The jury's hung. The judge is starting to get ticked off at them," Tancredi replied as she pushed the handcuffs higher up on his forearms. Scofield had not tightened them as much as he ought to have. Alex supposed that he ought to be glad that Scofield did not have more experience in the taking of prisoners. Scofield, thankfully, had given up on his moral assault, for he remained silent as Alex twisted around to face him. There were circles appearing in the skin beneath Scofield's eyes, and he flicked his gaze over Alex's shoulder and at Tancredi as she let out a soft gasp.
"You were struggling hard," she said.
Alex made a soft snorting sound and did not break his eye contact with Scofield even while Tancredi was pouring the rubbing alcohol over his wrists. "Didn't seem like a time to go halfway," he said, and then turned his face away from the window and winced as a truck rumbled by outside and sent a bolt of light through the window. Scofield, goddamn him, saw everything.
Tancredi made a noncommittal noise and went on with her work, cleaning up his wrists with the same brisk, careful competency that she had used on his face. Alex kept his hands bound into their fists as Tancredi began to slather some kind of salve onto his skin, so that she would not see the trembling turn into an outright shake, but he still thought that he could feel her hands pause for a moment. She went back to winding gauze around his wrists while Alex closed his eyes again and told himself that if he had gotten this fact and dealt with the very real danger to Cameron and Pam without flinching, save for that one moment of coming unglued, then he could surely go another fourteen hours or so without his pills. Tallied up like that, the number seemed enormous, but he had gone longer than that. They had not been pleasant hours, but Alex was already committed to the next several hours being generally unpleasant.
Alex felt Tancredi's fingers come to a place on his forearm just above the bandage as she finished up and realized with a flash that she was taking his pulse. He spun back towards her with a snarl already fixed onto his face, never mind his earlier assertion to himself that the best way to turn this situation around would be to stay calm. Tancredi jerked backwards and off of the bed with an admirable speed while Scofield rose swiftly to his feet, the gun in hand. Alex ignored Scofield altogether and focused on Tancredi's wide, frightened eyes instead, wondering if he was pushing that jury closer towards making their decision. Scofield would shoot him or he would not, but so long as he was being held in suspension in a dingy motel room with no idea what might or might not be happening in Colorado and no way to influence it in any case, he did not see that it mattered one way or the other. "What do you think you're doing?" he snarled at her.
Tancredi's eyes were still wide, but she answered calmly, "I was checking your pulse. It's racing." She paused before she added, "Are you all right?"
"Fine," Alex gritted before he swung his legs up onto the bed and lay down, ignoring Scofield and Tancredi both. If he closed his eyes, the headache might lessen. If he focused hard, he might be able to shake away the fact that his lack of medication made him want to tremble all over. If he wanted it enough, then Alex would still be able to catch Scofield in a mistake.
Alex had no doubt that he wanted it badly enough.
End Part Four