Part Twenty
If ten weeks ago someone had told Michael Scofield that he would be sharing a drink in Panama with Alex Mahone, he would have laughed. And then promptly started running in the other direction.
He dug his toes into the sand instead, relishing the feeling of not need to run anywhere for now, or even to walk if he didn't want to. The Christina Rose swayed to and for at the end of the dock; Michael could see Lincoln's silhouette moving about on the deck. Lincoln had said that he was going to go fishing, see if he couldn't catch something to "settle all of that tequila". Michael suspected that Lincoln's real aim was to keep his distance so that Michael and Alex could have some privacy, and so that he could speak to Jane on the sat phone. As if either one of them would rally do anything with Cameron so close at hand.
Cameron was crouching at the edge of the shore and seemed to be playing a complicated game with himself that involved flinging handfuls of sand into the surf and hopping about excitedly when his mysterious desired result was achieved. Alex leaned back into the beach beside Michael and watched his son as if he thought that a rescue from rogue hermit crabs might soon be needed. Cameron was quieter that Alex said that he had been before. He wasn't in counseling, much as he probably should have been. There wasn't any opportunity for it while all three of them were technically still fugitives. With luck, that situation would not persist for much longer; the reports coming in from the United States were very interesting. Michael thought that he saw Sara once or twice on CNN, but he couldn't be sure. He knew for a fact that he had seen Aldo and Jane before they had ducked swiftly out of the camera's range again.
"I'll give you a beer for your thoughts," Alex said as he tilted his face back to more fully catch the rays of the midday sun. It was the closest to actually relaxed that Michael had ever seen him.
Michael smiled and wiggled his feet more deeply into the sand. That way, they actually looked symmetrical. "I can get my own beer," he said. "Pick a better carrot."
"Yeah, but you would have to move." Alex flung his arm out to indicate the beer, still mostly cold and within reach of Alex's fingers alone.
"I'm good." Michael watched as Cameron found something in the sand that was worth dancing in a circle around and then holding up close to his face. He thought that it might be a small crab. He hoped that it was alive. Cameron had already shown himself prone to sneaking animals both alive and dead onto the boat when he thought that he could get away with it.
"Hmm." Alex's arm was brushing against Michael's. They were both starting to lose their freckles into tans.
From far out on the boat, there was a burst of static. Getting the news on television was always a bit of a crapshoot, this far out. Michael knew that all three of them would head back eventually and take their part in the fight. But not right now.
End