Sara's always been good at distancing herself from whatever horrible things were going on. How else is a doctor supposed to be? When you're cutting a man open and blood starts squirting from an artery, panic is out of the picture. You stitch up the wound. Even if it's as hard as sewing up an overcooked spaghetti, you get the work done, save the man's life, or you throw your white blouse in the trash after your first day of internship and look for a different job.
She absolutely isn't bluffing about Kellerman breaking her fingers.
He may be a senator who spends his days behind a desk now, he still remember how that old job works. She'd bet her right hand it's the sort of thing you don't forget—and she may have to.
Lincoln groans into the phone. "Please," he says. "There's gotta be another way."
A stab of sympathy pierces through Sara's armor. Better they get this over with, fast. "Three minutes, Lincoln."
"Sara, come on!"
Kellerman's palm suddenly covers the phone, which lays on the desk facing the ceiling. Sara shudders at his intrusiveness. Black hairs run along his fingers beyond the thick bands of his military rings. The idea of these hands touching her is as repulsive as waking up to find a spider inside her mouth.
"Should I give him my word you'll come out of here alive once this is over?" he says.
She shakes her head. "If he hears you, it'll make things worse." She takes the phone and speaks directly into it, like it'll make Lincoln listen to reason. "As we speak," she says, "Michael might be getting tortured or killed. We don't know why he reached out to us when he did. We don't know if he's been found out. For us to get him out while there's still time is all that matters to me, Lincoln."
"Sar–"
"No, listen to me. Nothing else matters."
She wishes she didn't have to get so personal in front of Kellerman. But Lincoln's a strong man. If he starts bull heading his way to Kellerman's office, God knows what they'll do to him. Besides, violence always escalates things. Kellerman might decide it's not worth the trouble, the plane, the pilot—not when he can have her now. He probably could overpower her, though she'd do some damage, and it wouldn't be as complete a victory as her full surrender.
She is not going to take any chances with Michael's life.
"Two minutes," she says, "and the team will have to look for another surgeon."
"Jesus, all right, stop!"
His rage blasts through the phone. She can't let herself be moved by the cracks in his voice. Now's the time to pry open the cracks and force an entrance.
"Good. I'll send you all the information about the plane in a minute. We'll stay in contact all the time while you get Michael. I'll meet you in New York when the plane lands back."
She hangs up before Lincoln can change his mind.
The look on Kellerman's face tastes like rancid butter. "Wow. You'd make a solid diplomat, Sara."
"You can make the call now."
"Did you really think I was going to break your fingers?"
But what he wants to know is if she'd have let him. How far does anything go?
She says nothing. Doesn't want to betray the answer is, however far he'll take it.
…
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Lincoln says, kicking into a gutted soda can the wind tosses about. Although it's the middle of the afternoon, the streets are free from passersby. It is cold as hell outside, and while they drove to Washington the radio said something about a storm coming.
Michael's voice in his head, Not a good weather to fly in.
Jesus, Michael.
Michael, alive, after all these years. To see his brother's face again, the way his eyes crack up with joy when he laughs, betraying the wrinkles that'll settle there one day. Will those wrinkles have bloomed when he sees him again?
He gets back to the car and calls Alex. Probably he shouts more than he talks, but he gets the information across. A few minutes ago, he got a text from Sara saying where the plane will be, and how soon it can leave. Alex tells him to slow down, but if Lincoln has to talk about what just happened he'll drive his car straight into the building where he just left Sara and knock down every door until he can grab her and get out of here.
"Take a breath," Mahone says, "you're not making any sense. You and Sara are coming back to catch the plane, yes?"
Lincoln closes his eyes.
Every fiber of his body screams, Yes. The gang is not going to Yemen without him. He's worked with these people for four years, he'd trust them with his life. With his brother's life. And God knows, Alex and the others would do anything to get Michael back. But you'd have to tie Lincoln to a rock to stop him from taking part in the operation that'll get his brother back home.
Still, he doesn't answer Alex's question.
He wants to go to Yemen and find his brother…
But would Michael forgive him if he left his wife in Washington alone? With Kellerman?
The thought makes him clench his teeth hard enough to dislodge the filling in his back molar. This can't be happening. All at once, the joy of his brother being within reach after four years of his crippling absence, combined with the sour taste of his last phone call with Sara—
He can't have really left her behind, to sell herself off to Kellerman.
What else can have happened?
He hasn't forgotten how Kellerman looked at her, for the brief time they cooperated when they were all fugitives. He tried to imagine it was all in his head—better be, because Michael didn't need more reasons to want the man dead after he'd near-drowned his girlfriend. But Lincoln was a man, and he knew how a man looked at a woman when he wanted to bed her. Might as well call a spade a spade.
Besides, Sara isn't just Michael's wife anymore.
She's the woman he's worked alongside for the past four years. The woman he eats with almost every night, spaghetti and meatballs when it's his turn to host because his cooking skills aren't worth scrap. The woman who made him get up when he wouldn't leave his room after Michael died, who made sure he got to work with clean clothes, who stopped him from drinking himself into a hole deep enough he'd join his brother in the grave.
Sara has made it so he didn't collapse for all these years.
What about her? The thought breaks in, unwarranted. When does she collapse? Is it right now? Do I stop her?
He can hear the words she's spoken to him, filling the car.
Nothing else matters.
"You'll have to go without me," he tells Alex.
Mahone, naturally, sounds like he didn't hear him right. "What?"
"You're the smart one, anyway. As smart as my brother. All you need me for is manpower."
"Hey, that's not—"
"You get on that plane, Alex, and you get Michael back to us. I can't leave Sara. If I do, the first thing my brother's gonna do to me when I see him again is punch me in the face."
"Hold on a second, Lincoln. Where is Sara? What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," Lincoln says. "I'm just trying to be a good brother, man."
He hangs up.
Whether he means being a brother to Michael or to Sara, he doesn't specify. It's all the same.