The flowers weren't exactly wedding rings, still Sara liked the harmonious symmetry of the act. The origami rose she kept in her inner jacket, close to her heart, and the one tattooed on Michael's arm, which she liked to kiss when they lay naked next to each other in the night.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked, sometime around the end of March. Two weeks had gone by since their first rendezvous. They met as often as Sara could manage.

Sara didn't lie. What point was there in keeping the truth from him? From America at large, she could hide the dark shadows under her eyes, the chalk-whiteness of her complexion. But not Michael, who saw every inch of her. Who brushed with his fingertips the crisscrossed skin that ran from her belly button to her chest, where they had cut her open.

"I'll sleep when we pass the bill," she said.

Michael didn't protest. He didn't come here to tell her what to do. Instead, he held her closer to him and kissed the crook of her neck with devotion. After their first blaze of lovemaking was spent, she allowed him all the foreplay he wanted.

Maybe he found it unwise, as the majority of her advisors did. To take advantage of her own shooting to undermine the NRA. As Sara saw it, she had one chance to take down that giant once and for all. People unite around a shot president like moths flocking around a streetlight. If Congress would ever bypass their partisanship and listen to the voice of the people, now was the time.

What did her cabinet expect her to do? Lie low, just because she needed her rest? Avoid making a real enemy of the NRA? When the enemy was real enough it shot you in the chest, you had to think of fighting back.

Michael's fingers drew imaginary lines along her hips. A thrill of desire shot between her legs. They'd have to make love again before she could let him go tonight.

"You don't approve?" she asked.

Michael must have seen her publicly rejecting the NRA's offer for peace. In his own way, he had sunken as deep into politics as she had. Yet they never discussed it during those nights. By tacit agreement, between the walls of their hotel room, the cries of the jungle didn't exist.

He said, "I just wish you'd sleep." Sara fell silent. He kissed her collarbone then her jawline before he said, "It's not just work, is it."

Though it didn't sound like a question, she answered, "What else?"

"Trauma."

A wry laugh came out of her. "If Kellerman heard you say that, he'd bite your head off. Can you think of anything worse than a traumatized president?"

"You were shot. You almost died."

"I took an oath to serve my country until the end of my term," even as she said it, she knew she was acting childish. "The bullet didn't end my term."

"And the oath didn't make you a superhero. You don't have bulletproof skin, Sara. Last I checked," he looked at her naked form, "you were still human. No one can recover from something like that without suffering from post-traumatic stress."

"Don't worry, I see therapists."

"Really?"

Sara didn't dare push the half-truth further. She did see therapists, for about thirty seconds. Before a well-timed phone call drew her away with an apologetic shrug. Emergencies weren't hard to find in the White House.

"Anyway," she said, "I sleep better now." Another half-truth. Better was a relative term. Sara now managed around four hours every forty-eight hours, objectively more than the blank page of insomnia that opened up before her every night, when she first returned to the White House.

Besides, what a ridiculous thing to ask of a president. Last she had checked, the people elected their commander in chief based on their ability to rule a country, not what good sleepers they were.

Michael pressed his palm to her jaw-line. He had this way of looking closely at her, like he could see all that she kept invisible from the rest of the world.

"Just remember," he said. "This isn't about making it to the bill on gun control. You've got six more years to take."

She shrugged, "You never know. Alex Mahone might beat me in 2024."

"I don't believe that for a second."

Neither did her advisors. Kellerman would have bet his right hand on it. You think they wouldn't have reelected Kennedy if he'd survived his assassination attempt?

"I hear your point," she said. "I've got years and years in store."

"You think there's room for us in that near-future?"

"There's this room," she said. "Even when we started, we didn't stand a chance in the light. Now – well. It doesn't help that I'm president and you have a wife."

He kissed her softly. "As long as we have that," he said.

Now, she thought, they were seeing eye to eye.

realTheodoreBagwell: While ST has my sympathy for what she went through, no one can get away with leading the country astray. The president's job is to PRESERVE THE CONSTITUTION. Check your second amendment ST. #gunrights #KnightsofAmerica #SaveDemocracy

JacobNess: Deeply grieved by the president's hostility. To blame the NRA for the terrorist attack at WNC is pure madness. Shows how much ST has lost touch with reality.

"I used to think hell must look like a mall," Kellerman said. "Now, I think it's probably a lot closer to Twitter."

He shoveled a handful of Doritos chips into his mouth. Gretchen said, "You don't watch out, you're going to be fat before the end of her term."

"They help me stay awake."

"Switch to coffee. We've got an image to preserve."

Kellerman considered tossing her the half-full bag of chips. Gretchen wasn't the only person willing to stay awake all night to work. Hell, in the White House those were the rule rather than the exception. But Sara's shooting had caused a split among her team that made Gretchen Morgan a more palatable colleague than most. She was still the insufferable woman who'd taken the job he wanted two years ago. No doubt of it. But at least, she wasn't a Caroliner – Paul's nickname for those who whispered Sara had returned to office too early, and ought to have left the country in charge of her VP while she recovered.

Rats.

Enough people on the political exchequer were spreading rumors about Sara's mental health. If she couldn't even trust her own cabinet, where did that leave her?

Kellerman tossed the bag of Doritos in the trash. He'd never go to such lows as to admit that Gretchen had a point, but truth was, he got a little breathless now just climbing the stairs. He had enough on his plate not to worry about keeping in shape.

"Let's go over it again," he said.

Gretchen slammed the file on the table. It was now roughly the size of the first Harry Potter. "We know everything about the shooting, except who's behind it. The kind of gun he used. What bullets were inside the gun. What shoes he wore, what gloves. From height and shoe size, we know he's almost certainly male."

"That's wonderful. It leaves only half of the American population to investigate."

Gretchen snorted, "You listen to Bagwell's podcast, you wouldn't think he's American."

"Please, leave that piece of detritus to die in the wasteland of independent politics. We have bigger fish to fry."

Gretchen checked her phone. Five thirty p.m. They both had to be at a cabinet meeting at seven. "You know the worst thing?" she said. "We could find the guy who did it, and still it wouldn't get us any closer to knowing who's really behind it. What is he? A hired gun. Even if we use enhanced interrogation techniques on him, he can blame it on any number of organizations without betraying his own."

Kellerman stared at his knuckles, resisting to fumble with the military ring on his little finger. "You find the shooter," he said, "and I'll get him talking. That's a promise."

The look on Gretchen's face spat her sarcasm in his face before she even opened her mouth. "Oh you will, Mister Macho Man?"

A taste of bile swam to his mouth, but he didn't regret what he'd said. It felt too good to allow that reality to play in his mind.

"The man shot the president," Gretchen said. "You think you're the only one who's got a beef with him?"

"I think I can make anybody talk about anything if I set my mind to it."

"Aren't Democrats supposed to be against torture?"

"Like you, Morgan, I wasn't always a Democrat."

Or a Chief of Staff, for that matter. In his military days, Kellerman had seen people spill out any piece of information you asked of them. Impressive how talkative people became when you started snapping their fingers or sliding the tip of your knife under their nails.

Gretchen eyed him for a while. One of the things he hated most about her was, you could hardly tell what she was thinking under that red-lipped smile. Did it cross her mind that she and Kellerman had more in common than she thought? Or did she just find it fun to imagine her Doritos-eating colleague interrogating someone?

"And how will you know if he's lying?" she asked.

"I know when people lie to me."

"So do I."

He shrugged, like he failed to see the point.

"You really aren't going to say it?"

"Say what?"

"Please. The way you reacted when you heard that Michael Scofield's name at the hospital." She waited, but he didn't bite. "Clearly there's something going on there."

Kellerman sighed and got to his feet. "I don't stay up that late just to gossip, Morgan. See you at the meeting."

...

April came and went. Funny how time seemed to fly by Michael now, as it once did in between his rendezvous with Sara in their motel rooms on the year of the campaign. Back then, his normal life had slipped between his fingers. At work, it was like having his head underwater, quiet and deaf. Now that he worked for Bruce though, he couldn't afford to let himself go like that. Coffee helped keep him sharp, as well as a constant ear on the news.

Michael was one of the few people of his generation who still listened to the radio. Every morning on his way to Bruce's office, he listened to news programs during transportation.

One morning on April 9, he almost jumped from his seat in the subway as he heard, "Shocking news for the United States today. The vacant seat at the Senate following the death of Wisconsin Senator James Connolly last January has finally been filled. Surprisingly, the counting of the votes revealed not a Democrat or a Republican winner. Instead, the seat goes to Mr. Theodore Bagwell, who famously left the GOP to form his own party, the Knights, last year. Bagwell, who surrendered his Senate seat at the time, will now be regaining his seat in Congress, just weeks before the bill on gun reform is expected to fall between the Senate's hands. A historic victory, as it's the first time the Knights can boast a senator at the national level."

Michael ripped the headphone from his ear faster than if it'd burned him. The woman who sat next to him asked, "Are you okay?" She wore frog-green glasses and a white tee-shirt that read: There is no Planet B.

"Yeah," he kept his eyes on the ground, his fist pressed to his temple.

Outrage threatened to spill out of him like vomit, but he managed to hold it in until he stood in Bruce's office.

"Michael," the old man greeted him in his usual navy-blue suit. Though it didn't look like anger bubbled under his skin, his shock of white hair seemed to have somehow turned whiter.

Michael barely thought of shutting the door. Astonishingly, he heard it shut. Michael didn't usually indulge in door slams.

"She can't afford to lose a senator," he said.

Bruce sighed, "I wondered if we'd bother with small talk."

Michael didn't hear him. "She's got a fifty-five to forty-five margin, but four of her Democrats will vote against it. She can't lose Wisconsin on top of that – how did Wisconsin even vote for the Knights in the first place?"

If Michael had played out a scenario in which the Knights would get voted into the U.S. Senate, he would have thought Texas. Not that he or anyone had thought it might actually happen.

Bruce gestured to the chair opposite his office. "Will you sit down?"

Politeness said he should. Yet Michael's legs twitched so, he wasn't sure he'd be able to. His whole body burned like fire ants had crawled through his skin.

"I'm no happier about the news than you are, Michael," Bruce said. "But Sara's a fine politician. I'm sure she'll figure something out."

Michael shook his head. Thank God Sara had passed reform concerning the filibuster last year, or the gun reform bill would have been laughed out of the Senate. But until this morning, even if she'd had to cater to all the undecided senators to secure the vote, it looked like it might actually happen.

The notion would have sounded absurd just a few years ago. America ready for gun control.

You didn't have to be a political science expert to know that this bill would be the cornerstone of Sara's first term. Maybe of her whole presidency. She'd scooped up every inch of popularity which the shooting had given her and put it all into passing this bill. If the Senate voted No, it didn't just mean that Sara might not get reelected, that the people would lose faith in her and her legacy would crumble. It meant that gun reform would never see the day in America. If martyrdom wasn't enough, what could ever be? If JFK could rise from the grave in an ultimate effort to galvanize Congress to vote for gun control, and if he failed – who on earth would pass it?

No one.

The answer thrust into Michael's thoughts, cold as a blade.

If it doesn't pass now, it will never pass.

He could imagine how Sara would see it. To rekindle their proximity had shaken him so, sometimes he could swear was thinking her thoughts, seeing through her eyes. At this point if you tried to tear his soul away from Sara, you probably couldn't recognize which was which.

He thought what she would think, If the bill doesn't pass, Sara's been shot for nothing.

That's what she had done, wasn't it? To use her shooting for political interests. To divert an attempt to silence her into a giant megaphone that reached the whole world. To take the bullet that shot her and used it as her own weapon – and if she failed to use it, would she collapse?

Whatever was holding her together, Michael didn't trust it to last eternally. The presidency might be an iron cast, keeping its occupants shaped for the office, still the presidents themselves were only flesh and blood.

Why would anyone volunteer for that job, let alone fight like hell to have it?

It broke you. At the very least, it changed you. But could it make you?

A taste of bile filled Michael's mouth. Bagwell's media presence had been insufferable enough. Now, with all the extra visibility – Michael realized his hands had balled into fists. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, but Bruce would see the bulge of them through the fabric.

Michael tried to relax, "I'm sorry." Bruce hadn't hired him so he could vent his anger in his office before eight in the morning. He had a job to do, and he couldn't let Sara's get tangled up with it.

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder. The act made Michael slightly nervous, but he didn't flinch. Brotherly affection had taken all the space in his childhood. It had been all he needed – and all he got. As to fatherly affection, well. He could probably only recognize it if it slapped him in the face.

realTheodoreBagwell: HONORED my friends to sit at the US Senate again. You voted me in to stop the bill that aims to destroy our country and I WILL. America will return to greater days. All you traitors and cowards and government shaking in your boots yet?