Chapter Text
“Rebel souls. Deserters we are called.
Chose the gun and threw away the sword.
All these towns. They all know our name.”
There is no beginning.
There are lives already in progress. A story where others have already paved a circuitous route and stalled in the middle to curse the next generation.
The details can change. They have. But the ending is a dream – a nightmare.
Reality is a never-ending series of dreams in disguise.
_
Lincoln is down, face down, on the ground and even from his vantage point Michael can see a growing pool of blood.
Michael doesn’t call his name. He would never waste precious seconds that could be spent eliminating the sniper who shot his brother down. Michael’s running as that man falls to the asphalt, dead certainly, but there’s no time for second-guessing.
Lincoln’s on the ground. And he hasn’t moved. Not even jerked.
Michael collapses at his brother’s side, gravel digging into his knees as he crawls the foot it takes to grab Lincoln’s far shoulder and turn him over. A quick glance at his ashen face and Michael can already tell that if Lincoln isn’t already dead, he’s going to be soon.
More shots ring out, dangerously close pings, and Michael fires back blindly until they stop. There’s a cry of pain then silence. More dead men and all Michael can see is Lincoln bleeding out. He can think of nothing else.
Michael’s dragging Lincoln under the elbows to some safety, anywhere other than a deserted shipyard littered with three murdered bodies when he hears steps behind him. He doesn’t drop Lincoln when he turns, gun drawn and ready but it’s a near thing.
Especially when he hears her voice say, “My how things have changed.”
_
Michael Scofield used to be a man with a plan. The plan really. And it was damn good with all the players executing their part just as expected, with a few surprises – mostly good – along the way. He moved along nicely, a train well placed on its rails with more stops than he would have wished but the same destination on the horizon. Then his chugging train stalled, tripped it tracks, and somersaulted in spectacularly morbid fashion.
When Michael has a moment to think, he can see it rolling down a hill, end over end with the occupants flailing about like ragdolls that resemble the Fox River Eight and anyone they’ve ever known.
And in his head, it comes to a crunching halt. Literally.
“If you want to continue to believe that you have a choice, Michael. We can break this down for you.”
The General is a no-nonsense man. Any other day, Michael would appreciate that, it reminds him of Lincoln, but today the tumor in his temple is threatening to shut down his motor functions and Michael’s entire future and family hangs in the balance.
He’s trying not to shiver in the cold lab room they’ve half-converted into a hospital with a solitary bed. The clear walls aren’t much for privacy but then neither is the thin, short, gown his no-name doctor has insisted that he wear. His ass is freezing.
The General on the other hand is fully clothed and appears entirely comfortable in the padded chair facing Michael’s hospital bed.
Michael hates him a little more for it. And he didn’t think that was even possible.
“We save your life and help you through your rehabilitation,” the bald General continues as if Michael said anything. “You come and work for us. You and Lincoln. For two years. Learn how we work. Why your family worked for us for most of your childhood and adult life. Learn what your father died for.”
Michael has to interrupt here because bringing his father into this is a low blow. But this is obviously a ball kicking kind of Company.
Ball kicking and murderous as well since the first words out of The General’s mouth were that they have Lincoln and Sara and that Michael would be deciding how long they lived. Oh, and there is the small issue of Scylla.
“What about Sucre and Mahone? What about Scylla?” The fact that he hasn’t been interrogated thus far has worried him more than the tumor in his skull.
“We haven’t heard a peep from them since you’ve come to us and we won’t stop them from walking away. If the law allows it, they can be free. As for Scylla, you’ll need to tell us who has it, of course.”
Michael looks away, eyes narrowed so that his lie is less obvious. “What makes you think we don’t?”
“Because you would have brought it up well before now, Michael.” The General says with a twitch of his lips that might be a grin.
“You tried to have my brother executed for a crime he didn’t commit and aided the FBI in a manhunt to have us killed.”
The General shrugs, hands open then back in his lap and Michael tries not to gawk at his nonchalance. “We won’t deny that.”
He wonders if The General thinks of The Company and himself as one entity. The way married couples do. And, if so, why is Michael the one being screwed? But the pounding in his head encourages him to move things along.
Michael grits his teeth and tries not to show his pain. “Why would you take the chance of having us work for you? We’re a liability.”
The General’s answer is quicksilver smooth. “You’re also the sons of two of this company’s brightest associates. We believe in legacy here.” He fixes his pressed suit for what seems like the hundredth time.
The black suited bodyguard behind him stands like stone and Michael eyes him with what little humor he can muster. What exactly do they think his deathbed-ridden ass is going to do? Flash them to death?
He could really use Lincoln or Sara at his side because this decision is harder than he thought it would be. After all this running and danger, he’s dying by something other than a bullet and suddenly doesn’t want to.
It isn’t that Michael wants to die. He isn’t suicidal and has never been. It’s that the longer they ran, the slimmer the chances seemed that he would make it out alive and he was okay with that. Or at least had resolved to face his fate as gracefully as he could.
But this tumor – to die the same way his mother died…the helplessness makes him so angry. Makes him want to survive.
“You believe in legacy,” Michael says. “But elaborately framed my brother for the murder of a vice president who needed to get out of the spotlight. How does that equate to honoring the legacy of our parents?”
“We’re like any other organization in the world, Michael. We feel, we think,” The General says with emotion so forced that Michael almost asks if he’s performing for the surveillance cameras.
Instead, he wraps his flimsy robe tighter around his body and tries not the shiver from the feeling of despair.
“You sound like the Borg,” He mutters, looking away.
“In a way we are. But we’re much better because we care.”
The nausea could be the cocktail they’re using to stabilize his system or listening to this bile. Either way, Michael hopes the General didn’t pay too much for his shoes. The old man must notice the disgust on his face because his mouth turns into a hard line, his wrinkled face stripped of its mask of “caring” to reveal the stone underneath.
There is the calculating evil that ran his family to ground, Michael thinks. Here is the man who has the very government at his disposal.
Michael’s silence must anger the other man because his voice turns cruel. The General slaps his hands on his knees and Michael meets his beady eyes with equal amounts of animosity.
“Right. Well, since you are so willing to forfeit your life, let’s think of it this way. We know where everyone you care about on this planet currently resides.” The General leans forward in his chair, threatening Michael in a tone one would use when discussing car maintenance.
“If you want to keep your friends and family safe you’ll do this with us, and you’ll notice I’m not even asking that you come quietly. Whether you believe it or not, you’ll see that we help people much more than we hurt. And honestly Michael, are you willing to die ignorant of your family’s well being?”
Michael isn’t going to answer that question since saying the answer aloud is too much like making a decision. So he deflects, “You do hurt. And when you do, people die.”
The General sits back in his seat, a smirk spreading on his face that sends a shiver down Michael’s back. He’d almost describe it like someone walked over his grave, but there is no metaphor to be made. The General has done it, literally.
Then the old man slams the first nail in his coffin. “I could say the same thing about you.”
Michael can feel a nosebleed coming on.
“Give us a name and we’ll handle Scylla,” The General wraps up. He looks as if he knows he’s already won.
Michael is torn. He doesn’t want The Company to have their prize back nor does he trust that Agent Self is going to do anything good with the technology.
To tell the truth, they didn’t know what they were going to do with Scylla once they had it anyway. But knowing that doesn’t make Michael feel any better about giving it back to the people they stole it from.
“Self has it. He’s probably selling it to the highest bidder as we speak.” The confession comes with a flash of Self’s smarmy lying face and Michael figures he might be a just a little bitter.
As The General nods to the bodyguard behind him and stands, Michael grabs at the other man’s sleeve, earning a glare but the attention he seeks. “How do I know you won’t kill us anyway?”
The General shrugs again, harder this time to displace Michael’s hand from his arm. “You don’t. But legacy matters around here Michael. Have some faith in us.”
Michael will never be convinced, but dealing with the Devil is a game better left to the dead and dying.
The General leaves, his tread heavy on the cold floor and Michael shivers again.
_
When he slips in the door, Michael’s sitting up in bed. He’s kept him waiting long enough, Lincoln thinks, but he’s been preparing for that look – where Michael’s soft eyes go even softer and he looks so disappointed that Lincoln feels like he should go find that puppy he’d kicked. Only Lincoln isn’t into torturing animals.
Lincoln’s suit says it all. He can’t remember the last time he wore one without a motive. Personal business has never warranted a clean cut look. But the collar of his new starched shirt is stiff against his neck and the cut of his blazer perfectly tailored. Its The Company’s uniform, he was told by a couple of thick-necked guys who added that if he refused to wear it he wouldn’t be taken to see his brother at all.
And The Company knew what wearing it would say to Michael. That Lincoln has surrendered.
So now, instead to trying to break the news gently, Lincoln is desperately racking his brain for ways to assure Michael that when he goes under the knife he’ll be right there by his side. The Company may have them in hock, and Lincoln hasn’t yet allowed the depth of that to penetrate quite yet, but Lincoln will eat a bullet before he lets The Company tear what’s left of his family apart.
“You going to stare me back to good health?” Michael asks as Lincoln thinks. “Because if I had any idea you had that kind of mojo, I would have tapped it years ago.”
Michael’s tiny smile breaks what’s left of Lincoln’s heart and from the slow way it fades, his brother’s aware of that fact.
“I never would have kept that kind of secret from you,” Lincoln says seriously. He pulls a metal stool from the corner of the room up to Michael’s bedside and sits. “I hear you had some company.”
Michael frowns and looks away. He fiddles with the edge of the white sheet covering his legs. Lincoln watches the long fingers work and tries not the think of the last time he saw his little brother lay in a hospital bed. He was so much smaller then, but they were just as lost.
The room is so cold that Lincoln can feel the chill through his layers of clothing. How Michael’s faring in practically nothing incites Lincoln to scoot closer, until his knees are touching the mattress and he can feel just a bit of Michael’s body heat.
He continues to talk, even though his throat feels like its closing. “The General probably made you all sorts of promises. He made me a few as well.”
Michael looks up at that. His eyes are narrowed but not accusing, just wondering. “And you believed a few?”
“Of course not,” Lincoln growls. “But he can save you and he’ll leave LJ alone. And I can only ensure that if I’m here, by your side, watching him.”
Michael’s eyes darken in his pale face. “We’ll be his operatives, not the other way around, Linc. But you don’t need to convince me, I -” He bites his lip, looks like he wants to say more, but he stays silent.
Lincoln wants to be surprised, wishes he was, but The General is a convincing bastard. Jesus, he thinks, it’s only been twelve hours and months of fight have already leached from their souls like blood down a drain. Maybe, because too much of that has been shed as it is.
Michael’s so quiet. Lincoln just looks at him for a long minute, trying to see if there’s a visible difference between the brother he saw running, so hard, so strong, from the operatives’ just hours before and the sick man in front of him.
He still looks strong, just as healthy but for the pallor of his sun kissed skin and his eyes. Michael’s eyes look so old. So tired. Still the beautiful blue-green of always, shining with intelligence and usually with a plan cooking in their depths, but resolute in a way that Lincoln hasn’t seen since before Michael entered Fox River.
Decision made, surrender given.
Lincoln doesn’t realize that he’s reached for Michael’s hand until an answering clench of fingers snaps him into awareness.
The warmth between their palms is reassuring and Lincoln indulges in the feeling for as long as the moment will allow. He doesn’t care about the cameras that are doubtlessly spying on this intimacy or how The Company might view this uncharacteristic show of affection.
The same way they were united in Fox River, they remain – if a little frayed around the edges.
Their adversaries are the cause for all of that.
“I gave them Self,” Lincoln informs him. Someone should have to pay for all of this heartache. And if Self has volunteered to play the patsy then Lincoln can give him some tips on how to run.
Michael flashes a rueful grin as if he’s reading Lincoln’s mind. “I did too. The General didn’t even bother to thank me.”
“I’d say I’m surprised but-…” Lincoln lets the unsaid say it all.
They’re still holding hands. Sharing the same space, only inches between Michael’s thigh and his arm but Lincoln decides that his brother will have to pull away first. Lincoln needs the touch.
Wishes he had more, so he isn’t startled in the least when Michael asks, “Have you seen Sara?”
There’s no way Lincoln can continue down the path his thoughts have travelled. Fate in the form of a pretty doctor with an equally tragic life won’t allow it again.
Lincoln lets his hand go limp inside Michael’s grasp. Waits for the other man to pull away. “No. She’s been looking at X-rays and talking to your doctors since I got here.”
“I wonder if they’ve offered her the same deal we were given,” Michael muses, looking hopeful.
Lincoln licks at suddenly dry lips. “Would you want that really? She’d be just as obligated as we are.”
Michael shrugs. “Or she could have a life? Maybe they offered her freedom?”
“At our expense,” Lincoln fills in. It’s a thought he’s had more than once since arriving to this secret location. And seeing as he’s gladly taken up the burden to keep his family safe, extending the scope isn’t difficult.
Sara may not have been Lincoln’s family before but she is now. Michael’s said as much. With this deal, maybe they’re giving her the chance to wait and live with Michael in peace after the dust has settled. She’ll wait. Of that, Lincoln is certain.
Even if there’s a flicker of uncertainty in Michael’s eye.
“You’re scheduled to go under the knife three hours from now,” Lincoln pats Michael’s covered leg with his free hand, another point of contact. “They sent me in to tell you that.”
“No better way to seal the deal,” Michael jokes without a smile.
“I’m sure Sara will be in soon. To see that you’re okay before –.” Lincoln’s words slam to a halt and he finds that he’s suddenly terrified. Beyond the unknown future, there’s the simple fact that his brother could die on the operating table. Lincoln hasn’t allowed the fear to consume him before, not even when he entered the Company’s headquarters, but it does now and he feels as if he’s being pressed flat by a roller.
Tears and humiliation aren’t far behind so Lincoln does the first thing that comes to mind and sits up to press his lips to Michael’s smooth forehead.
Lincoln kisses him because Michael still hasn’t let go of his hand. Because Michael looks a little like that boy twenty years ago with the bruises on this face and arms from a horrible excuse of a foster parent and Lincoln feels as helpless as he was then, even with the blood of the abuser on his hands.
Lincoln’s lips stick slightly when he pulls away and he can’t look at Michael’s face. He doesn’t want to see the shock.
Then Michael’s there, squeezing his hand again. Turning it over so that with the palm up, Michael can bear down and hold on.
Michael’s still so strong. Lincoln wonders how he could have forgotten for even a second.
_
Michael’s first kiss was when he was sixteen. The kisser was his brother.
But it isn’t a simple as it seemed. Nor was it so complicated. Not to Michael, at least.
See, when someone is more than a sibling, more than a parent, even, when someone is your whole world, there’s very little that you wouldn’t do for them. And they can do no wrong.
Michael hadn’t put up a fight. Not at all. Not if he didn’t want to make Lincoln cry more. Someone had to show his brother that he was wanted. Even if that meant being smashed into the couch cushions, mouth pursed awkwardly underneath the sloppy onslaught of a whiskey laced tongue.
Michael could taste Lincoln’s salty tears on his lips when he opened them slightly. He could feel the desperation in his brother’s grasp, in the stiffness of his body as it settled half on his hip and half off.
They’ve been in the apartment for less than a week, so Michael could still smell the musk of the second hand couch. It clashed with the freshly painted walls and the sharp tang of Lincoln’s aftershave.
Lincoln grunted and Michael brought his focus back to the feel Lincoln’s hands on his chest, unbuttoning his school shirt and splaying over his chest, cupping him like a girl then raking his blunt nails over his nipples, shocking a startled jerk from Michael.
“Linc,” he breathed between them, pushing into his brother’s body at the same time he tried to pull away, slightly scared.
At the sound, Lincoln recoiled, his eyes blinking owl-like at Michael then sliding quickly into horror.
“Oh God.”
He sat up as if to flee and Michael didn’t think, just reached out and grabbed his brother’s shirtsleeve. He levered up into Lincoln’s body and brushed their lips together before he could be pushed aside.
He wanted to be there for Lincoln. To take care of him, because since he’d experienced the depth of Lincoln’s sorrow he thought that he might be able to ease the pain.
He knew that something in Lincoln wanted him to do so.
Michael couldn’t be Lisa but in that strange fleeting moment, he wanted to be.
_
Lincoln was prosecuted as an adult at sixteen.
As “a prime example of escalating delinquency”, Lincoln plead guilty to one count of assault and battery and served six months in a minimum-security prison.
Michael was out of the hospital and in another foster home by the time he was released and Lincoln visited him. He watched Michael’s new so-called family with open suspicion, ate their food, and answered their questions about what he was planning to do in the short year before he turned eighteen.
He answered, knowing that he wasn’t going back to the foster home all the way across town but that if he said he was rooming with another ex-con he’d never see Michael again. So he played nice, something he’d learned with black eyes and bloody noses in prison, and after he’d hugged Michael good night, he put a small jar in the hand of the salt-and-peppered haired man who’d urged his brother to call him dad (the third one to do so, by Michael’s reporting).
“These belonged to the last man that touched my brother,” He said sweetly, winking at the man’s clueless wife washing dishes in the kitchen.
Then he left, five teeth rattling in the glass behind him.
He was temporarily banned from seeing Michael for a week or two afterwards but when he saw his little brother again the tight hug he received and beaming smile was worth the punishment.
As was the wide berth Michael’s foster parents gave him whenever he was around. He never had to answer another question.
_
LJ sounds so resigned Lincoln wants to scream. To storm his way outside of this office disguised as a bedroom on the twenty-third floor of a corporate building and say ‘fuck you’ to the General and the contract and everyone who put him in this impossible position. He almost wishes he never went after Michael. Almost, but never truly. Even with LJ on the phone, thousands of miles away.
“It’ll be just a little longer,” he reassures his son for the third time – this conversation.
“I know, Sara told me Uncle Mike is in some trouble.” LJ’s sigh is audible over the line. “I just wish I could help.”
Lincoln nods even though LJ’s blind to the gesture. “You’re helping just being safe. How’s school?”
Lincoln listens to him talk and thinks how lucky they’ve been so far. How he never thought he’d get the chance to listen to his son talk about getting ready for graduation and the big question of what comes after.
He’s doing so well in his classes, focused in a way that Lincoln wants to attribute to the death of his mother and the need to make her proud but when Lincoln asks LJ says is because the teachers don’t look too closely at average kids.
Lincoln feels horrible then. Thinks about all of the ways that his bad decisions have ruined his son’s life, like father like son, but LJ keeps talking, tries to keep him talking and Lincoln remembers that he doesn’t know when he’ll able to do this again. He never knows when the last conversation really will be the last.
“I’m sorry,” LJ says the morning of Michael’s surgery.
“Never be,” Lincoln answers immediately although he doesn't know why.
“I wish I’d visited you more. You know, in prison. If I’d known-,”
Lincoln interrupts before he can get started. “No one knew what was going to happen so there’s no good in wishing and hoping for the past to change. It never does. All that matters is now and you make it matter for me.”
There’s a pause where Lincoln wonders if he’s made LJ uncomfortable. He isn’t normally so effusive. But when LJ responds he can hear the smile in his voice.
“I love you too, Dad.”
_
He can feel Sara before he sees her. Specifically, he can feel her eyes. He always could. Even back in Fox River. She has a way of looking at him, examining him that makes Michael feel stripped to the bone, cracked open just wide enough for her kindness and grace to seep in and make him better.
So, when he finally sees her and she looks away, face racked with what looks like guilt, he’s scared.
Michael’s reminded as she comes into his room that he has no idea what they’ve been offering her or threatening to take away. With all the talk of living a fluffy life after The Company, he hasn’t really had the chance to think of what Sara would think of all of this. Her cause is as intrinsically twined as his own and she’s lost just as much.
If anything, Michael thinks with building dread, she has just cause to be very angry that he’d give up Scylla, give up their fight against The Company, so that he can go off and work for the villains. Sucre and Mahone as well, who’ve been risking just as much, if not more. Does Michael have the right to take away their choice to fight?
His first words are, “I’m sorry.”
And whatever it was that made Sara look so guilty immediately morphs into sadness. She rushes to his bedside and wraps her arms around him carefully, as if he’s going to break, and Michael responds by pulling her in tighter, drowning himself in her jasmine scent and the softness of her body.
They hold on to each other for what feels like forever and not long enough. Not for Michael, who wishes he’d seen her first rather than Lincoln. Wishes that he wasn’t also thinking of how his brother was as reluctant to let Michael go as he is to loosen his grip. Sara leans away and brushes her hands over his face.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Michael. I want to you live and you shouldn’t sacrifice yourself for us.” Up close, Michael can see the worry lining her face. The dark circles under her eyes from the nights she’s stayed awake in the warehouse, thinking of ways to get him the help he needs.
He tells himself that this is what will help her as well, even if his heart is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And he knows it will. Michael’s intuition has never let him down.
“It’s only two years,” he whispers, watching her face closely for a reaction. “And they promised that you and LJ and the guys will be safe. We can be together.”
At this, Sara sighs. Her whole body heaving with the emotion behind it. She tips her head back, looking as if she’s begging from help from above and Michael clutches at her arms and gently shakes her.
“Hey, what’s wrong? What did they say to you?”
“They told me the truth,” Sara says, looking at him. “And I realized that even if the invitation was extended to me that I couldn’t bring myself to agree to work for them.”
Michael nods. That’s fair. “Okay, so I’ll do my time and afterwards we can disappear.”
Her fingers tighten on his cheeks, tears glistening in her big brown eyes. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t have to go back to prison in order to live.”
Michael kisses her then, seeking shelter from the onslaught of sorrow. Sara responds, moaning into his lips and wrapping her arms around him. She’s shaking by the time he retreats.
“So I’ll have the surgery,” he says in the silence that follows.
Sara braces herself on his shoulders. “And they’re shipping me back to Panama as soon it’s over.”
Michael shouts. “What? No!”
“It’s for the best. LJ needs someone and I don’t know if could -,” The tears spill over and Sara covers her mouth briefly, as if to keep in a sob. “I don’t think I’d be able to leave if I see you after the surgery.”
Michael hugs her again and can feel her crying. He doesn’t want her to leave, but he knows that there’s nothing for her here. He wants to keep her safe.
But it still hurts. More than Michael had originally thought when he’d discarded this possibility. Now, with the reality crying on his shoulder, Michael’s never felt so hopeless.
“What am I going to do without you?”
Sara pulls away and wipes her tears. “Firstly, you’re going to get through this surgery or so help me, Michael, I’ll kill you.”
She smiles weakly and Michael returns it.
“Secondly, you and Lincoln are going to learn how to work for them without becoming them.” Her voice gains strength. “Fight them every step of the way if you have to, but you come back to me the same good man you are now. Do you understand?”
Michael nods, speechless in the face of her tenacity and how much he loves her. He wishes more than ever that she could be by his side.
He’s kissing every part of her face he can when she chuckles wetly in his ear, “Sans the tumor, of course.”
Michael kisses her laughing mouth.
_
The last thing he sees before they lay him on the operating table and ask him to count backwards from one hundred are Sara and Lincoln standing outside of the Plexiglas doors.
He dreams of them when he’s under.
But not of their future, of his fantasy.
Lincoln’s strong body lifting Sara’s slight build up in his arms and kissing her deep as she wraps her legs around his waist.
Michael’s watching. Sitting in a chair or on a bed. The scene changes every time he tries to focus on something other than the two people he loves the most.
His heart’s pounding so that he can only imagine how they’re feeling. But he doesn’t have to imagine, not really, since he’s felt the steady of rhythm of Sara’s heart against his chest. And as for the beating of Lincoln’s heart? Michael’s felt that like the flow of blood in his veins, like the rush and release of the air in his lungs.
Lincoln’s never gone beyond stripping the clothes from his body nor has he penetrated him – God, Michael’s entertained the thought so many times – yet Michael can practically feel the spread inside him.
He hears Sara’s familiar moan at the sensation and suddenly he’s kissing the moans from her lips as Lincoln thrusts into her body. Lincoln’s hands wander over his neck and smooth down his shoulders, catch on his fingers
Then they’re all moving in tandem. Lincoln sounds like he’s coming and so does Sara, yet Michael’s stuck not feeling enough to go over and feeling enough of what matters to be fulfilled.
When he’s shaking off the cobwebs of his dreams, Michael can only remember the sensation of Lincoln kissing his forehead and he’s amused because that wasn’t a dream at all.