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Lincoln has tried not to imagine this moment for years. Sometimes he doesn't allow himself to think about Michael at all.
Not in the day time. Not when he is simply trying to function and eat and sleep and talk to LJ on the phone like a parent rather than someone who is in constant mourning.
Because he is.
It's never far away, the darkness, the grief, the guilt. Like a balloon, it's hovering just over head, tethered but lingering and ready to come when gently tugged. Almost eager.
He puts it aside so often that sometimes he can almost pretend that he's happy. That the mask he wears on a daily basis doesn't chafe as badly. His smile when he goes to visit Michael Junior isn't completely forced. But he knows that everyone else knows he's pretending.
The point is that he's trying, right?
But when Lincoln is buzzed into the prisons visitor's center, he remembers all of those early years where he didn't bother to pretend.
C-Note is by his side saying something to him. Advising him on how to act. Not to overreact if Michael is here or worse, if they'd flown all this way for a ghost. But instead Lincoln is remembering how good he used to be at imagining long, full lifetimes with Michael.
Conversations they never had, where they sat on a porch in Mexico with sweaty beers and spoke about nothing at all until the sun went down.
How they would meet for dinner, like those "normal" families they never really were, and on occasion they would complain about their joints growing stiffer after the long hours of companionship.
How Lincoln would notice a few more gray hairs around Michael's temple, a few more wrinkles. Some from smiling.
Lincoln used to imagine Michael calling to tell him about all of the joys of fatherhood. How he would experience those things he missed with LJ through Michael's quiet enthusiasm.
How they would hug often, like they didn't do until Michael broke him out of prison.
How Lincoln would celebrate everyday they were all free. That, Lincoln imagined more often than not - if only so he could remind himself of everything Michael sacrificed for his sake.
Only a handful of times has Lincoln considered this reality. Usually only when he's been alone for a few days with a bottle of Jack.
Michael, alive but inaccessible. Barely on the fringe of existence. Isolated and alone.
Those imaginings were the stuff of nightmares.
So, of course, they came true.
Lincoln knows it's Michael immediately. He's got so much more gray, more than Lincoln even imagined, but his beanpole of a brother looks almost the same. And alive.
Broad shouldered and strong even though he's not even close to the largest inmate here. Focused and calculating, so confident that he almost looks arrogant.
"Did he expect us?" C-Note asks under his breath and Lincoln thinks the answer is apparent in the casual stroll of his living, breathing baby brother as he approaches them.
Not that Lincoln currently has the ability to do much more than stare and keep himself upright as it is.
Michael is alive.
The possibilities, the hope, expand in Lincoln's heart like a supernova.
When he locks eyes with Michael through the thin barrier of chain link, he swears those piercing blue orbs are dancing with mirth. Completely aware of just how significantly Lincoln's world has been rocked.
'That son of bitch', Lincoln thinks and far off he hears the pop of a balloon.
END