Sara felt the cold, dark rain moistening her hair…and Kellerman’s breath behind her ear.

The policeman was still aiming his gun at them in silence, and was apparently trying to think of the right words that would persuade some normal nut or pervert…

But not Paul Kellerman.

That man was an ambiguous mystery to her, but Sara was sure that nothing the cop said, would persuade Kellerman to let her go.

She knew him enough to know that…

He was cold, distant, and … efficient.

His arms were holding her tightly and every time that she squirmed and tried to loosen up, he was tightening against her more, until she began to feel the moisture of his soaking clothes against her body and under her own clothes.

-“Let her go!”

Sara heard Michael’s scared and angry tone somewhere behind her under the dark rain.

-“I’m counting cop…

One… “

The policeman’s face changed most of all, as Kellerman stroked the gun without separating it from Sara’s temple.

-“… Two…”

His tone didn’t change even just a bit… it continued being nice and cold.

-“… Let her go!”

Michael’s voice sounded more desperate this time, and Sara realised that she never had heard Michael shout like that before.

She could feel the fear growing up rapidly inside him.

And the love, not letting him think clearly. And it was a bit scary, because she couldn’t help but think again of all the things about Michael Scofield that she didn’t know yet …

Or about the many things that he was willing to do for her.

And then Sara thought that she wanted to look at him under the dark rain and ask: “How could this have happened to us?”

How could something like love have wounded them that much?

Just love… burning painfully along with everything else inside them.

-“… Okay Sir...

I’ll drop the gun, but let the lady go.”

Kellerman smiled softly under the rain and the officer dropped his gun onto the dark and soppy asphalt.

Maybe it was just the adrenaline running through her body, but Sara could have sworn that she could feel how Kellerman released the air in his lungs.

Nervous…as if he was afraid to think about what he would have had to do when arriving at the count of “three”.

-“Now push it with your foot … Slowly please.”

Lincoln grabbed the gun from the flooded ground.

The dark rain was still falling and soaking all of them, but she wasn’t feeling it anymore.

She was too cold and the adrenaline had raced through her muscles, like a warm and familiar poison.

But even with that, Sara felt a familiar touch on her hand.

It was Michael, pulling for her slowly, until she felt Kellerman's arms loosening up and slowly letting go…

-“… Come here… “

Michael’s low voice sounded closer and more intimate than she had remembered lately.

It sounded as if it was the first time in years that Michael had saw her.

He didn’t even look at Kellerman.

Michael just passed his hand over some wet locks of hair on her forehead to part them, all without taking his eyes from her.

It was as if, suddenly, all the lies and the hot silences between them didn’t exist.

Sara saw Kellerman handcuffing the policeman to the handle and realised it under Lincoln’s watchful eye.

After that, all of them got silently into the car.

Lincoln started the engine, and they travelled several miles more under the dark rain. They moved in silence with the only sound coming from the wipers of the car. Finally they saw the lights of a motel.

But this time, Sara didn’t fall asleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sara was sitting on the small and dark wooden porch.

She was still wet and hadn’t taken her soaking clothes off yet.

Sara had just grabbed a blanket from the motel room, and gone out to sit down in the darkness of the small wooden porch, with her wet hair dripping upon the blanket.

The only things that she could hear were the dark rain falling, and Michael and Kellerman voices inside of the motel floating to her like soft murmurs.

They were somewhere between Mexico and Chicago now.

Chicago.

Seems that nothing else mattered anymore.

As if the only thing that remained to do was for all of them to get back to the city in which they had all started.

Sara closed her eyes for a few seconds in the darkness.

She was trying to think how they had come to that… how her life could have changed so much in less than a month.

“Your life was a mess before too… Nothing has changed Sara.”

That voice hummed in her mind… But it wasn’t all true.

Actually, her life had changed.

Because she was with them now…

With him.

And then Sara realised how much she missed Michael.

He was just a few steps and a wall away from her, but she missed him so much…

Sara missed the mornings at Fox River, when she was in her infirmary, waiting, for him to come for his daily injection, just to hear his voice.

She missed how she used to look over her shoulder to see if there was any C.O’s looking at them while they were speaking softly about the world outside those walls…

Or the way that she always waited, listening for him to say her name, and when he did, it was as if it were just them in that horrible, cold place…

But most of all, she missed not being afraid.

While he was in Fox River, she was safe.

Safe from having to make a decision about them…safe from having to put a name to what they were…

To have to put a name to all the hot looks and soft words between them…

Safe from thinking about that damn “What if he is out someday”

Because now he was out, and she wasn’t safe from any of that anymore.

But this situation, dark and complicated, was their new reality.

A painful and hot reality.

She closed her eyes in the darkness of the porch, thinking again about Kellerman’s arms around her, about his gun against her temple…and about the way in which Michael had screamed at him before.

She opened her eyes slowly and wrapped herself up in the blanket.

In moments like those, with a gun in her temple, or running from some local cop that had recognised Lincoln, she always thought again about “that” conversation that Michael and she had in a train bathroom:

“You can get everything back”

How the hell could she get something back?

How would she get something back after having the gun of a man that tortured her against her temple?

Or… after having listened to Michael scream at him in that way?

Maybe the damned truth was that they couldn’t do normal and the little things anymore. Maybe she was doomed to love that way of life.

Maybe... After all… she had found a new and more addictive drug in Michael Scofield.

-“Can I sit with you?”

Lincoln’s voice behind her pulled Sara from her thoughts.

-“… Sure…But I’m not really talkative tonight.”

-“It’s okay… I’m not really talkative this month”

Something similar to a very soft smile crossed her face, and then Lincoln’s voice broke the sound of the rain again:

-“You should take off your clothes”

Sara looked at him a bit confused, but Lincoln smiled softly in the darkness and talked again:

-“I mean… Change out of your wet clothes.”

Sara smiled this time, and she realised that perhaps it was the first time that day that she had smiled.

Her tone was still cheerful when she spoke:

-“… Yes, but I’m too tired.”

-“Then why don’t you go to bed?”

Sara kept quiet for a few seconds, thinking about what Lincoln had just said.

She wasn’t going to bed yet because Michael was still too busy in the other room arguing with Kellerman.

And she was afraid of admitting it, or of even thinking about it, because it was something that she hadn’t even known just a week ago…But now Sara knew that she didn’t like to sleep without Michael in the bed.

It was a scary and powerful thought… but the truth was that the world seemed a bit less lonely with Michael Scofield sleeping next to her.

-“I don’t like to sleep alone…”

And then Sara thought that maybe it wasn’t a lie after all.

-“Well… I could sleep with you if you want…but then Michael and our new friend would have to share a room… And the bastard snores.”

Sara smiled in the half dark of the wooden porch, but her voice sounded a bit distant when she spoke again, without looking at Lincoln:

-“Maybe we should leave Michael to sleep with him… “

Sara regretted it the second she said it.

She didn’t want Michael to sleep with anyone else, but Lincoln’s voice broke the sound of the rain:

-“He didn’t hurt you…did he?”

She smiled sadly and looked at him through the darkness before asking:

-“Who…? Kellerman… Or your brother?”

Lincoln looked at her in silence for a few seconds, until he finally spoke again:

-“This is just temporary Sara…

When all this finishes, you wont have to see Kellerman again… And surely Michael will kill him before all this is over…”

He smiled softly in the dark.

-“…If it ends.”

Sara’s voice sounded sad and low, as if she was just saying it for herself. Almost like they were sorrow words that she had kept inside for a long time.

-“It will Sara… And then you and Michael can live in some big house on a desert beach…with four or five children that have your eyes…”

Sara smiled weakly, trying to believe in Lincoln’s words, even if it was just for a second.

Because under these certain circumstances, she could be satisfied with that, with just a moment of thinking how her life could turn to that…

When she spoke again her voice sounded sleepy and tired:

-“… Maybe you are right…”

-“About the sleeping together thing?”

Sara smiled in the darkness of the porch and talked again:

-“No… about the going to bed thing.”

Sara rose from the porch with her blanket and walked to the door. But, before she opened it, she turned to look at Lincoln:

-“Good night.”

-“…Good night Sara.”

She opened the door, but when she was about to leave the porch, Lincoln’s low voice made her turn:

-“I’m glad you are here.”

She smiled a bit surprised, mostly because Lincoln, wasn’t the kind of man that “was glad” about anything.

She looked at him through the darkness again, and then closed the door behind her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

-“I wasn’t going to shoot her… So stop the drama.”

Michael sighed frustrated, his voice sounded angry and cold every time he spoke:

-“I don’t know what you really want Paul…But I don’t trust you, and the fact that you put a gun against her temple doesn’t help.”

Kellerman was seated on the bed.

Slowly and tiredly he sat looking through the dark outside the window with that attentive look that never seems to leave his face. His voice sounded distant when he spoke, like he was just speaking out loud:

-“I was just doing what I had to…we had to get free from the cop…and we did...”

He looked left out of the window for a second and then settled on Michael:

-“I always do what is necessary Michael.”

Michael closed his eyes slowly. He was tired of all this.

Of fighting with him, with her, with himself…

He was tired of impersonal and repetitive motel rooms like this.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe if it wasn’t for Kellerman, all of them would now be in some dusty country jail … but she was too much price to pay for freedom…Sara wasn’t something which he could not do without anymore.

-“…That doesn’t change what you did before…If she…”

-“But she is fine…ok... So stop treating her as if she was something fragile Michael.

She is probably the most toughest of all of us.”

Then Michael half-closed his eyes and looked at him coldly. His voice sounded dark and rough when he spoke, and he didn’t even try to hide it because Michael was really interested in Kellerman’s answer:

-“Why do you say that?”

Kellerman looked at him and smiled softly before he spoke. Michael knew that he wasn’t going to like his answer:

-“Because I know her.

I spend a lot of time watching her Michael, studying her, her customs, and her likes… What she wants from life… Or from love…

Just like you did Michael.”

-“… That is not true.”

But Michael’s voice sounded soft and far away, as if he was just trying to convince himself.

The painful truth was that he really had done that.

And now nothing would change that fact ever.

Michael had followed her, had stolen her mail to know more about her, he had searched places and articles about her personal life…everywhere… trying to know every little detail about her… He couldn’t risk not knowing.

Michael couldn’t go to Fox River without knowing all the little things about her.

And even one night, Michael had followed Sara to a bar, and observed her during all the time that she spent sitting in a stool, with the ice cubes melting slowly in her Pepsi.

He observed from a distance, all the men near her and those that spoke with her…trying to detect and understand what she liked in a man.

That night Michael learnt two things:

First of all…she was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen.

And second…lying to her was going to be much more difficult now.

Much more than before he had seen her.

But now he imagined Kellerman doing the same thing…prying in her life as he had done…studying Sara’s habits… Or looking at her during hours while she was alone in some bar, and maybe thinking about his betrayal.

Michael’s voice sounded only half-sure:

-“… It is not the same thing…

It is not even close.”

Kellerman smiled softly to himself before speaking:

-“… Of course is it Michael. Your present situation doesn’t change what you did to her before.”

-“…That is not true.”

-“Yes Michael, it is the truth even if that tortures you now.

You just used her; you did what you had to do to save your brother’s life.

Just like me.”

Michael closed his eyes and sighed softly before beginning to talk again:

-“I never tried to kill her Paul.”

-“But you’d do it if you had to …”

Kellerman’s voice sounded a bit distant, but there was still a small tone of victory in it. Maybe it was because he had seen a dark doubt in Michael’s eyes.

-“No… I would never hurt Sara.”

-“… She looks really hurt to me Michael”

Michael neared him and spoke low but clear; his voice sounded angry, frustrated and a million little other things:

-“Soon Paul, when all of this is over, we will never have to see you again… That is all that matters.”

Michael looked at him in cold silence for a few seconds and all the dark rain outside seemed to stop for a while.

Then Michael walked to the door and opened it, but Kellerman’s voice at his back stopped him:

-“Do you really believe that Michael? Do you really think that she will forgive you someday?”

Michael let go of the handle and turned to look at him:

-“Why do you ask that?”

Michael’s voice sounded colder and sharper than usual… because he was a bit afraid of his answer.

But Kellerman didn’t smile when he spoke, and just for a second, his voice didn’t seem that kind and false voice that Michael had come to know:

-“Because then maybe she could forgive me too.”

Of all the possible answers, Michael never thought that he would hear that…. Not from Paul Kellerman.

-“That is not going to happen Paul.

Never.”

-“Michael… You might be a genius, but you don’t know anything about people.”

Michael smiled bitterly and spoke, his voice sounding ironic and cold:

-“I have learned some things about people lately Paul… But thanks.”

This time Kellerman smiled without a trace of humour in his face and spoke:

-“… Maybe, but in the end, it is not going to make a difference Michael… We all are dead.

You, I, your brother… And Sara.

It is just a matter of time.”

Michael moved nearer to him and spoke low, and Kellerman noticed something different in his voice this time, something that he hadn’t heard ever before.

-“You take care of yourself… And I will take care of them.”

After that, Michael left the room, leaving Kellerman looking out at the storm through the dark window.

Michael took several steps in the half-illuminated corridor and almost collided with Lincoln, who was about to open the room door.

-“…Hey… is everything fine?”

Michael didn’t answer; he just looked to the empty porch and asked:

-“Where’s Sara?

Lincoln talked softly, because he knew that nothing that he could say would change his brother’s mood:

-“She’s gone to bed”

Michael put his hands on his waist with a confused look in his face:

-“…Alone?”

-“… Yep. Are you sure you are all right Michael?”

Michael looked at his brother for the first time.

-“Yes… it has just been a long and very bad day.”

He smiled weakly at Lincoln and looked out at the dark rain for a few seconds.

-“Do you think we can do it?

Michael’s voice sounded far, like he wasn’t really interested in his brother’s answer.

-“… After everything we have lost Michael… The only thing that we still have is faith, and I’m not ready to lose that.”

Then Michael smiled softly at his brother and turned the handle slowly, but before walking into the dark room that he shared with Sara, he spoke low again:

-“… I’m not ready either.”

To be continued…

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