Daily Michael x Sara

Michael sat in bed, his wife next to him, both of them a book in hand, the glow from the table lamps on their nightstands illuminating their faces as the words on the page came alive.  He’d made quick work of acquiring more baby books than any one person needed, and had been slowly making his way through them one by one.

He was careful to pay attention to the details, filing them away for later use.  Each new fact both exciting and terrifying, and he often found himself glancing over at Sara’s stomach, trying to imagine what it would be like once she started actually showing.

Sara must have seen him peeking at her, because she sets her book down, reaching over with her hand to the top of his head, moving to settle at the base of his neck.

“That’s probably enough for tonight,” she tells him gently, knowing that he was overwhelming himself with the looming future.

“Maybe I’ll just switch over to this,” he says, pulling out a name book from the stack on his nightstand.  This one was thicker than the rest, and had yet to be cracked open by him yet.

A smile comes to her face as she glances at the title.

“I already have a boy named picked out,” she says matter of factly, and his eyes dance with amusement at that.  She hadn’t said a thing before this.

“Well, are you going to tell me?” He asks with a slight laugh to his question, a smile lighting up his face.

“Michael,” she says, and he squints his eyes at her, almost begging for the answer.

“Come on, you have to tell me eventually,” he teases, and she just shakes her head, her hair falling from behind her ear and dangling in her face.

“No, the name is Michael,” she answers, and he knows his face immediately drops, and probably contorts into something disapproving.

“After me?” He asks, confused by her choice.

That has her laughing, but he sits with his brow furrowed.

“It’s a good, strong name,” she tries to convince him.  “And the namesake isn’t bad either,” she says with a guilty, close mouthed smile that has the green flecks in her eyes twinkle.

“There’s gotta be something better,” Michael cringes, tearing open the book, flipping to the first page of boys names he finds.  “Here, umm, what about—“

“Michael,” Sara points to the name on the page that he’d happened to have turned to.

His hand comes up to his temple, closing his eyes tightly.  

“I will find something better,” he insists.

xxxxx

“What about Luke,” He says as he rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, Sara sitting at the kitchen island, eating a strawberry.  Her stomach had grown, their baby having been announced as a boy just days before.

Her finger comes to wipe at her lip, the juice from the fruit threatening to drip down her chin.

“It’s a little close to Linc, don’t you think?” She asks, licking her finger with a smile.

“And Michael isn’t a little close to…Michael?” He jokingly argues, as he mentally scratches off another name on his never-ending list of names.

She doesn’t even dignify his argument with a response, instead reaching for another strawberry, her stomach pushing up against the island, and Michael can’t help but smile at her, despite her stubborn stance on the issue at hand.

“How about Frank, after your dad?” Michael suggests, not fond of the name, but willing to take anything at this point.

Her head shakes, mouth full.

“I loved my dad, but his name sounds like a serial killer or something.”

Michael heavily sighs, grabbing his keys from the basket by the door.

Leaning in, he kisses her softly, the taste of strawberries lingering on her lips.

“I will keep trying,” he whispers, and she smiles against him.

His hand comes to her stomach, so big now that his palm couldn’t even splay across the expanse of it anymore.  

“Bye baby,” he says, Sara’s hand coming to rest over his.

xxxxx

“River is kind of cool,” he suggests, as a very pregnant Sara walks next to him, her arm tucked into his, and their pace slow and steady, as to not to wear her out.

“Fox River,” she says, bringing her head to his shoulder.

“Well that is where we met,” he reasons, a grin coming to his face, and he can see her looking at him with the same grin.

“Next you’ll be suggesting Chicago as a good option,” she teases, nudging him with her elbow.

He raises an eye, willing to accept that as a compromise if she’d allow it.

She shakes her head no.

His face falling to the fate of their son being named after him.

She stops walking, causing him to face her, a confused look on his face, as the people around them continue moving.

“Why don’t you want him to be named after you?”  She asks him seriously, studying his eyes, waiting for an honest answer for why he’d been fighting so hard against what she seemed to have decided the moment she found out she was pregnant.

He dips his head, taking her hands into his.

“Why do you want him to be named after me?” He asks, his voice taking on a self-deprecating tone that has her angling her head to see his eyes that he was trying to keep hidden.

“You’re smart, and sweet, and loyal, and altruistic,” she begins listing traits that he’s ready to dispute, his demons whispering at him that none of that was true.  “You’re the best person I know who is going to be the best Dad.  Plus, I just like it,” she shrugs.

Glancing up at her, he sees how sincere she was in her explanation, her reasons sound and although he didn’t necessarily agree, to have someone think that fondly of him, to want their son to have the traits she hoped they’d share…it didn’t seem all that crazy.

“Promise me something,” he whispers in a hoarse voice.

She tilts her head at him.

“You won’t call him Junior,” he says with a cringe, giving in to her request of the name Michael.

Her face lights up, a radiant smile to match the sunlight streaming down on them.

“I promise.”

xxxxx

Michael’s handed the tiny baby into his arms, the little boy he’d been dreaming of for the past nine months, wrapped in a blanket, so small and perfect he was sure his heart would burst.

It was then, standing by his wife, a smile refusing to be wiped away from her lips, and their son snuggled into his arms, an identical replica of his mother, he knew that this baby was without a doubt a Michael Scofield.

One of front wheels of the shopping cart spins wildly, offering absolutely no function, surrendering the job up to the other three wheels as Michael pushes it through the aisles.

Mike’s hand rests on the side of the cart, his fingers looped through the holes, as he quietly contemplates the selections on the shelf.  His mouth is pursed in concentration, his head tilted back to look at all his options.

“Which ones do you like better?” Mike asks, looking over at his dad, who watches on with rapt fascination at even the most mundane of tasks, seeing it as time well spent with his son.

“Your mom likes the peanut butter ones,” he says, gesturing to the orange bag in front of him.

He turns back to the shelf, his hand coming out to select one, hesitating between the orange bag and the yellow bag.

Michael abandons the handle of the cart, moving to stand next to him, leaning down a bit, his face coming to rest by his son’s.

“You can get both,” he whispers with a smile, causing a bit of excitement in the boy, grabbing both bags, and gently placing them in the cart, as Michael resumes pushing, a bit of a skip to the boy’s step as they move on to tackle the next choice.

As they make their way to the cereal aisle, boxes lined up, all threatening to spill over onto them, Mike looks up at him shyly.

“Dad?” He asks, casting his eyes down.

“Hmm,” Michael responds, curious as to what’s on his mind

“Did you…did you always love Mom?” The question throwing Michael off, the story of him and Sara having long since been relayed to his son, a game of sorts in code, sparing him the grisly details.

Michael laughs, thinking back to how they first met, when he was all charm and wit, as if playing a script in is head of what needed to be said to get her to trust him.  How somewhere down the line, pretending to care, to know notice details about her, and blurred into reality.  

“It feels like it sometimes,” he ventures, not sure how much he should say, but the statement feels true enough.  Having loved Sara for so long, it’s hard to remember a time when he didn’t.

Michael reaches for a box, holding it up in approval for yMike?  The young boy nods, and Michael puts it down next to the bags of M&Ms.  

The leisurely walk down the aisle, Mike looking down at his feet, walking on the lines of the tile, scuffing his sneakers.

“Even when you weren’t together?” He asks, almost in a whisper, resembling that of his dad.

The florescent lights of the store cast down on them, illuminating a truth, and possibly a motive to the questions being asks.

Michael’s brow furrows, his elbows moving to the handle, as his fingers clasp in front of him, before moving upright again.

“You can love someone when you’re not with them,” he hesitantly answers, contemplating his next words carefully.  “Sometimes, you can love them even more when you’re not together,” he says, causing Mike’s head to slowly turn to him with an inquisitive look on his face.

“Like missing someone?” Mike asks with a tilt of his head.

“Sort of,” Michael agrees.  “You see, sometimes you don’t realize how much someone means to you when you see them everyday.  You take them for granted, until they’re no longer there.  And then you feel an absence, a hole where they once were.”

Mike stops walking, looking up at his dad with the same concerned eyes he sees in Sara.

“But…you can…be together again, right?”

Michael leans over again, his feet meeting his son’s with a love that he knows only grew stronger over the years that he was away, continuing still with every day he spent with him.

“Yeah, buddy, sometimes, if the love is strong enough, and forgiveness is willing to be accepted, then you can be together again,” he explains.

“Like you and Mom,” Mike says with a smile.

“Exactly,” Michael says, knowing full well that a lot of forgiveness had been accepted when it came to their relationship, but also a lot of love.

“Did you love her when you gave her that rose?” Mike asks with a little smile, as they continue on.

Michael’s hand comes out to tangle in his son’s hair.

“Now you’re just asking to get me into trouble,” he teases.

Mike raises an eyebrow, the same look Sara gives him when she knows he’s trying to get out of the truth.

“Every single time,” Michael happily confesses.

Michael comes in through the front door, a long day back at work, but a satisfying one.  He’d contemplated finding something else do, something more relaxing perhaps.  But his mind refused to let him rest, and instead demanding it be stretched for answers.

 He didn’t mind, enjoying the time he could helping to solve problems and come up with configurations that others stared at in awe.  It was what he did best, but it wasn’t what he lived for.

No, that was reserved for when the clock struck five, refusing to put in late nights, instead almost racing home.  

He rolls up his sleeves, as he makes his way into the house, finding Sara sitting in the living room, still on maternity leave.  Isla has her back up against her mom’s stomach, a gurgling, drooling little girl whose arms flail at Sara’s excited, “Daddy’s home,” echoing through the house, meeting Michael’s ears, bringing a soft smile to his face.

He holds his hands out, reaching for the baby, who snuggles into his neck, as she breaths in her distinct infant smell, Sara getting up from her spot, a quick kiss exchanged, almost as if a habit, a ritual they’d implemented long ago, instead of a relatively new routine they’d established.

“He’s already waiting for you,” Sara says with a grin, her hand coming to rest on Isla’s back, as she walks into the kitchen to check on dinner.

Michael climbs the stairs with Isla in tow, reaching Mike’s room.

Every night for the past month, the two of them had been working endlessly on Mike’s science project.  Stealing time when they could, before and after dinner, and then on the weekends when they weren’t at Mike’s baseball practice.

“It’s looking good, bud,” Michael says from the doorway, Isla gurgling in agreeance, causing Michael to turn towards her little head resting on his shoulder, his long fingers, wrapping in her soft, dark hair.

Mike looks up from his project, a small smile on his lips at his dad’s compliment, before squinting back at his work.

“I just have to add the support,” he says in a quiet whisper like voice that sounds all too familiar to the older Scofield.  “We can probably start testing it this weekend,” he says, hesitantly, as if he’s not quite sure.

“Let me see,” he walks further into the room, staring over at the blueprints for the bridge that Mike had worked out himself, Michael having only helped with the calculations.  Piece by piece, they’d put together the structure.  Mike believing that they had worked on it together, but really, it had been mostly him, Michael just lending encouragement and a pointer here and there.

Bending down to his knees, he turns Isla over to where she can see Mike, his son immediately grabbing onto her little hand, making cute faces at the girl, whose eyes grew wide at the sight.

Inspecting the structure with one hand, he finds himself laughing at the interaction.

“Are you helping, Isla?” Mike asks her, shaking her hand as if it were her way of agreeing to such a task.

Michael brings his lips to the tuft of her hair, leaving a kiss on her head.

“I think you’re right, Mike.  You’re just about done,” he says.  A flicker of accomplishment sparking in the ember of his son’s amber eyes.

These were the moments he was living for.  The ones he’d fought tooth and nail to get home to.  A surge of pride rumbling in his chest at all that not even he had accomplished, but rather the things his kids would succeed at.

His optimism had wavered here and there, but for the most part, it had continued burning from the moment he’d inked his skin.  Often sacrificing his own happiness for the greater good, sure that if only his family were safe, he could die fulfilled.

“Oh wow, baby,” he hears Sara behind them, coming up to rest her hand on both of their heads.

It was only in his wildest dreams that he would be there to witness such a feat.  But here was, helping his son with a science project, holding his daughter, with his wife standing with him.

“You guys did good,” Sara says, his hand slipping to Michael’s neck, while planting a kiss where her hand was on Mike’s head.

“Yeah, we did,” Michael agrees, meeting her eyes, a knowing look passing between them.

It had been a long time coming, but he could finally, contently, say that this was what he’d been fighting for, a moment just like this one, and all the future ones to come.

The heat of the summer sun beats down on Michael, the hoodie he’s wearing causing a sheen of sweat to cover his face.  A small price to pay for his destination, and not unlike his time on the run.  Still hiding his identity, still lurking around in shadows, hoping that no one will notice him.  His sleeves, this time, not hiding tattoos but rather the skin of a man who wasn’t meant to exist any longer.

He’d been between missions, so to speak.  Jacob had been sending him around the world, banished to various prisons, breaking out people he didn’t dare think about the ramifications of his actions.  It was as if he were living his life over and over again, never quite reaching his happy ending, instead forced right back to the start, forever grasping for his family that was just within reach, but so violently yanked from his grasp.

The day was more humid than most, so he’s not surprised when he sees Sara’s hair tied up, exposing her neck in a tank top, free to expose herself to the world, sunshine warming her in its rays, illuminating her identity to him, a beacon of home, beckoning him closer still.

But he stops, still, his blue eyes warming as he sees her reach into the backseat of her car, picking up her son, their son, into her arms.

He’s gotten bigger since the last time Michael had seen him.  He’s got more hair now, the sunlight striking it at the right angle, giving it an auburn tint to match Sara’s.  It has Michael smiling from his position, as he slowly trails behind her.  When he imagined his child before he was born, the image he always conjured resembled that of Sara, her insistence that any child of their’s would look more him, apparently only wishful thinking on her part, because as it stood, their boy looked just like her.  And he can’t help but be thankful that he was granted at least that.

She smells of lavender, her scent lingering in the dew of the air, soaking him it is soothing comfort, his eyes closing, taking in the feeling of her surrounding him, if only an essence of her.  Memories flood him of the brief amount of time that he was allowed to take her in, all of her without fear of retribution.

The part of the zoo they were in had a wooded feel to it, shrubbery and trees aligning the trails, offering him plenty of spots to hid behind, duck if necessary as he trailed them.

As he takes in the small boy’s eyes widening as Sara pointed out birds to him, his tiny finger pointed with her, bouncing him on her hip.  The kind of activity he’d had maybe done with him had he been in their life and not just trailing behind.

Michael’s brow furrows, his eyes squinting as the guilt engulfs him, shrouding him in contempt for the situation he was in, a determination to formulate a plan.  But as he glances over at the pair that have stopped to look at an owl, he can’t help but configure a list of things he doesn’t know about his son.

His favorite food, his favorite toy, his first word, if he’s ever felt an absence of his father and if not, when will that happen, if ever?  He’s not even sure what Sara calls him.  He knows his name is Michael, a thought that only makes him cringe a little, but he’s never heard her use his name, her words usually swallowed up in the wind, leaving him with nothing but a yearning for something, anything about his family.

They’re on the move again when he looks up again, and he quickly moves to keep up with them, his foot stepping on a branch left in the trail, causing a crack to ring out.

There’s no time to dash into the foliage, instead he turns, hoping that the hood conceals who he is, simultaneously wishing that she’d recognize his silhouette, walk up, and resume their life as before.  But his shoulders slump, as he braces himself for her to move on.  Only looking back briefly, the ghost of her husband nowhere on her mind.

Moments later, when he deems it safe, he turns back around, coming face to face with the owl, who wore a disguise of eyes on the back of his head, also concealing his own identity, and Michael’s head cocks to the side as an idea forms.  

His eyes dancing with enlightenment, flickering to the small boy who’s staring, his mother’s back to him, but his son’s eyes bore into him, and it’s not quite recognition but it’s the closest to contact that he’d had with his namesake, the brown meeting the watery sea of a storm reflected back at him.

I will come back.

The first time Sara saw it, she thought Mike had been making a mess.  Walking down the stairs of their house, quickly, the goldfish on the windowsill on the landing in the middle of the steps, her eyes crinkled in confusion.

Balancing on her toes, she peeked over the white ledge to see twenty or so goldfish crackers lined up, some upside down, some right side up, and in varying amounts of space between them.  Pushing her hair back with a smile of laughter, she shook her head at her son, and scooped them up in her hand, before tossing them into the trash.

The next time she saw it, she tripped over M&Ms that had been carefully sorted into two different colors, red and blue, lined up in a similar way to the goldfish.  This time their place had been next to couch, in plain view, and right where she’d kicked them with her barefoot, scattering most of them across the rug, hitting the hardwood and making little tinkering clinks as they skipped.

“What in the world?” She asks, as she bends down, melted chocolate dotting her big toe.  On her hands and knees, she crawls around the room, gathering the candy into her hand, this time opting to drop them on the counter for further questioning.

That night at dinner, Michael twirls his pasta with his fork, his fingers dexterously balancing the fork between them, as he makes a display of gathering as much spaghetti on his fork, Mike’s quiet stare at the feat from next to him.

And it’s not long before their son begins doing the same, a grin peeking out of the side of Michael’s mouth at Sara, witnessing the way Mike seemed to follow suit most of the time.

Sara clears her throat, catching both Michaels’ attention, before depositing the M&Ms on the table from her palm with a questioning title of her eyebrows at Mike.

The boy remains stoic, only glancing over at his dad.

Sara’s prepared to ask what was with the food, when Michael begins speaking.

“So you’re the culprit.  i had been wondering where my M&Ms had been sneaking off to,” he says with a laugh.

Sara balks back.

“No, I tripped over these in the living room,” she explains, her hand coming to rest under her chin.

“Yeah, that’s where I left them,” he says slyly.

“Michael,” she says with a laugh, unable to even fathom why.  

He just shrugs.

The next time, she’s putting away laundry in Mike’s room, when she sees macaroni elbow noodles arranged on his desk.

Her fingers comes to place her hair behind her ear, before resting on her lips, trying to figure out what it was her husband and son were up to.

The two of them had become close, almost inseparable since Michael’s reappearance in their life.  They seemed to speak to each other with just a look, and apparently, a display of random foods scattered through their house.

She’d be jealous if she wasn’t so pleased that she had her family back, the bond they had, one that she knew they’d share had they ever met.  The similarities in their personality too strikingly familiar that it was impossible that paired with the unwavering love, they’d be anything but close.

That night, she sat on the couch, feet tucked up next to her a book balanced in one hand, as her fingers played with her lips as she read.

Flipping the page, she sees Michael come into the room out of the corner of her eye.

Sitting down next to her, his hand comes to rest on her feet, and she smiles down at the book.

“Give me your hand,” he says in that quiet whisper of his.

She gives him a curious eyes, before placing her book down and opening her hand slowly, cautiously.

He laughs at her hesitance, before his knuckles, holding something in his fist, come to meet her palm, depositing its content onto her hand.

As he removes his hand, she sees seeds.

“Michael, what—“

He holds up his pointer finger, as if all will be revealed soon.

In the space on the couch between them, he begins arranging the seeds in the same similar pattern she’s found the other snacks throughout the house.

When he gets them arranged in the way he wants them, he looks at her, his eyes flickering with mischief.

“Mike asked me about us, how we met,” he explains.

“So you created your own language,” Sara says, as if that made perfect sense.  “Michael Scofield, you never do anything simply.”

His laughter has his eyes squinting with lines sparking off the side, roots of his amusement towards her.

“Break the code, get the story,” he teases.

Sara leans forward towards him.

“I know the story, Scofield,” she jokes back in a whisper mimicking his own, before looking down at the seeds.

Her eyes flicker between the message and Michael’s finger tapping on her foot as she focuses.  Until the light goes off, and she shakes her head.

“Dork,” she announces looking back up at him.

“Too much?” He asks, and her forehead collapses against his shoulder with laughter.

“I love you too,” she whispers into him, the rose seeds scattering on the couch, as they’re shaken from their spot with the movement, awaiting the next message relaying the story of them to their son.

The salty air blows the slightly curled auburn locks of Sara around her face.  The calla lily resting carefully in her hands, the stem smooth beneath her palms.  Staring out in front of her, the sun resting on the horizon of the ocean, the palm trees becoming nothing more than shadows in the silhouette of the setting she’d selected.

“Mama,” she hears, her daughter Isla standing in the waves, her little sundress dancing in the wind, as infectious giggles escape her.

With a smile, she tucks her hair behind her ear, proving to be ineffective, the wind having other ideas.

Approaching the girl, who was only a few feet ahead of her, she sees what she’s so fascinated with.  Her little feet have been buried, as the waves crashed against her ankles.

“I’m sinking,” she laughs, staring up at her mom, the blue of her eyes reflecting more than the green in the soft glow of the sun on the water.

Mike having abandoned the idea of remaining clean, instead was crawling around on his knees, creating a sand castle that has Sara both impressed and shaking her head at the wet, sandy marks on his white shirt, his hair hanging in his eyes, using his forearm to swipe it out of his way as he concentrates.

“Where’s Daddy?” Isla asks, squinting at Sara with the same look as Michael.  The similarities between their looks, identical, but her personality wavering more towards her, while Mike, the opposite.

“Uncle Linc should be bringing him down any minute,” she assures her, Mike’s attention caught at the mention of his dad.  The teenager having grown incredibly close to his father through the years, almost inseparable.

“Do you think he knows?” He asks with a quiet grin, either convinced that his dad had figured it out, or impressed with her that she’d been able to pull this off.

The suggestion of a family vacation to the beach had seemed innocent enough.  Little did Michael know that among the sand castles and basking in the sun, she’d had an ulterior motive, one that required them to be on a certain Florida beach, the same one she’d become a Scofield for the very first time.

“I hope not—“ She answers, quickly interrupted by Isla.

“Daddy!” She squeals, trying to dig herself out of the sand, her wet feet then covered again in dry sand, as she runs in her dress, her dark hair trailing behind her, as she attaches herself to Michael’s leg.

Michael’s eyes show a glint of amusement, as she casts a glance towards Sara, walking crookedly with his little girl refusing to let go.

Lincoln pats him on the back, as the minster approaches from the other side of the beach.

“You knew,” Sara says as he meets her, her hand coming out to rub his head.

He leans in close, his mouth touching her ear to speak in his usual whisper over the waves.

“If you want to keep a secret, don’t tell Linc,” he says, and she tilts her had back with a laugh.

“What’d you say?” Isla asks, tugging on his pants, big eyes begging to be in the know.

Michael’s hand comes to tangle in her hair.

“I said, ‘My girls looks beautiful,’” he says with a smile down at her.

“You do too, Daddy,” she innocently reciprocates.

The comment having both her parents laughing at her sweet compliment.

“So you ready to do this again…again?” She asks, the humor of the moment not lost on either of them.

“How many times are you going to marry me?” He jokes matter of factly, the only sure way to deal with the events of the past.

“Well, we didn’t have Isla at the last one,” she argues with a smile, her hand running down the collar of his white shirt, matching Mike.

“Ahh,” he says.  “We needed all the Scofields.”

Sara leans in, bringing him closer while tugging on his shirt, meeting his lips in a quick kiss.

“Mmhmm,” she hums against him.

“Uhh, I think you’re supposed to wait to do that,” Mike chirps in, approaching them with Lincoln, his uncle giving a sly smirk at the comment.

“I don’t think that matters if they’re already married, Mikey.”

Sara glances around, her family surrounding her.  The last time they stood here, she was pregnant with Mike, their future seemed so bright, so sure.  Their happily ever after having been postponed for the next seven years, shrouded in grief.  But as they stood there, their family intact, and the future looking just as bright as all those years ago, she can’t wait to renew the assurance that marrying Michael was the best thing she’d ever done, here, surrounded by…

all the Scofields.

First read Day 0 and Day 1

Sara kept her eyes resolutely closed. If she opened them, she reasoned, she’d have to think about things like clearing out the rest of Jacob’s things, and deciding when Mike should return to school, and finding a damned good therapist (or three). But if she kept her eyes closed, she could continue to feel Michael’s fingers tracing circles on her back, dodging deftly between her scars.