Work Text:
i.
They had been having fun. They always have fun. Lincoln’s house smells like chocolate chip cookies and pot roast and potpourri. Plus, he smells good. She likes to lean in and get a whiff of him because he always smells like detergent. She’s seen the pastel bottle – his mom uses the stuff with that cute little bear on the cover. (It is for this reason that she refers to Lincoln as ‘the Snuggle bear’ in her diary. It’s pretty good code, she figures). Veronica’s house smells like none of those things. Her clothes aren’t always clean – sometimes her father forgets to buy detergent, and she has nothing to wash them with – and there’s never the smell of anything in the air other than cigarettes.
She likes his house more. And he likes having her over. There are boys on the block he plays with, but Veronica can tell he likes her more than them. It makes her heart beat faster.
And they’d been having fun. But Lincoln has a temper – one that she knows, wise for her age as she is, he’d better learn to control before it controls him. She is only seven, but she knows they should both know better than to try to boss around, or be mean to, Michael.
He just wanted to play with them. He looks up to Lincoln – anyone can see that. He’d been following them around all day, and had remained fairly quiet until Lincoln had held out his hand to help her up after she fell off his skateboard.
Michael had squealed with giggles. “Gonna kiss her?”
At least Linc hadn’t resorted to physical violence against his little brother. He knows better than that (for now, she thinks). But Michael had spent so long on his Lego town, he had worked so hard, and it was super impressive for someone his age.
Lincoln knew smashing it would hurt worse than smashing Michael. And so he had.
Veronica was furious. While their mom consoled Michael (or tried to, last she saw he was banging his head into the wall over and over), she shouted at Linc. He just stood there and took it, looking bored.
That made her even madder. Mad enough to go spend the evening with her father. “I’m going home, you jackass!”
She didn’t care that Christina heard her cuss. She slammed out the front door, Lincoln on her heels. “Oh, come on, Vee. Stay for dinner. He’s just a baby.”
She spins around and looks at him. “It’s your job to take care of him.”
“It’s not a job I asked for!”
“I’m going home,” she tells him again, and takes off down the block, not looking back as he calls for her to not to leave.
ii.
She knows how to handle a lot, but death is not one of those things.
Death is something that happens to old people, to grandparents. Or to people she doesn’t know. People she has never heard of on the television, in the newspaper. They have families too, she knows, but she has never stopped to think about them.
She supposes she always will from now on though. The visitation is a blur, the funeral even worse. She sits in the front row with Michael and Lincoln, a woman she knows to be their social work in the row behind them.
There are not a whole lot of people here. Some coworkers, high school acquaintances that have come perhaps more out of curiosity than respect. No family, no one close.
There is no one here to claim these boys.
Michael is crying audibly, shuddering in his seat. He does not take the tissue the social worker offers him, instead he bats her hand away. Lincoln is the complete opposite. A stoic stature, staring unmoving at his mother’s closed casket.
Veronica takes his hand. He doesn’t squeeze back, but he lets her hold it. She watches him as the priest speaks, she wonders if he is hearing anything the man is saying (it is hard to hear anything over Michael’s wails), but if he is, if anything is resonating, it makes no difference.
She cannot imagine the pain he is feeling, the hole in her heart is big enough. This was the woman who was the mother she never had, a friend. She had once pulled Veronica into a hug and told her that if Lincoln never got his smarts, she was going to save her for Michael.
It’s when the pallbearers come forward, taking the casket and picking it up, that Lincoln’s dark blue eyes fill with tears. She starts to say something, to try to comfort him, to let him know he can finally let go, but Michael is up and out of his seat, running down the aisle, screaming at the pallbearers.
“Don’t take her! I want to see her! I want to see her one more time! Don’t take her!” He lets out a piercing wail. “I – want – my - mommy!”
Veronica looks at the social worker, and blinks. She is not moving. Before she, herself, can react, Lincoln is up and out of his seat, trying to control Michael. He wrestles him to the ground, all but sitting on him to keep him in control.
The church is silent now, except for Lincoln. “I know, buddy. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”
Michael calms down long enough for Lincoln to let him up, and then he tears out of the church. Veronica watches Lincoln for a long moment, still crouched on the ground, then gets up and goes over towards him.
He stands and looks at the church doors, then back to her. “I’d better go after him. You’ll be here when I get back, right? You’ll be here?”
She nods her head and he goes in search of Michael. She waits for a few minutes, but it is too much, this is a place she cannot be, somewhere she cannot stay. Deep down, she knows she is not what either of them need right now anyway. They just need each other.
She wipes her eyes, and leaves the church, heading home without saying goodbye.
iii.
“Don’t go.”
It is not a question – he is not asking. She doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Lincoln Burrows is forever trying to hold her back.
“Of course I’m going.” She snatches her Baylor acceptance letter out of his hand. “How about you come with me?”
He’s arguing, deflecting, disagreeing before she can even get the sentence out of her mouth. “Hell no. Not going to happen.”
“Why not? You could use a fresh start, Linc. We both could. It would be good for us.” She wants desperately to drag him away from Chicago, from the life he has chosen for himself. They could be good together if he would just let them.
“No. I’m not leaving Michael. Things are going good for him.”
If she were a woman of less sense, she’d be jealous of Lincoln’s pure and complete devotion to his baby brother.
“Michael would be just fine without you, and you know it.” Lincoln’s face twitches, and she knows it was exactly the wrong thing to say.
“Don’t go.” The look on his face is a challenge, and she reads it perfectly: if you love me, don’t go.
“Come.”
She isn’t sure why she is even asking it of him, she has known the answer since she put the application in the mail. He won’t come. She will be going alone. Maybe she just finally knows, not that she can do better, not that there is better, but that she deserves better.
He doesn’t outwardly refuse; he doesn’t say anything, just walks over to her, tilts her head back and kisses her. It is infused with something she can’t quite decipher, and he doesn’t let her pull away when she tries.
He moves his hands down from her face, through her hair, to where he has a firm grip on her arms. It won’t be the first time he’s left bruises. Her clothes come off, and she fumbles with his as he leads her over to his couch and lays her down.
This is the last time, something inside of her says. This will be the last time.
It is well past dark before either of them speak. She rolls away from him and he presses a kiss to her back, against her spine, right between her shoulder blades. “Don’t go.”
She is dressed and gone before morning.
iv.
She has been home for less than sixteen hours, and she is in the exact place she had sworn she would not end up: Lincoln’s.
Lincoln’s living room. Lincoln’s brand new and improved living room. Lincoln’s brand new and improved living room that he shares with another woman. Another woman and their child.
Lincoln has gone to the kitchen to get them both a glass of water, and she takes the free moment to study the pictures on the mantle. She wishes she hadn’t though. The frames are filled with three people masquerading as a happy family.
He comes back in and hands her a beer. It’s more than welcome and she thanks him.
“Lincoln Jr., huh?”
“You never would have let me get away with that one, would you?”
“Well,” the words tumble out before she can keep them in, “it’s not much of an example to follow, is it?”
If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it. He just lifts his own bottle to his lips and takes a slow drink, letting his tongue linger on the lip when he’s finished. She has to look away or risk melting into the floor.
She should know better. God, should she know better. But it is Lincoln and she is Veronica. There have been other men since him – a few. She wasn’t chaste while she was away, not after she found out he had knocked someone up, such a fucking Lincoln way of dealing with pain and hurt and resentment.
“He’s a good baby.” Lincoln rolls his eyes. “Loves his Uncle Mike.”
“I’ll bet he does,” Veronica actually feels herself smiling, and then he is kissing her.
She kisses him back, against her better judgment (when has she ever done anything with him that is not?) and she sighs into his mouth at the familiar warmth of his hard body pressed up against her. This is familiar, this is comfortable, this is Lincoln. Yes, there have been other men, but they were not him. Nobody is him. Nobody else knows her body and her mind and he is whispering I love you into her neck, and she is unbuttoning his shirt.
The sound of a baby crying is akin to a douse of cold water. She pulls back. “We can’t. We cannot.”
He is ready to argue, to ask why, she can tell (she knows him), when the baby cries again, answering his unasked question.
“I’ll go take care of him. He needs a bottle.” Lincoln steps forward and takes her wrist before kissing her gently on the forehead. “It’ll only take a minute. Stay. She’s gone for the night visiting her family, Vee. She needed a break.”
She can only manage a nod in response, and he goes, off to comfort his son. It is the sound of him whispering to him, preparing his bottle, feeding him, that makes her pick up her jacket and go.
v.
She sees it on four separate news station and opens her paper before she actually believes the news.
Not that she is sure she believes it – this is Lincoln, sure he’s messed up, but he is a good man – but before she believes that somebody else believes it.
She puts on her coat and shows up at Michael’s work. He blows her off, she knows he will not be making the trip upstate to the penitentiary today (she wants to throttle him, he has grown into someone to be proud of, but if he only knew), so she does it.
It is being a lawyer – claiming to be his – that gets her in.
His eyes are bloodshot, it’s clear he has not slept. He is on guard, but his whole demeanor changes when she steps through the barred doors.
“God, Lincoln.” She steps forward to embrace him, then stops herself. There are plenty of eyes, and she has a roll to play right now. So she places her briefcase on the table, and sits, motioning for him to do the same.
He does. He meets her eyes. “He know?”
She is only able to nod in response. It is quiet for several minutes, and she goes on. “He wanted to come up with me, but he has some big presentation today. You know how demanding his job can be. He told me to tell you –”
Lincoln cuts her off, and she wonders how she always manages to forget he knows Michael better than he knows himself. “Right.”
There are a million things she wants to say and ask, but she cannot make any of the words bubble out. He leans forward. “I tried to call him last night.”
She was with him last night. She knows he tried to call. This is something that has ran through her head six thousand times since she heard the report. “Oh?”
“You make sure he knows this wasn’t his fault.”
It is quiet for a long time after that, just the two of them sitting together. It is oddly comfortable. This is Lincoln, she knows him, she has always thought of him as hers. They are the same eyes, it’s the same jaw, the same man. She forces herself to believe it will be okay.
Finally, he reaches over, lacing his fingers through hers. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I know,” she tells him. And she does know. He is letting her go, dismissing her, but she squeezes back and, for now, chooses to stay.