It Happens, Chapter One
Title: It Happens, Chapter One
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Paul Kellerman and Sara Scofield
Category: Multi-chapter (*facepalm*) I think it will be short though, three chapters tops, hopefully.
Rating: PG (for now)
Summary: Where there’s sparks, there could be fire, you know.
Author’s Notes: I just had a thought. No disrespect to Michael’s memory, it’s been six years by the timeline I use. Sara is only human. This story picks up with the inference that Michael and Sara married before he died, but does not take into account any of the *leaked* storyline for the straight-to-DVD movie. I don't intend to ever watch that, thus it will never be part of my canon.
He'd always been ambitious. Ambitious to the point of ridiculousness, Kristine once said. (When she ran his campaign for Congress.)
He did it for a whole term, and he was good at it, as he'd always been good at everything he'd done. Good soldier, good sniper, good lap dog for Caroline Reynolds, good at framing a man for murder, and then setting him free. When his term ended, he found himself unwilling to do it again, and set adrift.
He'd also become good at pining away for a woman he had no right to ever think about.
It had snuck up on him, really. He hadn't prepared himself to care for Sara; he never expected anything except to serve her up on a silver platter at some point. The fact that he had never done that should have made him more aware, but being single-minded helped to block out other unpleasant things he didn't want to deal with. Finding Scofield and Burrows and Scylla had been the thing he focused on for quite a while; then the accolades for his part in that had come in, and the opportunity to run for office had been handed to him. With that in his sights, he’d had little time to see the other empty spaces in his life.
When word got to him that Scofield had died, he put her on his radar. He hired a man who had one job, and one job only: to watch Sara Tancredi-Scofield and her offspring, and make sure that nothing ever harmed them. The Company had been buried, but Paul didn't believe that all enemies had been put six feet under. He hoped, but he didn't know for sure. Even now, six years later, he still considered the possibility because there was no statue of limitations on evil monarchies, even when it appeared all the kings and queens were dead.
He received surveillance pictures periodically, showing Sara and her child in marketplaces in Oaxaca City, Mexico; driving out to the coast in a old Jeep Wrangler to visit Burrows and family; helping at an outdoor clinic in the poor little neighborhood where they'd taken up residence. Whenever the large mailing envelopes arrived, he'd find time alone to thumb through them, and as if on a projector, he watched her life go on.
She'd always had strength of character and determination that reminded him of himself. She seemed to only stand straighter after her husband died, and her shoulders never bowed despite the weight that lay upon them.
He had fantasies. Ones where he coincidentally showed up in Oaxaca. Sara? You're kidding me? You live here? I had no idea. Except that one always ended with her rolling her eyes and walking away, because even in a make-believe world, Sara would not take his bullshit. Other fantasies involved her slapping him and then some kind of brutal sex happening on the beach. Of course that was as farfetched and difficult to believe as their happen chance reunion in the marketplace.
Sometimes when he looked at pictures of Michael Scofield Junior, he wondered things that would surely get him a garrote around the neck again if Dr. Tancredi ever knew he thought them. Words like stepfather or Uncle Paul, or even Mommy's Boyfriend, would crowd in and then he'd shove the photos back into their envelopes before dropping them in the deep desk drawer with everything else.
He'd learned there was the life you wanted, and the one you had, and the one you spent the most time thinking about could never be the former, not if you wanted to keep your service revolver clean and polished but not pressed against your temple.
Everything he'd done to set things right could never bless him with what he wanted. He would never deserve that, and he couldn't pretend otherwise.
But he could pretend that one lost weekend with her would satisfy him, and that some day he would go and try. Failing had become something he could endure; not knowing was more painful than not having.
*
It took him quite a bit of time to talk himself into it. And really, it was Kristine who had talked him into it. She didn’t know the whole history of what had happened with Sara (he’d conveniently left out the bathtub incident), but she did have a good grasp of the situation from reading between the lines of what Paul had revealed to her. The bottom line, she said one evening, fed up with his morose face, was that he had a thing for this woman, this woman was a free agent, and why did he keep wasting time? At least if he went and got rejected, he could move on with his life.
Or so his sister thought.
Paul’s biggest problem, obviously, was that he might not survive the rejection. Seeing her face again, knowing the hell she’d been through-raising a child alone-well, he wanted to be her Superman, but he knew even if he’d met her under different circumstances, she would not welcome that intent.
So he boarded a plane at O’Hare, sick to his stomach long before turbulence could cause the problem.
In the sticky sweetness of Oaxaca City in August certainly made him regret his choice of clothing. He’d always dressed the part; he couldn’t seem to help himself. Maybe that should be his first order of business. He checked into the hotel and then went to the market place and bought some shorts and a few colorful button up shirts that screamed tourist. Then he went back to his hotel and stared at the clothing as though it might give him a proper opening line.
He’d weighed the options of just going to her house (because of course he knew where she lived with her son) or trying to concoct a bumping-into-you type meeting somewhere she frequented. He couldn’t think of any scenario where he didn’t just come off looking like an ass. So he’d decided against it.
Of course, going to her house was pretty ballsy, too. But less cheesy. Less assy. Less like an accident, and more like a statement of intent. He would never be her hero, but he could be something of lesser value to her, if she were so inclined.
The vacation clothes made him self-conscious though. He would have felt much more prepared to stand before her in a three-piece suit. Of course, sweating all over her doorstep was pretty unattractive too. So shorts and an orange button up with palms trees on it would have to do.
It took him about 20 minutes to walk from his hotel to the neighborhood Sara Scofield lived in. He’d waited until early evening to make sure she was home from work, but as he approached the door, he wished he had flowers, or a take out dinner, or something on him to make him not look empty handed.
Or empty headed, to have even come here at all. Cold hearted, perhaps. No, he really shouldn’t have done this at all. Why in the world had he let Kris talk him into this?
With his hand poised to knock, he suddenly stepped back, unable to follow through. The houses along this street were all non-descript, but in fairly good shape. This was all he came for, to make sure she had a good roof over her head-that she lived in safety with her child. That Mexico had become her home in a good way.
But he already knew that, didn’t he? Didn’t he have the photographic proof sitting in his desk for his every whim of perusal?
God.
He was a prick. He was everything he had come there to try to prove to her he wasn’t. The only way to prove it was to not be there. He needed to get on a plane back to Chicago pronto.
He turned around, walking down the three steps that led to the driveway, and then he saw her, sitting in her car, staring at him. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t even heard the old Wrangler pull up, and he suspected it did not have a quiet exhaust system.
He froze, like a tracked and trapped animal, and he’d never in his life wanted the ability to disappear more. Not even when his very existence had been erased at the hand of Bill Kim had he been more aware of his being.
She got out of the car slowly, her eyes never wavering from his face, except to slide in a brief and inquisitive manner over his shirt. She pulled a light sweater and a bulky bag from her passenger seat, dragging them behind her as she cleared the door. Shutting it with a normal shove that didn’t seem to indicate anger, Paul broke eye contact to look in the back seat. He assumed her child would be there, but it was empty.
“Paul?” she asked, and her disbelief explained her lack of reaction. She must have thought she was imagining him.
“Sara,” he said. Clearing his throat, he tried to come up with a witty hello, but the tightness of his words seemed to clog at the top of his voice box.
“Paul Kellerman?” she said again, this time with more certainty, and a very small smile.
The hope that blossomed in his chest at that minute gesture threatened to buckle his knees.
“What in the world…?” she asked, gesturing at him vaguely, as though there were someone beside her that she needed to introduce him to. Folding her arms over the items in her grasp, she tilted her head and then a soft laugh escaped her throat. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
*
Driving along the familiar street, Sara enjoyed the silence that reigned inside her vehicle. She loved her child with a ferocious intensity, but there were times when she would pay cash money for a mute button. Instead, she occasionally got the opportunity to take her almost 6-year-old son up to his Uncle Linc's. She always kissed Lincoln's cheek and hugged Sofia tightly for being willing to watch her boy for a couple of days.
She loved being a mother, but everyone needed a break now and then. She had the good fortune of family, within an hour's drive, and a child who adored his uncle, aunt and cousins deeply because of the time they had spent together. Dropping Mikey at Lincoln's was like bringing him home to his own house, he was so comfortable there.
It allowed Sara 48 hours of guilt free time every once in a while, and she treasured it. Between school for her son, her work at the clinic and being a single parent, her days started early and ended late. She worked hard, and she had much to show for it, and because of that she could take a break in good conscience.
A flash of orange caught her eye as she slowed her car to turn into the drive way at her house. As she pulled to stop, a fleeting feeling of familiarity flooded her. The Hawaiian shirt was all wrong, but the brown hair and aviator sunglasses-that were rather unnecessary at 7:30 in the evening-were very recognizable.
She stared out the window at him as he stood on her doorstep, not doing anything. He looked as though someone had pushed the pause button on the remote control as he was in mid-knock, but then he lowered his hand without actually touching her front door.
Which was fine, because she wasn't home anyway. She had no idea what would bring him to her house, but she felt tension grow within her at the possibilities. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that something was left unresolved from six years before, was there? She'd heard about his election to Congress, and she'd even followed his career a bit by reading the Sun-Times and the Tribune online. He'd been good to his constituents, something Sara liked to believe was a token kind of penance for all the havoc he'd wreaked, but then been forgiven for so easily.
She didn't harbor bad feelings toward Paul Kellerman, but neither did she expect to ever see him again.
She turned the engine off, but couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his position on her front porch. When he turned to leave he noticed her, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes, the expression on his face-part horror, part delight-registered plainly.
Grabbing her stuff, she climbed out of the car, still unable to look away from him. The bright orange shirt was certainly an eyesore, but it also struck her as so out of character for him, she had a hard time not laughing. What in the world was he doing here?
Finding her voice, she identified him with a query, “Paul?”
He responded, his voice just as soft and polite as she remembered-even when he’d threatened her, he’d had a gentleness that belied what he was capable of. “Sara.” He inclined his head and then coughed a couple more times, a clearly nervous gesture that touched Sara in a way she did not expect.
“Paul Kellerman? What in the world…?” she said aloud, only because the fear that something bad lurked behind his sunglasses had faded away. This was a personal call, though she couldn’t imagine what business, if any, they had just between the two of them.
The reason why suddenly occurred to her, then, and she gathered her purse and jacket against her chest defensively as she looked at him. She couldn’t help the laugh that fell out of her mouth-it seemed too surreal. At any moment, she would wake up and be lying in her bed wondering what the hell Paul Kellerman had been doing in her dreams. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Again, with the nervous body language, she required no words to know what he wanted, but it still struck her as strange. They’d had a spark, definitely, from the very beginning. Sara couldn’t deny that, and even when she’d believed him to be gay, there had always been a niggling suspicion at the back of her mind.
And she’d given a part of herself away when she trusted him, and even though that trust had long been revoked, she’d had occasional fond thoughts of him over the years. His work had helped make Michael and Lincoln free, permanently, as well as Fernando, Alex, and herself.
He lifted his hands, his palms up in a helpless gesture, and whether it was a calculated move or not, he said, “I wanted to see you.”
Sara’s long-dead heart responded to the plaintive note. Her oft-neglected body also responded, and she felt her cheeks flush.
This was not how she expected to end her day.
Straightening from the car door, she moved forward, walking right towards him until she stood in front of him. He flinched, but he didn’t fall back. She stared into his eyes, penetrating the protective shield of his sunglasses until he reached up and jerked them off his face. “Look, I know it’s crazy, and you probably hate me anyway, but I just…” His gaze dropped down, the fall of his eyelashes as they dusted his cheeks as he squeezed his eyes shut reminding her of soft touches and warmth that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. When he opened his eyes again, he pinned her with pure emotion. “I just needed to see you.” He paused, and when she didn’t respond, he added, “So I’ve seen you. And you look great. Like a million bucks. Like 5 million bucks. Like all the money in the world, really…” he rambled on and then he finished with, “So that’s it. That’s all I needed. I’ll go now.”
He moved around her, gracefully gliding past her left shoulder as though he hadn’t flown thousands of miles; as if coming to see her simply involved a taxicab and twenty bucks. She could hear his feet hitting the sidewalk because he’d worn flip-flops as the finishing touch to his ridiculous outfit, but he didn’t get too far before she turned and said his name out loud.
He paused, but didn’t look back at her. The tension in his spine was visible even through his too-big shirt. “Paul,” she said again, this time her tone insisting that he look her in the eyes. He turned slowly, obeying her without a direct command.
There was no subterfuge here. She knew what he wanted, and in all honesty, she could tell she wanted it too. She hadn’t known until this moment it was something she could want, and it made her a little dizzy.
Desire. Need. Lust. She’d been checked out from those descriptions for a long time; a self-imposed exile that had not made her particularly unhappy. She’d had other things to do, to focus on. That portion of her had been hibernating for 6 long years, and like the first hot day after a rainy spring, it swamped her with sudden excitement. “You can come inside,” she offered, hoping her voice sounded casual, even though her cheeks had to be red. Heat sometimes spread slowly, warming a path upward until all the parts were of equal temperature. Other times, it flashed out, consuming everything in its path, leaving nothing but crispy remains.
As Paul Kellerman followed Sara Scofield into her house, she wasn’t sure which type she wanted more.
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Paul Kellerman and Sara Scofield
Category: Multi-chapter (*facepalm*) I think it will be short though, three chapters tops, hopefully.
Rating: PG (for now)
Summary: Where there’s sparks, there could be fire, you know.
Author’s Notes: I just had a thought. No disrespect to Michael’s memory, it’s been six years by the timeline I use. Sara is only human. This story picks up with the inference that Michael and Sara married before he died, but does not take into account any of the *leaked* storyline for the straight-to-DVD movie. I don't intend to ever watch that, thus it will never be part of my canon.
He'd always been ambitious. Ambitious to the point of ridiculousness, Kristine once said. (When she ran his campaign for Congress.)
He did it for a whole term, and he was good at it, as he'd always been good at everything he'd done. Good soldier, good sniper, good lap dog for Caroline Reynolds, good at framing a man for murder, and then setting him free. When his term ended, he found himself unwilling to do it again, and set adrift.
He'd also become good at pining away for a woman he had no right to ever think about.
It had snuck up on him, really. He hadn't prepared himself to care for Sara; he never expected anything except to serve her up on a silver platter at some point. The fact that he had never done that should have made him more aware, but being single-minded helped to block out other unpleasant things he didn't want to deal with. Finding Scofield and Burrows and Scylla had been the thing he focused on for quite a while; then the accolades for his part in that had come in, and the opportunity to run for office had been handed to him. With that in his sights, he’d had little time to see the other empty spaces in his life.
When word got to him that Scofield had died, he put her on his radar. He hired a man who had one job, and one job only: to watch Sara Tancredi-Scofield and her offspring, and make sure that nothing ever harmed them. The Company had been buried, but Paul didn't believe that all enemies had been put six feet under. He hoped, but he didn't know for sure. Even now, six years later, he still considered the possibility because there was no statue of limitations on evil monarchies, even when it appeared all the kings and queens were dead.
He received surveillance pictures periodically, showing Sara and her child in marketplaces in Oaxaca City, Mexico; driving out to the coast in a old Jeep Wrangler to visit Burrows and family; helping at an outdoor clinic in the poor little neighborhood where they'd taken up residence. Whenever the large mailing envelopes arrived, he'd find time alone to thumb through them, and as if on a projector, he watched her life go on.
She'd always had strength of character and determination that reminded him of himself. She seemed to only stand straighter after her husband died, and her shoulders never bowed despite the weight that lay upon them.
He had fantasies. Ones where he coincidentally showed up in Oaxaca. Sara? You're kidding me? You live here? I had no idea. Except that one always ended with her rolling her eyes and walking away, because even in a make-believe world, Sara would not take his bullshit. Other fantasies involved her slapping him and then some kind of brutal sex happening on the beach. Of course that was as farfetched and difficult to believe as their happen chance reunion in the marketplace.
Sometimes when he looked at pictures of Michael Scofield Junior, he wondered things that would surely get him a garrote around the neck again if Dr. Tancredi ever knew he thought them. Words like stepfather or Uncle Paul, or even Mommy's Boyfriend, would crowd in and then he'd shove the photos back into their envelopes before dropping them in the deep desk drawer with everything else.
He'd learned there was the life you wanted, and the one you had, and the one you spent the most time thinking about could never be the former, not if you wanted to keep your service revolver clean and polished but not pressed against your temple.
Everything he'd done to set things right could never bless him with what he wanted. He would never deserve that, and he couldn't pretend otherwise.
But he could pretend that one lost weekend with her would satisfy him, and that some day he would go and try. Failing had become something he could endure; not knowing was more painful than not having.
*
It took him quite a bit of time to talk himself into it. And really, it was Kristine who had talked him into it. She didn’t know the whole history of what had happened with Sara (he’d conveniently left out the bathtub incident), but she did have a good grasp of the situation from reading between the lines of what Paul had revealed to her. The bottom line, she said one evening, fed up with his morose face, was that he had a thing for this woman, this woman was a free agent, and why did he keep wasting time? At least if he went and got rejected, he could move on with his life.
Or so his sister thought.
Paul’s biggest problem, obviously, was that he might not survive the rejection. Seeing her face again, knowing the hell she’d been through-raising a child alone-well, he wanted to be her Superman, but he knew even if he’d met her under different circumstances, she would not welcome that intent.
So he boarded a plane at O’Hare, sick to his stomach long before turbulence could cause the problem.
In the sticky sweetness of Oaxaca City in August certainly made him regret his choice of clothing. He’d always dressed the part; he couldn’t seem to help himself. Maybe that should be his first order of business. He checked into the hotel and then went to the market place and bought some shorts and a few colorful button up shirts that screamed tourist. Then he went back to his hotel and stared at the clothing as though it might give him a proper opening line.
He’d weighed the options of just going to her house (because of course he knew where she lived with her son) or trying to concoct a bumping-into-you type meeting somewhere she frequented. He couldn’t think of any scenario where he didn’t just come off looking like an ass. So he’d decided against it.
Of course, going to her house was pretty ballsy, too. But less cheesy. Less assy. Less like an accident, and more like a statement of intent. He would never be her hero, but he could be something of lesser value to her, if she were so inclined.
The vacation clothes made him self-conscious though. He would have felt much more prepared to stand before her in a three-piece suit. Of course, sweating all over her doorstep was pretty unattractive too. So shorts and an orange button up with palms trees on it would have to do.
It took him about 20 minutes to walk from his hotel to the neighborhood Sara Scofield lived in. He’d waited until early evening to make sure she was home from work, but as he approached the door, he wished he had flowers, or a take out dinner, or something on him to make him not look empty handed.
Or empty headed, to have even come here at all. Cold hearted, perhaps. No, he really shouldn’t have done this at all. Why in the world had he let Kris talk him into this?
With his hand poised to knock, he suddenly stepped back, unable to follow through. The houses along this street were all non-descript, but in fairly good shape. This was all he came for, to make sure she had a good roof over her head-that she lived in safety with her child. That Mexico had become her home in a good way.
But he already knew that, didn’t he? Didn’t he have the photographic proof sitting in his desk for his every whim of perusal?
God.
He was a prick. He was everything he had come there to try to prove to her he wasn’t. The only way to prove it was to not be there. He needed to get on a plane back to Chicago pronto.
He turned around, walking down the three steps that led to the driveway, and then he saw her, sitting in her car, staring at him. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t even heard the old Wrangler pull up, and he suspected it did not have a quiet exhaust system.
He froze, like a tracked and trapped animal, and he’d never in his life wanted the ability to disappear more. Not even when his very existence had been erased at the hand of Bill Kim had he been more aware of his being.
She got out of the car slowly, her eyes never wavering from his face, except to slide in a brief and inquisitive manner over his shirt. She pulled a light sweater and a bulky bag from her passenger seat, dragging them behind her as she cleared the door. Shutting it with a normal shove that didn’t seem to indicate anger, Paul broke eye contact to look in the back seat. He assumed her child would be there, but it was empty.
“Paul?” she asked, and her disbelief explained her lack of reaction. She must have thought she was imagining him.
“Sara,” he said. Clearing his throat, he tried to come up with a witty hello, but the tightness of his words seemed to clog at the top of his voice box.
“Paul Kellerman?” she said again, this time with more certainty, and a very small smile.
The hope that blossomed in his chest at that minute gesture threatened to buckle his knees.
“What in the world…?” she asked, gesturing at him vaguely, as though there were someone beside her that she needed to introduce him to. Folding her arms over the items in her grasp, she tilted her head and then a soft laugh escaped her throat. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
*
Driving along the familiar street, Sara enjoyed the silence that reigned inside her vehicle. She loved her child with a ferocious intensity, but there were times when she would pay cash money for a mute button. Instead, she occasionally got the opportunity to take her almost 6-year-old son up to his Uncle Linc's. She always kissed Lincoln's cheek and hugged Sofia tightly for being willing to watch her boy for a couple of days.
She loved being a mother, but everyone needed a break now and then. She had the good fortune of family, within an hour's drive, and a child who adored his uncle, aunt and cousins deeply because of the time they had spent together. Dropping Mikey at Lincoln's was like bringing him home to his own house, he was so comfortable there.
It allowed Sara 48 hours of guilt free time every once in a while, and she treasured it. Between school for her son, her work at the clinic and being a single parent, her days started early and ended late. She worked hard, and she had much to show for it, and because of that she could take a break in good conscience.
A flash of orange caught her eye as she slowed her car to turn into the drive way at her house. As she pulled to stop, a fleeting feeling of familiarity flooded her. The Hawaiian shirt was all wrong, but the brown hair and aviator sunglasses-that were rather unnecessary at 7:30 in the evening-were very recognizable.
She stared out the window at him as he stood on her doorstep, not doing anything. He looked as though someone had pushed the pause button on the remote control as he was in mid-knock, but then he lowered his hand without actually touching her front door.
Which was fine, because she wasn't home anyway. She had no idea what would bring him to her house, but she felt tension grow within her at the possibilities. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that something was left unresolved from six years before, was there? She'd heard about his election to Congress, and she'd even followed his career a bit by reading the Sun-Times and the Tribune online. He'd been good to his constituents, something Sara liked to believe was a token kind of penance for all the havoc he'd wreaked, but then been forgiven for so easily.
She didn't harbor bad feelings toward Paul Kellerman, but neither did she expect to ever see him again.
She turned the engine off, but couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his position on her front porch. When he turned to leave he noticed her, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes, the expression on his face-part horror, part delight-registered plainly.
Grabbing her stuff, she climbed out of the car, still unable to look away from him. The bright orange shirt was certainly an eyesore, but it also struck her as so out of character for him, she had a hard time not laughing. What in the world was he doing here?
Finding her voice, she identified him with a query, “Paul?”
He responded, his voice just as soft and polite as she remembered-even when he’d threatened her, he’d had a gentleness that belied what he was capable of. “Sara.” He inclined his head and then coughed a couple more times, a clearly nervous gesture that touched Sara in a way she did not expect.
“Paul Kellerman? What in the world…?” she said aloud, only because the fear that something bad lurked behind his sunglasses had faded away. This was a personal call, though she couldn’t imagine what business, if any, they had just between the two of them.
The reason why suddenly occurred to her, then, and she gathered her purse and jacket against her chest defensively as she looked at him. She couldn’t help the laugh that fell out of her mouth-it seemed too surreal. At any moment, she would wake up and be lying in her bed wondering what the hell Paul Kellerman had been doing in her dreams. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Again, with the nervous body language, she required no words to know what he wanted, but it still struck her as strange. They’d had a spark, definitely, from the very beginning. Sara couldn’t deny that, and even when she’d believed him to be gay, there had always been a niggling suspicion at the back of her mind.
And she’d given a part of herself away when she trusted him, and even though that trust had long been revoked, she’d had occasional fond thoughts of him over the years. His work had helped make Michael and Lincoln free, permanently, as well as Fernando, Alex, and herself.
He lifted his hands, his palms up in a helpless gesture, and whether it was a calculated move or not, he said, “I wanted to see you.”
Sara’s long-dead heart responded to the plaintive note. Her oft-neglected body also responded, and she felt her cheeks flush.
This was not how she expected to end her day.
Straightening from the car door, she moved forward, walking right towards him until she stood in front of him. He flinched, but he didn’t fall back. She stared into his eyes, penetrating the protective shield of his sunglasses until he reached up and jerked them off his face. “Look, I know it’s crazy, and you probably hate me anyway, but I just…” His gaze dropped down, the fall of his eyelashes as they dusted his cheeks as he squeezed his eyes shut reminding her of soft touches and warmth that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. When he opened his eyes again, he pinned her with pure emotion. “I just needed to see you.” He paused, and when she didn’t respond, he added, “So I’ve seen you. And you look great. Like a million bucks. Like 5 million bucks. Like all the money in the world, really…” he rambled on and then he finished with, “So that’s it. That’s all I needed. I’ll go now.”
He moved around her, gracefully gliding past her left shoulder as though he hadn’t flown thousands of miles; as if coming to see her simply involved a taxicab and twenty bucks. She could hear his feet hitting the sidewalk because he’d worn flip-flops as the finishing touch to his ridiculous outfit, but he didn’t get too far before she turned and said his name out loud.
He paused, but didn’t look back at her. The tension in his spine was visible even through his too-big shirt. “Paul,” she said again, this time her tone insisting that he look her in the eyes. He turned slowly, obeying her without a direct command.
There was no subterfuge here. She knew what he wanted, and in all honesty, she could tell she wanted it too. She hadn’t known until this moment it was something she could want, and it made her a little dizzy.
Desire. Need. Lust. She’d been checked out from those descriptions for a long time; a self-imposed exile that had not made her particularly unhappy. She’d had other things to do, to focus on. That portion of her had been hibernating for 6 long years, and like the first hot day after a rainy spring, it swamped her with sudden excitement. “You can come inside,” she offered, hoping her voice sounded casual, even though her cheeks had to be red. Heat sometimes spread slowly, warming a path upward until all the parts were of equal temperature. Other times, it flashed out, consuming everything in its path, leaving nothing but crispy remains.
As Paul Kellerman followed Sara Scofield into her house, she wasn’t sure which type she wanted more.