Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. -Joseph Joubert

When he speaks into the phone, Alex Mahone's voice is detached to the point of cold-blooded calculation, and so achingly familiar to Michael, it's like hearing the haunting echo of his own most fervent thoughts. "Promise me that you will get to Wyatt," he beseeches, "and you'll kill the sonofabitch, and then you'll call Pam, and you'll tell her that he's gone."

Michael swallows, and then he nods. He hears. He was there, where Alex is now, only days ago. He understands the desperation inherent in Mahone's message as intimately as the fine lines gracing the back of his own hand.

This ends today. I came here seeking justice…so if you're reading this letter, you'll know I died avenging Sara's death.

His throat is tight, his mouth suddenly dry, but he manages one word. "Alright," he says, then wipes his palms. They're slick with sweat; he has to grip the phone tightly to his ear or risk dropping it. "I promise." And he means it, just as he meant it the last time.

He doesn't even hear her coming.

"Ready to go? Michael?"

He clicks the phone shut. She's looking at him anxiously, and he manages a nod, then a smile. She sees right through him, of course. She remains rooted in place, her eyes placid, coolly challenging him to give up the ghost.

Despite the fact that he can't quite return her gaze, he feels somehow lighter. She does that to him; she reads him like a book, and her intuitiveness always frees him, releasing him from binds that without her, only get tighter. Right now, it's a relief, really, to succumb to the inevitability of her comprehension; it's like yielding to the ominous cracking of pressure behind a dam. Under her careful assessment, the building emotion ignited by Mahone's request is finally splitting, breaking in a rush of power formidable enough to send his demons swiftly downstream.

Her gaze falls from his face to his phone, still clutched in his fist, and he knows there are a dozen more questions on the tip of her tongue, but he answers only the one.

"Yeah," he says, and again, he means it. "Let's go." They have a task to accomplish today, and there's no time to elaborate. He certainly has no intention of launching into a soliloquy of past pursuits and emotional hurdles within this veritable fishbowl where their every interaction is played out for the public domain. He tells himself this conversation will have to wait. He reminds himself that she's not going anywhere and then fervently tries to believe it.

Five minutes later, he's seated in the back of the SUV on the way to this latest leg of their mission, and a single question is burning a hole in his brain-does Alex really think they're one and the same? Does he? He knows that revenge is both fickle and finite, but he also knows it had felt startlingly good in his own hands-in the solid weight of a gun and the righteous stroke of the pen. He had allowed it to burrow under his skin, just as Alex is doing now, poisoning his blood with each pump through his heart until he had become increasingly blinded by the fact that at its core, revenge is a singularly selfish pursuit. It's simply what you do next, when you've been cut loose from the person you're living for. It's where you go, when you've been set so abruptly, devastatingly adrift. It's what you do to pass the time between soul-oppressing attacks of grief, and for all its premeditation, it's hopelessly erratic, driven by nothing more than one's own train-wrecked emotions. He should know.

Don't lie to me!

Where's Sara?!

Revenge is marked by chaos. Kneejerk reactions. Doubt. None of which describe him. None of which define the nuances of his mind. So what, precisely, made Mahone think he, Michael, could get this done? What made him think they were cut from the same cloth? For that matter, what made Michaelthink he had any better chance of delivering justice for Mahone than he had for Sara?

Because when it came to her…when it came to his showdown with Gretchen…had he failed, or had he triumphed? He still cannot decide. He certainly had wavered. He had erred on the side of caution, and his hesitation had spared Gretchen's life but also revealed Sara's whereabouts. Now, he leans back in his seat, watching West LA fly by outside his window in a blur of traffic, then swallows bitterly, wondering, when it came right down to it, if there was any such thing as a clear division between good intentions and bad. One thing he knows for certain: they're entirely different species, he and Mahone. Alex is a man who is prepared to finish what, for better or worse, he, Michael, could only start.

"A woman's desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions." -Cyril Connolly

Later, in the privacy of the boat, with nothing between them but the length of the narrow cabin, he feels the tug of her thoughts even before she speaks. He knows where she's going, and he lets her carry him there. "What did Mahone say, on the phone earlier?"

He looks right at her this time; she's paused from her task of slipping her feet from her shoes, and if he's seeking a port in the storm, a way to ground both himself and the question she's asking, he's found it. There's a stillness in her that bellies the current flowing through his own thoughts with increasing velocity, slowing him. Redirecting him and containing him.

In the glow of the single lamp burning, her profile is molten amber. He could look at her forever. "He asked me to find Wyatt." She straightens with piqued interest, and now it's his turn to pause, his eyes tracing the thin outline of her camisole strap hugging her bare shoulder-it's very, very dark in here at night-before wondering what he's waiting for. He intertwines his hands, and then abruptly separates them. He speaks frankly. "He asked me to impart the vengeance for his son that he didn't think he'd get the chance to finish."

For a long time, she says nothing. He watches her face carefully through the shadows for signs of change, and they come, subtly but predictably, like the ebbing of a tide. Her wariness emulates the faintest wave of movement under a great depth, her frown the slightest hint of a ripple upon the surface of her skin.

She stands slowly, as though shrugging out of a cloak, and takes the two steps that bring her to his side. She's feeling the current now. He wants to reach out to steady her, and he does, with the softest brush of his hand to her arm. "But why would you promise him that?" she asks. She's almost agitated. "That's not a promise you can keep."

He can tell she wants desperately for her second sentence to remain a firm statement, but the words are not something she can contain; they lift up and outward, wavering in indecision against the thinnest swell of denial before collapsing in question. She argues against herself. "You'd never deliberately kill anyone-"

His mind shifts with lightning speed to the acutely metallic smell of packed Sona earth, to tunnels and swift, devastating collapse. But that's not what this is about. That's a conversation for another day. "Sara, I-"

She shakes her head intently. "Not in cold blood." Her denial is a forceful entity between them now, rising from her in thick waves. Maybe she's read his thoughts, or maybe she already knows. Does it matter? "You couldn't," she adds indignantly, as though insulted on his behalf, even while turning away from him. "Mahone should know that."

He closes his eyes briefly, but it does nothing to orient him. Gretchen, look at me. This is for Sara.

"Look at me," he tells Sara now as well, and when she acquiesces, he can see the water welling in her eyes millimeter by millimeter. "I could." He lets his hand skim up her arm to her shoulder and then over, cascading down her loose hair and her back to trace the scars criss-crossing her skin. "God, I could."

Neither of them are speaking of Mahone or Wyatt any longer, of course, and she sways slightly in the circle of his arms before pulling away, one step backward to be followed by another. He's not sure whether it's to find relief from the light pressure of his hand or simply to give herself that much more space to take in the depth of his words. Either way, he lets his hand fall away. "You wouldn't have, though," she insists, cautiously now. Her words are clumsy, tumbling over one another as if she's changed her mind as to which ones to use. "You didn't. You said…you said you found her and spoke to her. You said you didn't."

It's still a question. It's all still a question, up in the air around them. He wants to walk back toward her, but all at once, his entire body feels weighted; he's motionless in what seems to be a great volume of unexplored secrets as flat and heavy as his mood. The warehouse fades. The voices outside the boat fade. Even his pulse seems strangely stagnant, pooling somewhere far from his core. A foot away, Sara falls so silent, he suspects she's holding her breath. He knows now what she's asking, but it only prompts another question of his own. "Would you have wanted me to?"

She lets out a contained breath in a sharp rush. "I don't know…no. No."

He nods. In spite of everything, if Sara could weigh in right now, she'd tell me not to kill you. That's the kind of person she was.

"I didn't think so."

Despite that, she's standing rigid before him, as though caught between two minds. She clearly can't decide whether to close the distance between them or retreat further, but it hardly matters; the concave hull of the boat is snug around them, and there's really no where to go. He wonders if she's glad or sorry. "But if you thought I was…" She pinches her eyes shut, then reopens them. She continues in a rush. "If you thought I was dead, then it really wasn't for me, was it? The revenge?" She hesitates, pained. "And you wouldn't have wanted to-"

Enough of this. He surges forward, taking her hands and pulling her to meet him. "But I did want to," he tells her definitively. "I wanted to so badly that I…" He swallows. "I had a gun in a woman's face, Sara." She's still shaking her head, and he reaches up through the dark, cupping her face. Stilling it. "I was pointing it at her, waving it and screaming at her. My finger was fighting that trigger. One second more, one misstep on her part or mine, and I would have pulled it. I know I would have."

She's crying; his hands are wet around the frame of her face, but he doesn't even stop for breath. "If she hadn't given me that single thread of hope to grab hold of, I would have killed her a hundred times over…and over, and over, and over."

What does one possibly say to something like that? How does a person possibly counter it, meet it, live up to it, any of it?

She needs to sit down. She needs to get away, and get closer, and oh God, how can she be loved this much? How can she love this much? Michael's hands are tight on her jaw-she's sure he doesn't realize how tight-and she gently pries them looser, redirecting them to her shoulders. He blinks, then complies. "But to what end?" she asks him. "For what point?"

He looks at her blankly, as though she should know the answer to this. "There was no point…not to anything. Not anymore."

"You were trying to create one."

His hands rise from her shoulders up to her neck, then back to her face. She doesn't stop him this time. She leans into him, letting the path of his fingers speak the volumes his words cannot. "No," he tells her. "I was trying to rectify…" He strokes her cheek, then cups the back of her head, drawing her further into him. "Or retaliate…I don't…I don't know now." His hands are in her hair, then trailing down to the nape of her neck. "When she told me you were alive, I just…imploded."

She's going to implode. His eyes are boring into her now, suddenly leaving no room for misinterpretation; the hunger she sees there is so intense, she feels a prickle of something like warning, something like eminent pursuit, break out across her skin. It's like their first night together all over again. She needs him…wants him…badly, and right now. She reaches for him, pulling him to her, kissing him hard, and her pulse surges as he returns it tenfold.

His hands fall from her neck to skim down her back to her hips. He pulls her into him, but she stubbornly resists-the bed is behind her, and that's where they need to be. She steps backward, willing him with her, and he yields to her, stumbling slightly forward before seeming to reassert himself, pushing her back, and back, and back, until her legs finally hit the low bunk and they're both falling. His body is covering hers before her back even hits the mattress, and she closes her eyes, letting his hands find her stomach and her breasts and then the button of her pants.

Yes, she thinks. Of this, at least, they are both sure.

By the time nearly all their clothing has been stripped off, she's wondering hazily if this is wise, this retreat to the physical, when they have so much to talk about, so much to account for. But then Michael's hand is traveling down her torso to relieve her of the thin cotton barrier of her underwear, and she feels her reason fade in a potent wash of pleasure. His hand moves against her, his earlier words echoing in her head. Over, and over, and over she thinks as he strokes his fingers against her, over, and over, and over, and just like that, all the edges are blurred. This act of love is folding over itself in halves, then in fourths, rising thicker and thicker, until his professed desire for vengeance is lost somewhere in the middle, in layer upon layer of passion and want and need.

She kisses his neck and shoulder and the sweat that's glistening at the base of his collarbone, and it's not until she reaches her hands out to him, cupping his face to draw him down to her, that she feels it. Warmth…wetness…smudged on the back of her hand. It's dark and red and she reels.

"Michael. Stop." She feels him shift, freeze, and then abruptly turn his head away from the cradle of her hands. "What's…?" It's blood, and as she turns, she can see it on the bed as well, a single spray of ruby-fine droplets glowing darkly against the white sheet in the soft light of the lamp.

Even as she twists wildly in a vain attempt to examine her own back for freshly opened wounds, her only thought is that she must be going crazy. That her mind has finally cracked under the combined weight of pain and torture and stress. Because surely she's not bleeding…she can't be. She's healed, at least as well as she can expect to be. She scrambles to sit up, to orient herself and find the source, stem the flow, but it's for naught; the sight of the blood has drawn her mind instantly to Gretchen, and once again, the whip is singing through the air on stealth, each lash landing with a shocking sting to burn its secrets into her skin. Blood. So much blood, on her. On her hands. Then, and apparently, now. Here.

Michael's risen. He's crossed the room, and he's grabbing tissues-what makes him think he can clean this up? What makes him think he can fix this?-and then he's returning to her side. He's talking to her, his hand is on her arm, but she's not listening. She doesn't need to, because suddenly, she understands.

Every bit of her discomfort-her horror, really-at the thought of Michael seeking revenge on her behalf flies instantly out the window. God help her, she knows now what's bothered her all along. This vengeance? It isn't Michael's to take. It's hers. The fervent intensity with which she wants retribution hits her like a brick, and she turns swiftly out of Michael's grasp. She cannot even look at him. She turns her attention instead to the blood-spattered bed, her fingers finding purchase on the mattress and clawing at the sheet in unrestrained retaliation. She finally grips the edge and pulls, peeling it off, pushing it away.

"Sara!" He's trying to stop her, or maybe he's trying to assist her. Either way…no.

"Stop it," she says, and she bats his hands away even as she kicks the offending sheet to the floor. "Stop, Michael! I'll do it!" Of course, she hardly cares about the sheet. She's not talking about the sheet. "I will kill her myself."

He stops. He stares at her as if he has no idea what to do with her, and just like that, under the weight of his panicked stare, she crumples. She hears herself moan roughly before burying her face in her hands. "I want her," she gasps, although whether in explanation or apology she isn't sure. She does know that she's rocking erratically, swaying forward and then back, sobbing. "I want her myself." She smells the blood on the back of her hand, and even as she reels anew, she wonders if she could develop a taste for it. If in fact she already has.

Michael's prying her hands away from her face. He's talking. She tries to listen. "It's not you. It's me." He's grabbing her wrists, pulling her back to him. "The blood. It's me."

She doesn't know what he's talking about. They've been speaking in circles all night, and suddenly, she's unbearably tired of deciphering emotions and motives, either hers or his. Fatigued, she allows him to hold her still against him until she stops crying. "I don't know what that means," she tells him flatly.

"I know," he says. "And that's my fault." She glances away. I'll never lie to you. "Look at me." He waits until she does…she hates how long it takes her to look over from the arbitrary spot on the floor her eyes have fixed upon. "To get through this, I need your help. Will you accept mine?"

She takes a deep breath in, then releases it slowly. She captures eye contact and holds it. She's needed. He needs her. "You're really bleeding?"

He really is. For the next half of an hour, he tells her about it, he lets her ask clinical questions, he remains silent while she rebukes him for not telling her sooner, for not taking care of his health, for not being somehow more than human. She knows he's being more than generous. It's a gift, this new truth he's imparted, and she's grateful for it. It's something to fix. Something to focus upon other than her own suffering.

She understands now that he needs the same, and so she starts at the beginning, with the sharp sensation of her arm being wrenched from its socket while running down a Panamanian street and not ending until she's describing her final flight out of the country after making contact with Bruce. They sit on the edge of the bunk for what seems hours more, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder, his hand revolving in slow arcs along her back, tracing and retracing each raised scar upon her skin. She tells him of the long hours and days that had been the framework of her existence after he had last heard her voice on the phone, of dank cells, of violence, of closing her mind to pain and scare tactics and cold-blooded, senseless murder. He swallows and nods. He relates.

She almost revels in finally telling it all, because the truth is, they've been driven to the furthest edge of their endurance, pushed nearly past the outermost brink of compassion, and justice, and their own carefully honed definitions of morality to stare out upon a landscape of proffered revenge so tangible it nearly pulses with its own lifeblood. It is the deepest shade of red, a passion-tinged scarlet so appealing in its stark simplicity that Sara nearly sobs with want for it, but they are better than that. Even here, in this last remaining state of suspension, they have been granted choice, an entity as rare as true refuge. They can remain here, ill-balanced, waiting for the moment they topple, or they can leap, and hope to clear the memories that haunt them and the possible tomorrow that terrifies them.

She wants to leap. She's ready to reinvent herself, re-script her lines, redefine her lifelong assumptions about right and wrong, good and evil. And she wants to do it with him.

When, just before dawn, he lays her down on the now unmade bed and finishes what they had started, making love to her so gently, so agonizingly deliberately she wraps herself around him just to contain herself, she's pretty sure she's still freefalling. He kisses her, and he doesn't bleed, and she arches to meet him, and she does not cry. And in that moment, safely ensconced in the confines of their boat, neither of them care where they land.