It was because of this expression that he had managed to maintain the fair bit of sanity that had been threatening to slip from his grasp over the passed months.
Don't drop the ball, were the words that echoed through his head day and night.
Like a looping record, they were played over and over.
Some might say that this in itself would constitute insanity.
"Your brothers a…little odd, would you say"
The question came out awkward and murmured, and sounded as though Abruzzi was unsure, himself, as to whether its outcome was meant to be literal or rhetorical.
Lincoln, who had, up to this point, held the utmost faith in his brother's brilliance, was feeling considerably inept to the situation and could hardly summon up enough deliberation to face the mob boss, let alone form a reasonable reply.
It was hard to say, exactly, what Michael Scofield could have been thinking the day he came up with the holy tremendous plan to break into the Fox River Penitentiary, snatch up his doomed brother and march right back out without a seconds delay, but at this moment it was becoming painfully clear that he should have perhaps given it some further thought.
There stood the four newly freed inmates, the mobster, the doomed brother, the hopeless lover, and the hopeless pervert looking, awkwardly, onto the dark, tattooed figure of one Michael Scofield, who appeared to be passionately ramming his head against a tree.
It had been nearly 10:00 PM when they had abruptly peeled off their course and set out instead to near wood. Michael had given no warning or reason, and the gang just followed clueless behind him, assuming that there was some secret something of mysterious significance to be found just behind the forthcoming trees, and when Michael revealed it to them, they would all be very awed indeed and he would then proceed to amaze them further.
When Michael did not reveal the secret something of mysterious significance, but instead converged himself with a large pine tree, they were not yet swayed to loose faith. Somehow, in there minds, there was still a considerable likelihood that this had a vital place in the plan.
Two minutes had passed when it had dawned on the fugitives the possibility that something had gone terribly wrong. "It's finally happened, boys," Theodore Bagwell had sung out "Our little birdys flown the coupe"
While the notion would have normally earned T-bag a hearty scolding and swat to the head, at the time, few present could think of any grounds on which to disagree.
"'eh, …you, uh, thinkin' of maybe stoppin' him any time soon, Papi?" Sucre had spoken up, obviously unsure as to the correct course of action in these sort of situations. Lincoln had been feeling guilty. He knew it was because of him that Michael was in prison in the first place and everything that happened to him there as a result, was directly his fault. Therefore it was entirely his responsibility if his brother was getting wholly acquainted with a tree.
He had reached out then to pull his brother away from the dastardly tree, but was caught mid-way by the scarred hand of Mr. John Abruzzi.
"I do not know your brother well enough," he had said darkly, words full of significance and power "but I know that when I am deep in my own thoughts, I am far gone from this world. And it would be unwise to disrupt me unfinished." Though hesitant at first, he did back off. It had been difficult for Lincoln to believe that this, in any way, could help the thought process, but for the most part he was relieved not to have to confront this side of Michael.
And so they waited.
It was now 11:30. It was clear now that things, perhaps, were not going as planned.
Fernando Sucre, who had thought he'd know his cell mate fairly well, was now feeling increasingly alienated and wondered whether he'd made a very bad mistake indeed by leaving prison at all. The confused man stood awkwardly at the side of the quiet little road, looking like a rabbit about to dart across a freeway.
Abruzzi was lounging in a scruff of tanned grass, and looked to be making some sort of ornament out of the pine needles in his close vicinity. T-bag had gotten bored some minutes ago and sauntered off to badly traumatize some unsuspecting rodent.
Lincoln was gazing openly up at the stars, counting the few, almost indistinguishable, planes that seemed to just inch along, as he leaned leisurely against a tree some yards away from where Michael was.
It was at this time that things became oddly still. An eerie sort of silence took over the clearing.
A silence so sudden and blatant that Sucre had immediately torn his attentions away from the road and T-bag came jolting out from the shadowed trees to see what had caused such an ungodly stillness.
Michael had pulled way from the tree and was now alert to his company and surveying the surroundings with a fresh awareness.
A clearer view of Michael revealed an open gash just below his hair line that appeared to have bled itself out, and Lincoln noticed, when Michael had faced him, that his eyes were noticeably wider than normal.
With nothing but a once look-over of his crew, Michael gave a dignified nod and said very clearly "Lets go."
And they were off. Back on the road and back to the plan.
Michael leading the way ahead of the four who kept a general distance, stepping lightly and with a caution that suggested Michael was a highly endangered species in peril of dropping dead at any given moment.
Michael insisted that they kept to the open road, explaining that it was the last place any figure of authority would check, as it would be the first place they would think to look.
This philosophy seemed perfectly ridiculous to the trailing four, but they'd pretty much lost all hope back at the tree.
The pace was well and they guessed they were making good time, stopping only once more at an intersection where Michael needed to get acquainted with a light post.
But after that, things were moving along quite nicely.
Lincoln Burrows, Fernando Sucre, Theodore Bagwell, and John Abruzzi had left their destinies entirely to one man. And they were confident that he had once been a very brilliant man. But there was slight possibility that prison had had it's effect on Michael Scofield.