A/N: Okay, so the epilogue's longer than some of the chapters. It's also mushy. You have been warned.

"Dr. Sara, Dr. Sara," the voice of a little girl, about five years old, rang in Sara Tancredi's ears as she came out into the waiting room to call in her next patient.

"Rosita," Sara smiled, admiring the little girl as she twirled about. She was the picture of health this morning, where just last week she'd been suffering from measles and Sara had feared for her life. Something in the doctor's heart swelled with satisfaction. She loved this job like no other she'd ever had.

"Come on in, Rosita, let's have a look at you," Sara suggested brightly. Rosita's mother shyly followed them in. As Sara made a quick check and proclaimed the little girl well, she prepared a shot.

"This will keep Rosita from getting other dangerous diseases that many children die from," Sara explained as she administered the vaccination. "Bring her back in six months for another shot, though, okay?"

"Si, Senorita," the woman smiled warmly. Her brown eyes strayed to her child and Sara was warmed by the depth of love and devotion she saw there.

"Adios," Sara bid them.

As she turned her back to clean up for the next patient, a very familiar, deeply masculine voice from the doorway interrupted her routine.

"Can a gorgeous clinic doctor take a lunch break? I brought you something from the mercado."

Sara spun around to drink in the pleasing sight of a tanned, curly haired former convict, muscles bulging and barely contained by a ripped, sleeveless shirt, his intricate tattooes practically glowing from the fine sheen of sweat he wore. His chin and cheeks were covered with dark stubble; he hadn't shaved for a few days, but that wasn't uncommon for Michael's deliberately laid back lifestyle. Sara slipped off her lab coat and stethoscope and smiled with delight.

"Are you asking me out?"

"I'm asking you to dine with me at the best restaurant in town," he joked. There was no restaurant in the dusty desert town. But Sara and Michael had a favorite flat-topped rock just up the road from the clinic where they often ate their lunch. It boasted a rare commodity: shade. A couple of scruffy pines that looked to be about a thousand years old had grown up and over the rock in twisted ropes, providing a few patches of genuine respite from the hot desert sun.

Sara and Michael wandered slowly out of the clinic and down the street, holding hands and whispering to each other. Sara was first to climb onto the rock, with Michael providing a supporting hand. Michael clambered up next to her and sorted out their various food items. Watching him, Sara's mind wandered back to that first day in Mexico, when she'd been so lost. Michael had been her pillar of strength ever since...

"Sara, what's this?"

She could still hear his voice asking her, full of concern and sadness. Michael was holding the crumpled ball of newspaper, only he'd smoothed it out and was reading the article. Sara had turned over on the soft pallet Michael had for a bed, facing the wall, trying to shut him and everything else around her out in the cold. It hadn't worked; she should have known even then, on that first day of her new life, that he wasn't going to let her just slip away into the darkness.

She knew he'd finished reading the article when he gently lowered himself onto the bedding behind her. He'd slid into place against her stiff back and his arms had encircled her so tenderly that she'd felt a catch in her throat.

"Sara, I'm so sorry," he'd breathed over her face, her neck. She'd felt his hand on her, starting at her shoulder and warmly gliding down her arm. Then back up to her shoulder. Softly, like velvet, his hand had soothed her, up and down her arm, until she'd broken. Choking on her sobs, she turned and pulled him to her with animal strength and hid her face in his chest. He had laid there for a long time, just holding her and whispering to her in that husky, mesmerizing voice that made everything better. Finally, she had begun to speak, haltingly, punctuated with trembling sobs, but it had begun to come out.

"My father sent those men to kill me," she managed to force out. Just the thought knotted up her insides with paralyzing agony. "He and I have always had a difficult relationship. But I never, not in a million years, would have thought he-"

"Sara," Michael had interrupted her. "Don't. Don't go there."

"How can I just not think about it? My own father wanted to throw me away, to be rid of me! He hates me that much!"

"There's more going on here than you can see, Sara." Michael's hands were frantic, insistently stroking her cheeks, her forehead, her hair as if he could physically wipe away her despair.

"What do you mean?" Sara looked devastated and confused.

Michael swallowed hard. He gazed at the distraught woman in his arms and his heart felt like it would burst with love for her. He doubted very much that she was ready to hear all that he knew. But if he withheld anything, she'd sense that she was being lied to again, and that might be worse than any of the information he had to offer.

He plunged in from the beginning, relating the whole conspiracy, at least as much as he understood of it. He slowly led her to the possibility, no, probability, that her father was in it, in too deep.

"I doubt he had a choice, Sara. He's a prisoner now, too. This cover-up is big, bigger than you can imagine. It goes all the way to the President. And your father is now her right-hand man."

"What can be done?" Sara asked. She looked so small and overwhelmed; Michael closed his eyes against the rush of emotions she engendered in him. He wanted to be true to everything he knew; he didn't want to lie or mislead her ever again. But it was so tempting to just assure her that everything would turn out okay.

"Veronica has some potential leads in the case. But it's not hopeful, Sara. Two of her witnesses were killed as soon as she brought them forward."

Sara shuddered and turned away.

"Sara?"

"Leave me alone. I need some time. You don't know what it's like to have your father so involved in a conspiracy that you don't matter anymore."

"Actually... I do."

"What?" Sara was shocked into turning back around to face him.

"My father isn't dead. He surfaced a few weeks before the breakout, when Lincoln was in that accident. He told Lincoln that he's been in hiding all these years for our sakes. He's been involved in this conspiracy for decades, Sara. Lincoln's involvement was no accident. I told you, it's big. We have no idea yet just how big. But I want to find out. I want to help put a stop to it, so nobody else gets hurt."

"What about you? What if something happens to you in the process?"

"It doesn't matter, as long as the people who framed Lincoln, who destroyed my family and yours now, too, are exposed. Justice is all that matters."

"You're wrong. You matter. You matter to me, doesn't that mean anything?"

Sara sounded unsure, like maybe it really didn't matter. Her self-worth had been completely crushed by recent events.

"It means everything," Michael told her, deeply touched. "C'mere."

He'd pulled her against him then, and his mouth had found hers with shattering totality. He hadn't given it up for an impossibly long time.

Sara closed her eyes, remembering that first time. Michael had been everything she'd ever dreamed of. Every touch, every kiss, had communicated his love for her in the profoundest of ways. She'd had no doubt since that day how deep and true his feelings for her ran.

Afterwards, he'd brought her food and wine, odd tidbits of crackers, cheese, preserves, a few stale corn tacos, and whatever else he'd managed to scrape up in a hurry. He confessed to having raided his brother's pantry and they'd laughed about it.

He'd been taking care of her, and she him, ever since.

She opened her eyes and looked at him where he lay, lounging under the twisted pine, splayed out gracefully on the rock with her. His eyes were closed and a contented half smile danced on his full lips.

She loved him.

His eyes opened, almost as if he'd been able to feel her staring at him.

"You okay?" He murmured easily.

"A little tired, I guess. I was thinking I'd close the clinic early and go home."

Michael perked up. "Yeah?"

He sat up. "How tired did you say you were?" He was such a man.

"Not that tired," she answered coyly. "But I could use an hour or two of rest. Bedrest."

"You know what, I'm pretty much done for the day, too. How about I walk you back?"

His smirk lit up her cheeks like red beacons.

"I'd like that."

Fin (I promise)