Disclaimer: I don't own any of the guys from Prison Break, innocent, guilty, convicted or free. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Paul Scheuring, 20th Century Fox Television, Adelstein-Parouse Productions, and Original Television in an original wrapping and unharmed.
I make no money, I mean no harm.

Too Much Peace
Save Me, Save You

T-Bag felt a gentle hand stroking his shoulder and turned on his side to watch Susan smiling down on him. She placed a sweet kiss on his cheek and led him down the stairs into the kitchen. Gracie and Zach were already outside - or maybe still outside - he wasn't exactly sure whether it was morning or afternoon. He might have fell asleep after lunch, he certainly felt drowsy, as every time he slept during the day.

A loud crash startled him. He jerked around and found himself, not the first time since he had returned to the States, in a lonely bed in a shabby motel room.

He ran a hand over his face to get rid of the dream. It was dangerous to keep dreams like that - they may drive him crazy one day and he would forget he wasn't supposed to belong to Susan anymore. He could cause her a lot of trouble, that he could, just reappearing at her porch, and he didn't want to do that.

He had to keep his woman safe.

Not quite feeling like falling asleep again, he rolled out of the bed and sauntered into the small bathroom. He had to share the bathroom with another room, so shabby a place it was, and he wasn't sure knowing his colleagues were stationed at that room helped. He didn't especially cared for either of them, not past making sure they feared him enough to leave him alone most of the time... and that they knew beyond any doubt he was the most useful of the party.

He didn't even care why they were always sharing a room. Damon, the older of them, had made it very clear he only did women. T-Bag wasn't sure whether it was because he had spent some time in prison or because he had evaded prison so far. He had never bothered to ask. And as for Tony...

T-Bag licked his lips, eyes fixed on the reflection of the door to the other room, slightly distorted because the mirror was uneven. Tony, despite being over thirty, looked like a sweet kid. He had this cherub face and angelical smile and so innocent eyes one would never believe Tony had been stealing since the tender age of ten... using his charm as a way of getting into houses (and beds) of his girlfriends, which he fucked to sleep first and robbed afterwards. Only recently he had abandoned this way of raising money. Tony claimed he had grown bored of the neverending line of women and joked he might accidentally run into one of them twice, not remembering her until he got to see her safe, but T-Bag suspected Tony had simply grown old and his stamina, not his memory, might fall him.

But even the image of completely exhausted Tony falling asleep in the lap of a woman he intended to rob while she herself was too tired to wake up couldn't make T-Bag interested. After losing the happy backpack of cash his life had become dull. He managed to break out of yet another prison, but in the end he crossed the border back to the country where he was a wanted man, not because he couldn't make his living elsewhere, simply because the constant danger of being made and turned in to the authorities kept him feeling alive.

It was spectacularly sad, he mused, that even if he admitted who could hardly feel this alive in any other country in the world, he still felt somewhat shabby.

Voices sounded from the next room and T-Bag quickly composed himself. Damon opened the door to the bathroom, and finding T-Bag standing at the sink, clicked with his tongue.

"It's the time. You ready?" He didn't want for the answer. T-Bag was always ready. One last glance into the mirror and he followed Damon to pick his gun, their previous weapons having been discarded of during their hasty retreat from Dallas. They had been fairly successful there, but then due to a combination of bad luck and an extreme clumsiness on Damon's part, they had lost most of their earnings and had had to postpone their planned retirement.

It had been Tony who had come with this one, and a sure golden mine it would be according to him. A shady business was supposed to be done at one of the malls in the Garden City, not the mob, Tony's informer had been quick to reassure them, but a pack of amateurs. A lot of money would be there, easily gained in comparison to other sources.

They had been nearly broke and in such business already, so it hadn't taken a lot to persuade them. And now it was the time.

The car was waiting two blocks down the street. They had come afoot to the motel, and afoot they left, not to rouse suspicion. A driver had been hired, since the mall was vast and all of them would be needed inside.

It was half past ten when they got in the car, Damon and Tony tense, the driver silent and T-Bag flexing his right hand to find out whether the numbness he usually felt had been replaced in anticipation of the future action. It usually happened some time before the action and it was what told him he was still alive.

"What do we have here?" a police officer asked the most officially looking guy around. He wasn't surprised when the man flashed an FBI ID to him - he could smell these people.

"Three armed men in a packed mall. I have a sniper up on the roof opposite, but he can only see one of them."

"So fast?!"

"We were doing preparations for next week - that's classified - and showing a new guy around."

"What's the one your man can see like?" The agent switched something on his radio.

"Describe him again, Ben."

"Middle height, slim, blonde hair," sounded a voice from the radio. "Wait, the roots are dark - he probably dyes his hair." The agent rolled his eyes - Ben was good at his work, but he still couldn't help thinking he was not only gay, he was extremely gayish.

"Anything else?"

"He doesn't use his left hand. Seems prosthetic to me." The senior agent frowned.

"Seems or is?"

"Hey, Daddy Wheeler, I ain't down there to shake his hand. He doesn't use it and it's different colour than the rest of his skin." Wheeler gritted his teeth. Aside from being gayer than gay, Ben was also cheeky - came probably from being so high above his superiors.

"You wouldn't want to shake his hand, trust me. Keep an eye on him."

In the end it was easier that they had expected. Ten minutes past ten they had the money - and Damon was collecting cash from stands and customers to add to the sum - the shops were closed as soon as the three of them showed guns, but the real money was in a briefcase Damon had cuffed to his wrist - the crowd was being controlled by Tony and T-Bag - and T-Bag could see the car pulling over before the door, as had been planned.

"Going!" he shouted, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, though the numbness was returning already. He turned to see Damon had heard him, out of the corner of his eye catching Tony's figure getting a hostage. They had agreed on one hostage, to make sure they wouldn't be too bothered on their way out, female - for purposes T-Bag understood, even if he didn't feel like joining.

"Teddy, no - please!" a high-pitched shrieked cut through the air. T-Bag jerked his head around. And there she was, at the ice-cream stall, Susan and the children. Tony had pulled Gracie forward and Zach had lunged at him, drawing his gun-hand down. Never releasing the girl, Tony shrugged the boy off of himself and pointed the gun at him. Susan froze.

In a flash, T-Bag foresaw it: Zach would be shot to death by Tony and Gracie - his Gracie - his little girl - would be dragged along as a hostage, scared and crying, and raped and murdered by Tony and Damon. His Gracie.

Teddy would never let that happen to his little girl. He raised his own gun before he knew it. He would save his daughter, at all costs.

Two gunshots echoed through the mall and Tony fell to his knees, an expression of surprise plastered on his face and two red stains blossoming on his back. Damon whirled around only to see T-Bag's gun aimed at himself. Two shots later, and he too fell dead on the floor.

As Teddy turned back to his now safe family, he felt a hard blow to his rib-cage. Another blow followed as he unvoluntarily raise his hand, still firmly gripping the gun.

Unseen and unheard by him, Ben the sniper had exclaimed, "He's killing the hostages!" and as soon as Wheeler had uttered the first syllable of, "Take him down!" had fired two times.

T-Bag fell to his knees, very much like Tony had seconds before that. He looked up. His vision was beginning to fade, but he could make out Susan's face, and althought she was still scared, she was saying his name - he would hear her if it hadn't been for the annoying sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Before the darkness claimed him, he saw her smile at him, and despite the dying state of his body, he felt alive and happy.

He had saved them, was the last thought that crossed Teddy's mind before everything vanished.

"What is your name, ma'am?" Wheeler asked the woman before him. She had two children clinging to her, a boy and a girl, the boy had his T-shirt torn and a bruise on his arm and the girl was crying.

"Amy Hawkins." She sniffed. "This is my daughter Patricia and my son Theodore." Wheeler put it down, asked for their address and put it down as well.

"Can you tell me what happened here?"

"We were... we were shopping together, it's my mother's birthday in a week and we were out to get her something and... and I just saw a perfect tablecloth - she likes to have a lot of pretty tablecloths - and these men came in waving their guns and they wanted us to keep to this side so we went to the side." She sniffed again, but Wheeler had to give it to her, she was holding up bravely. She was talking a little too fast and her shoulders were slightly shaking, but she was still coherent, not at all sounding like in a shock.

"What happened next?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"One of them started taking money from everyone, he took my purse, it's in that bag," she pointed, "and another went to the gentleman over there and took his briefcase, I remember because the gentleman made such a fuss about it, and the last one was just standing there and watching everything."

"That was the one who started shooting later, right?" Wheeler asked, even if he had heard the story from others already. But he still couldn't believe it.

"Yes, but he wasn't shooting at us - I mean, he... he saved my Teddy!" This was new and Wheeler opened his mouth to ask the woman to elaborate, but she continued on her own, "The one who took my purse gave the bag to the one with the briefcase and came back to us and wanted to take Patty as a hostage. And Teddy, he is just a little boy, but he wanted to help her and he jumped at the man and I think I cried a little..."

"You cried a lot," the boy murmured, obviously embarassed by her affectionate tone. He may have suffered an injury and shock, but he was still a proud teenager, Wheeler noted.

"And the man you people shot down turned and saw this one aiming at my boy and shot him. And then he shot the other one, too. And then you people killed him."

Wheeler murmured something to the effect they would contact her later if necessary and confirmed her name and address once again. There was still a lot of people to be questioned, but he took a minute to stand silently over the dark blood stain in the middle of the hall. A hastily drawn outline showed where Theodore Bagwell, a murderer and a rapist and an escaped convict, fell to the ground. Not for the first time Wheeler wished Alex was still with the FBI. Because unlike him, Alex would find a way to crack this riddle. He would manage to get into Bagwell's head and see to situation from his point of view, and despite the obvious lack of information thereof, Alex would understand.

It hardly mattered in the end - why Bagwell had done it - but Wheeler felt they owed it to him. They owed him someone who would understand.