Tony rolled onto his side, freeing his arm from underneath his head. He rested his weight onto it, feeling the unpleasant sensation of pins and needles from his finger tips to his shoulders. Idly he wandered how long he had laid immobile, eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling. He had climbed onto his bunk shortly after lunch, refusing to answer any of Sanchez's questions, longing to be left alone. Slowly his eyes focused on his cellmate, who continued reading a car magazine without turning his head at the movement. He's mad at me! So would you be, Almeida, if you tried pulling someone out of such obvious depression and they blatantly ignored you. Tony allowed a sigh to escape, struggling to remember what had happened during the morning's yard time. Both Perez and Gonzales had walked over to him, pressing him for information about the previous week, but he had walked away from them silently. That's a first, for both of them. I doubt whether even the warden would dare try that! He resolved to apologize the following day. A second sigh escaped him at the thought.

Sanchez was unable to prevent himself from glancing upwards. 'You ready to talk now, amigo?' he questioned, his tone chilly.

Tony lowered himself to the ground and sat on the edge of the table, pushing aside a few dozen more magazines. 'Yeah,' he muttered, uncertain of the truth of his statement.

Sanchez closed the magazine and pushed it aside, over a few scattered cards. 'I guess I shouldn't be surprised to be ignored! After all, you ignored the Mexicans, and let me tell you, amigo, they weren't real pleased. Still, I thought maybe you'd talk to me. We all helped you out, when you first came to prison…'

'I'm sorry, ok,' Tony interrupted. 'It's nothing to do with you, Sanchez.'

'You should stop beating yourself up about Colin,' Sanchez told him, pulling another magazine from his shelf without returning any that littered the floor. 'There was nothing you could have done about it. He wanted to end it.'

'Dammit, Sanchez, I'm a Federal Agent,' Tony snapped, exhausted from the previous six days of self recrimination. 'I knew the guy! I mean, how much more information could I have about a situation, and I still failed him!' He rubbed his face, failing to calm himself. 'It's all true, what they said at my trial. I'm unfit to….'

Sanchez threw the magazine on his bunk and got up, facing him. 'Amigo, it's not your fault. He wanted to die, he had nothing to go back to outside. Maybe it's better for him.'

Tony's fists clenched and his eyes flashed with such fury Sanchez took two involuntary steps backwards, brought up short against the bunk. 'You gonna hit me, amigo?' he asked, worried.

Tony turned away, pouring cold water onto his face. Relax, Almeida. He's right, you know it too, you're just not ready to accept such a senseless tragedy. 'Of course not,' he muttered.

He noticed his cellmate settle on the bunk, and moved over to his customary corner, arms folded across his chest. There was nothing to discuss that would make the slightest difference. Colin was dead, and he had failed his friend at the lowest moment in his life. Deeply depressed, he scratched his head, running through Colin's death yet again.

'Amigo, here, use this,' Sanchez interrupted, passing him a bottle of conditioner. 'Put it through your hair, leave it on a coupla hours, and they'll die.'

Tony raised his eyes and stared at him startled. 'What will?' he questioned, though he already had a horrible feeling he knew exactly what his cellmate referred to.

'You know what I'm talking about,' Sanchez answered. 'It's ok, we've all got it. Sooner or later the doctor will see one of his patients scratching his head and write up his report and the whole block will get deloused and shaved.'

Tony poured the conditioner onto his head, rubbing it all over his scalp. 'Even if they're ok?' he inquired.

Sanchez laughed aloud. 'Amigo, wake up! Do you seriously imagine they're gonna check all of us. Like I said, they'll do the whole block. Hopefully it'll grow back by the time I leave!'

Tony returned the bottle, wordless. He leaned further into the corner, crossing his arms in front of him, his cheeks burning.

'It's ok, amigo, this happens every year,' Sanchez informed him. 'Just forget about it, it doesn't hurt! You wanna play?' he asked, a hopeful note in his voice and Tony nodded, watching the cards divided into two packs. I don't really wanna play cards again, Sanchez, I'm so sick of it by now. I wanna go home. Focus, Almeida, he ordered himself harshly. You're not gonna go there again, it doesn't help! You're stuck here; you're unable to concentrate on your studies, so why not play cards? You got ANY other plans? Slowly he pushed aside a few magazines and sat on the floor, accepting his pile.

'It's all fair this time, amigo, I swear,' Sanchez assured him.

You know I really don't care! 'Good,' he answered, forcing himself to sound enthusiastic. To his surprise he won the game, and the following one, his suspicions aroused. Sanchez rarely lost, and never twice in a row. He's trying to cheer you up, Almeida. At least pretend you're ok. 'Why don't we do something different?' Tony muttered. 'Hand me all the cards you got, the other packs too.'

Sanchez glanced at him worried, getting up to fetch his other packs from his shelf. 'Why, amigo?' he questioned. 'Like I said, there was no cheating. You're just catching on.'

'Right,' Tony agreed. He poured the cards onto the floor, watching them landing on top of each other. 'Let's build a house of cards instead. You ever tried that?'

His cellmate shook his head. 'No, bloody thing keeps falling apart!'

'So lemme show you how to construct the perfect design,' Tony muttered, enjoying the game despite himself. 'You wanna add a card?'

'No way, it'll collapse,' Sanchez said, shaking his head, a card in his fingers.

'No it won't. Anyway, we'll build it again if it does. Add it right here,' Tony told him, pointing to a spot. He watched his cellmate add the card with trembling fingers. 'There, see, it's still standing. You're getting good at this.' He added his own card breathless. 'Your go again.'

Sanchez refused point blank, and considering his wobbly structure, Tony couldn't blame him. 'Ok, I'll add the last three.' They both watched him add the final storey to the building, turning away to let out thankful breaths. 'Don't so much as breathe on it,' Tony instructed unnecessarily. Sanchez shook his head, turning it away to breathe, to Tony's amusement, and asked where he had learned to build so well. 'Ah, you sure you wanna know?' Tony asked, grinning. 'I had a coupla arguments with my parents, all of which I lost,' he continued, pulling a face. 'So I had a coupla hours to kill in my room.' He waved his hand at the house.

'You must have pissed them off quite a few times, amigo,' his cellmate told him, laughing.

A loud bang on the bars startled them, making them jump. Sanchez inadvertently knocked his hand into the house and the entire structure collapsed.

'Gee, what a shame, that must have taken a lot of effort,' remarked the guard, one of the few Tony genuinely hated. 'Oh well, you cons got plenty of time to rebuild it,' he taunted.

'You had something specific you wanted to tell us, sir,' Tony inquired sarcastically.

The guard studied him in silence for a moment. 'I sure do. This place looks like a twister been through it! Clean it up, right away. When I return, if I find anything on the floor, I'll be forced to confiscate it.' He turned away, walking further along the tier.

'Sonofabitch,' Tony muttered, helping to collect all the scattered magazines, pens, blank papers, envelopes, rulers and the paper plane he had made a few weeks earlier that so impressed Sanchez.

Sanchez piled the magazines on top of each other on his shelf, placing the writing material beside it. 'Watch it, amigo,' he cautioned. 'It's Rogers; you know he'd just love to write you up for something.'

'He always does, every shift,' Tony sighed.

'So keep quiet and he won't this time,' Sanchez advised. 'You've had a real tough two weeks; you can't afford to miss any meals.'

The guard returned fifteen minutes later, pausing to glance into a spotless cell. 'That's a whole lot better,' he told them, eyeing Tony. 'Who the hell knows, maybe you two will even manage to conform to Western standards of hygiene!'

You will keep your mouth shut, Almeida! You will NOT say a word!

'Of course we've only got you for a short while longer, Sanchez, so I guess there's no hope for you, but Almeida…You've got plenty of time to be taught!'

Tony remained silent, fists clenched tight behind his back. The guard turned and left them, continuing his patrol, and Tony allowed the breath he had been holding out in a loud hiss.

'Well done, amigo, I told you you could do it,' Sanchez told him. 'Now while you were away I got a present. Lemme show you.' He pushed open his drawer and carried a board game to the table.

Tony felt interested despite himself, not having played anything apart from cards since his arrest. He settled in his usual chair and watched his cellmate open the game and lay a few piles of various colored cards face down on the table. 'It's a 'who done it' game,' he told Tony. 'There's eight people in a hotel and one is found dead with a knife in her stomach. I wanna know whether you'll solve this case any faster than the rest of us, amigo.'

Tony actually grinned. 'Sure I will,' he answered confidently. 'How rich was the deceased?'

Sanchez glanced at the card. 'Not rich at all. She was an average income middle aged white housewife.'

'Ok, let's see the list of her fellow holiday makers. I'm looking for her husband,' Tony explained. 'Don't look so startled, he's the guy!'

'There's no husband listed,' Sanchez told him.

'There has to be,' Tony exclaimed, taking the list from his hands. 'Ah, you're right, there isn't. Well then, let's assume our housewife got a little restless and went for a walk and overheard something, and had to be silenced. It was one of these,' he concluded, laying four cards down.

'How do you know?' Sanchez asked, interested.

'They're the only guys left. Women don't stab each other in the stomach,' Tony observed. They rarely shoot each other either, but you've seen it happen before…He pushed memories of Teri Bauer aside and studied the four cards, elbows on the table, a finger rubbing his mouth. 'It's the art historian,' he observed quietly. 'Check the results,' he insisted, seeing his cellmate's skeptical expression.

Sanchez took the sheet and read it, snorting aloud. 'You're right, amigo! You're worth whatever they paid you! Shall we play another?'

Tony nodded, knowing it was essential to occupy himself to prevent thoughts of Colin poisoning his afternoon. 'Aha,' he said, choosing the characters for the following game. 'Ok, listen. We've got our eight suspects on a camping tour in Scotland, and the tour guide's body is discovered in,' he chewed his lips, amused, 'Loch Ness! Now I'm not ruling out the monster at this stage, but…'

The siren's wail, echoing through the block at that unexpected hour distracted them both and they wandered over to the door, staring out. Block supervisor Lee appeared in the middle of the floor, a loudspeaker in his hand.

'Now what?' Sanchez asked, nervously.

Tony shook his head. 'Don't look at me like that; I haven't seen the guy all week!'

'Attention convicts. It has been brought to my notice that we have a lice infestation in this block! You have exactly two minutes to strip to your underwear in preparation for treatment! I want all your bedding folded and placed onto these trolleys.'

Sanchez turned away, unzipping his jumpsuit. 'Amigo, move it. There's nothing else to see down there,' he told Tony, who remained at the door, wordless.

He turned reluctantly, pulling off his shoes and stripping to his boxer shorts. Face burning; he pulled the sheets from his bunk, folding them methodically. The door opened as he folded his top sheet and he stepped outside, following the queue downstairs to the floor. Several trolleys awaited them and they piled their bedding inside. They were marshaled along to the end of the main floor, and halted outside a small door. Tony saw several chairs placed in a row and the prison barbers motioned him into one of them. Sighing deeply he obeyed, aware of Supervisor Lee's eyes on him. Seconds later he was ordered to rise and he left, rubbing his shorn hair from his shoulders.

Perez stood towards the end of the queue, a fearsome scowl on his face, surrounded by his entire gang present on D Block. Tony walked over to him and Perez shook his head slowly. 'You were right, Perez. I only took my eyes off him a coupla hours.' He fell silent, overwhelmed by guilt.

Perez nodded. 'Of course I was right, Almeida. I've seen it before countless times. You should stop blaming yourself, there's nothing you could've done. That's what I was trying to tell you in the yard this morning.'

'I know.' Tony rubbed his face, staring at the ground. 'Thing is, I should've managed to prevent it. He smuggled in a piece of glass in his cigarette, and he kept it in the butt, and once I got punished for getting him a lighter, he just couldn't face it anymore…'

'You got him a lighter in the strip cell!' Perez stared at him with new respect. 'Almeida, he wanted to die, at least you gave him a chance to have a last smoke! Some people need to move on, you'll learn as the years go by.' A guard interrupted their conversation, ordering Tony to join the second queue in a no nonsense tone. He walked over to the other side of the floor, joining a queue that formed before a second small door, standing behind Sanchez.

The first ten convicts were ordered to strip and move inside. Tony heard a loud hiss indicating high pressure gas and presently the ten returned, coated with a white film, coughing violently and wiping tears from swollen eyes. 'Next,' ordered the supervisor. 'Get dressed,' he snapped at the unfortunate group of men. Tony felt a sharp push from behind and he forced himself to move, entering a narrow windowless room.

'Turn around, place your hands on the wall,' instructed a man in a white chemical suit, a mask over his face. A tank of gas stood beside him, which he raised. 'Keep your mouth and eyes shut,' he instructed, taking a step forwards. Tony turned to face the wall, fighting to remain calm. Focus Almeida, the first lot made it out alive! Yeah, but in what condition!

His keen sense of hearing told him exactly where the man was as he moved along the row, spraying all of them. Tony felt a sharp blast of warm gas on his shorn head and he squeezed his eyes shut, holding his breath. After what seemed an eternity the man moved over to Sanchez. Long before he finished with the queue his tortured lungs won their battle for air and he took an inadvertent deep breath. Moments later the world spun about him as he leaned against the wall, coughing, his throat and lungs on fire. The door opened and a guard in a bio suit pulled him out. Tony was dimly aware of the rest of his group on the ground from the harsh choking sounds all around him, but his eyes burned too much to risk opening them. Presently a guard pushed something smelling strongly of disinfectant into his face and wiped it, ordering him to open his eyes and pick up clean clothes.

Tony opened his eyes slowly; ignoring the burning which caused tears to flow down his face, noting everyone around him looked the same. He pushed himself to his feet and entered the reception hall where piles of fresh clothes were handed out.

'Get dressed, on the double,' Supervisor Lee ordered, his voice booming in the loudspeaker.

'Don't we get a shower first, sir?' Tony inquired hopefully.

'Don't be a fool, convict! Delousing costs a fortune, it's going to stay on for the next twelve hours! Get dressed immediately.'

Tony collected his pile of clothes and dressed slowly, his head spinning. Once he was dressed he left the room and entered the main hall, glancing at the fresh group of prisoners choking on the floor. He saw Perez bent over Palma, a look of concern on his face and he hurried over. 'Is he ok?'

'I don't think so,' Perez told him, genuinely worried. 'I can't hear him breathing.' For the first time since they had met, Tony saw a terrified look on his face.

He knelt down; placing his finger over the gangster's nose, then lowered his hand rapidly to his chest. 'Get the doctor,' he snapped, pulling Palma's head backwards and beginning CPR. A stretcher arrived and Tony was pulled away by two guards, the entire room watching as Palma was rushed through the steel doors.

Perez gave a strangled cry, striding purposefully over to the supervisor. 'Mr. Lee. You better listen very carefully. If my man dies, you'll follow him real soon!'

Lee's face paled. 'Convict Perez, how dare you threaten me? Take him over to the warden; tell him I'll be there momentarily. You just got yourself a year in the SHU!'

A growl went up from the entire group of Mexicans, both gangs moving to aid the leader. 'Call a lockdown,' Lee snapped, his face turning several shades paler. 'I want extra guards. Convicts, drop,' he ordered harshly. The prisoners remained where they were, except for the Mexicans, who moved ever closer to Lee. The guards formed a protective circle around him and began backing towards the steel doors.

'Kill him,' Perez ordered in Spanish, his tone uncompromising.

'Wait,' Tony snapped, taking Gonzales' arm. 'Palma's going to be ok; he's just had an allergic reaction. No one's gonna die!' He moved in front of Perez, halting his advance. 'He's gonna be ok,' he repeated, quieter, desperately hoping he was correct. Perez paused, regarding him dubiously. Taking a deep breath, he faced the supervisor. 'Mr. Lee, call those guards off,' he begged, watching the freshly summoned guards pour in armed, in riot gear. 'They weren't gonna attack you, it's just their way of dealing with the pressure,' he assured the man. 'Just send everyone back to their cells.' Please listen, Mr. Lee, or you'll end up with a bloodbath.

Supervisor Lee glared at the Mexicans. 'On the floor,' he snapped. 'The guards will open fire in exactly ten seconds.'

Tony watched as the rest of the prisoners sank onto the ground, hands above their heads, while the Mexicans remained on their feet. He chewed his lip and turned to Perez, the only man whose order they would follow. 'Señor Perez, please, look around,' he begged. 'Do you really want to condemn all your men to their deaths? You're the only one who can stop this,' he begged. 'Just sit down, please.'

Perez stared at him for several seconds before he sank down, to Tony's intense relief. He watched as the entire gang settled beside him before he sank down on his stomach, placing his hands over his head.

'Alright, the third tier, get up. Form a line.' The guards who worked D Block hurried to count the prisoners, making certain all lined up silently. Tony laid an encouraging hand on Perez's shoulder.

'Gracias,' he said softly. 'You realize they won't just let this go, but I doubt whether they'll give you more than a token month in the SHU.' Perez nodded at him as he rose to join the queue, standing silently behind Sanchez.

Tony watched the remainder of the prisoners marshaled to their cells, face pressed against the bars. 'Alright, Convict Perez, get up,' ordered the supervisor in a hard tone. 'Seems like you're in luck, the warden himself has just arrived.' Tony noted the warden stride purposefully across the hall and strained his ears to catch every word that was spoken, praying they wouldn't punish Perez too harshly.

'Convict Perez, you caused quite a disturbance,' the warden told him, his voice clearly heard by everyone present on the block. 'I commend your loyalty towards your friends, but I cannot allow such an action to pass unpunished. You've got a month in the SHU. Take him away,' he stated, while Tony let out a sigh of relief.

He watched Perez led out of the block before returning to his bunk, weary beyond words. So you helped prevent a massacre, Almeida! Hopefully in the next coupla days Warden Jeffries will reward you. He pressed his eyes shut, wandering what he would ask for in that unlikely event. Give me back my visiting privileges! Three months is way too long.