Disclaimer: I don't own Prison Break, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, or Angel. Nor do I profit from writing this. Please don't sue me. Most of the action and some of the lines are taken directly from Prison Break episode #6: "Riots, Drills, and the Devil (pt. 1)".

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Lindsey sat on the top bunk in his and Scofield's cell, jiggling his leg nervously. His cellie had gone into the wall a good five minutes ago, and it was only a matter of time before the bulls came by to do a check. He'd dug some paper and a pen out of Sucre's stuff and had spent the past half hour trying to write. It wasn't working too well.

Dear Darla,

Baby, I know you're dead. If you were still alive, LA would be burning right now, Wolfram & Hart's precious apocalypse or no. Was Angel the one who did you in? Did he finely grow a big enough pair to do what he was so sure needed to be done? Or did he send one of his lackeys after you because he couldn't get over the failure of not being able to save you? Was it your death that drove him right into the Senior Partners' arms?

He snorted as he reread what he'd written. It wasn't much of a love letter, but he wasn't feeling much love. It'd felt like there was a bruise in his chest, right behind the sternum. Part of him wondered if maybe he'd taken a punch in that fight out in the yard. That'd been a week ago, but if a rib was bruised or something…

Nah, he was just kidding himself. There wasn't a physical reason for the pain. It was just the pain of losing Eve. He'd tried calling her back—twice. The first time, the call had rung once and then gone straight to voice mail. The second, he'd been told by that annoying electronic voice that the number was no longer in service. She'd cut off his only line to her. That said more than any of the Host's dire predictions.

"Bed check!"

Shit, looks like the check is now. Tossing the notepad aside, he hopped down off the bunk and grabbed the mirror he used for look-out duty. Banging it against the toilet should make enough noise that Scofield would notice and get his ass back here before the CO came by. No—no time for that. Grabbing the pillow from his bunk (a fairly new one replaced soon after he'd swapped places with the real Sucre), he stuffed it under Michael's blanket, trying to plump it and Scofield's own pillow into a vaguely human shape. The bull would have to be an idiot to fall for a trick this old, but it was dark, and Lindsey didn't have a better plan. Thank God, Scofield's so lanky. Those pillows would never pass for a fat man.

There was nothing left to do but hop back up onto his bunk and pretend to be asleep. He sprawled, letting one arm flop over the side, creating the picture of a man deep in dreamland. The COs' flashlights bobbed like demented will o' the wisps out in the cell block. Lindsey held his breath.

The sound of the toilet scraping across the floor cued him to let it out. Lindsey rolled over on to his stomach, peering down through the bar on the headboard of the bunk as Scofield squirmed out of the hole behind the toilet.

"Bulls are coming!" he hissed.

Michael's eyes went wide for a moment, then he shoved the toilet back into place with his foot and scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees. Pulling one of the pillows out from under the blanket, he tossed it up to Lindsey who caught it and tucked it under his head. It wasn't his pillow, he realized as he leaned back against it, no longer feeling the urge to fain sleep. It was too flat and smelled like his cellmate. The lower bunk squeaked as Scofield got comfortable.

Not a moment too soon. One of those will o' the wisps beamed into the cell, right into Lindsey's eyes. "Show some skin, Scofield," came the order from the CO holding it. There was a pause. Had Michael not gotten the toilet all the way back in place? He wanted to roll over again and check, but that would only draw the guard's attention to it. No, he just had to lay here and hope the man didn't hear how loudly his heart was beating in his chest.

Once upon a time, Lindsey would have described himself as a man who liked action. He was an adrenaline junkie—he'd admit it. The cutthroat competition at Wolfram & Hart had been just his stride. Unfortunately, the blood of innocent bystanders had started to get to him. Here, though, there weren't any kids at risk—just him and a handful of prisoners. Then why was he so scared about getting caught?

Because, he realized, if he did, there was no second chance miracle for him. The Oracle had told him as much.

The guard banged his flashlight between the cell's bars. "Hey, Scofield!" Still no response from Lindsey's cellmate. The guard started rattling his keys. If he came into the cell, odds were good that he would notice the toilet or some other little detail out of place—like the fact that Michael was in bed with his shoes still on.

"Trying to sleep, boss." His cellie's voice was appropriately groggy. Lindsey felt relief wash through his abdomen. He heard the bed creak as Michael rolled back over, and then the CO moved on to the next cell. As soon as the guard was out of earshot, the dull thumps of Michael's shoes hitting the floor reached the ears of the former lawyer. "I can't do anything more until I start the riot. I just don't have enough time."

"Scofield, we're in prison—all we've got is time."

"My brother doesn't."

"I still say this is a bad idea."

"Worse than the idea of losing whoever it is you've got waiting for you on the outside?"

Lindsey snorted softly and kept his eyes on the ceiling. He could practically feel Scofield's gaze boring into his back from the bunk below. The man was trying to play him. He didn't expect anything less—Michael had a lot riding on Lindsey's continued cooperation—but it irked him nevertheless. Would I do anything different if I were in his position? he asked himself. His brain immediately responded with an answer, but not one he wanted: I would have never put myself in his position. "I don't have anyone waiting on the outside. The world thinks I'm dead, remember?"

"There's got to be someone who'd be happy to see you alive."

"No, there's not."

Scofield was silent for a couple of minutes, and Lindsey wondered if maybe he'd drifted off to sleep. Then came a very soft, "I'm sorry."

He opened his mouth to answer, but the words didn't seem to want to come out. He was laying on his notepad—the red binding at the top that held the yellow pages together was digging into his hip. Who knew where the pen had gotten to. Reaching under him, he pulled out the pad and tossed it to the floor. It hit the concrete spine-first, producing a sharp crack that sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet cell block.

Idly, he fingered the cross around his wrist. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of Cass since her visit disguised as Sucre's sister. She probably had better things to do than keep an eye on his ass. Not to mention, it had to be hard for her to find ways to communicate with him that didn't leave them both exposed to whatever demonic forces she had hinted were looking for him. If they found him, in the place, there was no where to run. Just one more reason to break out.

"Hey, Scofield."

"Yeah?"

"When are you going to trash the AC unit?"

"Tomorrow." There was a pause. "Changed your mind about the plan?"

"I still think it's the dumbest thing you've come up with yet, but I'll play along. Just show me where to dig."

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The Oracle, in Dr. Tancredi's body again, wiped her wrist across her forehead to try and get rid of some of the sweat that was pouring down out of her hair. She'd made the switch to Sara Tancredi only to find that the Fox River's doctor was running over forty minutes late. Then, thanks to her lack of intimate knowledge about places like Chicago and Joliet, Illinois, she'd gotten lost on her drive to the prison, putting her well over two hours late. Luckily, Katie, the nurse who seemed to be the doctor's close friend, bought the story about a flat tire. Hell, Cass would go out to the parking lot on her lunch break and slash a tire if it would keep up the charade.

The prisoners were already outside, milling around in the yard on the other side of the chain link and barbed wire fence from her. Hitching the small duffel that Sara used instead of a briefcase farther up her shoulder, the Oracle scanned the crowds of men for a familiar face. No sign of Lindsey, but Michael Scofield was walking along the fence, hands stuffed into the pockets of his prison blues. The day's already sweltering heat made his gray t-shirt stick to his back and gave him a nice sweat collar in the front.

"Hottest April on record," she called out to him as she stepped up to the fence. Honestly, she didn't know if that were true or not, but it sounded good.

The sound of her voice made him pause. "Global warming," he called over his shoulder as he turned to join her at the fence.

"Probably—you got a minute?"

He gave her a cocky half-smile and leaned his arm up against the chain links. "About five years' worth."

Cass allowed herself to give him a little laugh. Damn if he wasn't arrogant. Quick on the uptake too, with plenty of confidence. In some strange way, he reminded her of Lindsey. Or, at least, the Lindsey McDonald that her files described. The Lindsey she knew personally was a little darker, a little more tortured. Then again, Scofield just might be hiding his darker side.

Whatever the case, it didn't matter so long as he didn't cause problems for Lindsey's run of the Gauntlet.

"I'm looking for Sucre, have you seen him around?"

Scofield studied her for a moment. "But he's not really Sucre, is he?" He shifted his weight slightly, leaning closer to her, the mesh of the fencing digging into his forearm. "And you're not really Dr. Tancredi."

Her stomach clenched, but she pasted on a sly smile and turned it up at him. "What's my tell?"

"What makes you think you have one?"

"People normally don't just assume that their friends have been body-snatched, so what's it about the doctor that I'm not getting right?"

"You're asking after Sucre when, as far as I know, he's never even been in the infirmary," Michael whispered. "Do you want me to go get him for you?"

Cass shook her head. "Too suspicious. I probably shouldn't even be lingering here like this." She glanced over at a nearby guard, who stood cradling a rather large gun in his arms and looking extremely bored. "How goes the plan?"

"It goes. Going to shut the AC off tonight, try to get GenPop locked down so we have time to dig."

She just kept shaking her head. "Anything you need me to do?"

"Lindsey told me you could provide evidence that could clear my brother—get that and let me handle the rest." His blue-green eyes were like sea ice—cold and unflinching. Gone was the flirty act. That must have been just for the doctor. Now, Michael Scofield was all business.

"I've got people working on it," she assured him. The duffel was starting to slip down her shoulder again, and she pulled it back into place. "Tell me, Scofield, why anyone would pick your brother to frame? Out of all the two-bit criminals in the country, why him?"

Michael shrugged, a barely perceptible gesture. "I guess we'll find that out when we find out who framed him."

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Fox River Penitentiary was a labyrinth of mythical proportions. Behind the cold concrete face of the buildings, a maze of service corridors, sewer lines, air vents, and passageways twisted throughout the prison. Michael Scofield didn't claim to know them all—it would take a lifetime for a man to memorize a place like this—but luckily he didn't have to. Everything he really needed to know was hidden in the tattoos that decorated fifty percent of his body. Not just the blue prints, but every little detail of his meticulously crafted plan. Unfortunately, the plan didn't cover every contingency. There was no way on earth it could. Take tonight for example: turning off the AC had never been in the plan. But Scofield was a structural engineer.

Once he got into service corridor that ran behind the cell block, he was able to follow the pipes up into the roof of the prison where the air conditioning units frantically tried to cool the building despite the heat wave outside. Just pull a couple of wires in an inconvenient-to-get-to place and the whole system shut down, leaving Fox River eerily silent.

Taking a moment to rest, his legs wrapped around a large pipe in the ceiling, Michael wiped sweat out of his eyes and wondered just what he'd gotten himself into.

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A/N: I know, I know. I just put a note up on my profile saying not to expect any updates from me, and here I am updating. Blame the fact that I've got a short attention span… Thanks to Imzadi, --J, and Katie for your review-goodness. If anyone wants to see pictures of the main players in this fic, go into my profile and click the link listed as my home page. It will take you to a page with some quote posters I made.