11.

The team continue to investigate how Sweets could have ended up in the prison and figure out a way to exonerate him. Meanwhile Dean is still missing with no knowledge of where he went while the chain gang finds further suppression with the dwindling portions of food & water due to the budget cuts. After Chet suffers another overdose on the line and dies the prisoners revolt, outnumber the guards, a few prisoners are shot but so are the guards. The rest of the prisoners flee.

Sweets feet were getting tired but he felt it was the right thing to do, flee. He had tried it their way, telling them who he was but they didn't listen. If he stayed he would have faced in inevitable 'transfer.' He thought of Dean but only for a moment, as the thought became painful he buried it deep and thought more of where he was headed. Somehow Sweets didn't believe that Dean was a murderer and only added to the pain that the good guys in this scenario finished last.

Sweets stomach had gone past growling and now simply wasn't speaking to him. He had no source of food on these desolated side roads and though he had shed his prison shirt with a tee under it he still felt like a sore thumb sticking out, sure to be seen and sent back. Getting sent back to the jail meant only one thing, imminent death, so he trudged on. Maybe I can get out of this, call Booth, hide for now. He was tired but he saw a slight hope in that idea despite the humidity that was wrapping itself around him like a heavy body wrapped around him, slowing him down. The rolling clouds and sounds of thunder didn't help build his positive attitude any.

"You expect me to believe the warden is out again?" Booth asked ready to call in the big guns to back him up, he had had enough, the Department of Justice should be involved at this point.

"Yes, we have a bit of a situation." The guard answered and this time Brennan denoted that he wasn't so much cocky as he was genuinely concerned about something.

"Situation?" Booth asked picking up on the same vibe but the guard was hesitant to speak more. "You can tell me now or I can get the Department of Justice here. I do have them on speed dial."

The guard cleared his throat but kept his voice low. "The prisoners shot the guards, escaped."

Booth couldn't keep his eyes from widening in surprise as his mind flooded with questions on how many wrong things took place to allow that to happen.

"If you stay here I'll check with the warden, see if he needs your help." The guard seemed to think help might be necessary so Booth & Brennan waited.

"Booth undoubtedly some of the prisoners were shot as well, what is Sweets…"

"I know Bones, one thing at a time."

"I may be going on one of your hunches but I'd suggest with the way the warden works he will not want our help on this."

"I agree." Booth said taking out his phone while they waited to be sure. "I doubt he's going to tell us where it was or who was shot either." Booth waited for someone to pick up. "Hodgins yeah, you said yesterday that someone else was looking into the situation here at the prison, yeah, see who it is, yeah I'll wait."

The guard returned informing them he had misspoke, nothing had occurred and they needed to go on their own way. Booth was tired of working with the prison and while Brennan tried to find out where the shooting took place from the guard who was now tight lipped, apparently after a thorough lip thrashing from Wallace, he said nothing.

"Come on Bones." Booth said still on hold. "We're not getting anywhere here. We need to find Sweets if he's one of the escaped prisoners before they do."

"And how are we going to do that?" Brennan asked as Hodgins came back on the line.

"Okay took some digging." Hodgins reported but I found out who was on the case, he is U.S. Marshall Dean Wesson."

"How can I get a hold of him?" Booth asked taking out a piece of paper.

"Well he was recently admitted to the hospital, not far from where you are, Saint Mary's General Hospital." Hodgins reported.

"Come on Bones, let's go."

Thirty minutes later Booth was assuring the doctor he was indeed a Federal Agent and finally granted the direction of US Marshall Dean Wesson's hospital room. They figured they were in the right direction when a deep voice assured the nurse he was fine and that he just wanted to leave, and vehemently assured them he had somewhere to go.

"Dean Wesson?" Booth asked from the doorway.

The man in the hospital gown on the bed with a slew of cuts on his face by his forehead and lip suggested he was on the wrong end of a flight. He looked pale and overall battered for whatever his effort was.

"Who's asking?" The man asked grumpily as the nurse fled the room.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth and my partner Temperance Brennan." Booth said introducing her themselves quickly. "This is a long shot but we're hoping you can help us find a friend of ours."

"I don't know Special Agent." Dean answered as he painfully adjusted his position in bed. "See I've been undercover in a prison for the last few weeks so I doubt I met too many of your friends, unless you have piss poor choices of friends."

"That I don't." Booth said thinking fondly of Sweets. "I think he may have been there by mistake."

Dean stopped examining his IV for a moment and looked up at Booth. "Kale Mallory." He answered and followed with a question he knew the answer to. "But that's not his name is it?"

"No, it's Dr. Lance Sweets." Brennan answered.

"Yeah he's at the jail." Dean said. "And if they let me out of here I can get back there and arrest those sons of bitches. My boss is working on the paper work but it's taking freaking forever."

Booth quickly liked Dean, he reminded him of himself - not the kind of guy who wanted to sit around, wherever he was. However he realized one thing, Dean didn't know about the prison break.

"Well we have a problem, he's not at the prison." Booth said earning an unsettled and surprised look from Dean. "Something happened, guards were shot, prisoners were shot and most of them fled."

"And Mallory, I mean, uh, Lance?" Dean asked now sitting straight up with concern.

"We don't know." Brennan said. "We need some help figuring out what happened, the warden will not help."

Dean nodded. "Yeah that's because that guy is an asshat. Grade A asshat." Dean pulled back the sheets.

"Whoa, where are you going?" Booth said seeing the man obviously wasn't up to par.

"Look it's a long story, your friend, well, he's a good guy, I didn't want to leave him behind - trust me. I hadn't planned on things turning out like they did." Dean said. "I'm fine anyway, I'm just waiting on paper work."

Booth wasn't sure but he knew the kind of resolve that Dean had, he had it too and he could use the help finding Sweets.

"Look I'm going to look for him." Dean said. "You can come if you want." And with that Dean removed his own IV and headed for the door.

"Let's follow him then." Booth said surprised there was another person as stubborn as he was.

After the first doctor tried to stop Dean on his way out the rest ignored any attempt too. It was fine because by the time he got to the exit his own boss was coming in.

"There you are, hell son, you look like hell." His boss said ever so tactfully though Dean gave him a look. "What I got here as soon as I could."

"Wait, when were you admitted?" Brennan asked Dean.

"This morning." Dean answered still a little fuzzy. "I think."

"So you weren't part of what went down but where were you?" Booth asked.

"Good question." Dean said rubbing his head.

"Look, I'm not approving of you leaving but I'm not going to stop you." His boss told him. "You're as stubborn as anyone I've met. But you can't walk around in that so here's a change of clothes. Who are these people?"

Booth & Brennan introduced themselves while Dean slipped on the pants under the hospital gown. They were in a hallway but he didn't care, all he knew was he needed to go. Brennan couldn't help but admire Dean's finely chiseled chest before he covered it with a tee and US Marshals jacket.

"I'm assistant director Ben Singer. Dean and I have been working this case for months now. We decided to put Dean on the inside to figure out what was going on. What's the bureau's interest here?" Singer asked.

"The guy I told you about, Mallory." Dean answered for them.

"Right, the guy who was helping out and you didn't think was a criminal." Singer answered.

"How did you know?" Booth asked Singer.

"Unlike your friend I didn't lose my phone privileges." Dean said with a smirk but it faded. "Your friend has some thick skin."

"What do you mean?" Brennan asked ready to explain to him that skin thickness varied very little in scientific terms.

"I mean he can take a lot of beatings." Dean said not mincing words. "And that's why I'd like to find him." He slipped on his shoes and was now ready to go despite looking half dead on his feet he had a determination that was highly admirable.

"Okay, but first what the hell happened to you, you said you were on the inside, how did you get here?" Booth asked Dean.

Dean wanted to go but he understood they wanted to know what was going on, see if they could trust him, he got it. "Right yeah so I go to make my weekly call. It's a long story but Mallory, er Sweets and I suspected something was up. He had known for longer but he didn't know if he could trust me. So we worked on some other issues at the jail, drug deals going on, things like that. Well, we find out that people are getting transferred which meant them getting killed and buried. Well, the warden's interest in Sweets got sped up when he figured out Sweets might be onto him. So he decided to 'transfer' him and as far as anyone knew that meant you were getting sent to the big house, except no one seemed to make it there. Well my boss here wanted me out so we could bust the place so they put me on a transfer but to another facility - not the big house. Things were looking grim for Sweets so I went to make the call to get me out now and thus get him out. Well that night, I was surprised that before I could get back to the hall I was routed to the warden's office."

"Why is that?" Booth asked.

"Singer called in for immediate transfer and the warden did so. I didn't get time to talk to Sweets before I left but I had planned to come back the next day and bust the place wide open so I didn't think much about it. Expect that instead after we're driving along in a van we stop and I realize we are in the middle of nowhere. See the night or so before Sweets and I went looking for info and I went into the warden's office. Well apparently he figured out I was there, called his buddies who made a pit stop, I wasn't destined to make my destination. Doors open, they pull me out in handcuffs and I can't defend myself."

"They beat you while you were cuffed?" Brennan asked shocked.

"And left him for dead on the side of the road in a ditch for a couple of days." Singer added. "Tough son of a bitch that he is, he didn't die." There was obvious admiration for the kid in Singer's voice, Booth knew how he felt, he had like that about Sweets too.

"So they brought you here this morning." Brennan said surprised he was moving as well as he was.

"I'll heal but right now we've got some place else to be." Dean pointed out.

"You're going to need this." Singer said handing Dean his badge and gun.

"Oh baby I missed you." Dean said looking at his gun.

"You need a moment alone?" Singer asked and Dean gave him a roll of the eyes.

"Let's go. I think we should start with where we would usually work." Dean said getting into Singer's SUV while Booth & Brennan followed in their rented car.

It took some time but they arrived at the second option for a work site that Dean suggested. It was getting darker with impending rain. They got out of the car upon seeing red smears on the road.

"This should be roped off as a crime scene!" Brennan said getting out of the car very angry.

"That's not how the warden works." Dean said looking around. "Dammit, I should have got here sooner."

"So wait, you're sure that Sweets would have run?" Booth asked Dean and it felt strange to ask someone else what one of his people would have done. Booth knew though Dean had a clearer idea of Sweets state of mine recently. The reflection however left him with a feeling of guilt.

"Yeah I'm sure he did." Dean said looking around and finding a couple of shell casings in the grass. "Something must have happened that everyone freaked out."

"Any ideas?" Signer asked.

Dean nodded."Couple of days before I was gone the grumblings were getting louder. The food and water got more scarce - which under this heat make people who are already hot under the collar a little more hot under the collar."

"Why was there a food shortage?" Brennan asked.

"No idea, something to do with the budget. I suspect the warden was scraping some money off the top." Dean said.

"So the heat and the hunger could have caused them to snap." Singer guessed.

"I always wondered how long it would take a group of criminals to realize there were three dozen of them and two guards with guns. I guess the math got done today."

"Well they cleaned up fast." Booth said looking at the crime scene, wondering if Sweets was one of the dead or one of the escaped.

"Your friend is a fighter." Dean said to Booth & Brennan. "I didn't know him for a long time but I knew him well. He faced some serious shit but he kept on going, if he's alive, and I hope he is, he's out there."

They nodded at his words.

Dean looked around thinking of where Sweets might be headed. "We just need to find him before the warden does. For some reason, that prick really has it out for him."