Author's note: No, don't worry I haven't abandoned my other story (The Heart of The Family). I just wanted to try my hand at writing other (shorter) pieces. This is a missing scene from The Critic in The Cabernet.
While my favorite scenes with Sweets tend to be with Booth and Brennan or Daisy, I enjoy and am intrigued by the dynamic he has with Cam. I wanted to do a bit with the two of them, and this is the result.
I originally planned this to have at least two parts and at the most three. But I wanted to see how this part worked. Thoughts?
And once again, I do not own Bones or any of its characters.
The Observations of The Friend
Doctor Camille Saroyan found herself wandering down the hospital hallways. She had grown tired of just sitting in the waiting room, and had longed for something to do. Brennan was still in the operating room with Booth while they operated on his tumor. His brain tumor, she corrected herself mentally. She remembered the clinical term Brennan used and had recognized it. But like everyone else in the waiting room, all she could focus on were the words 'brain tumor'.
Brennan said that 'statistically' Booth would be fine. Statistically. 'She may be able to compartmentalize like that, but the rest of us can't,' Cam thought to herself. She sighed and leaned against a wall. Cam had to admit that she was glad that Brennan had gone into the operating room with Booth. This may be just another procedure for the doctors, but it was everything to the people in the waiting room. It was good to know that there was someone in there who saw Booth as more than just a patient.
It was quiet in the hallway where Cam walked. She could clearly hear the weak 'click-click' sound her heels made as they hit the floor. There were not many people here. Just some empty rooms with some dirty-orange chairs that looked uncomfortable. She turned her head back toward the path she had taken.
'I should get back to the waiting room.' She knew Angela and Hodgins were still there. The last time she saw them they were holding hands while Angela cried. Sweets, however, had left not long after Brennan had given the news about the tumor and the operation.
That surprised Cam. She was sure he would have wanted to stay until Booth came out of the operating room, but she had not seen him since. 'Maybe he went home or to the office to work rather than dwell on things.' It didn't seem like a crazy idea to her. A part of her wished she could leave and bury herself in a gory and complicated autopsy to distract her from what was going on right now. Still, she figured that Sweets would want to know what happened and decided to make a mental note to call him as soon as she knew anything.
Cam finally stopped walking for a moment and looked out a window. She could see the sun beginning to set and the seemingly miniature people below milling toward whatever life they were leading. 'It's like the world is marching on without a care…but it shouldn't. There's a man struggling to survive in here. The best kind of man. The least the world could do is acknowledge it somehow.'
After a couple more moments, Cam dabbed at the few tears that had managed to leak out. She took a deep breath and started to walk back toward the waiting room. 'Pull yourself together, Cam. You need to be strong for your team. For Seeley.' She sniffed again at that thought, but straightened her posture even more as her pace developed speed and purpose.
She stopped near a side hallway that crossed the path she had gone before. 'I think this is a shortcut back to the waiting room,' she thought to herself. 'I really did wander off.'
After walking for only a minute on this new path, Cam was stopped by the sound of crying. What stopped her was not so much the crying itself, but the fact that the person doing it sounded familiar somehow. She looked into the room where she heard the sound coming from and was shocked by what she saw.
Sitting there alone on one of those ugly, uncomfortable chairs was Sweets. He was hunched over, his face in his hands. Cam could see his shoulders shaking as he sobbed; his breath coming out in sharp hitches. 'Is this where he's been this whole time?' she wondered. She swallowed down a lump forming in her throat. Sweets sometimes irritated her with his poking and prodding of everyone, but she had to admit that she had come to respect his abilities and was beginning to see him as part of their team.
She couldn't leave him like this.
Cam spotted a coffee table that had some napkins and plastic cups on it in the room where he was. She quietly walked over and picked up a couple of the napkins. She then walked over to him.
"Doctor Sweets?" she said, her voice soft. Sweets jerked his head up at the sound of her voice. Cam could see that his eyes were puffy and his cheeks tear-stained. He began to sniff hard.
"Doctor Saroyan…I ah…" he said, brushing his face hard to wipe any tears away. "Is there…is there any news?" Cam held out a couple of napkins to him.
"Nothing yet. I was just heading back to the waiting room," she said as he took the napkins. He quickly wiped his face and blew his nose as he got to his feet.
"Ah…good...I uh…Thank you Doctor Saroyan, I should go," he said, throwing the napkins into a nearby trashcan. Cam put a hand on his arm.
"Are you all right?" she asked. He nodded. A bit too eagerly, Cam thought.
"I'm fine," he said waving a hand. "I shouldn't keep you." Cam tightened her grip on his arm.
"Sweets…it's ok to be upset. We all are. You shouldn't be shutting yourself away like this," she said. She took a deep breath. "You should be there with us in the waiting room. We're a team. We support each other. Especially in times like now." Sweets shrugged off her grip and slid back into the chair he was sitting in, his head tilted downward.
"I'm not one of you," he said in a low voice. Cam pulled up another chair so she could sit across from him.
"Yes you are. Whether we like it or not, you're a part of our team. Booth made sure of that." At the mention of Booth's name, Sweets winced. Cam pat his arm again.
"Booth will be fine. I've known him for years; he's a strong man. Besides you heard what Brennan said. You know she doesn't believe in giving people false hope."
Sweets leaned away from her touch and continued to look down at the tiled floor.
"I should have known," he mumbled. Cam tilted her head at him.
"Known what? About Booth? About the tumor?" she asked.
"I'm a trained psychologist. Or at least I say I am," he said. "The signs were there: moments of increased rage indicating changes in mood. Those hallucinations. I mean I knew that not once, not twice, but three times that he had hallucinated, and I didn't question it." Sweets locked his hands together and began twisting his fingers about nervously.
"And then this whole thing with Doctor Brennan wanting a baby…You know he actually worked up the courage to say something to me?" he said, finally looking up. Cam could see that his eyes were still glassed with tears.
"He finally admitted to feeling anxious and was worried that something was wrong," Sweets continued. "So what did I do? I just brushed it aside. Told him everything was fine, when I should have listened to what he was trying to tell me." He sniffed hard again and looked away from Cam.
"Who knows how long it would have gone on if it weren't for Doctor Brennan," Sweets said as he closed his eyes, trying to will himself to not cry again. After a moment, he looked back at Cam.
"I could have done something. A lot sooner. I…I..." He looked back at the floor. "I failed him. As his friend and as his psychologist."
Cam sat, stunned into silence. 'He's carrying around so much guilt,' she thought to herself. As she watched Sweets continue to try to compose himself, she noticed just how young and vulnerable he looked. She knew they all teased him about his age, but at this moment her mind was drifting back to something Booth said to her a couple months ago.
It was after a particularly grueling case. There was a serial murderer involved. Not as bad as Gormogon, but still pretty violent and evil. Sweets had been heavily involved with building a psychological profile, and then interviewing the psycho after they caught him. After it was all over, she, Angela, Hodgins, Brennan, and Booth decided to unwind with a private dinner at their favorite Thai restaurant. It was Booth, who decided to invite Sweets along.
"I'm surprised Seeley, I mean you already have to see him every week as it is, Cam smiled. "Are you sure you want to bring him along to this too?"
"Don't call me Seeley, Camille," he smirked at her. "And yeah, he should come too. Daisy's out of town, and this case put him through the wringer, I'm sure. Even if he does try to mess with your head if you say anything to him." Cam watched as Booth's eyes became wistful, distant.
"Besides, he's just a kid," he said. "He shouldn't be left alone." After another second, Booth recovered and flashed another smirk at her.
"Don't tell him I said that though or he'll just want me to 'share my feelings' and all that. I don't need his psycho-mumbo jumbo tonight."
Back in the present, Cam realized what Booth was implying while watching Sweets now. 'Booth wasn't making fun of his age there,' she thought. 'He saw Sweets as someone he needed to protect, and that's what he was trying to do.'
She knew what she needed to do now.
Cam reached over and took one of Sweets' hands into her own. He looked up at her, startled.
"You didn't fail him, Sweets," Cam said, her voice gentle. "You and I both know how much Booth likes to control the people and the situations around him. He wanted you to think he was fine, and you believed him because, just like the rest of us, you believe in his strength. In his invulnerability. He doesn't like having the people he cares about worry about him. You should know that by now." Sweets' eyes widened at her words.
"But...I...I'm not," he sputtered. Cam gave his hand a light squeeze.
"Yes, that includes you," she said, anticipating his next words. "Seeley will never say it, but he does care about you. Quite a bit. And I think I know why." She leaned toward him. "I think he sees himself in you a bit. I know because I see it too." Sweets pulled away from Cam's hand and shook his head vigorously.
"Oh no, Doctor Saroyan. Booth is nothing like me. I mean, I'm not…" He looked away again. "I could never be him. No matter how hard I tried. I could never be the man he is." Cam gave a low chuckle.
"For a psychologist you seem to have a pretty big blind spot here," she said. Sweets turned back to stare at her, his eyes dark and unreadable. Cam swallowed hard and continued.
"Booth does everything he can to protect the people he cares about. To help them. Even when it could cost him dearly,"she said
"During the murder trial for Max, you were willing to put your reputation on the line by not only by telling a judge that Russ wouldn't run before the trial, but by going along with Brennan's plan to cast suspicion onto herself. And don't tell me you didn't have any idea of what she was planning. I saw the look on your face while you testified, and I remember how carefully you worded your testimony." Sweets opened his mouth to protest, but just let out a sigh instead.
"When the Gravedigger got Booth," Cam said, her voice becoming solemn. "You wanted to stay involved, to help out any way you could. Even though we didn't want you to. What we were doing…giving in to the Gravedigger's demands…that was bad enough, but ultimately, myself, Brennan, Angela, Hodgins…we answer to the Jeffersonian. You, on the other hand, answer to the FBI, the very people we were working against. They could have fired you, demanded that your license be taken away. But what did you do? You begged us to let you help get Booth back. You stayed with us and tried to make sure none of us did something we would regret later." Sweets leaned back in his chair, a look of shock on his face.
"And this whole thing with Brennan wanting Booth's baby," she said. "It's all amusing and somewhat disturbing to us at the Jeffersonian, but it doesn't really change Brennan's place in the lab. Well, for the most part it doesn't. But I'm sure that the FBI would have some ideas about that situation, not very good ones. So, why do I think that the reports from the FBI's own appointed therapist make absolutely no mention of it ?" Sweets shook his head.
"I just…it wasn't…" he muttered. Cam gave him a half-smile.
"No, Doctor Sweets. You didn't say anything because you know what could happen, and you're trying to protect them," she said. She reached for his hand again.
"Just like Booth you try to 'fix' everyone around you, to make sure they're ok," she said. "You hover around us, trying to give us your insight. Even if it's annoying sometimes." She gave a short laugh and was happy to see Sweets give a half-hearted smile back.
"But you're always there for us, when things are bothering us, when we need to talk. I know you think that we don't respect you. But believe me, before you came along, if someone had told me that we would all be willing to give a psychologist the time of day let alone actually listen to him, I would have thought they were crazy."
"But...you know Doctor Wyatt, he…"
"Wyatt is very good at what he does," Cam interrupted. "But staying so close to us and getting involved the way you do was not for him. I think that's clear." Sweets sat up in his chair again, letting go of Cam's hand.
"Now I know Booth picks on you, your youth, your 'squintiness' per se, but what I think you're missing here is that he treats you much like how he treats Jared," she said. At that Sweets' mouth hung open in disbelief.
"Don't be so surprised, Sweets. I'm not," Cam smiled at him. "You're just not used to that kind of relationship, if I'm not mistaken. And considering how lousy the relationship with his actual little brother can be at times, I'm sure he appreciates the one he has with you."
"Doctor Saroyan, I…I don't know…do you really think that?" Sweets asked his voice tinged with awe. Cam nodded.
"I do actually. That's why you need to be with us. We need you, and Booth is definitely going to need you. Especially now." Sweets furrowed his eyebrows.
"What do you mean?" he asked, tilting his head.
"Seeley's in there right now, getting his brain operated on," Cam said. She took another deep breath when she felt tears rising up again. "I know what Brennan said, and I know I should be positive. But…There's just no way that this isn't going to affect him."
"It's a tricky operation, but the doctors…" Cam sniffed a bit and held up her hand to stop him.
"No Sweets. I think he'll recover just fine. Physically. But mentally…I'm sure there will be some…bumps in his recovery. And in a lot of ways that will be even harder for him to deal with."
"Because he doesn't like to appear weak. Out of control," Sweets nodded.
"Exactly. That's where you come in," she said. "Dealing with the mind is your job. We can all support him, but you're the one who will have to help Booth recover mentally."
"But…but I can only help him if he trusts me," he said. "You and especially Doctor Brennan…he's a lot closer…"
"He trusts you, Sweets. I think you'll see that for yourself eventually," Cam said, her tone serious. "You just need to be there for him. As his friend and his psychologist."
Cam rose to her feet and Sweets did the same. He turned from her for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around what Cam had just told him. She placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on Doctor Sweets," she said. "Let's see if we can get an update on him." Sweets finally turned back around, a sad smile on his face.
"Thank you Doctor Saroyan. What you said…it means a lot." Cam chuckled a bit.
"Well don't tell Booth any of it," she said, walking into the hallway. "He'll just deny all of it." Sweets widened his smile a bit at that and followed her.
Cam rubbed her eyes a bit to prevent any more stray tears from coming out. It was still hard to think about Booth being in that operating room.
But she felt a little better knowing that he had a group of people willing to do anything to help him. No matter how it all turned out.
