Spoilers are for The Boy with the Answer and the season 5 finale. This fic looks at Sweets' growth as a psychologist throughout Bones and explains some tensions behind the scenes of the final eps of season 5. This is at least as much a BB fic as a Zack fic, but it's always hard to decide how to list these things. Updates will come at a moderate to slow pace compared to past stories. Darn RL.
An addition to this A/N: If you're unfamiliar with my stories, I'm a Sweets devotee-all of my fics celebrate and explore Baby Duck. That being said I cherish all of the characters on Bones, including Zack. I'm sorry to those Zack fans who lost their boy, and I hope this story can do his complex character some justice!
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, and I take no credit for them. I just adore them. :) Thank you for reading!
It had been a week since the trial and conviction of Heather Taffet—the Gravedigger. It was May, but it felt like a cheap, steamy November. The cherry blossoms had wilted and spring rains pummeled Washington, D.C. No one at the Jeffersonian was happy, despite their recent victory in court.
Lance Sweets was on the phone with Andrew Hacker. While Andrew came off as an affable guy to most, when interacting with Sweets, he tended to treat the psychologist as more of a whipping boy. It was a role Sweets was familiar with. He seemed to exude something from his pores that said, Bully me. Even customarily nice people often felt compelled to push Lance's buttons just to see him react. No matter how hard Sweets tried, he usually reacted, inviting more torment. Lance was working on standing up for himself, but he spoke to Andrew so infrequently that he hardly found it worth his while to redirect Andrew's behavior. Instead, Sweets was sitting in glum silence, while Booth's boss berated him.
Apparently, Andrew had noticed what he thought was the unraveling of the Booth-Brennan partnership and had cowed Sweets' direct superior, Bernie, into letting him confront Lance on the matter. Sweets was unsure of how Andrew had even wrested control of this situation other than the fact that he was responsible for the welfare of his agents and had recently been part of Sweets' annual review committee.
"All I'm saying is you've gotten a little too close to your patients, and some of the higher ups are saying it's unprofessional. This is where you got the lower marks in your recent review," Andrew was nagging in a faux-sympathetic tone. "You're young, but your credentials recommended you, and the FBI took a chance on you."
Lance didn't appreciate being reamed by Andrew under cover of geniality, but he had feared this check on the Booth-Brennan situation was a long time in coming. The partially poor review he'd gotten a week ago had clued him into the fact that some weren't happy with his therapeutic techniques. He'd hidden past problems between Booth and Brennan that he should have reported. He had grown to love them almost like family. It wasn't professional, and yet here he was.
Andrew continued, "Your profiles are solid, so you can continue to work in that capacity for the Jeffersonian, but we've decided that you should no longer see Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan as therapist or research observer. A number of people have expressed concerns about the direction their partnership is taking—"
"Who?" Sweets interrupted at last, irritably. He wondered if somehow this wasn't more about Andrew's infatuation with Brennan than anything else. But he was too provoked to make any particular connections. He felt hot and sticky in his suit jacket and wondered if the air condition was broken. He glanced at the rainstorm outside. Watery dirt dripped down his window like wet mascara.
"Caroline, for one."
"Caroline," Sweets dismissed. "She is always making sardonic comments about everyone. Booth and Brennan are fine." He paused. That wasn't exactly true. "Admittedly, they've gone through some upheaval of late, but I've been very impressed with their maturity."
"Something perhaps you could learn from?" Andrew suggested in a low voice.
Sweets wondered if anyone else saw this side of Andrew. Lance had observed how jolly he was with Booth and Brennan. A lot of people at the FBI treated Lance like a kid, and it was really beginning to wear on him. Sure, he had begun working there at 22, but now he was 25—hardly the youngest person around. He often cursed his plump, pink lips and his high cheek bones that made him look boyish as ever.
Lance collapsed in his chair unsure of how to respond to Andrew's comment. He wanted to stick up for himself, but he was not so naïve as to miss the truth of what Andrew was criticizing. Lance had let himself get far too close to Brennan and Booth to be an objective therapist. Their partnership was most likely in trouble—it had been greatly strained by the Gravedigger case. And part of Lance feared he had forced the current state of crisis by encouraging Booth to gamble on his love for Brennan. Yet Lance knew that Booth wouldn't have acted unless he had wanted to; the psychologist didn't have special powers over him.
Booth had stopped by Sweets' office the day after the agent had been turned down by Brennan.
"Booth!" Sweets had greeted his friend, and then his face fell. It was obvious that Booth was in distress. He appeared to have slept little. This could only mean one thing.
"I did it, Sweets; I gambled and lost."
Sweets looked sharply out the window. "Well, I'm sure you knew that was a real possibility. Will you two recover?"
"Recover?" Booth asked with a touch of annoyance. "Sure, we're still friends. We'll always be partners."
"Always?" Lance asked wistfully. Part of him was afraid this was the beginning of the end.
Booth plopped down on Sweets' couch and looked at his large hands. "I'm ready to move on, Sweets. I need…more in life."
"Yeah, well good," Lance said with more bitterness than he would have liked to betray. He found he was almost angry at Brennan, though he understood why she had shied away. She was still too afraid to open herself to the possibility of failing at a relationship with Booth and losing the most important person in her life for good. "You deserve happiness, Booth. You're a good man."
Sweets tried to swallow his emotions. He kept thinking about the ring he had put on Daisy's finger a few days ago, and how he'd felt his heart would burst with joy when she said yes to his marriage proposal. But he felt no joy now, regarding his miserable friend. He wanted to shake Dr. Brennan and say that it was better to try for happiness than to spend your life running from the specter of defeat.
Booth's expression changed. He was a tough man, and he was going to move forward, Lance observed with awe. Booth did not dwell or mope. Sweets thought, I should be so stoic. But he was shaking a little with upset as if he himself had suffered a rejection.
"Well, Sweets, that's life. Bones has her own way of dealing with things." He looked pointedly at Sweets. "I don't regret asking."
With this statement Lance felt a little relief. He swallowed a lump of guilt that had bubbled up at the thought that his book may have forced an earlier confrontation than Booth would have chosen. In fact, he couldn't extinguish all of the guilt. He was their therapist after all. Why couldn't he help them to work it out? But they were not marionettes on a stage. They were two intelligent, intense, complicated people, and they had their own minds.
Following this conversation, the partners had resumed dating others (begun in Booth's case—Lance couldn't remember Booth dating anyone for the entire time he had known him). But Lance had also noted a growing sadness—a kind of void in between the two old friends and coworkers. He sensed something bad on the horizon.
"Dr. Sweets?" Andrew said speaking into the abyss of Sweets' reverie.
"Hm?"
"We're reassigning the elite crime fighting duo to a new therapist, who will evaluate their current situation. Karl Jode." Andrew's tone had lightened.
Sweets responded, "Do whatever you think is best. You're in charge." And he hung up without saying goodbye. Karl Jode—not that douche bag. Looking up he saw that none other than the 'elite crime fighting duo' had entered his office.
Lance flushed. "Uh, how long have you two been standing there?" he asked them nervously. Part of him feared they had read his mind.
"Long enough to hear you refer to someone as a douche under your breath," Booth said smiling and kicked a crumpled piece of paper near the trashcan like a soccer ball.
"Why would you call someone a female genital cleansing product?" Bones asked lifting an eyebrow and placing herself primly on the couch. She smoothed out her red and orange flecked skirt, and her green eyes contrasted fiercely with her creamy skin. Sweets felt a sting of regret for Booth, considering the conversation he had just been recalling.
"Bones!" Booth complained. "Too early in the morning for comments on, you know, female parts."
"I said that out loud?" Sweets said, mouth agape and grabbing his chin. "No wonder Andrew thinks I'm immature," he said under his breath.
But Booth heard him. "Ah, now we're getting the idea. Andrew again," Booth said knowingly.
"My Andrew?" Bones asked confused.
Booth flinched at the possessive. "Yeah, Sweets. Tell Bones how her sugary sweet boyfriend is not so amicable when it comes to dealing with the rogue wunderkind psychologist."
Sweets rolled his eyes at Booth. He had told Booth about his problems with Andrew in confidence. "Agent Booth, please do not bring this up in front of Dr. Brennan."
"What?" Bones asked. "Andrew isn't nice to you? I find that hard to believe!"
"He's fine. Can we move on?" Sweets begged. He felt a surge of loathing at the thought of Karl counseling these two. Damn Karl. Who spelled Karl with a K, anyway? It was pretentious. Lance's heart raced.
"Andrew gave Sweets a terrible review last week. Told Sweets that he has been unprofessional with his patients," Booth said enunciating every word. Clearly he was enjoying the opportunity to unravel Bones' growing affection for her beaux, but he was rather hurting Lance in the process.
"That seems harsh," Bones said, concerned. "Although, you do become overly emotionally involved at times. Did he mean you were being unprofessional with us?" she indicated herself and Booth with a nod.
"It's really none of your business what was said to me in a personal job review," Sweets snapped, and then seeing Bones' wounded look felt instantly terrible. "Andrew is just…not my biggest fan." He paused. "Look, you two have got to get it together. You're being assigned to a new therapist."
"WHAT!" Booth and Bones said together in shock and apparent horror.
Booth added with venom, "Is Andrew trying to break us up? He's after Bones isn't he?"
Sweets tried to calm them with a gesture of his hands. "Apparently, there has been some mention by certain people that you two are not functioning as well as you used to. And that I've gotten too close to you to see it. They think I'm not helping but rather hindering your partnership."
"Who, Sweets? Who is saying this?" Booth asked angrily. He shifted from foot to foot.
"It doesn't matter. You'll have to see Karl Jode," Sweets emphasized the name with obvious disdain. "You'll have to work hard to keep your partnership in tact—so none of the stuff you pull with me, ok? I'm sorry I can't help." Lance felt defeated. Losing his favorite patients was killing him. "I think you guys know that it's really important to the team at the Jeffersonian that you two make this work. You're the glue. The center." Booth and Bones sat in temporary silence. Neither of them would look at each other.
Sweets looked at Brennan for a moment. "Sorry I was short with you, Dr. Brennan." He realized his flash of ire wasn't about her curiosity but rather about her rejection of Booth. "It's not all Andrew's fault that he doesn't trust me. He had some reservations about the FBI hiring me given my…my past."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Booth asked.
"Oh, just that I've not always been the stand up young man that I am today. We all have our dark patches, I guess." Lance shrugged. He looked so distant that neither of the Bs felt compelled to ask any more questions. Booth and Bones exchanged glances before saying their goodbyes.