The Tierney in the Image

Unlike all the other stories. I don't own Bones. Oh wait, that is just like all the others… (let's hope the humor improves from here)

This would be after Daisy & Jessica Warren but not dealing with the conspiracy/Booth plotline.

1.

"What?" Sweets asked confused, his head hurt as a trickle of blood dripped from his temple. The wet earth on his hands gave a sense of reality to the situation – this was not a dream. It was dark and late at night and they were at the farm.

He looked up, still disoriented, oh good, Booth is here. The thought was in direct juxtaposition to what happened again when Booth hit Sweets across the back between his shoulders with a shovel sending the psychologist into a completely dazed state. He was pretty sure that his head was about to come off and his stomach turned as he fell to the ground. A swift kick to the chest turned Sweets over to his back to look up at the man who did it, again, Booth.

"Why?" Sweets asked gasping for air.

Booth reached down and pulled Sweets up by the lapels of his jacket. "It had to be..." Booth began to say and stopped. Booth looked over his shoulder but Sweets had no idea what he was looking to.

"Booth, please…I don't understand…"

"Shut up Sweets. You've never…" Booth stopped short not completing his sentence. Instead he pulled the injured agent/doctor to the old barn located on the property.

"No, don't, please Booth don't!" Sweets pleaded with blurry vision as from the ground looking up at his coworker, his friend with the shovel raised. Booth hit Sweets one last time with the shovel across the face and Sweets voice fell silent. Booth fired his gun and threw Sweets body in the wooden box once used to store feed. It was more than big enough for a person but Booth didn't want anyone finding it. He locked it shut and turned to leave.

I have to remember to come back Booth said to himself as he put his gun away and left the shovel with the blood on the end, Sweets blood, next to the box and left.

Three days before.

"The victim was found in an old feed box at an old farmstead in Virginia." Booth explained to Sweets as they walked into the diner. Booth held the door for Sweets who almost ran into it since he was so engrossed in the file he was reading.

"The victim was Laura Tierney aged 23 but she is of no relation to anyone at the farm is that correct?" Sweets asked absorbed in the file that Booth had to steer the young man towards their table by the window.

"Yeah, apparently it's a body dump." Booth said sitting down, watching to make sure the psychologist made it in his chair. He hadn't seen Sweets quite this captivated before but he knew why.

"She's beautiful, wasn't she?" Booth asked motioning to the photo.

"Did the ID come from a skull recreation?" Sweets asked looking instead at what was in no way a computer generated image.

"Yeah, the scan the image and a match, the body was just a skeleton. None of that flesh that Cam could work with. Angela found those images when she went to dig up some info on the woman." Booth said as Sweets stared at the photo, everyone had, it was mesmerizing.

"She looks like one of those actresses, Carole Lombard or Rita Hayworth." Sweets said but someone more specific came to mind a brunette came to mind, like the victim. His mother loved watching those old black and white movies and this black & white glamourous image epitomized that.

"Yeah sure." Booth said, all of the names Sweets had just named off meaning nothing to him. However she was beautiful with her strong cheek bones and eyes that pieced thru the film paper and stared you down, it almost gave you a shiver. Her looks were unique, they were bold and strong but yet hinted with a sweetness that left everyone engaged. It was obvious why she would take a career as a model.

"It's like Dorian Gray or something, the photos just, take you in." Sweets said. Booth welcomed the waitress instead of another reference he didn't understand. He wondered why he hung out with braniacs. How he longed for a silly conversation discussing the seriousness of Donald Duck not wearing pants or why it was fascinating to pull a beer label off a wet bottle.

"Yes, I'll have coffee." Booth said with much enthusiasm. "Sweets, you?" Booth asked as Sweets stared at the photo still. "Coffee? Cyanide? Cup of piss?"

"Yeah sounds good." Sweets said flipping back to the file.

"You heard him." Booth said to the waitress who smiled.

"Two cups of piss coming right up." She said leaving and Booth had to smile, finally, someone with a sense of humor.

"It's just, something doesn't feel right." Sweets said flipping thru the file which only had 4 pages so far but still he had looked at them multiple times.

"Hey now, I'm the one with the gut feelings." Booth reminded him. "Besides, what's not right?"

"Well this woman, Tierney, she was a model and wasn't even reported missing. She had an apartment in upstate New York but she ends up in Virginia? In a feed box in an old barn? I don't know something doesn't fit. Has anyone gone to her apartment?" Sweets asked.

"No, you interested in a road trip?"

"Maybe." Sweets said reaching for the coffee the waitress brought. "This just doesn't…."

"Well that's why their cases Sweets, they're mysteries until they're solved."

Booth dropped Sweets off at the Bureau before heading to the Jeffersonian. Sweets had a client to see and Booth got a call from Brennan for something she found.

Booth strolled on the platform. "Hey Bones."

"Booth, this is quite interesting."

Booth was amazed how everyone seemed so mystified by this mystery woman. He understood her beauty but they just all seemed drawn to her, even dead.

"Find cause of death yet?" Booth asked as Brennan held up a bone and pointed to it.

"Notice the striations here, this woman was battling a bone disease. It would be quite painful, it's amazing she was able to do the level of modeling she was doing. Surely these poses would have been difficult to maintain." Brennan said motioning to the images Angela had on the computer screen on the platform.

Booth walked over to look at the images which were much like the images seen in the ones they had with the file, all very 1940's glamour in black and white in a George Hurrell style.

"I have yet to determine the cause of death." Brennan added.

"Cam said there was no uh, flesh or whatever in the box?" Booth asked.

"That's correct." Hodgins said joining them. "The box was built into the barn so I couldn't bring it back here but I examined it extensively."

"It would seem that the victim was placed in the box after the flesh had deteriorated." Brennan explained.

"And how long would that take?" Booth asked.

"We are still examining the bones but we have yet to know a time of death." Brennan added. "I understand that no one reported her as missing?"

"No, her parents passed away a few years ago and left her with a trust. Sweets suggested we go to her apartment but I don't know, I've got so much to do." Booth said.

"Well send Sweets by himself. He's an agent now right, I assume so since he's arresting people and carrying a gun. Can't picture Freud with a gun." Hodgins said amused with his own thought for a moment. "Besides, maybe the kid can get laid by someone who doesn't work in this lab."

"And looks identical to the other one." Angela added, adding to the disapproving way things ended.

"Yeah, the kid needs to get out more." Booth agreed.

"I don't understand referring to Sweets as a kid when he's almost thirty." Brennan said.

"Yeah, well he'll always be our little baby." Angela teased. "It allows us to live vicariously thru him."

"You've longed for a life with Star Wars and video games?" Hodgins kidded Angela with a smile.

"Oh wouldn't you know like to know." She teased him added before leaving, "I'll see what else I can find out about Ms. Tierney."

"It'd be great if someone could." Booth said turning to leave.

Back at the office Booth decided to stop by Sweets office and was glad he did. The psychologist was captivated by what he was reading and encircled in papers which covered the entire office.

"Your patients must have been impressed by your tidiness." Booth teased looking around.

"Oh I cancelled them." Sweets said rubbing his eyes. Booth wondered how long he had been reading.

"What? Why?" Booth asked but he had a guess and it was probably named Laura Tierney. "Obsessed much?"

"No, it's just, strange." Sweets said looking at his own mess and began to pick it up. "I got back and a messenger dropped off the papers they found in her apartment. There were some financials, which isn't much. She lived mostly off a trust her parents left her while she launched her modeling career. She practically manages herself from what I can see but she does have an agent, Spencer Albertson. From what I've seen she mostly references emails with him. I told them to take her laptop over to Angela since it had some passwords or something to get in."

"Okay, anything else?" Booth asked half kidding because there were enough papers in the office to start a sizeable fire.

"Yeah, she has a boyfriend." Sweets said in a disturbed tone.

"Jealous?" Sweets asked.

Sweets laughed it off with a wave. "No, it's not like that, though it would be my luck to fall for a dead woman. But no, Sebastian Tingle is the boyfriend. He's a person worth looking into I think. There are a series of cards and notes he left for her, all handwritten in very uh, nice cursive writing. They are never terribly romantic towards her though he signs them as her boyfriend. When I read thru them I got the idea that is extremely materialistic and honestly, I think homosexual."

"Well then you must be wrong about the boyfriend part."

"Well that's the reason I presume him being a suspect. When I read thru these letters here." Sweets said holding them out. "He's either mad at her or pleading with her to take him back, I think he was trying to advance his career thru hers. When I looked him up he's a far less successful model than she."

"Now that's something I can work with, a suspect!" Booth said happily. "Anyone else?"

"Well I had just started it but she kept a diary, a journal I suppose would be modern term. She chronicles the struggle of losing her parents and being successful. She doesn't mention any friends and only the boyfriend but he's only coming into the entries when you walked in. His name first showed up about six months ago."

"Well I guess you keep at the whole reading thru a woman's diary thing." Booth said earning a 'really?' look from Sweets and then got up to leave. "If you don't have any patients tomorrow what do you think of heading to New York, check out this manager and boyfriend?"

"Sure." Sweets said and after Booth left he went to cancel his three patients tomorrow. He had to know more about this woman and sat back down to read.

"Hey Bones, ready to go?" Booth asked stopping at the Jeffersonian to pick her up. "Hello, Bones!" Booth said again before she looked up.

"Just a moment Booth, I'm looking at something." Brennan almost seemed annoyed by Booth. He wanted to give her time so he looked away to see Angela in her office tapping away at something and decided to stop in when he recalled Sweets saying they would drop off the victim's laptop to her.

"Hey Angela, find anything?" Booth asked only to see hundreds of individual images on the screen.

"Yeah, a lot." Angela said.

"I've got thru her emails and her manager/agent he's pretty much your mister ten percent. The victim seems to be pretty independent but only certain firms will work with the agents so she has to use him. Everything with him seems pretty mundane though, where to go and when she's getting paid. I haven't seen any emails go from either that suggests any riff between them. The boyfriend he's a weirdo."

Booth recalled what Sweets had said about him and was curious what Angela's take was.

"He emails her at least ten times a day. He references the fact she's not on any social media sites and I checked, she's not, which for her age and profession is pretty strange." Angela said.

"She doesn't seem very typical at all." Cam said coming in the room. "Twenty three and few friends and not a social mediate."

"Yeah, she's very down to earth though." Angela said with the emails on the screen. "I've read thru hundreds of these and every time she comes across as really, nice."

"Truly a crime in New York." Cam teased.

"Yeah, she seems very likeable and very nice. Even when she emails customer service about the wrong item and they blow her off she's very kind in her response back. I don't know, she's just like, too good to be true." Angela said. "What time is it anyway? I've just been mesmerized by this."

"It's almost six." Booth said looking back at Brennan who continued to work on the bones. Why is that these people are so drawn in by this woman? He wondered, and why wasn't he?

"I've got to get going!" Angela said upon hearing the time. Cam agreed that she had to go as well.

"Well Bones is busy with the remains." Booths aid as they headed out of the room towards Brennan. "So Sweets and I are going to head to New York tomorrow and check these people out. Let me know if you find anything more that we can use."

The next morning Sweets and Booth were on a plane heading out since it was faster than the four hour car drive. Not planning to be gone long, neither had brought anything along. Booth noticed that Sweets looked a little tired.

"You find anything more in the diary?" Booth asked as the plane took off.

"Yeah." Sweets said suddenly remembering the reason for their flight and yawned. "Yeah, the boyfriend was definitely a headache for the victim. She really stressed over how to break up with him but he would not let go. She decided to try and treat him like a friend and see how that could go, that was her last entry two weeks ago. She didn't write everyday however, there were large gaps in the entries at times."

"Yeah Bones was hoping to find cause of death soon, it's looking like poison or something because there was nothing in the bones."

"You said she was suffering from a bone disease?" Sweets asked.

"Yeah, Bones said a pretty serious one. Why?"

"It's just strange because she discusses her struggles with the industry and the boyfriend in the journal but never once any sort of treatment."

"Maybe she didn't want to think about it and feel worse." Booth suggested.

"Yeah, but if it's as serious as that, she would have surely mentioned it, even in her own thoughts at least once in the hundred or so pages."

Booth had to agree, that did seem strange.

"There is one other person I think we should check out, Dion Le Savier. He's a designer that was pushing very hard for her to be his sole model. She was very resistant to work with him and tried politely to turn him down several times but she mentioned being tired of his persistence."

"When we land I'll have Angela check the emails from him. She mentioned the same as you had found in regards to the boyfriend."

"Ah, double checking my work." Sweets said.

"No, it's just nice to know you haven't lost your touch." Booth joked as he shut his eyes, his mind had been on the case last night, he didn't have a good feeling about it.

I was just thinking yesterday how I find it interesting when people do/don't like characters. I see many people post that they don't like Sweets character because he is annoying. I find Sweets character as written in fan fiction stories to be far more compelling than on the show itself. On the show his character is often a bit confusing from being a valued member of the team to one who stands back to agree with Booth when necessary. His character has enormous potential which I think is seen in the compelling stories on FF, which I hope to be a part of. In essence, I see Sweets more for what he can be, more than how is currently portrayed. The character of Sweets could be very interesting to explore, something the show itself does not do. I think Sweets often comes across as very one dimensional and either nosey or uncaring but his character could really grow, if given the chance. So let's find another layer in the pages ahead perhaps? Maybe, not entirely sure where this one is going yet. Like the others, I see it as "short" (115 pages later….)