Author's Note: Next chapter. Don't worry, this one won't end on such a cliffhanger. :)
I do not own Bones or any of its characters.
Thank you to everyone who is reading/following/reviewing this. It is always appreciated.
Peanutmeg: Thank you. Something about the idea of killing someone with one of those singing fish just clicked for me. It wouldn't be the weirdest weapon I've seen on Bones. :D As for Daisy...well nothing will come easily in this fic and that includes anything to do with her. And as for Sweets, all will be answered (sort of) in this chapter.
Lives in the now: Thanks. Much like with TIitR, I am trying to go for a more "canon-feel" for the cases, thus why the lab scenes. I hope to weave this case throughout the entirety of this fic. Time will tell as far as Daisy goes.
Maddog1997: Thank you. I am glad that you enjoyed the rest of my work and I hope you will enjoy this update as well...
Super Ario: Well hopefully this was fast enough for you. ;) But I think you will find that there will be plenty more times when you will be left with more questions than answers before this fic is through.
Rankor01: Yeah, I always thought that those singing fish were kind of creepy myself. I've seen more than one horror film that featured a dead, mounted fish coming back to life and thrashing about, so I fail to see the amusement of one that sings. ;) As for your guesses...well you tend to nail things a little too often... :)
D: I'd have to say post-season four (and definitely post season five) that I agree with you. What started out as a quirky character has become a little too manipulative for my tastes as well. I suppose I could always hope that HH and Co. will eventually change that...Sadly, I think you will find this chapter will "disappoint" on two of your predictions, sorry to say...
Lovesreidforever: Don't worry. In the words of Avalon, "everything works out in the end" in my fics. It's just the getting there that's hard...
The Recovery in the Nocturne—Chapter 4
Everyone at the lab rushed to Booth's SUV and let the agent use his siren so that they could get to the hospital as fast as they could. Once they arrived there, they immediately went toward the waiting area of the emergency room to find Daisy sitting by herself. The intern was dabbing her eyes with a tissue when she saw the others coming toward her.
"What happened?" Booth demanded. "How is he?"
"What have the doctors said?" Hodgins asked.
"I…I don't know," Daisy sniffed. "I don't know what happened or what is going on now. I…." Daisy started to cry again and Brennan sat down next to her, placing a hand onto the intern's shoulder. Booth sat on the other side of Brennan while the rest of them huddled in front of them.
"Tell me what happened exactly," Brennan said. Daisy blew her nose and took a deep breath before responding.
"Well…Lance and I met at your office," she said. "We stayed there for a while. We didn't talk much then. He seemed to just want me to hold him. Eventually we decided to go get some lunch together. He was so quiet, and I noticed that he didn't eat very much. Are you sure that he's getting enough nutrition right now? Because it looks like he is about twelve kilograms thinner than when I last saw him."
"Daisy," Booth interrupted. "You really need to get to the point here."
"Oh, sure," she sniffed again. "Anyway, after we were done with lunch, we went back to Lance's apartment so that we could spend some time together alone. So that we could talk and…well, you know…it's been six months after all."
"I think we get the picture, Miss Wick," Cam nodded.
"We were in his room and at first things were going well," Daisy said with a lopsided smile. "But then he started to act strangely when I helped him with his clothes. He became very shaky and nervous. I told him not to worry about it and that it was ok. I told him to just relax and let me…um, take charge…since he is still recovering and all."
Almost everyone there was embarrassed at the direction this narrative was heading by this point and many of them had taken to looking away from Daisy and developing red faces. But their worry over Sweets' condition won out over any discomfort they had and thus, they did not stop her from continuing.
"I…I started to touch him and his eyes dilated and he started to hyperventilate," Daisy said, the tears returning. "I kept asking him what was wrong, but then he started crying and begging me to stop…even though I wasn't doing anything by that point. Then he started choking and I called 911. I tried to get him to calm down, but it was as if he couldn't hear or see me anymore. By the time the paramedics arrived, his lips had turned purple and his cheeks had traces of blue to them, indicating that he wasn't getting enough oxygen. I…I was so scared."
Daisy began to cry harder, and Brennan placed one of her hands over Daisy's.
"Doctor Brennan, what is wrong with him?" she wept. "What is wrong with my Lancelot?" Brennan opened her mouth to speak, but then looked over to Booth for assistance. Just then a doctor, who was holding some charts and paperwork, stepped into the room.
"Family of Lance Sweets?" he said. The group immediately turned and walked over to him.
"How is he?" Booth asked.
"Mr. Sweets is doing well now," the doctor answered. "When he was brought in, his breathing was severely impaired due to his trachea constricting to the point of almost closing. Plus, he seemed to be extremely agitated emotionally."
"Listen Doctor," Booth said. "Doctor Sweets…he recently went through a traumatic experience. I can give you the name and number of the physician who is currently treating him, Doctor Leslie Werner."
"I gathered that something catastrophic had happened to him recently when I saw evidence of numerous injuries that had or were healing when I examined him," the doctor nodded. "Also, Doctor Werner was listed in his emergency contacts along with a Special Agent Seeley Booth and Doctor Temperance Brennan. I have already spoken to Doctor Werner, and she has informed me of the situation."
"Will he be all right?" Brennan asked.
"Yes," the doctor replied. "We gave him a mild sedative and put him on oxygen for a time, and he seems to have calmed down considerably and is breathing normally now. Our main concern at this point is that he isn't speaking. There seems to be no physical cause for it, but we were only able to gauge his responsiveness by asking him some 'yes' and 'no' questions to which he will either nod or shake his head. Other than that, he is unwilling to communicate. He also seems to be rather "detached" right now emotionally."
"Can we see him?" Booth asked.
"You are Agent Booth, correct?" the doctor said. "And one of you is Doctor Brennan?"
"I am Doctor Brennan," the anthropologist said. "He is Booth."
"Doctor Werner recommended that I release Doctor Sweets into your care as soon as he was able to leave," the physician replied. "And I believe that he can leave at any time now. I just ask that you help him to remain calm and keep his activity level low for the next couple of days. Also, I would recommend that he follow up with Doctor Werner here soon, just in case there is something else in play here."
"Thank you, Doctor," Cam said.
The doctor nodded and proceeded to give them some paperwork that needed to be filled out before the psychologist could be released along with directions to the room he was currently in. Cam took the papers and a pen which were attached to a clipboard, and almost everyone started to walk down the hallway. Everyone except Daisy. The others quickly noticed this and turned toward her.
"Miss Wick? Aren't you coming?" Brennan asked while Angela and Hodgins glowered at her.
"I…I don't know," Daisy whimpered. "Lance was so freaked out before…Maybe I should just wait to talk to him when he's feeling better."
"Daisy, Sweets needs you now," Angela said. "Can't you see that? He needs to know that you're going to support him through this."
"But I don't even know what 'this' is," Daisy whined. "Lance won't tell me. None of you will tell me. I was just trying to spend some time with him, and he ends up in the hospital. How am I supposed to know how to help him, if I don't even know what is going on or what I did wrong?"
Booth walked over toward the intern, his features stern with worry and irritation.
"Daisy, this is not about you," he said. "It's about Sweets and what he needs. I know that Bones told you about what happened, and quite frankly, it's up to Sweets to decide how much more he is going to tell you about it. It's not our place to make that decision for him. But for right now, you need to go in there and let him know that you're going to stand by him no matter what."
"Ok," Daisy warbled. Booth nodded and they all resumed walking with the intern finally trailing behind them.
Within a few moments, they reached the room where Sweets was resting and Cam walked over and pulled back the privacy curtain that separated the psychologist's bed from others in the room. There they found Sweets lying on his back, his face turned away from them. He was wearing a hospital gown and a plastic ID bracelet and had almost covered himself completely with the blankets on the bed. His face was ashen and eerily expressionless. He looked over at them when he first heard them approaching, but swiftly went back to staring at a wall.
"Sweets, are you feeling better now?" Brennan asked. The therapist nodded in response while still not looking at her.
"You gave us quite a scare, Sweets," Cam smiled at him while reaching for his hand. The pathologist squeezed his fingers, but they remained slack in her grip.
"Hey Sweets, we're just glad that you're ok," Angela said as she moved closer to him. Hodgins moved to stand beside her and reached down to pat his shoulder.
"The good news is that you don't have to stay here," the entomologist said. "The doctor cleared you to leave as soon as you want. You can go back to Doctor B's or you can spend a couple of days with Ange and me."
"Whatever you want," Angela added. The psychologist nodded again, his eyes distant. Booth then nudged Daisy slightly and the rest of them moved out of the way so that she could approach the bed.
"Lance," she nearly whispered as she crouched down closer to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Please look at me, baby."
Sweets' eyes finally moved to meet hers with a watery, vacant stare.
"I still love my Lancelot," she sniffed. She then leaned over and gave him a light kiss to the lips and ran her fingers through his hair.
"I'll stay with you tonight if you would like," she said. "Would you like to stay with me, Lancelot?"
Sweets looked back down at the bed sheet and shook his head ever so slightly. Daisy immediately stood back up and rushed out of the room with tears brimming in her eyes again. Startled by the scene, both Cam and Angela rushed off after her.
Booth grimaced as he watched them go, but was careful to regain a relaxed expression once he moved to sit next to the bed and looked back over at the therapist.
"Ok Sweets, the doctor said that you can leave, so why don't we take care of that now," the agent said. "Where are your clothes?" The psychologist shook his head in response.
"Perhaps he wasn't wearing any when he was brought in," Brennan said. Sweets nodded his head, and Booth heaved a sigh.
'Great. They must have been right in the middle of…it…when Daisy had to call for an ambulance. And of course, she wouldn't have been able to get him dressed before the EMTs came,' he mused. 'As if what happened wasn't humiliating enough for him already.'
Booth dug around in his pocket and pulled out his keys after standing up from the chair.
"All right, I'll run by your place and get you some things to wear," he told the therapist. "You just stay here and relax while Bones gets you checked out."
The agent started to leave when Sweets' arm shot out and grabbed his arm. Booth looked down to see Sweets' hand grip his forearm, the fingers shaking a little. He then sighed and looked over at Hodgins.
"Hey Hodgins," he said, tossing him the keys with his free hand. "You think you could run by Sweets' place and pick up some things for him to wear? Take Angela with you if you need to. In fact, while you're at it, get some extra clothes for us to take back to Bones' place. He'll probably need them."
"Ok," Hodgins nodded. "We'll meet you back here." He then reached down and patted Sweets' shoulder again.
"I'll see you in a little while, Sweets," the entomologist said. "And hey, we meant it about you spending some time with us this weekend. Angela has some art that she's been working on that she'd like to show you, and she was thinking of making another batch of her fabulous paella. At least think about it anyway."
Sweets nodded in response, and Hodgins backed out of the room and took off down the hallway. After he was gone, Booth sat back down in his chair while Brennan picked up the paperwork that Cam had left behind and pulled up a chair to sit beside Booth.
"All right, Sweets, Bones and I are going to stay right here with you until Hodgins gets back," Booth said. He then moved the therapist hand away from his arm and placed on the bed, making sure to cover it with one of his own.
"Then we'll get you back to her place and the three of us can have dinner," he continued. "Hey, Bones can make her terrific mac and cheese with some salad, and I'll buy us some of that rotisserie chicken from that place down the road. How does that sound?"
Sweets nodded again while looking over at them at last, his eyes shiny with unshed tears.
"If you would like, we could even watch another movie tonight," Brennan said. "I recently purchased one of my favorite films: The Mummy."
"I thought you said that you didn't know who Brendan Fraser was," Booth said, furrowing his brow at her.
"I don't," she replied. "This movie features Boris Karloff in a moving performance as the mummy from the title, although I still prefer Chaney's mummy."
"Karloff? That's the old black and white movie," Booth said.
"Give it a chance, Booth," Brennan said. "After all, it is the film that got me interested in anthropology."
"The Mummy? Really Bones?" Booth sighed. "Why is it that whenever I let you pick the movie, you always choose something from before 1970? Didn't your dad ever take you to a movie theater when you were a kid?"
"My father has an excellent taste in film," Brennan said. "It just so happens that many of these great films were made back in the earlier days of cinema."
Booth started to protest again when he happened to look back down at Sweets. The psychologist was watching the two of them, but more importantly, he no longer appeared to be on the verge of bursting into tears at any moment.
"You know what? Fine, we'll go with that," Booth said. "Why not? I mean how can I miss out on the chance to watch the movie that made you into a squint?"
Out of the corner of his eyes, Booth could see the faintest trace of a smile on the psychologist's lips. Both he and Brennan smiled back at him while pushing their chairs closer to the bed.
"That's what we'll do then," the agent grinned. "We'll whip up some dinner real quick and then we'll watch this movie together. We'll make a whole evening of it."
"What Booth is saying is that we will stay with you tonight," Brennan said. "We won't leave you alone."
Sweets nodded again and slowly turned onto his side so that he could be closer to the two of them. The three of them then sat together silently while they waited for Hodgins to return.
About four hours later, the three of them were back at Brennan's apartment, with Booth and Brennan sitting together at the table, sharing some wine and Sweets asleep on the couch.
After Hodgins returned and Brennan finished up with the paperwork to obtain Sweets' release from the hospital, everyone piled into Booth's SUV to drop Brennan and Sweets back at her apartment. There Sweets laid down on the couch while Brennan made some phone calls and read some emails from the lab on her laptop. Meanwhile Booth returned everyone else back to the lab, and on the way, Cam mentioned that she had seen Daisy get into a cab at the hospital before she and Angela could stop her. After dropping them off, Booth ran by his place to get a few things so that he could spend the night at the anthropologist's apartment and picked up the food for their meal.
Once he got back to Brennan's apartment, the three of them enjoyed an intimate meal with Booth and Brennan handling all of the conversation while Sweets listened. They then moved to sit in the front room so they could watch the movie.
"All right," Brennan had said as she slipped the DVD into the player under her TV. "Let's get this film onto a well traveled thoroughfare."
"You mean, get this show on the road?" Booth teased as he sat down on the couch.
"That's what I said," Brennan frowned as she sat down beside him with Sweets sitting on the other side of Booth. "Oh, the movie is starting."
They then watched the movie quietly and by the end of it, Sweets' eyelids were drooping. Booth and Brennan got off of the couch and helped Sweets to lie back down, making sure to cover him with the same blanket that they had left on the back of the couch from that morning. It was then that they went to the table to open a bottle of wine.
"Booth, do you think that Miss Wick is lying about what happened to Sweets?" Brennan asked between sips.
"No," Booth replied. "She's an even worse liar than Sweets. I'm thinking that everything happened pretty much like she said it did."
"If that is the case, then why did Sweets react that way?" Brennan wondered. "Even factoring in his recent traumas, Sweets' response to Daisy's sexual advances seem pretty extreme. And now he isn't speaking to anyone."
"I don't know, Bones," the agent said. "But I'm betting that it has something to do with what happened to him while Jensen had him. There is probably a lot that was done to Sweets that we don't know about yet."
"But we do know," she protested. "We saw Sweets' medical reports that Doctor Werner wrote. They cataloged all of the injuries that Sweets sustained."
"Medical reports don't tell the whole story," Booth said. "There was probably a whole lot more going on there than just the physical violence that he suffered. And sometimes…sometimes some of the worst forms of torture do not leave a single mark on a person…At least not ones that can be easily seen."
"I will concede that there is some truth to your statement," Brennan said. "But now that Sweets is refusing to talk to any of us, how can we help him? How will we know what do to for him?"
"Give him time, Bones," Booth responded. "Stuff like this…it's not easy to talk about, ok? Sweets will talk when he's ready. I'm sure of that. I don't think that this whole 'silent treatment' thing is going to last that long. He's probably just in shock right now, and once he is over it, he'll start speaking again. Besides, I'm taking him to go see Gordon Gordon tomorrow for his weekly meeting. I'm sure that he'll figure out how to help Sweets. But just so you'll know now, I'll need you to pick up Sweets when he is done."
"Why?"
"Because I'm thinking about tracking down some of the former employees from that storage company," the agent answered. "Something about that whole thing still doesn't feel right to me."
"Ok," Brennan said. "I hope that Chef Wyatt can help him."
"Me too, Bones," Booth murmured. He started to say something else, but was interrupted by a sound from the couch. They both got up and went back to the front room to find Sweets still asleep, but also starting to thrash about under his blanket.
"Please…please don't," he slurred out, sweat starting to roll down his brow. "No…No…." Booth took him by the shoulders and shook him gently.
"Wake up, Sweets," he insisted. "You're just having a nightmare."
"What you are experiencing is not real," Brennan added. "Please wake up now."
Booth gave him a slightly harder shake, and Sweets bolted upright and screamed. His eyes finally opened, and he began to struggle frantically to get out of Booth's grip.
"Hey, hey Sweets, it's ok. It's ok," Booth assured him hurriedly. "It's just us. Me and Bones. You're safe."
Comprehension soon made its way into Sweets eyes and he stopped struggling, choosing instead to slump down and hang his head. Booth let him go, and he and Brennan watched as the therapist's shoulders started to shake while he made a strangled sobbing sound. The two of them sat down on either side of Sweets on the couch. Brennan tried to put her arm around Sweets' shoulders, but the psychologist shuddered and jerked away.
"Hey Sweets, don't be like that," Booth said. "We're here for you, all right?"
"If you don't want to talk to us about what happened or about anything else for the moment, that is acceptable," Brennan said. "But we would still like to help you. What happened today has not changed that."
The psychologist gripped the cushions of the couch while he silently wept. At first he shook his head, but then he finally relented and leaned toward Brennan so that she could embrace him. Booth patted his back while she held him.
"We're sorry that things didn't go better today," Booth said over Sweets' barely audible weeping. "And I know it might not seem like it right now, but it's going to get better. I promise. And all of us…we're going to do whatever it takes to help get you there, all right?"
Booth then fell quiet while Brennan continued to hold him. The two of them exchanged numerous concerned looks as time stretched on and Sweets continued to cry.
Both of them hoping that Booth's words would not turn out to be nothing more than empty assurances.
