Author's Note: Next chapter. I wasn't originally going to get another one up so fast, but this one just sort of tumbled out of me. :)
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 for the review. I do know what you mean about FF being special at times. I know that there has been more than one case where I had "issues" when trying to post new chapters. *grumble* Anyway, I hope you enjoy this update as well.
Charlotte Thornton: Yeah, it was kind of fun to finally have Delaney have to squirm. :) And it's not too much of a spoiler to say that that won't be the end of it for him either...
D: No, it didn't. I've often thought that Booth's and Sweets' contrasts might get in the way of them working together once in a while and am surprised that it's not happened in canon. As for who the murderer might be and that "oh-so-helpful TA"..hmmm...
The Incandescence in the Reflection—Chapter 13
An hour later, Booth was sitting in his office, studying the case files in front of him.
After Sweets had left, Booth had gone back in to talk to Delaney, and the professor finally broke down and asked for a lawyer. By that point, however, Booth had decided to take him into custody. The agent made the arrest and after completing the necessary paperwork, he went back to his office to collect his thoughts.
He still felt some annoyance at Sweets for how the psychologist had dismissed their one viable suspect out of hand, but the more he thought about it, the more he began to reconsider Delaney as the murderer.
'Sweets…he's usually not wrong about these things. Not when he's this sure.'
Booth then thought about Delaney himself and the way that the evidence had neatly presented itself. It was true that Booth did not believe in coincidences within a murder investigation, but he also did not believe in things being too neatly tied up either. Thus, once he had finished up his latest report for his supervisors, Booth pulled out all of the files relating to the case and pored over them, searching for something he might have missed.
'No matter what Sweets says or how sure he is, we need more to go on,' he mused. 'We need a lead…and some concrete evidence to back it up.'
Booth smiled ruefully. In that moment, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was starting to channel Brennan's way of seeing the world with her consistent need for evidence before action. Over the years that he had known her, he had seen slow, subtle changes in the way that the anthropologist approached an investigation along with life in general, but during that time, he hadn't thought much about how she could be influencing his own evolution.
The agent ended up looking over the files for almost two hours, but hadn't been able to find anything beyond the merest wisps of possible leads and it frustrated him. Deep down, he knew that what he needed was a fresh perspective, and he wished that he could look over all of this with Sweets.
"Then I suppose you just can't trust me…."
Booth frowned and pushed the files on his desk away from him, disgusted. A part of him regretted saying what he did to Sweets, but an equally large part of him felt irritated if not a bit insulted at the fact that Sweets did not trust him enough to share his thoughts about Delaney or to talk about the Algente case.
"…I suppose you just can't trust me…."
The frown on Booth's face deepened. He couldn't deny that there had been issues in the past when it came to trusting Sweets. The psychologist had a very different approach to therapy from Wyatt, and Sweets himself was markedly different from the types of people whom Booth considered close friends in the past. As a result, it wasn't always easy for him to know how to handle Sweets or to get a good enough read on him to know whether or not he could be trusted.
The agent then sighed. He knew that if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that Sweets had proven that he could be trusted more than once over the years that they had known each other. Thus, Booth hated the current situation they were in with Sweets feeling like he wasn't trusted and him wondering why the therapist didn't trust him.
Booth stood up, put his suit jacket back on, and left his office. He still had a job to do, so for now, brooding was only counterproductive.
"Hey big man," Cam smiled as she saw Booth enter her office. "Doctor Brennan is busy going over some things with Arastoo, so it will be a while before she is available."
"Fine," Booth nodded, distracted. "How about you? You got anything for me?" The pathologist took in Booth's demeanor for a moment before answering.
"Nothing good for you, I'm afraid," she said. "I checked on those sedatives that the FBI sent over here. They are a match, but…."
"But?" Booth echoed.
"Well every manufacturer of a drug has the same basic ingredients, but sometimes the composition or formulation is slightly different," Cam continued. "The sedatives I found in the victims' systems were from the name brand while the pills from Delaney's house were the generic versions."
"So not a match," Booth said.
"Yes, but, it's not uncommon for doctors to switch patients from a name brand drug to its generic as a way to save the patient money," Cam said. "So I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the sedatives used came from Delaney just yet."
"But I can rule out the ties you sent me as the murder weapon," Hodgins said as he walked in. "Angela scanned the ties and ran them through her color and pattern matching program to compare them with the colors and patterns she extrapolated from the fibers found around the victims' throats. None of them were a match."
"So other than it being an Italian tie, we're back to square one on the murder weapon," Booth said, his shoulders slumping slightly.
"Not exactly," Hodgins smiled. "I did some more research." The entomologist then walked over to Cam's computer, his fingers swiftly dancing along the keyboard until an advertisement for ties appeared on the monitor.
"A tie matching all of the parameters in Angela's analysis is sold as part of a set of three from the manufacturer," Hodgins said. "Two of the three ties are in the batch that the Bureau sent, and the only way to get that third tie is to buy the entire set. It is not sold separately."
"So more than likely, our murder weapon is that missing third tie," Booth replied.
"Yes," Hodgins nodded as he pointed at the screen. "This tie here, to be exact, is what you are looking for. Oh and in case any of you didn't notice, King of the Lab."
The entomologist grinned again before walking out of the room, still celebrating his personal victory.
"Everything we have points to Delaney," Booth mumbled as he leaned against a wall. "But at the same time, what we have either casts doubt on him or just doesn't add up with everything else we've got. It's like it's not him…but he's still at the center of all this."
Booth rubbed his eyes, and Cam became concerned when she sensed the tension in that gesture. She swiveled her office chair to better face him.
"Sorry that we can't be more help, but we will keep looking," she said. "In the meantime, why don't you try talking to Sweets?"
"Sweets?" Booth said, moving his hand away from his eyes.
"Well, Doctor Brennan is going to be busy for a while, and I know that sometimes Sweets has helped you get some new ideas when you've hit a wall in a case," Cam said. "He is still working with you on the case, isn't he?"
"At this point, I don't know what's going on with him," Booth replied.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Is he ok?"
"I don't know, and that's the problem," Booth huffed. "He won't tell me anything about what happened to him while I was on vacation, and now this case….he's sure that Delaney isn't the murderer."
"Do you think he's right?" Cam inquired.
"I'm not one hundred percent sure, but a part of me thinks so, yeah," he said. "You know about how good he is at spotting lies and reading people and all that. But it's like he won't work with me and tell me this stuff when I need to know it. And now…we sort of had a disagreement and I don't know if he's going to be willing to finish up this case with me."
Booth turned to watch the activity in the rest of the lab, and Cam stood up to stand beside him. The two of them stayed that way silently for a moment before the pathologist spoke.
"I'll admit that I am not an expert on reading Sweets," she said. "In fact, I'd venture that none of us are. But from what I've seen from him over the years, he's a lot like you in certain ways, and I know you." Booth turned his face to look at her, and Cam met his gaze.
"These are never just cases for you," she said. "It's about protecting people, setting things right, and getting justice for the victims and their families. And I am pretty sure that those are some of the same things that drive Sweets. Which is why I think that if you just ask him to help you finish this case, he'll do it."
"That's it? Just ask him?" Booth replied. "You seem pretty confident of that."
"That's because he's also your friend, Seeley, not just your co-worker," she said. "All that other stuff going on...that will have to be between you two. Believe me that we all want to help him as much as he will let us, but he's not always willing to let us in. In this case, you'll probably have to make the first move."
"Geez, why do you squints have to make everything so complicated?" Booth grumbled.
"That's part of dealing with complicated people," Cam smirked at him. "Not all of us can be as straightforward as you and have everything figured out." The pathologist then got a more somber look on her face.
"Talk to him," she said. "I know that Sweets is not the type of person who would toss his friends aside over a petty argument. He may be slow to make friends, real friends…but I'm betting that he's also the kind who won't let them go very easily either…and I, for one, am grateful that that's the case."
"Thanks Camille," Booth grinned at her as he started to walk away. "And hey, if you see Bones, tell her I'll be by to pick her up in a little while."
Cam thought about reminding him to not call her Camille, but decided instead to silently wish him luck.
Both with the case and with Sweets.
"What do you want, Lance?" Daisy demanded, her arms crossed over her chest. "I'm super busy with research for my dissertation right now."
Sweets cringed inwardly at her tone. After walking away from Booth earlier that day, he had spent hours burying himself in other work in his office and had not come home until late evening. The minute he had arrived, he had texted her, begging her to come over. A part of him was still stunned that she agreed to do it. But right now, he was afraid of what would happen next as he took in her angry posture as she stood in the middle of his front room.
"Daisy I…" Sweets mumbled. "I know that I've been cancelling a lot and spending a lot of hours at the office here lately, and I…I'm sorry."
The intern's arms dropped to her sides, but the irritated look remained, causing Sweets to swallow hard.
"I know that you're busy," she said. "We both are. But Lancelot, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't see or even talk to each other. You never tell me anything about what is going on at work or with you. When we do get together, you just sit there and let me do all of the talking."
"I know," Sweets said quietly as he sank down onto the couch. Daisy hesitated, but eventually went over to sit down beside him.
"I haven't talked about work much because…I wouldn't know where to begin," he continued. "There's been so much of it lately. It's all starting to blend together inside my brain like some kind of murky soup. I can keep it all straight and neatly separated while I'm at work, but the minute I come home and take off the suit…it all becomes a jumbled mess that just churns around inside my head."
Daisy reached over and took one of his hands into hers.
"Maybe you're just tired," she said. "You have been working a lot of hours and fatigue can disrupt a person's ability to concentrate and keep one's thoughts focused."
"I am tired," Sweets nodded. "But it's more than that. It's more than a lack of sleep or insufficient time to unwind." The psychologist paused and looked away from her and into his lap. Daisy's features softened even more and she reached for his other hand, clasping both of them into hers.
"I'm worried that soon, I won't be able to do this anymore," he continued. "Sometimes, I'm in the middle of things at work, and it's as if the work is taking over. It's like, all I am is this shell who allows himself to become the people who I'm profiling, and I lose a little part of…whoever I am these days. All of these dark twisted minds that I get inside…I start to understand them. I know how they think…and even worse, I know why they think in the ways that they do."
"But you're not like them," Daisy insisted. "You're my Lancelot. You're the sweetest person I've ever known. You really do live up to your name, Sweets."
"Do I really?" Sweets snapped, his face contorting in anger. "Or is that just who you want me to be? What others want to see in me?"
Upon seeing the hurt in Daisy's eyes, he realized how harsh his tone had been. He then pulled his hands and way and let his head droop as he buried his face into his palms.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "For all of it. I…." Sweets shook his head and ran his hands down his face, letting them fall into his lap. Daisy leaned over and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I know that you are still a kind, decent man," she said. "And you know that, just like Doctor Brennan, I do not make assertions without evidence. I know it because you still have your practice where you help agents with therapy. I know it because you worry about your friends all the time and are always wanting to make sure that they are happy. I know it because of that time when we were walking to the Diner and you stopped to make sure that woman you saw crying in front of the furniture store was all right. You're still my Lancelot. You just need to rest and take a break from criminal investigations."
Sweets looked over at her, his eyes weary, but Daisy persisted in her smile.
"Sometimes, when I'm working with Doctor Brennan, we get the chance to look at some older remains," she continued. "I mean at least five hundred years old. And she gets excited, which is really no surprise. I mean how could you not get excited by remains like that? But even though she gets excited by things like that, I don't think she's tired of working with Agent Booth on murder cases. I think she's just happy to spend some time going back to the reason she says made her become an anthropologist."
Daisy squeezed him and laid her head onto his shoulder.
"And maybe that's all you need to do too," she said. "Do more of what got you into psychology in the first place."
Sweets put his arms around her and held her tightly. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that that was all that was going on, but that did not stop the doubts from raging inside him. No matter how much he wanted to believe her or how much he thought that she could be right, Sweets found himself unable to fully commit to that idea.
"Hey, I'm not really that hungry," she said. "Why don't we just whip up a couple of sandwiches and then go to bed." Sweets gulped.
"Daisy…I love you…but I don't know if…if I can…."
"It's all right," she said tightening her hold on him. "I know that you're tired. All I want to do tonight is hold my brave Lancelot for a while."