17.

Cam has left for the day to see Sweets. Booth is late to watch the soccer game with Sweets and has stopped to make some phone calls about the case. Meanwhile, Sweets painstaking, heavy on the pain-particularly at the site of the gun shout wound, makes his way to the phone having solved the case. Yaz de Gaul was planning to cripple the American financial system and become a hero into his terrorist country. After Sweets shares this with Angela, Hodgins and Brennan the line goes quiet.

Cam casually walked into the hospital where Sweets was admitted. It was quiet as the dinners were being served. She sighed as the Jeffersonian was calling her. Can't you guys handle things for just a few freakin' minute?! But she smiled when she answered.

"This is…"

"Cam!" Cam Brennan interrupting. "Are you with Sweets, Hodgins said you were going there?" Cam could tell Brennan was calling from her car and was quite frantic.

"Yes, Dr. Brennan I'm almost to his room, what's wrong, is Booth okay?" By the sound of her voice she knew Brennan was concerned with someone and she assumed that person was Booth.

"I can't get a hold of Booth. We were on the phone with Sweets, he didn't sound good and then the line went dead."

Cam paused at the news and then broke into a run as fast as her designer heels would allow.

"Cam, stay on the line with me." Cam could hear a vulnerability in Brennan's voice as she said it. In seconds Cam was in Sweets room which was dim as the sun had set but no lights were on yet, save for the glow of the TV. There was no sign of Sweets at first but then saw him, partially propped up and partially hunched on his side, the phone having dropped just out of his reach.

"Sweets?" Cam asked turning his head to look at her as she bent to his side.

"Hi Dr. Soroyan." He said looking back at her but only because she held his face in place. His voice was calm and worn with a sense that his mind was a bit distant from what was going on. His dark chocolate eyes were swimming in a sea of red that struck Cam.

"Sweets, what's wrong?" She asked as she put her fingers to his neck and checked his vitals. Cam could hear faintly Brennan from the phone on the ground next to her asking what was going on. She focused on Sweets at the moment.

Sweets answered something incoherently so Cam adjusted him into more of a sitting position. She had assumed he had overexerted himself and was having difficulty breathing leading to the incoherency, but he still seemed a bit too pale for that. She reached up to turn on the table side light and looked back at Sweets and saw the blood coming from Sweets side.

Cam headed to the bed and frantically pushed the call button and ran to the hall shouting for help. She ran back to Sweets who was fading into unconsiousness. She tapped his cheek to get him to stay awake. The bubbly nurse came in and said she would get Dr. Brown immediately.

"Sweets, what's wrong, what's happened?" She said trying to get his attention still.

"Did I help? Will they leave me be now?" He asked but Cam had no time to guess what he was talking about.

She couldn't see where the bleeding was coming from so she leaned in to help Sweets up. She quickly found he was of little assistance but also of little weight. She had him half way off the floor and on the bed when another set of hands helped her get him on the surface the rest of the way. Cam looked up to see Dr. Brennan on the other side.

"Where is the bleeding coming from?" She asked.

"I don't know." Cam said as Brennan removed her jacket. "Looks like here." She said having cleared the blood smears enough to located it. Sweets winced as they touched him.

"I thought they had the gun shot wound cleared of infection." Brennan said in surrpise.

"We did." Dr. Brown said coming in and looking at the charts. "This is a new development as far as we know."

Brennan ran a gloved hand over the area as gently as possible as Sweets continued to stiffen as the pain hit.

"There appears to be something here." She said feeling a bump under the skin. "The body is trying to reject something at this spot."

"The bullet as removed wasn't it?" Cam asked.

"We need to do surgery right away. It will take a few minutes to get prepped." Dr. Brown said knowing that was not typical of what they had to offer here.

"Do you still have the x-rays?" Brennan asked and Dr. Brown pulled them from the file. The three turned to the hall where the light was brighter to see if they had any traces of a bullet.

"There is no bullet, but what is this here?" Dr. Brown said pointing to the area at the side.

"That appears to be bone." Brennan said looking at it. "But that bone does not belong there."

"Perhaps it is a chip that came loose when his ribs were broken?"

"No, that's not possible." Brennan said looking at the x-ray again. "This bone chip could be very difficult to remove if we can't easily locate it."

Sweets was listening to their voices and conversation. He felt like he should remember something. The last day with Yaz was a blur from the activity, the starvation, what he had seen and the pain, a blinding pain. You deserve it a voice said to him but he no longer knew if it was the women's screams telling him that, himself or those around him.

Sweets remembered Jessica dying and for the first time pressed past the screams and instead to what happened after. He remembered jumping at the sound of a saw, that was different from the others. He stopped right after and wrote something down. Yaz held it out for Sweets to see, it was the size of a quarter and flat like one as well. Yaz smiled at Sweets. He remembered that Yaz was onto his clue dropping, the reason he kidnapped Jessica and then Dr. Brennan. After that all he knew was pain he felt. It mixed with the grief of being on the floor shortly after looking at all the organs that surrounded him. There was so much pain, so much as Yaz dug…

Sweets eyes flashed open as he remembered clearly what happened. Are you finally going to help us? The voices screamed.

"Hey what the hell is going on?" Booth said coming down the hall.

"Where is Christine?" Brennan asked.

"I asked Max to pick her up. I got about ten messages while I was on the phone trying to find out the other girls parents when I get a call from Angela telling me to get here right away." Booth said.

"We are taking Dr. Sweets into emergency surgery." Cam said as they looked at the x-ray one more time.

"There is a stray bone here." Brennan said pointing. "It is causing Dr. Sweets a great deal of pain and it must be removed, but it's going to be dangerous."

"I'm not a surgeon." Dr. Brown wanted to make clear.

"It will take too much time to get someone else here." Cam observed knowing she was going to need to step up to the task. Live bodies were slightly different than working on most mortem ones. She didn't want Sweets to die at her hand, nor by the lack of doing anything.

"Well how did that happen, how did no one catch it before?" Booth asked.

"I would suggest that it was somehow in the body and over the course of a week it has moved in the body." Brennan said.

"So Sweets has been in agony all this time and we didn't do anything?" Booth asked angry.

"With the multitude of Dr. Sweets other symptoms this would have been difficult to detect." Dr. Brown said in his defense. "And if you haven't noticed already, Dr. Sweets isn't terribly forthcoming about his ailments."

"Cam?" A weak voice came from the room. "Here."

They all turned to see what Sweets was saying when they saw his side- covered in blood, his hand also covered in the dark crimson liquid holding out a small piece in his hand. They stood in shock a second at the sight but Sweets wasn't able to hold his hand up long enough and it fell, the chip dropping from his hand and across the floor.

To Booth it seemed like slow motion but in reality he knew the three doctors had rushed forward. They were applying pressure and shouting for this or that but Booth didn't hear it. He stepped back out of the way of nurses who rushed in and out with various requests.

Between one of the rushes Booth stepped in the room. He watched Sweets body react to the pain but his face held a faint smile. For a second his eyes met with Booth's and his lips seemed so say, 'they're quiet now.'

He looked away as Brennan and Cam rushed to stop the bleeding and the drugs that went thru the newly placed IV line took effect and Sweets entered a sweet slumber.

What the hell were you thinking?! Booth thought to himself of Sweets. He recalled what Sweets was holding out in his hand just before they rushed in. What was so important to dig into your own side and fish out? Booth wondered again and looked on the floor for the piece that rolled away. He soon located the bloody chip. Though coated with blood Booth could see writing etched into it. An address.