SWEETS

Booth had called me in the middle of the night. Early morning would actually be more accurate I decide. I climbed out of my warm – and more importantly, dry – bed where Daisy was sleeping beside me when I saw the name on my caller ID. I love Daisy, but she's a gossip and anything Booth had to say at that time of the morning wouldn't be good.

My prediction, of course, had come true. The sun wasn't anywhere near coming up when I'd driven through the semi-abandoned neighborhood, where drug dealers and prostitutes alike held down a couple of street corners, looking for Booth's truck. When I finally spotted it, I had Daisy pull up next to the curb behind the Sequoia then turned in the passenger seat to face her.

"Remember—"

"I know, I know," she cut me off before I could speak then made a twisting motion in front of her lips. A toss of the imaginary key finished the image. "Not a word. I promise. I wouldn't do anything to let my Lancelot down, you know that." Actually, I knew exactly the opposite: There wasn't a chance everyone at the lab wouldn't know by the end of the next day. But what could I do?

"Lunch tomorrow at the Diner?" She nodded her head eagerly then tipped up her chin for a kiss. She's so adorable. How could I not? Okay, so maybe the kiss was a little too long and maybe I got too carried away. The point is we stopped before any clothes were lost, right? Call it my last meal. I just knew Booth was going to kill me the next day once Daisy talked.

I pulled the back of my raincoat up over my head in a useless effort to keep from getting completely drenched. Stepping back from the curb I watched until she was out of sight, then, craning my neck as I rounded the bumper, I warily approached the passenger side, unsure of what I'd find.

The way he was belting out some country song was my first clue.

"What if I'm trying then I close my eyes and I'm right back in that last goodbye. What if time doesn't do what it's supposed to do? What if I never get over you—"

"Oh, boy." I fanned a hand in front of me when the smell of tequila, whiskey and beer assaulted my senses.

"Heyyyyyyyyyy, lookywhoitis!" He scooted across the seat and slung the door the into me. I took one look at him and…

"Oh, boy." It's all I had. I stepped back from the door as he stumbled out, tripped over the curb, propelling him forward. He threw up his hands in the nick of time, stopping in time to save his head a meeting with a wall of bricks.

Then again, another blow to his face wouldn't have made much of a difference. Black eye, split eyebrow and lips, bloody nose, bruised cheek and chin, blood trickling down over his forehead from what I assumed was from a laceration at his hair line… and what looked like a couple of dirty boot prints against his white shirt. Ouch! Turning slowly, I study the environs, passing then returning to a shorted-out sign that buzzed 'POOL' each time it partially lit up.

I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind was Booth had broken his sobriety. The second thought was that I'd failed him. The F.B.I. had tasked me with keeping Booth duty ready, after the crisis he'd had following what he'd considered his fiftieth kill. He was far too valuable an asset to the Agency and considered worth the investment, especially considering Dr. Brennan refused to work with anyone but him. My orders were simple: Keep him in the field. Part of that, of course, included intervening if I thought he was on the way to relapse.

My shoulders slumped. His current state didn't lend itself to my having done my job.

Neither did realizing he was no longer against that wall, but staggering down the street, presumably to that bar. I jogged to catch up to him.

"Booth?... Booth?" I called until I was a step behind him. "Where you going, Booth?"

"Let's go have a drink and play a round of pool. What do you say?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea," I replied guiding him back towards the Sequoia. We made it to the car where I swung open the front door and tried to ease him in. He spun away, grabbed at the handle to the rear seat and threw the door open, smacking me in the knee. I found a little comfort, while I was rubbing the offended knee, in the fact he clonked his head – hard – on the door frame trying to pile in. He was going to have a lot of explanations to make the following morning at the rate he was going.

Who was I kidding? The man who hated to be asked questions would be inundated with them by every person he passed.

I closed both doors then walked around the driver side and climbed in. Seat adjusted as well as mirrors, I checked the rearview mirror to make sure the coast was clear. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Booth sitting up and staring out the back window. His head turned and when he looked forward, sad longing was written all over his face.

"Booth?" His eyes darted towards me, then away again. In the distance the broken neon sign blinked brokenly, 'POOL'.

"Oh, boy." Drunk… battered… pool… the look on his face. He'd broken his sobriety. I knew it in my bones. I'd failed. Self-condemnation danced through my head while Booth's head lolled on the back of the seat and he closed his eyes. "Do I want to know what happened?" I dare to ask.

"We're not going to talk about that," he snapped. It wasn't his touchiness that drew my concern – Booth is a touchy man on the best of days – but the raw emotion that made his voice waiver. I didn't pursue it… at least not yet. "I'm no drunk. I'm drunk but I'm not a drunk. I'm not him." It's no secret who Booth was referring to: His father.

"No, you're not," I agreed, looking into rearview mirror, watching as he tipped back 750ml bottle of Jack Daniels drinking long from it.

Where the hell had that come from?

"Let me have a drink of that. I'm freezing." He handed over the bottle without thought and I tossed it onto the seat next to me, making the decision for him that he'd had enough. I'm not even sure that he noticed.

"Nothin' like him." Prolonged silence from the back seat drew my eyes. He was still but that was all I could tell from my limited view, with his head resting on the door behind me as it was.

It had been a long week with many, many visits made to my office from the team at the Jeffersonian – and calls from Booth - each visit much the same theme: They were worried about Dr. Brennan.

"I don't know how to explain it, exactly," Angela had lamented. "She's sad. She's just sad," she struggled to find the right words. "She not as tough as everyone thinks, you know. She's like… she's like…like one of those Faberge Eggs: Beautiful and complicated and rare. At first glance their intricacy might make them seem solid, unbreakable but in truth they are very, very fragile. And right now, I feel like I'm standing back and watching as the egg drops to the floor. If we don't catch it – her – then we're going to watch her shatter into a thousand pieces."

"She's positing… speculating… guessing. I mean we're talking about Dr. Brennan here," Hodgins worried.

"She removed a victim's property from their body, then when she returned it to me, she lied. I didn't even Dr. Brennan knew how to lie, at least not believably," Cam had fretted.

And, much as they were similar in their concern for Dr. Brennan, so too was their gut feelings of what was causing Dr. Brennan such distress.

"Booth, what else?" from Angela.

"Booth," from Hodgins.

"Seeley," from Cam.

I couldn't have agreed more, although I would have said more specifically Booth's relationship with Hannah. I've known since Hannah arrived trouble was on the horizon. Booth was in full denial about his feelings for Dr. Brennan while at the same time trying to force his relationship with Hannah into becoming something it was never meant to be and had little chance of survival long-term. Dr. Brennan, on the other hand, had come to terms with her feelings for Booth while in the Maluku Islands and to discover he'd 'moved on,' was something she was emotionally unprepared for. The result: An acute disassociation coupled with overidentification with a victim.

I couldn't shake the feeling Booth's state was directly related to Dr. Brennan's for obvious reasons: He could deny it all he wished, but he was still very much in love with her.

I have no way of knowing for sure, given Booth and Dr. Brennan have never said as much, but I suspect it was my advice that caused the sudden severing of their relationship and impromptu trips to Afghanistan and the Maluku Islands.

"If you're not in love, how come you haven't been in any serious relationships since you first met, huh?"

"I don't really do that."

"You know, my job, son."

"One of you has to have the courage to break this stalemate. You, it's gotta be you, because you're the gambler…"

Neither Booth nor Dr. Brennan has ever confirmed as much, but, still, I can't shake the feeling—

I jump when Booth suddenly leans between the seats grabs the bottle of whiskey from the seat.

"I think you've had enough, don't you?"

"Nope," he replied. I listened as he unscrewed the top of the bottle and watched in the rearview mirror as he guzzled. Not good.

For the second time that night he made me jump when he leaned over the seats and turned up the radio then flumped back onto the seat, singing along somewhat tonelessly.

"She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart, he spent his whole life trying to forget.
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind…"

"I tried," he mumbled from the backseat. His head dropped against the back of the seat and lolled there. "I really tried." The pain in his voice was so uncharacteristically Booth that I was all ears. "I couldn't forget. I couldn't forget." And I couldn't help myself.

"Forget what?" The question made him lift his head and glower at me in the rearview mirror.

"Uh-uh. I called you to drive me, not shrink me, so drive." Ignoring me, he began to sing again while I lifted my eyes heavenwards. Booth and I have played this game countless times before. I'll just have to wait him out.

"Life is short, but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up on his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said, 'I'll love her 'til I die'…"

"I promised I'd never let her down… that I'd always be there for her." He drew in a harsh, staggered breath. "She was crying and I just left. She needed me and I just left. I'm no better than him." He said the words with venom. It's his greatest fear, becoming his father and the motivation for all he does. I couldn't let that one slide by.

"You're not your father, Booth," I assured. He shook his head adamantly then had another drink.

"You don't know that," he barked. "You don't know that." I did, but there was no use saying it. When he's beating himself up, he won't listen to a word said. It didn't really matter though, because I lost him to the music again.

"She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short, but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees…"

"Do you believe in fate, Sweets?"

"No more than I do God."

"What?!" he asked, horrified.

"If I believed in either fate or God, then I'd have to believe I was predestined to be neglected and abused, to grow up in foster care and to lose my parents, the Sweets." The words were heartfelt and honest, but I had the feeling he hadn't heard a word I said. "Why do you ask?"

"I knew. I knew as soon as I saw her," he told me, staring blindly out the windshield. "She was the person I was meant to love…" he turned his face away so I couldn't see, I'm sure, "…until the day I died."

"You and Brennan… You two seem… solid."

"Well, happens after, you know, after working together, for what, five years?"

"You know, I'm a little jealous actually."

"What? You actually think there's something going on between… me and Bones?"

"No, not that. Unless there's something I should know."

"No, of course not."

"I lied to her. To Hannah. I lied to Hannah. She asked and I lied to her. My priest in the Army used to call that a 'lie from the heart.' A sin. A mortal sin. But I lied to her anyway."

"Is that what you fought about?" I know, I know. But I couldn't help myself. He shot arrows at my back with his eyes.

"Just drive," he snapped.

He fell silent again. I looked in the rearview mirror, already considering how I could possibly haul an unconscious Booth up two flights to my apartment. His head was rocking against the back of the seat. Passed out? Listening to the song now playing on the radio? I didn't know.

So, he'd lied to Hannah. For a man like Booth – a man firmly entrenched in honoring his Faith – that kind of lie would eat him alive. A mortal sin. One he couldn't repent for until he admitted it. I questioned if he'd made that admission that night. The fallout would certainly explain the state he was in.

"I could speak with Hannah if—" He sat up so abruptly, I flinched.

"Don't go near Hannah!" he exploded. "The last time you 'helped', Bones and me ended up on opposite ends of the world." I cringed. He'd just confirmed my worries that I'd been indirectly responsible for whatever had happened.

"Booth—" I began to apologize.

"We're not talking about this anymore." I nodded my head, unwilling to push my luck again.

"While she lays sleeping
I stay out late at night and play my songs
And sometimes all the nights can be so long…"

"Did you know Kenny Rogers has been married five times, but has been with his last wife for eighteen years?" Fine. You got me. I'm a closet Kenny Rogers fan. If Booth heard me, he didn't acknowledge it.

"I try to get undressed without the light
And quietly she says, 'How was your night…"

"You know, he wrote the song Lady for her," I try again.

"Lady?" he asked, sounding completely disinterested. If I can keep him talking, those stairs might not be an issue.

"You know, 'Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you. You have made me what I am and I am yours'—" I crooned until cut me off.

"Enough," he rasped. I immediately clamped my mouth shut.

"…she believes in me
I'll never know what she sees in me
I told her someday if she was my girl
I could change the world…"

He disappeared in the rearview mirror and a quick look over my shoulder confirmed he was laying back down on the seat. I wouldn't realize until later he'd been lapping up more whiskey.

"Everything alright, Booth?"

"No more talking," he demanded. I nod my head.

"Okay."

"But she has faith in me
And so I go on trying faithfully…"

"Turn the channel." He spoke in staccato tones, inspiring me to act quickly. I hit search.

"And I feel so satisfied when
I can see you smile
I want to confide in
All that is true, so I'll
Keep on trying I'm
through with lying…"

"No."

I hit search again and watched as the radio jumped to the next station.

"…I'm hot blooded check it and see…"

"Turn it off. Just turn it off." The command sounded more like I plea and I quickly ended the music.

I hadn't seen Booth so… off, so… torn up since he woke from his coma, believing he and Dr. Brennan were a couple and very much in love. I'd watched him go through a gamut of emotions then: Confusion, anger, desolation, denial, disbelief… heartbreak. It had taken months to put him back together and even then he clung to the belief that he was in love with Dr. Brennan.

I have no idea what inspired me to dissuade him of that, at first. Afterall, I was the one who had been trying to get them to confront their feelings for each other for years. I knew Booth was in love with Dr. Brennan before his brain tumor, yet I pulled out CT scans to convince him his feelings were nothing more than lingering trauma from the tumor and consequent brain surgery. Even more perplexing? The fact I was writing a book about Booth and Dr. Brennan, the core of which revolves around them being in love – and in full denial. His sudden adherence to the FBI protocol for dress – right down to his hair being slicked down – coupled with his forgotten fear of clowns, like for gaudy socks and disdain for cats, those were all remnants of his medical crisis. Not loving Dr. Brennan.

My belief was crap. It was all crap… As Dr. Wyatt tactfully pointed out after he'd reviewed my manuscript.

"…I think this is probably the best work I have ever read on the dynamics of opposite personality types working towards a common cause."

"Okay. Now I'm hearing a caveat."

"It's a small one. It's just that Brennan and Booth aren't in anyway opposites."

"Wow. What is that? British understatement?"

"Well, yes, he's a man, she's a woman. He's instinctual, she's empirical."

"Opposites."

"Superficial ephemera, Dr. Sweets."

I have to admit, his assessment was a blow to my confidence – not to mention demolished my manuscript - and I'd paid particular attention to them – together – for several days until I saw what it was Dr. Wyatt saw.

It was on the night when Dr. Brennan and Booth had invited me to dinner – cassoulet, made by Wyatt. Dr. Brennan had seen the scars on my back during our case and felt compelled to share something about her own childhood with me.

"My foster parents locked me in the trunk of a car for two days when I broke a dish…"

Booth watched her attentively as he spoke, his eyes glazed with concern. Then, for Dr. Brennan he did something he'd never do if we were alone, a simple look from Dr. Brennan and he shared a piece of himself.

"Okay. If it wasn't for my grandfather, I probably would have killed myself when I was kid."

His eyes never left hers when he spoke, as though I didn't exist in the room. It may have been said in front of me, but this was between only them. And when he was done warning me he'd never speak of it again, his eyes immediately returned to hers.

"Are you okay, Bones?"

His concern for her wasn't a man addressing his partner. The way his hand lingered against the pocket where she'd tucked in his handkerchief wasn't the action of a mere friend. The way their eyes locked together spoke of an intimacy far deeper than I'd imagined. They were connected to each other on a level that most of us will never know. I knew they were close. But this?

The truth is, they only needed each other, often excluding other people – namely me – from their conversations.

"I'm writing a book taking a clinical approach to efficacy and focused outcomes. You shouldn't work well together, but you do. I'd like to study it further."

"I don't get it."

"He wants to study us."

"Once a week. Nothing changes."

"Now why would we want to do that?"

"I can't think of a good reason."

"Okay, see? That thing that you do when you talk to each other while excluding the third party, namely me. It's an adaptive mechanism for disparate entities to bond together against their own individual impetuses to dissociate."

"What does that mean for us?"

"Nothing useful."

Their trust in one another was – or at least had been – absolute. They shared their pasts – even the most painful aspects – helping each other heal, knowing without exception anything said would not go beyond them. They turned to each other in times of turmoil and once spent nearly all their time together. He drew her out of her shell and helped her navigate the quagmire of personal relationships. In turn, she soothed his angst about the number of lives he'd taken in the line of duty and dismissed any idea of him being like his father.

For a second time, Booth jumped up and gave my arm a – painful – smack.

"Let's go to Founding Fathers and have a couple." Yeah, right. I'd bet his BAC is reaching triple the legal limit. "What do you say, huh?"

"In my medical opinion, that would be inadvisable," I answered as I yanked the wheel pulling up next to the curb, put the truck in park and climbed out. Before he knew what I was about, I'd opened the backdoor, plucked the bottle of Jack from his hand, opened the bottle and emptied it on the ground.

"What the hell, Sweets!? You owe me twenty bucks for that!"

"Catch me in the morning," I replied, tossing the empty bottle onto the floorboard and shutting the door. Seconds later we were back on the road.

He was silent for a long while, giving me time to put together a checklist for tomorrow. Needless to say, high on the list was visiting that pool hall to confirm he'd broken his sobriety. Five years, gone, just like that. His addiction had begun after leaving the military as a coping mechanism for the lives he'd taken and the trauma associated with it. He'd worked hard to overcome his gambling addiction. Something pretty big must have happened for him to have relapsed and I would need to know what in order to help him deal with the fall out.

Fat lot of luck trying to pry that information out of him. His walls were as hard to get past as Dr. Brennan's.

I pulled the Sequoia into the parking spot next to mine, hoping someone wouldn't complain and have it towed. As late as it was, the odds were in my favor… at least I'd hoped they were, because right now I had an even bigger problem. Eyeing the distance from the Sequoia to the elevator I had no idea how I'd haul an unconscious Booth some hundred feet. It wasn't even a possibility. Opening the door of the truck, I called – then yelled – his name. Nothing. I finally dared to give his cheek a pair of firm pats. He woke sputtering his unhappiness.

"Do you think you can make it to the elevator?" Still prone on the seat, he lifted his head and squinted blood shot eye to the area where I pointed.

"I fought in a war, Sweets." I watched him struggle to a sitting position then swing his legs out the door. As soon as his feet hit the ground, so did he. Muttering under his breath about who'd moved the floor, he got himself up on all fours and managed to haul himself up. He gone three steps before he listed sideways. Grabbing his arm, I slung it over my shoulders to keep him steady – a trying task given the size of the man losing his footing every dozen or less steps. By the time we reached the elevator, I was huffing and puffing and despite the cold outside, sweat was dripping from my brow. I leaned him against the wall while pressing the call button for the elevator.

"You should think about working out more," he slurred the criticism. "Elevators are for the lazy. What do you say we take the stairs?" As he spoke, the elevator doors slid open and I helped him inside.

"I'll have you know I work out every day," I retorted. Technically, I do, at least if you count Daisy in bed. She's a better workout than any barbells or treadmills could be.

We'd finally made it to my apartment where I eased Booth down onto the couch. Without a word, he fell over sideways, using the armrest for a pillow while I grabbed a glass of water and some Tylenol from the bathroom.

"Take these," I ordered, taking a seat on the coffee table and holding out the pills and water, "Although I'm not sure how much they'll help." Once he finished, I brought him a second cup of water then a blanket from the linen closet. Covering him with the blanket, I'd thought he'd fallen asleep until his hand reached out and grabbed my arm.

"She needed me. She was hurt and confused." His grip became firm enough to be painful with his next words. "She was crying and I wouldn't look at her and then I left her alone, just like my old man would do. I'm just like him." I carefully plied his fingers from my arm one at a time.

"That's not true," I reassured. "Whatever you and Hannah argued over will have blown over by morning." His eyed blinked several times, then as his lids slowly closed, he mumbled.

"I love Hannah. I do. But not like Bones. She's the missing piece I've waited my whole life for…"

With those final words, he drifted off and I dropped heavily into a nearby chair.

There were only two words that summarized his last .

"Oh boy."