It's a Blue Fish marathon…because it's dreary and raining and smells like dog in my house. What else is there to do? Work, smurk. This shamelessly self-indulgent chapter is dedicated to the other three people in the world who still enjoy poetry. I also felt a need to give a back story to the fact that Daisy reveals Lance is a swimmer in the season finale, which seems like it would have been fraught for our scar-riddled Baby Duck.

RT, see how with your help I had everyone make nice? I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks to the others who are still reading and encouraging silently or vocally.

Lance ground to a walk on the treadmill at the FBI gym. He was drenched. He noticed several burly agents spotting for each other on the bench press, but otherwise it was pretty quiet here before 7 am. Lance wasn't much of a morning person, but he had been sleeping so poorly lately that he'd come in to check out the facilities. He knew he should lift more weights, but he was far more committed to running and swimming. He also occasionally biked, but his bicycle had gotten stolen in his move from New York. Someone had lifted it right off his friend's car's roof rack. Leave it to the audacity of New Yorkers.

Lance got off the treadmill and surveyed his accomplishment. He was under 7 minutes per mile and pretty pleased. He certainly wasn't in the best shape of his life. He regarded his slightly pudgy middle with suspicion. He'd better work on that if things continued to go well with April.

He packed up his stuff and headed for the showers, which were thankfully abandoned. Warm water flowed over his skin like caressing hands. He allowed his brain to empty and just take in the pleasure of his post-work-out high. He heard other men's voices fade in and out in the locker area and recited to himself:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"1

What is it, Lance? he asked himself and turned off the water. He had no idea what life was without the people he loved. He hoped it was not a vast stretch of emptiness. All talk and no substance. Reciting poetry always made him feel less corporeal, less real. More connected to his deceased mother.

Lance hated public showers—that went without saying. Sometimes, even though he was an adult, he would still change in a bathroom stall just to spare himself the stares. He thought briefly of his high school tormenters grabbing him, yanking off his towel, and laughing at his underdeveloped body and his mutilated back. He headed for a stall, since he didn't feel like being known around the FBI locker room as a freak show. Not yet anyway.

The gym had always been a site of mixed feelings for Lance—embarrassment and accomplishment. In high school, he started off in track but also developed into a decent swimmer. His swim teammates grew to tolerate him, because he put up good times on the board and had great form. Eventually, they just stopped caring about his scars. By college, Lance had lengthened to over 6 feet tall and blossomed into an excellent swimmer. He swam one of the hardest races—the 200 fly—and people actually feared him. His back just made him appear more tough and grizzled. Swimmers from other universities mostly stayed out of his way. But still, there always remained that moment of panic when Lance disrobed before the pool. He never felt uglier or more beautiful than when he was in the water. Everything in his life seemed to have a double edge to it.

As Lance was exiting the FBI gym, freshly attired in a crisp suit, he heard:

"Sweets." Unmistakable. He knew that voice. He said a prayer of silent thanks to the fates for Booth's appearance now and not earlier, when he could have seen the scars.

It's decided. I won't be working out at the FBI gym, Lance thought. Too risky. He didn't need any of his patients finding out about his own traumas. He needed to seem cool, collected not crazy himself. His scars undermined his credibility as a mental health professional.

"Agent Booth," he nodded. Damn, Booth was a beef cake in his gym clothes. The armholes of his shirt were taut to bursting over the man's burly biceps. Lance was impressed and stared a little before beginning to pass on his way. He wanted to stay and talk, but he didn't know what to say.

Booth reached out a hand to stop Lance and gripped his shoulder briefly. The gesture was not unpleasant, Lance noticed. He was often uncomfortable when people he didn't know very well touched him. He must be growing more accustomed to Booth.

"Not so fast, Sweets. I heard that you sent up a report to Andrew on me and Bones."

Sweets gulped. He thought his report had been positive, but Booth was looking severe.

"Andrew said that you were impressed with our partnership. That you believed it would take a major force of nature to upend it. He said you think that we are the best crime fighting team at the FBI, and the Bureau would be crazy to break us up."

Booth's expression was flat, which confused Lance. That's right, he had praised them quite a bit. Why was Booth so somber?

"You're a good kid, but you have a lot to learn. Keep your head up."

Lance nodded and walked away still befuddled. More words, ancient relics of his memory, invaded his thoughts:

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.2

Oh, Lance thought, once the poetry had dissipated. Booth understood that Lance had read the partners clearly and correctly. Lance had invested in getting to know them better than anyone else had at the FBI. He had stood up for them, and in turn, Booth had placed some trust in him. Booth wasn't being cross, he was being serious. He did that occasionally, despite his propensity to sarcasm. Lance felt warm inside. Maybe he would make it out of the inferno and back to the surface of the earth after all.3

1. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T. S. Eliot, 1917.

2. Ibid.

3. T. S. Eliot quotes Dante's Inferno in Italian at the beginning of "Prufrock." In the passage, basically Guido (awesomely encased in a hell flame) tells Dante some secrets, because he thinks Dante won't be able to return from hell like normal dead people. But Dante does return—he's just a visitor to hell! This is a cycle I see repeat over and over in Lance's life. What can I say-poetry major in college. That, like emotional pain, never dies. ;)