I'll probably just go ahead and put up the final four today and tomorrow to get this fic out of my hair. I'm not known for my patience, and as long as they exist unpublished I will keep wasting time tweaking them.

Lanie, thanks for the comments! I had a friend who was in Afghanistan for a year (and my bro-in-law was in Bagdad for a tour), so I have felt the stress of what Sweets was dealing with when Booth was in danger. I certainly was not going to kill off Booth in my fictional world! ;) As for Daisy, well…you'll see. It's not going to be easy, but Lance is much more centered than when she first left. Have a great trip, btw-happy flight! I suspect the entire story will be waiting for you when you check in again!

RT, you're going to be slightly but not utterly disappointed by the final turn this story takes. ;) Um and apparently you can read the future when it comes to Bea. You'll see what I mean when you read this very chapter and the next! Get out of my head, girl!

Disclaimer: Sweets and company are not mine.

Lance could not believe he had a date with Bea. He had been waiting for so long for this moment that he felt incredibly nervous, even though he could probably count Bea among his closest friends. What drove him crazy was that somehow he had a nagging feeling that he had already blown their chance at happiness together before they even went out. It wasn't about the night he had gotten drunk…it was something he couldn't put his finger on.

Bea had given him very specific instructions on what to wear, so he was doing his best to impress her. He selected a dark blue button down and rolled the sleeves up a little, which he paired with modern, gray dress pants. He was attempting to tame his wild curls with some gel and feeling pretty damn pleased with the way his look was turning out, when his iPhone buzzed.

"Dang it! Where are you, stupid phone!" he berated the phone. He finally realized that the cat was vibrating and forced Knox off it, who slunk away in defeat. Knox was always plopping down on warm electronic devices (such as Lance's laptop), and Lance's phone had grown hot from charging.

"Hello? This is Lance Sweets." Lance hadn't checked the number to see if he recognized it.

"Lance? It's Daisy."

He actually dropped the phone and then had to pick it back up. "Uh, sorry, Daisy? What…how are you? Everything ok?" Daisy and Lance hadn't spoken since he had been attacked last summer and called her from the hospital. They hadn't even so much as exchanged an email or a letter. Lance had wanted to write her many times, but as he hadn't heard from her, he deemed it inappropriately desperate.

"I'm…ok," she responded weakly. Now that he thought about it, Daisy was crying. This puzzled him.

"Dais? What's wrong? You can tell me." Lance hated himself, but hearing her whimpering through the phone made him melt and yearn to hold her.

"I've, I've had a hard couple of months, Lance." She was trying to regain her composure.

Lance waited.

"I was dating this anthropologist on our team—a local. It was just for fun really, but…"

Lance was already growing angry at this unidentified man. "What? Did he hurt you?" His voice was shaking a little.

"Well, I liked him at first because in contrast to you, he seemed a bit dangerous. He rides motorcycles, smokes, is very muscular..."

Lance winced. It hurt that she still conceived of him as unadventurous and what now, flabby? He wanted to tell her right then and there how he had been so bold as to fly down to Florida to visit his bio mom, but then she followed up, "I don't know, he kind of forced himself on me last night. I just…"

"You mean he raped you!" Lance demanded, now thoroughly enraged. His cheeks were hot and his heart was pounding. He wanted to rip apart any man who could lay a hand on the tiny woman he had once called his fiancée. His body ached to be close to her.

"No, no. I dunno. I just didn't feel like doing it, but he's so demanding and then…he just pushed himself on me. It's ok. I'm fine. I just want to get away from him. I don't want to be with him anymore."

"Daisy…" Lance sighed. He had been hovering over his coffee table and sat down on it, putting his head in his hands. He ran his fingers through his freshly styled hair. He couldn't believe this was happening, and he was so many thousands of miles away. "How did you let things get to this point? I thought you'd been doing so much better when it came to being strong in your sense of self."

Because Daisy exuded confidence, many people did not realize that her supposed arrogance was part of a carefully constructed exterior that masked painful past problems with body image and social confidence. While Daisy was quite secure in her intellectual abilities and now even her physical appearance, she had once been a bulimic for 7 years. Lance immediately thought that she was having a relapse—if she was not forcing herself to vomit again, then at least her self worth had plummeted.

"I'm not…hurting myself again, Lance. I just…"

"You just let someone else hurt you," he said angrily. "Daisy, you need to tell someone who can protect you what happened. Like Dr. Brennan. Tell people who can keep him away from you. And don't stay alone for a while, ok?" Lance didn't know how dire the situation was and frankly was frightened for Daisy's safety. There was nothing he could do to protect her.

"Ok…but you don't have to worry. He won't come after me, I'm pretty sure. He's never been faithful to me, and he's been ogling this other woman for a while."

Lance shook his head though he knew Daisy couldn't see it. "Daisy, what the hell are you doing to yourself over there? Don't you think you deserve better than this?"

"I've...I've really missed you," her voice quavered.

Lance sat in silence, remaining strong.

"I'll be home soon. Do you think maybe…?" Daisy trailed off.

Lance was not about to go there. "Daisy, I have to go." He wanted to add, I have a date, but didn't have the heart.

A very conflicted Lance set off for the Jeffersonian to see Bea. He didn't even know if he was looking forward to their date anymore. He got into in his old beat-up car, willed to him by his parents, and cranked up the radio.

"And he still gives his love, he just gives it away,
The love he receives is the love that is saved.
And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky,
A human being that was given to fly," sang vintage Eddie Vedder. 1

Lance sang along in a booming tenor and then thought, You're at a crosswords, my friend. What are you going to do?

Fifteen minutes later Lance entered the Jeffersonian, which was almost eerie at night if one thought too much about the numerous bones it housed.

"Bea?" Lance called when he saw her office was empty.

She emerged from a bathroom. Her hair was elegantly spiked, and she was wearing an antique yellow silk v-neck dress that was tight and reached to just above her knees. Her cherry-blossom tattoo sleeve looked luminous against her tan skin. Her lips were red and plump—she had even put on mascara, extenuating her thick black lashes. Lance's jaw dropped open.

Bea herself was thinking, damn. He outdid himself.

It was fun to spend an even together, eating Moroccan food, laughing about Lulu's latest shenanigans, and drinking wine. The two had become really good friends and hanging out was easy but again something was missing. Both felt it. Throughout Lance's relationship with Daisy he felt consumed by desire and adoration for her. They were both such passionate people that their fervor for each other had just made sense. Lance was also nagged by the feeling that Daisy had been a real and attainable lover. Bea felt somehow just beyond his reach. He wanted Bea, no doubt, but as he thought about it, wanting Bea felt rather like wanting Angela had once.

At the end of the night Lance dropped her off at her apartment and said almost nervously, "That was fun. We should do it again."

Bea was already practically closing the door on him. He reached over to kiss her and she turned her cheek to meet his lips.

"Night, Sweets. Sweet dreams." She flashed her pearly teeth, which shone in the moonlight. Lance was a little sorrowful that he wasn't going to get any tonight. He hadn't really expected it, but now walking away into the night he found he was disappointed, dejected, and frankly, horny.

Later that night he almost couldn't decide which woman to fantasize about…almost.

1. "Given to Fly," Pearl Jam, Yield, February 3, 1998, /song/given-fly. Yes, Pearl Jam is vintage to Sweets, since sadly he was 13 when that song came out. Yikes. And yes, I footnote everything like a proper historian! ;)