Another chapter! Don't expect one next week, because of how busy I'm going to be, but I'm eager to continue :)

"Move out of the way; I'm coming up," Booth said, staring up at her. After an initial moment of shock on both their parts, he had started looking around for a way to get himself up into the attic with her, to see whatever it was she was seeing. Finding a ladder in the hall closet, probably for this purpose exactly, he had dragged it out and propped it up, leading into the darkened space overhead.

As he climbed upwards, he saw her move away from the opening. When he carefully stood, keeping his head low in the small space, he could only stare around, his face hiding most of the alarm he was feeling inside.

The back wall, the only vertical surface, was papered entirely with photographs. In all of them, she was alone. They were from a distance, and some were of her at the Diner, others of her getting in her car at either the lab or the apartment, and more focused on simply her face, making it hard to tell the location. In almost all of them, she was either smiling or clearly troubled, and they seemed to have been sorted to distinguish the difference. There was no in-between expression to be found.

"This is..." he shook his head, not sure what word to use.

"Creepy," she whispered, stepping into a dark corner where there appeared to be a gathering of bulletin boards. She pulled the front one out into the light, and they both stared at it. The top was labeled neatly 'February 2009,' and it was covered in images, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and copies of official documents. "He was following everything I did," she whispered in awe.

"Yeah," Booth growled, reaching forward to pull out the next board. "I don't like it."

She simply shook her head, but he knew that she meant that she was equally upset about the whole thing. If not more... after all, this was her face that surrounded them. It was unnerving for him... it must be something a hell of a lot more for her.

"March," she murmured as they both took in the next, similarly set-up arrangement of papers.

Dreading what he knew was coming, he pulled out first April, and then May... which turned out to be 'May P.1.' A second bulletin board, pulled out after it with shaking hands, showed exactly what he hadn't wanted to see.

Half the board was covered with documents and print-outs detailing the lack of information about what had happened to Brennan, as well as pages from her website with the official announcements about her giving 'no comment' on what had happened. The other half was completely filled with images of Bones, and in almost every one of them she was either crying or at the very least upset and tired looking. Her breath caught next to him as she stared at the images, and he moved to push it out of her line of view. Just as quickly, though, she reached out a hand to stop him, and then pulled it more into the light to stare at the pictures with wide eyes. He felt his heart tearing with agony as she bit her lip, her eyes flicking from image to image rapidly, settling sometimes on certain ones before moving on hurriedly.

"Bones..." he murmured carefully, but she just shook her head and ignored the hand that he rested gently on her shoulder.

"How did we not know?" she whispered at last. "How did we not... how did I not know someone was watching me? I should have... I should have been able to..."

"Bones, you couldn't have known. Neither of us could have. He... he took all those shots from a distance, and he obviously kept himself well-hidden." She nodded numbly, apparently not seeing any flaws in that logic. But her eyes remained on the board, finally landing on a particular image and staying there as a tear traced a slow path down her face.

Following her line of sight, he saw exactly which one she was looking at.

She was in her car, probably at a red light, and the window was rolled down so that the view of her was unobstructed. Booth gritted his teeth at the thought, but focused on the rest of the details. Her hands were clenched on the steering wheel, and her face... she was clearly crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and her hair hanging loosely around her face, falling helplessly out of a hasty ponytail. She was biting her lip, hard, and staring straight ahead like it was the most important thing in the world. Maybe at that moment, it had been.

Gently, he pulled her away, to her feet, and her eyes finally turned to him and slowly focused on his face before he pulled her into his arms and rocked them both back and forth slowly. "It's okay, Bones. It's okay..." he soothed in her ear as he felt a faint sob shake her shoulders.

"He had no right," she choked out. "He... he had no right to see... to take these... to... to..."

"I know, baby, I know... it's all okay now... he's gone..."

She pulled away from him and then shakily nodded her head, wiping away the tears that had leaked out. "I know," she whispered.

But then her eyes flashed with sudden fear as she asked quietly, "Booth... what about whoever killed Sampson?"

"C'mon, Sweets," Booth said with a sigh, leaning against one of the rafters as he watched the psychologist wandering around and looking at all the pictures that decorated the room. Bones was back at the lab, where she was begrudgingly involving herself in the forensic work while the FBI handled the scene. Mostly, he hadn't wanted her here, with all these pictures of... her.

"I'm getting a feel for the creator of this," the shrink said distractedly, bending down to look with particular interest at the bulletin board depicting the second half of May. Booth clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

"Sure you aren't just doing some research of your own?" he questioned, stepping forward and none-too-gently pulling Sweets upright and away from the pictures. "I need a profile, and I need it fast, okay? What would have prompted someone else to kill this guy?"

"Honestly? I can tell you right now that these... collages... well, they weren't made by Sampson."

"...What?"

"At least," Sweets amended hastily, "Not Sampson alone. Do you see the difference here?" He pointed first to the row of bulletin boards that the agents had arranged along the rafters to take their photographic evidence, and then at the back wall. Without waiting for an answer, he hurried on, "There's a major difference in organization. Someone who was thinking clearly, and planning ahead, arranged these bulletin boards in a very specific, almost OCD, manner. Whoever put these pictures on the back wall, however, was acting more out of passion than out of anything else. They placed the most important images in the clearest line of sight, and at the center." He indicated the large picture of Brennan that was the focus of the collage, one of her smiling and directly facing the camera. It looked like a photo that might have been taken for one of her books, or at some publicity event. "This has very high importance to him. As do these two," he pointed simultaneously to the pictures on either side, a bit smaller, but still clearly focuses amidst the much smaller surrounding images. In both, Brennan appeared to be laughing, her smile wide, and she was staring off camera. She was wearing the same outfit as she was in the first picture; a red blouse that cut low enough to reveal just a hint of cleavage. She had one of her clunky necklaces around her neck, and earrings that he instantly recognized as being the ones that she had worn in New Orleans all those years ago.

"Another point is the contrast," he added. "This was artistically put together. You can see that the images with a darker focus are the ones in which Brennan seems unhappy, while the ones that are brighter are those where she is clearly pleased. And they've been placed so that the darker images are on the outside, while the light ones fill the center."

"Artistic?" Booth asked.

"Yes. Creepy, of course, but still artistic. There's no way the same person did these two very different collage sets."

"But Sampson did one, right?"

Sweets frowned at that. "Presumably, since as far as we know he lived alone... yes. But I'll have to look more around the house itself, and since you didn't give me very much time to do that before you dragged me up here..."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just... help us figure this out, okay? I'm... worried about her."

Sweets nodded and gave him a small smile. "I know, Booth. You always are... and often with very good reason."

He gave a wry smile and nodded. "You aren't kidding." The faint humor faded away quickly though, as he continued, "But, y'know, Sweets... all I want to do is make sure that she's safe through... whatever this is that's going on."

"I don't blame you," Sweets said agreeably as he turned his attention back to the objects they had been studying. "Right. What I also wanted to tell you, before we finish up here, is that I doubt these two were working together." Booth raised an eyebrow in interest, as well as confusion, and Sweets hurried on, "They are very separate entities, and if I've got this right, and Sampson was the first stalker to use this... lair of sorts... then he made the bulletin boards. He was a reporter, right? It makes sense for his persona to have started off attacking the problem methodically, to decide what was important, what would best suit the interests of readers... etcetera, etcetera. But you can see that his interest changed, right after Dr. Brennan was assaulted." He pointed to the May boards. "While previously they were decorated with articles about her work, and her career... following what happened he became obsessed with finding out the truth. The pictures start becoming close-up and personal, and the few written things that he has are hastily scrawled down notes, or stuff released about what happened which, obviously, didn't give much as far as the details.

"And here," he went on, pointing to a picture of the two of them, "This is an analysis of your relationship. He was trying to figure out what your role in the whole thing was. There are little messages about it everywhere... some of the pictures towards July start to be of just you."

He had noticed that, and it had... well, creeped him out a little. But he would be lying if he said he wouldn't prefer to see his own face in all of these than hers. He could deal with a threat against himself. He could not deal with one against her.

"What I need to know here, though, is if he had something against her, or for her, or whatever. Was he dangerous?"

"From all the indicators... he was obsessed. But whether or not he would hurt her is another matter. What I see him doing here is not so much identifying with her as seeing her as an object. Generally, stalkers that eventually kidnap or kill their victims form an attachment with them. They convince themselves that they are in love, and that the person they are following loves them just as passionately. When they make an approach, if they're turned down they respond in the only way they can to get control of the situation."

"But you don't think that Sampson was that type of stalker?"

Sweets shook his head. "No, but I don't doubt that he would have gladly found out every detail of what she went through and published it just to get his name out to the public. He was endlessly egotistical, but also reserved and afraid of judgment. He probably saw this as his only chance to actually stand out."

Booth sighed in relief. At least there was no immediate danger. The psycho was dead. Now they just had to find out why, and they could go back to solving normal murders.

"But," Sweets said, cutting into his thoughts, "This collage?" he pointed to the back wall. "This right here is exactly what I was talking about. Booth, whoever this is, whoever took over Sampson's spot... he's obsessed with her too. And if I've got this right, and I think I do... he killed Sampson to get rid of what he perceived as his biggest competition in gaining her."