Author's Note: Yes, a new snippet and this is going to be another multi-part snippet storyline. I know that this chapter won't make a whole lot of sense, but don't worry, it will later. :)

I do not own Bones or any of its characters.

Thank you to everyone who is reading/following/reviewing this. It's always appreciated.

Lives in the now: Thank you for that. I will admit, I was confused that the writers had Hodgins getting so worked up over lab equipment, so I was trying to find a way to make more sense of it when this idea came to me. Plus, I am always wishing for more Sweets/Hodgins scenes on the show. :) But even more than that, I do think that sometimes Hodgins would feel somewhat reflective of how his life has changed over these past few years...I hope you will enjoy this new series of snippets.

Peanutmeg: Thanks for the review. I am hoping that we will see more more Sweets/Hodgins moments in the next season. I hope you enjoy this update too.

Whirlwind421: Yeah, it's good to go for more fluffy stuff here and there. :) But hopefully you will still enjoy the shift in mood in this snippet...

Charlotte Thornton: Yes, I was on a bit of a writing hiatus for a while there. As much as there were many things that I liked about season seven, there were some things I disliked and even loathed a bit (including some stuff from the finale). But for now, I find that I can continue on with the approach that I should just enjoy what I like and move on from what I don't...Thank you. I do think that Sweets and Hodgins have a great dynamic and I missed seeing them interact more this last season. Here's to hoping more will happen in the next one. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this snippet.

Chapter Eleven—Illusions

'Just as the twining river bends/ So are we here back again…'

Sweets stumbled and struggled to regain his footing, but maintaining his balance seemed insurmountable given how unsure he was of what he could see around him.

He was certain that he was still trying to find his way out of this clump of warehouses that he had been searching with Booth, and he was certain that he was getting close to the some local businesses that were nearby.

But he was questioning whether or not there really was an old man with a purple hat following him.

The psychologist shook his head and continued to move forward. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had convinced himself that if he just kept moving straightforward, eventually he would find his bearings. It was simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and making sure that he didn't accidentally change directions. Sweets tried to repeat this mantra to himself over and over again in his mind, but was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. He stole a glance behind him again and saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

'It's that man again. What does he want from me? Why is he wearing that purple hat? Is it so he can talk to those purple cats I saw earlier?'

Sweets shook his head again and willed himself to concentrate.

'What was I doing here? That's right, I was looking for something. Looking for something with Booth. Where is he? I need to find him. Booth will know what is going on.'

The psychologist kept moving, but now he had a new purpose: find Booth. He now was consumed by the hope that finding the agent would make everything else fall in place.

Including why he saw purple cats in the first place.

'No, no, there are no purple cats…That wasn't real,' he told himself forcibly. 'It was a hallucination, an illusion. It doesn't matter if I saw it…if I think I saw it. Something is wrong…something that is making me see things. What happened?'

Sweets tried to remember what had happened before he started this search, but came up with nothing. He redoubled his efforts to keep moving forward, but each step started to feel disconnected, as if someone else was walking for him and he was just along for the ride.

Suddenly, he saw Booth in front of a hot dog stand, chomping the end off a frank smothered in relish. Sweets ran over to him.

"Booth, where were you?" Sweets asked, his words tumbling out of his mouth. "What is going on? And is there a man with a purple hat following us?"

Booth's face screwed up in confusion as he swallowed the bite in his mouth.

"What are you on, pal?" he asked. "Look, go away before I call a cop over." Now it was Sweets turn to be confused.

"Booth, what are you saying? You are a cop," Sweets replied. "You're an agent. Don't you remember?"

Sweets reached over to pat his shoulder, but Booth jerked and pushed him roughly away.

"Get out of here," he bellowed at Sweets. It was then that Booth's face seemed to melt away and in its place was the face of a stranger. Sweets blinked several times while trying to clear his head.

"Wait…Booth…?"

The man gave him another hard shove. Sweets, unnerved and angry at being treated this way, shoved back, causing the man to fall backward. He then stormed away. His indignation over what happened, however, quickly evaporated as he realized that he had only imagined that man to be Booth. He shook as he ran his hands over his face.

'What is happening to me? Why am I seeing things? Have I…have I lost my mind? Have I finally snapped?'

Sweets shivered, his hand passing over a bruise on his neck several times. Somewhere in his memory, he could recollect how he sometimes wondered what it would be like to be afflicted with some of the disorders he had studied over the years as a psychologist. It had been an irrational sort of terror, the kind you have when falling into a nightmare or having a dark daydream while sitting in your house alone.

Now, however, he was faced with that very fear in a much more visceral form.

'No…no I am not crazy,' he told himself. 'I know what is real and what isn't. A mentally ill person would not be able to know the difference. That man wasn't Booth, the cats don't exist…and there isn't a man following me…I think.'

Sweets started walking again. Occasionally, he would see some other strange sight like more purple cats and dogs talking to garbage shaped beings, but he did his best to ignore them. As he walked his hand continued to rub a sore spot on his neck.

'Why does my neck hurt like that?' he wondered. 'It's like a giant bee stung me. A man shaped bee with a silver stinger.'

"Here…have some fun for a while…"

Sweets jerked and stumbled against the wall. That last voice inside his head was not his own, and his brain scrambled to figure out where it came from.

'Was someone there? Was it a memory? Yes, it had to be a memory…it has to be, right? It's either that or I am hearing voices. Could I be hearing voices?'

Sweets ran a hand over his face and resumed walking. He tried to reason out clinically what could be happening to him. He knew that hearing voices and visual hallucinations could point to a form of schizophrenia, but he couldn't accept the idea.

'I don't have any other symptoms and there is no family history…I think. But…I don't know about my biological family. What if they….?'

The psychologist swallowed hard and stopped to look around him. If he had schizophrenia, he would need to be treated; he would have to get help. Right now though, help seemed to be impossible to find.

Suddenly he was hit with a wave of nausea, and Sweets slumped down to the ground. He felt himself spiraling into darkness even as he tried to resist it.

'No…no I don't want to go….go into the dark…he will find me there….'

The world around Sweets had grown and become grey. Objects seemed to be ten times their normal size and walkways stretched to nowhere. Sweets knew that it couldn't be real, but he also couldn't fathom where he was now.

"You're with me now, Lance….That was a dream…"

Sweets whirled around and saw his biological father standing in front of him. His rational mind remembered him only being less than six feet tall, but right now he was a giant standing in front of him, a maniacal grin growing on his face.

"Welcome back, Lance. Remember me?"

Sweets backed away. Even though he was sure that this was a dream, he felt bile rise in his throat and his insides quake. He didn't want to be in this nightmare.

'Wake up, wake up,' he repeated to himself over and over. His biological father laughed and reached down to grab his wrist.

"You'll see, Lance" he bellowed. "You'll see that when you wake up, it won't make a bit of difference."

Sweets' eyes flew open, and he was terrified to see that there was still a man yanking on his wrist, the smell of cheap vodka and unwashed clothes pungent in the air.

"Gimmie…gimmie that watch," the man slurred.

"No, let go," Sweets yelled back. He twisted his arm free, but lost his watch in the process. The other man scampered away, leaving Sweets to sit up and scrub his eyes.

'What is happening to me? Nothing makes sense anymore.'

'Am I losing my mind?'

'Or is it possible I never had it in the first place?'

'Which one is the dream and which one is reality?'

Sweets leapt to his feet and shook his head defiantly as he sprinted away.

'No…no, that's not right. I am Doctor Lance Sweets. I am not crazy. I have a life, a job, a place…I just need to get back to them.'

'Back…back to the case. The case I was working with Booth. That is what I need to do: find Booth and work the case.'

Sweets returned to his search, but found that every street he walked down looked the same to him. Signs had nothing but vague characters. People became a collection of menacing faces.

Suddenly, Sweets saw a face: a man with dark brown eyes and short brown hair. He finally smiled.

"Booth," he said, running over to him. "Booth, something's wrong. I keep seeing things…."

But to his horror, Booth grinned and closed his hands into fists while motioning for another man to come over.

"Looks like we got ourselves a crazy in our neighborhood," Booth continued to grin, the smile becoming wider and the teeth sharper. "Looks like he's going to need a lesson."

Sweets backed away as the two men approached. As he took a step back, Booth's face twisted into a feral snarl and then into something far less than human.

He knew that these men were going to try to hurt him. His mind flashed back to every other time he had been bullied as a child and something inside him snapped.

The man threw a punch at Sweets, but the psychologist responded by dodging and smashing a fist against the man's nose. A spurt of red appeared and that seemed to make both men even angrier.

Fists rained down on Sweets, and the psychologist fell to the ground. Soon, Sweets felt his own blood start to trickle from various wounds. The sensation scared him even as it further enraged him and caused him to flail about, kicking and punching as best he could. He could tell by the sudden aches in his hands and feet that some blows hit their targets.

When a third form joined the fray, however, the numbers turned against Sweets and he was left with clamping his arms over his head until these monsters got bored with hitting him. It was a waiting game he had played before, back when his birth father decided to "teach him a lesson". Thus, Sweets knew that he would just have to stay still and endure the agony until the lesson was complete.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually the three figures left, and Sweets was able to sink down against the asphalt. His body was on fire, pain radiating from everywhere. He managed to grab at a section of a nearby brick wall and slowly pull himself up to his feet. He then staggered, clinging to the wall and hoping that he wouldn't fall again because he wasn't sure if he could get back up.

Sweets looked behind him and saw that the old man with the hat was still following him, silent and staring. He wondered what that man wanted and could not shake the feeling that the man was somehow familiar to him.

'Why didn't you help me?' Sweets asked the man silently. 'Why are you just watching over me, following me around?'

'Why did you leave me?'

Sweets found a nook between the wall and a large dumpster and crawled into it. Nauseous and wracked with pain, he laid back down on the ground. He stared at the debris scattered about in front of him and focused in on some feathery bits of white. His fingers reached over and touched them.

'They're soft. Like petals, like flowers…That's what I want, flowers. Petals, flowers, daisies…I want daisies. I want Daisy…why isn't she here? I need her here...'

"You'll see that when you wake up, it won't make a bit of difference."

And it hadn't. He was still here, bleeding on the ground. He was still alone, still lost, still faced with an empty world and with a possibly broken mind.

He had gone back to his beginning.

And now the beginning would also be the end.