17.

Carter has discovered Sweets is missing and tracks down the trucks. Sweets is still hiding under it but his strength gives out and he falls to the ground just as the trucks are leaving. He is able to crawl to a ditch but doesn't know where he is. Carter uses the cell to track the trucks from HQ where he is interrogating Julie. Angela tracks the signal down so Booth, Gillespie & Brennan find the location and Julie though Carter eludes them.

"So?" Booth asked hovering.

"What Seeley?" Cam scowled.

"Do you have anything we can use?!" Booth nearly shouted at her, exhaustion was wearing at all their nerves combined with the feeling they were not getting any closer to finding Sweets.

Cam stood up and stared back at Booth with an expression he did not often see, so much that he was distracted by it until her words made sense of it. "Yes, Booth, I found Sweets blood on the floor in the office along with epithelial on the chair, the back of the chair where it looks like he was tied to it. Hodgins also found rope, thick rope with more of Sweets skin on it – and not just on it but in it suggesting he was tied tightly to it – Julie filled us in – that's when Carter dangled him from the ceiling." Cam walked a few feet away and pointed to another room. "Here he was beaten again, with a bat, this bat, where his blood – along with Sager and McLaughlin's blood is on it. Now if you want to follow me I'll show you to the tiny, freezing cold cell where he was kept. There's more than enough blood evidence there to…" Cam's voice broken from her angry tirade to a quivering lip but before Booth could say more she walked away.

Hodgins walked in the room with a shirt in a bag, blood on it as well.

"Found this in the trash." Hodgins said having heard what Cam said. "It's a match too."

"I'm sorry." Booth said softly to anyone who might have heard.

"He's probably still alive Booth." Brennan reminded him.

"For how long?" Booth asked. "We've been just one step too late – every time."

"Sweets is resourceful." Angela reminded him. "I'd rather have him out there than have come here and found a…a…body."

"Except for one thing." Booth said coldly. "We're not the only one looking for him."

A violent shiver brought Sweets back to awareness. You've got to get up he reminded himself. Don't want to he argued back. I just want to stay here on the cold wet ground and forget, forget about it all, it all hurts so bad. Yeah? Well how about those people? Are you going to turn your back on them? You're the only one who's got this book, it's up to you to help them.

Sweets head throbbed with aching as the pushed himself up. The pain of his broken fingers, his broken ribs and shattered knee that had grown numb were packed neatly inside a case he locked tight and buried away. The intense cold that cut thru him like a knife was to be forgotten, pain is a luxury you can't recognize – pain makes you feel, it makes you real and right now you are numb.

However long it took Sweets to mount the hill he couldn't have told you. Each planting of a bare foot in the wet and cold earth was one step farther than before, a step meant to save the lives of others. Why, why are you doing this for them? Strangers! What do strangers care? Victims. Sweets reminded himself, who can do nothing of their own. Why do they become victims, they should have tried harder to avoid dangerous situations! Sweets was angry at the thought that these people caused him this pain. You know that's not how it works Lance. Sweets regretted his thoughts. Maybe Carter was right, right about whatever it is.

In that moment Sweets felt completely alone, holding a book full of names, full of lives that needed saving. I can't save them, I can't hardly walk. Stop your whining! Move on, geez no wonder your friends keep you at arm's length and make fun of you – can't even save people. Can't do that as a shrink, so they say, all you gotta do is get the book to someone who can do more than you can. Can't even get over that metal corner crasher can you?

It did little to help Sweets self-esteem when he topped over when mounting the metal material keeping cars from going off the road. As he laid on the ground he laughed at himself but it soon turned to near tears – he would have had to have some water recently to reserve enough for tears. You thought they were going to come for you didn't you? Yeah I did. You overestimate one of two things – their ability or their interest in finding you. Your fear is that it's the second one isn't it Lance? You're alone – most of the time and they don't even notice, you're always at the edge, expendable and easy to write off. Sweets rolled to one side and pulled himself up to his feet again. You saved yourself, you always have, you're your own person – don't expect anything of others, only yourself. Sweets hand held onto the metal as he walked along for support. You can be alone without being lonely. Yeah right, sounds nice but lonely, lonely is the plan whether alone and bleeding in a cell or sitting in my office waiting for someone to call for a drink or to say hello, only no one ever does.

Just get this book to someone and then go your own way. What was is that anyway? Hell maybe this life isn't for me anymore, not psychology, maybe just living in general. Hell, no one will probably even notice if I'm gone.

A car was in the distance and Sweets was ready to flag it down and hand over the book, ask them to take it to the nearest police station and then, well, the darkness of those thoughts weren't something he was ready to voice out loud right now. Only…only…what if…what if that car is one of Carter's people, I'll be handing it right back to him.

Sweets quickly jumped back over the metal fence and laid low until the car went by. Once the headlights were gone the moonlight reflected off the ground again. With increasing numbness Sweets pulled himself up again from the ground and placed one foot in front of the other as he walked along the road. Did the road lead anywhere, he wondered. If it did take him some place was there anyone he could trust? He was starting to realize he didn't really even care. He knew that wasn't entirely true, Julie, you care about Julie, and those women who fought for you, those men who helped you, those strangers who shouted for the men to stop beating you, the women you condemned to service on Carter's demands – you owe all of them.

Sweets continued to walk with two resolves in mind that increased in fortitude with each step. Save them, trust in no one.

Julie hadn't witnessed everything that happened but she knew enough of Carter's behaviors to string the parts together she hadn't seen. The evidence served as a timeline along with her rendition but instead of information gathering on a case on someone they didn't know – this time it was more harrowing with one of their own. What was the most disturbing and concerning to them was her admission that Sweets health had rapidly etiolated by the time they were ushered out.

"Agent Booth?" One of the agents asked who had come to assist. "I'm not going to ask that you step away from the case, but I know how hard this must be."

Booth had hardly realized he had been holding the evidence bag with Sweets bloody shirt in it for some time - a shirt he helped him on with.

"I promised him." Booth said but not necessarily to the agent speaking with him.

"We all know Dr. Sweets, not as well as you, and maybe we never really showed it or said our thanks to him, but, but we're in this, whatever you need."

Booth nodded, he heard the highlights of the agent's words, it was just that they felt so empty, empty like his promise. I've failed in the worst way. I shout how no one hurts my people – one of them may be dead – a lot of big talk on my part!

Brennan laid a hand on his shoulder, whatever her husband's thoughts were she knew they weren't blameless. She didn't have great words of encouragement, she didn't have a great idea, she was just there so he didn't have to be alone. Booth felt her warmth and put an arm around her waist. He generally wasn't this affectionate while working but he needed it – he needed her. He drew great strength from her and was glad to not be without her, all of them. It only made him think more, how can Sweets do it, how can he be alive, try? After all this?

Cars came & went, each time Sweets dodged them. His tired body now and then said to just throw himself on a car and take a chance – make a quick confession and hope it wasn't one of Carter's people out looking for him. And let those people down? A second time? The ones who weren't assigned maid service – you're going to keep them working while you take an eternal nap? Push on loser, do something for a change. Somewhere in the recesses of Sweets mind he heard a voice diagnosing everything he said but he imagined that shrink in his head being bludgeoned with a bat – the care and concern being beaten out of him, or was it a memory? It was all becoming fuzzy and he didn't want to think about it, he wanted to get to his destination, the final destination. He understood for a second the notion of the walking dead, a zombie propelled to move on though it didn't know why, it just moved, numb, one foot – mostly – in front of the other.

Morning soon, a few hours probably, I can get the book to…where am I? Oh…I don't know…so confused. Post office, I can mail it…no postage…if no postage it will go back to sender…I make the sender and the receiver the same….send it to Booth? Someone who cares….who cares? Who cares indeed….. So confused, why do I bother?...Julie…help them, then bother no one anymore….right foot, left foot….one at t a time….

I do have an idea for another story, different again of course but I may take a break from writing these. I do promise to finish this one of course.