Author's Note: Next chapter. Things are going to be moving kind of fast for a bit, but I will be slowing down soon. I hope you can bear with me. :)
I do not own Bones or any of its characters.
Thank you to everyone who is reading/following/reviewing this. It's always appreciated.
Peanutmeg: Thank you for the review. :) No I wasn't kidding, and yeah, given canon, it's easy to imagine B&B not being thrilled with that side of Sweets or his work. I hope you enjoy this chapter as well...although it also will not be an easy one for a different reason...
Lives in the now: Thank you. I agree about the numerous possibilities, and I think at least some of my readers will be a little surprised at the directions I am going to go with this. But I hope that it stays interesting. I also agree that Sweets needs to come to the realization that his place within the team is not transitory or solely dependent on his professional performance, but the question becomes, how does he reach that point? It's something I am going to ponder here...
D: And that's something I think we can say about Sweets pretty consistently within canon: he seems to have a lot of answers for the people around him and none for himself. And in this story, there will be little room for that approach...
The Break in the Ties—Chapter 3
Several minutes and a couple of breathing exercises later, Sweets entered the Hoover Building and went straight to Warner's office. Sweets explained that he would need to cancel most of his on-going therapy sessions due to personal illness in the vaguest terms possible. The psychologist was nervous that his supervisor was going to press the issue, judging from the expression on the agent's face.
"Will you be available for any of your regular office duties?" Warner asked him.
"For the present, yes," Sweets answered. "I can still work on profiles, do consultations, and participate in interviews and interrogations as needed. I…I just need to halt any on-going evaluations or treatments for now because I do not know if or when things could change…I can get you any needed paperwork from my doctor as soon as…."
"Don't worry about that, Doctor Sweets," Warner said, his expression puzzled but concerned. "Bring in the documents you need as soon as you can. For now, I will re-assign your patients and notify the agents of the changes, excepting Agent Thompson as per your request." Sweets shoulders slumped down in relief.
"Thank you, sir," the psychologist said, his mouth dry. "I'll let you know as soon as possible if the situation changes."
"Fine," Warner said, keeping a watchful eye on Sweets. The therapist started to leave.
"Doctor Sweets."
"Yes," Sweets said, turning back toward the agent.
"I hope you feel better soon," Warner said before attending to his paperwork.
"Thank you," Sweets said, the words thick on his tongue. The psychologist nearly stumbled as he walked out and headed back to his office. Once inside, he collapsed onto the couch and laid down.
It was then that he remembered that he was supposed to do an evaluation of Booth and Brennan and that their first session had been set for tomorrow…an evaluation that Sweets knew was currently being re-assigned by Warner.
Sweets closed his eyes and groaned. His first thought was to get back up and head over to Warner's office to tell him not to re-assign their evaluation either. Thoughts of the importance of those sessions, the expectations of Booth and Brennan, and the unique difficulties that they would probably give another therapist soon followed.
But every time that Sweets started to move, one thought stole all of his inertia.
'Cancer.'
'My doctor is going to run tests to see if I have cancer.'
'I could have cancer.'
The psychologist started to count his breaths. He knew that it was not good to dwell on something that could turn out to be nothing at all, but that knowledge was not enough to stop his insides from growing cold or his heart from pounding whenever he let himself think about it. He ended up making into the fifties in his counting before he was able to steady his nerves enough to be able to open his eyes and reason again. He had thought about cancelling his request to transfer his evaluation of Booth and Brennan to another therapist one last time when another thought occurred to him.
'Do I really need to be the one to do this?'
Sweets blinked and frowned. His mind went back to previous sessions with them after Booth had arrested Max Keenan for murder and then to the sessions he had with them as research for his book. He remembered sessions being cut short due to cases coming up or for almost any other reason that Booth or Brennan could devise. He thought about the stonewalling, the subtle mocking of him, his age or his profession, and the hours spent in silence.
'It doesn't really matter if I am in the room or not as far as they are concerned,' he told himself. 'Brennan doesn't believe in psychology and Booth doesn't believe that there is ever any cause for therapy as far as he or his partnership are concerned.'
' And…neither of them really believe in me anyway as a therapist.'
Sweets swallowed hard. He knew that he was probably partially, if not mostly, to blame for the perceptions his co-workers had of him, so he figured that he really had no room to be bitter. Still, it was becoming increasingly clear to him that he was not up for round after round of pointless frustration which frequently made him question why he ever chose to go into psychology in the first place.
His life was already filled with too many doubts and too much questioning at the moment.
'It'll be fine,' Sweets decided to convince himself. 'Brennan and Booth…they're probably solid, at least in a professional sense. As long as they simply co-operate a little bit and don't give whoever is running their evaluation too much grief, they'll be fine. Nothing to worry about. It's not as if they desperately need me for this.'
The psychologist closed his eyes again and began to meditate. His decision had been made and now all he wanted to do was clear his mind for a while.
"I…I don't know if I can talk about this, Doctor Sweets," Thompson said as he sat on the couch across from Sweets almost an hour later. "It's all just…" The agent waved a hand around his head.
"It doesn't have to be in any exact order," Sweets assured him. "We can just start with whatever you're comfortable with sharing." He leaned forward in his chair, his expression open and sincere.
"That day, the day of the shooting," the psychologist continued. "What comes to your mind first?"
Thompson took a deep breath and fidgeted, his foot tapping an erratic rhythm. Sweets waited patiently for him to respond.
"Breakfast," Thompson finally blurted out. "Dave…he uh…He really wanted to try out this new Mexican place when we met up that morning before heading out to that jewelry store. He kept saying that he felt like having some fajitas. I told him that it was crazy to want fajitas for breakfast. I mean who does that, you know?"
Sweets gave a slight nod in response and silently encouraged him to continue.
"But Dave…that's the kind of guy that he is," the agent added. "That he…was. But uh, I was wanting something more breakfast-y, I guess. Eggs and bacon or something like that. And Dave, he ended up going along with what I wanted. That…that was the last time that we ate together. The last meal that Dave ever ate."
Thompson looked up at Sweets, his haggard features twisting in distress as his eyes started to shine.
"He never did get to go to that Mexican place," the agent said. "And the last meal he ever got was something he didn't really want. What kind of a last meal is that?"
Sweets opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted when the door opened, and Booth burst into the room.
"What's going on, Sweets?" Booth demanded. "I just got an email saying that our evaluation is now being handled by a Doctor Ellis instead of you."
"Agent Booth…" Sweets started.
"What the hell is this?" Thompson growled, rubbing his eyes and turning toward the other agent.
"Do you mind, pal?" Booth snapped. "We're in the middle of something here."
"Agent Booth," Sweets tried again. "I'm in the middle of…."
But in that moment, Thompson had gotten up and was heading for the door.
"Agent Thompson," Sweets said, rising to his feet. "Please…we can…."
"Forget it…just….forget it," Thompson mumbled as he brushed past Booth on his way out of the office. Sweets watched, wide-eyed and helpless, as Thompson left, and Booth walked toward him.
"Answer my question, Sweets," Booth said as soon as Thompson was gone. "Why did you cancel on Bones and me? You're always looking for ways to rope us back into therapy, and now that you have it, you back out at the last minute. Is this some kind of shrinky mind game?"
As Booth talked, Sweets slumped downward, his hands resting on the back of the chair he had just been sitting in as he leaned forward. He hung his head as his mind drifted away from the words he was hearing to all of the events that had just occurred.
'All that time…all that work…all of it for nothing,' Sweets thought to himself. 'I had been trying so hard to get Thompson to trust me enough to open up, and I was so close….So close to getting him to talk about his partner's death. And now….who knows how long it will be before I get that close again.'
'And who knows if I'll get another chance anyway.'
"Sweets, are you listening?" Booth said, clapping his hands. Sweets' hands trembled in response, and he tried to hide it by crushing the upholstery in his grasp until his knuckles turned white.
This was nothing new to him. Booth had come into his office without warning a million times before. They all had. Often when he was in the middle of something. He should be used to it by now. It shouldn't bother him anymore.
"Answer me, Sweets."
The psychologist had an answer, and it would have been a simple thing to just open his mouth and let it out.
'I'm sorry, Booth. I can't attend to your evaluation right now become I think I might have cancer.'
Just one sentence, just a few words. That's all that it would take. But those words froze on Sweets' tongue and became clogged in his throat. Saying those words out loud would make it all even more real somehow. It would stop being just a worry inside his head and would become a part of his life. Something he would have to deal with.
And right now, the only thing keeping Sweets together was the fact that he had chosen to not deal with it for the moment.
Sweets had an answer…but something quite different escaped his lips.
"Get out."
Booth cocked his head at him.
"What did you say?" the agent asked, his tone a challenge. Sweets finally lifted his head, his eyes ablaze with anger.
"I said get out," Sweets repeated in a soft but venomous voice. "This is my office and you interrupted an important session with one of my patients. So now you need to leave so that I can get back to my work."
"Your work," Booth parroted, his own anger rising in response. "Our evaluation is supposed to be your work too, or is that not as important to you now? Or maybe you're still upset that we didn't tell you about us sooner? Well maybe that's because we didn't want someone poking and prodding at us day and night over it."
Sweets turned away and walked over toward his desk.
"This conversation is over, Agent Booth," he said, his voice shaking slightly from his rage. Booth walked over to him and grabbed his arm so he could turn the therapist to look at him. Sweets winced at the ferocity of his grip.
"It's over? Is that it?" Booth growled. "You know what our partnership means to Bones and me and you're just going to toss this over to someone else?"
"Let go of me," Sweets said as he tried to squirm away. But the agent merely tightened his grip and then grabbed Sweets' other arm so that the psychologist would be forced to face him.
"Are we not as important as that guy is?" Booth said, indicating the doorway with his head. "Now that your book is scrapped, you've moved on to other test subjects? Or maybe you just want us to say that you were right all along? Is that it? Fine, you were right and we were wrong. Happy now?"
Sweets had continued to struggle as Booth said all of this to him, but it was futile. The agent's grip was too strong for him to overpower, and Booth would only increase his vise-like hold if he tried to get away. By now, Sweets was sure that he would have bruises.
At first, Sweets had been enraged at being held like this, but soon another emotion began to blot all of that out: fear. Fear that his doctor's concerns would turn out to be warranted. Fear that he could have a terminal illness that could slowly kill him. More immediate, however, was the deeply ingrained fear that this situation had managed to stir inside him. It reminded him of other times when another person used to restrain him, used to yell at him.
It reminded him of when this person would be getting ready to hurt him.
Suddenly, Sweets was no longer an adult who was having an argument with someone he considered a friend. He was now five years old and looking to escape whatever "punishment" the man in front of him had in mind. In a last ditch effort, Sweets yanked himself away from Booth and fell backwards onto the ground. Sweets then scrambled back up to his feet and backed up against a wall.
"Sweets?" Booth said, stunned at what had just happened.
"I said go. Leave," Sweets gasped out. "Get out of my office." Any concern that had started to show on Booth's face melted away at the psychologist's harsh tone.
"Fine," Booth growled as he ground his jaw. "You want to be left alone? That's not a problem."
And with that, Booth stormed out of the office. Sweets remained where he was for more than a couple minutes, staring at the doorway. His breaths became deeper as he worked to rein in his panic and shock began to overtake him in its place.'
"Doctor Sweets, are you all right?"
Sweets blinked and then Becky appeared in the room. For a second, he wondered when she had been able to walk in without him noticing.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I had to leave my desk for a few minutes because my husband had something urgent to tell me about the kids. Is everything…?"
"It's ok, Becky," Sweets croaked. "I…I'm not feeling very well. I think I'm just going to take some stuff with me and work on it at home."
"All right," the secretary said. "Well, I hope you feel better soon."
She then left, and Sweets grabbed a stack of papers and files off his desk and stuffed them into his briefcase. He exited his office and drove back to his apartment as fast as he could. Once he was there, Sweets stripped off his suit and tie and put on a tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He placed his briefcase onto the dining table and was about to open it when he felt his stomach churn. He ran to the bathroom and tried to be thankful that he had been able to wait to do this until he got home as he vomited.
After he was done, Sweets sat down onto the tiled floor, his legs and feet chilled by a draft in the floor.
'What am I going to do if I have cancer?'
Sweets brushed a hand over his face and got up so that he could rinse the acrid taste out of his mouth.
'What should I do right now?'
The psychologist shook himself and walked back to the table. He arranged his files and papers into neat piles and got out his laptop and placed it in the center of it all. He then sat down and took a deep breath before opening the file at the top of the stack.
The only thing that made sense to him right now was work, so work was what he decided to focus his energy on.
Sweets worked steadily for the rest of the day until late evening when Daisy came home.
"Lancelot?" I didn't think that you would be home this early," she said, worry creasing her brow. "Is everything ok?" Sweets robotically turned off his laptop and turned toward her with a smile.
"Everything is fine, Daisy," he said. "How about we just order some pizza for dinner tonight?"