15.

Cam, Hodgins & Angela were close and yet far enough behind Booth's SUV to be able to follow the getaway car. With the location known a high speed pursuit is in order only for the police cruise barricade to cause the driver to stop too soon, flipping the car with Sweets in the trunk. The broken and apologetic Sweets is taken to the hospital, again, while Booth goes after the gang Wyatt Earp/Tombstone style.

"Booth!" Brennan shouted rushing to her partner as he walked into the hospital where they were she was standing and pacing the halls. "Are you okay!?" She asked seeing the splattered blood on his arm below his black tee. She noticed he was no longer wearing his suit.

"Yeah, it's not mine." Booth said in the tone he used when he had to take someone's life but didn't like it.

"What happened?" Brennan asked her eyes wide. She had been worried when Booth did not arrive when the others did nor answer his cell.

"We got hem Bones. All of them." Booth said. For the first time in over a month he felt like he could finally relax. He sat down, exhausted. Brennan followed by sitting next to him. "And with enough evidence and other counts of criminal activity they're going to be busy for quite a long time."

"That's great news Booth." Brennan said realizing that what was off Booth's mind the most was the overall worry for Sweets future and not being tracked down again.

"How is he?" Booth asked, almost avoiding the question.

"Bad. But he's going to be okay." It was almost out of character for her to say and Booth recognized how worried she had been. "Cam and I rode along, I didn't want some gang member showing up or some doctor not knowing what had happened before so we wouldn't leave his side." She looked adamant but unsure if that was the right thing to do.

"That's good Bones." Booth said running his hand on her cheek. "Now what do you mean bad?"

"Are you okay Seeley?!" Cam said approaching with wide eyes.

"Yeah, it's…" Booth said not wanting to repeat about the life he took while hoping desperately his own friends life was intact. Cam knew what he meant and dropped it.

"Everything okay?" Brennan asked worried something had changed since she left the room.

"No, no!" Cam said reassuring her. Booth could tell by her demeanor that things were not as tense and began to breathe more evenly. "No, I had to step out to get Sweets to stop apologizing."

Cam was still smiling but she had a sadness in her eyes.

"So he's talking?" Booth asked hoping to finally get more details.

"Oh yes." Cam said. "He's got a broken leg, and some of the ribs that weren't healed yet are broke again and a concussion. We've been talking to him to keep him awake. He can rest in a bit but then we'll have to wake him again. Dr. Brennan was just going for coffee and didn't come back so I was coming to check."

"Oh, right." Brennan said remembering why she was in the hall.

"I'll go." Cam said. "Why don't you take Booth to see Sweets. I think he'd like to see you."

Booth nodded. It wasn't easy to see a male friend at his worst and certainly not in a hospital. The last time he saw Sweets he broke his leg before pulling him out of the trunk of a crashed car. Therapy seemed like child's play now.

The pair walked in the room to find Angela combing Sweets hair up in the air. Hodgins giggled and a muffled laugh came from the bed.

"Well I think it looks better than how you have it mashed down all the time." Angela said admiring her handy work. "You look carefree!" She said with a smile.

"Or drunk." Hodgins kidded.

Booth felt his shoulders relax at the atmosphere this time thought he laughter stopped when Booth walked in.

"Hey there action figure guy." Hodgins said to Booth noting his black tee and cargo pants.

Angela noticed it as well. 'What were you up to? Oh…" She said stopping having figured it out. Sweets did too.

"Everything is good." Booth said. "it's over."

The mood lifted again, a certain pressure was gone.

"How are you doing Sweets?" Booth asked trying not be all 'weird and hiding emotions' guy.

Sweets cleared his throat. "Better, though strange for being worse."

"We'll get there." Booth said and they all picked up on the inclusion pronoun.

"Well, we need to pick up Michael Vincent." Angela announced. "I trust though that someone else has the next shift?" Hodgins stood to join her.

"Oh, you guys don't have to…" Sweets stopped from talking as a rush of pain came to his head causing him to raise his hand to it.

"Dr. Sweets does that hurt?" Brennan asked slowly.

"It's fine, I uh…" Sweets said.

"No, when it hurts we tell people right?" Brennan said in as condescending mode as she could muster.

"I'll get the doctor." Cam said from the door handing the two coffee cups she could carry to Booth and turning to leave.

"Maybe we should stay." Angela said pausing.

"No, I don't want to be a burden really, I'm fine." Sweets said sitting up too fast.

"Yeah, we'd like to believe you but we've been around you the last two days." Booth said. "We're good, you guys pick up your kiddo. Bones, maybe you pick up our kiddo? I'll keep an eye on Crash Banda coop over here." Booth said sitting with the cup of coffee.

"We'll be back in the morning." Angela promised giving Sweets a peck on the cheek.

"Sorry bud, no kiss from me." Hodgins said with a smile.

"Good." Sweets said coping with the pain but eased by the fact that the feeling of the room had so much warmth to it, that this time he knew he should genuinely accept.

With just Booth & Sweets in the room it suddenly seemed too quiet.

"If you move fast you can have that coffee before Cam comes back." Booth said joking.

"I'm sorry Booth, for everything I…"

"Sweets don't." Booth said interrupting. "It was a bad deal, we could have all done things different, and we all have things to apologize for." Booth said inferring the broken bone. He wasn't going to mention it because he knew Sweets would only apologize again for running and so on. "You just have to promise me something this time Sweets, you have to promise to let us help, to say something okay?"

Sweets still felt unsure of burdening his friends. Booth seemed sincere but they had kids, lives of their own. He realized he would never feel fully comfortable by putting that on them. Booth noticed that Sweets hadn't answered yet but at least he was considering it this time.

"I killed two people today Sweets." Booth said not looking at him. "I didn't want, they pulled a gun and I shot them. They were the ones that did that to you. I shot two people and worried for the last month that I'd lost one of my team, my friend. I don't have a lot of friends. And while you used to drive me crazy, well, I missed you the last month. So if you decide to come back to being a psychologist one day, I've got some stuff I need to talk about."

It wasn't a soliloquy, but Booth hardly touched on his feelings. Sure Sweets knew that Booth didn't like taking lives, even when necessary, he knew too that Booth thought well of him, but it meant a great deal that he meant that much to him.

Cam stood by the door and listened for a moment then waited as she heard a set of snores. Both men, now relaxed, had fallen asleep.

"Daddy!" A small voice said waking him.

Booth opened his eyes to see Christine coming at him. Her face would always make him smile. Brennan sat down bags of food on the table quietly.

"What's wrong with Uncle Sweets? He looks awful!" She announced.

"Shhh, honey." Booth said putting his finger to his lips. "We can't wake him. He fell down and got some big boo-boos."

"I'd say he fell down a lot!" The little girl whispered.

"How is he?" Brennan asked removing food from the bag.

"You didn't have to come back Bones." Booth said but welcomed the smell of food.

"I wanted to." Brennan said. She couldn't imagine being anyplace but there at the moment. "Besides, shouldn't we be waking him soon or wait for the nurse?"

"How is he Bones?" Booth asked. He wanted the unedited version that only Brennan would give. "Like the pills."

"They'll treat him and the right way. We'll all make sure of that."

The days turned into weeks as each of the team stopped in, not too often to feed Sweets' guilt but often. Soon he was moving, dexterity restored to his hands as he and Brennan battled over chess games. Gordon stopped by with samples of food he was testing out. Angela was soon able to tease Sweets that he now had a little something humans like to call "body fat." Booth still thought the young man was too thin but he didn't say it. Instead he just privately asked Bones how he was doing, really doing. She assured him this time around he was doing much better.

His leg still in a cast even when he was discharged the following week. He was reluctantly placed in the Booth home for a week more and after two days gave up on protesting. He knew he would never get up the steps to his apartment and didn't know why he thought otherwise. The doctor said it would be another week to remove the cast and while Sweets wanted to object about being a burden this time he said nothing and instead offered a simple thank you.

That week the others stopped by for dinners and visits. While they had done that before they did something they hadn't before, discussed the case.

"What's going on?" Sweets asked tugging at his sweatshirt. He was finding the casual attire uncomfortable and admired their fitted dress clothes everyone else seemed to be wearing.

"Oh another girl was found like the last one, under the bleachers." Angela said wiping her mouth.

The continued to discuss the case and Booth noticed Sweets listening. He said nothing. Later that night Booth got up and walked downstairs to find Sweets not sleeping on the couch as usual (where there were no stairs) and instead at the table surrounded in pages of the case file.

"Whatcha doin' Sweets?" Booth asked.

"Well I was listening to you guys and I've found what I suspected. Both of the victims were found in cheerleader uniforms, but they weren't on the squad. Okay, that you knew but they were both in this class, a Mr. VanHecke. He was charged but those charges were dropped three times for inappropriate touching. His daughter was the one who dropped the charges."

"Okay?"

"Booth, his daughter was the captain of the cheerleaders!"

"So he was sexually abusing his daughter."

"Yeah." Sweets said. "She must have said no and he went elsewhere, tried to make the girls like her."

"We didn't catch that." Booth said sitting across from Sweets at the table. "Good work, we'll pick him up before any more bodies turn up."

Sweets continued to look thru the notes. Booth wasn't sure if he was about to push his luck or not. The last time Sweets wanted nothing to do with psychology.

"How's the leg?"

"Better, hope this thing can get off soon. I just want to get out you know?"

"You're looking better."

"Thanks. I feel, a lot better."

Booth went for it. "So uh, you wanna go to work tomorrow, catch some bad guys?"

Sweets stopped flipping thru pages, considered what was ultimately being asked.

"Yeah, can you give me a ride?" Sweets asked knowing the answer.

"I think we can exchange it for some of that coffee of yours, if you're up to it."

"Yeah, I think so. Maybe one day we can talk about those things on your mind too."

Booth smiled. Their shrink was back.

The End. Or is it? Should I write another story? I mean Sweets has been shot, kidnapped, tortured, suffered hypothermia, psychological breakdowns, electroshock therapy, beaten up, suffered an explosion, drug addiction, poisoned, car accidents and in general had some bad days worthy of death metal. Has he had enough? Of course not! Let's write another one...