A/N: Hiya! Pretty clear picture of where this is going now. Thanks for sticking with me!

dignan - sorry life's been nutty! if there's anything i can do from my little internet corner, just let me know! :) and i actually went back and put the dates in after your last review, figured it would sort of fix my messed up timeline haha. your second review was after the correction, so no brain glitch! thanks!

lmc - you're literally so sweet omg! and most if not all of your questions should be answered in this next chapter! hope none of them disappoint! thanks for reviewing! :)

November 26, 2014

"Well, Dr. Sweets," Waller's voice echoes all around him. She is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. "It's been two months. And your own friends and family still won't stop investigating. Not even to save your life."

And he lifts his head wearily and smiles, his teeth smeared with blood and his face covered in swollen purple bruises.

"Good."

It's an airy, breathless wheeze. But it gets the point across.

Still, she continues as if he never made a sound. "I wonder how that must feel. To be captive for months, to stare death so plainly in the face – and have the only people that could save you choose not to. See, all of this is voluntary, Dr. Sweets."

There's some mix of sweat and blood dripping slowly down from his hairline, headed straight for his eyes. She appears in front of him, the only other person in the room, and swipes her thumb deliberately above his eyebrow, smearing this too. He stares up at her as she pulls her hand away.

Once she steps away, the blinking red light in the distance is the only prominent thing in sight. This time he knows a camera is recording; with some of the money she's collected, it seems, she's invested in black curtains covering every wall, anything and everything that keeps his location a pure mystery, even to the frantically analyzing eye. Eyes. Whatever.

"You could beg, Lance. You're tired. You want to go home, and your friends can make that happen. You could beg and scream and plead for them to stop investigating and bring you home; I'm sure they'd find that particularly difficult to ignore."

She turns her head just slightly, to half-face the camera. That makes little difference, though. Her face is still hidden in perfect shadow, her body a mere silhouette on the wall.

"After all – this will be the final request."

Beg away, Lance Sweets. Beg for your life. The invitation is open.

She starts to call the Nobodies back into the room, but before the door can open, she finds a bloody mess of spit just inches from her shoes and the face that sent it glaring at her defiantly.

"How 'bout instead," he says, the rough croak of his voice echoing through the open space. "You go straight to Hell."

She stares at him for just another moment longer; and she smiles. Spinning on her heels, she stands and starts walking towards the door, throwing words over her shoulder as she leaves and the Nobodies come close, a different set of similarly blunt objects in their hands.

"Oh, I intend to. However, I think we both know that won't be happening for a long, long time."

Booth finds the video just after work, and he and Bones watch it with all-consuming dread once Christine has gone to sleep.

Once it's over, Booth can't breathe. There's a hard tightness in his chest, and a dizzying edge to his vision.

He can't breathe.

Beside him, he hears Brennan's chest quiver and shake as she draws in air, and he hears her whisper:

"Is he still alive?"

He finds his breath eventually, but not a definite answer.

"Yeah," he says, because he can feel it. His confidence, however – is just beginning to fade. "Yeah, he – he's alive. He's alive."

But where's his proof? Where's his physical evidence? Feelings won't help him in court, and they certainly won't help him get anywhere. Lance Sweets is still missing. He's still gone.

And Booth and Brennan and everyone else is left to spin their wheels and hope and hope and hope.

November 28, 2014

It has been two months and three days since Lance Sweets was stolen from the pavement of Sanderson Chemical, and it's been one day since the lackluster Thanksgiving where Booth made his silent decision.

He walks into the lab, dragging his feet, and everyone's eyes are directly on him as he says it:

"Put everything away. This case is over. We're done."

His eyes never left the ground as he said it; and when he turns and walks back out of the Jeffersonian's doors, nobody stops him. Nobody says a damn thing.

January, 2015

If Seeley Booth was a dream in himself, then Daisy Wick is a ghost. She is a ghost who looks and smells and sounds like everything he ever loved, and when she hugs him after four long months, he reaches up, breathes her in and holds her tight and decides that he never wants to let go ever again.

She pulls away finally, and has to fight the urge to gently pull her back; but before his fingers fall back to the bed, he notices something.

Or, rather – a lack of something.

Daisy's stomach is far flatter than it was the last time he saw her. He stares. She smiles, a bittersweet upturn of her lips.

"Our baby boy was born on November 20th. Seven pounds, six ounces. Healthy and – a little colicky, to be honest – but still very, very happy."

And the look in his eyes is difficult to place. It's some heartbreaking mix of awe and love – tinged with unspoken regret. He's lost for words.

Thankfully, Daisy's hand finds its way to his own, and grips his fingers tight. And he doesn't need words for that.

He never did.

December, 2014

It has been three weeks since the investigation was halted and their wheels screeched to a sudden stop. It's just past the three month mark, now, since their psychologist disappeared into thin air, and there have been no messages – visual, audio, email or otherwise – in twenty-six days. Pure radio silence.

It has been exactly three days since Booth adjusted the information on the APB. And now, stopping in well-worn tracks in the driveway, he turns to Brennan suddenly. Cold wind is starting to blow his hair back and mute whatever revelation is just springing forward; but his voice is stronger.

"They're covering it all up."

"What?" Brennan's hand barely brushes the passenger door's handle. She steps out from the other side of the SUV and stares. Booth's eyes are wide.

"It's been a month since we've heard anything from them. A month, and we did what they said. We stopped investigating, so – we should have Sweets back. But what's to stop us from going right back to the grind once he's safe?"

She doesn't answer, but she knows full well: absolutely nothing.

"And he can't be dead. Because if they killed him, then they know that we'll stop at nothing to get to them. He's alive. They're just covering their tracks. They're making sure we can't follow them."

The wind around them howls and rushes through the trees, blowing the last of autumn's leaves to the frosted ground.

"They're getting out of dodge."

January

It has been exactly three days since Lance Sweets woke up out of the line of direct danger, and he has not said more than a handful of words since. This is a first for the psychologist who was always politely hard-pressed to just shut up already, please, and while this silence is nerve-wracking – invasive, even – the hospital releases him easily enough.

It's the simplest release he's had in a long, long time; the attending doctor just sends him on his way with a prescription for painkillers and firm-ish instructions to be back for a follow-up sometime in the near future. Contact information for a trauma therapist is written in the margin of a take-home form, but it isn't given so much as a second glance.

(Still, throughout all of the doctor's instructions, he nodded along like a good little hospital patient. A good little perfect posterchild of an ex-hostage about to be reintroduced to his own life. It's over painlessly enough, if the word can be applied.)

Which leads him to the door. All Sweets has got on him are the clothes Daisy brought him from home – his home, her home, their home – so he's got nothing to carry. It's just him and her, walking through the lobby, with both of his hands in his pockets and her arm hooked loosely on his elbow.

She slips right out at the open doorway as Sweets stops walking, and she quickly turns her head back. Sweets is just standing there, glancing down at his feet and the carpeted floor beneath them. After a moment, he looks up to the street out before him, catches sight of the sunlight filling the open space around him. He's hesitating.

But then Daisy extends her hand – and he catches sight of the chipped pink nail polish, the bracelet he gave her for her birthday years ago, the mismatched rings on her fingers. He trusts her. He'd trust her with his life; after all, that's what she is. He finds it easy enough to reach out and find her hand, and she gently pulls him out onto the sidewalk.

It's a short walk to the corner where she parked her car, and the entire way, he's turning his head to glance all around him. The streets sign a few yards back. The snow-covered branches of a distant tree. The belligerent traffic lights. Mostly, though, it's his own shadow that grab his attention, and once he reaches the passenger side of Daisy's car, the words form.

"I didn't think I'd see it again," he whispers, not meeting her eyes, but blinking up at the winter sky. "The sun."

And she pauses briefly, but says nothing at first. Instead, she wordlessly crosses over and does what she's always done: she hugs him. She presses her lips gently to his forehead and stands there for as long as the frozen wind will allow, and once they pull apart, they fall into their seats, and Daisy starts the car.

"You can see it all you want now," she promises, her voice so full of certainty he can't wrap his mind around. And with that, she pulls away from the curb, and they leave the hospital behind. It's the only thing they really leave behind, it seems.