A/N: Double update coming at ya! In honor of my last day of work tomorrow, college move-in day on Sunday, and the fact that even though this summer wasn't nearly as fun as last summer, it was still pretty good. Also chapters 8 and 9 were originally one chapter, but it got too long so I had to split it. ;) Enjoy, let me know what you think!

Part Three: Twilight / the period of evening between daylight and darkness

"If people you knew disappeared, there was a chance they might stay alive if you did not cause trouble. This was the scarring psychosis in the country.
Death, loss, was 'unfinished,' so you could not walk through it."

- Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost

December

The Potomac River, running for over four hundred miles through five different cities, through several different states, is a wide, clear river full of icy water in the middle of December. At its mouth is Chesapeake Bay – similarly half-frozen, but placid in the cold.

Booth has been there once before. But only once, when there was a hot sun shining down and people mulling about and all sorts of chaotic sounds echoing around his head. Now there's nothing. No sound but the vague movement of water against the bank, no sun peeking out from the clouds across the sky. And in place of the crowds is just the outline of a single other person, standing out like a silhouette against the hazy white sky just behind him.

He walks up to the shadow's back, and takes a few steps more until they're standing side by side, by the very edge of a rocky inlet's shore.

"You stopped the case, didn't you?" Lance Sweets' voice is not accusatory as he says it, his chin tilted just slightly to the side. Instead, it's a simple question.

Booth just nods his head at first. Because the case is over; the government's lies, the conspiracies and fraud, they're not his problem anymore. As wrong as it feels in the back of his mind – it's the trade he made.

"I did," he finally says, and Sweets doesn't say anything after that. He just keeps looking out at the water, his eyes distant and far away. "What do you think about that?"

It takes a moment, but the other man finally pulls his eyes away from whatever's out on the horizon and glances sidelong at Booth.

"Me? Well…"

His eyebrows gently pull together in silent, careful thought, and as another moment passes by, his face goes calm again. He just shrugs.

"It's not what I would have done. But your call."

Booth stares.

"What would you have done?"

And Sweets smiles.

"That's a good question," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning back towards the bay. There are edges of pink just starting to form behind the clouds – a blurred, foggy sunset.

"What would I have done?"

Booth is woken up by a crude alarm buzzing in his ear, and frustration is the first thing his mind decides to feel.

Because, God – what he wouldn't give for just another second standing with his best friend by his side. Even if it is a brief, joyless dream.

January

He sits on a chair that is far too soft, in a room that is far too bright. The culture shock of having his still-girlfriend standing next to him with a bottle in hand, instead of a ghost with a gun or a bat or belt or whatever, is still fresh and jolting, but regardless – the baby boy nestled comfortably in his arms is soft and calm, and he finds he is perfectly able to match his own breathing with the gentle rhythm of his son's.

His son's. The infant is right here, sleeping with his head resting in the crook of Sweets' elbow, and yet the moment still doesn't seem entirely real. And in spite of his calmed breathing, the psychologist finds himself rigid, nervous – as if the illusion would disappear if he wasn't careful.

Daisy, by his side, leans down until her chin is resting on his shoulder and her arms are looped loosely around his neck.

And, as always, she can read his mind. She somehow intrinsically knows the one question still on his mind; he doesn't need to speak a word.

"Don't worry," she says, reaching for a card by the nightstand. It's a picture of the baby in Sweets' arms, announcing a birth with the baby's name written in gold letters across the top of it. "We found the note you had in your car."

He looks at her for a moment, then back at the card. And then he just stares at his son and smiles.

There are countless movies, they're all quite sure, about homecomings, but none of them spring to mind while the Jeffersonian's forensics team waits somewhat impatiently for a familiar face to come into view. Nothing particular comes to mind, but they've all seen tropes. The slow-motion run-to, tight-armed embraces, happy faces reuniting over drinks.

In earnest, no one really knows what to expect. But judging from what they've all been told, they're more than certain that it won't be some sad movie's climax.

And true to form, it's not.

When Lance Sweets walks into the Jeffersonian lab for the first time in four months, led along by Daisy's guiding hand, his footsteps seem to echo through the halls. A familiar sound – just different in its frequency, its capacity to haunt. And once his eyes fall onto the platform and every inch of lab equipment nearby and all the expectant faces waiting for him – the sound of his own footsteps goes silent. So does everything else.

And all at once, it's not a homecoming anymore; it's a staring contest.

Angela blinks first, hesitantly coming forward to hug him around the shoulders with a breathless, "God," whispered into the air behind his back. His head goes down, hiding his face from view, and the people around him make no assumptions.

Angela, however, pulls back after a few seconds, once Sweets's body goes tense, his shoulders rising with quiet nerves. She gets the message. And as soon as they can clearly see each other's faces, the psychologist offers a small smile.

No one can quite read his eyes.

In the end, he can only bear to stand in the lab for twenty minutes, and by the time he leaves – by the time all the strained hugs and frog-throated We missed you, buddy's have come to a close – they find the air around them charged with a sad realization. The fact that this is not an end, but slow, diminutive pause.

January 14, 2015

There was a strange lull in the beatings that he couldn't quite bring himself to measure. Disregarding the fact that there was never any way for him to tell, with no windows or clocks or any distinct way to measure time other than word of his captors' mouths, he found himself unwilling to try.

Because a break from being the object of leverage, a break from being thrown to the floor and pounded on, a break from having to put any thought at all into this chaotic hell of a government conspiracy was just that: a break. The exact length shouldn't matter, providing it is long. Which it was. It was a conscious choice not to concern himself with it.

But now as the door opens completely for the first time in weeks, he finds himself asking what the reason was for the pause. And what the reason is for pulling him out again.

Ah. But he supposes that doesn't matter either. Whatever the reason, he'll still have to face what's coming. He has no choice, after all.

And as they drop him crudely into that same, familiar chair and secure the bonds, he wonders just how much worse this time is going to be.

It doesn't take long for him to find out.

Waller doesn't make an appearance this time. There is no red light. The black curtains have been stripped from the walls, and thus the sound of whatever blunt objects the Nobodies are using echo off the concrete upon impact with his skin. It is with some detached interest that he notes this.

He hears that simple sound mixed in with laughter. With muffled excitement. With the sound of his own eventual grunting, yelling, whimpering. There are no words.

The chair falls right over partway in, and familiar spots start flickering across his eyes the second the floor rises up to meet his forehead. The bonds break off, but this makes no difference.

It's not as if he could find the strength to just get up and leave, anyway. And besides – they have guns.

There is no way for him to tell how long he lies there, face down on the concrete floor. Long enough for them to finally make use of the belt that always hung across the room like a threat. Long enough for the cold tip of a knife to trace across his back in a strange, methodical pattern. Long enough for them to flip him onto the bleeding words with one of their boots and reach down to grip him by the shoulders once they're done.

He blacks out just as they're hauling him up and out of the room.

And after that, there's nothing.

March

Two months pass since the day Lance Sweets turned up alive in the middle of January, and if they're all honest – not much changes. The shrink's ribs knitted and healed. The stitches have disappeared from his hairline, and he's offered no word on the newer scars across his shoulders.

In fact, he offers very few words now. Still as skinny as he was in January, still vaguely pale and decidedly silent, he bears a striking resemblance to a ghost, a visual reminder to everyone around him of what the result so easily could have been. He remains tense, nervous, hesitant, as if the world around him could disappear at any time, even as he walks quietly into Angela's office, his hands balled loosely in his own pockets.

Angela looks up immediately and smiles.

"Hi, Sweets," she greets, content with the fact that the psychologist walked in on his own accord. Walking into her office typically precedes words, conversation. She welcomes those gladly. "What's up?"

And he bites his bottom lip for a few moments first, as if caught in a second-guess of his own actions. But then he sets his gaze down to the floor and speaks. "I have a name for you. To run through the database."

He means the FBI database, of course. The one that has every case report, every medical file, every employee record. She just nods at first, slow, curious.

"Sure, yeah."

Her eyebrows knitted just so, she crosses over to her computer and motions for him to follow. She has the search page open in a second – although, if she's honest, she wishes she didn't.

"Name is Naomi Waller." He says it as if it's something he never wants to say again. This time, Angela allows herself to make an assumption about it.

Still, she types it in.

Nothing.

"Could you – is there another way for you to find it? If maybe the files were deleted, you could still track them down, right?" Sweets is saying more words to her now than he's said in the last month, and something in Angela's heart breaks at the fact that she can't. Or rather – the fact that she can. But she won't.

"I… could," she finally says, honest. "But that would require… a lot of hacking. And the name could even be fake."

He stares for just a moment, and his own mounting confusion begs him to continue. "You can hack, though… right? This time there's evidence. We have evidence of crime. There's a name, and I know it's real, we just need to… we just need to find her. And then we can stop this. For good."

And God, his eyes are practically begging her. But the fact remains.

She straightens up from her computer and her eyes dart away.

"Uh… Sweets," she starts, wondering exactly how to say it. But there's never a right way, she supposes. "I think – I think there's something you should know about the case..."