"It's not your fault."
"It IS my fault, Bones." He stopped her. Anger swelled up in him. Guilt. Despair. But mostly anger. "Okay, look, I am the SENIOR AGENT, do you understand. It is MY responsibility."
"That's why we're going... to find out what happened. "She replied." ...Who's behind all this." Her rational side providing answers to placate his outburst. "We're gonna do that for Sweets." She stated.
He had dropped himself on one of the chairs. Suddenly feeling powerless. "We HAVE to do that!" He emphasized. Not even Bones' assurance that they would find out whoever did this to them, to Sweets, gave him any comfort. Made any difference to him right now. Sweets was dead. He was DEAD. "Right?" He really felt like crying. "He was... family."
"Yes, he was." She acknowledged.
They both looked up, turned towards the entrance of the living room as their daughter stood there. Fully dressed, her little backpack on her shoulders. Eager to start the day.
"I'm ready!" Christine informed them in a cheerful voice.
Bones turned towards their daughter. "Oh. For what, Honey...?" She asked Christine, apparently as surprised as him what had prompted their daughter to get up that early and to get dressed all on her own on this awful day.
Neither of them both had slept well. How could he close his eyes and not envision the awfully battered, bloody Sweets gasp for air? That one last terrible moment which had rendered their friend forever silent played over and over again in his mind. Right there, this terrible nightmare had turned into an unbearable hell. They should have come after him again. Not after Sweets! He should have been the one to deliver the warrant to Sanderson, not Sweets!
Forever and ever and ever in bed he had turned from one side to the other. Sleepless, restless, somehow trying to understand, to grab – that exact fateful moment where he had agreed to let Sweets go on his own. WHY! WHY had he agreed to this? Why hadn't he insisted to deliver the papers himself? To go himself instead of letting Sweets do it. He was the trained sniper. He was the one who could take up an equal fight with a hired professional. Not Sweets. Sweets didn't stand a chance. And now Sweets was dead. And it was his fault!
Bones didn't understand. Bones didn't understand how he felt, how he had to feel about it. He didn't blame her. He loved her. He loved her more than anything. But as much as she would try to ease the blame, to ease his pain – she couldn't. He knew how much she was shocked about Sweets' death as well. Yet, while something in him through all the pain and the guilt during that past long night had still refused to believe that Sweets was really dead - his wife had acknowledged the facts and decided to deal with the aftermath in a rational manner. Well, she had to, probably. She was to one to go back to the lab today to cut open Sweets' body to find who did this to him.
Still, deep down inside he wished she would have come to him. That she would have cried on his shoulder – like after Vincent's death. That he would have gotten a moment to hold her... He could not come to her on his own. Not before all of this was over. Not before they had their lives back. There were certain things he had to do first. Had to deal with – on his own. Things he had to put right. That he had to do to protect his family! Things, perhaps, she would not approve of. If he had learned one thing for sure during the last couple of months was that this thing, this conspiracy was bigger than anyone of them had ever believed it to be. And – that to fight it he couldn't go by the books. The less she knew about certain measures he would take to protect his family the better.
"Uncle Sweets and Daisy are taking me to the park today." Christine replied. "They said we can ride the paddleboat." She added.
Bones looked from their daughter over to him. Pain was in her expression. Pain that they would have to tell their daughter the truth.
He felt as if all his blood was drained from him. They had decided to keep their daughter out of all of this. ...There were no words to explain to a three-year-old that her uncle Sweets had been brutally murdered. They weren't prepared to tell her. Weren't prepared to explain why her uncle Sweets could never go to the park with her again. His heart broke – only thinking about it... About having to hurt his little girl... He looked back at his wife, searched for any clue what they could possibly say to their daughter.
Bones outstretched her arm towards their daughter. "Come here, Honey... Come here..." They came towards him.
He bent forward in his chair to meet his daughter face to face. His mind was blank. How could they possibly explain? How could they even find the right words. There were none. "Hey..." It took all his strength to look up, to meet his daughter's bright expectant eyes. He cleared his throat. "...Do you remember what we talked about..." His voice broke, he had to pause. "...when..., when we were the last time... at Church, with Father Matt...?"
Christine slowly shook her head.
Right. That had been before his imprisonment. Probably too long ago for his daughter to remember.
"Booth, I don't think that's the right way to explain..."
"Bones..." He painfully cut her off. "This is not the time to argue our..., our..." Again his voice went hoarse and failed him. "Okay?" He pleaded.
"Okay." Bones acknowledged, petting Christine's head.
"Come here, Pumpkin." He said lifting his daughter up to sit on his lap. For a short moment his battered rips reminded him that they were still bruised when his daughter leaned against him. He chose to ignore them. All he needed to do right now was to ease the pain that would follow. He did not care for his own. "You know, that place... Heaven... where all the good people go to..."
"...All the old people." Christine replied.
"Yes." He acknowledged. He felt sick. Sweets certainly did not fit in there. Did not belong there. Should not have gone there. Not for at least another 50 years! "But, sometimes..." He continued, "sometimes, young people go there, too... You know, when they are very ill."
"Or when they are hurt." Bones added. "Sometimes they go there because then they don't feel any pain anymore."
Christine looked over to Bones, then at him. "Are you going there, too...? She asked, agitated.
Oh God. Quickly, they both shook their heads. "Mommy and Daddy will not go there for a long long time yet." He explained to Christine.
"I don't believe in Heaven." Bones stated.
"But – uncle Sweets..." Damn. He hated it. But now they could hardly stop with what they were trying to explain to their daughter. "He was hurt." He continued. At least they would be able to leave out the gruesome details of Sweets death. "So he went to Heaven." He felt he had never uttered a more terrible sentence in his whole life.
Christine looked from him over to Bones, then back to him. Her eyes wide open. "But... why did he go?" She asked, apparently upset about it now. "And when will he come back...?"
He bit his tongue. This was the hardest part now. He wasn't even sure it made any sense for their daughter to understand that Sweets would never come back, that he was gone forever. Perhaps they should have told Christine that Sweets had gone on a very very long trip to another country and that therefore he wouldn't be back for a very very long time. Because it did not make any sense.
"Uncle Sweets is not coming back, Honey." Bones said with a grave voice. Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes. She sat down on the other chair.
Christine's eyes started to tear up now, too. "But..." She sniffed. "Did Daisy go with him?" She asked.
"No, Daisy did not go with him. Only uncle Sweets went to Heaven." He explained.
Christine all by a sudden jumped off his lap onto her feet. "Then Daisy and I can go to the park alone today... Uncle Sweets can go with us the next time." She declared.
"No." Bones shook her head. "Daisy is very sad about uncle Sweets today. She cannot go to the park."
"We will all go to the park together on another day, okay?" He said. Neither Bones nor him had time to take their daughter to the park today. Cam would probably call with the results of the preliminary autopsy any minute. Then he and Bones would have leave to catch Sweets' killer.
"But I want to go to the park today." Christine burst into tears. "I want my uncle Sweets!"
His eyes filled with tears, too. He tried to gulp them down. He could not bear to see his little girl cry, to see his little girl hurt like this.
"Honey, I know." Bones replied. She went over to their daughter, got down on one knee to be at the same height as their daughter. "We all want uncle Sweets to be still with us." Bones explained. "But he can't come back to us... It is not possible."
"Bones!" He protested.
"But, it is true." Bones stated looking over from their daughter to him.
"Yeah. But we... can't tell her that." He hissed towards Bones under his breath. Now wasn't the time for the truth. Not for THIS TRUTH. Especially not for this truth.
"I accept your concept of Heaven." Bones said. "And that is is one way of trying to explain where Sweets has gone to after his death."
"Bones!" Not now! He thought.
"But not even your belief in Heaven allows for the possibility to come back from there." Bones continued to explain. "...Unless – of course, you are Jesus... Well, technically, he did not come back either, he rose to another p..."
"Enough with that..." He interrupted her. Desperately searching for anything to stop her. This was NOT the time to argue about religion. Not while Christine looked at them both. Bewildered, tears running down her little cheeks.
Bones cellular phone on the kitchen counter started to ring. Christine turned around. Suddenly ran away from them, still sobbing, still carrying her little backpack on her shoulders ready to face the day.
"I'm gonna go after her!" He got up.
Bones reached for her phone but then halted to pick it up. "...Research shows that children under the age of 5 do not fully understand the concept of death." She told him.
"What... do you want me to wait two years to comfort her?" He said. Suddenly feeling angry.
"No, of course not." Bones said watching him leave the kitchen. "But – though she is my daughter, and quite advanced – she may not understand yet how Sweets can die and never come back."
"I'm 42 – and I don't understand it..." He said loud enough for Bones to hear it. Nothing of all this made sense! Sweets was dead. Gone, forever. Daisy and Sweets' unborn child left forever fatherless... His life was barely existent, his career was ruined. True, he was out of jail. His wife had nearly jeopardized everything to get him out of it. But there was no guarantee to them that it would make any difference. That that brought them any closer to finding out who was behind all of this! No, he did not understand it. Why anyone did this all to them. Why his little girl had to be in tears, agonized, crying for her beloved uncle Sweets to come back. ...And he himself disillusioned, frustrated ...pained. But most of all – angry. Angry that they hadn't found out anything. Angry that he hadn't seen it coming.
Of course they would come after him again. After his family when he failed to protect them. And he couldn't. Not right now in the state he was in. Not with the means he had right now to protect them. Not with what he could do legally. Not when he stayed inside the system.