Update! Don't own Bones. Sorry, trying to have some fun with disclaimers.
Booth paused before going back in Sweets room to take a deep breath, preparing himself for the next few moments ahead. Sweets had paused to rest, most likely from exhaustion so Booth had taken the second to slip out and call Brennan, hoping for an update or good news.
Now he came back in the room and paled at the sight. In the time of Booth's absence Sweets had with shaky hands removed the IV from his arm. Since his hand was shaking as he had done it, it was a bloody and ripped mess. Booth's loud voice boomed for a nurse before he rushed to the side when monitor alarms began to beep.
Booth immediately pulled Sweets industrious hand away from the bruised one. Booth began to apply pressure to stop the bleeding as Sweets looked away from Booth. Booth knew Sweets was not being delusional but rather intentional.
The doctor and nurse rushed in and Booth backed away to the opposite side so they could work. Sweets now had to either look back at the doctors or match Booth's eyes. Booth sat in the chair so his eyes were level with Sweets. Nothing was said while the doctors worked to repair the damage. Booth was gearing up for a lecture.
"Agent Booth?" The doctor asked standing by the door as the nurses continued and moved the IV to the opposing arm. Booth moved to the hall so they could work.
"Yes?" Booth asked trying not to direct anger at the doctor. The person he could direct anger at was most likely a suspect in South America who most likely had no idea who his target was going to be.
"I'd like to start administering pain medications."
"But you said that might kill him." Booth asked confused.
"I think it's important now to make him more comfortable. I think we just saw that the pain is becoming too much in these final moments."
"You're giving up?" Booth asked incredulously.
"His temperature is about to push 105 Agent Booth, every breath he takes is extremely painful, he is blasted with waves of nausea every few seconds and when those are hitting he is consumed with migraines. Is this what you want for him?"
Of course Booth didn't. But he didn't want Sweets to die either. Booth was going to go down swinging till the end. The question was, was he going to ask the same of Sweets?
Booth looked over at Sweets as the nurses left the room. Sweets was looking at the two of them talking. The doctor approached Sweets more closely.
"Do you understand what I am asking Dr. Sweets?" The doctor asked testing his awareness. Sweets nodded his head yes. "Do you want the pain killer, despite the elevated risks?"
Not looking at Booth and keeping his eyes trained on the doctor, Sweets nodded his pale and heavy head affirmatively to the doctor.
The doctor turned to notify the nurse to bring the medication and Booth immediately went to Sweets side.
"Look Sweets, I know, I understand the pain." Booth felt himself ready for a hard sell of near incomprehension words in his planned intervention. Sweets turned his face to look at him with a cold expression. If it weren't for the complete and total exhaustion and shutting down of his own body Sweets may have argued with Booth that he had no idea what the pain was like.
Booth read the expression in his hallowed and red eyes, his thin shrinking frame with a chest that heaved at every breath, his hands still shaking uncontrollably at his side. Booth realized Sweets hadn't said a word, he didn't even possess the strength to argue with him, or perhaps, the desire.
"Please Sweets. I know it's bad. Okay, I know it's terrible. I've been trying to pretend it's not, maybe pretending not so much for you, maybe just for me. I'm sorry…." The lump was forming in Booth's throat but he tried to push it out of the way as the doctor returned with the syringe. "Sweets please, don't, just give the Jeffersonian team more time. They are working so hard Sweets, I know they can do this. Please."
Sweets eyes rolled back as he began to grind his teeth at the pain. He was trying to keep from another painful cough, to suppress it, but it escaped anyway, so deep and guttural Booth wondered if Sweets was going to flat line because of it.
As Sweets laid back the doctor advanced, ready to insert the syringe in the IV when Sweets held up his quivering hand to pause him.
"Do you know what you are doing Dr. Sweets?" The doctor asked in surprise.
Sweets nodded yes, grinding his teeth in pain again. Booth sighed as Sweets was putting his faith in the Jeffersonian team, in Booth.
The doctor knew Sweets had no family to override the decision and instead put the cap back on the needle as he left.
Booth looked back at Sweets who was still watching the doctor and the pain medication leave, perhaps second guessing his decision. Booth looked down at Sweets twitching hand by his side and wrapped his fingers around Sweets. Sweets immediately turned and for the first time since he had been there Booth saw Sweets eyes not with the cold and hard expression brought on by pain but that they had softened and relaxed. Booth's heart began to race as he saw that expression suggesting Sweets was resigning himself to accepting death.
Hurry up Bones. Booth thought to himself. I can't disappoint Sweets after he trusted me, us. I don't want him to die.
"Okay, so we know what probably happened but because we cannot get the suspect in time we need to set this all aside." Cam said walking away from the coffin and the remains.
They had stood in silence for a moment feeling helpless but Cam would have no more of that once she had broken her silence. She instead walked to Dr. Hodgins to concentrate on now the only information they were left to work with.
"Cam, what are you asking, we don't…." Angela began with a defeated feeling in her. "Maybe we should go say our…"
"No, I don't want to hear it." Cam said choking back a tear. "I will not accept that. Comprised in this room is the smartest team there is. Maybe some can argue that but I cannot. Maybe individually we may have flaws, but together we are perfection. It is together we can solve this. We must solve this."
"Cam is right." Brennan said snapping from her thoughts. "This is what we do and we need to do it. I will not lose Sweets. I can't."
The team wasn't going to ask why that was and instead reset their thoughts to a 'can do' approach and began to focus.
"Dr. Hodgins, tell us what you have. Not the fancy mumbo jumbo that only you understand but say to remind me you are well paid, but the to the point kind of things the rest of us understand when pressed for time." Cam was to the point and Hodgins wasn't going into a routine at time like this.
"The particulates are everything from common toxins to uncommon and complex variables. The problem is, this isn't like this guy made these from a recipe book. There's a good chance he didn't even know what he was doing, just hoping this mix would make something deadly." He explained.
"The scariest kind of criminal." Angela said. "One who's just desperate and will try anything for his own mission."
"Let's try a new approach." Cam suggests and pulls over a nearby white board. "Dr. Brennan what were all of Sweets symptoms?"
Brennan felt her stomach turn. While the clinical nature of symptoms didn't bother her, applying them to Sweets did.
"He has a high fever." Brennan began while Cam listed them to the side of the board. "Chills, excessive vomiting, headaches, brutal coughing spells, and Booth said," she stopped to clear her throat. "That his hands recently started twitching uncontrollably."
Disconnecting themselves now so they could work they looked at the symptoms.
"Dr. Hodgins." Cam began, "can we link the toxins you found to these symptoms?"
Hodgins raised an eyebrow at her approach to the conundrum.
"Yes!" He said as he began to connection one to two possible toxins next to each symptom.
As he was near finished Wendell broke in. "What do we hope to gather here?"
"Perhaps we are looking at this wrong. We are looking for one big cure, of which there is most likely none. I was thinking about our team, comprised on many great contributions." She point to the white board. "This may be the same concept, one cure comprised on many components."
"Could it be that simple?" Fisher asked trying as usual not to sound hopeful.
"Why not, it's logical." Edison pointed out. Brennan nodded at that, logical, she liked logical. Despite the fact it was nearing midnight and they were desperate with little to lose in the fight for Sweets life.
Brennan stepped closer as the concept was beginning to take shape. "We need to match the individual toxins up with a treatment, then cross reference to make sure those treatments would not have an overall deadly effect."
Within moments the team had broken down the elements to research while Angela uploaded the information from each finding into her tablet to cross reference them with the others. It saved time to cross reference their work to make sure one cure did not cause death due the combination of another.
Having most of the components they needed Cam and Brennan rushed to the hospital. The team stayed to work out the remainder of the particulates while Cam knew she would be needed to monitor the administering of the doses. The hospital would just have to be on board with this idea, she told herself. Brennan on the other hand wasn't as good with the "flesh and tissue" aspect of all this and it felt awkward for Cam to be taking the lead. Still, they were part of a team, and their youngest team mate needed them.
"You tell Booth we're here and I'm going to get the doctors." Cam said as they separated upon entrance to the hospital.
Booth hadn't answered his phone when Brennan tried to call him on the way. It occurred to her now that could be a bad thing as approached Sweets room but she couldn't hide the giddy feeling that they had the answer.
Her smiled faded however as she turned into the doorway of the room to see Booth's back to her. He was leaning forward slightly to steady Sweets whose face was also turned away to the floor in yet another vehement coughing fit that sounded like the release of one last breath.
Brennan was ready to tell them the good news when the sound of her entrance made them turn. Brennan first looked at Booth who in one of the few times she had seen him like so, had eyes lined in red with unshed, angry and frustrated tears. His face was panicked and exhausted. She looked over at Sweets and her eyes widened at the rapid deterioration his health since only a few hours ago. The walking, or sitting, dead would describe it.
Cam was talking as she entered the room with the doctor behind her and she was neither prepared for the sight. Booth looked at them both with eyes pleading for an answer. He didn't care how he looked, his notion of self-preservation long gone after the long night.
"We have hope." Brennan said and was surprised that was her own choice of words as she, Cam and the doctor approached the bed.
"I hope so." Booth said as quietly as she had ever heard him talk. "Because I've run out of hail Mary's."
Knowing Booth was a man of faith Brennan imagined that his faith was pushed to the limits while being by Sweets side tonight, unable to do anything proactively but be there for support. She stood by Booth's side of the bed while Cam and the doctor moved to the other where the IV was.
"Dr. Sweets." Cam began but saw that Sweets was hardly aware of their presence as his eyes floated around the room. His body was shaking from the sickness. She put one hand on his hand and the other on his cheek so he would look at her. With glassy eyes he tried to focus. Cam tried to remain with an expression of resolve and not of devastation at the sight she saw.
"We have what I believe to be a treatment. We are administering them now. It is a series of things that I think will help but you have to hold on for me okay. Just a few minutes more okay?"
"You'll need to hold him still." The doctor said exasperated as he tried to keep Sweets hand, involuntarily shaking, still enough to administer the medications. While his eyes appeared calm at Cam's request his body was no longer listening to Sweets on requests. "If we can't keep him still I will have to restrain him." The doctor said frustrated.
Booth stepped forward not wanting to see that happen. He pressed on Sweets shoulders while Cam held his arm. Brennan took Sweets other hand in hers. They hated to hold him so with expressions of such pain but it was an ends to a means.
Finally the doctor stepped back from a series of administered shots. Whether it was seconds or minutes, the trio didn't know as it felt like forever. Suddenly Sweets relaxed in their grasps and they turned to him and each other to see what that meant. The doctor began to check vitals as the three of them backed up, standing close. Brennan didn't realize she had grabbed Cam's hand in one and Booth's in the other though they all stood close for unspoken support.
Cam knew by the monitors that Sweets was still breathing, heart still beating.
"He's breathing, his heart rate is steady. It will need to climb considerably. We will have to wait." He said turning back at them and though he wasn't ready to issue a smile he did add, "but this is the first step in this direction."
"Thank you doctor." Cam whispered as he left and they went back to looking at Sweets, waiting.