4.
If you like "Sweet" stories there's plenty more under ASC12. I like to come up with more, "well how about if you try this" type approach with this underutilized Bones character…
"Geez Sweets, how do can you stand this?" Angela said pulling her coat around her tighter. "What is it like two degrees out?"
"I didn't notice the heat wasn't working till this morning." Sweets said trying to keep his own teeth from clattering. "How much father is this place?"
Angela looked at the map on her tablet. "About ten more minutes up this road."
Sweets had an unsettling feeling. He wasn't sure if it was the fact that they were heading to question a suspect who had a cabin up in the mountains, a feeling that made him retrieve his gun before he left the office. Perhaps it was the fact that a steady snow was increasing, he was hungry, tired, irritated and above all else cold. He found an emergency blanket in the trunk and gave it to Angela. He offered his coat but she laughed and said he'd better keep it. She was pretty sure she had more body fat in one finger that Sweets had in his whole body. She laughed as she thought about it, child bearing on the body and skinny Sweets.
"What?" He asked noticing her grin.
"Nothing. I was just keeping my face from freezing." Angela joked.
"Well, after we talk to him we're stopping at that diner we passed a while back from some hot coffee and all the pie that they have." Sweets half joked and half committed to a solid plan.
Angela laughed inwardly again at the idea of Sweets eating five pies and gaining half an ounce and she'd have to spend hours on the treadmill. Oh well, she told herself, she was that way once too.
"Am I still going the right way?" Sweets asked. There appeared to be a snow moving in a few hours ahead of time. It was precluded with the clouds that appeared in a deep cerulean blue that gave everything a strange blue tint that reflected off the deep snow on the ground.
"I hope so." Angela said tapping away on her device. "I'm lost signal. But we should be good, it was just a few minutes at the end of this road."
"There's a lot more snow up here than in the city." Sweets observed. The talk of snow didn't make Angela feel any warmer.
"So if Molly Edwards' dad is involved, do you think he's getting cash? And for doing what? What is his role in all of this?" Angela asked taking her mind off the cold.
"We know he's in need of money. If he's helping the killer then he could be extorting money from Melissa Phillips father."
"What about the others, their bodies have turned up."
"I wonder if the body that Booth left to see was Liz Sanders." Sweets questioned.
"Well I couldn't tell you, looks like I'm out on cell phone service too." Angela said stuffing it back in her pocket.
"Well here we are." Sweets said and wondered what they were about to ask this man. He hadn't taken the lead on questioning people and suddenly what seemed like a good idea was fading fast.
"This looks like a bust." Angela said stepping out of the car into a cold that wasn't that much colder than the inside of the car. The cabin before them looked unused and quiet.
"Well, we came all this way." Sweets said. "And it's the only lead we have on Edwards. Maybe there's something inside that will give us a clue."
"Do we have a warrant?" Angela asked as they approached the door. Sweets went to knock on the door which swung open as it wasn't locked or shut tight.
"Don't need one." Sweets said entering.
"It's warmer in here than outside, which isn't saying much." Angela observed. The place still looked virtually untouched.
"It's shielded from the wind so it's warmer." Sweets said thinking of how he didn't feel like his toes were ever going to get to warm up today. He had no idea how true and not sarcastic that would become.
"See anything?" Angela asked looking around the tiny cabin. It was tidy, simple and without many blaring clues.
"No, you?" Sweets asked back.
"Here's something." Angela said spying a laptop under the simple cot. She heard a creaking overhead and wondered what it must be but continued her work. "Someone must be doing something here." She said flipping it open.
"I'll check this room." Sweets said heading back past the tiny kitchen area to open a door.
Sweets froze instantly when he entered and not just from what was in the room but the room itself. It seemed to be a "cold room," one used to store meats and such at freezing temperatures when living in a cabin, distanced from city amenities. The ten by ten room had shelves stacked with a variety of run of the mill supplies, and some not so run of the mill items.
"Angela?" Sweets said as Angela continued to tap away at the keys of the mysterious laptop.
"Yeah?" She shouted back and heard a sound above again.
"I think you can tell Booth he can stop looking for Liz Sanders." Sweets shouted back and heard a sound above him as well now. It sounded like something was slipping. "I'm guessing Melissa Philips too."
"What do you mean?" She asked getting up and walking to where Sweets was.
She walked in the doorway and stopped immediately to see what Sweets eyes were locked on. The bodies of the two missing girls stacked on a shelf, frozen and dead.
"Oh my God!" Angela shouted in surprise which was immediately followed by another much louder slipping sound.
Sweets looked up as sounds banged on the metal roof over him. Angela instinctively stepped back as the sound crashed overhead. Sweets went to step forward when the beam across the door crashed in blocking the door shut like a lever.
The weight of the snow above came crashing in, irritated by the sounds of their voices creating an avalanche the metal roof was not able to hold up. Sweets was at the opposite end now as the beams broke continued to collapse around him along with the back section of the roof, covering Sweets with metal and snow.
The sound stopped and Angela pushed against the door. It was useless as it was jammed shut. She shouted for Sweets.
"Angela stop!" Sweets shouted and Angela breathed a relief that Sweets was still alive. She soon realized that the noises she was making might cause more of an avalanche.
Realizing it was impossible to get in the door that way, Angela ran out of the cabin and around the side that the room as attached to. She saw the back of the structure was collapsed in which made her heart skip a beat. It was covered in a mound of snow. She ran do the side and began frantically digging out snow as fast her mitten covered hands would allow. She didn't feel cold anymore, she was near a sweat when she hit the corrugated metal siding the shed was composed of. She soon found a seam and was able to pull it back at a corner since the structure was weakened it made the bend possible.
She managed a corner enough to see in at the bottom corner. She couldn't pull much farther with the weight of the snow on it. She peered her head in and saw a glimpse of Sweets.
"Sweets?!" Angela said glad to see him. "Are you alright?"
Sweets was on his chest, face down. He reached up to rub his head which he had hit pretty hard when he was thrown to the floor. He looked to his right and saw the dead frozen girl near having rolled off the shelf. He looked to his left and saw Angela looking in at him. It was a surreal moment he was trying to piece together.
"Been better." He said trying to roll over in the small space but it wasn't much use. He guessed there must be something braced just above him keeping the full weight of the snow from baring down on him though it wasn't far because it didn't give him space to turn over.
"Can you get out?" Angela asked.
"Don't think so." His right arm hurt but he couldn't see why.
Angela didn't think so either. She pulled out her phone but as before there were no towers up this far to get reception off of.
"Can you go for help?" Sweets asked.
"I'm not leaving you in there Sweets." Angela said sticking her head back in the small opening.
"I think you will have to Angela. I'm okay." Sweets lied. He fumbled in his coat pocket and soon wrangled out the keys with his left hand. He was glad at this moment that he always stuck them in his left pocket, leaving his right free for his gun. He wasn't going to need that at the moment he reminded himself sarcastically.
"Catch." Sweets said tossing the keys near the small opening but they fell a bit short. Angela stuck her arm in but couldn't reach them.
Sweets watched as Angela strenuously stretched for the keys just inches from her reach.
"Screw this." Angela said, angry now. "If I can give birth I can do this." She pulled the metal back another inch, almost two having gained energy from her anger. She reached in again and after a slight pinch to her arm, found the keys were in her hand. She pulled her arm back out and saw she had cut her upper arm on the metal. She sucked in air at the bite of the cut.
"Are you okay?" Sweets called and Angela sighed that Sweets, who was pinned to the floor was asking her.
"I'm fine Sweetie, are you sure I should leave?"
"I don't think anyone knows where we are."
Angela knew that was true and in retrospect it was not a smart plan, none of this was although she was pretty sure they found the killer, well, his identity anyway. The thought occurred to her that the actual killer might come back.
"Sweets, Edwards, he could come back."
"Well if he does he's going to have to dig me out to kill me." Sweets added sarcastically. "And in that event I still have my gun."
Angela felt like Sweets was in fairly good spirits.
"Okay, it shouldn't take me long to get back down to service okay. Are you warm enough?"
"Yeah, I've got my overcoat you wouldn't take."
"You can thank me for that later. At that diner for pie and coffee." Angela teased. She didn't hear anything back. "Sweets? Sweets?"
"Yeah?" He said groggier this time than before.
"I'll be back soon, I promise." She said getting up to leave.
Sweets heard her leave and as the cold increased with a sense of loneliness he had nothing to look at now but the frozen blue eyes of Liz Sanders to look back at him. He felt even colder than before.
Angela got back to the car and nearly panicked when the car did not start on the first turn. She tried a second time and the cold car fired to life. She pulled back down the hillside and began to check her phone for signal.
"Come on!" She kept saying dividing her attention between the road and her phone. Her attention was so drawn to the phone she didn't realize how fast she was going. The rearview mirror lit up with blue and red lights.
"Oh good." Angela said pulling over. As soon as she was at a stop she got out of the car.
"Mam! Stop where you are!" The cop shouted pulling his gun.
"What?" Angela asked surprised. "Oh, no it's not like that. I need your help!"
"Hands on the car mam.'
"Okay enough with the 'mam' sweetie and this isn't funny." Angela said trying to remain reasonable.
"Hands on the car!" The cop shouted and Angela felt a panic rising that he was not listening to her.
"Look, I am in an emergency. I need your help, there's a man trapped."
"Mam, I would advise you to be quiet." The cop said approaching her. Angela soon realized she was being handcuffed. The officer put her cell phone in his pocket as she was being led to the back of the police car.
"Look, this is a misunderstanding." She said from the back of the car. The cop began to run the car plates. "A man is trapped, we need to get him out before he freezes to death!"
The cop wasn't listening.
"Look, I work for the FBI." Angela threatened.
"Your ID reads you work for the Jeffersonian Institute." He said with a voice that was unfamiliar with it.
"That was a mistake, I work with the FBI, the guy I'm talking about, he's an FBI agent and he's stuck in a cabin..."
"And why don't I believe you're Dr. Lance Sweets either?" The cop asked getting an ID back on the car ahead.
"Okay, this is all very explainable if we can just get back to the cabin." Angela said trying to sound more sane and calm so he would listen.
"You want to take me to a cabin to get ambushed?" The cop laughed. "Yeah right."
"Listen to me!" Angela shouted now.
"Sit back before I have to taze you!" The cop shouted and Angela did so as that wasn't going to help her. All she could sit and think was of Sweets, pinned to the freezing floor, surrounded by dead girls and snow as the cop pulled away from the car.
"Hey Sweets, that was a bust." Booth said stepping into the empty conference room. He looked around. "Sweets, where'd you go?"
On the floor of the cabin high in the woods Sweets felt a cold he had never known before. His toes were of little concern to him now as those as well as his fingertips had a strange and unfamiliar tingle to them.
Angela will come back soon. Angela will be back, soon. Sweets repeated over and over.