5.

ASC: There's nothing like a move to slow down your writing. It's been an irritating process to get everything not so much packed but everything lined up. It's been messing with my head. Ah, a retreat to writing! Wesley1501 and Malibubreeze I'm glad you haven't given up on me! ;)

"I get one phone call!" Angela shouted as they walked in the small police station.

The officer rolled his eyes as he brought her over to a phone as she frantically dialed Hodgins. Angela tapped her fingers as she thought of how the cops were really going to regret this and hoped they got demoted to crappy cop duty, whatever that was. Her thoughts were deterred as the phone continued to ring only to be answered by an automated response of "I'm on a case right now so I can't answer" message. The cop took the phone away before Angela could dial another number.

"Hey, has anyone seen Sweets?" Booth asked irritated. The other agents shrugged their shoulders.

"What's going on?" Brennan asked approaching Booth with a bag full of carryout dinner.

"Oh it's Sweets, he just up and disappeared on a case." Booth said rubbing his eyes. "We need to find this guy and he's out some place doing whatever."

"Well you should eat something." Brennan said holding up the bags. "Then maybe you will figure this out."

Are my feet numb from the cold or from the weight on them? Sweets asked himself as he lay on the ground. His cheek hurt as it lay against the cold ground. Sweets stomach turned as it reminded him of his failure to feed it today. He knew he couldn't tend to that issue at the moment. Instead he thought of how he could keep his cheek from freezing to the ground.

Sweets fumbled his left hand to his tie to put between his cheek and the cold ground. He thought it was weird he would feel so warm when it should be feeling so cold. Without much dexterity he eventually got his tie off and thought the coolness felt nice for some reason. There was something about hypothermia he was trying to remember but he was getting confused. He was taking his tie off for some reason but he couldn't quite remember what it was. His cheek hurt, why did his cheek hurt he wondered.

"That's a nice tie." The dead Liz Sanders said to Sweets thru blue lips.

"It is nice. My mom got it for me when I got my new job. It was the last gift she gave me." Sweets said back not realizing the issues with this conversation.

"How come it was the last gift?"

"She died right after I started. My dad too." Sweets thought back to his adoptive parents and was filled with a sadness he hadn't thought about for a while.

"Did they care about you?" The blue lips asked.

"Yes, very much so." Sweets said thinking back to when he came to them and their gentle hugs after the harsh hand he knew before it.

"Too bad my parents weren't like that." The girl with the motionless eyes said to him.

"Why is that?" Sweets asked.

"Not everyone is meant for happiness." The voice said but this time her lips didn't move and Sweets remembered she was dead.

Sweets rubbed his sore head with frosty fingertips. This is not good.

"I've been working on the railroad ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY!" Angela sang as loud as she could. "I know a hundred annoying children's songs you know!"

"Look miss if you don't stop…" A different cop said coming to the cell.

"Please shut her up!" A large man in the opposing cell pleaded. "I can't take it anymore."

"Well maybe you shouldn't have robbed three gas stations then!" The cop shouted to him, at the end of his rope with the both of them.

"If I knew that was going to be sentenced to her singing I wouldn't have!" The inmate shouted back.

The cop turned back to Angela about to point his finger at her when she belted out, "I'm a little tea cup short and…"

"Okay!" The cop shouted. "ONE phone call."

He opened the door and Angela followed his right on his heels to the phone. The cop who had arrested her looked up and then back down as he swallowed another aspirin.

Angela took the phone from the cop and frantically called as she looked at the clock. More time had passed than she thought and she could think of nothing but Sweets.

"Caroline Julian?" Angela asked heaving a huge sigh that she answered. "Yeah it's Angela Montenagro. I'm in jail and Sweets needs your help, right away."

Booth looked at his phone ringing and put down his fork in the empty food container. Brennan looked up with curiosity as to who was calling.

"Booth." He said answering his phone.

"Agent Seeley Booth." Caroline Julian said in a not so pleased tone. "Tell me Cherie, do you and or Dr. Jack Hodgins know there whereabouts of Angela Montenagro or Dr. Lance Sweets?"

Booth could tell by the way she was asking that it was less of a question and more of a condemning statement. Caroline could make you feel like an errant child when she wanted to, and right now he could tell she wanted to.

"I, uh, have been on a case." Booth squeaked out.

"Angela is being released from the Dayton County police department after a few choice words I offered to the officer in charge. Dr. Lance Sweets, from what a very frantic Angela told me is currently trapped under a pile of snow at your murder suspect's house. Now I'm not going to suggest to tell you how to do your job agent but I would highly suggest that you…"

"I'm on it." Booth said grasping the gravity of the situation. "One thing." Booth began. "Where are they at?"

"I'll text you the address of the Dayton County police station, but I have no idea where your suspect's house is." Caroline said.

"Okay, I'll call Angela on her cell." Booth said hanging up.

"What's going on?" Brennan asked Booth as a sinking feeling set in.

"I don't know, Angela and Sweets went to do, something, I don't know. Angela is in jail and Sweets is in trouble." Booth gave her the run down as quickly as he could.

He called Angela's cell but it went straight to voicemail.

"Well are they okay?" Brennan asked now concerned.

"I don't know Bones, I'm working on it." Booth said now trying Sweets cell which rang repeatedly.

Booth called Caroline back.

"Bad news Cherie." Caroline answered. "Angela left the police station and her cell phone is dead."

"What?" Booth asked running his hand thru his hair.

"Don't worry I've chewed so much ass I've got polyester in my teeth. They are out looking for Angela now. They wouldn't listen to her about Sweets being trapped so she stomped out on her own. They will be out to find her but right now you'd better get on finding out where Sweets is. Chances are that's where Angela is heading back to."

"Thanks." Booth said hanging up.

"Booth, what's going on?" Brennan asked and Booth brought her up to speed.

"How do we find Sweets?" She asked at the conclusion of the summary.

"I've got an idea." Booth said as they left the room and he called Hodgins.

"Please!" Angela shouted her plea to a scared store owner only gazed at her from behind his closed sign.

Angela was cold but she knew she had a relief from the cold that Sweets hadn't been granted. She had pleaded with half a dozen people at first for a ride, then just for use of their phone as hers lay dead in her pocket.

Angela looked to the sky as a light snow began to call. She knew she had to get back to the cabin, somehow, she wasn't going to give up on Sweets now.

"Walking in a winter wonderland…" Sweets mumbled to himself. He giggled to himself. He couldn't walk any place thought it was winter but he wasn't so sure of the wonderland.

"Warm wonderland." Sweets mumbled as his thoughts drifted. He was filled with a sensation of warmth, beaches, and after a moment, he was sure he saw the sun.

Sweets struggled to get his hand on his shirt and undid the top button. He was filled with an overwhelming desire to take off his clothes. Sweets had no connection to the fact he was entering a serious stage of hypothermia where a person is inundated with a false sense of warmth. While Sweets would not see his precarious situation as lucky, he was fortunate to be buried under a pile, unable to fulfil his desire to remove those clothes.

After a few moments of struggling he stopped. Sweets head was swimming once he stopped and he found himself filled with a sense of anger. He went to move his right arm that was feeling numb but it only felt wet. Angered by the sense of being hot and confused he yanked his right arm as hard as he could. He was provided with an immediate painful sensation and barely pieced together that his arm had been cut by a piece of metal and when he pulled it, was cut much deeper. Sweets moved his arm and saw a red smear across the floor. He couldn't see the cut thru his dark wool coat or his dark jacket under it and was confused and he continued to rub his arm on the ground.

"Did you cut your arm?" He asked the girl lying next to him. Naturally she was quiet.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Sweets said louder. "Did you cut your arm?" He said again but even he could tell his speech was starting to slur.

"Fine, don't answer." Sweets grunted still looking at the smears his arm was making as he moved it along the ground.

"They're not going to make it in time." A girl voice said and Sweets looked back to the girl.

"Yes they will, they're very smart."

"But they don't care. Not like your parents did." The girl told him.

"They, they do." Sweets said not so sure this time when he said it.

"It's getting to be too late."

"Not, it's not. I can do this." Sweets said struggling to push himself up on the palms of his hands. His right arm gave way first under pressure of the deep cut. The motion knocked loose a pile of snow which fell on him.

Sweets sighed a deep breath of defeat. With his left hand he pushed the snow off his head though it had let in a layer of coldness that overall worsened his critical situation. He looked at the loose snow and without a mental capacity much more than intuition pushed the loose powder with his numb left hand onto his right arm. His fingers would not move independently but he could move his left arm as a whole. Soon he had pushed the snow up onto his cut arm. Sweets watched as each layer of snow he added magically turned to red. He repeated the process until the snow was all on his arm. He felt the bleeding slow due to the cold.

"That was a good idea." The girl said.

"See, I can do this." Sweets said feeling extremely exhausted now. His heart had momentarily picked up speed but now it was plummeting.

"You only bought yourself minutes." She said again.

"They'll come."

"They'll come too late." She echoed.

"How do you know that?" He asked, his eyes getting heavy.

"Because you know that I'm you telling yourself these things."

Sweets closed his eyes knowing that she, or rather he was right.

"Hodgins are you there?" Booth asked as his image appeared over webcam in the conference room.

"Yeah, I'm here Booth, I'm just, I mean, Ange…"

"We're looking for her Dr. Hodgins, this is how we are going to find her." Brennan reassured the obviously distraught Hodgins.

"Okay, so what am I looking for?" Hodgins asked.

"I'm trying to figure out what Angela and Sweets were working on." Booth said as he flipped thru the pages that were on the table. Brennan followed suit and flipped thru them as well.

"I'm seeing a lot of financials." Hodgins said flipping thru the images Angela had on the screen. Booth shook his head as though remembering something about that.

"They were talking about money." Booth said.

"Well what did they say?" Brennan asked surprised he knew this.

"I don't know, I didn't…" Booth stopped because he didn't finish his sentence with believe them.

"It looks like they were digging into the financials of a Theodore Edwards." Hodgins said.

"Yes!" Booth said remembering. "He was the father of uh, Molly Edwards. She didn't fit the profile."

"Yeah it looks like they were onto something here. There's quite a bit of suspicious activity here." Hodgins said flipping thru the digital documents.

"Sweets found a cabin, in the mountains." Brennan said picking up a bill of sale.

"That's where they went." Hodgins said and they all stopped.

"Let's go." Booth said taking the address with him.

Angela was glad she wore pants but as the snow fall picked up she wished they were thicker. She knew she wasn't going to make it back to the car as it was. She was filled with a deep sadness that she had failed Sweets. She knew how she felt she could barely stand the cold and Sweets had been exposed to the cold longer.

She head a familiar sound and spun around to see a police car pull up behind her. As the officer approached her nearly frozen eyelids she was preparing to deck the cop.

"Mrs. Montenegro?" He said approaching with a large warm blanket. "With deep apologies from the police station I am coming to you."

Angela paused from punching the public servant square in the jaw.

"Please, get in the car, let's get to your friend."

Angela decided not to punch him and instead made her way to the police car.

Once inside she turned the heat to full blast with little care if the officer was uncomfortable in the sauna. He said nothing.

"Your friends are on their way but I think it's best that we try and get there." The officer said. Angela nodded as she looked out the window, the light was about to take its leave with only a slight glimmer left.

"Please hurry officer. I promised my friend I would be back."

"Yes mam, I mean, yes miss."

"She said she would come." Sweets said and wondered what the clattering sound was. "She promised she would come back." Sweets mumbled in words that only he could sort of comprehend. He waited for the girl to argue with him but she was quiet. Everything around him was quiet.

Sweets distantly recalled the time he was held hostage in that bank robbery. Being held captive was much better than being alone here. This was a personal hell he could hardly stand. The line between real and surreal was a line too thin. The cold was a pain so deeply penetrating there was no escape. Being shot was a singular pain that he could identify, like he had that day at the bank. Now though, the pain was everywhere and nowhere. The pain became numb but the numb was a pain of its own. It was as though there were thousands of tiny pins pricking at him but he had no ability to stop them, hardly a mind to define them.

"I don't think she's coming." Sweets said when he realized the clattering sound was coming from him shivering. The sound quieted after he spoke and everything seemed to slow down and the pounding in his chest began to slow. Everything started to slow down and fade to black.

"Are we getting close?" Booth asked as Brennan monitored the digital map.

"What's going on?" Hodgins asked on the speaker phone. They had promised to keep him up to speed on Angela and this was the only way to appease him.

"We appear to be about twenty minutes away." Brennan announced.

"Do we know what condition either of them might be in?" Cam asked having stood next to Hodgins. She was always feeling the need to be prepared.

"The police called Caroline Julian about twenty minutes ago." Brennan announced. "They picked up Angela and they were heading to the cabin. We are almost there as well though we have not been able to reach Angela or the officer."

"The reception up there is going to be pretty bad. They may have gotten back to the cabin." Hodgins proposed.

"I would say Angela is probably cold and irritated but is okay or the officer would have taken her to the hospital and we would have heard about it." Cam guessed. "But if Dr. Sweets has been trapped at that cabin for what I'm guessing to be several hours then…"

"Let's not guess the worst." Booth said trying to see past the snow that was hitting the windshield amidst the last few gasps the setting sun was taking.

Brennan wanted to tell Booth that was not a rational way to be but she could see the concern that he had and instead was quiet.

"Oh boy." Booth said causing Brennan to look up.

"What?" Hodgins asked.

"We just passed Sweets car."