ASC: Thanks for the great reviews, it's so encouraging to write more!

Chapter 2.

Wow, this is a lot of email. Emma was enduring her second day at the bureau, the first one spent mostly signing her name enough times to have perfected it and then lost all perfection as the fatigue took over and it increasingly became illegible.

She was now a fully secure employee. She was taking on access to Dr. Sweets patients and cases in his absence, thus she had to sign her life away for it. She didn't mind, she had no intention of doing anything illegal with it. Not only did she need this job, but she did want to be convicted of the 14 pages of crimes that she would be held accountable for it if she had.

Now she had a small desk placed outside a new office assigned to Dr. Sweets to accommodate her presence. She had been quickly briefed on Dr. Lance Sweets. She was delighted at first to work with someone her own age. The last job she held was for someone in his sixties and who didn't understand anything about technology. She spent her whole day running into his office to help him get voicemail, send an email, anything and everything.

Emma was taken aback however when they listed off Sweets credentials. Oh a smart guy a young age, must be an ass. She had thought to herself knowing how many intelligent people can tend to be rather egotistical. She was shedding that perception quickly at the number of agents who had stopped by to inquire about Dr. Sweets with her. He seemed well liked and she thought that Doogie Howser M.D. persona may have been wrong.

She smiled at everyone and informed them she had just started and she knew little of Dr. Sweets condition. She was surprised how much she started to be concerned for the person she had never met based on their inquiries. She knew it was based on the way people asked about him and she began to worry less about what working for the boy genius might be like. That was until she started to wade thru hundreds of emails.

When the bureau found that Dr. Sweets stay in the hospital was going to be longer than a day or two they began to develop a back-up plan. They had no one who was going to be able to reschedule his many patients and keep up things for him once his eventual return. Even then the doctors were concerned about the slow recovery in his hands. Deciding to not lose the talent that existed in Sweets mind, the FBI higher-ups decided the expense of an administrative assistant was well worth it. Emma was hired thru an agency and would schedule, organize and sort files for Sweets and once he returned do the same plus possibly, take and type notes if his hands did not improve, and other items assigned as needed.

At the moment however Emma was wondering where the nearest bar was, because this was going to be a late night.

Booth returned to the building in the late afternoon and first checked in with his assistant. He was to be notified immediately of any bodies or evidence came in that suggested the activity or whereabouts of Derringer. Booth found it unlikely, based on the escalation Sweets was suggesting in Derringer that he had stopped. Booth was also unsure if Derringer knew Sweets had survived.

Did he survive Booth asked himself. Will he be the same Sweets? Irritated with the possibility that he might not, Booth decided to check in with the new secretary.

"Um Hello?" Booth asked the pretty young brunette sitting at the desk. She was small and petite with hair that looked curly earlyer that morning. Her cardigan was on the chair behind her a Booth could see her scuttle as she hurried to put her heels back on under the desk. She looked tired but she put on a smile to try and hide it.

"Hello." Emma said back to him. "Can I help you?"

Booth had to grin at the fact she was trying to smile and be helpful despite the fact it was almost seven and she'd obviously been working hard.

"Hi, are you uh Sweets new…" Booth searched for the politically correct current title for secretary.

"Yes, I'm Emma Gardner." She said standing up and shaking Booth's hand but tripped in her heel that wasn't on all the way. "Sorry, I'm usually a little more put together." She said trying to get her shoe on casually.

"No worries." Booth said with a small smile thinking her and Sweets were going to work well together, always apologizing for unnecessary things. "I just wanted to say hello and all. I'm agent Booth. I work with Sweets quite a bit." He said and again called to question in what exactly his relationship with Sweets was, just a coworker, friend, close friend?

"It's nice to meet you Agent Booth." Emma said again with a sweet girl next door smile. "I'll be interested in working with Dr. Sweets. I feel like I know him having gone thru all this, but not really, that doesn't make sense." She added as though chastising herself. Booth looked down at the piles of folders stacked around her desk and felt bad for her.

"Would you like to meet Sweets?" Booth asked though he wasn't sure why he did after he said it. It just popped out of his mouth before he knew he had. He knew he was thinking that she probably needed to get away from the work for a while and it just, came out.

"Uh, sure." Emma answered, filled with the same thoughts of stepping away. She wasn't sure why she said yes, it seemed weird but an excuse to get out of the office sounded good. She couldn't lie in the fact she was very curious to put a persona with the name she had been reading so much about.