Disclaimer: Bones and its characters belong to their rightful owners.
Authors Note: Honestly, I doubted I would come back to this. But I have xD. Expect the final part to be up sometime soon.
Special thanks to my flawless reviewers! PLK Susie, FaithinBones, Joanne Novak, Rose, Seletua, and Tommy!

"I'm sorry, but regardless of what happens, you can check the hospital tomorrow. He'll either be alive or dead. It's really up to chance now."

Special Agent Seeley Booth wasn't going to allow some paramedic to stop him from seeing his injured profiler. In a span of twenty-four hours, Booth had interrogated, been shot at, shot at someone, and held a young man while he nearly bled to death, watching as life literally left his eyes. His patience had been zapped long before Mathias had ever entered his office.

The needle for stiches kept slipping in and out of his skin in slow motion. He gritted his teeth—not from the pain, but from the slow monotony of the entire situation. Booth was not in the mood to wait any longer, especially when it was entirely his fault in the first place that his shrink got shot up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the vibrant, bright flash of red and white reflected in the dark, cold window pane. No doubt they were already loading Sweets' still body onto the ambulance. Mingled with the scarlet and white blurs was the periodical blaze of blue. Once the officers had learned that Mathias was involved, they had sent at least two squad cars to the scene, judging by unsynchronized flashes of cerulean. He thought he was imagining things, but one of the set of blue blurs pulled away from the window pane. The urgent red flashing also started to shift away slowly from Booth's reflection.

The ambulance was preparing to move, taking Sweets with it.

Booth focused back on the slow progress of his injury patching. The paramedic refused to hurry, even as another police car revved up its piercing siren and preceded the screaming ambulance on its way to the hospital.

"Can you hurry this up?" There was only one forlorn blue signal left twirling, most likely the officer who drew the short straw and was forced to remain with the body and the paperwork.

The paramedic gave Booth a sour stare, as if to say his speed of stitching had no effect on the psychologist's chance of survival, so the FBI agent had better stop fidgeting if he wanted to keep the feeling in his fingers. He declined to voice any of this out loud, though Booth seemed to get the gist of it.

However, that didn't mean the agent had to follow the doctor's unspoken suggestion. The moment the needle reappeared from Booth's skin, the agent gritted his teeth and jerked his arm. He was hoping that the sudden movement would startle the medic into dropping the needle, giving Booth a smooth getaway. No such luck, as the medic held tightly onto the needle, though he was obviously shocked. Booth grimaced again as he pulled his arm roughly again. There was a brief sear of pain as the string was ripped forcefully back out of the man's skin. But Booth fought the urge to stop and look down at the further opened wound as he jumped off of the desk he had been perched on and raced towards the door. He ignored the paramedic's furious squawks as he bolted towards the stairs, grateful for the heavy, soundproof door that swung shut behind him. Booth took two stairs at a time as he tried to navigate down the multiple floors as fast as possible. He tripped once, and almost tumbled down the rest of the flight, but grabbed the handrail just in time, nearly ripping his arm out of the socket. He ignored the flash of pain, holding his sore limb to his chest with his free hand, and descended the stairs more carefully—though no less slowly.

Feeling his heart pound loudly in his ears, Booth crashed through the doors that led to the stairs and paused for a moment to catch his breath. He dropped his hands to his knees, doubling over as he surveyed his next actions. Booth could still see the faint flash of blue reflected in the window.

Good. They're still here; they can take me to Sweets fast.

Booth's sudden, determined appearance caused the young officer reclined against the passenger door to jump. The young man halfway lifted his hand in a sloppy salute, then realized that he was in the wrong uniform. He dropped his hand stupidly and stood up straighter with a reddening face.

"Sir…? You must be Special Agent Booth. The man who made the call."

Booth regarded the young man for a moment. The boy had short cropped blonde hair and a few pimples on the bridge of his nose, but he didn't look that much older than Sweets. His light gray eyes peeked curiously at Booth with a faint glimmer of admiration.

"They told me what happened, sir, when they took the other agent to the hospital. Wow…" he murmured, his eye catching on Booth's bloody dress shirt.

The young man's words snapped Booth back to his purpose. "Get in the car. We're going to the hospital. Now."

Panic quickly replaced wonder in the boy's eyes. The remaining blush of red in his cheeks disappeared in a pale flush and a gulp. "I'm sorry, sir, but that isn't protocol, sir. An officer must remain with the body of a criminal at the crime scene at all times, sir, to prevent someone from tampering with evidence, sir."

Booth hadn't heard that many "sirs" since he was introduced to the knights of England a few years ago with Bones. "As an agent of the FBI, I am your superior officer, and I demand a police escort to the hospital where they took my partner. I have the right to detain you if you refuse to comply with a federal agent." Booth wasn't sure if this excuse would stand in any sort of court, but the kid was so fresh out of the police academy, he sincerely thought Booth was capable of putting a bullet in his skull for not following instructions.

The officer swallowed nervously again, his pale gray eyes darting from the road where the ambulance had disappeared minutes ago and back to his own whistling squad car. "I…I suppose I can make an exception, since you are my superior."

"Exactly." Again, not really sure if that's true.

"And I suppose Ronald Mathias won't be escaping anytime soon." The young man's eyes slid towards the doors to the Hoover building as if the reanimated corpse of Mathias was likely to burst through at any moment.

"There is a very determined and very angry paramedic who is with the body. He will not let anyone near it, I can guarantee you."

"Oh…kay," the young man drew out uncertainly. He was still unsure if what he was doing was right. Booth could tell the officer was about to make another attempt at dissuading Booth from forcing him away from his duty.

Booth sighed and locked gazes with the young man. "The agent who was shot—" the young officer frowned slightly "—is one of my best friends. He took the bullet that was meant for me and his heart gave out twice while waiting for the ambulance to arrive." The young man tried to look away, but he was unable to tear his dejected gaze from Booth's. "He might not make it through the night, and I…" Booth closed his eyes and swallowed. Hearing the words out loud made them ten times worse and twice as real. "I want to be able to say good-bye while I still can. It may already be too late." He broke the connection between the two and stared at the rotating bulb on the police vehicle.

The young officer's eyes were curiously bright and he nodded once. "Yeah, I'll take you. Damn the consequences." He hesitated for a moment as he waited by the driver's side door with one hand on the door handle. "Though I'd be grateful if you told my superior officers that I was required to take you by order of the FBI."

"Yeah, of course," Booth muttered, swinging himself into the front seat of the police cruiser. The young officer climbed into the driver's seat and threw the car into drive with an almost excited expression. Now that he had clearance to leave the site of the crime and was on, in his opinion, a special mission to unite an agent with his fallen partner, the officer was not so nearly as nervous. Booth glanced to the side at the young man. His youthful appearance reminded him again of Dr. Sweets and caused his gut to twinge painfully.

"What did you say you name was again?" Booth asked. "So I can be sure to tell your superiors about the favor you're doing me," he lied with a strained smile.

The officer glanced up in the rearview mirror and smiled faintly. "Chancy. Officer Chancy."

The drive to the hospital took almost a fourth of the time it would have taken if Booth had been in his own car. Once the whirling of the sirens reached the cars lined up in traffic, immediately they parted like the Red Sea. Booth was bitter for a moment, wondering how it was possible for the cars to move so fast while they were heading towards the hospital, but it took the ambulance an extra ten minutes to get to Sweets while he was bleeding in Booth's arms and they desperately needed the assistance.

Even though it was late at night, the hospital still seemed to be fairly crowded. Cars littered the parking lot like ants on a picnic blanket. Booth swallowed and suddenly had the horrible feeling that Sweets might have been pushed away due to overcrowding. However, the agent fought away the thought as he realized Sweets' condition would take precedent over the simple broken arm or the mother in labor. After all, he was also a federal agent and would be taken care of accordingly.

"There's the ambulance that took him in!" Officer Chancy gestured wildly towards the ambulance that was parked closest towards the Emergency Room loading dock. All of the lights were off in the ambulance, but one lone paramedic was slouched on the edge of the vehicle, his feet dangling over the back lip of the truck and his head buried in his hands. The perfect picture of exhausted sorrow. Ice gripped Booth's lungs and he nearly launched himself out of the moving police car to rush towards the paramedic and demand Sweets' progress. However, Booth forced himself to remain perfectly still as Chancy parked.

"I hope your friend is okay," the young officer whispered softly. "He sounds like a hero."

He is. Booth nodded once and reached towards the handle to free himself of the car. He paused and turned towards the young police officer. "Hey, can you do me one more favor?"

Chancy nodded once. "Yes, sir. Anything you need."

"Do you know where the Jeffersonian is?"

"Yeah!" The young man perked up excitedly, then remembered the somber situation and sat back down with a forced frown. "I mean, yes, sir. I went there on a field trip a few yea—"

"All right, I get it. Can you provide a police escort to the hospital for a few of my friends at the Jeffersonian. They should be there. Jack Hodgins, Angela Montenegro, Cam Saroyan, and Temperance Brennan." The young man's expression brightened. He recognized at least one of these names, but he didn't say anything else.

Booth pulled the handle, slipped out of the car and paused before slamming the door. "Thank you, Officer Chancy."

The young man smiled widely, his soft gray eyes shining brightly. "No problem, Agent Booth." Booth let the door close shut slowly and turned back towards the seemingly distraught paramedic. He heard the squeal of tires and a flare of headlights and Officer Chancy was gone to bring the squints in.

In quick, determined steps, Booth was soon standing in front of the older medic. He fished around in his pocket for his badge, but the man lifted his head and smiled wearily at Booth.

"Agent Booth, I presume?"

The special agent swallowed thickly and nodded slowly. The man was older than Booth, perhaps in his fifties or sixties with faded brown eyes and loose gray hair arranged on the top of his head. Heavy lines crossed his face from the stress of the job, and in the moment the man looked absolutely exhausted. Booth realized with a start that he was the man who had read Sweets' pulse the first time.

The older man sighed loudly and straightened up to get a better look at Booth. The latter was too terrified to ask about the current condition of the psychologist and waited in the horrible silence to gather his courage. Come on, Seeley. Just ask!

"I don't think we got to meet properly at the Hoover building," the paramedic stuck his hand out for Booth to shake. The special agent started at it warily before numbly returning the favor.

"How's Sweets?" Booth blurted out, unable to hold in the worry any longer. His unspoken thoughts babbled through his mind like a torrent. Is Sweets alive? Is he dead? Why aren't you in there helping if he's alive? Why are you so cheery if he's dead? Why are you so tired? What is wrong—there should be nothing wrong. He has to be okay. He has to be fine because I have to call him an idiot for jumping in front of the bullet. His mind took a dark turn for the worse. I can't go to his funeral. I don't even know who to tell if he's dead. I don't even know where he wants to be buried. I can't do it alone, but his parents are already gone. He's too young to die. It's all my fault.

Booth's distress must've been evident on his face, for the older man placed a warm, wrinkled hand on the agent's shoulder. "Don't worry, son. He's still alive, as far as I know. They wheeled him out of the ambulance stronger than when he came in."

The special agent nodded a few times, trying to force air back into his lungs. "Were there any problems on the way?" he pressed.

The faded paramedic looked very tired for a moment. "He nearly crashed on us again from blood loss and our temporary store of blood didn't carry enough of what we needed for him." Booth regarded the man with wide eyes. "It was touch and go there for a moment, but luckily we got things sorted out."

"How?"

The older man lifted up his right arm with a wan smile. Booth hadn't realized that the man's right sleeve had been cuffed and a white bandage had been wrapped around a vein. "It was a good thing his wallet was still left in his pocket, otherwise we would have never known Dr. Sweets' blood type. Thankfully it wasn't too exotic," the FBI agent wasn't sure if he was imagining things or not, but he thought the paramedic winked at him, "so I was able to help out a bit." The paramedic rubbed at his eyes tiredly. "I provided almost twice the normal amount of blood during donation drives, but it was worth it to see the color returned to that young man's face." He regarded his slightly trembling hands with a curious frown. "But I'm afraid I would only get in the way in this condition, so I was made to stay back while they took your partner to the operating room." He frowned again. "I'm sorry, but I don't know his condition."

Booth swallowed a lead lump in his throat. He didn't know why his eyes were burning so sharply at this moment, but he felt the odd urge to hug the paramedic in front of him. He settled for a shaky smile and an outstretched hand. He didn't care that he had already shaken the man's hand. "I can't thank you enough. You probably saved his life."

The doctor took the offering and shook it warmly. "I should be the one to thank the both of you for killing that son of a bitch." No doubt he was referring to Mathias. "He put my sister into a coma fifteen years ago before you locked him up. He's the reason I changed jobs and got my medical degree to be here," the man rapped the hard, metallic base of the ambulance with a curled. "So I could help people, just like people helped Anne wake up." He smiled weakly at Booth. "He's the reason I was able to help your friend today. What are the chances of that?"

Booth had been uncomfortably perched on the hard cushioned seat in the Emergency Room for about twenty minutes before the others arrived in a flurry of hiccupping gasps and wide, worrying frowns. The special agent flagged them down with a somber wave and they gathered around him in a messy semi-circle, waiting ravenously for any information regarding their youngest team member.

The questions exploded violently.

"How is he, Booth?"

"Is he stable?"

"Have they taken him into surgery yet?"

"What happened?"

"Are you alright?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Booth raised his hands impatiently and the clamor immediately died down. They watched the agent expectantly. Booth licked his dry lips and launched into his answers. "Sweets is in the middle of surgery at this moment, though they told me his condition is still critical. They've also managed to put some blood back into his system and the emergency transfusion seems to have been accepted by his body, they said."

"Emergency transfusion? Did you…?" Angela offered slowly. She eyed the crimson stains all over the agent's once white shirt and shuddered. There was too much blood and she had a horrible feeling that most of it belonged to their little shrink.

Booth shook his head. "I haven't actually seen Sweets. They didn't let me in the ambulance" because they were probably afraid of what I would do if he flatlined. Again. "One of the paramedics shared his blood type so they rigged up a quick transfusion."

"Remind me to send him a fruit basket," murmured Hodgins with an almost incredulous expression.

Dr. Brennan's face was quite pale. "Yes, I agree. Dr. Sweets is indeed very fortunate."

"How long until they can tell us more about Sweets?" Angela pressed. Her dark eyes were wet and sparkling, though she wasn't actually crying yet.

Booth shrugged, feeling a sense of numbness consumed his toes and travel up his body. "The surgery could take a few more hours, depending on how quickly they are able to patch up his lung."

Cam squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. "So there was an issue with his lungs. Oh God…"

Brennan frowned. Even though she rarely worked with living tissue, she knew enough from Dr. Saroyan's work to know that lungs were particularly fickle objects when it came to operations. Her eyes glazed over her partner and her lover, desperate to see if he was damaged in anyway. Her eyes caught on his bloody, rolled back sleeve and the angry, severed mark of skin.

"Booth! You're injured!"

"Dude, what happened?" Hodgins' worried blue gaze took in Booth's bloody shirt and darted back to the jagged slice on his arm. "What caused that?"

Booth regarded his own injury with only mild concern. "One of the paramedics tried to put in stitches, but I, uh," he paused for a moment, "ripped them out when they were taking Sweets away. I had to follow him here, but the guy wouldn't let me leave until they were done." The others stared at him with expressions ranging from partial admiration (Hodgins) to horror (Angela and Brennan) to just plain "WhythehellwouldyoudothatSeeleyBooth" (Cam).

"You ripped out your own stitches to get to Sweets?" Hodgins repeated again, staring at the FBI agent with a new sense of respect.

Booth nodded once and opened his mouth to explain something else, but Dr. Brennan interrupted him.

"What caused you to need stitches in the first place?"

Cam tilted her head at her former flame. "What exactly happened, Booth? Understandably, you weren't able to give us a really vivid description on the phone."

"Yeah, I was a bit preoccupied," he muttered wryly. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "All right, well, Sweets and I were just trying to put together one last case file that would have possibly shut down this current investigation you guys were working at the lab on. Then Mathias shows up with a gun and threatens to shoot us. I'm really glad Sweets got his license to carry a gun, because the next part was great." Booth smiled slightly as he remembered the frazzled memory. "He nailed Mathias in the shoulder when he wasn't expecting it, but Mathias still pulled the trigger as he fell backwards."

"He aimed at Sweets?"

Booth's frown deepened and he buried his hands in his pockets. "Not exactly."

Dr. Brennan was trying to reenact the entire situation in her mind and seemed to have come to a road block. "You said the bullet came into contact first with Sweets' back and exited through his chest…? And only one bullet was fired because by then you would have reacted in time to incapacitate Mathias?" Booth nodded stiffly. "Then the only plausible conclusion I can think of that involves both yours and his injury is something like this." She gingerly placed a hand on Booth's injured shoulder and her other hand on the side of his upper arm. She pulled herself closer to the FBI agent slightly so that it looked almost as if they were ballroom dancing at a distance. "In this position, the bullet would have entered by the base of the spine and traveled at approximately a 45 degree angle until it exited his chest and skimmed across your own skin." Dr. Brennan paused for a moment. "Am I correct, Booth?"

Booth looked away almost if he were ashamed. "Yes…"

Collective gasps rose from the remaining three visitors.

"Why were you guys standing like that?"

"It looks like Sweets was…shielding you," Hodgins murmured with squinting, darting eyes. His crystalline aqua orbs could not and would not settle on one person. They moved from Booth to Brennan back to Booth and around at the others.

"He was," Booth tersely shrugged Bones' hands off of him. "He saw that Mathias was going after me and he pushed himself in the way," he muttered bitterly.

The others were silent for a moment. Cam was the first who seemed to realize what was running through her friend's mind at the moment. "Seeley, this isn't your fault."

The special agent flicked his heavy gaze in her direction before stalking off to the other side of the lobby with a feigned interest in the water fountain. Brennan went to follow him, but Angela caught her wrist with a soft shake of the head that sent her curls shuddering in the air.

"Just let him be alone for a while, Sweetie. This hit him harder than any of us."

Three cheers for Officer Chancy (geddit? xD) and random paramedic man!
Thanks to everyone who had read, favorited, reviewed, and followed this :D