Timeframe/Info About This Fic: I suppose anytime in Season 8
Disclaimer: Bones and its characters belong to their rightful owners.
Authors Note: Urgh, this was supposed to be a oneshot revolving around a certain confrontation, but that didn't happen. Now it's a short story. Dedicated to Joanne Novak for just being an awesome person, sending me the best review/PM conbination ever, and being a part of the best fandoms in the world. You like Sweets and pirates, right? xD

"What are we doing here again?" Dr. Sweets scanned the wide-ceiling room with a single sweep of his slightly upturned face.

"The case," Agent Booth gruffly replied, concentrating solely on a display case by the wall.

"We're in an unopened Jeffersonian exhibition room," the psychologist countered flatly. "The pirate exhibit," he glanced back over at the life-sized reconstruction of a pirate vessel that took up most of the large room. Large bands of yellow caution tape ran around the ship and across several of the unfinished displays filled with recovered figureheads and overflowing chests of pirate lore. Lit by the bright skylights above them, the room almost looked like it came from a storybook; the doctor had a feeling it wouldn't quite be so cheery in the dark.

Booth didn't seem to hear him. "Do you think Parker would enjoy seeing this once it's finished? It's not too weird, right?"

"Well, pirates are certainly a fascinating topic for young children. Their past rebellious nature is appeali—wait!" Sweets paused for a moment and turned back to Booth with an open-mouthed frown. "Please tell me you didn't 'officially' force yourself into a closed exhibit for sightseeing and brought me along for a second opinion." The psychologist resisted the urge to groan in exasperation. "I thought this was about a case. Besides, how would I know what Parker would like?"

The older agent spared a sour look in Sweets' direction. "You are only a few years older than him."

In his frustration, the younger's colloquial speech slipped through without thought. "Dude, I told you the age jokes weren't even funny. I'm over twenty-four years old." Sweets frowned. There was a beat of silence then a slow smile spread over the young man's face. "But pirates are pretty cool."

Booth suppressed a chuckle. For someone who claimed to be pretty all-knowing when it came to the minds of others, Sweets was pretty bad at recognizing his own youth. Certain actions the psychologist performed were very similar to what his son did.

"But is there another reason we came here?"

Agent Booth nodded once and turned back to the younger doctor. "Yeah, one of the squinterns labeled cause of death as a long, thin slice across the neck." Booth drew his finger quickly across his jugular in a cutting motion. "When the Bug-man swabbed the wound for whatever the stuff he looks for, he found it was a sharp tipped item made of iron that had rusted."

"A nail?" Sweets offered with a shrug.

Booth shook his head. "No, Hodgins didn't think so. He said the metal was forged several hundred years ago. Our best bet is to look for something old."

"A decorative artifact?" the younger wondered aloud. "Our victim was a rare relics dealer for the Jeffersonian. Perhaps it was a deal gone bad?"

"Or maybe just an old weapon," Booth interrupted, pointing at the partially empty display case he had previously been scrutinizing. It was the pirate weapons portion of the exhibit, filled with rusting jeweled daggers and partially torn scabbards lying neatly in black foam. However, the central piece was missing, leaving only a faint indentation of a thin hook. The psychologist ogled for a moment at the case.

Sweets' lips parted slightly in confused awe. "Our victim was killed by a pirate?"

The older glanced sideways at the younger man. "Now you see why I asked about Parker."

"I may have to get back to you on the pirates then," the psychologist muttered, casting one more daunted look at the towering pirate ship.

They were heading back to the Hoover building and were on speaker phone with Hodgins, who seemed overjoyed to know the possible identity of the weapon.

"Let me get this straight—he was killed by a pirate? Woah." The ginger's gleeful voice filled the cab of Booth's black SUV.

"Could the hook be our possible murder weapon?" Booth interrupted quickly. He was determined to end the conversation with the entomologist as soon as possible.

Hodgins was silent for a moment. "The shape of the incision would be consistent with a thin slashing to the side with a tearing or a tugging motion from a sharp tip. I can't be for sure since the only hook I could use for analysis is missing from the Jeffersonian." The forensic scientist almost sounded wistful at the loss of a testing weapon. "I've never killed a test subject with a hook before."

"Is there anything we can do, Hodgins, to further prove this hook was the murder weapon? It'd make things go faster, that's for sure."

There was a rhythmic clicking on the other side as if the Squint was tapping something in deep thought. "Perhaps you could try swabbing the empty display spot. There might be remnants of the rust there."

"Were the rust particulates slightly green?" Sweets interrupted for the first time. Booth sent a questioning look at the psychologist.

"Particulates?" he mouthed. Sweets shrugged in response. "You've been hanging around the Squints for too long."

"Yeah, they were. Why?"

"There was a dagger that came from the same area as the hook did and it had greenish rust." Sweets' lips pursed tightly as he tried to summon up the location in his mind. "They both came from wreckage off the coast of Santa Marzda in the Caribbean." Booth raised an eyebrow and Sweets shrugged again. "What? I told you—I used to be in to pirates. I was curious, so I read the information cards."

There was another pause and then a triumphant crow burst from the phone that nearly caused Booth to swerve into the car speeding beside him. The female driver in the small hybrid next to them slammed on the brakes with violent honking and unimaginative hand gestures.

"Hodgins," he growled, trying to calm his racing heart. "This had better be good. I almost hit a lawyer in a Smartcar."

"Ah, sorry, I forgot you were driving. Anyway, our little shrink just had his first King of the Lab moment."

"Really?" Sweets' excited voice betrayed his usually calm demeanor. "Awesome!"

"What did you figure out?" Booth overrode the psychologist's enthusiastic ramblings with an annoyed click of his tongue. He had been helping out the bugboy for years and he had never been claimed King of the Lab. He wasn't jealous, of course, but that didn't mean he needed his partner to have a swelled head with Hodgins's nonsense either.

"Santa Marzda is an area that is known for it more chloric seas. It doesn't have as much chlorine as the local community pool, but the water has more chlorine than the surrounding areas. While the salt water speeds up the oxidation process, the chlorine leaches out certain chemicals in the iron that makes the—"

"Can you give me the Sparknotes version, Hodgins?"

"Yeah, basically, the rust is greenish—not red, like normal rust—due to the chlorine in the water. If Sweets is right that the hook and the dagger both came from the same area, and the rust residue on the dagger matches the traces I found on the victim, then it's safe to say that the stolen hook was the murder weapon." The entomologist paused and it sounded as if he was fighting of grins on the other side. "I can't believe our guy had his throat slashed by a pirate."

"Yep, that's cool. Gotta go, Hodgins." The particulate master tried to interject himself into another tangent regarding piracy, but Booth cut him off sharply. He quickly slammed his cellphone shut and shoved it back in his suit. He glanced to his right to see Sweets still smirking, most likely about his new royalty title.

"So, what would make someone dress up like a real-life pirate and slash some antique dealer's throat?"

The triumphant grin slipped off of the profiler's face immediately as he pondered the question. "I can think of two possibilities. First, he or she was unfairly jilted by the victim and desired revenge. It provides a motif and the attack could either have been calculated rage or accidental." Sweets frowned. "Though, it would be difficult to try to hold the weapon at the right angle to cut." He curled his left index finger into a crude hook and tried to drag it across his neck with his right hand.

"Now you're starting to sound like Bones." He rolled his eyes. "And what about the other profile?"

"The first is much more likely, but it is also possible this is a themed attack. The stolen weapon is an authentic pirate hook from an upcoming exhibit. The person who would have been in charge of it was murdered in a stereotypical 'pirate-y way.'" The words were put in air quotes, since they were both fairly certain it wasn't a technical term. "It could be that the killer is obsessed with being some sort of pirate—whether that is the rebellious nature or element of freedom or wealth. Society and pop culture have dramatically romanticized the basic concept of piracy to where it's hardly discernible from its true, harsh form of scurvy and public executions." Sweets mashed his lips together in a thin line and shrugged.

"So you're saying our perp might have read too many fantasy books when he was younger?"

Sweets shrugged again. It's entirely possible, though I think the former profile would be more fitting. A fixation on piracy is…unusual to say the least."

"Are you telling me people can turn into ninjas and cowboys too just because they want to?"

"No," Sweets scowled. "But certain fantasy jobs such as police officers, spies, and even federal agents are coveted by people who wish to escape their own mundane lives. In facts, many studies have hinted that this internal desire is where sexual role-play first deve—"

"Woah, Sweets. Hold up before this gets too weird."

"It's totally natural for peop—"

"So, pirates! Were you a fan when you were, well, a little bit younger?" Sweets regarded the older agent with a thin, amused smile as if to say he knew the agent was sloppily trying to change the subject. For once, he decided to drop the issue as well. "I loved pirates when I was a kid. Blackbeard, Long John Silvers, Captain Morgan—those guys were awesome. But my favorite was always Captain Hook."

Sweets listened quietly to the FBI agent's happy reminiscing without interruptions. He was hoping that maybe all of this pirate talk would lead to a glimpse of Booth's elusive past, but he wasn't going to push it.

"I always liked the Neverland Boys more than Captain Hook," Sweets offered when Booth had turned a curious eye on the shrink for the latter's opinion on piracy.

"Really? I thought he was always so classy. Peter Pan really was the villain—not Hook."

The younger shrugged with a smile. "I haven't thought about those characters for a long time. I sort of grew out of them." Booth regarded Sweets with a slightly horrified, slightly amused expression.

He was about to release a snarky remark about the psychologist still having time to grow when a loud grinding noise tore the words from his mouth. His gaze darted immediately to the driver's rearview mirror while Sweets twisted in his seat to try to see what was happening. The Smartcar driven by the aggressive lawyer had been clipped in the back by a truck, whose driver was partially hidden by his sun blinders. Still honking relentlessly, the tiny car spun off into a guardrail, striking the heavy-duty, FBI-issued vehicle in the back bumper en route. The jarring impact threw the two agents forward in their seats with loud grunts and coughs, but the slight vehicle did little more damage than that.

"You okay, Sweets?" Booth asked in a low voice. The psychologist nodded a few times before vocalizing his answer.

'Yeah, yeah, fine." He coughed and rubbed at his sore chest from the seatbelt impact. "But I wonder what that was about."

"Maybe the truck got too close? It should be fine now." He glanced back in the mirror to see the steaming lawyer jump out relatively uninjured from her car and kick the scratched sides of the vehicle a few times. He looked back at the driver of the truck, which was getting unnervingly close to their own vehicle. The blinds concealed most of the man's face, but he could see his mouth twisted into a grim slash of determination. Only one hand was firmly on the wheel while the driver's left arm was hanging loosely by his side.

Based on the wide, darting gaze of the psychologist beside him, Sweets was coming to a similar conclusion that the truck driver wasn't planning on slowing down anytime soon either. The truck was so close behind them that Booth could make out a long, fresh scratch along the trucker's chin and he could feel the rumble of the eighteen-wheeler behind them. While one hand tightened significantly on the wheel to the point where his bloodless knuckles glowed white, the other arm shot out instinctively across Sweets' chest to act as a secondary restraint, similar to what he would have done if Parker was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. Moments later, the truck slammed in the back of the black SUV. The shudder that ran through the latter vehicle was almost as terrible as the sickening, heavy smell of gasoline and the crinkling noise that came from the back seat and trunk folding inwards, accordion style. Booth and Sweets were both thrown against their seat restraints with loud grunts, but even those weren't strong enough to hold them back completely. The older agent struck his head against the steering wheel, causing his vision to flicker between bursts of vivid white to pitch blackness. For some reason, his airbag refused to deploy and he was forced to lean his sticky, pulsing head against the still turning wheel. Luckily the impact of the track behind them had stunted the motor into a stop, otherwise, Booth had no idea how he was to steer the damaged vehicle in his condition.

He was certain he had a burn or a bruise from being thrown against the seat restraints so forcefully. The agent could only choke out dry whispers. "Sweets?" he whispered in a hoarse voice. Booth sluggishly turned his gaze to the still young man beside him. Although the boy's airbag had deployed, he was still bleeding profusely from a spot on his forehead that was partially concealed by his slick, sticky curly hair. The blood trail dribbled lazily down the side of his face, beside one closed eye, and onto the stark while airbag.

"Sweets?" Booth managed to choke out again. The young man was clearly unconscious, but the faint rise and fall of his chest indicated that he was still breathing relatively regular. "Just hold on," he murmured, more to reassure his own fading self than the psychologist beside him. He strained his properly functioning ear to hear for the sounds of sirens, but all he could hear was the crunching sound of someone ominously stepping on broken windshield glass. Booth tried to turn his head to see who was coming, but exhaustion weighed too heavily in his bones. He pried his drooping eyelids back open, but darkness swirled in the back of his head and threatened to send him into unconsciousness as well.

The crumpled remains of the vehicle shuddered slightly as a high-pitched squealed grated harshly against Booth's good ear. Someone was opening the passenger side door. He tilted his head to see who it was, but the action sent more dark shadows rushing through his vision. Booth was barely conscious when he saw something greenish glint dully in the sun and slice through Sweets' deployed airbag. He was unconscious before the air completely leaked out of the safety device.

Booth awoke to soft, indiscernible muttering and a bright burst of light behind one of his closed eyelids. He squeezed both eyelids further shut, hoping maybe they could block out the light, but a gentle tug on his eyelid prompted him to crack open an eye. Someone was shining an annoying bright flashlight in his eyes. He wanted to push them away, but his brain had yet to send the message to his hands to move. Booth slowly pried his other eye open, cringing at the painful glow of the so very white room around him. It took him a while to adjust, but he was able to figure out he was in a hospital for some odd reason.

Fuzzy gray images flashed through his mind. Angry lawyer in a hybrid. A pirate ship. Scratch along his chin. The truck. Sweets!

Booth nearly bolted upright, but one of the paramedics, most likely the one with the flashlight, held him down in a lying position.

"You had a minor concussion, Agent Seeley Booth. You may want to take it easy."

Booth brought a hand up to his sore face and rubbed at his eyes. He could sense the presence of other people in the room. The agent glanced to the side and felt a relieved smile crack across his lips.

"Hey, Bones." His gaze darted to the person standing beside her. "Cam."

Brennan tried to smile back, but her eyes were still slightly anxious. "Despite my numerous credentials regarding the human body, they refused to let me see you until you were conscious. They even refused to allow Doctor Saroyan in." Brennan paused and gave her partner a shaky smile. "I am glad to see you are okay."

"Nothing a few painkillers won't fix." Booth eased himself into a reclined position, much to the indignation of the tiny nurse beside him. "Thanks for coming, but, uh, what exactly happened?"

Doctor Brennan's tightly pursed lips revealed her worry for her partner, even if she wouldn't outright say it. "You can't remember? The doctors were nearly positive you did not suffer any form of amnesia."

Booth shook his head, which turned out to be a terrible mistake. "No, ugh, Jesus Christ," he paused for a moment to let the rattling in his skull die down. "I meant, what happened after the accident?"

"The paramedics were on the scene within minutes and took you to the hospital."

"I mean what happened to Sweets. Is the kid all right? He was banged up pretty badly."

Doctor Brennan frowned and slowly shook her head in confusion. Cam bit her lip nervously. "Sweets wasn't in the vehicle by the time the ambulance arrived. We assumed you had dropped him off before the accident."

Booth's lower lip dropped slightly from the response. "What? I had just gotten off the phone with Hodgins! Your Bugboy had just crowned Sweets 'King of the Lab.'"

"Hodgins said he was on the phone with them," Cam exchanged a knowing glance with Brennan, "but he didn't know when the accident happened. He thought it had happened much later."

The FBI agent adjusted himself roughly so he was sitting up completely. "So you're telling me we have a missing shrink?"

"He could be listed under John Doe." Cam was immediately on the phone with the main desk, inquiring about any nameless young adults recently admitted, but her grave expression already foreboded the unwelcome answer.

"Perhaps Doctor Sweets was not as injured as you perceived. You injury must have compromised your sight, Booth. Sweets may not have needed to be hospitalized."

"He was unconscious, Bones. I saw someone cut him out of the airbag before I blacked out myself."

"Thanks." The coroner slowly made her way back to the partners. "They said there have been no John Does admitted from a traffic accident," Cam announced, slamming her phone closed.

Brennan was still caught on what Booth had said previously. "What? Could you repeat that?"

"I said, he was unconscious."

"No, the other part."

Booth frowned, repeated the phrase in his head before he said it aloud again. "Someone cut Sweets out of the car before I blacked out."

"Your minor concussion would have caused you to lose consciousness within moments of impact. He or she must have already been at the scene of the accident."

"Can you remember anything about him or her?"

Booth squeezed his sore eyes tightly shut and breathed twice through his mouth. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to dive back in his murky memories. An icy chill ran through his veins when he found the answer. The FBI agent dropped his hand and his wide eyes popped open. "He had a scratch on his chin. He was the driver of the truck."

Oh, gosh... The OOC-ness! It's running rampant!
Oh, and pirates xD
Thanks for reading! I'd really appreciate feedback.