The summer before Seeley Booth's sophomore year of high school, he met the person who changed everything he had ever thought about himself. He was in the front yard shooting pucks into a net when a car pulled up to the Colter's house. It was a common enough occurrence. Everyone knew that the Colter's took in foster kids from time to time, but this one caught his attention for some reason. He was staring at her as she got out of the car and as if she could feel his eyes on her, her glaze immediately honed in on his. He felt a shock of something, but quickly looked away, going back to his shooting, while she was shuffled into the house.
It wasn't until the first day of school that he saw her again. He was headed to school early for a meeting with Coach Miller, when he saw her seeking out the back door, carefully making a point of not making any noise. He thought it was a bit odd, but he decided to ignore it and went on his way to school.
Later that day in Chemistry, he learned her name, Temperance. It was almost as odd as his, but it suited her. Not that she was temperate by any means, but it is old fashioned and had a certain reverence to it that he liked.
Time passed, Seeley Booth didn't think much about his quiet neighbor. They passed each other in the halls. He saw her at the drinking fountain, but he always tried not to look too closely. Deep down he knew why. He knew that she is hiding something, and he knew exactly what it is. Never the less, he tried to ignore the signs.
When he heard people yelling in the house next door, he would turn on his favorite Noddy Comet record to drown out the noise. He buried his head in the sand because accepting that he knew the signs of abuse meant admitting that he was living with it too. He could ignore the way she flinched when people bumped into her in the hall or the day she showed up with her arm in a sling, telling the teacher how she fell off a bike he had never seen, but then one day he didn't see her sneaking out of the house in the morning. He tried to tell himself that it's none of his business, that she was just home sick. People missed school all the time. Just because she hadn't missed a day yet, didn't mean anything, he insisted.
His gut churned but, he wouldn't get involved. If it was him, he wouldn't want some nosey stranger asking about his personal life.
That night after his date with Regina Mendoza, he heard a sound coming from the Colter's backyard.
It's so quiet he almost dismissed it as the wind, but then his gut twisted again. He looked at the Colter house and saw the glow from the television in the living room. Other than that the house is dark, even Temperance's room, where the light is always on, not that he has made a point to look or anything.
He focused on the sound, trying to find an innocuous explanation.
click, click, click, clank, click, click, clank, click...
The sound was easily explainable, metal hitting metal, except for the odd rhythm. He moved into the shadows created by the hedge between their homes and crept silently toward the sound.
"Hello?" He whispered.
The sound stopped.
"Hello?" he repeated raising his voice only slightly. "Is someone there? It's Seeley, Seeley Booth. I live in the house next door."
Still, he heard nothing. He was just turning to leave, when he heard it, an almost gasping sound of a person trying to hold their breath just a little too long.
"I know you're there, if you come on out, then I can leave, but as it is I am not get any sleep worrying about who was skulking back here."
"Everything's fine, Seeley. Just go home," her voice called from somewhere in the darkness. He knew it was her. He hadn't actually ever spoken to her, but he had heard her correcting teachers enough to recognize it in nearly an instant.
"Temperance?" he questioned the darkness.
"Yes?" she replied.
"What are you doing out here at this time of night? And where are you exactly?" Booth asked. Her voice was close, but it sounded weird, almost like an echo. He looked around, but all he saw was the same old rusty Chevy that had sat in the Colter's backyard for as long as he could remember.
"I think you should go Seeley, if..." she paused for a moment unable to say the name she had meant to, "if anybody found you here there would be questions."
"You missed school today," he offered. He didn't know why, but he just couldn't bring himself to leave.
"Yes, well I have a feeling I will be missing tomorrow too," she sighed.
"Where are you?" Seeley asked again, after he had walked all the way around the car. He couldn't figure out why her voice sounded so strange, or where the hell she was hiding.
"Just go, Seeley. You have a chemistry test tomorrow. If you are just now getting home, you clearly need to go study, and I need to stop wasting air talking to you." She thought she was doing pretty well, coping with her punishment, maintaining a calm in order to conserve oxygen but if Mr. Colter found Seeley here she wasn't sure she could live through a punishment for that. She was so worried about him getting caught here, that she slipped in her effort to push him away.
Seeley felt like he had been slapped, he was so caught up in her catty comment that he almost missed the most important part of her statement.
"Temperance, why do you have a limited amount of air?" He asked, already dreading the answer.
He heard her take a measured breath.
"Listen closely, Seeley Booth, I am in the trunk of this car. It is a punishment that I deserve and if you don't leave right now, you will most likely earn me a punishment that I do not deserve. So, I will ask you one more time to please leave, and never come back here."
Seeley stepped back away from the car. Whatever he had been expecting, this was not it. He knew he was in over his head, but how could he just leave her there. Then again, he had no way to free her. He had already tried the door to the car and they were all locked. He could call the cops, but then what, it wasn't like he had proof that the Colter's had locked her in there. They might try to say it was a teenage prank, or a cry for attention. He had absolutely no idea what to do, but he knew he couldn't just leave.
He also knew that if he caused her any more trouble, he would not be able to live with himself. He was having a hard enough time just living with his own messed up life. He crept around the far side of the car, he figured in a pinch he could crawl through the hedge if he heard someone coming.
"Look, I don't know why you are in there, and I don't know what you could have possible done to deserve it, and I know you can't really talk, but I can't just walk away, so I am going to sit here out of sight for a while, while you think of a way for me to make sure you don't die in there." He finally said after taking a seat on the ground, leaning his tired frame against the rear wheel well.
He thought that she might be ignoring him, or that maybe that last breath might have been the last of her air, but then he was relieved to hear an almost silent, "Ok, I will work on it."
"Just promise me that if you start to feel light-headed, you will tell me so I can go find a crowbar or something and break you out," He offered thoughtfully. He didn't want to get her in anymore trouble, but he was not going to let her die in there either.
"Ok," she returned, before lapsing into silence as she began to plot her survival.
A/N: So I am aware that this is majorly out of character for who our favorite couple is now, but during Mayhem on the cross, the way Bones talked about what had happened to her, was as if it had taken her some time to realize that she didn't deserve that treatment. Also for the purposes of this story Booth and Bones are the same age, because a 4/5 year age difference is a lot bigger when they are 15/19. Thanks!