Title: The Thunder after the Lightning

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: none really - just season five and beyond.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, Brennan, or Booth.

Author's Note: Here we go. I hope all of you enjoy my first attempt with Bones fan fiction. Please don't be too harsh. I tried to stay as true to the characters as possible. Dr. Brennan is one of the most challenging characters to write, and I can only pray I'm close.

Everyone - Enjoy!

Prologue: The Past in the Now

Seeley Booth had seen this before.

Trapped and injured, he could only look on helplessly as his assailants tore through his cell doors, pulled him and his buddy to their feet, and dragged them into the hallway. He barely felt their forcefulness anymore, as so much of his feeling in the last few days had withered away. Feeling anything only made it more difficult to take the beatings, to endure what his captors chose to torture him and his friend with next. Expectedly, they were both dragged to a new room, one with stone walls and no furniture.

If he'd had even an ounce of strength left, Booth probably would've tried to stop their captors from shackling his friend face first against the wall. With arms and legs spread, his friend cried out again and again when the whip came down, striking his back, neck, and shoulders.

Booth was repositioned facing away from the scene, shackled to the ground on his hands and knees. They took his shoes and his shirt off and threw them to the corner, leaving only his pants on to guard his body from the damp cement floor. The beatings were mostly to the bottoms of his feet where his wounds from the night before had just started to heal. He bit down hard, grinded his teeth, as his captors seemed to concentrate hard on their task.

His friend didn't quite have the same resolve as he did, and Booth forced himself to ignore his friend's screams.

And then everything stopped, was still, and in one motion his captor was bent down over him, his lips close to his ear.

"Tell me. I need to know," his captor whispered.

Booth felt his skin crawl.

"Go to hell," Booth shot back, his teeth clenched.

His captor stood and walked around so he could look down at Booth, kneeled there before him on the hard cement surface.

"You certainly are a hard ass, aren't you?" he commented, his accent thick through the English.

Booth raised his head only a little, enough to gaze up at the face he'd come to truly hate. He didn't hate much, but this man … yeah, he could murder him in cold blood, he was certain.

"Not too long, and I'll have yours over a fire," Booth warned him. Although he had force behind his words, he knew there was little chance of it happening. Unless the grace of God blessed him with an unforeseen, unexpected miracle, he was certain he would die here. No way he was going to give them the information they craved, and in all likelihood his Ranger company was probably not looking for him, as they would have no idea where to look to find them. His mission, their mission, had been on a need to know basis.

His captor smiled easily.

"Tall words coming from a man on his knees," he bellowed.

He walked over to Booth's buddy, who was panting heavily and still shackled tightly against the wall. His friend's back was bloody, his shirt torn from the force of the blows. From here, Booth could see the bruises across his middle back, stretching around to his abdomen, and sensed the new assaults had only aggravated his broken ribs.

His captor made a motion to his people, and quickly his friend was unshackled and forced to his knees next to Booth less than ten feet away.

"How about I try a new scenario?" his captor asked aloud, almost thoughtfully.

Turning to Booth's friend, their captor gripped the back of his shirt and forced his head up. He took his hand gun out of his hip holster and placed it delicately to his friend's forehead.

"Can I have those codes? Pretty please?" his captor requested mockingly, pressing the barrel of the gun harder into his friend's head. "Or Private Haynesworth loses his head."

Booth saw his friend's eyes dart over to him anxiously. For a moment, Booth didn't know what to do. He gazed around the room frantically, looking for anything he could use while his mind tumbled through possible scenarios of escape like a pinball machine.

Then a loud shot echoed through the cold room, and in an instant his decision was made for him.

His friend's body dropped to the ground with a thud.

"You've gotta be faster, Sergeant," his captor taunted. He stepped up to Booth and placed the barrel of the gun to his forehead. "Now let's try this again. Because even though I would love to have those codes, I also know better. Most Americans are weak, but American soldiers usually stay quiet, yelling out useless numbers and rank while they die for their ungrateful country. And if you choose to be the same, then no need to waste either of our time here a second longer."

The barrel of the gun, still splattered with his friend's blood, was pushed more insistently against Booth's skull. And he heard the click.

And then he heard the sirens.

With a rush of air to his lungs, Booth bolted to a sitting position in bed. His eyes darted around the room restlessly, his breathing still fast as he gathered a sense of his surroundings. It took only a few worthy seconds to realize he was in a warm bed, to see the sun as it stretched lazily across the bedroom floor, and to hear the beep-beep of the alarm clock on the night stand next to him. He rubbed his hand over his face, drawing away the sleepiness from his mind with one stroke.

He sighed heavily, then reached over to the clock and shut the alarm off. On its face read half past seven, which meant he was probably going to be late for work. The room felt cold, like his body was waking with a chill on a winter morning in January rather than the warm gleam that currently sifted through the window from the April morning sun just outside. He dropped backwards onto the bed and looked over to his right to catch a glimpse of the beautiful face that greeted him most mornings now.

But the spot next to him was empty. And when Booth listened carefully, through the birds singing from the tree limb just outside the window and traffic noise from the street below, he sensed the beautiful face of his lover had already left for the day.

Odd, he thought to himself. She rarely ever left before him, and never before waking him.

Little by little, while thinking of his morning routine and the new day, the images from his dream vanished, just as they always did. This was normal, he discovered, to be haunted by the past. Booth knew plenty of army buddies who suffered from the same problem, although many had long ago let go of it. Only a select few did the images of war still linger so persistently, now years gone from the events. Even fewer did it really affect, as to make them crazy, out of their minds.

But he was okay. He only lost sleep here and there. He could manage.

Gathering his strength, Booth climbed out of bed and gathered his clothes folded neatly in the chair in the corner of the room. He'd aptly brought an extra suit with him last night before he came over, sensing she wasn't going to let him leave before sunrise. He thought briefly of discussing with her the idea of having closet space designated for him, but then decided against it. Although he was comfortable with sharing their apartments, or maybe even tossing the words moving in together around their daily living, he was certain it would only scare her off.

It was a little soon for normal relationships to be thinking such a concept, even though they weren't a normal relationship. They'd been together for … well, it seemed like a long time, even if they'd just risen into the stratosphere of sexual intimacy only months ago.

Well, this thread of conversation was for another day, he thought resolutely. No time or need to bring it up now.

Booth walked out into the living room and found his duffle bag on the couch. He sifted through it quickly and found his dress shirt, tie, and pants. Before too long he was in her shower, the cascade of the water driving away his lingering sleepiness. He closed his eyes, let his mind wander, and almost expected to hear the door of her shower open, to feel her hands run softly up the muscles of his back.

She'd memorized the contours of his muscles, the spots he enjoyed her touch the most. No harder for her to do as studying and discovering the cause of death hidden within the puzzle of her latest skeleton.

In only a few minutes he was standing in her kitchen, dried and dressed for the day. He made a quick breakfast, cereal and a little coffee, while he gathered around the rest of his belongings; keys, his shoes, and his suit jacket still hanging in the closet from where she'd left it.

And then the phone rang, just as Booth had devoured a few spoonfuls of Captain Crunch. He considered answering it, only because it could be Brennan, probably calling to get on his case for taking so long to get ready. She was probably expecting him to show up at the lab or his office, and perhaps a new case had brewed.

But then it may not be her, and he could very well blow their cover. After all, it was their decision at the beginning to hide their relationship until they decided they were ready to share it with the world. Neither were sure of the consequences that would arise from them sleeping together. Their careers were important to both of them, and neither had been ready at the beginning to risk it.

At the third ring Brennan's answering machine caught the call, her voice soft and casual as she informed the caller of her absence from the apartment and her desire for them to call back or leave a phone number for her to do so.

Booth took a quick gulp of his coffee, then held it frozen in his mouth as the voice of the caller resonated through the silent apartment.

"Hey, Bren," the male voice greeted softly. Immediately Booth stiffened. His voice sounded young, but Booth couldn't tell if his assessment was due to his training as an investigator or his sudden, steaming jealously.

"This is Victor, calling you for the hundredth time," the voice continued with a laugh, having no understanding of Booth's increasing rage. "If I knew any better, I'd say you were ignoring me. Decided to try your home phone, since you seem to be side stepping me on your cell. I really need your answer for this summer, Bren."

Booth swallowed his coffee slowly as he listened. His heart was beating faster now than when he'd awoken from his nightmare.

"Come on, how can you pass it up? A fresh dig site in Peru, waiting for a trained, professional, sexy Forensic Anthropologist to give it a good look. I know it's not China, but it's still a good find. Three months, surrounded by wilderness, skeletons, and eating in some of the best Amazonian dives this side of the equator. What do you say?"

Then the voice was gone, leaving Booth alone in the kitchen wondering who the hell Victor was, and why Brennan would keep him a secret.

Further consideration only made his blood boil hotter, as no possible scenario seemed to make him forget the warm tone in Victor's voice. Only he should sound so warm to his Bones from here on out, and no way should she leave him this summer for three months. That he couldn't handle.

With a grimace, he set his coffee cup and bowl in the kitchen sink, grabbed his keys from the counter, his duffle bag from the couch, and was out of her apartment in twenty seconds.

Halfway down her building in the elevator, Booth took a call from his office.

A new body, a new case.

His anger would have to wait.

to be continued ... :-)