Title: Breath
Author: Doc
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I think I could manage if they were.
Rating: T
Summary: A crime against Booth and Brennan forces them to face themselves.
Author's Note: The title came from Breaking Benjamin's 'Breath' but this is not a song fic. I just like the song.
The sun was pounding into her head with the force of a jackhammer. It felt as though a thousand shards of glass were behind her eyes as she struggled to raise one eyelid a millimeter, attempting to catch sight of the clock. The red lights were shaded and blurred, and she couldn't make out the numbers.
Is that a five or an eight? Ah… she reasoned … if it were a five there would be no rays of light between the blinds. Hence it must be an eight. Or a three. But that would mean it was three in the afternoon, which was highly unlikely. She never slept until three in the afternoon, even if it was a Saturday.
Now the jackhammer had turned into a herd of elephants, as she turned her head to get a better angle on the clock. Elephants on roller skates, now careening furiously around in her skull.
Yes, that was definitely an eight. And since it was Saturday she was turning away from the window for at least another thirty minutes. Slowly, so as not to awaken the aforementioned herd of elephants, she angled her body to face away from the window, brushing against something unexpected.
She froze, and then rubbed her knee against whatever was in her bed. It was warm, hard and slightly furry. Hairy. A leg. A man's leg. A man's hairy leg.
Both of her eyes flew open at this revelation. Twisting and wrenching, she clawed her way out of the bed, stumbling into the nightstand – which looked oddly out of place to her – before falling into the wall. Once she was completely free of the linens she risked a glance at the bed, confirming her suspicions that there was indeed a man in her bed.
Not her bed, she realized in horror. His bed. Looking around she didn't recognize the rest of the room either. Beginning to shake, she tried to identify the obvious owner of the bed and the bedroom, but her eyes would not cooperate. Everything was still fuzzy, like the clock had been, and the room was tilting dangerously. His head was buried in a pillow, and the covers were strewn over him haphazardly leaving only a bare back and shoulders for her perusal.
Panicking as she realized she didn't know where she was, why she felt so incredibly woozy, nor whom she had been in bed with, she did the first thing that came to her mind when she spied her purse open on the dresser.
She pulled out her gun and pointed it at him. Or at least in his general direction, given the shaking of her hands as they gripped the cool metal.
"Okay … you… get up! Wake up right now and tell me who you are and what's going on! Wake up I said!" She tried to sound fearless but couldn't control the tremor in her voice.
As the figure under the covers began to stir, her heart hammered furiously in her chest. He must have sensed her presence as he came fully awake, because she saw the muscles in his back tense as he slowly lifted himself from the mattress and then began to turn.
"Put your hands where I can see them – I have a gun. And I'll use it," she added, with what she hoped was confidence.
As he turned to face her, the faint sunlight cast a glow across his features, framing his visage perfectly. Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect 'Oh', as recognition sank in.
He swallowed a few times, and then spoke in a sleep-roughened voice.
"Bones? What are you doing here? Why are you holding a gun on me in your underwear?"
Seeley Booth was no stranger to the hangover. In fact, once upon a time, they were fairly good friends. Saturday morning buddies, at least three weeks out of four. Back in college, they even spent quality time together during the week, particularly after fifty-cent draft nights at his favorite bar. After his stint in the army, they reacquainted themselves on a regular basis, after all, who gambles without drinking? During the last eight years he and the hangover had drifted apart, meeting up less and less on Saturday mornings, or any mornings for that matter. Nevertheless, here they were – together again.
Shielding his eyes from the laser beam of sun piercing through the blinds, he squinted at the fuzzy and barely dressed figure of his partner, asking again, "What's going on Bones? What are you doing here?"
Lowering her new nine millimeter handgun a fraction, she replied with a jut of her chin, "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"
"This is my bedroom, Bones. I'm sleeping in it. What the hell's going on? Put down the damn gun." His voice sounded far away to his ears.
Booth felt like he had been run over by a truck. His head was pounding so hard it felt like his teeth were rattling in his mouth, and he still couldn't quite focus his eyes on Brennan. The best he could tell, she was wearing a white camisole and white cotton panties, which on any other day would have been the manifestation of many a fantasy he had entertained about his partner. On this particular day, he just wanted answers.
Setting the gun on his dresser gingerly, she pressed her fingertips to her eyes for a moment, willing the room to stop spinning. Peeking out, she looked disappointed to find the situation hadn't changed, and forced herself to speak.
"I have no idea, Booth," she said with a sigh. "The last thing I remember is being at Sid's new bar with you last night, before waking up this morning to… this," she gestured between them.
As she gestured between them, the reality of the situation began to sink in for Booth. He was no rocket scientist, but every other time in his life that he had woken up in bed with a woman after being in a bar, had meant one thing and one thing only. Oh dear God.
"Bones … did we… you know… did anything… happen?" He couldn't bring himself to say the words.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. He just continued to stare, praying with all his might she was going to say nothing happened. Not that he never wanted something to happen, for the record, just not like this.
She started to shake her head, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then she tilted her head to one side, then the other, then she screwed her eyes shut taking a deep breath.
She started to speak, and he leaned forward on the bed.
"I … I don't … I'm… goingtobesick."
The word rushed out as she clamped a hand over her mouth and dashed for the bathroom.
Booth gingerly climbed out of bed and was relieved to find he was still wearing underwear. Had he been naked, then there would have been precious little room for doubt about what had transpired. Dragging on his jeans that were crumpled on the floor, he padded barefoot to the door of the bathroom, almost colliding with Brennan as she stalked out.
"You okay, Bones?" He almost grinned at the top of her head as she brushed past him. She had commandeered his bathrobe from the back of the bathroom door and was pulling it tight around her. There was another fantasy manifested in front of him.
"I'm fine, Booth. Sit, we need to figure this out." She flopped into the armchair facing the bed.
"O…kay…" he moved to do as she wished. Whatever had happened in the eight hours he couldn't remember to save his life, could very well ruin their friendship and partnership and he knew she could shut down and shut him out in an instant. If letting her boss him around made her happy then he would comply for now.
"What do you remember?" she asked.
"Um… let me think," he scratched his head and reached for a t-shirt, pulling it over his head. Regardless of what may have transpired, he felt a little uncomfortable sitting there bare-chested.
"I remember picking you up at the lab, around eight. We went by the diner and ate, and then I asked you to go by Sid's place in Georgetown with me. You agreed finally, and we got there around ten. We talked to Sid at the bar for a while then moved to a corner table when that jazz band started."
"How much did we drink?" Her brow was furrowed as she stared at him, making him feel like one of her bone specimens.
"I had two beers at the bar, and I remember ordering a third at the table. I don't remember drinking it though… three beers isn't nearly enough for me to forget eight hours of my life, Bones."
"That's what bothers me, Booth. I had one apple martini at the bar, and I remember ordering another one at the table as well, at the same time you asked for another beer. For some reason I remember spilling something…"
"Bingo. I remember that too. Instead of the drinks we ordered, two double martinis were brought to us – they were red, maybe cosmopolitans – and we told the girl those weren't ours and she said to keep them anyway and she'd get our right drinks. Someone hit your elbow from behind and knocked yours…"
Booth searched the bedroom until he found the shirt he had been wearing the night before. It was a pale blue button-down, now with a large red stain on the front.
"…all over me. Here's the stain. I remember we shared my drink then, and then… nothing. I don't remember another thing, Bones. Not until this morning."
He sat down heavily on the bed, his head still pounding and now even more confused. She pulled her knees up to her chest and dropped her head on them, sinking back into her chair. He stared at the top of her head, desperately trying to remember something more. Bones was not a petite woman; she was thin, true, but very tall. Yet his robe seemed to swallow her and the sight of her pale skin against the dark blue terry made his stomach knot at little.
Booth was still staring at his shirt when she jumped up from the chair.
"We were drugged, Booth, it's the only explanation. There was something in that drink we shared. Here, help me find my clothes, we'll go to the lab. Call Cam, tell her to meet us there." She was suddenly a ball of energy, tossing the bed covers every which way looking for her clothing.
"Drugged? What? Call Cam?" Booth still felt like his brain was wrapped in cotton, and things were adding up much slower than normal.
"Booth, get moving. She can run blood and urine tests to determine what was in that drink." Forgetting her modesty, she dropped the robe from her shoulders and pulled on her jeans and shirt. "We need to hurry before it's metabolized out of our system, if it's not already too late. I'll call a cab to take us to the Jeffersonian."
She started to move past him out of the room, and he grabbed her arm, turning her to face him.
"Bones, we still don't know what actually happened, you know, here. With us," he nodded his head in the direction of the bed.
Her cheeks flushed but she resolutely held his gaze. "We have to go now, Booth," she said softly. "We'll have to find answers to one thing at a time. Whatever did or didn't happen, we start where the evidence is. We can deal with the rest later."
He let go of her arm but didn't follow as she left the room. 'Whatever did or didn't happen' was a much bigger deal than she was allowing for.
A/N: So not actually a warm and fuzzy morning after. I don't know exactly where this is going, so I'm counting on your wonderful reviews to help me make up my mind. The rest of the chapters will likely not be this long.