The reason in the respect.
References to the Pilot and the Woman in the Garden.
First impressions are important.
I was coming back from a mission and had missed my pick-up, so I had made my way to the nearest base on foot. I wasn't officially there, so when a call came in that a patrol that had been missing for almost three days had been located as prisoners it would have drawn attention to me if I didn't go.
The rescue was easy at first, the guards surrendered without a fight. There were only three of them, and they were local conscripts and weren't interested in dying. We got the eight man patrol out of the shack they were being kept in before the real bad guys showed up. There was some confusion, the fight was short but chaotic. We took most of them alive, and had only minor casualties, but none of us could tell who their leader was. It's tricky when your prisoners out number your troops, and the sergeant in charge wanted to know so he could use the leader to keep them in line. The eight from the patrol were useless, they had been bound for two days, some of them injured, and they could barely walk. None of them, even their sergeant, even knew if this was the same band that had captured them in the first place.
During the fight someone had found another prisoner, a young civilian woman, bound and hooded, was shut in a room that was little more than a hole. She had been there longer than the patrol, I never did find out anything more about it.
She had fought the man who pulled her out, the idiot didn't have the sense to realize she couldn't hear him through the hood. I was helping to try to get everyone organized for the hike back to out transports, and the first I saw of her was after someone had gotten the hood off.
She tried to talk, but only started coughing. She was beaten up pretty bad. Once the hood was off she was calm, though, and more helpful than some of the boys in getting her feet unbound.
Once her feet were unbound she started struggling again, trying to get up. The sergeant was busy trying to get one of the bad guys to give him information about the situation, and yelled to get the girl under control. I swear she stopped struggling long enough to glare at him. She was on the ground on her side, her hands still bound, pulling her unbound feet under her and ignoring the young soldier who was trying to get her to hold still.
The troops we had rescued were mostly still on the ground, in various states of shock, and none of them even seemed able to understand what was going on beyond relief that they were out. But this woman wasn't struggling in panic. I saw her roll herself forward, getting her feet under her and pushing herself up, almost standing. She tried to take a step towards the sergeant, coughing hard as she tried to speak, but her legs gave out and she fell forward onto her face.
Everyone who noticed looked on with awe as she tried to get up again before she even had her breath back. I decided that, civilian or not, she had something she thought was really important to tell the sergeant. I didn't really think about why I went over to her, but this girl was in worse shape than all but one of our boys, and she was putting them to shame with her determination.
I knelt next to her, and she looked up at me. Her face was swollen and caked with dried blood and dirt, and the fall had broken open cuts on her left cheek and next to her eye. But her eyes were clear, pale blue, and held nothing but anger. Not relief, not fear, just anger.
I offered her my hand, and she half fell against me as I helped her stand. She took a step toward the sergeant and I caught her before she fell again. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and urged me to move her closer to the prisoners. She tried to say something, and almost got a sound out before she started coughing again, would have fallen if I hadn't been holding on to her.
As I helped her move closer to the prisoners, I realized that everything was quiet, the sergeant had stopped yelling, and was watching her with everyone else. She wasn't looking at the sergeant anymore, she was focused on the prisoners, her eyes shifting and blinking like she was having a hard time focusing. I kept helping her stay on her feet, letting her lead me as I supported her.
Once we got close they actually started backing away, and her eyes locked on one face. He had been watching her with contempt, holding himself straight and near the back of his band of… what ever thehell they were.
I saw her face contort in the sort of demented anger you really only see in warzones. The man she singled out blanched and shifted back a little but kept the look of contempt.
She pulled away from me in a step that was mostly a lunge, and managed to spit in his face before she fell.
Another of the troop I had come with was closer, and subdued the now obvious leader before he could start kicking her. Our sergeant came over and took charge, and the woman was cooperative after that.
No one said much about it, but I noticed that he was not allowed to wipe her spit off his face the entire march back."
I do not believe she recognizes me, can't imagine how she would. I had been on three cases she consulted, spoken to her several times, before I saw it.
Before the Cleo Eller case I took her some x-rays for a case I has been on for about a week, getting no where. Right off the bat she tells me how the guy died and that the weapon used was some funny shape.
I told her she was nuts, maybe with a few more words thrown in, and she told me I no longer had access to the Jeffersonian, and to get out. But when she looked at me I was struck by the anger smoldering in her direct blue eyes.
I didn't recognize her then, but even though I played her words off, I did go back to the scene. Sure enough I found just what she had described, and it was the lead that broke the case, everything fell into place from there.
When I tried to call her to apologize I found out that she hadn't been bluffing when she threw me out. Never one for empty threats, Bones. When I hung up the phone I could see those intense pale eyes, that's when I made the connection.
I could hardly believe it at first, but I did some checking, and she could have been there. She would have been 19.
When the Cleo Eller case came up I vouched for her, because she was good, and because behind that absurd front she shows there is a strength that puts half the US armed services to shame.
My take on a common theme, the pre-history if you will. What was it that won Brennan Booth's respect before the show started? This may be a bit over dramatic, so I challenge you all to come up with more plausible stories.
This was sort of written as part of a longer story, but I decided it really didn't fit, and works better as a one-shot anyway.
Please review, share your thoughts.