"Bones" Fill in the Blank Summer Fanfic Challenge Entry
Although I am the world's worst Twitter participant ever, word got around that there was a challenge. (Thanks to threesquares!)
These were Razztaztic's Rules
Begin your fanfic with the end of S2.09 "Aliens in a Spaceship." You can start anywhere from the rescue to the end of the episode but you cannot change canon.
End your fanfic with the beginning of S2.10 "The Headless Witch in the Woods." You can stop at any point in the episode but you cannot change canon.
This story grew out of a half page snippet that's been sitting in a folder for years, but how it ended up like this is one of writing's great mysteries.
As I post this, it happens to be the Fourth of July, which is Independence Day in the United States. For all its faults, this country has provided me with security and autonomy, an education and a supportive network of family and friends. For that, I am truly grateful and I count myself fortunate to live here.
~4 July 2013~
~Q~
Giving Thanks
~Q~
"Are you going to behave yourself in here?" he asked one more time as they ascended the steps and Brennan's head was twisting this way and that as she tried to take in the entire external edifice in front of her. Neo-Classical Georgian lines, suggesting early 19th Century construction but Booth had halted at the door and was waiting for her to reassure him yet again.
"Why are you asking me that?" she huffed, affronted. "I promised, didn't I?"
He laughed fondly and shook his head. "The problem, Bones, is you manage to offend people without even trying."
"I can't help it if your god has such a delicate ego that an atheist's opinion would offend him. An omniscient god would know I am an empiricist, so he only has himself to blame for not providing the facts of his existence to me."
"Case in point!" he hissed in dismay. "See what I mean? You are standing on His doorstep!"
She rolled her eyes. Crossed her arms and blew out an irritated puff of frustration, but wisely fell silent before Booth changed his mind. Walking silently behind him, Brennan observed the ritual entrance with curiosity as Booth dipped the fingers of his right hand into a fount of water and then moved his hand over his face, chest and shoulders, then half knelt in a quick sort of bow before proceeding down the aisle.
"What was that for?" she whispered.
"You genuflect and make the Sign of the Cross before the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle."
"Why?"
"You just do! Shh!"
Brennan sighed and wondered whether his lack of an explanation meant he might not have one, or if he was just being stubborn. There was always Google, she supposed. He performed another quick genuflection as he slid into a pew about half way to the front, pulled down the kneeler, did the hand movements again, and then got onto his knees. All of this ritual movement was fascinating if seemingly without purpose. Sitting next to him, she noted the kneeling bar was padded and elevated enough to make the position relatively comfortable.
Booth had clasped his hands together, bowed his head and went silent for a time. In the large stone space, small noises were amplified and bounced, even the smallest shuffle of a foot or throttled cough of one of their few fellow parishioners. Brennan, ever curious, looked around at the religious artwork with detached appreciation for the ambiance. It was colorful in here, the images all stylized and obviously intended to convey momentous incidents from early Christian history.
The art that most garnered her attention was the almost graphic representation of a Caucasian male with hands and feet nailed to cross beams, complete with dripping blood and a face contorted in agony. Crucifixion was the preferred method of execution practiced in ancient Rome, a lengthy and excruciating way to die (not to mention the source of the word 'excruciating' itself as a descriptor of horrific suffering). The public display of such a torturous mode of death surely carried significant anthropological meaning to the public who had acted as witnesses: mind yourselves or you'll find your own body hung up before a jeering crowd.
Looking again to the figure's face, she frowned at the man's carved blonde beard and straight, shoulder-length hair. Part of her wanted to point out the fact that Jesus Christ (if he existed) was supposed to have been a Jewish carpenter from Palestine and thus would not have been a blonde Caucasian male of Northern European ancestry, but rather a much darker man of Mediterranean stock. In fact, all of the artwork in here was rather Eurocentric. Shooting a glance at her occupied partner, Brennan decided Booth might not appreciate her commenting upon his church's lack of scrupulous attention to historical and genetic fact.
It was enough that he'd brought her here, clearly having gone against his better judgement to do so. The least she could do was try her best to 'behave herself' as she'd promised and not offend his religious sensibilities while they were inside. Once outside, however, no topic was off limits and she smirked a little in anticipation of the sparring match to come. Satisfied with her compromise, Brennan settled in to wait for her partner to finish his prayers.
After several minutes passed, Booth finally gestured over himself again and sat back beside her.
Resisting the urge to ask him why he kept crossing his hands over himself (another topic for outside), she regarded him curiously. "What did you ask for?"
"That's between me and a certain saint." Booth nodded towards one of the statues decorating an alcove. Brennan thought about asking which one it was, what demigod the saint supposedly represented, but was diverted when Booth admitted something that surprised her. "Although I did ask for a little help finding the Gravedigger."
"Good move." Why not, she mused. If he thought divine help was to be had, it probably wouldn't hurt to supplicate for it. Somewhere in the back of the Sacristy a priest had opened a door, causing a cross-breeze to brush past them. It brought a sweet scent drifting towards her, slightly perfumed. Sniffing cautiously, Brennan wondered aloud, "What's that smell?"
He smirked, as if he were the cause. Her brow lifted.
"The candles." He gestured towards the votary candles flickering in an alcove a few feet away. Returning to the contents of his prayers moments ago, he added, "And I said thanks."
She nodded vaguely.
Leaning just a bit closer to her, he teased, "You should try it some time."
Thoughtfully, she acknowledged, "If I were going to pray, I would have done it just before we set off the explosion."
Because that might have been the last moment, the final effort to save herself and Hodgins that would either end in crawling into the light (metaphorically born again, as Booth's religion prescribed) or ... death. Instant end. She shivered slightly, remembering the terror of that possibly suicidal moment had only been eclipsed by her desire not to simply give up and die anyway a little more peacefully.
"And you didn't?"
"No. See, if there was a god (which there isn't)..."
"Shh..." He barely held back a smile as he admonished in a whisper, "Do you see where we are?"
"...and if I were someone who believed he had a plan..."
"Which I do," Booth reminded her.
But she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "...then I'd be tempted to think that he wanted me to go through something like I went through because it might make me more open to the whole ... concept."
"Hmm." He regarded her with surprise and maybe even a small degree of resignation because Brennan had just disproved the conventional wisdom that 'there are no atheists in foxholes.' There was at least one atheist buried alive in her foxhole underground, true to her convictions to the bitter end. Almost disappointed, Booth remarked, "It obviously hasn't."
Booth was talking about faith, but Brennan knew she was thinking about what he'd just suggested. Giving thanks.
Perhaps he didn't understand how grateful she was to have survived, even if she did not feel vain enough to attribute it to divine intervention solely for her own salvation (temporal or spiritual). Speculating that Booth had probably prayed over her, for her, she understood that gratitude and faith both encompass humility. It humbled her to recognize that she had received help, and that Booth clearly believed part of that help may have come in the form of his fervent prayers (useless though she ultimately thought they were).
So the fact that Booth was practicing his own ritual of expressing gratitude was reassuring to her in ways she could not fully articulate except to be grateful herself, both for the fact that she was alive and because he allowed her to sit here next to him while he did it. "I'm okay with you thanking God for saving me and Hodgins."
Booth shook his head. And as he explained just what he was thankful for, the emotions bubbled and foamed under his own faith and aching humility from having hit the limits of self reliance. "That's not what I thanked Him for. I thanked Him for saving … all of us. It was all of us, every single one. You take one of us away, and you and Hodgins are in that hole forever. And I'm thankful for that."
On some level she wasn't ready to reach yet, Brennan knew he was grateful for their entire team and perhaps that made the most sense because Booth and Angela and the others had been together, outside the car, trying to get to it; while she and Hodgins had been inside the car, trying to get out and back to them. Somehow the two sides had pulled towards one another, all of them pulling together to close the gap. So she understood what he was saying, that she had several people to gratefully acknowledge, but she wasn't sure what it all meant.
He had begun with his god. For Brennan, however, expressing gratitude started here with Booth, because his was the hand she had found waiting to pull her up out of the ground. Just remembering how terrifying it was to swim through a choking sea of darkness and dust, Brennan experienced again the closing of her throat as she recognized how much just thinking of Booth had given her strength. It made speaking a littler harder than usual. "I knew you wouldn't give up."
Feeling the miracle of her eyes and her intensity directed at him, Booth turned and smiled at her, just as sure of his faith in her. "I knew you wouldn't give up."
They were quiet after that, neither one knowing quite how to follow up such a declaration as weighty as this one. So for a few breaths they simply looked towards the Nave (not to each other), as if they'd each said enough but it wasn't enough. She wanted him to know why.
"I couldn't," she confessed at last, daring to reach for his hand again where it was laying on the pew between them. He was warm and the firm metacarpals filled her palm with tangible strength. It was his passion and faith that she believed in and that had pulled her to safety (along with that strong hand), but that same passion risked pulling him under if... And she couldn't finish the thought, could only repeat, "I couldn't do that to you."
"Bones," he swallowed convulsively because he just did not want to think about failure. "It wouldn't have been your fault."
"You would have blamed yourself."
He shook his head, rotated his hand until it captured hers and squeezed her fingers and twined his in amongst hers. The slow, tender movements felt too pleasant but that was always the way with him. Too comforting, too scary, too close and never quite close enough.
"Booth..."
He heard her unease. "What?"
"One of the reasons I wanted to blow up the windshield..." She glanced away and bit her lip and wondered if it was wise to say it. There were so many terrors running through her mind in that last hour, not the least of which was worrying about him. Worry was pointless, a waste of energy, and yet she had worried about how he would feel if he only found them dead. He would not be rational about it, he would not be able to be objective. She knew this and it had weighed most heavily upon her. "I would have rather you think it was our fault for being impatient, for trying to escape on our own, than for you to think you didn't get there in time."
Understanding her was often a challenge, but not this time. He recoiled in horror. "You both could have died," he said harshly.
"I know."
What if she had? Flashes of her body flayed apart by flying metal and glass sliced through his head painfully. What was he supposed to think of her risking a violent death just to make him feel better?! That did not make him feel better, damn it! (And now he was thinking curses inside the Holy Church no thanks to his maddening partner. The things she could do to him with just a few words...) Dropping her hand he suddenly shot up and out of the pew, forgetting decorum in his haste to get a minute away from her, away from what he couldn't bear to contemplate.
What losing her would have done to him...
But there was no escaping it, or her, or what she made him feel. Outside, feeling her chasing after him (theirs was always a dance of advance and retreat), he turned and pleaded with her. "Don't do that again!"
"Do what? Make a rational decision to not give up?"
She had tears in her eyes, but so did he.
He wanted to shake her for taking that kind of risk even though part of him knew that gamble was the only thing that had saved her. "Don't lose faith in me."
"I didn't!" Right in front of him and in front of his church, Brennan reached out again and repeated her own confession of faith. "I knew you would find me. Us. I knew you would find us."
"How?" What evidence did she have, he wondered, that she could be so sure when he'd been absolutely terrified of not being smart enough or fast enough.
"Because I know you." A tremulous smile. "I'm so grateful for that."
"Me too," he whispered and pulled her into an embrace, surrounding her, protecting her. If Temperance Brennan had faith in Seeley Booth, it was just another example of God's mysterious modus operandi, and so he sent up one more prayer of thanksgiving along with a vow that he would always try to be worthy of her trust.
When they finally parted, Brennan slipped her arm through his. "I have a question."
Fondly, he walked right into it. "Go ahead."
"Why did they make Jesus have blond hair...?"
~Q~
Booth had said it was all of them that he gratefully acknowledged for helping her and Hodgins escape the car. Brennan knew she had Angela to thank for being Jack Hodgins's beloved; Zack to thank for deciphering the desperately enumerated text message; and Cam to thank for directing that text to its designated recipient. Booth to thank for his unflagging pursuit of her location. And one more person above all of these.
Tucked away in his technological niche in the Ookie Room, Brennan found her friend and colleague hobbling on crutches and cursing his lack of a free hand. He was faced off against the mass spectrometer and glanced irritably at a nearby sample that was supposed to go into the machine. Balancing awkwardly, Hodgins reached for the sample but turned his head at the sound of her warning.
"If you drop that sample, Cam will take it out of your paycheck," Brennan offered wryly.
"I can afford it," he quipped.
When she chose to use them, Brennan's teasing grins were almost irresistible. "So I've heard."
Curious, he maneuvered his crutches all the way around to ask, "You're not upset with me for keeping it quiet?"
"It's not like I broadcast my bank account balance either," she shrugged.
Taking that as the end of the topic so far as she was concerned, he gratefully hobbled away from the Mass. Spec. (let Zack or an intern manage it) and openly wondered what had brought her in here. As harrowing as their ordeal had been, Hodgins had not considered the possibility that it would greatly affect their interactions at work. Being reserved by nature, Brennan had never been the 'gushy' type so there must be a reason she'd come to see him.
"I have something for you," she replied.
"A gift?" he asked gruffly, eyeing her offering with distaste.
"A debt to repay," she explained, and held out her two hands. In each was a small, plain gift bag bearing contents obscured by tissue paper. Brennan noticed he was scruffier than usual, unshaved and hair tumbling wildly over his head. It was hard on him; Brennan actually found herself wondering if she'd had too much experience when it came to being locked up in the dark. At a certain point, one is no longer shocked by the potential for human cruelty and Brennan had reached that point in her teens when she was locked in a car trunk. For Hodgins, the shock came as he opened his eyes to pain and entrapment inflicted upon him merely for being a bystander and his wound was still raw and deep. Recovering this time seemed relatively easy, at least for her, but she hoped her offering would help him heal a little faster. "Choose one."
"Why?" he barked, ever suspicious.
"I promised to split the cost," she said simply, but with a tremor of recollection shivering between them. The way their eyes had met, amused despite the desperation as they bickered over wasting the precious perfume. In one bag was a replacement bottle of the perfume; in the other, half the cost just as she'd promised.
Quirking a halfhearted grin, he admonished, "No, you said I could pay for the perfume."
"If it wasn't for Angela, you wouldn't have had that perfume on you. She deserves to receive that gift from you."
He shrugged and blushed slightly. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have met and fallen in love with Angela enough to buy her perfume that cost $3000 per ounce."
That was true, she mused. Thinking it over, Brennan reached for the next imbalance to prove she owed him thanks. "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have lasted that long underground. You made the carbon dioxide scrubber."
"You got to the trunk and spare tire." Then he shook his head, fighting back with admirable determination. "And if it wasn't for you, we couldn't have sent that text message."
Brennan shifted her weight and tried again, uncertain she knew how to win this game they'd started. "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have had a message to send."
They had both worked so hard, putting together enough combined knowledge of the physical sciences to fill several encyclopedias. Having only half the air was worth it, just for the fact that she wasn't alone. That, by itself, was more than enough reason to thank him and she would not be deterred from this or any other goal, because giving up was not her nature.
Perhaps he saw it in her, the echo of his own terror reflected in that silent moment where both of them remembered the inside and doing everything they could think of to reach out for help, then to hold on a little longer so help had a chance to arrive in time. Shadows flickered in his lake blue eyes. "If it wasn't for you, I would have panicked."
And that was the reason she needed to thank him. By far the worst and the best moment in that car was having her rapidly escalating panic be interrupted by his pain-filled moan in the back seat. The moment she realized she wasn't alone. "Me, too." She shrugged helplessly.
They both stopped there, knowing how much they'd depended on each other. Brennan didn't bother trying to pretend she wasn't on the verge of crying. "I know it sounds awful, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I was so grateful you were there with me."
"Yeah," he said, averting his eyes. "I know it sounds awful, but I really would have rather passed on the whole experience. No offense."
Her choked laugh combined with a sob and she nodded. "None taken."
"Where the hell did you learn how to do that, anyway?" Hodgins asked abruptly.
"Do what?"
After he'd asked, Brennan blushed and pushed her little gift bags towards him. "Take one first, then I'll tell you."
So he finally gave in and took one of them; his curiosity always did get the better of him.
~Q~
Brennan returned to her office, gazing thoughtfully at the fried pieces of her old cell phone sitting on the corner of her desk. Although she'd already replaced it a few days ago, Hodgins's question had brought her back to it, to study its destruction. Picking up the shorted out circuitry, studying the path the electric current had seared into the board, she traced the damage to the contact points where she had connected the car's battery.
Brennan finally picked up her office land line to acknowledge one more person's role in her salvation and she was finishing that call just as her partner came in.
"Who was that?" he wondered.
She looked up at him and lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. "Someone I needed to thank. Is there a case?"
"Yeah, some guy they found out in the Maryland woods. You up for it?"
"Of course." Why wouldn't she be?
Watching her gather her things to join him in the field, Booth couldn't contain his curiosity. "So, who did you need to thank?"
Brennan paused at his side, gifting him with a Mona Lisa smile. "Someone who taught me a skill I never thought I'd use."
"You found a use for it?"
She nodded.
~Q~
"Why are we doing this?" she asked.
He pushed the door aside and guided her into the passenger side of the car. "It's a handy skill."
"It's illegal."
"Only if you get caught," he countered with a devious grin. "Besides, it's not illegal to do it to your own car."
She sighed. "I don't see the point, given this is your Camero and you have the keys in your pocket."
"Trust me, Tempe. Someday this will come in handy." He was leaning into the driver's side now, pulling out a screwdriver and a small pocket knife. "You never know when you might need to hotwire a car."
"Russ, I am never going to need to hotwire a car."
"Never say 'never.' Now, pay attention."
He showed her how to remove the cover on the steering column, and then how to find and pull out the wires connecting the ignition module to the engine. He showed her that she could strip the protective sheath off the wires and splice them together, closing the circuit and getting the car to start without the key.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to a different wire.
"That's for the horn." He smirked. "Don't hotwire that unless you want to be arrested."
Tempe Brennan's lethally sharp intellect took in the wires and the way they were configured, committing the entire lesson to mind with indelible perfection. She would never forget; she never forgot anything, even if there seemed no practical purpose for the information to remain in the long-term storage vaults of her mind.
But fifteen years later, when she was Doctor Temperance Brennan, she found herself sitting in the driver's seat inside a shadowy car. She was nearly alone—her companion was unconscious in the back seat—and the only thing that prevented her from dwelling on his possibly imminent demise was doing the task her brother had taught her so long ago.
She slipped the casing off her cell phone and carefully extracted the ignition wires in preparation. Studying the battery contacts in her phone, she finally guessed where she should connect the car's battery to the phone. The car was too powerful, so she knew it would destroy the cell phone in mere seconds. Still, it would give them at least long enough to send a fast burst of information, a single text message to serve as a beacon. If it worked … and she wasn't really sure that it would.
As she was attaching the wires, she spotted the last one dangling alone. Partly out of idle curiosity to see if the battery was functioning, she lifted it and touched it to the battery line. The horn squawked loudly, making her jump. But more importantly, it brought a very welcome groan out of the man in the back seat.
"Oh thank God," she murmured. "I thought I killed you."
~Q~