Trappings of the Mind
A/N: Set during Aliens in a Spaceship but with mentions of the end of Mayhem on the Cross which is an episode in season four while Aliens is season two.
It was different than the last time she was trapped in a car and running out of air. Fifteen years ago no one really cared about the little teenage foster child that might as well be an orphan. The girl with the haunted blue eyes who was locked in a trunk of a car for no good reason except for accidentally breaking a dish.
She could still remember her foster mother at the time's words about the dish water needing to be extra hot so the dishes weren't contaminated by her filth. And she could remember the dish slipping from her fingertips and crashing to the floor, the sound of the shattered pieces hitting the linoleum riverbeating through her mind.
At that moment in time, faster than she could count, her foster father had stalked in and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her roughly with such force that she'd been slammed into the counter behind her. She'd had bruises on her back and shoulders for near a month after that. She could recall being scooped up like a rag doll as she kicked and screamed and scratched before having a harsh slap delivered to her cheek. Being forced into a trunk and locked inside, her screaming gone unheard in the car that was locked up in the garage, wondering when she was going to die and actually wanting to die so she wouldn't be stuck in this hell was a terrifying thing. It had given her nightmares for a year.
Since that time her delicate hands had always been extra careful with everything that she handled. Every bone she examined, every dish she cleaned.
It was kind of ironic that she was again trapped in a car----this time underground and she was running out of air. So very ironic. The difference was now, fifteen years later she wasn't alone in the car. A coworker and friend was with her and this time she had people who cared enough to look for her and to look for Hodgins. Her experiences in life and the work she and Hodgins did had given them ideas for ways to get more air so that their friends would have longer to find them.
She wasn't that fifteen year old girl anymore. She wasn't as helpless and she wasn't alone. She'd told Hodgins, so assuredly that Booth would find them. That he wouldn't give up. He'd told her it was faith and yet she knew it was fact. The man who'd been a sniper, who felt guilty about doing what he was told and killing a bad guy at a child's birthday party, who felt bad for every life he took---would do everything in his power to find she and Hodgins. And that was a proven fact.
The End