Seeing Things
Or
Four Times Booth Hallucinated, And The One Time He Didn't, by Chibiness87
Rated T for a few bad words.
Spoilers through everything aired, and upcoming season 4 eps
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.
A/N: So everyone has their own ideas for what's been going on with Booth this season... this is just my two cents worth, and my explanation for some of the more hinky things I've picked up on.
It was happening again. Only more so, and worse, this time. Stewie Griffin was sitting across the table from you in the interrogation room.
Right.
Ok then.
It had started small. So small you hadn't even thought that it was a problem, not really. Just your over tired brain tricking you, just for a second. Because that's all it was, in the beginning.
You knew you were hallucinating when Lucky Luc showed up when you were flat on your back on the ice after cracking your head off it. All in all, it had been a crappy couple of months, really. Fracturing your wrist had not been in your game plan, at all, and then the next time you'd taken to the ice you'd ended up flat on your back.
Smooth, Seeley, really smooth.
But then, playing one on one with, as far as you were concerned, one of the all time greats of the game more than made up for the fact it was all a dream, not to mention the goose egg you'd ended up with. And being told by said one-of-the-all-time-greats that you were nothing like your father was just another thing you were thankful for.
You didn't mean to worry Bones so much though. Waking up with her concerned face hovering over yours, your mind did a flash back to a similar situation. But there was no blood, this time, no gunshot wound, no pain.
Well, ok, a little pain.
But this was an 'Oh crap I just hit my head off the ice, shit that hurt!' kind of pain, and not an, 'Oh Jesus Fuck, I just stepped in front of a bullet so Bones wouldn't be shot, meaning I got shot, Ow, shit, Fuck this really hurts!' kind of pain.
So really, it was a much better pain.
Things only started to get really hinky when Teddy showed up. Unlike everyone else (well, Lucky Luc stayed for a bit, too), Teddy wasn't going away. He was staying, and talking, only to disappear when Bones showed up in a helicopter. But then, Teddy had helped you, had saved you. So really, you were ok with Teddy.
Really, you were fine. Completely. After all, just like Bones had told you, it was all from the funky cocktail of drugs, not to mention the concussion, you'd gotten from the Gravedigger in the first place.
Right?
Bones had told you so, and she was almost never wrong. So yeah, you were fine going along with her assessment on this.
You made a promise to yourself after that who debacle not to get concussed again, for at least another month. You were slightly fed up with all these faces crashing in on your subconscious, not to mention the pain that was associated with being knocked out in the first place.
The next time it happened, though, there was no pain involved. None. But then, that was the whole point of Vicodin, wasn't it?
Laying out flat on your back for a few days while Bones ran all over town with little miss too chirpy for her own good was not your idea of fun. Lying flat on your back while Bones ran all over town with little miss too chirpy for her own good while you were dosed to the gills with Vicodin was even less so.
You learnt a hard lesson that case: watching films on Vicodin makes all the plot lines blurry and the characters all funky. You could swear a slightly off Bones had been on a ship that changed shapes with a two-headed alien, for instance. Sure, you knew it wasn't Bones. The face was a little different, and the hair colour was wrong, but still, squinting (heh), you could almost imagine Bones looking like that.
Of course, it was that image you had in your mind when you were on the phone with her and Agent Peyton Little Miss Too Chirpy For Her Own Good Perotta later on. And so when you had tried to be all Alpha Male and told Perotta to make sure Bones didn't come to any harm, you were picturing Bones with black hair again.
And you may have, accidentally, have implied to Perotta that you thought Bones had black hair... silky black hair at that. And, while you knew, from the number of times you had held her head to you while giving you a 'guy hug', the latter was true, the former most definitely was not.
Judging from later interactions, Bones never found out about that part of the conversation. Thank you God.
The next time you hallucinated, you didn't. It wasn't until you were in Sweets' office and she had blurted that past horror to both you and Sweets you realised this was actually happening, because there was no way in hell your mind would come up with something so utterly heartbreaking like this. Meaning this whole thing was real. Meaning the car ride happened. Meaning the conversation before the car ride happened.
Meaning you'd actually called her, "Honey".
Shit.
Shitshitshitshitshitfuckshit and bugger it all to hell.
But before you could completely freak out over calling Bones anything like a term of endearment (even though, now, Bones was pretty much just that), she had turned those imploring eyes on you; eyes that could make you spill your deepest secrets to her. And, in this instance, eyes that did make you spill one of your biggest secrets to her.
It worked as a distraction, and she didn't call you on your earlier slip. Thank God.
You had managed to make it through another few days before the faces started popping up again. But it was like it had been in the beginning; they appeared for only a moment or so, before they disappeared.
Distracting, yes, but nothing worth worrying about. Not really.
And now, Stewie was sitting across the table from you.
"Booth?"
You turned to look at Bones, sat next to you as always.
"Bones?" Your voice shocked you. Weak. Confused. Definitely different to normal. Bones picked up on it straight away.
"Booth? Are you Ok?"
You shook his head slightly, before glancing over the table once more. Stewie was still there.
"Um, no, actually, I don't think I am, Bones."
And then everything went black.
End