A/N: Finally! I've written another multi chap fic instead of just a one shot! Granted, it is only five chapters long and each chapter is a little short, but hopefully you will all still like it. I know this first chapter is painfully short, but the second one is too long to combine it with the first. So, hopefully you'll still enjoy it and stick around for the coming chapters (which are already written, as I have the nasty habit of starting stories and then forgetting about them). And now that you've endured my rambling, just go ahead and read the first chapter. As always, reviews are welcomed and appreciated! :)
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Dead (dĕd) adj.: 1. No longer alive; having lost life
2. Not having the capacity to produce or sustain life
3. Not moving or circulating; stagnant
Dr. Temperance Brennan knew what the term 'dead' meant. After all, as a forensic anthropologist, she dealt with the remains of deceased human beings every day. Death was something she had come to terms with, and it had become a routine part of her everyday life. But today, death was something that had pierced into the calm of her existence. It had shaken her to her core, and had shattered the inner support system she'd so delicately created for herself throughout her fragile life.
"What?" The word was hoarse, barely escaping her lips as she felt her knees weaken beneath her.
The doctor squirmed at the hollow look in her eyes. The spark of hope at his presence that appeared in her eyes when he'd first walked out of the operating room was now extinguished and replaced with a numb look as he gazed into the woman's eyes. "I'm terribly sorry to have to tell you, but I'm afraid that you're partner didn't make it."
She shifted her gaze from his eyes to his side, as if trying to stare down the air that hung between the walls of the hallway. Her face had paled and her eyes had dimmed as she heard the terrifying news he'd had to deliver to her. She crumbled into a nearby chair as her knees completely gave out beneath her and the doctor continued to talk to fill the nervous, uncomfortable space between them. "My team has been trying to revive him for nearly twenty minutes now, but he is still non responsive."
"Non responsive." She repeated the words absently, as if her own voice would help her understand the meaning behind them. It meant that she would never see her partner again, that work wouldn't be the same from this day forward. An empty hole had been ripped into her, a gaping space replacing the warm presence of Seeley Booth that had once occupied it.
She looked up at the doctor, dressed in obnoxiously blue scrubs, now spattered with the red of her partner's blood. She gazed at the red droplets that randomly covered the paper, and they only reminded her that her hands looked exactly the same. Booth's now dried blood still coated her hands, now deeply rooted in the small grooves between the swirls of her finger and palm prints. It only reminded her that she hadn't been strong enough to save him.
She stood from her chair and turned her back on the doctor without a second glance, leaving him shocked and confused as he watched her walk toward the front of the hospital. Emotions escaped her as she unconsciously fled from the room that had housed her partner's death. All she felt was a silent, heavy numbness that eliminated all her thoughts and feelings as she left the hospital. She barely registered the chill of the night's breeze as she walked to the edge of the street, calling out for a cab to drive her home.