Waking the Dead
Synopsis: Wracked with guilt and disconnected from the world, Temperance Brennan is fraying at the seams. Her team is disintegrating in front of her and friends are slipping away. How can she deal with the grief without losing herself?

Note: I'm an avid "Bones" fan and can't help but spend time thinking about "what ifs"? As a lowly typewriter jokey, I own neither Brennan nor Booth nor any of our other anthropological friends. My eternal apologies to Mrs. Montenegro-Hodgins.

-.-.-.-.-

Waking the Dead

Some moments in life seem to fly by - gone and past in an instant, like dandelion seeds spinning in the breeze.

Others slow down, moving in an almost cliche slow motion that just prolongs the agony. Is it a biological reaction that makes the world stop, a mixture of hormones and emotion that controls the deceleration, or is it just a brain grasping to somehow make sense of a situation for which is has no analog?

You can reach out, try to move, but it's like your feet are glued to the ground. You can gasp, but no words seem to form no matter how hard you try.

You might find out later, however, that you couldn't speak simply because your mouth was too busy screaming.

-.-.-.-.-

It was August and summer was refusing to let go. The District of Columbia was sticky hot with the kind of humidity that makes the still air seem like an electric blanket. Heat shimmered off of the black asphalt, giving a Saharan, fairytale feel to the otherwise miserable scene.

"Dr. Hodgins, can you hand me another evidence bag? I have a fingernail." Temperance Brennan looked up, squinting against the late afternoon sun that filtered through the surrounding buildings and lit the service alley. "Looks like she fought."

"Can do." Jack Hodgins stood from the pitiful body he'd been squatting over and retrieved extra bags from one of the evidence collection toolboxes they'd unloaded from the van. "Hell of a way to bite it, huh?"

"If by 'bite it', you mean brutally stabbed to death in the shadow of the Supreme Court, then yes. I agree." She took the bags Hodgins extended out to her. "I can certainly think of better ways to 'bite it'."

"From her clothes - and the smell - it looks like she was homeless," he observed, glancing across to the huddle of clothes and blood against the wall. "She might have stayed around here, slept by these buildings. Lots of tourists that might feel bad enough to give her some change."

Brennan rocked back on her heels momentarily, stretching out her cramping calf muscles as she placed the errant fingernail in the bag. "Could be. Can you follow the line of this building and check around those corners? Maybe there'll be a blood trail or a weapon thrown away."

Hodgins gave a little salute, softened by a small smile, and made his way down the alley. Eyes focused on the ground, he reminded Brennan of a trained canine on the scent of something excitingly elusive. For better or worse, he enjoyed field work almost as much as he loved identifying odds and ends beneath a microscope. The wedding band glinted on his finger as a ray of light caught it; there were certainly many things that he devoted himself to with zeal.

Pulling a marker out of the pocket of her blue jumpsuit, Brennan carefully noted the contents on the front of the bag and its context to the rest of the scene. A bead of sweat dripped off of her nose and plopped onto the bag, smearing the fresh ink and causing her to curse under her breath as she dabbed it off with her sleeve. Working a murder outside in the middle of one of the most achingly hot days of the long summer wasn't exactly what most forensic anthropologists signed on for when they left university. Of course, much of her college years were spent doing just that, in third world countries nonetheless, but it wasn't a common passion among her peers.

"Brennan?" Hodgin's questioning voice brought Brennan back to the present. She blamed the heat for her temporary lack of focus. "I think... I think I found something?" His voice sounded unsure and oddly tense. It echoed off the walls and around her.

She looked up to see him already down the alley a couple of hundred feet, the acoustics of the surrounding buildings carrying his voice easily. "What is it? The weapon?"

"No, not quite." Brennan noticed then the odd way that he was standing - stock still, as if he was afraid of breathing too hard. "I believe we a..." He cleared his throat nervously, "An incendiary device." He continued speaking with that same strained calm.

"A bomb?" Brennan rocketed to her feet. "Can you see any specifics about it from where you are? Don't move closer to look!"

He replied a little breathlessly, "Don't worry, I wasn't thinking about it." Taking a deep drag of air, he steeped backwards gingerly. "I can't tell much about it, it's mostly covered with trash. But there are definitely wires and definitely an antennae. Tell the bomb squad that I smell fertilizer and gasoline."

Brennan already had her cellphone out, punching three numbers on the keypad with a shaking finger. "Yes - this is Dr. Temperance Brennan with the Jeffersonian. We need immediate help at 1st Street and Columbus Circle. Listen very closely: there is a bomb. No, this is not a joke!" She spat, indignant. "There are accelerants around and an electronic detonator. Get them, now!"

Turning towards Hodgins as she started to move back towards the street, she called, "Keep backing up slowly. I'm going to run out to the street to flag them down exactly where we are." He locked eyes and nodded, and the bright blue irises were visible against the stark white surrounding them.

Then, with a sound loud enough to wake the dead, the world burst into fire.