Author's note: A missing scene from Man in the Morgue - one of the best hours of TV I have ever seen. I hope you like!...if you have any comments - good or bad - please please click that little review button!
Disclaimer: Not mine, no no no.
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"No, you don't understand it has to be tonight...Alright...Ok... I said Ok... No, I'm sorry I understand...Yeah...Just add it to the list of favours I owe you."
Frustration boils over and he slams the phone down hard into its cradle, so hard it bounces straight out again and clatters across the coffee table.
Sheepishly, he lifts the earpiece and listens, hoping the call had already disconnected and Caroline hadn't heard his fit of pique. If the prosecutor thought he was angry with her for refusing to fly down immediately she might well have refused to come down altogether.
Dial tone.
He feels relief. The last thing he, or more importantly Bones, needs is for Caroline to cut them loose.
He sighs deeply and lays back onto the sofa, scrubbing his calloused palms across his face.
"You're welcome to the room. It's paid for"
He feels worse than useless. Standing up to pace and work off nervous energy he tries to catalogue exactly what he has managed to accomplish since arriving. Bones is injured, shaken, uncertain and now spending the night, alone, in jail. Well none of that is for the first time since he they met he admits, but it unsettles him, probably as much as it is unsettling her.
He huffs in annoyance.
'Not good enough.'
Talking to the four walls, he makes a vow.
'She's not going to spend the night alone. I'll sit in the waiting room all night if they won't let me in the cell block.'
He grabs his jacket and keys from the edge of the coffee table, and marches towards the door. But as his palm connects with the door handle, he realises his mistake. She will kick his ass the minute he puts his head round the corridor of the cell block, whether she is locked behind bars or not.
Knowing he is already sailing pretty close to the wind with her right now he retreats. This fine balance, this status quo between them, he's rocked it severely by ignoring her order not to fly down. She is glad he is here, not that she'd ever admit it. And not that he wants her to. From the moment she called, nothing was going to keep him from getting to her side as soon as possible, but equally, nothing was going to get them to talk about why he did that either.
'Dammit.'
He knows he should leave.
He has his own second rate hotel room across town paid for from his own pocket.
No, he can't stay. It would be encroaching on her privacy, and that has already happened enough. Despite his protestations, the New Orleans P.D. turned the place upside down after removing Bones from the room. They'd found nothing of course, aside for the gri-gri bag that Bones had handed them.
There was nothing to find. She is innocent. One hundred percent.
No doubt.
He considers the potentially damning piece of metal currently burning a hole in his pants pocket, a tiny piece of metal that could spell ruination for them both.
No doubt.
He should leave.
But he isn't making his way to the door.
'Dammit.'
He's given Caroline this number hasn't he? He knew he wasn't able to leave when he did that, that's why he is staying. Bones will assume he stayed and this is closer to the Department where she is being held.
'Of course she can always ring your cell!'
He knows he is on edge when his sarcastic self flagellating side emerges.
Flopping on the couch he takes deep steadying breaths. One...Two...Three...
He blinks and scans the room. It is deeply , what he would guess is called ethnic. Dark colours, earthy tones, furnished with cotton curtains and tropical wood. So much like Bones, dark, real and inherently natural.
He shifts uncomfortably. No way was he going to do anything so prosaic as admit the reason why he wants to be here. Now isn't the time to get all Goddamn girly. Sure, the place smells like her, her stuff is in the closet, in the drawers, in the bathroom. Being here is as close as he is able to be tonight.
A groan escapes him as he checks his watch. 2am. Caroline will be getting in at 8. He ought to turn in, get a few hours of sleep so he'll be compus mentus when she splits him open and uses his guts as a headscarf.
She will never let him live this one down.
'Dammit.'
He kicks off his shoes and twists sideways on the couch finding the inevitable - he doesn't fit. His feet are rammed against the arm of the two seater.
He knows now he has no choice, he'll have to take the bed. But he also knows he should avoid that, it's bound to smell like her.
The maids haven't been past today, part of the investigation.
'Dammit!'
Irritated to new levels, he further tries to delay as long as possible. He takes long strides into the bathroom, flinging the door so that it crashes into the wall... and one foot over the threshold he slams to a halt.
Dried blood stains the white tile the colour of ebony.
His stomach crawls and his mind reels. Fingers curling by his sides he again fights the urge to speed from the apartment to the jail.
This time the word chokes him.
'Dammit.'
He turns away from the stain, no longer able to look at it. He knows all the samples have been taken; Harding said she would instruct the hotel staff to organise the clean up for the following day.
Finding himself standing by the edge of her bed he sighs in resignation and moves his hand to his belt, pulling his jeans off. He flings back the blanket and lies on the sheet, acknowledging his obvious avoidance of contact with her bedclothes.
Catching a foul stench from the pillows he flings the one that the grigri bag sat on across the room. He watches it land and settle next to the couch.
Then, he lies still, willing himself to sleep.
He knows he has to sleep so he won't make a complete fool of himself in front of Caroline tomorrow.
He counts sheep, recites bedtime stories...he's good at that. Parker is in that stage of wanting the same story again and again so even though he only gets to spends one night a week with him, he can recite about eight stories off by heart.
But even the innocent stories that put his beloved son to sleep do not help and cannot clear the day's disappointments and resentments.
He knows, there is one task he has to do before he knows he will find rest.
It is 4.30 am when he finds himself on his hands and knees in her bathroom, scrubbing at the stain of blood on the cool tile.
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