Disclaimer:I do not own Bones or anything affiliated with it. I do, however, own an imagination and a pretty laptop.
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THE GOD OF THE SINNER
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Dr. Temperance Brennan had more degrees than most people know someone could have. She was the best forensic anthropologist in the world as well as a best-selling author. She had faced down drug dealers, murderers, soldiers, corrupt law enforcement officers, bandits, looters, and on a few occasions, overzealous scientists. She'd helped to solve several dozen murder cases, not to mention other crimes she'd discovered along the way. All accomplished using logic, reasoning, and a large store of information. It was something that had helped her get through her life, but also something that had hindered her. But her ability to use logic and to rationalize was something she had always prided herself on.
But that was over now.
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The case was a fairly simple one by their usual standards. The victim, a 23 year old woman from Los Angelos named Catherine Stinson, had been shot in the head with a .22 caliber gun. She was found two months after her death, and there was enough DNA on her body to create a DNA profile and still have plenty left to compare against a killer. Her boyfriend, Nicholas Holden, was a 30 year old English man who taught physical education at the local high school. They'd been seen fighting in public several times, there were five reports of domestic abuse, and Mr. Holden owned a .22. Ballistics matched his gun to the bullet they found in the skull, Mr. Holden's fingerprints were all over the gun, and they had video footage from across the street that showed when Mr. Holden entered and left Catherin Stinson's apartment.
But when Booth had gone to arrest Holden, he was already gone.
"I can't believe we missed him." Booth muttered for the fifteenth time.
"Fight or flight is the most basic of responses in humans." Brennan answered. "It is obvious that Holden is more inclined to flight than fight."
Booth breathed out, and Brennan caught the movement of his lips which usually meant he was saying something not so complimentary about her. She ignored it, as she always did. The waiter arrived with Booth's slice of pie and Brennan's bowl of fruit. "You eat too healthy, Bones." Booth complained. "One of these days you're going to turn into a vegetable."
"I assume that you are not serious, as that is physically impossible." Brennan answered. "And eating healthily is not going to hurt me. Whereas your insistent need for pie just might."
"Hey! This is special pie, Bones." Booth shot back, waving his fork in the air to accentuate his point. "It's magical. No matter how bad the day is, one piece of pie makes it worth it."
"It is scientifically impossible for a piece of pie to have magical properties." Brennan countered.
Booth smirked. "Yes, but I'm talking about magic, not science." He took another bite of pie. "I win."
Brennan rolled her eyes and speared a piece of pineapple. "You are impossible when you devolve into nonsensical arguments."
Booth laughed. "Mark the date! I have finally out-stubborned Bones!" He looked over at her, waiting for the comeback.
Brennan ate another piece of fruit with a small shake of her head. "I have not been out-stubborned. I simply refuse to partake in a meaningless and irrelevant debate."
Booth's smirk softened into a true smile. "That's my Bones!"
Once, she would have bristled about being called anyone's. But that was before Booth. So now Brennan just shook her head and reached for another piece of fruit. After all, she was Booth's Bones.
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She fiddled with the lock of the hotel room door. It was a sleazy enough hotel that they still had keys and keyholes instead of key cards and card readers on the doors. She'd learned to pick locks from a friend during a dig in the Sudan, and she was thankful for that now. In just a few minutes, the door swung open for her. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a small slip of paper fall to the ground in the doorway. She'd seen that trick in several mystery novels, when a person wanted to know when someone had been there. She entered the hotel room and closed the door behind her, carefully replacing that tiny slip of paper.
She turned to look around the room, a part of her disgusted at the state of the hotel room. But she quickly put those thoughts aside and instead placed the small bag she'd brought with her on the floor. She pulled out several items, carefully moving through the room and adjusting her plan to fit the conditions she was dealing with. After a few minor changes, she placed different items in different places, keeping them concealed from sight.
Once she was done, she headed over to the closet behind the door and sat down to wait.
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It took a week to track Holden down to his cousin's house in Vermont. Booth was tense the entire ride, and his attitude was making Brennan nervous. The ride was silent, and Brennan was frantically wondering if there was something she should be doing. Finally, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"Cleopatra was married to her younger brother."
Booth jerked and the car gave a similar lurch. He stared at Brennan for a moment, complete and utter confusion on his face. "What?"
"Cleopatra was married to her younger brother." Brennan repeated. "She was a Ptolemy, which was a Greek family that was put in charge of Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered it. Ptolemy tradition said that the pharaoh had to marry his sister in order to keep the bloodlines pure."
Booth still looked lost, but he indulged her. "I thought she was with Julius Caesar."
"That's true." Brennan quickly answered, relieved that Booth was playing along. "But she was first married to her brother. He died of an unknown illness after just a few years. Then she married her other brother. . ."
Brennan fell into the comfort of facts and lectures, letting Booth comment and answering his questions every few minutes. By the time they reached the Vermont border, Booth was smiling again. But Brennan was still tense as she continued to lecture. Facts and bones were what she knew and what she could handle. Emotions and things like that were alien and strange to her. She'd been lucky thus far, managing to somehow say the right thing at the right time. But what would happen when the day came that she messed it up. It had happened every time before, and she knew it was inevitable.
When they finally reached the house, Booth gently touched her shoulder. "Thanks, Bones." He whispered.
He stepped out of the car, and Brennan felt the her anxiety flow away. It would be alright. As long as Booth kept calling her Bones, she would be alright.
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The door to the hotel room opened, and she quickly stood. He shut the door as he walked to the bed, and she moved out of the closet. He flopped forward on the bed with a groan, completely unaware that he was not alone. If she were anyone else, she might have smiled as she silently walked to the bed, a rag in hand. It wasn't until she was by the head of the bed that he rolled over.
"What the hell!"
She hit him in the throat, sending him into a coughing fit. At the moment of weakness she thrust the rag into his face, covering his mouth and nose. The drug was a specially made form of chloroform, a stronger and faster working formula Hodgins had made for fun one day. After just a few seconds of struggling, he fell back against the headboard, unconscious.
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As Booth and Brennan approached the front door, it flew open to reveal Holden with a borrowed Remington 1100 shot gun in his hands. Booth had immediately reacted in his usual predictable and chivalrous manner: he pushed Brennan to the ground and stepped in front of her. Brennan rolled, ready to scream at him, until she heard a single crack. Time slowed to a crawl, and Brennan watched helplessly as a single bullet sped through the air. It hit Booth in the left side of his chest, and crimson blood burst from the wound. Booth's body jerked, and then slowly fell.
The minute Booth hit the ground, time returned to its normal flow. Brennan lurched towards him, shielding his body from any further harm. She stared at the red stain growing on Booth's chest until her mind shut down and her brain took over. Her body moved on his own, steadily pumping on his chest to keep his heart flowing and stopping every few beats to give him oxygen. She didn't know how long she sat there, but after what seemed like only a second, someone pushed her out of the way.
"No!" Brennan screamed, trying to return to Booth's side. She was held back by someone else, though she kept struggling, not understanding why they were taking her from Booth. The sound of a siren finally reached her, and she looked around to see an ambulance in front of Holden's house. Her brain pushed some facts forward, reminding her that these men were paramedics, trained professionals. They would save Booth.
Brennan stopped struggling, and the paramedics spoke calmly as they loaded Booth into the ambulance. "Ma'am, what's happened here?"
Logic. Brennan's brain supplied. Rationalize.
"His name is Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI." Her voice was hollow, almost robotic in nature. "He was shot in the chest, on the left side, by a shotgun. We were coming here to arrest a murderer. He stopped breathing, but I don't know if his heart stopped. I started doing CPR almost as soon as he was shot."
"What is your name?" The paramedic asked, guiding her to the ambulance.
"My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan. I am a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute. . ." Brennan's voice trailed off as she stared down at Booth's face. Booth was one of the most alive and animated people she knew. His face was never still, always in motion. It displayed his every emotion like sign over his head. But now it was pale and still. Everything she'd become since Booth came rushing back. She saw the blood on her hands and on Booth's chest, and she cried.
"My name is Bones." Brennan sobbed. "Booth is my partner."
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By the time he woke up again, she had every point he could use to leverage himself up strapped down on a table. He groaned as he came to, and then he started to hyperventilate when he saw her by her bag. "You don't want to do this!" He shouted. "You're a good guy!"
She didn't answer him, instead pulling out the supplies she'd need for her murder plan to work. She hadn't lied to Booth before: her murder plan was absolutely flawless. No one would ever know how he died, and they would find no evidence to link him to a killer. If there was anyone who could pull off the perfect crime, it was her.
"This will make you no better than me! You'll be a common murderer!"
That cause a sharp pain in her chest, but she pushed that aside before the pain could become a real emotion. She tested the sharpness of a needle, nodding when it pricked her finger.
"Please, don't! I'll give you anything you want!"
She looked down at him, knowing that her face showed no expression. "You can't bring Booth back." And then she inserted the needle into the Brachial Artery in the crook of his right arm.
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"Bren?"
Brennan looked up slowly and saw Angela running down the hall to her. Behind her was the rest of the Jeffersonian team, each with almost identical expressions of worry and fear. Angela ran to her and pulled her in close. "Oh Bren! Are you alright?"
"Your concern, while noted, is unnecessary." Brennan vaguely noted the slight shock on Angela's face. "I am not the one who was injured."
"How is Seeley?" Cam demanded.
"The bullet passed through the costal cartages, the left pectoralis major and the left ventricle. It lodged in the scapula. The bullet nicked the pulmonary vein." Brennan briefly saw Booth's silent face again and shuddered. She pushed away the image, refusing to see Booth in her mind. "The victim is in surgery now. The doctors are unsure of his chances."
The small part of her that had been forced into a nice little box so that she could continue to function winced at the clinical terms she was using. It railed that this was Booth, her friend and her partner, as well as many other things that she didn't yet have names for. What kind of person could speak as if Booth was just another body. . . that part was quickly silenced before it could crack the fragile shield that protected her from falling apart.
The doors to surgery opened, and the surgeon who had spoken to Brennan earlier walked out. Seeing the looks on their faces, he didn't bother asking if they were family. "Agent Booth is a very strong man." The surgeon said, a small smile on his face. Everyone around Brennan let out a sigh of relief. "He held on through every bit of the surgery. We removed the bullet from his heart and put some dissolving grafts on the nick to his vein and dissolving stitches on his heart."
"Will he be alright?" Angela asked, still holding Brennan tightly.
"I will be honest, he lost a lot of blood." The surgeon answered, his smile fading. "He barely lasted through surgery. He has about a twenty-five percent chance of making it though the night." He looked down at his hands as the people around him tensed again. "If he makes it through the night, I'd give him a fifty-fifty chance. Even if he does survive, he was brain dead for nearly ten minutes. There's no way to tell how the lack of oxygen affected his brain."
Brennan shut her eyes and gave up.
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She watched as his eyes went dark. She refused to cower from what she was doing, no matter how much she might regret it one day. She was taking a life, becoming the very thing she hunted. But she was doing it for her Booth, and no matter how dark the stain on her soul, she wouldn't flinch from it. This was what it would take to keep him safe.
"Listen, Bones, I would do anything for you. I would die for you, I would kill for you. . ."
She shook her head. She couldn't think about that now, or she'd lose her nerve.
Blood drained from the needles she'd placed at each major vein and artery into blood bank bags. They would be put into the D.C. Blood Bank, where they would be tested and scanned before being used to save lives. She changed the bags as they filled, ignoring his pleadings and screams. "Please." He kept whispering. "Please."
But she tuned him out, just as she focused on the details of harder cases to keep from seeing the whole picture. And when his heart beat for the last time, she stood over him, accepting the sin she'd committed. She collected the last bags and combined a few to make just a few more blood packs. There was a blood drive at the Jeffersonian tomorrow, and with her credentials, no one would think twice about her snooping around in the back of the truck.
She placed the last of the bags in the cooler before turning back to her victim for the next part of her plan.
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Brennan woke up to see Angela's face hovering over hers. "What are you doing?" She asked.
"Oh thank God, Sweetie!" Angela pulled her close for a hug. "You scared me half to death!"
"What happened?" Brennan asked. "How long was I out for?"
"You fainted!" Angela answered, making it sound like she'd just hit a baby. "You never faint."
"As I just did, that statement is false." Brennan answered. "How long was I out?"
"It's eight in the morning, Sweetie."
Brennan shot up. "Booth!"
"He made it through the night." Angela answered, her voice soothing. "He's still in a coma. You can go see him if you like."
Brennan nodded, for once not going on about how illogical it was to go see a person who didn't know you were there. She remembered quite well how comforting it had been when Booth was in a coma. She let Angela lead her to Booth's room, but stopped when she saw Cam whispering with Deputy Director Cullen. Judging by her gestures, Cam was furious about something. Brennan abandoned Angela and ran to Cam. "What's wrong?" She demanded.
Cam turned to Brennan. "Holden's case will never go to trial." She answered. "He has information that the attorney general wants. He'll cut a deal, and go into the witness protection program."
Brennan went cold. "It doesn't matter that he killed one person, and almost killed another?"
"Unfortunately, no." Cullen answered. "I'm not any happier about it than you are, Dr. Brennan. Especially since the first thing he said was 'I want that Agent Booth dead.' Not to mention that he got caught trying to break in here with a gun!" He looked like was about to say more, but a cough from Cam made him look over at Brennan. She must have looked as awful as he felt, because he colored and quickly gestured down the hall. "I've got agents posted in front of Booth's room. No one gets in without ID."
Brennan liked to think she had learned something about people since being partnered with Booth, and she hoped that what she interpreted as sincerity on Cullen's face wasn't something else. She nodded to him, but as she followed Angela down the hall, that one sentence kept repeating in her head.
I want Agent Booth dead.
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She eyed the vat of water carefully, nodding when the temperature gauge reached the right height. She carefully lifted his body and placed it into the vat, careful not to splash the water. Rigor mortis had yet to set in, and so it was easy to reposition his body so that he fit into the narrow container. She sealed the lid and sat back, watching the heat gauge to make sure it didn't get high enough to crack or char the bones.
Now, she had time to think about what she had done. A part of her rose up, questioning again. Did she do the right thing? Is this what Booth would have wanted? What would Booth do if he found out?
She pushed those thoughts away with memories of Booth's face in the hospital when she'd last seen him. She'd already made her decision and done the deed. It was too late to turn back or have any doubts. It was the only way to keep Booth safe, to make sure that no one came after him again. She'd made her piece with that.
Her cell phone alarm beeped, and she jerked forward. She stared at the phone, alarmed at the loss of time. She couldn't lose it like that. This was how people got caught.
Shaking her head, she grabbed a pair of tongs and opened the lid of the vat. Using the tongs, she pulled out one of the bones and nodded. She placed it on the table and carefully began to pull out each bone.
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Brennan opened her eyes with a groan. She felt stiff everywhere, and she shook herself to work out the kinks she'd acquired throughout the night. She looked around and grimaced as she realized she must have fallen asleep in Booth's hospital room. Someone must have spoken to the nurses so they wouldn't kick her out. She'd have to ask who so she could thank them.
Brennan looked over at the monitors, taking Booth's hand as she checked the monitors. She'd spoken with one of the nurses yesterday about how to read the monitors, and so now she could see for herself that Booth was definitely getting better. He'd been in a coma for five days now, and she'd made sure to spend at least two hours here every day. She might not believe that he could hear her as he slept, but it reassured her to hear the beeping of his heart monitor. But if he kept improving, soon she'd be able to call him when she was feeling worried.
Brennan looked at Booth's face, and she cried out in surprise. The pair of deep brown eyes she'd been missing for the past five days winced at the sound. "You're loud." Booth whispered.
Brennan's hand trembled as she squeezed his hand tightly. "Do you know who you are?" She asked. She was terrified of this, half sure she was still dreaming and would wake up to find Booth dead or dying again. She'd break if that happened, she was sure of it.
But then Booth smiled that special smile that let him get away with murder, and Brennan took a deep breath of reality. "My name is Special Agent Seeley Booth, and if you call me Seeley, I will shoot you with my gun." Booth said gently, squeezing her hand back. "And you are an author extraordinaire, a forensic anthropology queen, and my partner." His smile turned into a smirk. "Your name is Bones."
Brennan knew that she should call a professional. There were all kinds of tests they should be doing to make sure that Booth was himself, that he was fit for duty. But when that once hated nickname fell from his lips, Brennan couldn't think of any of that. Tears spilled from her eyes, as if that stupid name was a kind of forgiveness for her sins. She'd never believed in a god or the thought that a higher power could make crimes disappear. But when Booth called her by that ridiculous moniker, Brennan knew why she didn't believe: she had faith in Booth. There was no power higher than the person who had gently taken her from her hiding place and shown her the beauty of the real world.
"Yes." She whispered, a small laugh escaping her lips as she clung to Booth's hand, an anchor to the present. "I'm Bones."
I'm considering doing a second chapter, about what happens when they find Holden's body. Any thoughts?