1Title: Savior Complex
Rating: K+
Spoiler: Boy in the Shroud
Challenge: Little Moments - the little moments between scenes.
Disclaimer: I own everything and everything, so all ya'll taking my people are going to make me rich. Just kidding, I really own nothing except the idea. Even then I borrowed it from Boy in the Shroud-which is one of my favorites, and this scene is one of my favorites, I wish they would've played with it more. I really don't like this story, I was fighting to write all along. . .I imagined it different when I started writing it. Grr... I hope you enjoy it.
"Were you lying to the boy," Asked Brennan as they neared her office. "Do you really think Kelly Morris is still alive?"
"I don't know." Responded Booth as Brennan cut him off to turn on the light.
"You don't know if she's alive?" Again asked Brennan, nearing the desk.
"No, I don't know if I was lying, you see I don't really have a read on the sister yet. Was she a bad guy, was she the victim?" He pondered out loud as he sat on her couch.
"Do you have a read on Dylan Crane?" Asked Brennan, folding her jacket on the back of her chair before sitting down.
"Yeah, he had the whole adolescent savior complex thing going on big time." He answered, making himself at home on her couch and placing his feet onto the coffee table.
"Savior complex?" questioned the doctor with an amused smile, looking up from the file she had in her hand.
"Yeah, teenage boys love nothing more than the idea of rescuing a damsel in distress." Explained Booth, as it was the most obvious thing in the world, and a small smile playing at his lips.
"How do you know?" Again asked Brennan, she was amused by his knowledge.
"Well cause, you know, I was a teenaged boy." He said slowly, his charm smile forming.
She returned the smile as Cam walked into the office. "Hey, DNA from underneath the victims fingernails were female, and there was fingernail polish found in the gouges on the arm." Said the pathologist, Booth stood up to stand next to her. Cam handed her the report.
"Well it wasn't necessarily from the murder. They were sexually active." Said Brennan looking over the paper. "She might've scratched him."
"Nope, Hodgins found oxidized iron in the scratches." Pointed Cam, shaking her head slightly.
Snapping his fingers, Booth mimicked Cam's response. "Oxidized iron." He said, his face fell in confusion. "What's that?"
"Rust." Said both doctors.
"Why couldn't you just say rust?" He asked, looking at Brennan for answers.
"Wh. . . . She said it." Said Brennan, defending herself.
"The same oxidized iron found on the victim's upper back and shoulder." Added Cam, before they broke into an argument.
"So, it could be from the same object that struck him." Inputted Brennan.
"So he was hit with a rusty pipe?" Asked Booth, his gaze going from Brennan to Cam.
"That's a reasonable assumption." She responded, shrugging her shoulders and turning her attention to Booth.
"Lets say Dylan tells the girlfriend that he's breaking up with her . . . "Started Booth, the forensic anthropologist watch astounded.
"The girlfriend whacks him on the carotid with the rusty pipe . . . " Added the pathologist.
"Then knocks him out the window." Finished Booth with a nod. It was all conjecture, he knew it, but it was the best he had. When he finally turned his attention back to his partner, her icy eyes were a mix between a glare and a shocked expression. "What? What's with the snake eyes? It's just a theory."
"There was cheap nail polish in her box of belongings," She started to explain, trying to let it go. "You should see if there's a match."
Cam's eyes turned from Brennan back to Booth. "Find some hair." She said as if she didn't hear what the doctor had just said. "Match the DNA on that, then get started on the murder weapon." Brennan watched, shocked by the disrespect from her new superior.
She stood up and grabbed her lab coat. "Where you going?" Asked Booth.
"I thought before we arrest Kelly Morris for murder based only on the fact that she's a foster kid, we might want to find the place where Dylan Crane actually died. Point of fact, the pipe, if that is even what it is, was not the murder weapon. The evidence, if anyone cares, shows that Dylan Crane died from a fall." With that she turned on her heels and walked out of the room.
Booth let out a slow whistle and looked to Cam, who looked shocked. She was pissed, nothing that her partner hadn't seen before, but there was something in her voice caused him to follow her from her office. Temperance Brennan was upset, something one didn't see very often.
Brennan's heels clicked loudly in the silent lab, and her gait picked up as she swiped her card onto the platform. Booth watched her, and was extremely thankful that he was good at reading people, or reading her. She stood at the remains, her normally perfect posture was ruined by her slumped shoulders and her head hung as if she was a child in trouble. This case was taking its toll on his partner, even though it wasn't a particularly hard case, no Cam automatically jumping to conclusions about the foster system was what had set her off.
Booth took a step closer to the platform, the sound of his shoes hitting the floor startled Brennan, causing her to visibly jump, she stood to full height ready to run. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her only exit to escape.
Her breath caught in her throat and she started to panic. She stared at him wide eyed, looking like a trapped animal. "Bones, its just me. I just want to talk." He said in a calm voice. She gasped for breath, her hands finding their way to the table as she doubled over, forcing the oxygen into her body.
Within two large steps Booth was standing next to her, the alarms going off in the background. She was having a panic attack, a thing Booth hadn't seen since his army days. Back in the time of war, boys left and right not able to handle the sight of death. "Temperance, you need to breathe." He said firmly, not touching her.
She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She was going to run, Booth knew it as he mentally prepared himself for the chase. She opened her eyes, and bolted. The whole room stood still as the staff of Medico-Legal Labs watched Booth run after her.
The predicted rain had chose that particular moment to make an appearance, immediately drenching the doctor. Booth hesitated for a moment under the mezzanine before standing behind her. "Bones, I'm sorry." He shouted over the thunder clad sky.
She turned to face him, her makeup running down her face. "Does everyone think the worst of me?" She had asked the same question earlier that day.
"Temperance." He said, placing his hand on her arm. "Cam is just doing her job."
"Don't defend her." She seethed.
"She is just using statistics, Bones. As much as you hate it, you are using psychology. Statistically speaking foster kids are more likely to end up on the streets, yes, but you've been there. You have the advantage, you understand what Kelly Morris is thinking." Booth rationalized softly.
Brennan shook her head, trying to will the her irrational feelings from her body. "No, I don't." She cried. "I know what she is going through. I know what its like to have some boy tell you that he'd be there forever and always and then one day he grows up, throws you two hundred dollars and says the best of luck. You spend all your time in the places that meant everything to the both of you, just hoping that he would be there one last time. That is until your foster family think you are socially inept and kick you out."
Booth watched her, she hadn't been sleeping, the dark colors under her eyes showed under her runny makeup. "Bones. . ." He started, but she stopped him.
"I don't want your sympathy, Booth, it's in the past and I've moved on." She cried, her tears were subsiding.
"What do you want from me?" He asked softly, his hand moving from her arm to cup her cheek.
"That isn't my decision." She said in whisper, not meeting his gaze, but looking at her shoes.
"Well then, whose decision is it?" He asked out of curiosity.
"Ask Cam, she will tell you." She snapped and jerked from his grasp, turning her back to him. She will building the walls higher around herself. Booth was determined to scale those walls, no matter how high she made them.
"Cam has nothing to do with this. . ."
"Yes she does, she demeans my opinion and makes me feel like everyone is against me." She screamed off into the distance. "Angela, Hodgins, even my own grad student would rather go to her. But you know what really puts the frosting on the cake? When my own partner sides with her."
Booth watched in shock, not only for her use of the metaphor, but she was terrified. Terrified of the people close to her were going to leave her, a flashback to Christmas of 1991. He pulled her into his arms, not allowing her to escape his grasp.
"No Bones," He said softly, yet firmly. "The squints are on your side one hundred percent, don't ever doubt that. With Cam over their heads now, monitoring every little detail, they have to go to her, they don't have a choice." He didn't want to come out right and say she being irrational, but it was nearly impossible.
"What about you?" She whispered, he almost missed it.
"Bones . . .Temperance, I'm on your side. Please don't ever doubt that." He pleaded into her hair, with the hell she had endured in the past-he had, had decided that he wasn't going to add to it, no matter how hard it got. "I'm sorry about earlier, like I said I don't have a read on the girl yet and I'm willing to take any theory at this point. I didn't mean to upset you."
She stood silent for a while, trying to figure out why exactly she was so upset. Brennan took a deep breath before her eyes met with his. "I don't know why I'm so upset." She whispered, a very small smile playing at her lips.
Booth pulled back a little to look her in the eyes. "Your not pregnant, are you?" He asked, followed by a chuckle.
"No, I'm not pregnant." She said, her cheeks reddening.
"Its just the tension in the air, Bones. Emotions running rampant and you are just caught in the middle." Booth said, trying to down the embarrassment she was feeling. "Come on Bones, I don't want you to get sick." He took her hand and led her back into the lab, just under the mezzanine when Brennan stopped. "What?"
"I must look like hell." She said, looking at her reflection in a window.
Her hair was soaked forming against her face, whereas her mascara ran down her face. Booth reached over and wiped her smudged makeup from her face. "There all better." He said.
"Thanks." She said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.
"Not a problem, if you ever need any reassurance, just give me a call." He said sincerely, with that he looked at his watch. "I've got to run, I need to give Cullen an update." Brennan nodded as Booth turned on his heels back out into the rain.
With a sigh, Brennan put on her brave face and walked back into the lab. Pulling her lab coat tighter around her, she swiped her card and walked onto the platform to where Zack was standing next to the victim.
"Anything new, Zack?" She asked.
He looked up at her, not noticing her disposition. "No compression fractures to the ulna or the phalanges, so they weren't stretched out or across his face." He was talking with his hands.
"Which means he wasn't bracing for impact." She added.
"Suggesting that he was unconscious when he went out the window. Perhaps from being struck with the rusty pipe." Explained Zack.
Brennan moaned. "Don't you start to."