Hey, sorry about the first line—typo. I don't know what happened with my computer, so...anyway, enjoy!
"Go to the Jeffersonian" was the first remark that came to her mind. She said it out loud, and Booth rubbed his eyes. "But Bones, we don't know if anyone's there, not even Cam. Look, it's one in the morning."
"At least you could attempt something," Bones replied. "Doing nothing does nothing." She started walking back to the car quickly—it was a way to make her feel secure by taking control and reasoning the situation out. "I'll drive, since you're evidently too shaken to drive yourself." She took over the wheel, leaving Booth in the passenger seat. "You know, this isn't the first time Parker's gone missing."
"I know—and I thought he was safe, Bones, but he isn't. And now nothing is really going right at all."
She glanced at Booth, who was still trying to make sense of the situation. "Relax—I'll call Angela and tell her to help us out." She reached for her cell phone with one hand, feeling a bit unsteady as only one hand was on the steering wheel, and speed-dialed Angela. "Hey, Ange, something strange has come up."
"What happened? You wouldn't be calling at one in the morning for anything unimportant."
"I hope I didn't interrupt anything."
"Hodgins and I did it again."
"Anyway," she said, chuckling in spite of the circumstances, "something happened to Booth and me, so we need to stay at the Jeffersonian for a couple of days. Could you meet us there with extra clothing and food? We can't go back to our apartments."
"Sure," Angela giggled as Hodgins did something. "I'll come—Hodgins!"
Temperance shook her head as she hung up and replaced her right hand to the steering wheel.
"How can you make light of this situation? My son's gone, and your apartment's been declared unsafe. And—God, my house—what'll happen to Parker?" Booth exclaimed anxiously, banging his hand against the driver's compartment in his SUV. "Oh, man, if only—"
"We're here." The Jeffersonian, familiar to them both, towered above them, and the fountain sprayed water so high it rained down in mist. "Come on, I see Angela driving up," she murmured as soon as she saw a sleek Prius drive up into the parking lot. Temperance got out and greeted Angela.
"Hey, honey, what the hell happened?" Angela dragged Hodgins out of the car; he was still half-dazed in his pajamas. "Sorry," she said to Hodgins, "but when Booth and Tempe come driving to the Jeffersonian and asking me to be with them, it's serious."
"Someone took Parker," Booth interjected. "He's missing—and I thought he was safe!"
"Someone painted a message on my door and on Booth's wall in red paint or blood," Brennan added, "and Booth at first wanted me to stay at his house, but his house isn't safe either, so the Jeffersonian is the safest place. We can't put you at risk as well." She logged in her ID and walked in through the glass doors to the gleaming metal surfaces of the Anthropology section of the Jeffersonian. "I might as well start reconstructing the skull anyway," she said when she saw the large package.
"No, you're getting some sleep," Booth and Angela said and interrupted her motions by closing the box which contained the corpse. "You haven't slept in four days, Bones. Go to your office; lie down on the couch, and rest, will ya?"
"No, I can't, not while there's so much to do," Brennan sighed. Her body felt like lead, but otherwise, she was awake and ready to work. She opened the box again and put on some gloves before taking the skull out. She noticed that there was a hole and fished around in the box to find bone fragments, but the bone fragments had to be miniscule. "Never mind—I'll wait until Zack and Hodgins come and help."
She went to her office, turned on her computer, and started analyzing some X-rays of a John Doe's scapula. The John Doe's scapula had some odd ridges, from what looked like a weapon, and as she zoomed in the X-ray, there was sign of osteoporosis. She looked at it from different angles; she even tilted her head, but she couldn't quite make out what was wrong with the scapula.
"Hey." Bones turned around in her swiveling chair and saw that Angela was standing in her doorway. "Look, you're tired, and you've got nightmares. You called me up three days ago, remember?"
She racked her brain to find anything that related to calling Angela about a nightmare, but shook her head. She put two hands on her temples and massaged them.
"That just proves how tired you are. Go and sleep. Booth'll keep watch over you, and Hodgins and I will sleep on the floor next to you, if necessary, to make sure you drift into unconsciousness." She made Brennan take off her coat and shoved her onto the sofa. "Now sleep." Angela turned off the lights and the computer before exiting.
Brennan laid her head on her couch, but she had been wearing her hair in a high ponytail, so she took the elastic band out of her hair before trying to sleep. She resorted to staring at the ceiling when she found she couldn't close her eyes. She tried to move a limb; however, she was too tired. A minute later, she felt her eyes growing leaden and closed them.
She was being tied up and a thousand dogs were barking at her. She felt her heart pounding as if it was going to burst out of her chest, and she desperately wanted to move, but she was being hung from her arms from the ceiling, and there was no way out. Her shoulders were sore, and she was in so much pain, it felt like her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to move, but fire concentrated on her arm-sockets and she sucked in a hard breath.
Right at that point, a gun pointed at her. She tried to scream and realized she had a cloth over her mouth, so all that came out was a hoarse "No." Whatever else there was, she couldn't see, because all she could see was the gun and the dogs barking at her, ready to rip her flesh from her bone. "No," she tried again, "don't kill me, please..."
"No!" Temperance woke up looking into the concerned faces of Booth and Angela. She grimaced as she noticed she had morning breath. She sighed and got up from her couch, rubbing her face and combing her hair into place with her fingers. She cleared her throat before asking, "How long have you been standing over me?" groggily.
"For the past five minutes, since we noticed you were tossing and turning on your sofa," Angela said as she made a face which showed pity and amusement. "Jeez, you didn't tell us how bad it was. And it's only five in the morning. Cam's not even here yet. Get up, freshen yourself."
After Brennan had brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth with mouthwash, she splashed water on her face. Her brain was still repeating the gun and the dogs, as if the DVD of her life had gotten stuck at that particular moment. She felt a little bit refreshed: her breath was minty, her hair wavy-straight, and her face regained color—at least she'd gotten four hours of sleep, which was more than what she'd been able to get for about the past week.
"What was the dream about?" Booth asked when she came out of the bathroom. "Was it anything bad?"
"I—I know it sounds silly," she started, "but I was back to when he tied me up and tried to kill me. I shouldn't even be disclosing this to you, I mean, you are, after all, my work mate, and you shouldn't be involved in my...personal life."
"Hey, you need to talk about something, I'll listen." He spread his arms in what was supposed to be a gesture of generosity and hugged her. She hesitated, stiff and uncertain about how to react, and then she realized that it'd been a long time since she'd been hugged by anyone. Sully had gone, and her dad's future she was uncertain about; the only pillar that she could lean upon was Booth.
"Thank you," she whispered and smiled before going to her office to tie up her hair again and put on her lab coat. Temperance looked at the skull, her eyes feeling somehow clearer. "Now," she said, "there's a fracture on the parietal which caused small bone fragments to fall." She squinted and closed one eye to the skull and saw that whatever the weapon was, it had been smooth and rounded and had a diameter of about two to three inches. She sighed, because she needed Hodgins to help analyze any substances that had been left on the bone and the maggots to clean the bones with the flesh still attached to them. "There's not much I can do at this point."
"Hey, go get some coffee and a donut or something," Angela suggested. "I'm as tired as hell, and you must feel just shitty."
"I'm fine, but I think I do need a coffee and a breakfast." The two women walked to the lounge in silence and each got a cup of steaming coffee, added their personal choice of milk and sugar into the drink, and grabbed a sugary donut. "Ange, do you ever get nightmares as bad as mine?" She looked across to Angela's eyes, watching how Angela would react.
"Honey, obviously I haven't been involved in anything as bad as yours, but yes, occasionally nightmares come." Angela looked at Bones and patted her shoulder. "Look, Tempe, Hodgins and I are here if you need us, and it looks like Booth is here as well. I'd hug you, but my fingers are sticky and I don't want to spill coffee all over you and me."
"Well, I don't want my shirt ruined, so thanks." Bones got up and went back to her office, sipping her sweetened coffee and putting the cup down to wash her sugar glaze-coated hands. She'd just been about to examine the X-rays of the strange scapula when Booth came into her office—again. "Booth, I think you should get some sleep, and relax. We'll work to find Parker."
"Bones—saying that, theoretically, you had a kid—wouldn't you be worried to death about your own kid being taken away?"
"Yes, but I would try to solve things rationally, not be so worried that I would be inactive."
"Bones! How would you feel if Sully got taken away from the face of the earth and just suddenly disappeared?"
That made her think. She stopped typing and bit her bottom lip. If Sully disappeared from the face of the earth—which he had pretty much done by taking a trip to the Caribbean for God knew how long—she would be worried. All she could remember was how secure she'd felt with him, but the pain was still a dull ache in her heart. She wondered every day, maybe for just a second, how he was doing, whether he missed her. Brennan shoved those thoughts to the back of her head and replied, slowly, "That's not even a question that you should ask, Booth. Sully has disappeared, and do you see me worrying about him too much? No—I have more important matters to focus about here. We will find Parker; don't worry about it." Even so, she hung her head for a moment before shaking the hair out of her eyes to return to her work.
"Jeez, Bones, I really have to wonder about you sometimes." Booth gave her a reproachful look before slowly walking out of her office.
Later, at 6:00 A.M.:
"Hey, we've got to do a sweep of the parameters of the forest. You wanna come along?"
She said, "Okay," before walking with Booth to his SUV. Bones stared at the scenery that whizzed by as the car went about its course to the forest where they'd found the body. At a red light, she was surprised—and a bit pleasantly delighted—to find that Booth's arm was around her shoulders. His touch felt gentle and tingled, as if his touch awakened something in her. She turned around to him and smiled a flicker of a smile. She couldn't believe that she was smiling like that—she hadn't smiled like that since...Sully?
Booth still looked worried, but in his eyes was something softer and kinder. When he stopped his car at the edge of the forest, there were a few police cars, but only one or two, since it was only six-thirty in the morning and half of the people came to work at nine in the morning. They stepped out of the car and into the shockingly cold air. His arm was still around her, and she found herself grateful for the warmth.
She gently shrugged out of his touch for propriety and stared at the scenery about them. "There's about no houses here. Every house is at least ten miles away from here." She looked around again and found a man walking up to them wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She motioned for Booth to come and they stood to the man, two against one. But before they got close enough, she tucked her hand into her pocket for a second and hit RECORD on the tape recorder.
"Whoa, hey, no need to gang up on me. Anyway, I don't think pretty boy would even try to hit me," the man held up his hands and said. "Who's she there, your girlfriend?" He grinned rudely and rolled his eyes.
Bones flushed a shade of rose pink before her cheeks returned to their usual moon-pale shade. "No, I'm Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Brennan from the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. May I ask as to why you're walking in this forest when your house is probably ten miles away from here?"
"Damn, you'd better watch it. I've been in a war, and I can shoot like h—" Booth growled.
"Booth," she interrupted, "we're here for an investigation, not to beat up every smart aleck that happens to come along the way." Brennan turned to the impertinent man. "Were you here or around here on November 27th?"
"Just a few days ago? Sure, yeah, I walk here almost every day to clear my head." He twisted up a corner of his mouth and leant against a tree. "Why? Is that a crime or something? Because the last time I checked, humans still had rights."
"No, but did you witness any suspicious activity?"
"Well..."
"Out with it!" Booth muttered. "We haven't got all day."
"Okay, okay, man, don't get mad or anything. But I saw this guy dragging a man into the forest here. It was big and it was in some kind of box—I thought it was a time capsule or something, but it didn't make sense. Anyway, do I have to get this recorded or something?"
"No problem." She hit STOP on the tape recorder. "I've already got it recorded. Thank you for your time, Mr. ..."
"Hayes. Andrew Almanzo Hayes." He grinned again. "I live on—you might want to record this—8762 Wisteria Drive, 91342, Washington D.C., Virginia."
She pushed the RECORD button for the duration of Andrew's speech and the STOP button when he was finished without him knowing. "Listen; is there anybody who lives near here? This is vital information."
"I dunno, there's a guy called Roman Peyton and there's a girl who teaches dance called Clarissa Cecchi. They live about a mile from my place; it's not really that far." Bones pushed the RECORD and STOP button again. He put a hand to his pocket and patted it. "Aw, damn it, I think I lost my green button. My girlfriend sews, and she's really particular about which shade of button to put on some kind of dress or something. I ought to break up with her soon." He started searching around for his button.
"He's lying," Booth remarked when they were driving.
"How do you know?" The sun was beginning to rise. She stared out of the window and admired the golden light that bathed them. The sky would be clear today; it was turning a light shade of blue. The sun winked at them over the tops of the trees and there were barely any other cars on the road, so it was mostly quiet except for the rumbling of the SUV and the occasional attempts of conversation, mostly started by Booth.
"I tell you, I know. And how about you say we check out Roman and Clarissa, okay? What are their last names again?"
"Roman Peyton and Clarissa Cecchi are their names. I recorded their names so that we don't need to remember with too much effort." They got back to the Jeffersonian to find an amused Cam waiting for them.
"What did you guys do? You know what? Never mind—I don't want to know, because karate or tae kwon do might be way kinkier than I thought." Cam threw up her hands in a gesture of defeat. "Anyways, just get to work, okay?"
"We weren't doing anything, Cam, and I think you should know that. Anyway, we were investigating the areas of where the victim was found, and a witness said that he saw a man dragging something into the forest the day. Is Hodgins and Zack here?" Bones looked around for the familiar sign of Hodgins and Zack.
"Is there any reason why Angela came here early, and why Hodgins is also here? And what the hell is Booth doing here?"
"No...No reason at all." Cam looked at her suspiciously before walking off to her own office, leaving Brennan standing, confused and tired. She turned back to Booth, only to find that Booth had headed off to his own office. He was probably typing on his laptop or running around for most of the day. Bones examined the scapula one more time before rubbing her tired eyes. She was now beginning to feel that she needed to take sleeping pills every night and keep the light on in her bedroom in order to go to sleep.
As if she had read her mind, Angela suddenly said, "It's too late to sleep."
"I know that, Ange, but..." She clicked on her email, but a message suddenly popped up. "What on earth is this?"
You are working on the case. Cease all attempts to work on this. Your life is in great danger.
X.
"Oh, my God." Angela walked to the doorway. "I'm going to tell Cam..."
Brennan was too tired to protest anyway.
A minute later, Cam came to her office. "Okay—tell me what's been going on—stat."
"We found a body in the forest about twenty miles from here, and I've got a message painted with some red substance on my apartment door warning that I can't work on this case. Booth's missing Parker, and he has a message on his wall too. Then we came here because it's the only safe place I could think of, and then Booth and I went out to investigate the parameters of the forest sectioned off."
"Who the hell would want to threaten you?"
"I don't know." She shrugged and resumed working on her computer.
"Listen—you're staying at the Jeffersonian until we get this all sorted out, okay?"
Putting her life into consideration was one of the hardest things she had to do. Temperance stopped working and paused for a second. She wanted to go home, but the message on her door reminded her that she couldn't be invincible, and there was, after all, as least one person who would miss her if she died. "I will stay at the Jeffersonian, Cam; you don't need to worry." She turned back to her computer, somehow eager to just work and put all considerations of her life out of her mind.
"That's fine. I'll have Booth or Angela stay with you..." Cam walked out, her shoes clicking on the glossy, smooth floor.
Zack eventually arrived, and so the squints eventually got to work. Zack prepared his microscope while Brennan, in her lab suit, ordered Hodgins to clean the rest of the bones. The skull was the only clean thing to work with, and as she examined it, she repeated what observations she'd made earlier this morning. "There's a fracture on the parietal—you see here?" She pointed, gently, to the fracture.
"Ow, that's gotta hurt," Hodgins said in amusement. "Zack—is the microscope ready?" When Zack nodded, he put the skull under the microscope. He squinted (which was why he was called a squint) at the view given to him by the microscope and zoomed in to something. "Hey—look over here. There's traces of iron oxide, particles of dirt, and weirdly enough, little bits of—wood?"
"Wood? How in the world would wood get into a fracture? Iron oxide and dirt—that's probably to be anticipated, but why would wood be there?" She squinted into the microscope and saw that indeed, there were little chunks of wood on the site of the fracture. "Hodgins, can you analyze what type of wood it is? We need to know if it came from the forest where we found it."
"Hey, I need the skull for facial reconstruction and identification." Angela came up behind them and made the three people working on the skeleton jump. "Hi, dear," she greeted Hodgins and kissed him on the lips. "You know, what's this I hear about Booth and me having to stay with you here?" she directed the question to Bones. "If I go, Hodgins goes." She took the skull with her gloved hands and answered to the startled face of Zack, "I'll be right back."
"I'm going with her," Temperance added and jogged after the shrinking figure of Angela. She was barely breathing faster when she caught up. "So, Ange, what do you mean by you both are staying? I mean, I am perfectly self-sufficient and independent, and I have handled situations worse than this before." A part of her wanted to accept that she was being taken care of, but a larger part of a whole insisted that she was fine, that she could take care of herself. After all, hadn't she taken care of herself after her parents had gone missing?
When they reached Angela's office and she had scanned the skull's shape onto her computer, she turned around and faced Brennan's light blue eyes. "We're all friends," she answered softly, "and I'm willing to stay with you until the danger is over. Booth probably wants to do the same thing, anyway. You guys, I swear, have enough sexual tension to power up L.A. at times. He likes you, you know?"
She blushed. "Booth does not like me, Angela. The word like is entirely to general to describe accurately what feelings Booth might have for me. If you and Booth want to stay with me, I'm fine with that, then." Just turning a shade pinker, she remembered how she had felt when Booth's hand had laid across her shoulders onto her back.
"Okay..." Angela gave the skull back to Hodgins, who had come into her office. She started mapping the face and highlighting the arches of the cheekbones and, before two hours had passed, she had what was a close reconstruction of a girl with neutral eyes and neutral colored hair. She ran it through the identification system until the computer pinged. "Okay, we've got a match: Amy Oswald." The hair was black, and strangely enough, the eyes were a light blue, almost the same shade as Temperance's. "Either she dyed her hair, or she was born that way."
"Hey, I found something." Hodgins came into the office again. "Bones, Ange, you might want to see this..."
"She has broken bones," Brennan breathed when the maggots had done their job. "But don't maggots usually take time to chew the flesh off?"
"Eh, I had twice the amount of maggots to chew the flesh off. Wow—the bone got broken right at the middle."
"Who would do that?"
"Dr. Brennan," Zack called, "there's also signs of bones having being broken before."
"Abuse?" She raised her eyebrows when she saw the break.
"How does abuse come into this story?" Hodgins glanced at the bone and replied, "Oh, yeah, big break in the bone. Unless she died before this happened, this must've hurt. I'd guess she broke the arm and then died."
When the day ended, it turned out that Angela and Booth were staying with her. Hodgins decided to stay as well, as Angela had demanded of him, and they sat around in Brennan's office, talking about random matters of interest. "So," Angela started, "what are you guys doing for Christmas?"
"I don't know—isn't that a little bit too far off?" Booth re-crossed his legs and took another slurp out of his noodles. "I mean, I don't think about Christmas until it's December. It's still November, you know, and I don't really have a present to give to Parker..." He stared off into space, most likely wondering about his son's welfare.
"We'll find him," she assured him. "Besides, I liked Parker. He's probably with the guy who wrote the message on the walls." She gave him a pat on the back before going to the lounge for more coffee. When she came back, she sat back down and yawned. "I need sleep."
"So...Bones, have you got anything planned?" Booth glanced at Brennan, who was sipping a warm cup of tea after a long day's work.
"No. I don't have anything planned, and I don't intend to celebrate Christmas this year."
"You're telling me you still don't like Christmas, Bones?"
"No, I don't believe in it."
"By which you mean you don't like it. I know why, Bones—if only you'd get together with your dad. I know your parents disappeared at fifteen, and that's why. C'mon, try to lighten up. At least you're not the one with the kid missing."
"Yes, but since I am under lockdown here, what is the point of trying to visit my father, Booth?" However, she let Booth hug her for a second while Angela smiled and Hodgins coughed politely. "Thanks," she added in a murmur only audible in Booth's ears. Again, she was surprised how secure she felt with him around her...
Nighttime fell, and since there was A/C, no one needed blankets. Angela slept in her office, while Booth slept on one of her couches. Hodgins slept next to Angela, while Bones slept on her own sofa. For once, she was sleeping peacefully, knowing that the rest of her friends were only a few feet away.
She awoke to a clattering sound. At first she couldn't speak because of the silence and surrounded them, but she whispered, "Booth? Angela? Hodgins? If this is a joke, that's one that's not going to startle me." But a large, rough hand clamped down on her mouth, muffling her scream.
