Title: All the King's Horses
Author: cardiogod
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: About 2400
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Spoilers: Wannabe in the Weeds and Pain in the Heart
Disclaimer: All things "Bones" belong to FOX, Hart Hanson, and Kathy Reichs. I'm just having fun.
Summary: What if Booth hadn't stepped in front of Brennan in time to catch Pam Nunan's bullet? What if Pam had hit her target?
Author's Note: Many thanks to Obrien_blue for keeping me in line. Thanks to all of you, too, for your wonderful and encouraging comments. They are very much appreciated.
-----
"You're wrong."
He is blunt, disbelieving.
There's no way this is possible.
"I'm very sorry for your loss, Agent Booth."
He inhales. He exhales.
This is not happening.
----
"What do you mean I can't see her?"
He is livid.
"Yeah, what do you mean we can't see her?"
Angela is livid too.
The doctor stares at him, then at her, and Booth is ready to punch him out when he puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to look sympathetic. He glares and the hand disappears.
"I'm sorry, Agent Booth, Ms. Montenegro, but it is our strict hospital policy here at Georgetown Memorial that patients in the ICU cannot be seen by non-family members."
His protest is loud and immediate and accompanied by his badge shoved in the guy's face. "I'm FBI. She's my partner."
"Non-family members, Agent Booth."
He wants to tell him that he is her brother, her cousin, her lover, her husband just so he will let him see her. But he is none of those things and the doctor (who can't be a day older than Sweets) knows that. He wants to tell him that there is more than one kind of family, but he won't understand the sort of family that he has with her.
"She's my lesbian lover and if you don't let me in to see her, I'll call my lawyer and have him sue your hospital for all it's worth."
Angela is brilliant, he thinks.
"Oh," an afterthought, "and he's my third cousin, so that makes him Dr. Brennan's third cousin once removed so he should be allowed to come in too."
The doctor smirks a little and Booth has to resist the urge to remove the grin with his fist. He needs to see her. Now. Because the last time he saw her she wasn't breathing and there was blood everywhere and he can't let that be the last image he has of her.
"While I'm sure Dr. Brennan appreciates your concern, it is really best that she be alone right now. The EMTs were able to restart her heart in the ambulance, but she needs surgery and before they can take her in, her vital signs need to stabilize or else we run the risk of having her crash on the operating table."
His anger and his need to see her do not dissipate, but he knows that, rationally, the doctor is right.
Think rationally, Seeley. Logically. Use your head, not your heart.
Booth wonders how many times this kid has given this speech. Is this comparable to the one he gives when he and Bones identify a set of remains? The one that comes almost automatically now, though he still means every word of it? Is that how this prepubescent doctor remains so calm? The same way that Booth can retain his own cool when speaking to loved one? Just practice?
No, the two situations are nothing alike. Completely different. Not even close.
Because Bones is not dead. Bones is not going to die. Bones is going to be fine.
Angela mutters something that is probably not very nice and stalks off, presumably to find Hodgins who had stayed behind to park the car.
Booth thanks the doctor even though he does not feel particularly thankful and, with a last look down the hallway, he turns and retreats to the waiting room.
To wait.
-----
There is an FBI agent by her bedside when she wakes, though it is not the one she expects.
"Good, Dr. Brennan, you're awake."
Why is Cullen here?
"How are you feeling?"
"Confused."
She doesn't like what the drugs (she assumes that she's on drugs since her level of physical discomfort is relatively low) do to her brain. From her surroundings, she can deduce that she is in a hospital, probably Georgetown Memorial from the looks of it, but beyond that, things are fuzzy and blurred, and she doesn't know why she's here and why Booth isn't with her.
"Where's Booth?"
Her concern mounts immediately as she considers the possibilities. She has been in the hospital numerous times and he has never not been here. Sometimes with Angela, sometimes with Zack, sometimes alone, but he has never not been here. Something is wrong.
"Is he-"
"Agent Booth is fine, Dr. Brennan. He is in the waiting room."
Another agent steps forward, holding her gaze evenly. He is tall, approximately 190 centimeters, and his face is unusually symmetrical and she wonders briefly what his skull must look like under all that flesh and soft tissue. Wide set ocular cavities, flat, long cheekbones, high brow ridge. Beautiful.
"What's going on?" She manages to keep the question even and controlled even though she feels her body wanting to descend into sleep. The fuzziness is pressing in on her temples, seductively curling around her but she refuses to give in. She has spent years honing her willpower, her stoicism, her strength. She will not let it fail her now.
"What is the last thing you remember?" the not-Cullen agent asks her.
Booth. She remembers Booth. Always Booth.
Leaning over her, holding her, begging her not to leave him. She remembers this. The memory is as hazy as everything else right now, but is there. His eyes bore into hers and he is frantic, possessed, desperate.
She remembers the pulsing of her blood, hard and throbbing and warm.
"Don't leave me," he tells her.
She remembers the effort it took to keep her eyes open.
"We were at the Checker Box," she says, narrowing her eyes to focus her gaze on a spot on the wall so that she could concentrate.
"I think I was shot."
Cullen nods. "Yes, by Pam Nunan, who had become fixated on Agent Booth."
"Why are you here?"
The other agent speaks again. "Dr. Brennan, my name is Special Agent Daniel Finley. Do you remember a man named Eddie Hasko? He was a suspect in a murder case you worked on three years ago."
Ribs with unusual curf marks, possibly made by multiple instruments. Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the left side of the cranium. Mandibles removed. Three females, one male, 25-35 years of age, two Caucasian, one African American, one Asian. High profile. The children of US Senators. All had fought back, evidenced by trauma to the radius and distal phalanges.
"Yes, I remember."
Hasko worked for the florist that delivered flowers to the churches in the DC metropolitan area. There had been traces of pollen in all four victims head wounds, and all three attended churches that Hasko's company delivered to. The head wounds were consistent with the shovel found in Hasko's shed.
The evidence had been circumstantial but compelling, and Caroline Julian had been certain that they would have gotten a conviction had Hasko not flown the coup.
She's pretty sure that "flown the coup" is not the proper phrase, but Booth is not here to correct her.
"Senator Mathis is really leaning on us catch this guy, and we have developed a strategic plan of action to lure him out of hiding."
She doesn't know what this has to do with her. She can't very well examine bones from her hospital bed. She's tried that before and had found the hospital administrators to be exceedingly uncooperative.
"How does this involve me?"
Cullen looks at her.
"You're going to die."
-----
She's going to die.
That's the only reason this can be taking so long.
She's going to die.
He looks at his watch again. 6:17am. She'd been in surgery for six hours. Six. Six hours of waiting and pacing and worry and not being told anything because he wasn't the hospital's goddamn socially-sanctioned definition of family.
She's going to die.
She can't die.
"Seeley, for gods' sake, sit down."
Cam. She always had been cranky in the early morning.
"I know you're worried about her. We're all worried about her. But wearing a hole in the linoleum isn't going to make her any better any faster. So just sit down and brood like the rest of us."
The squints are in varying positions around the waiting room in varying states of exhaustion. Angela and Hodgins are on the small, sterile loveseat. She is sleeping and he is looking at him like "Sorry, man, but I'd do as Cam says or she'll hurt you."
Sweets is there, asleep with his head propped up on his arm, his lanky figure crammed into the hospital chair. In another scenario, the image might almost be comical.
But it isn't because she's going to die.
He collapses into a chair, defeat overwhelming him. It's not fair.
She hadn't even gotten to start the third verse.
The image of her standing up there, singing and bouncing and laughing that had, only hours ago, made him blissfully happy now makes his chest clench.
If he had reacted faster. One more second. One more second and he could have turned around and stopped Pam Nunan from firing her gun. He could have shot first. He could have stepped in front of her bullet. One more second and Bones wouldn't be in surgery and he wouldn't be having visions of her funeral.
The scene plays though his mind like an old home movie, and each time he watches it, he catches something new, something he could have done differently, one little thing that would have prevented this outcome. One thing. A million things.
One more second.
She had promised him once that he could hug her when he got scared.
He's scared now.
-----
"That sounds reasonable."
"Good."
"Under one condition," she stipulates. Their plan makes sense. It is rational, it is logical, it is all things that appeal to her. She is to pretend to be dead in order to lure Hasko out of hiding. At their last run in, he swore that he would dance on her grave at her funeral and now they were going to give him that chance.
Cullen was positive that he would show up. He would arrange for a team of FBI agents to wait outside the funeral site until they had visual confirmation from one agent posing as a mourner, at which point the other agents would assume position to apprehend him. She would resurface and go back to life as it was. Simple. Rational. Logical.
"Booth, my father, and Russ must be informed of the situation."
"I'm afraid that will not be possible, Dr. Brennan."
She is suddenly angry. She sits straight up, and if she had the strength to get out of the bed to confront him in that manner, she would. But her wound hurts and the pain is increasing by the second, so she will have to settle for sitting ramrod straight and trying to pin him down with her eyes.
"Then make it possible. I am giving up my entire life for an estimated two weeks so that you can catch a killer you would be unable to otherwise. Informing a few select people is not a lot to ask in this situation."
She feels the fuzz threatening to edge in on her again, but fights it back with sharp words.
"I am immovable on the subject."
"Dr. Brennan, while we understand and are sympathetic towards your concern for your loved ones-"
"And Booth."
"And Agent Booth, it would be best if they are kept out of the loop." He is stern but so is she.
"Agent Finley, if the situation was reversed and Agent Booth was in this bed and not me, I am positive that he would tell me of this plan. I owe him the same courtesy, at the very least. He is my partner."
She is not going to let them do this to him. While she is not exactly sure how Booth would react to the news of her death, she doesn't think that he would be happy about it and it seems unnecessary to her for him to go through that when she is, in fact, (more or less) fine.
He would tell her, if it was him. He would find a way to tell her, to have her told. He tells her all the time about things he's not supposed to, and he would certainly tell her this.
"Agent Booth is a trained FBI agent, he will understand-"
"Booth will not understand, Agent Finley, because he thinks with his heart, however anatomically incorrect that might be."
She is adamant, unrelenting.
Her wound begins to burn, and she eases herself back against the cushions of the bed.
The two men exchange looks and she wishes she was adept enough at human interaction to read the words that went unspoken between them.
"Dr. Brennan, the more people who are aware of this, the more people are in danger. If we were to inform Agent Booth and your family of the situation, their lives would most assuredly be at risk."
"You are free to tell them yourself," Cullen chimes in, "but we highly advise against it. The FBI values Agent Booth's services and would hate to lose such a solid agent because of this."
She thinks.
Telling Booth means he could die.
Not telling Booth means he could kill her when he finds out the truth.
But telling Booth means he could die. She cannot run that risk.
"Okay."
-----
He knows when the doctor approaches that things are not okay.
This is not happening.
Angela is behind him, and Cam, and the other squints. But he is the one the doctor addresses.
"Agent Booth."
He braces himself.
"I am very sorry to have to inform you, but Dr. Brennan did not make it through the surgery."
His head thunders. He hears Angela emit a guttural howl somewhere behind him, but he takes no notice of it. His head thunders and he can feel nothing else.
"You're wrong."
He is blunt, disbelieving.
There's no way this is possible. Hours ago, when she was in surgery, he had had thought she could die. But he never thought she actually would.
He thought he had prepared himself for the worst.
He was wrong.
"I'm very sorry for your loss, Agent Booth."
He inhales. He exhales.
This is not happening.
-----
