HOSTAGE

Booth leaves Brennan to protect her, but his enemy manages to get to her anyway. Can Booth get there in time to save her, and will he have to make a choice so hard it will break him?

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones! Wow I bet you're all falling off your chairs in shock!

Alone

Angela frowned as she peered through the glass of Brennan's office. Her friend was sat at her desk with her head in her hands. Again. For the past three months Angela had noticed that her friend had not been herself. She had called in sick from work twice, and she spent a lot of time at work staring into space or sitting in her office alone when before she would have been out looking for that last clue or interviewing someone just one more time. Angela knew why. Brennan missed Booth. Of course she did. It was obvious to everyone except the pair of them that they both had feelings for one another and they got on really well – but both of them had lived in denial. Booth had had girlfriends and Brennan had had a few… Sully, anyway, and they had both carried on with the 'just friends' approach.

Brennan looked up and the masked smile she had been wearing ever since the day Booth left covered the sadness in her face. Angela smiled back sympathetically. She hoped Booth would come back soon. She hoped they would here some news that he was ok. He could be lying dead in an alley somewhere and they wouldn't know anything about it. They wouldn't have the slightest clue if Stephanski had got to him or not. Brennan had explained the situation to all the others, and although they understood the Booth had done what he had to, Angela couldn't imagine Brennan just letting him go. But every time she tried to talk to her friend about it Brennan rapidly changed the subject.

Angela sighed, and went home.

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Dr Temperance Brennan laid her head back on her pillows and desperately tried to sleep. She needed some sleep. The thing was, however, that she couldn't remember the last time she had been able to sleep through the night without waking up sweating from some nightmare that usually involved Seeley Booth lying face down on the ground, blood spreading across his shirt. And she hated herself for it. She was a sensible adult, and a scientist. Nightmares really didn't fit in with the Dr Brennan she had become. Gradually she drifted into fitful sleep.

She was awoken by a hand over her mouth. Her eyes sprung open and she found herself looking into the face of a tall, bald man, who looked remarkably like a caricature of a thug. She went to scream but his hand clamped down harder, until she could barely breathe. She dug her teeth into his hand, but he pulled her roughly out of her bed and then whipped a gun out of his pocket.

"Do as I say or I'll shoot. No questions asked." He said, and took the safety catch off the gun. Brennan shivered, bringing her arms around herself to keep a little warmer. She was only wearing a big old T shirt and some shorts.

"Get some clothes out of the wardrobe and put them on." He said, and she noticed a distinct Russian accent. She pulled out some jeans and a shirt from her closet.

"I'm not changing with you in here." She said. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Then he turned to face the wall, standing by the door.

"You have 30 seconds." He said, and began to count under his breath. She pulled on clean underwear and the clothes she had got out, shaking with fear all the while. The man turned round just as she was buttoning up the shirt. He leered at her, and she lowered her eyes.

"What do you want from me?" she said, and he took her arm and began to pull her down the stairs, clutching her harder than was necessary, so she could feel the bruising almost as it occurred.

He said nothing, just threw her out of her own front door and into the back of a van, where he tied her hands and her feet together, so she couldn't struggle. Then he slammed the back doors on her and climbed into the front of the van, which he started to drive.

"What do you want from me?" she said.

"I do not know." The man said curtly. "I work for the boss."

"The boss? Who the hell is that?"

She watched the man grin in the mirror. He had three teeth missing. "Let's just say – a friend of one of yours."

She felt a shiver up her spine as she understood. This was one of Stephanski's men, after her because of Booth. Her first thought was for him.

"Have you got Booth? Is he still alive?"

The man laughed. "They told me you were clever, Dr… Brennan. It took you a while to work it out. Now be quiet until we get there, or I'll put your lights out."

She didn't say another word. She could feel cramp in her feet where they were tied so awkwardly, and the strain across her back where her hands were tied behind. She couldn't move to make herself more comfortable. And the man hadn't told her anything about Booth. What if they'd killed him? A tear rolled down her cheek, and it wasn't the first she had shed these past months. But it was the first she couldn't wipe away, and therefore couldn't deny.

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When Brennan woke up, she was being bundled out of the car by her captor. The sky was a bit brighter now, and it was some time in the early morning. Then she felt a sack over her head and she couldn't see where she was going. She was shoved and thrown around, and she stumbled over steps and through doorways. Then her legs were kicked out from underneath her and she was knocked to the floor. The bag was tugged off of her head.

She was in a dirty, barely furnished room with two high windows, sat opposite a tall man with dark hair and pale, watery eyes. Stephanski. He looked down a long, pointy nose at her and smiled.

"Dr Brennan. So kind of you to join us."

"Where's Booth? What have you done to him?" she spat.

Stephanski laughed. "Nothing. Yet. Your friend Seeley Booth thought that by running away to Massachusetts he could protect all the people he loves. But he was wrong. Now we have you and he's hundreds of miles away, unaware of your… misfortune."

"Then why do you need me?" she asked.

"So that in a while we contact your friend with the worst news he's heard in a while. And then he comes down here, playing the hero and all that – he gives us the file we need and then we kill him."

"He'll never give it to you."

Again, the man chuckled. "He might, if we put a knife at his precious Temperance's throat. He might have a change of heart then."

"I'll…I'll tell him not to." Brennan said, her voice sounding stronger than she felt. Suddenly Stephanski's eyes filled with rage and he struck her across the face, bringing stinging tears to her eyes and knocking the fight out of her.

"Now, you will stay quiet whilst we wait for my other operation to be completed, and then we shall discuss the small matter of Seeley Booth. If you make so much as a sound, Booth will be here to find only a body."

Brennan lowered her eyes, trying to hide her fear.