Title: An Unlikely Courtship
Rating: T
Summary: When a mysterious group takes away Temperance Brennan and wipes her memory, will Booth be able to find her and bring her back? Set sometime during Season 6, before Hannah's departure. AU.
Disclaimer: Characters from Bones are the property of Hart Hanson and 20th Century Fox. No money is being made out of this work of fiction.
Chapter One
When he woke up, it was to an empty bed. The sheets were smooth and cool underneath his touch, her form absent from the bed they shared. He vaguely remembered Hannah telling him about some kind of interview on Capitol Hill, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was about or with whom. Shaking his head, he slowly moved off the bed and shuffled towards the bathroom to begin his morning routine.
When he was finally dressed in standard FBI suit, coat, and tie (bright orange this morning, with a pattern of ducks) and had coffee brewing in the small kitchen, he finally remembered to check his phone. Scrolling through the messages - a reminder from Rebecca to pick up Parker after school on Thursday, the usual message from Hannah saying that she would be home late and could he pick up a burger with all the trimmings for her on the way home from work later, Caroline reminding him of his next court date - and wondered why Brennan hadn't called yet. They were supposed to interrogate a suspect that morning, and she was strangely silent.
Tipping the pot into a travel mug and pouring a thimbleful of milk into the black mix, he pressed "1" on his speed dial and lifted the phone to his ear. The drone of her ringtone filled his ear until it clicked to voicemail. "Hello, you have reached the voice mailbox of Dr. Temperance Brennan. This is not actually a physical box, but you may still leave a message that will eventually reach her... me, that is... at the sound of the tone." He rolled his eyes in amusement at her pre-recorded voice.
"Hey Bones," he said, giving the travel mug a cursory swish before grabbing his badge, gun, and keys from the kitchen counter and heading out of the apartment. "We've got an interview with Kushner at ten, remember? Up and at 'em, sunshine, I'm swinging by your place in fifteen." He hoped that she was in the shower while he was leaving his message - she'd be ready by the time he parked at her building. "Make sure you've got clothes on. I don't want to see any of your girly bits," he warned teasingly. "None of that biological imperative stuff, all right? I'm a gentleman." And with that, he flipped his phone shut and sauntered his way out the door.
He hadn't been to the Jeffersonian in awhile - and as much as it galled him to admit it, he was trying to avoid her, at least until the new status quo had been established. He was well aware that Hannah didn't fit in anywhere, that in the grand narrative that was Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth, everyone thought that they were meant to be together. Well, he thought that too, until she told him her heart wasn't fucking open enough for him and that she couldn't fucking change. But now, damn it all to hell, now he just needed to make sure she was okay. So if he was breaking a million and one traffic laws to get to the Medico-Legal lab, then fine. It was worth it to his hammering heart.
He parked at the employees' parking lot underneath the cavernous building and jogged towards the elevator. His feet still remembered the twists and turns of the narrow corridors leading to the glass doors of the lab, and he made it there in record time. Jim, the daytime guard, gave him a broad grin. "Welcome back, Agent Booth." He nodded cursorily to the other man, his eyes already scanning the brightly-lit room where blue-coated scientists and technicians scurried like busy ants, each intent upon their task at hand. He bounded up the platform, quickly swiping his card, and barreled right into Cam, who was examining fresh remains on one of the illuminated tables.
"Seeley!" she said in delighted surprise, her dark eyes alight. She gave him a quick hug. "What brings you here?"
"Bones," he said, struggling to keep the panic out of his voice. "Is she here?"
Cam cocked a carefully curved eyebrow in surprise. "I was under the impression that you were going out to interview a suspect today for the Lambert case. You know, classic wife murdered and buried in the garden whodunit?"
"Yeah, I know." He pressed his lips into a thin, straight line. "I called her up this morning to let her know I was picking her up and then heading to lockdown to interview the gardener. It went to voicemail. I thought she was just taking a shower, but when I got to her apartment... it was empty. The door was unlocked, but there was no sign of forced entry, of a struggle. Her bed was slept in, so she was definitely there last night. But aside from that... nothing."
"Hey, man!" Hodgins bounced up the stairs, peeling the gloves off his hands. "You're back. Did you find the bad guys yet?"
Cam turned to him. "Dr. Brennan is missing," she informed him in a clipped tone. Booth nodded.
"What?"
"Look, she's not at her apartment and her door was unlocked. I came here to check whether she slept in her office again, but Cam says that she hasn't come in yet." Booth ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Has anyone else heard from her?"
Angela swept through the small group, clipboard in hand and a twinkle in her eye. "Has it ever occurred to you, Studly, that she might just be relieving those good ol' biological urges of hers somewhere else?"
"No." Booth shook his head. "There's something wrong. Bones never leaves her door unlocked."
"Maybe she was in a rush?"
It was Booth's turn to raise an eyebrow. "We're talking about Bones here. She does everything carefully. By the book. That woman probably has her receipts filed and color-coded."
Hodgins nodded in agreement. "She does. I devised her system for her."
Angela rolled her eyes. "Well, what can we do? It's Brennan. You know how pig-headed and independent she can be. And while I am normally not the voice of reason in this place, I have to remind you that we have no proof she's in danger either."
"She's right, Booth," Cam said. "We'll call you when she gets in. Most likely, she's just lost track of time."
"Bones doesn't lose track of time, Cam."
"She's only human."
"Dr. Saroyan?"
Everyone turned to the security guard poised at the bottom of the platform stairs. He held a small package in his hands. "A delivery for you. It's clear."
Cam nodded and took the envelope from the guard. An odd silence fell on the group as Cam flipped the envelope. Her name was printed on the back of the official-looking stationary, along with the Jeffersonian address. Hodgins quietly gave her a sharp-looking probe that she slid between the flaps and pried the envelope open. Out tumbled a piece of paper and a familiar-looking ring.
Angela gasped. "That's Bren's ring."
Booth's heart plummeted to his feet. "Shit," he swore. "Someone took her. How could I be so stupid?" He paced up and down the platform, his hands clenching into fists. "How... who could have... oh fuck!"
Three sets of eyebrows shot up. "Ah, Booth," Hodings began nervously. "There's something written on the piece of paper."
"Treat that as evidence," he said shortly, as Cam grabbed a glove from the box Angela offered her and held the sheet between the latex. "I want to know who wrote it, who sent it, where it came from, anything that can tell us where Bones is."
"It's short," Angela said, peering over Cam's shoulder to read the typed words. "It says 'Don't worry, she's safe. And she won't get hurt anymore.'" Everyone looked at Booth, who didn't even try to meet their gaze. "What does he mean by that?"
"How did he know?" Booth whirled around. "We never told anyone."
"Told anyone about what?"
Booth gritted his teeth. It was all going to hell in a handbasket anyway. "Last year... I... I asked Bones if she, you know, wanted to take our partnership further..."
Angela's voice was quiet. "And she turned you down, didn't she?"
"Yeah." His eyes misted over, and he desperately didn't want to cry in front of the squint squad, for God's sake. "She said... she said she didn't have my kind of open heart."
Cam was the first one to step forward. She placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "I understand now," she said quietly. "This explains everything."
"Yeah, but it doesn't explain why that sonofabitch took her in the middle of the night!"
"Hodgins had already grabbed a tray and petri dishes. "Don't worry, Booth," he said. "If there's anything in this paper, anything at all, abotu Dr. B's whereabouts, I will find it. And I will tell you. And we will find her."
But Booth had already turned his back and was walking down the steps and out of the lab.
"Honey?"
For all her journalistic experiences, Hannah Burley never understood the meaning of the expression "standing in the middle of a war zone." After all, when you're knee-deep in corpses in the desert, or hearing the rapid-fire staccato of machine guns in the distance, it was hard to compare that to living in the city. And yet when she opened the door to his - their - apartment, she was met with a vertiable tornado of things.
Clothes were scattered all over the floor, CDs strewn haphazardly across the normally neat counter, sports paraphernalia leaning against various bits of furniture that were pushed out of place. And in the middle of it all sat Booth, rummaging through what looked like another boxful of items, throwing what he didn't need in the air.
"Seeley?"
She'd just come home after three days in Georgia, listening to speeches by prospective political opponents of the President's party. She'd barely managed to keep in touch with her boyfriend; she was either busy or asleep, and she suspected that he was, as well. Still, she didn't expect this level of mess. Or the way he was ignoring her.
"Seeley?"
He finally looked up. There was a broken-down, wild look in his dark eyes, and it looked as though he'd barely slept in the past few days. His dress shirt was rumpled and stained, and she spied his tie sitting in what looked like half a glass of orange juice. He had a pile of files open on the coffee table - photos, police reports, DNA profiles, 3D renderings - all spread out like jigsaw pieces.
She lifted an eyebrow. "What's going on?"
He took a deep breath. "I can't find her."
"Who?"
"Bones." He gave her a mournful, puppy-dog look. "They took my Bones."
Hannah's bag slipped from her shoulder at his possessive words. "Seeley... Seeley, what happened?" she asked as she sat down beside him. Now she noticed that all the files on the table were about their cases, about people they had put away... people who might have a reason to come after Temperance.
"She... Hannah, she's missing. We can't find her."
"And you've gone through everything?"
He nodded. For the first time, she noticed how drawn and pale he looked. "We've gone through her apartment, the lobby, everything. There's nothing to indicate the presence of someone else other than her. The security tape to her building was doctored and no matter what Angela does, she couldn't even get a partial image off the files."
"The door man?"
"He was out like a light on that night. Cam found traces of some kind of sleeping chemical in his water bottle. They must've laced it."
"Who's 'they'?"
"Whoever took her!" He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes in exhaustion. "Look, Han... I have to find her."
She rubbed his back soothingly, trying to stem the panic that she could feel was radiating in waves from his body. "Look, honey, the FBI is doing everything they can, right? You have to let the techs and the others do their job and figure out where she is first. So you can do your FBI rescue tactics and get her the hell out of there."
Booth clenched his jaw. "They sent back her ring."
"Her ring."
He pulled a small evidence bag out of his pocket and held it up to the light. A slim silver band with a pattern of sapphires glinted in the living room lights. "Her mother's ring. It's passed down in their family, mother to daughter. Her mom never managed to give it to her, on account of what they were doing at the time. God, she must be devastated when they took this away from her." He cradled the piece of jewelry carefully in his palm. "It was her most prized possession."
Hannah bit her bottom lip, her hand still automatically rubbing circles at the small of his back. There it was again - that uncomfortable otherness that she felt whenever Seeley spoke about Temperance. Lovingly, reverently. As though... he was in love with her.
"Well it's late," she said awkwardly. "I need some shuteye. Come to bed soon, okay?"
"Yeah." He'd already shifted away from her and buried himself back into the paperwork. "Good night."
"Good night."
She paused at the entrance of the bedroom. "I love you."
"Yeah." He didn't even glance up.
Author's Note: Hey there! If you've gotten this far, welcome to my new fic! It's got a bit more in terms of plot than my previous offerings, but I still hope you like this. :) I've got this story plotted out, so I'll try and post regularly in between work, personal life, and real-life writing projects. Also, do remember that I'm doing this without a beta, so I hope that if you spot any inconsistencies or mistakes, help me out here. :)
If you're liking this so far, do drop a review (or several, LOL). It helps speed up the writing process, y'know.
