This next chapter just sort of poured out of me. I hope you enjoy.
Temperance Brennan would never laugh at a time like this, she was fairly certain. Inside her head everything was muddled, so she couldn't really say that statement with 100% certainty, but she had a distinct feeling it was so.
Still, laughing was the only thing that made sense right now, for some reason. It was a very her thing, if she did say so herself.
"Bones?" Booth's voice called out over the commotion, clearly strained. Her lips pursed in sadness as she thought about how he'd take the news. Brennan had thought he'd get over it, not fully understanding or seeing how Booth truly felt. She, on the other hand, could predict the damage it would cause the man. He was utterly in love with Temperance, even with Hannah in the picture. It was sad, really, that Booth and Bones wouldn't have their happy ending, but the thing about time was that it didn't always follow the script you'd set out for it. Instead, it twisted and turned and slammed into things, leaving in its wake a sadness that, ironically, only it itself could heal.
"Yes, Booth?"
"Why the hell are you laughing?" He popped up out of the space he was hiding in and fired a few shots are the creature, hoping that maybe this time it would actually do something to the monster. She didn't have the heart to tell him it was a futile effort, considering terraliches were basically walking Jello people. Booth just loved his gun so much, why would she break his illusion that they were the most amazing thing ever created?
Plus, the holes would be helpful in a second.
"Stress reaction?" She threw out questioningly, knowing that really wouldn't fly. Before he could ask her again, she reached for the plastic water bottle she'd seen sail over her moments before and then called out to her right. "Hodgins! I need a hydroxy acid. Lactic if you got it."
"What?"
"Just throw me something!" Her stern voice pivoted the man into action and before long a bottle rolled to a stop near her feet. Smiling as she felt her two hearts race, she dumped out the water, ducking when a beaker came flying by her head.
"Sweetie, what are you doing?" Angela's scared voice broke her concentration for a second, the notion that she hadn't only broken Booth's heart finally sinking in. Angela had been Brennan's greatest friend... more like a sister than anything else. The "death" of her friend would hurt the artist in so many ways.
It would hurt the whole Jeffersonian crew.
At least they'll be alive to feel the pain.
It was the only upside to the situation and a statement that made her sacrifice worth it.
"I'm taking care of this." She reassured Angela and the entire room as she finished pouring the acid into its new container and sealed it with a firm twist. Pulling out a safety pin from her pocket, she poked holes in the plastic, the brief bursts of liquid dying out with the lack of air. Satisfied with her rudimentary delivery device, she smiled before jumping up, making as much noise as possible to draw the creature's attention. "HEY! I'VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU!"
"Bones! What the hell?" Booth yelled out as he too leaped up, just as she launched the bottle towards the massive beast, hoping its recent hibernation hadn't dulled its reflexes.
To say she was happy when it caught the thing was definitely an understatement.
As soon as its alien hand squeezed around the plastic, shots of liquid burst out onto the creature's skin, producing an immediate yelp of pain. Her compassionate heart ached as the whimpers began to grow, wishing she could figure something out that would lessen its hurt.
That's when she remembered the screwdriver.
"Booth! Cover me!" She got out just as she vaulted over the table and ran over to the Doctor's prone body, noticing he was slowly beginning to wake up. "Oh, you never could do anything on time." She muttered as she rifled through his pockets, Timelord tailoring suddenly biting her in the ass as she struggled to find the stupid little device.
"Left breast pocket." His weak voice almost startled her, the sound causing a flash of feeling to explode in her now completely operational chest. Hearing it before had only caused an occasional weird flutter. Now that she remembered the Doctor, even if he wasn't a regeneration she'd ever seen before, all the proper emotions that should come from being reunited with someone so important were finally coming out. If the creature hadn't chosen that moment to suddenly begin to howl in pain, she wasn't sure what she would have done.
Her hand grasped the metal object tightly, flipping the settings and pushing its button quickly, the burst of energy it sent out hitting the creature and breaking apart its molecular bonds. She wasn't quite sure why Booth chose that exact moment to send out a shot from his newly reloaded gun, but she was glad he did. The final bit of heat was enough to cause combustion and as quickly as the monster had appeared it was gone, not even dust remaining.
The sound of the alarms were the only thing heard for a second, all the Jeffersonian employees in a stunned silence and the two time lords taking a moment to let everything that had just happened sink in.
"Lovely creatures, the terraliches. Can't eat a fruit or vegetable and usually prone to fits of rage when they are abruptly awoken from hibernation, but, still... lovely creatures." The Doctor's voice prompted looks of incredible disbelief from the humans around him, their brush with death not producing the same, favorable opinion of the being they'd just met. They still weren't sure of anything that was going on around them and they all slowly turned towards whom they thought was Brennan, waiting for some sort of explanation.
"Terraliches are alien shapeshifters that morph into objects whenever they sense danger. It probably wondered into the apple orchard, smelled the lactic acid, and turned into the bones in hopes something would find it and relocate it before it was exposed to anything dangerous." She suddenly stopped talking for a second and turned her head to the side in thought. "But it would only turn into bones if it had seen some recently... and tool marks on the C5 aren't really a naturally occurring thing..."
"Brilliant! There is a real murder." Whipping around, she looked at the Doctor sharply, slightly appalled at his comment. "I just- what I meant to say was-" A further glare stopped him dead and he sheepishly looked at the floor. "Right, sorry."
"How do you know all this? The lactic acid, the name of the alien, the-" Cam's questions were interrupted by Booth's dejected reply.
"You opened the watch, didn't you?" She looked over at the agent mournfully, regret and sadness filling her eyes. She registered the sheen of tears in his eyes and a part of her longed to rush over to him, his pain something she couldn't stand.
"I didn't have a choice. You would have died. You all would have died." Her voice wavered as she struggled not to cry, the dying down of the action around her finally allowing everything to sink in. "I couldn't let that happen, not when I could save you."
"But she still looks like Brennan, she sounds like Brennan." Angela shook off Hodgins' arms as she stood up, moving towards the prone figure of her best friend still crouched on the floor. "She's Brennan. Look at her Booth, it's still her." The artist cupped the side of Brennan's face, staring into the watery blue eyes she knew as well as her own, searching for that spark that was uniquely Temperance Brennan.
Temperance looked away before she could completely break Angela's heart, knowing that the damage was probably already done though by the sound of hitching breath and the sudden tremors of the hand against her skin.
"This is all your fault. None of this would have happened if you hadn't have come here." The Doctor sent Angela a pitying look as she began to openly cry, never one to enjoy the sight of someone in pain.
"I'm sorry, but that corpse was always going to end up here. If I hadn't have come, you all would have died." His explanation fell on deaf ears, Angela having been engulfed in Hodgins arms as she broke down.
"So that's it then. Dr. Brennan's just... gone? She wasn't real?" Daisy's confused expression would have been comical in any other circumstances, but at that moment it just seemed... inexplicably sad. Once hardened and guarded blue eyes swept across the lab, taking in the looks of all the people that meant so much to her, the human beings that finally made her truly understand the intense affection the Doctor carried for this planet. Before the Time War she had always thought them to be somewhat small, her education and beliefs having filled her with the arrogance and superiority that would ultimately lead to her race's downfall. Now, she saw how amazing they were. She saw the love and creativity and wonder and resiliency that all came together to create a race with no equal, a race that only the end of time itself could ever completely end.
"Temperance Brennan is still inside her; always will be. A Chameleon Arch just creates memories, it can't give emotions or personalities as rich as hers." The Doctor explained, shifting around and standing up, reaching a hand down to help the brunette figure still close to the ground.
"Then bring her back."
"Booth, he can't." She tried to gently let the ex-sniper down, knowing that this would be the hardest part of everything, the part where she would try to help them all slowly begin to let go and mourn the friend they lost. "He won't."
"Why the hell not? You're Bones! You're Doctor Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian and you're the most amazing woman I've ever met and we need you! I need you! You deserve to be alive."
"I am alive Booth, absolutely and completely. I'm my entire self now and I can't go back to what I was. I'm a traveler, I'm a Time Lord, and I'm one of the only ones left. I stood before thousands of my peers and swore to them as they took their dying breaths that I would keep us alive, even when there was no one else left to care. To turn my back on that oath would make their deaths not matter and I know you well enough to know that you couldn't live with knowing you were part of the reason that happened."
"I'm not so sure of that." She smiled sadly, shaking her head at him in disagreement.
"I am." And that was when Seeley Booth shed his first tear for Temperance Brennan. It wouldn't be the last and it wouldn't be the heaviest, but it would be the most important, a moment full of such pure heartbreak that just a millisecond of it would have had the power to light up a sun. The sight and feeling of it was enough to send a shiver down her body and she stepped back from him, needing to put distance between them.
"Well then, if you're not Dr. Brennan, who are you?" Hodgins' question broke the spell of the moment, pulling her out of the misery she was sinking into and reminding her of a day long ago when the Doctor himself had asked her that and found the answer unsatisfactory. This time he seemed to be waiting on bated breath for the answer, desperate to know the sole member of his race he could get his hands on.
"My name is Romanadvoratrelundar." The gulp of air and the widening of his eyes were only some of the signs of shock that Doctor showed, his hands shooting out to grab at Romana's shoulders in a grip so tight that it should have broken them. Instead of pain, though, she only felt a giddiness that slowly seeped out of the pit of her stomach and spread throughout. He stared at her for a second, his eyes searching all over her face and body, taking in everything about her and committing it to memory in case she should disappear. Finally satisfied, he locked eyes with her again and said the only thing he could think of at that moment.
"Well I'm so sorry about that, is there anything we can do?"