Booth didn't find enough words to answer. His power of speech has gone, and there wasn't no sound flow out from his mouth, just hysterical wheeze as if he was calling for help silently but nobody was hearing him, his desperate screams. He had a lump in his throat because of honest fear, so rough that he barely could breathe. Seeley leant against the wall and slipped down to the floor slowly, watching in terror Pelant's standing in the doorway motionlessly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he added finally and gave a look at his own hands and body; "I totally forgot."
Then Christopher averted his eyes, growling and grinning. Booth became a witness of impossible again: his bones have started to gather by themselves, his joints have got fixed and his wounds have cured without a trace. His neck's crunched, straightened out, and after that blood has rushed back to his head that was look safe and sound from now on. His skin was look normal again, his clothes clean and unscathed. Wide jeans, grey zip sweatshirt — he was absolutely like that Pelant Seeley saw last time.
"I guess, that's better," he exclaimed with his usual voice, getting to the agent closer: currently he has become pale as a corpse and felt faint, not being capable to move, with hysterical shortness of breath and a face twisted in horror.
"Are you going to hide here all day long? the criminal smirked, offered his hand; "If someone comes in right now they will think you're insane."
"I mean it, stand up," Christopher was repeating confidently, looking at the door over his shoulder; "You've just left the hospital, wanna come back? But I want to warn you, you'll get in the psychiatric asylum this time, not in a therapy hospital room with a TV, kind nurses and tasty food."
Booth didn't loose his hope that all of it is nothing but a crazy nightmare, wild and dreadful, that he's about to awake in his bedroom with his lovely wife, but things haven't changed: Pelant wasn't disappearing. Than the agent got back on his feet, holding on to the wall, crawled into the corner and draw his arms out as a sign of self defense — it was all possible that he could do. It was a bad idea to point the gun at him, after all. Anything you want but not a weapon was a thing that's scared him. Seemed like a gang shooting in a bank wouldn't give Seeley so much adrenaline as from the sight of a dead serial killer. The agent was still keeping silence: he didn't know what to answer. Words have flown away from his head, they were tangling, and hе didn't control his tongue whatsoever. But should he reply at all, should he talk with his own hallucination. Otherwise, it would be a beginning of the end, the end of his successful career and life he's used to have. Despite everything, Christopher was right in one point: Booth really has to visit a doctor again and draw his attention to his mental health and brain conditions.
"Oh, very hard case, I see," Pelant said ironically, clicked fingers near his face several times, and the agent was shuddering nervously every time .
"You..." he swallowed, focusing; "You're not real."
"Indeed? What a surprise! And whose fault is that?" the criminal pointed at him, staring.
"It's on you, too," Booth was objecting; "You should've hold your tongue."
"You should've look after the road better," he grinned angrily, steely, but suddenly turned over; "Damn, Brennan is coming."
He rushed to the door and stopped right in a few steps from the doorway, when Seeley dragged down on the chair wearily, holding onto the table top and trying to behave tranquilly, wondering what to expect.
"Booth, we've a murder. You wouldn't believe: a body was found in a container of the truck. Its driver had ridden a couple of districts with a killed man right into the boot and he didn't even imagine that. So, remains are totally damaged, there will be a lot of work. And why Angela couldn't contact you?"
Temperance reached the the table and leant at it, without paying any attention to Pelant. This only confirmed his alarming guesses that he had serious problems. He frantically grabbed the phone in his hands and found there a few missed calls from Montenegro, which, apparently, he didn't hear because of his panic.
"Sorry, silent mode," he said quickly, grinning forcefully; "Something relevant?"
"Yes, not really ... Are you allright?" she worried, noticing his pale face and a quick look; "Maybe you should stay at home for a few days?"
"No, no," the agent waved his hand, leaning back and glancing at Pelant from the corner of his eye; "I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
Christopher was watching Brennan astonishingly and desperately at the same time: she couldn't see him, he was invisible to her, just a void. Then the criminal came closer to her and, standing behind, lowered his hands onto her shoulders with a little confusion. Booth got nervous immediately and even took his breath, trying not to stare at Pelant viciously and menacing, because Brennan could easily take it personally. But the woman frowned dissatisfied and shivered slightly like she was feeling cold.
"Is your air conditioner working at full strength?" she asked, looking for a thermostat in the room; "You'd better to turn it off to not to catch an illness."
Booth nodded obediently as a china doll, and the villain suddenly stagered back like a boiling kettle, glancing at his palms.
"So, we have to start right now, okay?" he explained with a fake look of a tough guy, and Pelant crept up to Temperance again, more determined, this time literally embracing her.
"About fifteen minutes, I bet, we need to pack all our stuff and... Oh my God, there's so cold here!" she expressed an irritated voice, pulling in even more and rubbing her hands; "You'll get ill - I've warned you, you'll be making tea for yourself."
With these words the woman turned around and went out extremely effectively, taking with her some documents and ordering her husband not to be late. When she was just out of sight, Christopher has sat down on a chair beside, saying with his eyes: "Did you see that?!"
"What a hell are you doing?" Booth banged against him, he almost blew up; "Listen, I don't care about are you alive or not, but stay away from Bones."
"Or what?" he was smirking; "Okay, calm down, I won't harm her, I promise. To be honest, I haven't got outside of this afterlife mechanics yet."
"And how did you do this?" Booth questioned with genuine disarray, coming to terms with criminal's staying and with his own madness, too. He didn't has enough forces to resist anymore.
"What exactly?"
"You touched her, but you're just a hallucination. That's weird."
"What are you talking about?" Pelant was opposing, he chose his favorite technique: to look like an idiot; "Turn the air conditioner off, even I'm feeling cold."
"But it is!"
"What makes you so assured?" he nodded at the machine, and it was really working at maximum. Indeed: he completely forgot he switched it on one hour ago. Another fact forced the agent to worry about his health more than before, although it would seem there's nowhere else to go.
"That's enough," Booth replied flatly, rubbing his eyes with his hands; "Today I text my doctor about a next visit."
"Why's that? You're as sound as a bell. They'd haven't discharge you like this."
"Very funny, nice job. I interpret my anxiety special for you: I see a dead and bloody irritative serial killer right opposite me, the murderer who's more pain in my neck than in life.
Pelant laughed, and his face began more narcissistic than before.
"And after that you're telling me I'm as sound as a bell."
"Wanna proof it — come on, let's go, waste your time," the hacker shook his head; "I'm not going to change your mind, sweetheart. But you won't open anything new, trust me."
"And why did you get so jumpy?" he exclaimed so unkindly and hardheaded that Christopher gazed at him as if he really was crazy; "What is it to you?"
"Actually you're the only person here who's jumpy, Seeley," a precise observation; "Sorry I've got on a first-name basis, you mind? I don't see a sense in calling you "agent Booth" anymore."
"As you wish. Hey, you're quite good at medicine, aren't you? So tell me, am I in trouble?"
"Em... How do I put this delicately..." he scratched the back of his head embarrassing; "You're talking with a dead person. But here's a little hint — the problem isn't in your brain."
"And where is it? Who are you if you're not my hallucination?" Booth asked and froze for a moment, encompassed by a shining idea. He opened the crate carelessly and started to delve into it, finding special pills he've begun to take recently at the insistence of his doctor. Christopher leaned forward and was watching him with curiosity.
"I found it!" the agent said loudly, shaking a dark vial into his hands, then he brought it closer to his face and launched explore the chemical ratios; "It must be a stuff in these pills that makes the temporary insanity."
"Let me take a look," the criminal extended his hand forward interestingly and, as soon as he took the phial, announced the small designations of different drugs written in small print, the meaning of which was understood only by himself; "There's atropine here. Yes, you're right, it can cause glitches, but you should eat a whole batch at once for this. So it's faster to die from an overdose than to wait for the effect."
"Okay... Well," the man mused on fall to thinking, but cheered up again; "That's it! I know! You're just a figment of my imagination."
"Wow, sounds impressive," Pelant said, squinting sneaky; "Something like an imaginary friend, you want to say? Oh, no, wait, an imaginary enemy," he laughed at his own joke.
"Correct!" Seeley pointed at him; "So obviously! Just look at yourself: you're different now, not that Pelant who was in his lifetime. You're that Pelant I want you to be, understand?"
"Me? Perfectly well. And you?"
"Clearly," he lied.
"So, good, the question is over," Christopher put his arms up innocently; "I won't argue with you."
"I've to face it, your death impressed me too much," Booth gazed at him selfishly and brutally.
"Should I stand on my knees in front of you or what?" he snorted and crossed his legs; "You know, you think much of yourself."
"You're one to talk."
"I behave especially like your finished mind wants me to, remember ? I'm nothing but a figment of your imagination — your words."
"God, why I deserve this punishment, why?" Seeley stuffed his face and laid at the table, being exhausted from the pointlessness conversation; "And what am I supposed to do now?"
"Are you asking me? Ask yourself at first."
"That's exactly what I'm doing right now, huh. Just shut up."
Undoubtedly, he needed a minute of silence to rest and to decide how he can deal with it. But can he?
