AN: I would like to thank cayoesqueleto, HauntedPast, EternalConfusion, Mockingbird84, Frona, Andromeda03, Bones4Ever, and whitelite for the wonderful reviews last chapter!!!

AN: Warning: expletive used. On a final note, Bones still isn't mine.

Chapter Nine: Parker

Think logically, Bren. You haven't done that in awhile…

Brennan glanced over at Booth, who silently drove down the driveway of the safehouse. Looking back, she saw Hodgins pace nervously in front of the house, probably regretting sharing Booth's darkest secret with her. Brennan leaned back and sighed. The world was upside down and she was still right side out.

Sully's a doctor. Angela is dead. Hodgins is a Fed. Zach's an author. Cam is Booth's boss. The Jeffersonian is a mall. I'm a wedding planner with an uncanny ability to read bones and people's pasts, I'm currently driving to D.C. with a mentally unstable agent in order to get a notorious serial killer to come after me, and somehow, have yet to explain why I'm not a vegetable after supposedly being in a two-year coma.

Brennan narrowed her eyes. Fuck logic.

Booth looked over and saw an expression of amusement and absurdness cross Brennan's face. Casually, he asked, "You okay Tempe?" Am I missing a joke or something…?

"Sure," Brennan snorted. "Everything's fine. Absolutely picture-perfect."

Booth smiled slightly. "You gonna be this charming all the way to the Capitol?"

Sensing the relieve in tension, Brennan mocked insult, and replied, "I am charming: just what exactly are you implying?"

"Fine, you're charming, in a weird and creepily frightening way," Booth admitted with a smirk. Brennan rolled her eyes, but was secretly basking in the fact that she managed to get the car atmosphere more relaxed. She was struck for a moment, at how close she felt to being partners with Booth again.

"Hey Tempe, I have money in the dash for the toll road. Can you get for me, please?" Booth suddenly remembered as he pulled onto the highway.

Brennan nodded and opened the latch. Thumbing through envelopes, she searched for the coins when her hands touched something soft. Lifting up a stack of papers, her heart stopped as her eyes met the brown furry stuffed monkey doll. Pity gripped her insides in a steel vice. Oh, Parker…

"I'm pretty sure it's in there," Booth commented, wondering why it was taking so long to find the money. He reached over but Brennan stopped him quickly. "I found them," Brennan blurted out. Shaking her head, she pushed aside the deceased child's doll and found several quarters. Placing the coins in Booth's hands without meeting his eyes, Brennan fought an internal battle.

Don't say anything, don't say anything, he obviously doesn't know it's there. You are not supposed to confront him about Parker!

"Earth to Tempe Brennan," Booth chuckled nervously, "you looked like you've just seen a ghost."

Brennan gulped and contested, "Spirits don't exist. So I couldn't have seen something that I didn't want to see."

Way to go. Your IQ is above genius, but you can't act normal and "play it cool". Pull yourself together.

Booth shrugged and diverted his eyes back to the road. Brennan saw the D.C.'s skyline off in the distance, and tried to focus on that instead of the nagging urge to pull out the stuffed animal. In the back of her mind, she truly believed that it would be better to get Booth to admit to her that Parker was real. That he had a son. Someone he loved very much: the child he lost.

You promised…

Booth turned off an exit and after several turns, they were within the outskirts of the city. He groaned in frustration as they were led onto a detour route, since the direct road to the heart of Washington was under construction.

She laughed at him, and he shrugged back, "Yeah, like they're working fast anyway."

In the next instant, the merriment was zapped out of Booth. She heard him take a sharp breath, and she shot him a questioning expression. He didn't acknowledge Brennan, and he continued staring straight out. She followed his penetrating gaze and saw a church loom in the distance, surrounded by a small, almost cramped-in cemetery. Booth became very still, almost as if he was having a silent heart attack. Looking back to the church, she saw that it was clearly a Catholic institute. The gray slate and the stained glass windows depicting saints were juxtaposed against the dreary background of weathered tombstones. The steeples pointed high into the sky, as if they were hands reaching to the heavens. Again, it was a stark contrast to the morbid surrounding. She supposed that plenty more of churches were surrounded by dead patrons. Why would the Church of Saint Maria Faustina be any more disturbing than thousands of other similar scenes that she had encountered? She threw a furtive glance back at Booth as he broke out into a cold sweat, his eyes filling with sorrow. Brennan held back a gasp as she understood instantly. Without any second thoughts, Brennan opened the dash and gingerly pulled out the doll.

"Booth look at me," Brennan demanded gently.

Jumping out of his private purgatory, Booth did what she asked…and found himself in a nightmarish hell. Parker's beloved doll stared back at him, clutched in the hands of Brennan. Booth swerved into a side street alongside of the graveyard.

"Where did you get that?" Booth demanded firmly.

Locking eyes, Brennan answered, "It was in the dash I found it earlier. It was Parker's, wasn't it?"

Booth shook his head vehemently. "How many times have I told you—"

"That you don't have a son?" Brennan finished. "Booth, I'm not ignorant. You saw this church and almost had a coronary. Your son is buried here, isn't he?"

Booth placed his head on the wheel, and continued shaking his head. "You don't know a damned thing about my life!"

Brennan wrinkled her brow and bit her lower lip. She thrust the doll in Booth's face and urged, "Look at it, Booth. I can't possibly imagine what you're going through. No parent should have to bury their child. Some pain is never…can never be fulfilled. Blocking what happened to Parker is an evitable way to hold onto that pain, and it's not healthy. You have to face reality. You should have never put Parker to rest: but you shouldn't be frozen in this state because of this. Howard Epps deserves to die for what he did, but it is not up to you to be the executioner. I am so scared for you right now."

"You're right," Booth cut in softly. Brennan frowned as Booth leapt out of the vehicle, slamming the door with shuddering force. Before Brennan comprehended what was going on, Booth had already flung her door open and yanked Brennan out of the car. Gripping her already sore arm, he dragged her roughly towards the cemetery gates.

"You're right!" he raged furiously. "Howard Epps needs to die! He murdered…" She saw his chest heave, and his hands tightened around her arm. Brennan didn't even realize she was still holding onto the monkey.

Booth choked out "H-he took my son. And shot him. But that bastard…he hurt my boy. As much as he could. There were…Christ!" Six months of pent up emotion came cascading out. Brennan was helpless against the flood as she was pulled toward the center of the cemetery. She could have fought him off easily now: but she knew she was in the middle of his long-awaited breakdown.

"Bruises and cuts. Everywhere. That son of a bitch tor-tortured a FIVE year old. My son. My Parker!" Booth stopped suddenly and pulled Brennan forward. Looking down her heart shattered all over again. She was standing above Parker Booth's burial site, a pitiful headstone marking his date of death and birth.

Clearly fighting tears, but losing the battle pitifully, he cried, "You're right Brennan—you don't know how this is like. He should have grown up. He should have had seventy more years. There's a part of me that's just gone. Completely gone."

Booth sat on his haunches and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook and his body was wracked with sobs that had been bottled up for half a year. Brennan kneeled, her own eyes watering at the intensity of Booth's anguish. She placed a hand on his back, and he turned to her. He hugged her close, as if she were his only lifeline.

"Epps is a dead man," he whispered raggedly into her hair. "Parker was my son. I was supposed to protect him. And he's gone now."

Brennan closed her eyes in helplessness. At a loss for words, she handed Booth the doll. He took it hesitantly, as if he were afraid to break it. After a moment, he squeezed it to his chest. He babbled apologies, "Christ, I shouldn't have done this in front of you...I'm sorry for pulling you like that. I hope I didn't hurt you…"

Brennan's brows scrunched up once again. She lifted the sleeves of her sweater and saw that the bruising from the night before was completely gone. What was more was that nothing hurt. She felt no physical pain whatsoever.

"What is it?" Booth asked as he stood. He awkwardly held onto the doll, and shifted nervously as his breathing somewhat steadied. He turned away for a moment, regaining his composure while Brennan inspected her arms.

"My arms should be tender," Brennan observed calmly. "It's like my injuries never happened."

Booth cringed momentarily at the use of the word "injuries". Forgetting the uncomfortable atmosphere his confession had made, he asked cautiously, "Are you trying to tell me you have crazy healing powers or something?"

Brennan shook her head. "I'm trying to tell you that I suddenly don't feel physical pain." Walking across the lane, Brennan held out her arm, deciding she had nothing to lose by testing her theory.

Booth called after, his voice still hoarse from seeing Parker's grave. "What the hell are you doing?"

Without warning, Brennan brought her wrist down on the edge of a solid stone grave. Booth's jaw dropped as he called out, half in shock, "What the hell?" The pain that still flooded his veins met confusion in a head-on collision. Booth shook his head to make sure he was still seeing clearly, and that he hadn't totally fallen off the deep end. Brennan inspected her wrist as Booth marched over to her, tucking the monkey carefully into his pocket. It seemed surreal that one moment he was breaking down and the next he was yelling at a crazy woman. What a screwed up world I live in.

"That should have sprained my wrist, or at the very least, left some bruising," Brennan announced. Breathing out in amazement, she commented, "How odd."

Booth stared at her, chewing the inside of his cheek. "You telling me you're Wonder Woman now? And could you have pinched yourself or something instead, in case your theory didn't work? How would I explain to Cam that you decided to slam your arm into stone?"

Brennan shrugged, still not believing the new phenomena she was experiencing. Booth cleared his throat and said quietly, "We need to go…"

He paused and turned back to his son's grave. "You should have gotten hurt. You're almost making me have doubts about my own world now."

Brennan was startled by his admission. She looked at him, searching for an explanation. He lowered his voice as he came back to Parker's grave. "You defy reality. And…and the thought that in your world, Parker is alive…well, that about says it all, don't you think?"

He pulled the monkey out of his pocket and held it to his nose. Closing his eyes, he remembered back to when he took Parker to the zoo, and how much he loved the chimps and gorillas. Parker's smile was bright and innocent, his laugh infectious and his heart filled with a love for the world that only a child could have. He felt his breathing hitch, but he was able to control his emotions this time around. Brennan watched as he opened his eyes and set the doll on the headstone.

Booth stepped back and whispered, "I wish I was the one who had been in a coma. Your version of the world is so much better than mine."

He walked back to the car abruptly, but Brennan didn't miss the quietly uttered 'I want to believe. God in Heaven I want to…"

Brennan folded her arms over her chest before following. She knew immediatly that Booth was still holding back a deadly emotion--grief, mixed with rage. She could see the poison radiating from his body. The pain and sorrow from his son's death still weighed heavily on her friend's mind, and he walked the gait of a helpless and defeated man. There was no doubt in her mind that Booth would kill Epps without second thoughts. She was so close to losing him to that world. Her attempt to get Booth to grieve worked, but in return, she knew it would bring him closer to a true breakdown. It was science--every action must have an opposite and equal reaction.

"This is not good..."

Swallowing hard, Brennan followed Booth. She prayed to a god she didn't believe in, hoping for the coming end of this nightmare.