A/N: I know, I know; you must all hate me right now. But I ran out of inspiration and was tired of writing angst, so I just sat here looking at this story and wished for a happy ending.
Not that it's in this chapter. But I've got a rough outline written up already for it, which makes me quite happy.
Also, SEASON 8 STARTS SHOOTING TODAY! I'm currently glued on Twitter, waiting for some troll tweets to get me through the rest of the wait.
So without further ado: where were we, again?
DISCLAIMER: *sigh* You already know.
The room was so familiar.
Booth stood in the doorway, one hand still wrapped tight around the doorknob. He let his eyes wander around the room, his breathing speeding up as he took in the life he'd left behind: his clothes littered across the room, her jewelry neatly organized on the dresser. He felt his chest tighten at the half-full bottle of water on her night table, the baby toys littered on the floor, the tiny dress he'd bought Christine still on its tiny hanger in his open closet.
He stepped into the room, entranced. He shut off the part of his brain that was screaming at him to "get out get out get out" and allowed himself to just...feel.
The room was cold, abandoned for so long. Every tiny detail of the room was exactly as it had been before, exactly as he remembered. He walked along the room, dragging his fingers against the cold sheets, the soft silk of her blouse, the chiffon of Christine's dress. He picked up her perfume, inhaling her scent deeply. He pricked his fingers on her comb, let Bones' necklace slip through his fingers.
There was a tugging sensation deep in his chest, and he walked slowly around the room towards the clock. He picked it up, turning it around in his hands. His own clock had been old, one he'd kept from his days in the army. It was a sort of memorabilia to him, one that had never been quite relevant until now. He couldn't catalogue every scratch and nick, because he'd never noticed if they were on his old clock. There was nothing on that clock that was quite important to him. If it hadn't been for that damn video, he wouldn't have even noticed it had switched.
Except.
Except, it had been from when he was in the army. One day, earlier in the morning than he felt he could even imagine, he'd woken from a violent nightmare and thrown his arm sideways. His clock had skittered off the table and smashed on the cement floor. Wide awake with fear, he'd collected the pieces and placed them on the table before allowing himself to go back to sleep. In the morning he'd reassembled, but one of the rubber pieces on the bottom had been gone.
He flipped the clock over and looked. All four of the rubber pieces were there.
Pelant had screwed up.
He couldn't help a wry smile, but it felt forced and hurt on his cheeks. He turned and walked towards the closet, grabbing a sheet from the dresser and wrapping the alarm clock in it. He hid the clock behind the dresser, figuring he'd check out what it was later.
Standing up, he continued his reconnaissance, feeling her presence in every corner of the room. He bit back the tears threatening behind his eyes, controlled his breathing, and prayed for her to be there, impossibly. He curled his fingers into her clothes, fingered her makeup and moisturizers, toyed with the shampoo in his shower.
He thought he was okay. Not because she was gone – never because she was gone – but because he'd finally accepted that he had to let them go in order to find them. He believed it with every muscle in his body, every inch of his heart.
Then he stepped on a stuffed pig.
He startled slightly, then knelt on the floor beside the toy pig. Like always, he'd fought for a 'normal' toy – a stuffed bear. But he remembered the way she'd reacted to bears in their previous case, and he'd gone to the store and seen the pig.
It was a totally cartoon-y pig. Fat, pink, with round blue eyes and long eyelashes, a smile curling beneath its nose. It had reminded him of Jasper, and her, and he'd bought it immediately, not even bothering to look at the price tag. She'd loved it, and had placed it with Christine, who had cooed and wrapped her tiny fingers around the pig's ears.
He was so lost in his memories that he didn't notice his reaction to them. His fingers curled tightly into the pig's belly, the imprints of his fingers clear in the soft fabric. His shoulders shook with the force of his emotion. Tears streamed down his cheeks, slipping between his lips and leaving salty tracks on his tongue.
His forehead fell to the floor, his body curled around the pig, and he broke.
Angela sat on her couch, staring blankly at the TV. It felt like the past hour had lasted forever, dragging on and on to the ends of the earth. After Booth had called her, she'd called Hodgins, quickly filling him into the situation and sending him off to find Booth. She'd paced and paced, done her best to calm down Michael, and finally, forty-five minutes later, Hodgins had helped Booth walk through their door.
He looked terrible. His hands were covered in tiny scratches, droplets of blood, and the imprint of his fingernails. He was still shaking all over, uncontrollably. His breathing was ragged, his lips dry, and he'd nearly collapsed the moment he'd walked in the door. His cheeks were tear-stained, his jaw twitching constantly.
But it was his eyes that had gotten to her. His eyes, red and empty and haunted. Every part of him was broken, shredded apart, and it had taken nearly another fifteen minutes to get Booth into a room.
Once they'd closed the door behind them, juggling all the things they considered to be dangerous to him at the moment, Hodgins had run his hand down over his face, clearly struck by the way he'd found Booth. "It took me so long just to get him out of there," Hodgins had said. "He was worse then, believe it or not. He could hardly stand."
Angela leaned back, stretching out on the couch, listening to the soft sounds of Hodgins in Michael's room, calming him down. After they'd put Booth in the room half an hour ago, no sounds had come out of it, not even the sound of him sobbing. It was a real shock to all of them – Zach included, who had wandered into the scene once they'd gotten him in through the door. Although they knew Flinn would jump at the opportunity of making Zach go to jail because he wasn't in the company of Hodgins or Booth, that had been less than important when she'd gotten Booth's call.
"He was the strongest of all of us," Zach had mused in his super-rational way. "What does it mean to us, if he's in this state?"
Booth lay in the bed, his hands curled in front of him. He stared blankly at the white-washed wall in front of him, barely registering it. A small part of his subconscious was paying attention to the room, to himself. His subconscious was paying attention to the way his body was still trembling, to the salt that cracked his lips and dried his tongue, to his aching hands and burning eyes.
The rest of his brain was far off in its own world. He wasn't seeing the wall or feeling the pain. He was with her, and she made everything better.
She wrapped herself around him, pressing her face into his chest and breathing deeply, the tears that had left tracks on her cheeks now absorbed in his shirt.
Her grip lessened, and her fingers slipped around to trace the musculature of his chest. She sniffed, the corners of her lips trembling, and her fingers tightened in the fabric.
"I missed you," she said, her voice breaking. "So much."
His hands ran down her back, soothing her. One hand pressed against the small of her back, holding her close; the other slipped through her auburn curls. He pressed his lips to her forehead, delighting in the soft skin beneath his lips, in her unique taste. His nose buried in her hair, and he sniffed at it, nearly tasting the smell: the coconut of her soap, the vanilla of her moisturizer, the mint of her shampoo. Her breath was hot against his collarbone, and she nearly collapsed. He was the only one keeping her up; he was the only one keeping her alive.
He didn't even notice when his imagination became a dream and he fell asleep.
She stretched out against the silk sheets, finding a small pleasure in the cool feel of them. Her father hadn't even let them spend a day in the same house. The moment they'd woken, they'd moved on. This new house was luxurious, not like the cottage at all. Her room was draped in silk and satin, and even Christine had gone to bed in a brand-new, gold-embroidered, sheep-skin blanket.
How this was low-key, she had no idea. But she hadn't bothered to argue with her father. Two weeks of being on the run had gotten to her, stolen the energy from her body. She could hardly stay awake these days: she woke in fits to feed Christine and follow her father around, but for the most part, she slept. In a bed, once they got into a house with one. In the car, as they drove across miles and miles of country road. She let all the pain and stress leach out of her bones and allowed herself to sleep, slip away into her dreams.
She still catalogued things, though. She knew the way Max reacted to her. She knew that Max was worried: it was etched in every line of his face. She knew Max needed her to keep fighting, but he didn't understand her. She knew she was being mean – he'd done the exact same thing, to save the people he loved – but she almost didn't care. Almost.
Pressing her cheek to her pillow, she curled up into herself. Did he understand the pain she was going through, being without him? Part of her told her he did, but the stubborn part of her told her he couldn't. It was torturing her, squeezing her chest, cutting off her air supply. She loved Christine, but life without him was nearly unbearable. She could hardly stand the torture.
Closing her eyes, she swallowed dryly. The pain was killing her, breaking her down. Part of her wanted to run to him, ignore her rationality and fall into his arms, his comfort. But the rest of her knew better. She couldn't leave because she wanted a family, not the life of a fugitive. She wanted that all-American dream that she had once scoffed at. She wanted the happiness that had soaked over her every minute of every day. She wanted the comfort of falling asleep to him, waking up to him. She wanted the familiarity of her daughter in her arms while his arms caressed her hair and her shoulders.
She fell asleep with the thoughts in her head and her dreams were filled with him.
By the time Booth ambled into the lab, he felt like he'd drunk a bathtub-full of vodka and whiskey. His head pounded with every step. His muscles ached from the trembling. He'd washed his hands for what felt like hours, but all it had done was clear his wounds, leaving tiny scrapes and cuts that stung every time he breathed. His eyes had cleared slightly with the eye drops but they still threatened to spill tears, and no amount of water had been able to rehydrate his mouth.
Cam raised her eyebrows as he walked in through the door. Angela had filled her in on the situation earlier in the morning, and no one had expected Booth to show up.
"Need anything?" she asked. She stood up, striding towards him. "I have water, some food."
"News," he murmured. "Have any news?"
"Not particularly," she hedged. "We're still working through the new information. We'll get there eventually, though. I swear by the end of the day, we'll have news."
Booth didn't answer, wincing slightly. He felt a tug at the base of his throat; a need to scream. He knew it wasn't Cam's fault, but he wanted to yell at her – and the rest of the lab – to hurry up so that they could find her already. The worry that he'd nursed since last night – that they were no longer alive; that Pelant had caught up to them – had not been reassured by the various explanations he'd come up with: they couldn't be dead because Max would've told him; Pelant wanted him to freak out.
Hodgins strode into the room, looking particularly determined. In one hand he held a file, in the other he held...Booth's clock.
He stopped the moment he saw Cam and Booth, and his hand quickly flew behind his back, hiding the clock. It was too late, though – Booth had seen it, and was staring at the area where his wrist disappeared behind his back.
"Okay, fine," Hodgins said with a nervous laugh, trying to sound defeated. He pulled the clock forward, letting Cam and Booth steal nervous glances at it. "I found it in your closet."
Booth's fingers curled into fists. "You searched my room?"
"We moved as little as we could," Hodgins quickly explained. "But we had to find the clock. You understand, right?"
Booth breathed shallowly, and after a cautious glance at him, Cam nodded at Hodgins. "So what did you find?"
"That's the thing," he said slowly. "I'm not quite sure." He turned the clock over in his hand, inspecting it. "I'm fairly certain it's a camera feed, but that doesn't make sense to me. Why put a camera in your room when he can just hack into your camera's feed?" Hodgins shrugged, poking at the clock. "Angela's still looking over some components. She thinks there might be more to the feed than just a camera. But other than that, this clock is relatively safe. No bomb, no poisonous gas...really, it's just a clock with a built-in camera."
Booth still looked particularly tense, so Cam took matters into her own hands. "What about particulates? Anything we can tie to Pelant? Or..." Cam cleared her throat, throwing a wary look at Booth before continuing. "Or Dr. Brennan?"
Booth's hands clenched again.
"Nope," Hodgins said quickly. "Nothing we can tie to Brennan. But there are a couple of particulates I think may mach the soil in front of Pelant's house. I'm not certain, of course, but...you never know, right?"
Booth strode out of the room, clearly holding onto his control by a mere thread, and Hodgins and Cam exchanged glances.
"Is that really it, Hodgins?"
"I'm telling the absolute truth. There's nothing else I got from this. I mean, it's probably virtually indistinguishable from Booth's original clock. It's on time, it's got alarms set, it's pretty much just, well, a clock."
Cam sat down, rubbing her hands over her face. There was little to nothing for them to do. Angela worked hard on the triangle, but it was practically useless now that they knew that Pelant knew about it. He'd probably managed to hack Angela's system, she mused. And the tape was getting nowhere: there were a couple of blips along the way, but they could be easily something like a fly running into the camera. Nothing that would convince a jury.
The bones were getting them nowhere. The squinterns spent entire days looking over every surface tirelessly, in increasing degrees of detail: this morning, she'd walked in to find Daisy and Wendell looking at bone surfaces through magnifying glasses, as all of the microscopes were currently in use. She'd nearly cried with laughter, and it had been a small relief to her. Next, she knew, they'd upload scans of the skeleton into Angela's system and try to figure it out from there. It was a dangerous thought, especially since they knew they were working with Pelant, but they had nowhere else to go.
Resisting the urge to claw her eyes out, Cam leaned back again. Every particle had been examined. Every inch of the crime scene had been dissected. With Brennan on the run and Pelant free, the case was quickly becoming cold – and if new evidence didn't surface soon, there would be nothing more the lab could do.
Booth sat behind his desk, examining his socks. He'd pulled off his shoes and rested his feet on the edge of the table: completely unprofessional, he knew, but right now he didn't give a damn.
He'd immersed himself so much in paperwork that he'd blown through it, and Hacker had refused to give him anymore. "You're taking work away from the rest of the agents," he argued. "Just go home and relax."
But he couldn't relax. He had to work. His fingers itched to move, to write, to seek for answers.
He hadn't gone back home after leaving Cam and Hodgins at the lab, although he so sorely wanted to. There was no use. The fact that Hodgins and Angela had searched their room – their room – had him on edge, and although part of him wanted to inspect the damage, the rest of him knew he couldn't handle another trip into their room. Not again.
He absentmindedly picked up her file again, flipping through it. This was his own personal version of the file, so he'd pretty much scribbled everything out. He'd denied every little piece of circumstantial evidence they had, and had circled everything that pointed to her innocence.
The last page was covered with writing. He'd been sitting at his desk a couple of days ago, once again out of paperwork, and had begun writing. He hadn't even noticed what he'd written until the phone jerked him out of his reverie, and he had read over his own confessions.
Why did you have to go?
You can trust me. You know you can trust me.
I miss you.
Christine must be so grown up now.
Can she walk? Can she talk?
Does she remember me?
Do you remember me?
Miss you.
And then, over and over again in an endless refrain:
Love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you ...
Sighing, he closed the folder and spun around a couple of times. Every once in a while he let his sight drift to the windows, and watched as agents looked in warily at him. Hacker had stood at his office door for nearly fifteen minutes, which hadn't bothered Booth at all. Let him gloat, he thought bitterly, even though he knew Hacker wasn't gloating. It was nice to take his hate out on someone.
So really, he wasn't half as angry as he thought he'd be when he let his sight drift to the windows again – caressing lovingly over a picture of his family as it went – and locked eyes with the one person he didn't expect to see ever again...and the one person he didn't want to talk to, ever again.
Hannah.
Aha! Shocked? Yeah, probably not. It was worth a try. I've waited a very long time to take out my anger on Hannah.
Well sort of. I actually wrote another story with Hannah - 'Close For Comfort' - but I didn't get to have Booth scream at Hannah half as much as I wanted to.
I swear I'll try to update soon!
