Disclaimer: Do I really have to do these? The story's mine, the characters aren't…blah, blah, blah…

Hi, it's me, I'm back. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, and enjoy the following roller coaster. This chapter is my absolute favorite. I hope you guys like it too. -JF

Chapter 9 – The Universe as We Knew It

Eighteen months ago, Calcutta, India

Brennan sat on the edge of the uncomfortable cot, her forehead slightly crinkled, trying to come up with a logical reason this could have possibly happened. Booth, still half delirious, called Dr. Marie Kantar an angel, but Brennan (being Brennan) was not about to be so blindly grateful. She had to be sure they were going to stay safe. She knew that's what Booth would do if he could think straight.

Dr. Kantar, sitting across the small hotel room from Brennan's cot, didn't look at the two souls she just saved. Brennan's forehead creased even further, adding this to her list of things to think over and worry about and calculate. Booth made a few pained sounds that caught her attention, and suddenly Dr. Kantar didn't matter anymore. Brennan's universe shifted back to its center.

"Booth?" she asked in a whisper, raking her still clammy fingers over his feverish face. "Booth, are you alright?"

"Where are we, Bones? Are we okay?" he whispered with closed eyes.

"I don't know. I think so. Maybe," Brennan answered, the tension in her body obvious in her whisper.

"'Sokay, Bones," Booth sighed, serious. "I'll protect you. I always do."

"You always do," she agreed.

XXXXX

Marie Kantar stepped outside the tiny hotel room, mumbling some excuse she knew neither Booth nor Brennan could hear. Once outside, she leaned her head against the wall, exhaled like she hadn't breathed in days, and slowly sank to the floor. She couldn't believe she had accomplished what she had set out to do. Surely it should have been far more dangerous than it had turned out to be. Tears welled in Dr. Kantar's eyes. There had to be a catch. There had to be.

"Dr. Kantar?" a male voice from further down the hallway called. Marie looked up to see her accomplice standing at the end of the hallway, motioning her with a dark hand to come outside with him. She obeyed.

"Dr. Kantar, I owe you my life, you know that," the Indian man began once they were outside. "But you must understand that that is exactly what will be taken from me if I go back and they find the Americans gone without some kind of explanation."

"You're going back?" Kantar asked, surprised. She thought this man—Shivi, he told her his name was—helped her because he wanted a permanent out from the gang that had caused him so much grief and so much pain.

"I must go back, Doctor. They are the only family I have."

"You don't need them."

"I know, Doctor. But when they aren't torturing Americans or…me…" he looked sheepishly at Kantar, and she knew the story there. It was the reason he owed her his life. "When they aren't doing things like that, they really are not so bad."

"You'll always go back to them, won't you, Shivi?"

"Yes, ma'am, I think I will."

"Okay," Kantar sighed. "Then we need a plan."

XXXXX

"Booth?" Brennan asked gently. His eyes were closed and his breathing even, but she knew he didn't sleep. "Booth, how are you feeling?"

"Perfect," he breathed, his eyes still closed. "Absolutely perfect."

"Dr. Kantar needs to talk to us. I wanted to make sure you were lucid before I let her talk."

"So nice of you to consider my feelings, Bones," Booth sighed with a smile. "I'm listening. Lucidly listening…"

"Lucidity isn't an emotion, Booth, it's a sate of being," Brennan corrected him with a gentle touch to his shoulder. He reached up and grabbed her hand were it rested and gave it a squeeze, smiling again.

"It's good to hear you be your annoying self, Bones. I love your annoying self." Even in their situation, his choice of words made her heart turn upside-down. Brennan winced. It hurt so good.

Dr. Kantar, unseen, cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Brennan, but we don't have much time."

"No, it's fine. Sorry."

Clearing her throat again, Dr. Kantar sat beside the pair, settling in for what was about to be quite the conversation.

"I know the two of you must have a lot of questions. I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability, but please know that I don't know everything," Kantar began. She sighed. "Okay. This is not my first time in Calcutta. The last time I was here, I was working a site, and on my way back to the home of the family I was staying with, I drove past a building that odd noises were coming out of. It seemed like something out of a horror movie, really." She shook her head. "I heard a man screaming. I've never heard anything so horrible. But, instead of running like hell like I should have, I stopped my jeep and went to…I don't know what I actually expected to accomplish. But right before I got to the door, the people inside the building opened the warehouse door and threw a body out onto the street. Like whoever it was was simply garbage. They closed the door laughing, and I ran to the body they had dumped, not sure what I could do. I have a PhD, not an MD, so I knew less than I would have liked at that moment. But luckily, his injuries were minor compared to what I had feared. Just a lot of cuts. I helped him into my jeep, took him to the house, and made sure he was alright. It turns out the men who were hurting him were trying to scare him, because he owed them money. He didn't have any. So I gave him what he said he needed, which was quite a bit, and he basically just ran once I gave him the money. I felt rather foolish, thinking I had fallen for something quite amateur. But he came back the next day, thanking me for helping him, and he told me in all sincerity that I had saved his life."

Kantar paused, making sure her audience was still with her.

"His name was Shivi, and he's the one who helped me rescue the two of you. I called in my favor to him."

There was a long moment of silence.

"So…that's it?" Booth asked. "You used your 'in' with the people who were holding us prisoner and we just waltzed out of there and now we can go home?"

"Not in the slightest," Dr. Kantar said, upset that Booth's story wasn't the case. At all.

"There's always a catch," Booth nodded.

"Quite a large one, I'm afraid. You see, my friend Shivi will not be punished for killing you, but he will be killed if his few superiors find out in the morning that the two of you are gone and he has no answer for them. And I don't want Shivi to die."

"So, what are you saying?" Brennan asked, worried.

Dr. Kantar closed her eyes. "He has to kill you. He's trusted among them, and has more people under his command than superiors. They won't question his actions as long as it includes your death."

"How is this going to work?" Booth asked the obvious.

"They'll leave the bodies there until they move again, which they do every couple of weeks. Then I'll volunteer to head up the investigation of the two murder victims found in an abandoned building, because burn victims are an area of expertise for me. I'm sure they'll let me, especially since the two of you will have been missing for weeks."

"Burn victims?" Brennan asked.

"Don't worry, Dr. Brennan. It only has to be convincing to a few stupid gangbangers with a couple flashlights. I'll be faking the entire investigation."

Still unsure, and still absorbing everything, Brennan was silent as she thought very, very hard.

"If you're going to do this, shouldn't we be hurrying to go back before the sun rises and fabricate our murders?" Booth asked.

"It's being done as we speak. I've taken care of everything."

"Where are you getting the bodies?" Booth shot Kantar a worried look.

Kantar let out a deep breath. "Desperate times, Agent Booth. Would you rather go back and die, or let someone who is already dead do that for you?" She didn't look like she expected an answer.

"Why are you doing this?" Brennan questioned, concentrating on a distant wall.

Dr. Kantar looked down. "Because I had a way to help. I couldn't let you die, knowing that."

"We don't even know you," Brennan nearly accused, being her tactless self.

Dr. Kantar stood up. "I understand. You don't need to trust me. But I'm not going to kill you, and that's more than I can say for your previous captors." And with that, she left the room.

Brennan turned to her companion. "Was I mean?"

Booth patted her hand again. "It's okay. You were right." Booth yawned, resting his head in her lap. "Sort of."

Brennan laid back and let her logical side take over. It was so nice to just sit and be logical, like she used to every day, standing on the platform, staring at bones and solving murders of years past. Brennan breathed deeply, running her fingers through Booth's hair, logically processing the information she had just received.

They were safe, she concluded.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Brennan felt at peace.

The present, Jeffersonian Institute

"Dr. Hodgins, you have every right to hate me," Dr. Marie Allison Kantar Blanche said slowly, feeling cornered. "I lied to you."

"Damn right you did," Hodgins agreed, still starting at her in amazement.

"I would tell you that I could explain, but I'm sworn to secre—"

Hodgins suddenly fiercely leaped towards her, pinning her against the wall behind her. "WHO ARE YOU?" he screamed in her face.

"Marie Blanche," she answered, frightened by his intensity.

"What are you doing here?!" he asked, shaking her.

"Filing the position left empty by Dr. Temperance Brennan's death."

"Why?" Hodgins' face was a flaming red, and his eyes burned with anger. "WHY?" he yelled when she didn't answer.

The others, who had been out on the platform, heard the commotion and rushed in. Finding Hodgins screaming at the helpless woman pinned against the wall, Angela and Zack moved in to pull him away.

"Jack!" Angela shouted in surprise and disbelief. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"She's hiding something!"

"Everyone is hiding something, Dr. Hodgins," Cam said.

"Something about Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth, Cam!" Hodgins let go of Marie Blanche, turning on his co-workers and friends, desperate to explain. "It's her! It's Marie Kantar, the one who worked their case in Calcutta. Why else would she be here? She has and agenda! She's hiding something! Can't you see? Can't you see anything?!" Hodgins, exasperated, turned on Marie Blanche again, hand raised, ready to beat the answers out of her. "WHY ARE YOU HERE?"

"They're alive."

The room was silent.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five seconds of dead silence.

Six

Seven

Eight seconds of nothingness.

The universe turned inside-out.

It could have been eternity, for all they cared.

Then

"Agent Seeley Booth and Doctor Temperance Brennan are alive," Marie Blanche repeated slowly. "I faked their deaths myself."

The present, Calcutta, India

The gunshots had stopped, the screaming had ceased, and the search for the Americans had ended just as soon as it had begun.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight seconds passed in silence as Booth and Brennan struggled to gather their thoughts.

"What now?" Brennan asked Booth in a whisper, though she already knew the answer.

"Nothing," Booth said sadly. "This doesn't change a single thing."

Hearing her suspicions confirmed, Brennan had expected to be heartbroken that she could still never return home, possibly now more than ever before. She knew she should have wanted to go back to Washington, DC. But she simply couldn't help the feeling of relief when she realized nothing was going to change any time soon. The life she and Booth had created together wasn't about to disappear. And that made her…happy?

"Booth?" she said timidly, second guessing whether she should tell him her recent discovery.

"Mm?"

"I don't think I want to go home."

Booth just stared at her. "Angela? Russ? The lab? You don't want any of it?"

Brennan couldn't meet his burning gaze. "I don't know anymore. I like the life I have here."

He grabbed her arms and made her look at him. "Bones. I pulled a knife out of your leg last night. Remember that? The excruciating pain? The random people who want to hurt you because you're beautiful and they think you have money? Do you recall any of that? Is that the kind of life you want to live?" He was yelling now. It was scary. Brennan fought back.

"Weren't you the one who said we just have to go with what we've got? That we rely on each other, and that's all? Well that's what I'm doing!"

"Yes, we're dealing, and we're staying together, but always trying to find a way out! A way to a better life! Not to be content with being Weston Moore and Tamara Werner!"

"Tazara," Brennan angrily corrected him.

"Whatever," he snapped. "It doesn't matter. It's not who you are."

"Then who am I, Booth?" Brennan yelled. "Because obviously I'm not Temperance Brennan anymore. I'm not 'Bones'—I haven't looked at human remains in a year and a half. Who am I, Booth? Please, enlighten me, because I have no idea."

"Yes you are! You are Bones. You're my bones," his voice caught in his throat for a moment, but then he went on. "You're the core of my being, my strength. You're the very center of me that makes me who I am, that defines everything about me. You are my bones."

"Stop, Booth," Brennan whispered. This was not what she had been looking for. But he didn't listen.

"You are the center of my universe. You are the driving force that keeps me alive. The thought of you and keeping you safe is why I get up in this hell-hole of a city every morning. You are the reason I think, 24-7, of ways to get us out of here. You are at the center of everything I do. You are the reason I breathe, Temperance Brennan."

She couldn't think, talk, move. He continued.

"So you will not give up on me, my Bones, my breath, my heart." He stepped closer to her and touched his hand to her cheek. Her crystal eyes were wide with fear, confusion, and intensity, but Booth looked into them fearlessly. "My soul, my universe, my life…" he brought his other hand up to hold her face. Brennan knew what was coming and for the world wanted it just as much as her partner plainly showed on his face.

But Brennan's pulse pounded and her vision blurred. Her skin was suddenly cold and she couldn't breathe…and it wasn't a reaction to Booth's terrifying words.

"I can't breathe," she gasped.

"Oh my god, you're burning!" he said, hands still on her face.

The world began to fall away. She couldn't see his face anymore. The blindness was horrifying. All she could hear was her rapid pulse pounding in her ears, each its own gunshot. She felt his arms around her as her body gave up on her like she had tried to give up on him. His arms around her were the only thing that grounded her. She clung to him, freezing, burning, gasping, blind, and deaf to his pleading cries.

Was this death?

She hadn't even told him she loved him.

How unjust this universe had been.