Forgotten Memories, Remembered

By: dharmamonkey
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Someone else owns Bones, but I am interested in renting Booth. A five-hour minimum would apply, six if he's sporting a high-and-tight buzz cut (rawrr!).

Chapter 10: Reunion

Booth never actually saw her eyes that day.

When the shooting finally stopped and the crackle of small-arms fire faded, the eerie quiet of the street was immediately shattered by the sound of crying. The woman had been shielding her son's tiny body with her own, but once the guns fell silent, the boy squirmed from beneath her arms and hunched shoulders, whimpering as he struggled to free himself from her suffocating embrace.

Her face was twisted in agony as she clawed her fingers in the sand, releasing the boy as she reached back for her leg. Her hand touched her bleeding thigh for only a second before the boy crawled to her, leaning over her prone form and wrapping his small arms around her waist.

The medics—Hackett and Swann—slung their rifles behind their backs and ran to her, dropping to their knees in the loose, billowing dust as they ripped open the Velcro flaps on their medical kits. Swann gently peeled the boy off his mother and pushed him away so they could access her wounds. Booth quickly scooped the boy into his arms and began speaking to him in a low, soothing voice.

"Your momma's gonna be okay," he'd told the crying boy, knowing that the Pashtun child had no idea what he was saying but hoping that the deep murmur of his voice alone would offer some comfort. "Everything's gonna be okay, buddy. We're gonna get your momma all fixed up." He stroked his gloved hand over the boy's soft, tousled hair, frowning when he felt the the woman's blood as a tacky smear on the pad of his bare trigger finger. "Shhhh," he whispered. "Shhhh. It's gonna be okay."

He looked over and saw Swann pulling the woman's dress up to expose her bloodied calf and thigh. Booth knew how excruciating her pain was by the fact that she didn't protest having her body publicly exposed to the eyes and hands of two male strangers, something that under normal circumstances would have been a source of deep shame. She let the American soldiers touch her ankle, the back of her knee and the inside of her thigh, exposing her most intimate places to their view as they applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, but not once did she flinch.

Five weeks went by before Booth saw them again. That afternoon, the woman and the boy were doing exactly the same thing they had been doing the day she was shot—fetching water at the canal. August had given way to September and the days were beginning to shorten, and the sun cast long shadows on the street as the pair shuffled their sandaled feet across the pale, dusty road.

Her face had been partly obscured by the black hijāb that covered her hair and neck. Like all of the women in Helmand Province, she covered herself for modesty, but unlike those who wore the face-covering niqāb or the complete cover of the burqa, her headscarf left most of her face open to view as Booth passed by with the rest of the patrol.

He'd just rounded the corner, emerging from a shadowed alleyway and onto the main road when he saw her. Her long green dress was dotted with tiny red rosettes and hung loosely from her shoulders, revealing her to be a slightly-built woman with slender wrists and small, rounded shoulders. When he first saw her, his attention was drawn less to her and more to the unnerving fact that her head was turned and her gaze focused intently on something behind her.

Truth be told, had she been standing there by herself, Booth might not have recognized her. His eyes and mind were focused on the shadows in the alleys between the building blocks and on the spaces between the reeds lining the canal that the insurgents favored for ambushes. Like windows, rooftops, piles of trash and baskets in front of houses, any space Booth couldn't see into was a potential hiding place for death.

Although ten years with the FBI had proved again and again that the eyes were the window to the soul, when he was out on foot patrol with his men, he seldom looked into the eyes of the people they passed along the way. Most days, he was too busy surveying his surroundings for hints of recently-laid IEDs or sniper lookouts to make eye contact with local passers-by. He'd watched too many men shot and torn apart by hidden explosives to be anything but completely vigilant when he took his men "outside of the wire."

Something in that particular moment, however, tugged at his sixth sense and made the hair on the back of Booth's neck stand up. His firm, booted footsteps slowed and his heart begin to race as his eyes swiveled to follow her gaze.

Conditioned to a twitchy wariness after nearly six months in-country, Booth instinctively tightened his fingers around the pistol grip of his Mark 12, holding his index finger flush against the action above the trigger assembly as he slowly raised the rifle. He scanned the street behind her, his ungloved finger ready to slide over the trigger to neutralize whatever threat his keen eyes found lurking behind her.

That's when Booth saw him.

Every one of his muscles crackled with the energy of awareness as his gaze swept along the street and settled on the figure of a four year-old boy with a soft, toothy smile and familiar hazel eyes. The boy's skipping gait suddenly stopped as the child froze and stared at the tall, broad-shouldered American soldier standing by the side of the road. Booth's breath caught in his throat as he and the boy simply looked at one another for several long seconds.

The two Afghan troops who were walking point on the patrol heard the boots behind them fall silent and they, too, ceased their advance and turned around.

"Adeh," the boy said as he tore his gaze away from Booth and ran towards his mother. The boy mumbled something else to her that would have been near-impossible for Booth to decipher anyway given his limited Pashto vocabulary but which was completely unintelligible in the boy's small, clipped, half-swallowed voice. The only word Booth could pick out was the one the boy repeated almost as a mantra as he looked to her with arched, pleading brows. "Adeh, Adeh..." The boy's soft, small voice tugged at something in the pit of Booth's belly as he approached. "Adeh!"

Momma.

The woman set the red plastic water jug on the ground and extended her arm, summoning the boy to her side with a wave of her hand as she finally turned to face the soldiers.

That's when Booth saw her eyes.

The pale gray-green hue of the Pashtun woman's sharp, piercing gaze took his breath away. Their shimmering color—almost exactly the same as his partner's—struck him as both hauntingly familiar and puzzlingly alien while he stared at her for a long gut-swirling moment that made his knees wobble a little as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He swallowed hard and looked away as he tried to regain his bearings, and as his eyes swept groundward, he saw her hug the boy against her hip with one hand as she leaned onto a gnarled, hand-carved cane gripped tightly with her other hand.

Booth looked at the doe-eyed boy who acknowledged him with a soft, demure smile that lasted only fractions of a second before he turned away and nuzzled into his mother's skirts. Glancing up at the young woman, he raised his brows and silently asked permission to approach.

The woman's pale eyes narrowed as she hesitated, then looked down at her son as the little boy fisted her skirt and gave it a demanding tug. She cupped his head with her hand and smoothed his ruffled hair with her long, slender fingers as she and Booth exchanged vague smiles.

Booth grabbed the nylon sling that held his rifle snug against his chest and yanked it around so the rifle hung across his back, muzzle down, then pulled off his gloves and squatted in front of the boy. The two Afghan soldiers that had been leading the patrol stood a few feet behind the boy and his mother, watching intently as Booth pulled off his red-mirrored Oakleys and tucked them into one of the webbing straps on his armored vest.

"Hey," he said to the boy, his voice low and soft as the boy slowly peeked from behind a fold of his mother's skirt. Booth couldn't help but smile at the boy, relieved to see a faint grin on the child's lips even as the memory of the boy's terrified cries echoed clearly in his mind. Pointing to the name tape sewn onto the right side of his body armor, he smiled warmly and said, "Booth. My name is Booth." The boy's dark brown eyebrows scrunched over his hazel eyes as Booth gently pointed at the boy's chest. "Zamah num Booth dai. What is your name?" he asked. "Stahso num tseh dai?"

The boy blushed and gripped his mother's skirt more tightly in his tiny fist as he looked up at her. She closed her eyes and nodded approvingly, gently patting him on the head as she pursed her lips and studied Booth for a moment.

The boy watched the silent exchange between his mother and the big, dark-eyed American soldier but still hesitated, pulling her skirt over his mouth and nose. Booth chuckled and remembered how his own son had a shy phase around the same age. After an encouraging nudge from his adeh, the boy's long, dark lashes fluttered and he loosened his grip on her skirt. "Zamah num Hamid dai," he said, averting his gaze as he spoke.

"Khushala shwum pah li do di," Booth replied. "Nice to meet you, Hamid."

Hamid nodded, his dirty cheeks flushing as he fussed with his kamiz, a traditional Afghan tunic that hung down to his knees. He kneaded the homespun wool fabric between his fingers as he kicked nervously at the dirt with the toe of his sandal.

The boy's chubby, rosy cheeks and silky, wavy hair reminded Booth of Parker, which made him feel a warm, chest-filling affection for the young Pashtun.

"Hey Hamid," he said, tucking his gloves under his arm and peeling open the Velcro flap of his thigh pocket. The boy's soft hazel widened at hearing his name. Booth looked up at one of the Afghan soldiers standing a couple of feet behind Hamid and his mother. "Tell him I have a son of my own," he told the soldier, who blinked in surprise but quickly translated. Hamid ceased his fidgeting and brought his gaze up to meet Booth's.

"Do you like soccer?" Booth asked the boy, giving the ANA trooper a moment to translate. Hamid's eyes brightened and he nodded, drawing a smile from Booth, who knew better than to expect a spoken reply. "My son, Parker, loves soccer," he continued. "He plays on a team at home where we live."

Booth dug into his pocket, rummaging around a bit before he pulled his hand out and looked into the boy's chestnut-colored eyes.

"This is his favorite soccer player," he told Hamid, holding up a trading card with a photograph on one side and scoring statistics on the other. The Afghan soldier quickly translated. "Jaime Moreno." Booth passed the card to the boy, who accepted it with both hands as a wide smile spread across his face. "Maybe I can watch you play soccer sometime," he said, reaching up and gently patting the side of the boy's arm.

Hamid held the card like it was a treasure and beamed. His mother ruffled his hair and said something to him in their tongue, nudging his shoulder. The boy looked up at her with his brows raised in what Booth instantly recognized as the universal expression that begged, "Do I have to, Mom?" Her eyes narrowed sternly as she nodded.

"Manana," Hamid murmured, his dirt-streaked cheeks blushing as he thanked the burly American who crouched before him at eye-level.

"Har kala rasha, Hamid," Booth replied, grinning at the boy's mother as he grunted quietly and stood up to his full height.

"You have a great boy, ma'am," he told her, nodding at the ANA trooper to ensure his compliment was translated for her.

She acknowledged him with a polite nod, tapping her son on the shoulder to get his attention, then patted his arm, prodding him to begin walking so she could shepherd him back to their home. She leaned over to pick up the heavy plastic can of water, then hesitated for a moment as her eyes met those of the pale-eyed, freckle-cheeked young soldier standing behind Booth.

"Tashakor," she said to Swann, the glimmer in her gray-green eyes leaving the young Iowan with little doubt that she would never forget him or his comrade who saved her life not a quarter mile from where she stood.

"Har kala rasha," the young medic replied with a smile, bringing his hand up to the brim of his Kevlar helmet as if he could tip it like a cap. "You're welcome, ma'am."

Hamid's mother looked at Booth and Swann as she considered whether to say more, and was about to speak when her son's excited voice called to her from halfway down the block.

"Adeh!" he yelled to her. "Djar sah!"

Booth couldn't help but laugh at hearing the boy holler one of the phrases he heard most often from the ANAs, recalling the unrelenting impatience of his own son when he was Hamid's age. "Hurry up, Daddy!" he remembered Parker telling him one afternoon when they were at the National Zoo as Booth lingered too long in front of the lions. He took a deep breath and blinked away the memory as he pulled his tactical gloves back on and slid his rifle back around to rest snugly against his chest again.

"Adeh!" the boy bellowed. The young woman smiled at the soldiers one last time and shrugged, then turned away and began to make her way down the block as quickly as she could, leaning into her cane with each labored step.

Booth reached into his thigh pocket as he watched her slowly walk away, checking to make sure his son's last letter was secure before patting the Velcro flap closed. He wondered what Parker would think when he told him what became of the Jaime Moreno trading card he sent with his letter to signify his birthday gift to his father—a promise that the two would go to see DC United play at RFK Stadium when Booth got back from Afghanistan in the spring.

Someday, Booth thought with a quiet sigh as he watched Hamid and his mother disappear down a side street. Someday he would tell his son about what happened to him here, and the people he met in this place. Someday, I'll help you understand.

A/N: This chapter wasn't the one I originally intended to be Chapter 10, but I woke up the other day and my muse was babbling noisily and flooding my brain with images of Booth running into the woman and her child, weeks after the firefight that wounded her. Slave as I am to my muse, I quickly gave in and wrote this chapter, from start to finish, in a single day. It's a little different in feel/tone from most of the other FMR vignettes, but I hope you liked it anyway. Please, don't keep me guessing. Drop me a little note to let me know what you thought of this. Consider leaving a review.

Editorial note: Once again, thanks to the one and only FauxMaven for taking the time and trouble to beta this chapter for me. Also, the image I woke up with in my mind's eye as I began to write this chapter is a very famous one. Do a Google search for "Afghan Girl 1984" and you'll pull up an amazing photograph of a twelve year-old Afghan girl, Sharbat Gula, who was photographed in 1984 at a refugee camp in Pakistan. Gula had fled Afghanistan with her siblings and her grandmother after both of her parents were killed when the Soviets attacked their village with helicopter gunships. National Geographic, which published the photo, tracked her down in 2002 and did a feature on her life, which is worth the read.

Thanks for reading!