Author's Note: This chapter contains some scenes/lines that were taken directly from 6x22. This was meant as a direct parallel for the sake of the story, not an infringement. Also, I want to put another big thanks out there to all those wonderful reviewers! It's so exciting to check my e-mail after posting a chapter and find my inbox stocked with fresh review alerts. Really gets my creative juices flowing Anyway, here's Chapter 11….
P.S. Oh yeah, and I wrote this at 4:30 in the morning during a bout of insomnia, so hopefully it's still reflective of my best work ;)
Chapter 11: The Signs in the Silence
When Booth arrived at his office the following morning he had a renewed sense of purpose in his stride, a definite pep in his gait that turned heads as he power-walked the ivory halls toward his own private workspace, his colleagues no doubt wondering what case he could possibly be working on that could be so important. His dream the night before, as well as the letter that was still folded neatly atop his bed next to his pillow – where he'd left it after falling asleep – had instilled in him a new kind of energy, a new philosophy to live by. Actually it was an old philosophy, just one that particular memory happened to remind him of: Don't give up. That was who he was, who he had once been. He wasn't a quitter, especially not when someone he cared about still had to be avenged. In all his life, he'd never once given up until the job was done. It was his duty not to. His duty to his job, to his country, to himself, and to Bones. None of this did anything to take the pain away. Not in the slightest, but it helped him find the momentum to move forward, gave him something to focus his aspirations on.
He was just rounding the final corner toward his office when Assistant Director Hacker intercepted him. "Whoa, Agent Booth," he chuckled, sucking back a bit when he nearly collided with his employee. Booth stopped in his tracks. "Where's the fire?" When Booth failed to provide a coherent answer, Hacker went on. "I didn't expect to see you back at work for at least a few more days." He tilted his dark head suddenly, appraising Booth as a father might appraise a child with a scraped knee. "How're you doin'?" He sighed soberly. "You doin' okay?"
Booth held up a fistful of case files, pasting levity on his features as he did so. "I'm doin' just fine, sir," he replied readily, giving his boss no time to detect even a hint of heartache. "Just looking to get some traction on the Brodsky case. This guy is mine, come hell or high water." He tried to make it sound like casual cockiness as he said it, though of course Hacker had no idea about the very real boil of blood he felt in his veins as he did so. He moved to shoulder past the Assistant Director but Hacker took a step back and one to one side so he was blockading Booth's path once more.
"Okay," he conceded hastily, jumping tracks. He jerked a thumb in the direction of Booth's office. "I just thought I should let you know before you get in there that there's a woman waiting for you in your office."
Booth's new-found vivacity floundered momentarily, derailed, and he tried not to let it show on his face as he felt an iron fist tighten suddenly around his stomach. It was a sensation not unlike that of being socked in the gut. "Perfect," he muttered sardonically to himself, rearranging his features only when he caught sight of the inquisitive look on Hacker's. "I'll take care of it right away, sir," he promised in a much more cavalier tone. "Thanks for letting me know." The last thing he felt up to doing at the moment was divulging the rather disturbing details of the night before to his superior.
"I'd hustle if I were you," Hacker called after him as Booth sidestepped him and continued on toward his office. "She's been there a while and she doesn't look too good…."
Booth didn't hear the last part of his boss' warning as he headed for his door. Given that it was made of glass and in full few of the rest of the complex, he was able to see his gentlewoman-caller even before he was over the threshold, and it wasn't who he'd been expecting. Breaking stride for the second time in the last minute-and-a-half, he drew to a halt just yards short of his office door, gazing through the glass with an unexpected grimace of concern. Pacing the length of his office, chin bowed to her chest, features twitchy and hands tucked tightly under her arms, Booth discerned the statuesque, dark-haired figure of Angela. She was wearing a knee-length trench coat, as though body warmth was hard to come by in the eighty-degree weather outside, and her black eyes were shining and restless as they darted about the small room around her, the voluptuous mouth underneath trembling ever so slightly. She was blinking a lot, as though working to stem a flow of waterworks that wasn't welcome at the moment. When she saw him, her tightly-wound features unravelled into a too-bright smile and she emancipated one of her hands to fire a brief wave, though her elbow remained tucked firmly against her side.
Booth moved forward into the office, avoiding her gaze, his step more guarded than it had been a moment ago. "Hey," he greeted a bit bracingly, closing the door behind him so their conversation – whatever it was to be – would remain private.
"Hi," the return came out on a rush of air as Angela closed the distance between them with an eagerness that almost startled Booth. Wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, she embraced him out of nothing more or less, Booth discerned, than personal necessity, disarming him as she held onto him for a long moment as though he were a lifeline. While she hugged him she expelled a tight, pained breath that sounded as though she'd been holding it for a long time while she was waiting for him, his arrival relieving her of the pressure.
Booth's voice softened as he hugged her back. "Whoa, hey, okay…it's okay." He traced the length of her shoulder blade soothingly with one palm for a moment before he pulled back, holding her at arm's length by the biceps so he could look her in the face. "Is everything alright?"
Already Angela was shaking her head, her temples jerking from side to side in a rapid, quippy motion that might merely have been a vibration of the nerves. "N-not-n-no, not so much," she stammered at once, drawing in a deep, tremulous breath. It was obviously taking all her energy just to keep her cool, and Booth couldn't deny she wasn't doing a very good job of it.
Steeling himself, he removed his hands from her arms and buried them in his pockets, forcing himself to hold her gaze. "What's wrong?" He asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew, and he was doubly certain he didn't want to hear about it.
Angela exhaled loud and fast, the walls coming down. "I'm a mess, Booth," she confessed, her voice climbing higher as a knot tightened in her throat, dark eyes narrowing as tears sprang into them. For the first time Booth noticed the dark circles underscoring her bottom lashes, the agedness in her normally youthful and vibrant face. All at once he was able to read suffering where spirit had once been, and he felt another part inside of him break for her. Again, he tried not to let himself think about the night before, remembering him saying exactly the same thing to Hannah. He waited patiently instead for her to go on. "I haven't been able to think about anything besides Brennan for three days. I cry at the drop of a hat. I can't eat, I can't paint…I can't even take care of my own son," she admitted this as though it were the most incriminating of sins, bowing her head and dropping her gaze to the floor as she forced herself to plough on, her voice getting less stable by the minute. "Hodgins is at home with him now – he took the day off work. I'm trying," she blinked hard and looked at the ceiling, "so hard to remember the good times, you know? What her laugh sounded like and her lame attempts at telling jokes…but every time I try, every time I close my eyes all I can see is her lying there…" Angela's voice broke and she shook her head, fighting back more flash images that were threatening to tear her apart.
Booth let himself default to that hardened stoicism that had helped him get down to business so much over the last few days, denying himself any and all distractions, banishing them to the regions of his subconscious. "Why are you coming to me about this, Angela?" He wanted to know, considering all the people she could have connected with on a much more personal level; her husband, for instance, or Cam.
Angela's face rose and she levelled him with a watery, unsettled shunt of a gaze. "Because I thought you of all people would understand," she answered after a long moment, her choked voice barely above a whisper, and heartrendingly expectant. Her eyes tightened as she looked at him, as though they were searching for a part of his soul he was keeping carefully hidden, locked behind closed doors and under a rock where it would be safe from any more damage. "We were so close. I always thought that if something happened to one of us (God forbid) the other would be able to feel their presence with them as they carried on, like a loving, comforting energy following them around as they worked through the grief, something to let their best friend know that they were okay…." Angela paused and shook her head again slowly. "But I don't feel anything, Booth." Tears streamed over her beautifully-defined cheekbones as she said this, admitted it, more like, as though it were somehow her fault. "Not a warmth or a whisper or a signal…nothing. It's just…coldness and pain. Do you feel anything?" Her mocha eyes drilled into Booth suddenly with a desperation that almost made him fess up, but he merely stared back at her evenly for a lengthy minute, holding his poker face. When he'd finally decided on what he was going to say, he squared her with a sympathetic but otherwise unfeeling gaze, forcing himself to look directly into her tear-filled, almond-shaped eyes.
"Look, Angela, maybe you just need to talk to someone," he diffused the question tactfully, reluctant to divulge the truth at this moment. The truth was he knew exactly how she felt, but this fact was far too hard for him to even think about right now, let alone talk about.
Angela drew back a bit, stung. "I am talking to someone," she contested meekly, giving Booth a brief once-over as though she didn't even know him.
"No," Booth modified. "Someone professional. Someone who can help." Turning back around, Booth retraced his steps to the door and leaned his head out into the hallway. "Sweets!" He boomed down the corridor, his voice echoing in the bureaucratic halls. He waited half a beat. No movement from the shrink's office. "Sweets!"
Behind him, Angela started to protest, her composure hardening a bit with the indignation. "No, Booth, I don't need –"
"What, in Heaven's name is going through that cute li'l noggin of yours, cheri?" The ample form Caroline Julian materialized in the doorway instead of Sweets, causing Booth to start and jump back a pace. She pinned him with a reproachful look that would have shamed a bounty hunter. "You wanna tell me what it is you think you're doin' here? Hollerin' through the halls like it's your own personal ump field?"
Booth blinked once, working to regather himself before he answered. "I was looking for Sweets," he informed her evenly, even employing a bit of a tone as he did so. "Do you have any idea where he is?"
At this Caroline suddenly looked affronted, as though it were dense of him even to bother asking. "Dr. Sweets," she illuminated, belting the shrink's name as though it should have been obvious, "took a leave of absence, and you should too! Waltzing into work like nothing's happened! Cheri, you gotta be destroyed inside!"
It occurred to Booth that Sweets' absence might explain the lack of insight they'd had on Brodsky's next plausible move since Brennan's death.
"I'm fine, Caroline." The words snapped forth from Booth's lips with a steady resolve that silenced her immediately, though her expression was far from convinced. "I've got a job to do. There's a killer wandering the streets out there and he has to be caught." Booth was vaguely aware of the fact that he was beginning to sound like a broken record. His next words came out slow, deliberate. "I have to take him down."
Caroline bristled. "You do what you gotta do, Booth," she assented after a moment. "Just make sure you're takin' care of yourself in the process and mind we don't end up with two funerals on our hands instead of one, capiche?" She started to turn away, waving a flippant hand over her shoulder as she went. "That would be damn expensive. I'll be back to check on you later."
"Fine!" Booth called after her somewhat begrudgingly as he closed the door again, deciding acquiescence was always an easier route than trying to argue with a Federal Prosecutor, not that that meant he had to sound happy about it. Turning back to Angela, he heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed a hand down the length of his face, already exhausted. "Angela," he began wearily, too spent to try to sound apologetic, "I've got a lot of work to do; do you think we could discuss this later?"
She looked at him, eyes rounding woundedly, but nodded. "Sure," she answered in a thin voice that was almost inaudible, genuinely understanding even though he hadn't been. She started toward the door, then stopped and turned, drawing in a breath of preparation and holding it for a moment as though gauging the acceptability of what she had to say next before she said it. "It's just…this whole Brodsky thing…it's sort of…put me on edge. I'm feeling very weird, like I want to do something, like Brennan's death changed me somehow and it's…kind of scary…."
"Agent Booth!" Assistant Director Hacker reappeared in the doorway where Caroline had been standing mere moments before, moving so fast Booth hadn't even seen him approach before he pushed open the glass door and leaned his head in just far enough for a message. Booth whirled around to look at him. Was he ever going to get any peace around here? "We've got a hit on Brodsky."
All at once every thought that had been cycloning around in Booth's head moments before was wiped clean, like they were the fancy dinnerware atop the dining room table and Brodsky's case was the tablecloth that had been ripped out from underneath them, shattering their very foundation. He tossed the armful of case files onto his desk and moved closer to Hacker, eagerness radiating from his features as he turned his back on Angela, almost completely forgetting her presence. "Where?" Was the only thing he wanted to know. He could feel his pulse accelerating in his chest, a keyed-up quiver starting deep within the core of his bones. This was what he had been waiting for. Finally the green light.
"Port of Wilmington," Hacker replied readily, speaking in hasty, clipped tones in an effort to convey the message as quickly as possible. "Apparently he works on a produce ship there, the Persephone."
Booth was moving before the last word had even finished discharging from Hacker's lips. Feeling as though his insides had been wound so tightly as to be spring-loaded, he turned and bolted for the storage cupboard in his own office, wrenching open the door with unwarranted force and extracting a fifty-inch-long black firearms case. Unzipping it lengthwise with nimbly flying fingers, Booth unveiled the gun and did a quick double-check of the ammunition, testing the bolt action in a motion so fast it might have gone unnoticed to someone with an untrained eye. Angela watched from the corner, wide-eyed and barely breathing, feeling her heart begin to crawl up into her throat as Booth readied what she could only assume was his sniper rifle.
"Who called it in?" Booth queried hurriedly as he tucked the rifle back into its case and zipped it up, satisfied.
Hacker shrugged. "No idea," he replied unhelpfully as Booth shouldered the weapon and made for the door. "Report was anonymous. Which also means," he added in a suddenly ardent tone, pivoting on one heel to follow Booth into the hallway, "this could just as easily be a set-up." There was a rather elementary warning underscoring Hacker's words that made Booth scoff.
"I've served in the 101st Airborne Division, the 75th Ranger Regiment and the U.S. Army Special Forces," he reminded Hacker a bit superciliously, "in three different war zones, no less. You think I haven't thought of that?"
Hacker worked to curb an eye-roll as he half-ran, half-jogged to keep up with Booth's pace. "Yeah, I know you're a big shot combat vet," he acknowledged hastily, "but even Bronze Star earners aren't immune to an ambush. Remember, Seeley, is only takes one bullet –"
"Yes, sir," Booth practically snarled over one shoulder in response. He was nearly at the doors now. "I get it." A lot more than you realize.
"Just…be careful!" Hacker halted, hitting the end of his track as Booth continued on out the doors into the parking lot. "Call if you need back up!" He roared after him, cupping both hands around his mouth as he watched Booth sprint across the tarmac toward the black suburban. "And watch your back!" Lowering his hands, Hacker placed them in his pockets with a resigned sigh, shaking his head disconcertedly as he watched Booth climb into the driver's side without so much as a backward glance of acknowledgement. A moment later the car purred to life and proceeded out of the parking lot in a squeal of burning rubber and blaring of sirens, red and blue lights revolving behind the tinted windshield.
As he drove Booth felt the familiar surge of adrenaline singing through his system, worked to stay it. As a soldier and a trained law enforcement agent for the FBI, he had enough experience in high-risk, high-tension situations to know the importance of keeping one's cool. He'd had techniques engrained in him concerning how to effectively quiet his nerves, so he could think clearly, so he could be sharper of wit than his opponent. In these kinds of man-to-man combat situations, clear-headedness was key. He knew that and yet he found himself having more trouble with it than he was accustomed to. This time, for some reason, for the first time in his entire service career as far as he could remember, he thought he might lose. It was only just occurring to him that in this particular face-off, there was a fifty-fifty chance of him coming out of it alive. He knew what Brodsky was capable of, and he knew what he was capable of, and he knew neither of them was going to leave that shipyard until the other was dead. None of this, however, had anything to do with what disturbed him the most about the prospect. The most unsettling sensation of all descended on him only when it struck him out of the blue: the realization that he didn't care. He was going to do his best. He wanted Brodsky dead with every fibre of his being, but with a start it occurred to him now that if he were to fail, if Brodsky was the one who came out on top and he wound up swallowed up somewhere in the scope of eternity, of oblivion, it wouldn't really matter all that much. He would be grateful for the release.
Taking a corner so sharp the car reared sideways on two wheels, Booth left this thought behind with the momentum of the turn, dismissing it on the grounds that he had to remain clear-headed. He had to do everything in his power to avoid distraction right now.
Blazing into the parking lot of the shipyard, he stomped on the brakes, locking the tires so the vehicle skidded to a stop. Reaching for his rifle case, he killed the ignition, silencing the lights and the sirens before he leapt from the car. He extracted his badge from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket while simultaneously making a mad dash for the service entrance. There was an admissions officer stationed in an open-air booth by the chain-link gate under a sign that read in no-nonsense, maroon block print: Port of Wilmington. Booth flashed him his seal. "Which way to the Persephone?" He demanded, not in the least bit out of breath despite the sprint. His heart and lungs felt as though they could go for miles.
The officer regarded him a big cagily. "Why?" He wanted to know, mocha brow furrowing disconcertedly as he eyed the weapon case slung over Booth's right shoulder.
"You've got a wanted murderer on the premises," Booth informed him hurriedly, his tone immediately dismissing the prospect of any more questions. "Unless you want to find yourself handcuffed to an interrogation table, you're gonna point me in his direction within the next two seconds."
The man blinked and visibly swallowed whatever else he'd had coalescing on his tongue to say. "Far North-East port," he disclosed, indicating with an outstretched arm and index finger.
Booth nodded once tightly. "Thank you." He then removed the case strap from his shoulder and lowered the four-foot weapon to the pavement, where he knelt next to it and unzipped the nylon sleeve to extract the fifteen-pound, forty-eight-inch PSG1 he'd been issued when he first started working in law enforcement. He'd rarely had to break it out, probably had only done so on one or two occasions in the past, and predominantly on this case when he did. It was said to be one of the world's most accurate semi-automatic sniper rifles. Whether that was going to be any use to him now, he couldn't be certain. He made sure the cartridge was installed and the trigger unit properly adjusted before he erected the weapon and loped off into the labyrinth of transport-truck-sized cargo crates, heading as directly as he could in a North-Easterly direction. While he ran he hooked up and inserted the earpiece that attached to the body of the semi-automatic, connecting to his cell signal in case Hacker called.
He navigated the shipping crates lithely, ignoring the several-tonne boxes that were snaking from crane supports overhead, descending in perfect alignments upon their cousins. Every so often he poised the gun when he rounded a corner in time to see a couple of port officials spot him and scurry out of his way, hands in the air with looks of avid perturbation evident on their features as they did so. Each time Booth couldn't help but experience a pang of apology for the poor guys; they'd probably never stared down the barrel of a gun in their entire lives, and now he wise jumping out of the hedgerows, so to speak, probably causing them to soil themselves as they bolted for the exits. Within minutes, he had the entire place cleared out. Everyone, except, he hoped, for Brodsky. ***
Jacob Brodsky was taking inventory in the cargo hold of the Persephone when he happened to glance out one of the portholes to an eerily vacant shipping yard. Squinting, he studied the empty tracts and pathways between the crates, a feeling of unease stealing into his chest as he realized all at once that there wasn't a soul to be found in the entire port, and he could see most of it, from this elevation. Where had everybody gone? As he stared, searching, he found he couldn't quell the distinct sensation that it had something to do with him, and had no time to write this off as sheer paranoia before he spotted Seeley Booth, fully uniformed in FBI-drone garb, crab-walking the paths around the storage crates with a PSG1 locked and loaded against his eye. There was someone else, too. A woman. Brodsky didn't grant her more than a fleeting glance.
Swearing profanely under his breath, Brodsky overturned a mattress amongst the littering of storage debris to reveal his own MSG90, which he took up easily in one hand – it was considerably light and stronger than Booth's police-issued weapon – and carried out on deck before descending down into the shipping yard to meet his opponent. ***
Booth glided over the ground like a swiftlet, footsteps muted and upper body moving in a steady, horizontal contour as though the natural up-and-down rhythm of human walking didn't exist for him. He kept both eyes open, as all snipers were trained to do, peeled for Brodsky in both the lens of the rifle's telescope and the Tetris-like path in front of him. He moved forward and sideways, but never turned around, body aimed in one consistent direction as he navigated the maze of cargo. It was almost like a sick, life-size version of Pacman. Memories rushed his brain, flashbacks to his time in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, even the Gulf War as he slipped easily back into a frame of body and mind that he hadn't used in years, but had been engrained into him to such a degree as to me almost as natural to him as walking, as breathing. All he had to do was yield to his instincts. Just like riding a bike, he thought grimly, before he could stop himself, then ordered himself to focus.
Quashing the bass thunder of his heart against his inner ears, he listened for footsteps, however subtle, as he inched toward the next corner. Rounding it, he heard a flurry of them, caught the blur of a trench coat just as he came in sight of his next trajectory. There's someone else in here, he thought a bit superfluously, deciding it must be one of the stragglers from the group of port officials he'd already panicked into fleeing, and making a mental note to watch out for more as he continued on.
That's when a bullet ricocheted off the wall of the cargo crate he had his back against with the kind of metallic-sounding shrill that can only be attributed to gunfire, inches from his head. Spinning around, Booth directed his rifle back in the direction he had come, dismayed to find it vacated before he'd turned around. He had no idea which way Brodsky had went, but he steeled himself for some swaggering verbal foreplay none the less. "Brodsky!" He called into the network abyss at the top of his lungs, working to keep the timbre of his voice sound. "You missed!"
There was barely a beat before the booming baritone of his ex-army colleague echoed back to him, resonating off the steel shipping containers in a way that made Booth think of a voice coming from beyond the grave; "Warning shot!" Brodsky amended, though whether he was merely reserving dignity or really had aimed to distract Booth couldn't be certain. His instincts impelled him toward the latter, as in his entire career Booth had known him to miss only once, and that was when he had been aiming for his son.
In that moment a rather disturbing thought occurred to Booth; what if he were to simply drop his weapon? Come head-to-head with Brodsky unarmed, with his hands in the air and just let it all end however it happened to unfold? There would be no more pain, no more guilt or worrying. Just…nothingness. It would be so easy. He would never have to feel anything again…. Where did that come from? He mentally slapped himself upside the head. What had he only just decided that morning? That he wasn't a quitter. He had to finish what he'd started. He owed that much to Bones, at the very least. Then he could default to self-destruct if he wanted to. Right now, though, he could hear only her voice in his dream, driving out all thoughts of throwing in the towel; I knew you wouldn't give up. Don't give up. Booth regrouped.
"Warning shot," He parroted sardonically, adjusting the zoom on the eyepiece of his weapon. "That's awfully courteous of you, Jake." He still had no visual on Brodsky, but he could hear him as clearly as though he were standing right next to him.
"Maybe I'm in a generous mood today," the sniper quipped back. Then, on the same wavelength, "I'm going to give you one chance, Seeley. One chance to walk out of here with your life. You don't want that sweet little boy of yours to grow up fatherless, do you? Do what your partner was too stupid to do, and walk away."
"Bones wasn't stupid," Booth muttered in response, half to himself but with the distinct feeling Brodsky was close enough to hear him. He was still searching the viewfinder on his telescope, pointing the rifle barrel in alternating directions clockwise as he shifted forward between the two containers. "She had ten times the intelligence you could ever hope for, which was probably how she knew you wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell in the end." He was fighting back emotion, working to keep the distraction in check, but he had to keep talking, hold Brodsky's attention while he waited for him to make a mistake and give away his position. "We were a good team. Tight. She knew I wouldn't give up until you were taken down, not after what you did to her."
There was a beat of pregnant silence during which Booth worried briefly that he'd lost his target again. Then he heard Jacob Brodsky's answer, perilously close. "Collateral damage in the pursuit of a greater good," he justified coolly, and in that moment, Booth's sharply-tuned ears caught the subtle yet distinct metallic clink of a shoelace on steel.
"A greater good," Booth reiterated, steeling himself for the cornerstone movement, "would be a world without bastards like you in it." He whirled around so fast Brodsky had no time to step back before he was staring down the barrel of Booth's gun from his elevated position atop the adjacent shipping crate. Instinct taking hold, he aimed his own rifle in a hair-trigger motion but Booth was faster. The bullet that exploded between them came from his gun and Brodsky disappeared over the opposite side of the crate, rifle taking a flight of its own in another direction.
Unwilling to waste any time waiting for an outcome, Booth sprinted through the maze around the side of the massive cargo container to the spot where he knew his opponent had landed. He hadn't aimed to kill. Why hadn't he aimed to kill? When he rounded the other side he found Brodsky on his back in the dirt, weapon far out of reach. "Aw," Brodsky groaned, rolling onto his side and cradling a badly winged hand, the hand he'd been holding the MSG90 in. "Damn it, Booth."
"Get up," Booth ordered, his voice low and dangerous as he approached the spot where the sniper lay, his gun poised and ready on him.
Brodsky looked up at him for a moment through eyes that were glazed with pain, a gaze radiating outright resentment. "You never were an easy one to sneak up on, I'll give you that," Brodsky granted, bitterness dripping caustically from his tone.
Booth held the gun on him despite the fact he was now standing directly over him. "Snipers always go for the higher ground," he elucidated smartly. "You should have known better than to try to pull that one off on me." He nudged Brodsky in the calf none too gently with the toe of one shoe. "Come on," he prompted. "On your feet."
Scorching Booth with a look of death, Brodsky did as he was told, staggering awkwardly back up into a standing position, hands in the air, one of them bleeding profusely. He was panting heavily, Booth noted, having had the wind knocked out of him as he glared back at him, his upper body swaying a bit drunkenly as though he were experiencing some lightheadedness. "What are you planning to do with me now, Booth?" He challenged, hazel eyes narrowed against the sting of the bullet that had grated his hand, a shallow graze scoring the length of his jaw line from the fall. "You going to bring me in?"
Booth jerked his chin in a tight one headshake, chocolate eyes unblinking as they held Brodsky in a pin in accordance with the threat from his weapon. "Not a chance in hell," he replied, that same treacherous tremulousness in his quiet voice. "You wanted this between you and me so here it is; I'm finishing you off man-to-man."
At this a rumbling laugh issued forth from Brodsky's chest like an earthquake, his murky eyes hardening scathingly. "What are you going to do?" He guffawed dramatically, as though the very implication was laughable. "You going to shoot me?" He appraised Booth from under a cynical gaze, looking relatively unperturbed, but still took a step back from the agent, lengthening the distance between them ever so subtly, hands still raised non-threateningly where Booth could see them. "Come on," he beseeched in a less than vulnerable manner, "you and I both know prison is a much better punishment than annihilation. You never could go for the kill, Seeley. Not if there was any other way."
Booth held the gun on him resolutely, his mental position immovable as he slithered forward to parallel Brodsky's motion. "That was before you had my partner murdered," he modified darkly, brown eyes unblinking as he readied himself.
Brodsky regarded him somewhat condescendingly. "I warned you to back off," he reminded the agent, a wickedness stealing into his voice that made the fine hairs on the back of Booth's neck stand on end. "You knew what would happen if you stayed on my case and you did it anyway. You're the one who killed her, Booth, not me. This murder is on your head. What kind of U.S. ranger – what kind of man – are you that you couldn't even protect your own partner?" All at once something shifted behind Brodsky's eyes, a resignation that Booth could have sworn he read as triumph, though that made absolutely no sense at first. A malicious sneer touched upon his features, making him look like a demon in the crosshairs of Booth's lens, and for the briefest of moments the agent felt his conviction falter. "But if that's how you really feel," the sniper shrugged below raised hands as though the outcome couldn't have made less of a difference to him, "do it then." Though his features remained absolutely deadpan, inwardly Booth felt himself blink in surprise. Brodsky continued in a malevolent snarl. "Go ahead. See what it feels like, the thrill of killing in cold blood."
Booth worked diligently to stay his temper. "It isn't cold blood," he contested quietly. "It's blood that you owe me, Jake. More than you could ever repay."
"Then do it," Brodsky repeated through clenched teeth, craning his chin forward enticingly as though aroused by Booth's argument. "You know you want to. I'm the one responsible, like you said. Blow me into next week."
With a surge of frustration, Booth suddenly realized what Brodsky was trying to do. It wasn't reverse psychology or some twisted attempt to intimidate him into letting Brodsky live; he genuinely was trying to get him to let the final blow fall, to make him become like him: a killing machine. A monster. Someone Booth had diligently vowed never to let himself be ever since he left the military. If he couldn't defeat Booth, then he was going to ruin him permanently. He would have to live with the knowledge that he'd shot an unarmed man, without law enforcement present or a verdict from a jury, the same way Brodsky had done to so many others he had deemed unfit for this world. If he could make him like him, he won, too. Whether Booth spared his life now and turned him in to the police, or ended it all right here, there would no longer be any redemption. No matter what he chose, for Booth it was a lose-lose situation.
Brodsky's tactic backfired; considering this, Booth's brain skipped two steps ahead of his opponent's and he decided that, if he was condemned to getting the short end of the deal either way, he might as well make it worth his while.
"Tell me how it felt, Booth," Brodsky goaded, egging him on under the impression that his stoicism was to be taken for cowardice, "feeling her heart stop, watching the life leave her eyes…." Those were the last words Jacob Brodsky ever spoke.
All too suddenly, a flash sequence of images bombarded Booth's brain like a film reel montage on fast forward, making temporal leaps that almost left even him behind. Memories danced behind his eyes, torturously close, just beyond his reach. He heard voices as though they were playing out right there in front of him; fights and jests and laughter and arguments. He heard Brennan's voice, so fresh, so real, as though she'd never gone anywhere, and other voices, too;
"Don't call me Bones."
"I can be a duck!"
"You take a squint into the field, she's your responsibility."
"You're a cold fish!" "You're a superstitious moron!" "Get a soul!" "Grow a brain!"
"Sometimes I think you're really very nice."
"I guess I'm just one of those people who wasn't meant to be in a family." "You know, Bones, there's more than one kind of family."
"Are you going to betray me?" "No."
"That's not surprising since you clearly don't have any real concern for me!" "I took a bullet for you!" "Once! That only goes so far…would you like a towel?"
"Striking Agent Booth indicated the depth of your feelings for him. It was a very passionate act." "You hear that, Bones? Passion!" "Yes! Passion! Because anger is a passion! Anger at being manipulated!"
"I'm standing right next to you, Booth, like always. Like I always will."
"I'd die for you. I'd kill for you."
"Booth don't leave me." "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here, okay? Right where I've always been."
Booth's finger tightened on the trigger. A shot rang out, and for the briefest of moments Booth thought it had discharged from his firearm, but it wasn't the razor whine of a sniper rifle splitting the air; instead it sounded more like the thunderous blast from a handgun. Brodsky's eyes widened and emptied, resigned, finally, to death. His knees bucked, hit the dirt of the pathway, and then he fell forward, face-first instead of back, as he should have if Booth had shot him in the chest. Following his motion down to the ground, Booth noted the bullet hole between the sniper's shoulder blades, and looked up, lowering his own unfired weapon as his eyes fell upon the last person he would have expected to see standing in front of him, holding a smoking .357 revolver to Brodsky's back.
