B47 A/N: So I didn't anticipate how busy I was going to be this past week, but I swear that I won't forget you guys. Coiler's writing the next one anyway, so you'll have to nag her for a next chapter. Without further ado, enjoy... :D
It had been an exhausting day. Another murderer put behind bars, another crap-load of paperwork to fill out, another day with his strikingly beautiful partner. Put simply, a day from Hell.
Booth pulled into the underground parking structure of Brennan's building. Following her up to her apartment, they talked over the case they'd just wrapped up earlier that day. Inviting him in for a cup of coffee, Brennan apparently had the idea to draw her partner over the edge of insanity just by being in her presence.
By the time she'd made the coffee and brought it back to him, Booth was sound asleep on her couch. He hadn't slept a sound, dreamless sleep for almost a month now. He could only hope for a few hours without dreams. That was a gift in itself.
Brennan shrugged her shoulders and decided to go to work on her novel, hoping some inspiration might strike her.
~*~
A rusted pipe hung suspended over the concrete room; a single water drop gathered at the elbow of it where it led to another part of the building. The drop decided it was time to let go of it's pipe creator and fell several feet down onto the temple of one unconscious Seeley Booth.
His head felt like it was on fire while the rest of his body was freezing. The side of his body that currently had contact with the floor was completely as well as sore where he could feel. Groaning slightly, he tried to pick up his head to survey his surroundings. His neck, however, refused the motion.
A feminine groan soon followed his own, picking up his interest. He knew who it was. There was only one even fathomable person that could be with him in this grungy hole-in-the-wall.
"Bones?" Booth squirmed to see where his partner was. When he picked up sight of her, she was in the same balled-up position he'd woken up in. She was dressed in oversized clothes that looked more likely to fit a man than Brennan's lithe frame.
"Booth?" She looked over her shoulder as much as her situation would allow. Her breathing was heavy and labored. Brennan coughed and shook violently as the pitiful sound met Booth's ears. It sounded as though she drowning. "I can't breathe."
Booth pulled himself up onto his knees as he crawled on unsteady limbs as he approached her slowly. With the little energy he had, he propped her up into a sitting position as he collapsed next to her. Another bout of hacking up a lung and Brennan was breathing slower and easier.
"Thanks." she whispered. "Where are we?"
"I don't know." he stated simply. It was a devastating fact to his own ears while she looked around inquisitively. There wasn't much to be said about the dirty room other than the fact that there were no windows and a single light bulb hanging limply from a string; the only illumination in the room. One wall held menacing-looking chains that looked about the same size for restraining someone.
"Booth…why am I so cold?" Brennan asked as she wrapped her arms around herself, the thin shirt doing nothing to warm her.
"That doesn't really matter right now. Come here." Booth opened his arms to her, waiting for her to lay down next to him.
Brennan looked at him quizzically, as if having an internal debate over the situation. She ended up gingerly placing herself in his offered embrace. Booth wrapped one arm around the middle of her back while the other took it's place around her neck.
"H…how are you so warm?" she asked, nuzzling further into his chest.
"Just call me your teddy bear." he whispered quietly, running soothing strokes up and down her back to soothe the tension he felt there.
"I slept with a stuffed animal until well after college. It was the only thing I had left of my parents after they left." she muttered, immediately regretting the incriminating statement as soon as she'd said it.
"Really? What was it?" Booth asked, more than a little surprised at her confession.
"D…doesn't matter." she shivered.
"You've got me curious, what was it?" he asked quietly.
"It…it was a really soft dog. He was tie-dyed all different colors." she sniffled. Apparently her nose was beginning to run.
"What did you call him? What was his name?" Booth asked, trying to take her mind off their current setting.
"Spotty." she stated. "My mother named him for me when I was two."
Booth heard the tumbler of the only door in the room clicking, unlocking for whoever their visitors were. Neither made the attempt to move out of the warm cocoon they'd made for themselves.
"Aw…isn't that adorable? Her, that corner, him the opposite." the man who was apparently in charge gave the order to two, much stronger looking brutes. The two men dragged the partners apart and tossed them into separate corners of the claustrophobic room, each giving a small grunt of pain at the impact of the floor to their backsides.
"What do you want from us?" Booth asked.
"Au contraire, Agent Booth. It's not what I want from the two you, it's what I need from both of you." the slimy man said. He was no more than five-five, blonde hair, and didn't look like he'd had a shower in weeks. Even over the smell of rust and gasoline, the smell of body odor was still evident.
"What do you need from both of us?" he asked again.
"Well, you see, Agent Booth, a long while ago, you're good doctor here," he gestured to Brennan who was nursing her scraped arm. "turned me down for a date. I need to retrieve my ego from the pieces she left it in."
"Retrieve it how? Brennan murmured almost too quietly to hear.
"You know how, Temperance. You're smart, figure it out." the slimy man said as he left.
Booth was ready to burst from rage, while Brennan looked at her partner with confused eyes. "What does he mean by that Booth?"
"Think, Bones, for just a second." Booth would've been up and pacing the floor if he wasn't so tired.
After a few seconds of thought, realization struck Brennan like a lightening bolt. She mouthed the four letter word that she couldn't bring herself to say aloud. Booth nodded as he was about to punch the wall in his frustration.
He hung his head in thought of how to get themselves out of this situation. He was so focused on his own, internal debate, he didn't even realize that Brennan had crawled the eight feet that separated them in the small room and sat on her knees, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Booth found himself falling into the warm envelop of her arms almost a little too easily for comfort. So much so that he hardly even heard the words leave his mouth.
"I love you."
She froze like a deer in headlights with her death-grip on his shoulders tightening. Brennan looked him in the eyes, searching obviously for the right words to say to him. She heard the tumblers turning over again in the door, but still couldn't force her brain to move fast enough to compute a response.
"Showtime, baby." the slimy blond came back in, this time with four huge guys that looked big enough to be sumo wrestlers. Two of them picked Brennan up and wrestled her into the bonds that were draped from the one wall while the other two bound Booth and kneeled down onto the middle of the floor.
"What are you going to do with me here?" Booth asked warily, finding it hard to maintain one energy level for too long.
"Obviously Tempe takes a liking to you. I just figured this would be easier for her with you here." The words dripped off his tongue like gasoline.
One of the guards that tied Brennan up pulled off her clothes roughly, running his hands over her body sloppily. She whimpered in pain for what was about to happen.
"Stop! Please! I'll do whatever you want me to. Just don't hurt her." Booth begged.
"Agent Booth, this isn't about you. You're just here as an observer." The man unzipped his pants, readying himself.
Brennan looked around frantically. "No…please…don't do this…Booth?"
"I love you, Bones." He whispered, thrashing against the binds. Booth wasn't willing to give up until there wasn't any reason to fight anymore. The two men at his sides held him in place, not allowing him to budge an inch.
Brennan met his eyes, mouthing the simple words "I love you, too." before her attacker penetrated her.
~*~
Booth shot upright, a cold sweat beaded him from head to toe. His breath was coming in rapid pants as he took in his surroundings. The low light and familiar furniture of his partner's apartment.
"Booth? Are you alright?" Her voice had his head snapping towards the kitchen counter where the glow of her laptop illuminated her face. Brennan hopped down from the barstool she was sitting on and walked over to the couch to sit next to him.
"Ugh…no, I don't think I am alright." He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Shrugging out of his jacket that he was still in, he cooled himself considerably until he could stop the tremors in his stomach.
"Another dream?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah." he stated.
Brennan stood up and went to her cupboards where she took out a bottle and a glass, filling the glass up about half an inch. Bringing it back to him, she told him to drink it gently. Booth accepted the glass and sniffed it curiously.
"Bones, this is whiskey." he chuckled slightly.
"Oldest medicine in history. Cures the strangest of ailments." she rubbed his shoulder soothingly.
Booth smiled as widely as he could while the remnants of his dream continued to swirl in his head. He drank as he was told and felt the rough liquid slide down his throat, warming him.
"Good. Now follow me." Brennan got up and headed for the hallway that led down to the guest bedroom. He followed, becoming a little too accustomed to the ritual of staying at her apartment too many days out of the week. He felt like a frightened five-year-old that needed Mommy close by to check under his bed for monsters.
Brennan held open the covers and gestured for him to climb in. He did, smiling to himself as she brought the blankets back down over him.
"You gonna be okay?" she asked.
"I think I'll live. Just freaked a little."
"You sure you don't want to talk about it?" Brennan was curious as to what was going on in Booth's clever mind.
"Yeah, not something really to talk about." he stated, giving her as reassuring a smile as he could muster.
"Okay." Brennan tucked him in slightly, smoothing over the blankets. Bringing her head in closer to his, she gave him a feather light kiss on the forehead like he'd been treating her too so often over the past few days.
Somewhat surprised by her small action, Booth's hand came up to grasp her wrist, meeting her warmed over eyes. He saw something he couldn't quite define hidden deeper than usual in her eyes.
"Stay with me?" he asked.
"Sure." she replied without putting up a fight.
Brennan walked around the edge of the bed and laid down next to him on top of the covers. Booth wrapped his arms around her, needing the physical contact to prove to himself that everything had been a dream. He did have an epiphany during his nightmare, however.
There was, in the slightest possibility, that Brennan felt the same way he did.
