AN: Season one... I've always wondered at the strange awkward undercurrent between the season one finale and season two premiere. Perhaps this might shed some light on things...
Expect typos; I'm running on less than empty, these days. Oops!
Tag To: The Woman In Limbo; The Man In the Morgue; Two Bodies In The Lab; The Woman In The Garden.
Two Steps Behind (Def Leppard)
"Walk away if you want to
It's okay, if you need to
You can run, but you can never hide
From the shadow that's creeping up beside you..."
He's been on edge for days, waiting for this moment to come. It's not something he's ever wanted to see, nothing he's ever wished for her, but if there's one thing Booth has come to understand, it's that each and every person has a breaking point, even Temperance Brennan.
He stands beside her now, watching this piece of shit tear apart her memories of her mother and father, knowing that he's lying through his goddamn teeth but unable to interrupt. This is her search for the truth. He's simply here, as always, two steps behind and to her right, waiting for her to turn around. His hand itches to strike out, but it would be out of line. Unless she asks.
But she won't ask. Experience has taught him that.
"There's a magic running through your soul
But you can't have it all..."
Then:
He's spent every night at her place since the nightmare began, carting Chinese food to her door at midnight as an excuse to see her for himself, to know she's hanging on. He's been popping antacids non-stop, but he doesn't care. At least she's eating, albeit begrudgingly.
"If you keep bringing Chinese food in the middle of the night, we're both going to get fat."
It's meant to be a protest, but it lacks the power her voice usually wields. She's exhausted and emotionally drained, her cheeks pale and her eyes ringed in faint bruises.
"Uh-huh..." He weighs his words carefully before speaking. "I know what you've been thinking."
"I doubt it."
Ever contrary. That's his Bones.
"You've been thinking that your family is made up of liars and criminals, and that makes you feel lonely."
His heart aches when he catches sight of the look on her face, the heavy weight of sorrow upon her shoulders. She's pissed at him for speaking it aloud, because he's not wrong. He's seen through her and Lord knows she hates that!
"There's a story here we don't know yet," he continues.
"Like what?"
"Bones, 'don't know' means it's a mystery."
She changes directions on him. "What were your parents like?"
"Oh, my parents, uh..." My dad was an abusive piece of shit who beat his children and drank himself stupid. My mother left a suicide note and her car was found abandoned on a bridge. Not exactly Brady Bunch material. "My dad, he, uh, he drove thuds and phantoms in Vietnam. Those are fighter jets." She nods in understanding and he continues with his sanitized childhood. "After that, he was a barber in Philadelphia. My mom, she wrote, uh, jingles for a local advertising agency."
He chuckles briefly, recalling some of her worse efforts.
"So they didn't go out at night after you were asleep and rob banks," his partner snaps.
"Listen, Bones, you know, parents, they have secret lives. If they didn't, they wouldn't be parents."
She's closed up tight again, locked away behind her ten-mile-high walls. And him? Well, he's completely failed in his mission to ease her sorrow. Time to go, Booth.
"It is a little late for Chinese, isn't it? Thanks for the meal. See you tomorrow."
She escorts him to the door mutely, managing only a faint squeak of surprise when he goes for broke and gives her a quick hug. By the time he turns back at the elevators, she's shut and locked her door. He's always locked out with her.
Maybe he's earned that distance, he considers the following morning.
Then:
The words still haunt him, months later.
"Keep her close."
Kenton agrees, and Booth unwittingly throws her into the lion's den, bleeding and defenseless. If Hodgins... Fuck, if the damn conspiracy nut hadn't walked in, scarfing down his pudding while spewing theories of an inside job, he may have never connected the dots. Without Hodgins, he wouldn't have been on the road in minutes, hunting down the secret predator and his gift-wrapped prey.
"Go with me on this," he remembers Hodgins blabbing. "Mob guys know you're closing in and want to throw you off by making it look like the psycho. I mean, these guys have been involved in conspiracies a lot more compliacted than this. They set up Lee Harvey Oswald, worked with the CIA to kill Castro. Forget about what they did to Marilyn Monroe."
It's a lot of convoluted conjecture, but one line rings true: someone has taken great care to make this look like Hollings. Someone with perfect understanding of the bastard.
"Someone planted that evidence so that we'd find it, someone who knew what we were up."
"Someone in the lab works for the mob. I can see it," Hodgins agrees. "There's not much difference between a corrupt corporate government and organized crime."
Organized crime. Suddenly, the pieces fall into place, and the picture formed makes Booth nauseous.
"You're right."
"Excuse me?"
"The only way that this could unfold..." He tears at the more restrictive bandages, his experience as a soldier guiding his choices. "...is if someone on the inside was orchestrating things."
Kenton. Oh God, I handed her right to him, and now...
"People never tell me I'm right. They only say I'm crazy. Love you, man," Hodgins gushes, pausing to take in the scene. "What the hell are you doing?"
Saving my partner before my mistakes cost her more than a date with a Cyberdick.
"You're driving," he tells the bug guy.
Credit where it's due, the tiny car moves fast and Hodgins drives like a maniac, which is a good thing since they're chasing one down. They're eventually tipped off to an abandoned warehouse where the local addicts are reporting that a man and a woman entered, looking very out of place and clearly unhappy. Upon his arrival, Booth almost suckerpunches a colleague who dares to insist he remain outside.
"There's no 'we'. You can barely stand," he says, clearly upset.
"I'm going with you," Booth insists.
"Booth – "
"I said I'm going with you. Now give me my gun."
This is a rescue mission that calls for stealth and accuracy. Even with only one good arm, there's no one more qualified to save his partner. More importantly, he owes it to her. He made a promise to her and he'll keep it or die trying, shielding her body if need be.
The agent reluctantly hands him a weapon. "Bring me that vest for Booth." Ugh. "Wear this."
"Yeah."
Fuck that. After a half-assed attempt at pulling the thing on, he shoves it towards Hodgins.
"Yeah, you know what? You can come too. Put that on, you stay back."
"I can do that," Hodgins assures him.
His left hand clutches his ribs as they make their way through the maze of broken down walls and junkie nests. All of this movement has jostled the steady stream of narcotics around in his gut and apparently, vanilla pudding and morphine are not a match made in gastronomic heaven. The sight of her keychain does nothing to soothe his stomach and Booth swallows back the bile that churns upward.
Be okay, Bones. Hang on. Fight him.
He's the first to catch sight of them, of her, and only the pain keeps him from rushing forward and beating Kenton to a bloody pulp. Instead, he settles for a carefully squeezed off shot that disarms the piece of shit and then, only then, does he allow the cavalry to take charge. Booth has somewhere more important to be.
She's frantic, her pupils dilated in terror even as he bends down to free her. It's pathetic how weak his body is, how it's betraying him, and it takes an inventive slip of his head and the exertion of his shoulders to pull her up and off of the hook. She collapses into him, her body shuddering violently.
"It's okay, I'm right here, it's all over. Okay. Shh, I'm right here. Alright, it's all over..."
Several long moments pass, her arms wrapped around his neck. For all of her strength, she is so very fragile, malleable – but only for a minute. Booth can feel her muscles growing taut as she pulls back to study his face.
"How did you get out of the hospital?"
"Hodgins gave me a ride," he explains, biting back a yowl of pain. "Maybe you can give me a ride back, though? Can you?"
She laughs quietly, hugs him tight and inside, he melts. Maybe she'll forgive him. Maybe someday, she'll trust in his protection again.
"(Whatever you do)
I'll be two steps behind you
(Wherever you go)
and I'll be there to remind you
that it only takes a minute of your precious time
to turn around and I'll be two steps behind..."
Then:
Always catching up.
It's the life he leads as her partner. She storms ahead, unafraid, unrelenting; he, in turn, jogs along and tries to keep up as she spins him in mental circles with her whirlwind of knowledge and fiery temper. This time, she's decided that "vacation" means "identify bodies in New Orleans" and the nagging feeling he's had since she departed is proven justified when he gets the call from the hospital.
He's her emergency contact, he's told, and were he not on the receiving end of frightening news about her physical and mental state, he would be speechless that she would name him of all people. Instead, he hears the words "amnesia" and "rape kit" and is already snatching his wallet and weapon from the dresser and heading out the door. He maxes out his credit card with the flight, but he can't begin to give a shit.
Bones. Amnesia. Possibly raped, definitely beaten. He repeats these facts to himself as he abuses the siren and floors it to Dulles. She's alone in another state. Why did he let her go alone?
She calls him as he reaches the gate. He can hear the trembling of her body as she speaks. Her speech is slower than usual. He fights the urge to cry.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm alright," she says.
"Like hell you are! You can't remember an entire day, Bones. They told me that you were physically assaulted, possibly – "
"Booth, why is it so noisy? Where are you?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now boarding economy class seats on flight 2895 to New Orleans, with layover in Charlotte. We'll begin with rows..."
"Booth, you're not flying here!" she shouts at him.
"Bones, they're calling my row," he tells her firmly.
"Booth, I'm fine!"
Her voice cracks and he hears the lie. She's not fine. She's far from goddamn fine, and he'll be damned if he lets her face whatever's happened alone. He needs to act, needs to find the bastard responsible, and hurt him very, very badly.
"Bones, if you didn't want me to come in an emergency, you wouldn't have listed me as your contact. I'll see you in six hours."
He goes to hang up but pauses as she begins shouting through the receiver.
"What? What's wrong?"
She sighs, then quietly says, "If you're going to ignore me, then please travel safely."
"I will."
He spends the entire flight imagining what he'll find on the other side of the journey, his mind running the gamut from "a little bruised" to "beaten within an inch of her life". He tries to nap, wakes up gasping as he dreams of a faceless man striking his partner while he is paralyzed, unable to save her. She calls his name, over and over, pleading.
Even in sleep, he fails her.
"Take the time
to think about it
Walk the line, you know you just can't fight it
Take a look around and see what you can find
Like the fire that's burning up inside me...
His terror growing, he barges into the hospital – or what's left of it, after Katrina – and starts throwing open doors. A nurse tugs haplessly on his arm, failing to acknowledge that he could bench press her tiny frame.
"Sir, sir! You can't just go barging into rooms! Who are you looking for?"
"Dr. Temperance Brennan," he snaps. "My partner."
"You have to wait outside. The doctors are still examining her – "
The nurse screws up; her glance across the hall is an obvious tell. Booth storms across the hall, throwing open the door.
Behind him, the nurse cries out, "Sir, you can't go in there!"
"Bones, are you okay?"
It's a stupid question. She's not okay. She's bruised and tiny in the hospital gown, almost child-like. He wants to hold her but fears doing irreparable harm to her. And if she's been raped... No, no he won't touch her. Not suddenly. He won't hurt her.
"Booth, I told you not to come," she replies.
"Who's this?" Booth glances over and knows instantly: cop.
"It's... he's FBI. We're sort of partners," Bones explains.
"A guy flies down from D.C., you're more than sort of."
Booth resists the urge to chew her ass out, knowing he might need this gossipy detective's help at some point. "Yeah, that's great. Do you remember anything?"
"Uh, a tray falling over..."
"Why can't she remember anything?" he snaps at the apparent doctor bumbling through her care.
"Well, it could be the head injury," he says, which is so obvious, even Booth's son would know it.
She begins rambling off her injuries, as if on cue. "Hairline stress fracture to my right distal radius, concussion, slight fever, torn ear lobe – I lost one of my favourite earrings," she laments.
"You're worried about an earring. You should really be worried about losing a whole day."
She bows her head, looking rebuked. "I know, it's stupid, but these earrings were my mother's."
Crap. Now he feels like an ass. He should have known that material possessions like earrings wouldn't matter to her unless they meant something more.
"Amnesia caused by any traumatic event, injury or drug can erase memories before the event, not just after," Doctor Do-Nothing rambles on.
"Okay, so we'll just wait for a tox screen," Booth says.
"It's gonna be at least 24 hours."
"24 hours?" What the hell?
"Well, most of the labs in the area were destroyed by the hurricane."
He wants to pack everything up, samples included, and take her back to the Jeffersonian. She needs to be home, safe amongst friends.
"We'll find out what happened. You just take care of your, uh, partner," Detective Useless teases.
Booth is unamused.
"There's a magic running through your soul
But you, you can't have it all
(Whatever you do)
I'll be two steps behind you
(Wherever you go)
and I'll be there to remind you
that it only takes a minute of your precious time
to turn around and I'll be two steps behind..."
He follows her as she pursues the truth of her lost day. He follows with her lost earring jammed inside his pocket, safe from the flashing anger in the eyes of Detective Harding. He resists the urge to call her out on her shoddy detective work, instead calling Caroline Julian and begging for her help. He's going to owe her several large favours in this lifetime, but his partner is worth it.
Through it all, she remains adamant that she doesn't need to be protected or shielded. It's infuriating, how she refuses to concede any sort of human weakness. She won't rest until she finds the truth, a trait both admirable and annoying.
She turns to him now, having revealed Benoit's complicity, and wearily says, "I'd really like to go home now."
"Yeah, me too." Glancing at the local badges, he continues. "Alright, my advice? Cuff Mr. Wizard here before he puts a spell on you."
"What, no written confession?" Harding asks.
"You want a confession? Threaten to release his daughter's soul. He'll tell you everything."
"Dr. Temperance Brennan... You leave here, you go home, it does not matter. There are powers, dark powers, to which distance makes no difference," Benoit threatens.
"Easy, buddy."
Benoit starts chanting and yeah, maybe Booth doesn't truly believe in voodoo, but he's pretty sure the guy's wishing death on Bones, which means he needs a knuckle sandwich jammed down his throat.
"Hey, hey, hey!"
Benoit exhales as if blowing evil her way. Before Booth's fist can draw back, she pokes him in the eyes very calmly.
"I've noticed very few people are scary once they've been poked in the eye," she muses aloud, almost smirking as Benoit moans in pain.
The detective's laughter fills the room as Bones heads out into the night, her head held high. And Booth, he follows her. Two steps behind.
Now:
"Your father is a hard man, Joy."
Joy. It's the final proverbial straw and Booth watches in horror as McVicar casually strolls away from the wreckage in his wake and Temperance Brennan finally loses her grip on the armor she donned as a fifteen year-old girl.
"My name is Brennan. I'm Dr. – Dr. Temperance Brennan," she says, struggling to maintain her composure. "I work at the Jeffersonian Institution. I'm a forensic anthropologist. I specialize in identif..."
Her voice trails off as the tears begin to fall, but he waits. He waits for the question so that he might be the answer.
She continues, as if addressing a courtroom in earnest. "... in identifying – in identifying people when nobody knows who they are. My father was science teacher. My mother was a bookkeeper. My brother –" She pauses, her shoulders crumpling. "I have a brother."
It's not a statement of fact; it's a revelation. Her heart slips out from beneath her sleeves and Booth edges forward a step. He hears her plea, a whispered code.
"I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan," she cries.
"I know who you are," he tells her, pulling her towards him. "Hey, I know. It's okay. I know."
She turns into him and he feels her draw a ragged breath against his chest. He would give her the very air in his lungs, if only she asked. And for the first time, he realizes that she's not merely accepting his support. Her hands fisting in his shirt, her quiet sobs, the way she murmurs his name – scarcely audible – it's all there.
She is asking him, because she knows he will always hear her call and reply. She understands that he is her partner, a word that transcends associate, colleague and, to a degree, friend. His life is inextricably bound to hers now. Theirs is a bond that he can neither articulate nor explain to even himself.
It simply is.
Ten minutes later, she is back behind the safety of her rational walls, her face blank on the drive back to her place. But something has shifted between them, something fundamental.
She asked.
She wields her weapon of choice, her intellect, with precision and soon, a warrant becomes a murder weapon and McVicar is cornered like the rat he is. He snarls, teeth bared, but the reality is Temperance Brennan, standing over his tiny, lying head, capable of stomping him to death.
"There's no way to prove that that's the exact weapon that killed your mother or anyone else," he protests.
"You'd be surprised at what she can prove," Booth taunts.
His beady rat eyes turn to his partner. "I need to speak to you alone."
"Forget it."
"Booth, it's alright."
"No – "
"It's alright," she insists.
"No."
The daughter in mourning haunts her eyes and this time, Booth isn't sure he can restrain himself from violence. He walks up to McVicar, pressing into his face.
"You got two ways to look at this. One is you score a private chat. The second one is, you attack her and I'll drill you through the forehead."
"How can I possibly attack her?"
"I'll decide what is and isn't an attack, like, say, a hiccup," he snarls.
"Booth, come on," she chides him.
She doesn't ask. Why isn't she asking?
He watches the conversation from just beyond earshot, watches him feed her lies. He can read them in her body language. He studies the pain in her eyes, the way she darts tiny glances to him. And suddenly, something clicks.
She doesn't need to turn back and ask for his support. She already knows he's right there, just two steps behind her. It's why she's able to slug a judge, or charge ahead into danger without concern for her own well-being. She's a strong, self-sufficient woman, but she also understands that if things go to hell, she's not alone.
He remembers one of their first cases, cast now in a new light. Remembers her beating up Ortiz. Remembers the way she glanced at him – just once, ever so briefly from the corner of her eye – before landing her first hit. Remembers the way he trailed behind her after the funeral he'd missed – two steps behind her, rushing to keep up.
She's always trusted him so implicitly that she never felt the need to ask.
"You can't live with that, Joy. You can't live not knowing," McVicar shouts.
"I found out what happened to my mother, I will find out what happened to my father, too." And with this vow, she spins and moves towards Booth, her body relaxing just a fraction as their eyes meet. "I'm done."
"You will never know what happened to your father!"
Empty words. They mean nothing to a woman rooted in truth and facts.
"I'd like to make up for a little lost time," she tells him.
He's proud of her, but more than that, happy for her as she approaches Russ. He makes a lame excuse, something about funnel cake, but he remains nearby, within sight. Just in case she needs to turn around and know she's not alone.
She holds up a marble and Russ accepts it as if it were a diamond gleaming in the carnival lights. Faintly, he hears the calls of children over the din: "Marco," he says. "Polo," she replies. They embrace in tentative solidarity before she leads him back to their car.
Call and answer.
The drive back to her place is relatively quiet, although hardly uncomfortable. Booth is behind the wheel, giving him an excuse to concentrate, which translates to wondering why, if she has so much faith in their partnership, he isn't allowed to read her book but smarmy David is. Surely, she doesn't trust him more! She barely sees the guy, what with the hours she works. So what has he done wrong?
He walks them to her door, wary of the tenuous peace between the siblings. His gut tells him that Russ is a good enough guy – a fuck-up at times, but one who loves his sister – but Bones has a temper and a stubborn streak and Booth's got her back, right or wrong.
"Anybody thirsty?"
"Is it too early for a beer?" Russ asks.
"I've gotta go, you know. I'm picking up Parker for the weekend," he explains, pausing as he catches sight of a manuscript on the table. "Yeah, I'll take one," he quickly tells her.
"You have a boy?" Russ asks.
"Yeah." Cautiously, Booth lifts the title page and immediately understands why she's dug her heels in so hard on the book. Centered on the page is a simple, yet powerful dedication: This book is dedicated to my partner and friend, Special Agent Seeley Booth.
"The woman I'm seeing, she's got, uh, two daughters," Russ chatters.
"Nice." He means the dedication. "Girls are nice," Booth continues, looking to his partner.
She doles out the beers and it is all he can do not to pull her in for a hug, to thank her for what he technically shouldn't know. Instead, he offers a toast.
"To us."
"Whoever the hell we are," Russ adds.
"To what we're becoming," she says, her voice hoarse with emotion.
Three bottles clink in affirmation. What is affirmed lies in the eye of the beholder.
"(Whatever you do)
I'll be two steps behind you..."
For a bit of a juxtaposition to part of this chapter, The Bites Of The Partnership Pie contains a piece called "You've Begun To Feel Like Home". It's a bit of a conclusion for how we go from Hot Blooded to here to the end of the episode.
So, important announcement stuff...
1) I have a new story posted and another new one coming very soon. The Ring In The Reflecting Pool is a lovely casefic born of a dare - one that will definitely shake up Booth. Many of you have said hi over there already, and that makes you awesome. If you're not already reading it, come check it out.
2) The other story will post this weekend, most likely... Intrepid profile seekers will figure it out...
3) With reviews falling and my time and brain scattered between my two jobs, my wedding and three stories, I will be sadly cutting back the frequency of updates for a while. This story will now update biweekly, and on opposing weeks, one or both of the others will update.
For now, please drop a line and let me know what you thought. If you missed Caves last week, flip backwards. Otherwise, I shall see you soon!