Sorry, he had picked that game because Parker loved it so much. Now he couldn't help feel like the game was some sort of cruel joke for the day, maybe even the month. Booth thought he had held things together pretty well through this whole ordeal with maybe the exception of the interrogation room where he slugged the guy but who could blame him, right? But today, more than any day since this began he felt brittle. Today he felt robbed like the universe had slapped down the Sorry card and sent him reeling backwards. His rare and beautiful moment with Bones had been stolen away from him, from her. He had seen the shift and sorrow in her eyes when the phone rang, felt the tension settle back into her where it had been briefly displaced, too briefly. He held her hand tighter as he drove, clinging to her like a life line. She squeezed his hand back but never turned from her watch out the window.
His mind bounced. He couldn't shake his frustration with Max and the tension he felt over having to deal with him today. Max was hard for him. Booth believed in family, in loyalty to family. It was that belief that made him push her towards building a relationship with Max in the first place. And he pushed Max too, to be the father that she needed, to step up and fix what he had broken. While there was a lot about him that Booth was skeptical about at his core he felt like Max loved his daughter. Knew he loved her. He just had an odd way of showing it sometimes, good intentions bad choices. Part of Booth admired his vigilante defense of his family, in principle at least. Although he didn't agree with how he carried it out he understood where Max was coming from. In principle it was honorable in its own way. That is, it was honorable until it messed with the woman he loves, until it put in jeopardy the case against her attackers. It was all well and good until Max ended up hurting the person in whose name he's apparently acting. He had to remind himself to loosen his grip on her hand, worried that the more tension he felt the tighter his grip became. He didn't want to hurt her.
Brittle, he had to shake this feeling, she needed him to.
A couple deep breaths, he pushed off the endless onslaught of frustration by forcing his mind to go somewhere happier. He let his mind slide back to the floor of his apartment, her soft giggle and amusement at his ticklishness, the feel of his lips on hers, her hair cascading around him wisping across his face. That was a better place to be; he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. She turned her head from the window, cracked a small hesitant smile.
They were at the Jeffersonian, time to make it work regardless of his feelings.
As they got closer and closer to the medico-legal lab's sliding glass doors he felt her slow, the small of her back eventually pushing into his hand. They had been coming to the lab pretty much every day now, it had become routine to arrive early and disappear down into bone storage. So her hesitancy caught him off guard. He looked up through the doors to see what might be spooking her. It was Saturday and they had both expected the lab to be empty. That was one of the reasons Booth had chosen the lab for Metro's Hollingsworth to deliver Max into his custody. But it wasn't empty. The platform was buzzed with activity, Hodgins, Cam, and a couple of lab techs were up there. It looked like Angela was about to leave the platform when she saw Brennan and came bouncing down the steps towards her friend.
"Sweetie! I was going to call you but you're here!" She practically tackled Brennan into a warm hug. Brennan fought being stiff, forcing herself to relax into Angela's hug.
But she couldn't hide her stunned expression, still wide eyed, "yes, Ange, I am here. What did you need?"
"I have some sketches of possible snake tattoos based on what you told me. If you're up to it I wanted to see if any of them were close to what you remember." She hesitated glancing at Booth before continuing, "and some sketches of other possible markings I wanted to see if they rang a bell." Angela had been meeting with the other female victims, the ones that had agreed to participate in the investigation, piecing together any hints of information that might lead to the identity of her other attackers. Brennan wondered why people always asked her if she was up to it. Would there ever be a time she was really up to dealing with all this, she was pretty sure there wouldn't be. Even if she were having a great day and feeling on top of everything why would she want to plunge into this dark place and dig around? A good time to deal with it seemed ridiculous to her; regardless, she chose to deal with it.
Behind them the intensity of whatever Hodgins and Cam were looking at spilt over the sides of the platform and rolled towards them. Booth's eyes kept drifting up towards them. Angela missed nothing.
"Hey, Bren, do you think you could take a few minutes and look at them with me now?"
She nodded, "Yes, Angela, now would be fine." as her friend slipped her arm in hers and led her away to her office. Booth could hear Angela starting in on the latest piece of office gossip as they walked away from him. Angela was a great friend and excellent distraction. She had a way of keeping things light and Booth knew that if Bones started to sink Angela wouldn't hesitate to get him. He trusted her.
Cam immediately jumped on Booth, "we need to talk," her tone made him cringe. Sliding his card he headed up the stairs to where Cam was reviewing some test results.
"We got the final back on the rape kit." He had been waiting for this, everything before had been preliminary. But considering the nature of the attack piecing together the number of attackers and finding them was partially dependent of the results of the rape kit. It was the combination of those results and other physical evidence that would add up to a clearer view of what happened to Bones and the other victims for that matter.
"The confirmed kit indicates four different attackers. Three contributions were found from swabs on her body, hairs, sputum and one was found vaginally." Booth almost choked, he looked at Cam trying to be sure that she meant what he thought she meant. The news took him by surprise. He'd thought they were out of the woods on that one after finding the condoms. She nodded and continued. "You going to be okay, Seeley?" He was staring at the ceiling trying desperately to measure his breathing and control his rage.
"So altogether, we have 3 assailants that we have identified by DNA from the condoms and samples from the rape kit, swabs . . ." He put his hand up, motioned for her to stop, he understood. "And one," she continued haltingly, "a different assailant, we didn't know about before, whose semen they found in. . ."
He cut her off, "I got it Camille, I get it, okay? One of the guys didn't use a condom, left his stuff in her." His eyes darted around the platform, wanting desperately to pound or throw something, needing to release some of the pent up frustration and rage. There was nothing, everything here was clinical, expensive, and still somewhat foreign to him.
He doubled over, fighting for control. He is mind flashed to the morning after the attack, to the bottles of pills, the little foil wrapped morning after pills, her voice. "Well, that is not true, Booth, I don't want to take any of these but it would be irresponsible for me to not take them." Visions of her shaking hands trying to get the pills from the foil wrapper haunted him now.
Brittle. Just really, really brittle.
Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth he straightened himself up and thanked Cam and Hodgins for their work. It was hard for them too, he knew that. Hodgins patted him on the back, a show of solidarity and brotherhood, "sorry, man." It was sincere, wrapped in its own mix of compassion and anger towards the whole situation.
He had barely pulled himself back together when he heard the slide of the doors and Max's gregarious voice came booming through the lab. It was clear that he had just about reached the punch line of a young Temperance story. Hollingsworth was clearly entertained, chuckling softly as he led the handcuffed man into the Medico-Legal lab.
Booth took a deep breath, brittle. He descended from the platform as Hollingsworth tossed him the keys to the cuffs. Booth caught them in an overhanded catch. Pushing Max up against the wall forcefully with his body he leaned into the man and talked very plainly into his ear. "Your daughter has been through enough, you pulling this crap is unacceptable understand?" He pulled Max's arms up behind him just a little to make the point. Max's involuntary grunt let Booth know he got it. "She should have been your first priority Max, seeing her should have come first. Now she has the stress of keeping you out of trouble on top of dealing with everything else." He tightened his grip on him again making it clear that he held all the cards. "You are going to go in there and make this right, do you understand me? Then you and I are going to talk. Got it?"
He released his grip on the man and undid the cuffs tossing them and the keys to Hollingsworth, "Thanks, man, for going the extra mile on this. I owe you one." He released Max from the wall where he had him pinned just before Angela and Bones poked their heads out of her office to see what the commotion was all about.
A/N not going to lie here folks these Max chapters have been really hard to write...I would LOVE to know what you think...please leave a review! They have been so helpful and encouraging and I appreciate them very much.
Also for those who have so kindly expressed concern for my mom here's an update - she is doing really well under hospice care. In fact, she has gained some weight and is now 84 lbs - amazing since she was very close to 70 when she went into the hospice program. Such a loving experience. thanks for you well wishes, thoughts, and prayers. They mean the world to me. :)