Tempe, Turmoil and Triumph
Chapter 14
She opened her eyes and saw nothing. Closing them again she took a small breath, it was so difficult to breathe, there was intense pressure on her right side. She opened her eyes again, trying to look around. Still black as pitch but faint vestiges of light around the edge of what she assumed was a door. She was able to lift her head, but extreme pain shot down her neck. Whiplash, she thought.
What happened? Where am I? She wondered She closed her eyes again and tried hard to remember what all had happened over the last couple of days. Thinking back, she remembered getting on the train. Happy but exhausted. She'd disproved the remains were of Mongol origin and so were of no real forensic importance. It was still a good find, but instead of being 15 thousand years old, they were less than 500. She decided to take the little mountain train to the airport instead of the commuter train for no particular reason. It wasn't often that she traveled for pleasure, so she thought she take in the scenery and enjoy a little bit of the foreign country. She remembered picking up some small tokens for Parker and Angela at the little village where the train depot was.
Brennan tried again to sit up, carefully reaching out with her senses, trying to determine the injuries her body had suffered. She heard the rustle of clothing and heard many voices talking at once faintly in front of her, must be on the other side of the door she thought, still very disorientated. The voices were speaking a rough, local Chinese dialect, something she didn't recognize. Suddenly the light in the room increased when a young man opened the door and came in with a tray loaded with hand towels, a bowl of steaming liquid and a smaller bowl with some sort of grey paste in it. The young man saw that Bones was struggling to sit up and began rapidly chattering and gesturing to her to lie back down. He came up to her and gently held her head up, carefully bringing a spoon to her lips from the warm bowl of liquid. He mimed to her that she should eat, after a few spoonfuls; he laid her head back down and began to gesture towards her head wound. He mimed cleaning it, and she blinked an okay. He was starting to blur around the edges, Bones was trying so hard to keep him in focus. Although she was in an unknown environment, she felt safe with this man. She reasoned, he wouldn't be cleaning her up and feeding her if he was planning to kill me. With this excellent thought she congratulated herself for maintaining some of her rationality, Bones acquiesced to the man's administrations and allowed him to wipe her brow.
Drifting back into the black recesses of her healing mind, an image forced itself to the forefront of her thoughts. Booth, gun drawn, eyes wide, shoulders heaving; his hair corkscrewed as if he had just woken from sleep. He looks so lost and sad she thought. Booth, where am I? She pictured him smiling at her when he didn't realize that she knew he was looking at her. Booth, I'm okay, she knew that it was impossible that he would know that, but she wanted him to know she was thinking of him. Hell, she was always thinking of him, but right now, seeing him looking so vulnerable, she just wanted to make him know that she was okay at that exact moment. Finally relinquishing her mind to the pull of sleep, CK one and sunshine was the last thing she thought of…