This is the last 'chapter', but there is an epilouge of sorts that comes after this. Thank you so much for being amazing reviewers. You guys are so supporting and uplifting for a writer and it is an unbelievable how nuturing you are to each others writing on this website. That is a really wonderful thing. You're all amazing and thank you for reading!
Booth was lost in his thoughts. He was driving with no destination in mind. Booth knew that Freidman could be anywhere and there was no guarantee that they would find Zack in time.
Brennan looked over at him from her passenger seat. She could tell that he was angry. She felt hopeless. After Zack had been taken in to the asylum, she just wanted to forget all about him. Forget that he even existed, but now, with the revelation of a murder at the hospital and Zack's disappearance, it was being shoved in her face. Every time she closed her eyes she could see his innocent face staring back at her. She kept seeing the image of him being interviewed by her for his position at the Jeffersonian. A wide-eyed, goofy looking boy with a pinched smile on his face; it killed her.
She wanted to scream out loud, but decided against it considering Booth would most likely swerve off the road. Instead, she drew air into her lungs and hoped that when she exhaled, all of her on edge emotions would vacate as well.
Booth cleared his throat and glanced at his partner, "We need to figure out where he could be."
Brennan shook her head slowly, "There is any number of places that he could have taken Zack. There is no way of knowing. There are infinite possibilities. He isn't a serial killer, so it's not like he has a pattern to follow."
Booth nodded his head, "Let's go back to the hospital, maybe there is something in his office that will help us." Booth turned on his sirens and drove back to the asylum, both of them holding their breath the entire way there.
Booth and Brennan had managed to convince the nurses to let them into Doctor Freidman's office on the basis of probable cause. They had been digging around in files and drawers trying to find something, anything that would lead them to where Freidman had taken Zack.
"I feel like this should be much easier than it is." Booth remarked sifting through files and personal documents that were scattered across the man's desk.
"I know what you mean," Brennan said, opening up a drawer in a metal filing cabinet, "You know. I'm surprised that no one had noticed anything… off about this doctor. His office is a mess, his handwriting," she said flipping open a file, "is absolutely atrocious."
Booth looked up at her, "It's a stereotype, Bones. Doctors have bad hand writing."
"That isn't what I meant, Booth. Hand writing can portray the inner workings of the psyche. There is a whole field on deciphering hand writing and what it says about people."
"Sounds like psychology to me." He said, laughing and sitting down in Freidman's office chair.
Brennan glared at Booth for the implication and went back to the drawer. The air conditioning in the room kicked on with a loud bang and startled Booth out of the chair and Brennan laughed at his reaction.
Brennan closed the drawer with a sigh and walked toward the desk. On her way, she noticed a small glass container sitting at the edge. She snapped on a latex glove and picked it up, "Flunitrazepam." she said looking up at Booth.
"What does that mean?" Booth asked, realizing that it had some relevance that he could not pick up on.
"Booth, he drugged Zack in order to take him."
"Still not sure what that means, Bones. You're going to have to spell it out for me."
"This is drug causes muscle relaxation. If he were going outside of the hospital, he would need Zack conscious because he would be too heavy to carry. If Zack was drugged, he couldn't have taken him very far without raising suspicion."
"So you're saying that Zack is still in the hospital?"
"That is exactly what I am saying, Booth."
"He's in the boiler room. It's the only place they could be." Booth said jogging to the door, Brennan right behind him.
They ran through the hallways, past the nurses and patients who were taken aback by the urgency that was coursing through their bodies. Booth reached the door of the boiler room and swung it open while pulling his gun out of his holster.
"Freeze! FBI!" he said, looking down into the abyss of darkness. He could saw three people in the basement, one of which had vanished before his eyes. He brushed it off and ran down the rickety metal steps that led into the boiler room. Brennan had reached the door and searched for a light switch which he promptly found, flooding the room with harsh light. Booth held his gun, aiming it at the doctor who was outstretched on the floor. He was stunned. Booth could tell that something other than being caught had affected him, but he didn't care, "Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head."
Brennan had made it down the stairs and immediately went to Zack to make sure that he was okay. She helped him sit up and was checking for any injuries.
"Doctor Brennan," Zack said, "I'm not sure that I am capable of walking yet. The drugs haven't completely worn off yet."
Brennan looked at him with sadness in her eyes, "It's okay, Zack." She comforted, her voice cracking in the process.
Without hesitation, he pulled her into a hug. She rested her head on his shoulder and hugged him back, glad that he was okay, glad that he was alive and glad that he was with her now.
Booth had the doctor hand cuffed and was calling the bureau to inform them of all that had gone on, and for a forensics team to collect the body of Amelia Webber who was propped up against the wall behind Zack.
"Where is the other guy?" Booth asked Zack.
Zack looked at him, slightly confused as to who he was referring to, "There was no other guy." He stated.
"Yes there was, he was with Freidman when I opened the door."
"That wasn't a guy, Agent Booth. That was my hallucination." He said with a grin on his face.
Booth tilted his head, attempting to understand the information that Zack had just relayed to him. Brennan pulled away from Zack and looked in his eyes, also curious about the statement.
"I'm not sure I understand." She said, looking back at Booth.
Zack shifted slightly, noticing some feeling coming back in one of his legs, "It's going to sound crazy, but since I am a patient in a mental health facility, I'm not worried about it." He said with his grin growing wider, "That was Amelia Webber."
Booth rolled his eyes, "In all the time I've known you, I always thought that you had no sense of humor."
When the forensics team arrived, they gathered all of the evidence that they needed and Booth and Brennan had managed to get Zack upstairs into the common room so that they could take his statement. Brennan had called Angela to inform her of all of the facts and to let her know that Zack was safe. Within the hour, Angela and Hodgins had both arrived to make sure for themselves that he was indeed okay.
Five people sat around the metal table in the common room that sat across from the window that Zack had stared out of everyday. Five people were conversing and making up for lost time since they had last seen their friend and colleague. They sat there for hours, avoiding the nurses' pleas to send the patient to bed. The FBI agent had told them that they were still questioning him, even though they had finished that task minutes after vacating the boiler room. They sat around the table laughing with one another, sharing old stories, reminiscing about wood chipped pigs and beetle races and things that two of the five 'don't know what that means'.
All of them noticed the dramatic change in Zack. They knew that he was going to be okay. They found comfort in finding their old friend rather than the cold distant version that had come back to them from Iraq.
Soon the couple and the partners left leaving Zack sitting at the metal table. He rubbed the edges of it, watching the oil from his finger tip leave patterns on the surface. He let out a breath of relief, breathing out the days events that had almost cost him his life. He stood to leave and pushed his chair underneath the table and looked out of the window that he had grown so fond of. And in the distance, he saw a girl dressed in white, walking barefoot across the lawn outside of the hospital. He smiled to himself and finally went to bed.