Hey everyone! I am SO sorry for the long delay. I am in the middle of about thirty personal crises (none major, but all of them quite time-consuming), and I really do intend to finish this story! I am already at least halfway through the next chapter. So hopefully a speedy update after this one makes up for the long wait for this one. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you that have stuck with my story and encouraged it forward, those who let me know you still occasionally (or often) check for updates. That means the world and really does put a fire in me to sit down at the computer and crank out a chapter for you… and for me as I am committed to this story and its outcome. Hope you enjoy – and thanks again!

-Gret

Chapter 26

"Well, well, well, look who's here," Rob said, opening the door.

Fear danced in Brennan's stomach at the threatening glare that greeted her. She swallowed, reviewing her plan over and over, remembering who was at stake. Her partner. Her friend. Her… maybe something more, if last night was any inclination.

"You said that if I showed up, you'd let him go."

"Bones, no…"

Brennan breathed out in relief. Booth was okay. At least… okay enough to talk to her. She couldn't see him just yet.

"Rob, a deal is a deal," she said, looking at the man standing before her, blocking her view of the rest of the room. Blocking her view of Booth. "Remember, when we lived in the Souza house together?" She tried to ignore the murderous look that flashed in his eyes at the mention of that time in his life. She barreled on quickly. "We always said that you kept a deal. We always believed that a deal was a deal."

Brennan took a breath before taking a step past the man and into the room. She looked around. Okay, it was more like a dungeon. The thought that Booth had been kept here all day having who knows what happen to him made her blood turn to ice.

Booth. There he was. Sitting in a chair, his hands tied behind him, a few bruises discoloring his face. He looked up at her and in the moment their eyes met, she saw it all. The pleading look, the questions. His expression was somber, serious… and fearful. The tight line at his lips, the muscle contracting at his jaw line – she could see the mix of fear and anger coursing through him at the moment.

She tried to express through her own eyes that she had everything under control. That… that things would be fine.

Though seeing the iciness in Rob's expression did cause some doubts and give her slight anxiety.

She turned back around before she completely lost her nerve, and faced Rob. "So, what's it going to be, Rob?"

Rob looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Is a deal still a deal?" she clarified. "Or have you changed that much?" Her wording was precise; the weight of their long-ago history hung silently between them. The little boy she remembered had cared about what she thought, had wanted to please her. The little boy she remembered would try his hardest to do her proud.

In a swift movement, Rob was across the room, standing before Booth.

"Say goodbye, Prince Charming," he seethed at her partner. Brennan's stomach recoiled at the acid tone that dripped in every word from this evil man's mouth. If she played any part in him turning out like this, she'd never forgive herself. But right now, she couldn't think about it. About any of it.

Booth looked past Rob and met Brennan's eyes. "Why would you do this?" he asked her, pain in every word. "Bones, after everything we talked about."

"I know, Seeley," she said. She hoped her use of his first name would let him know that this was not a goodbye. She had a plan. He just needed to trust her. "But I couldn't let you get hurt because of me."

"But you can get hurt because of me?" Booth asked incredulously. His expression had shifted only slightly at her mention of his first name, but he was barreling forward with his lecture anyway. Probably, she realized, buying time so she would not be left alone with Rob.

"Show's over, folks," Rob said, grabbing Booth by the shirt and lifting him out of the chair. Hands still tied behind his back, Rob dragged a kicking and fighting Booth to the door Brennan had just walked through.

"Rob, no!" Booth protested. "Please. You can still do the right thing," he pleaded. "Let her go. Don't kill any more people."

Rob kicked Booth in the stomach, and in one quick moment, opened the door and shoved her partner through it, slamming it behind him. He turned back to Brennan.

"It would've been more fun to have him watch me kill you. But I have a feeling that seeing it on tape might be even better. See, when you witness something horrible, your memory usually blocks it. Where's the fun in that?"

As he talked, he moved toward a video camera sitting on a tripod. Brennan hadn't noticed that before and cringed at the thought of how sick Rob had become.

"See," he continued. "I think there's less of a chance of blocking it out if he sees it on video camera. Finding you will be terrible of course. But seeing your last moments, hearing you beg, being able to watch your last moments over and over… that will be impossible to block out."

"Do you know this from experience?" Brennan asked, keeping her distance from Rob for as long as possible. She paced slowly in the opposite directions that he was walking.

"Because of you," he said.

"Do you remember watching me get beaten, right in front of you? Because I did," she said, swallowing hard, looking for strength. "Every day."

He blinked erratically. "I remember my next foster father. After you ditched me. He made me watch videos of him beating up my ex-foster mother."

Brennan stopped and stared at him until he looked into her eyes. "I'm sorry you went through that," she said sincerely. "That's terrible."

"Seeing it on tape is always worse," he concluded with a nod, pushing a button on his video camera that turned the power light red. "We're rolling."

She ignored him, ignored the camera. "I had some awful experiences after the Souza house, too, Rob. That was my first house of six." She closed her eyes briefly, trying to imagine she was talking about someone else's history. Not her own. "When I left, a fairy godmother didn't sweep me away and make everything better," she said, purposely referencing what she and Rob once wished could happen. Though she'd been older and didn't believe in fairy tales, she had put a lot of might into that wish – not just to please the younger boy, but… in case wishes did come true. She'd been young.

"My life was worse," he said resolutely. "My next foster brother beat me up almost every day. What could have possibly been worse than that?"

Tears streamed down her cheeks as the next words came rushing out. It was the first time she had ever said them aloud. "I once had a foster brother who r-raped me." Her breath caught and her arms wrapped around her abdomen, looking for love, support, for a tangible reminder that that life was behind her. Nearly 15 years behind her now. "He was evil," she continued, finding strength, swiping angrily at a tear. "I didn't deserve that, just like you didn't deserve anything that happened to you. Ever."

She didn't want to remember this, any of this. This case was supposed to be normal! Not thrust her into her past like this. And she didn't know why she had told him, of all people, about her rape. She'd barely admitted that it ever happened to herself. It wasn't in any of the official reports. That family had given her away soon after it had happened, and she'd been too relieved to even look backward and think about it. Oh god… what if that boy had struck again because she'd been silent?

She shuddered.

No, she could not do this. Not right now. She hadn't been looking to compare battle wounds with Rob. She had been looking for his understanding, and she'd been looking to empathize with his demons – foster child to foster child. Old friends who survived a similarly awful world, a similarly terrible childhood.

But it didn't work. She'd bared her most awful secret, and it didn't work at all. Rob didn't look like he cared one bit. And in one frightening moment, he was standing in front of her, boring down on her. "You left me."

She shuddered a sigh and shook her head. "I was very young—"

"You were older than me."

"I didn't know what to do."

He grabbed her arms, hard and forced her to look up at him. "You," he seethed, "deserved everything that happened to you." He released her with a push that was neither violent nor gentle.

He laughed cruelly before continuing with words that pierced her heart… and hurt her right to her core. "You think that your FBI partner wants you? You are used goods, Tempe. No one wants used goods. You are weak and… and from everything I can tell about you now, you can barely survive in the real world. You hide behind big words and your fancy career. You don't know anything about… about great movies or songs. You never know what people are talking about. Oh yeah," he said, at her wounded expression. "I read up on you. I followed you a bit. I heard what people said. And I figured you out. You barely have a family. They didn't want you. Now they're saddled with you. Your name isn't even Tempe. And you are awkward and weird. Your partner is a normal guy who probably wants to be with a normal girl."

In an awful moment, she realized that she agreed with that analysis. Booth was a wonderful guy. Any woman would want him. Hannah was his type. And if he didn't want Hannah, he really should find someone like her. Because while Rob was sick, he was not far off base with his words. She knew she didn't really fit in with most people. She knew she would always understand science and bones better than human interaction or pop culture. But used goods… she'd never thought of herself that way. So far behind her was that experience. But…

She cringed as tears threatened to fall again. No. She couldn't think of herself like that.

All the same, she found herself imagining that given a choice, Booth would probably rather be with someone with less sexual baggage, someone with a semblance of innocence.

No – this was not the time for this! Later. Later she could think about all of this.

She looked at the floor and told herself not to let Rob get to her. He was a killer. A demented killer. He had her nearly beaten to death by another evil man, practically killing her unborn daughter. He'd gone after Booth, hurt him and threatened to kill him. This man was no longer that little boy. As for her role in his madness, she could examine that later. Right now, he was sick. And she had a plan.

She walked quickly over to the northwest corner of the warehouse – as quickly as her shaking legs would carry her.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked. "Tempe!"

She heard the footsteps behind her and picked up her pace. She needed to get to the tiny little window. The barely visible one in the northwest corner. She could see it and she knew her crew was there. Ready. She just needed to give them their shot.

The moment she was close, she could feel Rob close behind her. She dropped to the ground quickly, and wrapped herself into a ball as she heard the firing and shattering of glass simultaneously.

And then, all she could hear was distant voices yelling and the sound of her own ragged breathing.

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He couldn't believe it. When the door had slammed in his face, locking his partner in that room with the man who promised to kill her, he screamed. He was shocked when two agents immediately picked him back up, and unbound him.

"You okay, Agent Booth?" one had asked and he'd looked at them like they'd grown second heads.

"I just witnessed my partner's kidnapping by a man who wants her dead. My partner, who is pregnant with my daughter," he added. "So no. No, I'm not okay."

One regarded the bruises on his face and cuts on his arm and picked up his walkie-talkie. "Let's get a paramedic to take a look at Agent Booth," he said into the piece.

At that, Booth stomped away. "Forget it. If you think I'm about to see a doctor right now—"

He didn't finish. He found the agent in charge of this asinine plan and Max standing beside him, and he walked up to them, a murderous glare in his eyes. "What were you thinking?"

"It was the only way. And, if we didn't help, she would've done something on her own. Then we really wouldn't have a shot," the agent explained.

Max shrugged helplessly. Booth knew that Max most likely wanted to go in himself and shoot the man in the head, that abiding by the rules was probably killing him inside. But he didn't care. How could Max let her do this?

"She's your daughter, Max."

Max nodded. "I didn't know about the plan until the agents came to take us here," he explained. "It was too late to do anything. I don't like this any more than you do, Booth."

Booth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "What's the plan?" he demanded to the agent.

The agent pointed towards another agent who was huddled against a wall.

"He's our shooter. Dr. Brennan knows the plan. She needs to get Rob to this window here, which is pretty obscured from the inside, and we can take a shot. She just needs to get out of the way."

Anger flared in Booth. "You are going to fire shots into an enclosed room like that, with about a million metal surfaces? This is your plan!"

He shook his head. "No way. No way are you doing that, risking a ricocheting bullet getting her," he added. "You guys should have left me in there. I would've been fine."

"We'll get him sooner this way and close the case on him. He's a killer Booth. If we didn't do something by seven tonight, well… you would be gone by now."

"So she gets to sit in there and risk it all?"

Max stepped in front of Booth. "She trusts you and them. She would put herself in danger in a heartbeat, yes. We both know that. But she'd never put the baby in danger. She doesn't think anything will go wrong."

Booth sighed. He loved her trust… but hated it at the same time. She put too much faith in him and the FBI sometimes. She took chances. She ran into the field and line of fire. She always assumed she'd come out unscathed. Because of him, she usually did.

There were times, though, where he couldn't protect her. Those times broke him to pieces.

It was times like this. That might even get her killed.

"Why hasn't she turned the corner?" the agent at the window asked. "She was already supposed to have come around the corner so we could get a shot. Why is she taking so long?"

Something tightened in Booth's stomach at that. Had something happened? Bones wasn't sticking to the plan? She usually stuck with plans. Something must be wrong. Something…

It had been nearly fifteen minutes now.

She should be…

"Okay, okay," the agent said. "Never mind, here they are!"

Booth took a step forward but was stopped by a set of arms holding him back.

"He's drawn. Damn, she's in the way! Oh god, okay –" the agent said.

Every word out of the shooter's mouth caused Booth to begin to shake as fear overtook him.

A series of shots were fired and he felt like his heart stopped. Through the tiny window, he saw Rob and Bones both laying on the ground, some feet away from each other.

Booth took off on foot, back to the door where he'd been thrown out. Luckily an agent had fired it open by shooting the lock by the time he got there.

Booth rushed into the basement room and immediately spotted his partner, curled up in a ball on the floor. He ran to her side and fell to the floor. "Bones! You okay?"

She pulled herself into a seated position with his help and looked at him. She'd gone as white as a sheet and had a look in her eyes that he could only call haunted.

"Bones, what did he do?" he asked, pulling her closer to him, into a hug. "Are you alright?" he repeated, running his hand soothingly up and down her back.

She nodded, but still said nothing.

Booth looked over her shoulder to one of the officers at the scene. "Get an ambulance," he said quietly. "Now."

Bones shook her head. "I'm okay, Booth. I don't need an ambulance."

"I'm not sure what happened, Bones, but you don't look so good. Let's just play it safe," he said. And then he added, if just to get her to agree, "for the baby's sake."

At that she paused, closed her eyes, but nodded, to his relief. "Fine. But he didn't touch me. Not really," she added. "I should be okay."

Booth looked at the small window through which an FBI agent shot a bullet that had taken out Rob Blitz. The man who'd been chasing his partner, in his last moments, through that basement, gun drawn and aimed.

Twice in two days, his partner had very nearly been shot to death. And this time, she could have prevented it.

"Bones, what were you thinking?" he finally asked. He didn't want to push, since she still didn't look quite herself. She seemed pretty shaken up. But he was shaken up too! His hands were still shaking; his heart was hammering in his chest furiously.

"I was thinking, Booth, that I didn't want that man to kill you," she said brusquely. "We had a plan. He said no cops or agents, but… I spoke with Hacker and Sweets. And they felt that Rob was so far gone and in over his head, that we could outsmart him."

She got to her feet and Booth kept an arm around her; she still seemed unsteady which worried him.

"My worst nightmare, Bones, is you giving yourself up to save me. You know that. We just talked about that." He put a hand through his hair and sighed, frustrated. "You could've been killed. Again. And in case you aren't aware, I about lose my mind every time that happens!"

"I'm fine, Booth," she pressed.

"If you brought agents and cops, why couldn't you just leave me in here with him? Why did you have to go in there and risk… risk everything?"

She closed her eyes. "I can't handle your disappointment right now. We did it because the agents knew about that window to this warehouse. We needed to get him to that window. Rob had a gun and would've killed you if anyone other than me showed up. We knew that. All I had to do was go in there, and then get him over to the window. The shot was supposed to be non-lethal," she said, her voice quivering.

"Yeah, well, when he's seconds away from shooting you, they take him out if they have to." He groaned. "If you just had to walk him to the window, why were you in there for fifteen minutes?"

"We were talking," she said quietly. "He… he taped it," she said as her eyes nearly popped out of her head. She looked at the video camera that agents were already dissecting, extricating the tape from. "Oh no," she whispered.

"What?" Booth asked, looking at the video camera. "Bones, did he do something?" he asked, teeth clenched.

He looked at the prone form on the floor of the man who had killed their victim and had wanted so badly to blame Bones for it and make her the next victim. Anger coursed through him even though he was dead; because from the look on Bones's face right now, he did do something – and it was probably on that tape she looked so worried about.

She just shook her head and closed her eyes. "I want to get out of here."

"Okay," he said, leading her away from the dungeon where they'd both been held now.

He'd watch the tape later. Everything would be okay.

It was over now.