Here goes.

.

.

.

.

.

CHAPTER 28

Are your eyes blue enough?

He left the room with this sentence ringing in the silence. Anne was gone, and with her my answers vanished once more. I hadn't even caught a glimpse of Margaret, and besides a killer's word, had no real evidence she was even in the same building I was. Bram was going to move them both, instead of risking trying to move me.

I was left here to die. Lying on my back, feeling a terrible stabbing pain in my joints and on my crushed hands. I should try and shift sideways, but at the moment I didn't have the strength.

Death was something I'd contemplated many times. I worked with human remains, after all. But on the times I'd feared dying myself, I always found this reservoir of strength and will to survive. Like a surge of life in itself, flooding me with determination.

As I fought to remain awake and aware, with pain in every inch of my body, from fractured phalanges to bound wrists behind my back and bruises decorating my back and legs… as I sat, breathing and trying to interpret every sound that reached my ears, I felt it again. I had to live. I wouldn't abandon hope or let myself despair.

The screen remained blank.

For an indefinite stretch of time I simply lay there, thinking about living.

But then I moved my cramped limbs and my hands sent a sharp stab up my arm. They felt fractured, but I wasn't in a position to set them properly. The weight of my body together with the sharp angles of the back of the wooden chair were adding painful pressure which almost made me cry out. But I didn't want to chance Bram hearing me suffer.

And suddenly I heard a door slamming. It was unmistakeable. Bram had managed to take Anne and Margaret.

I was alone.

Staring at the ceiling, feeling blood flow lessen in my lower extremities and arteries pump slower… and slower… the pressure increasing in my cranium…

Booth would find me.

I knew it. It wasn't faith. I had facts to support this belief. Angela could probably triangulate the signal to locate the place where it was coming from. I wasn't as adept on technological aspects of computer science as she was, but there had to be some kind of transmission between this house and the camera they'd found, assuming the images being displayed were of a live feed and I hadn't been lied to.

Booth would find me.

I knew it.

It wasn't …faith.

I… had…

Facts.

*

I woke alone, with a start that brought the horrible crushing of my hands into sharp relief. I gave a small yelp, then regained my bearings. How much time had passed? I had no possible way of knowing.

"Booth?"

Wait, why would I call him when I knew he couldn't hear?

That wasn't rational.

I needed water, or dehydration was inevitable. It had been… probably more than fifteen to sixteen hours. I still had another two days in me, before death was a risk. I had to move, or my muscles would only relax more and fail to contract properly, resulting in lessening motor function capability directly proportional to the time passed.

Cursing myself for not attempting this before, I shifted my shoulders to tip the chair.

It didn't even budge.

With a groan of frustration, I put all my strength into twisting my back, kicking my bound legs desperately, and trying to lift myself with my right (uninjured) hand. With a heave I managed to shift the wooden furnace until it almost fell sideways. Quickly taking advantage of the momentum, cursing the drugs still in my system and the weakness the lack of food had brought, I kicked again, pulled and threw my weight again, and finally fell to the side.

The pain was excruciating in my hands for a moment, but I knew this was due to the blood rushing back and the feeling returning to my digits.

I moaned, feeling my right arm now begin to numb from the position I was in. Booth would find me.

Angela… Not faith… facts. I was facing the door now, and a slight sliver of light was taunting me from the other side. Freedom was just outside. I could save myself. No need to rely on anyone else. What if they couldn't find me?

Myself. I could do this.

I tried to move again, but Bram had tied my ankles together and to the left leg of the chair, and my wrists behind my back, which, unless I could break the tape, would most likely result in a zero movement capability.

Dragging myself wasn't an option either, because of course the bound legs again.

Relax, Tempe. Think in a structured and orderly manner. Don't panic.

Booth is coming.

Right?

I forgot the facts. What now?

*

My head was buzzing.

So it took a while to hear the steps outside. They were very quiet. I could barely see, so I closed my eyes and strained to hear. Was that someone right on the other side of the window?

"Booth!" I shouted. "Here! I'm here!"

No one answered. I felt angry at myself, imagining rescue scenarios like a mentally unstable person. It was a possibility, that didn't mean I had to shout every time I thought I heard leaves rustling. Only it did sound a lot like someone stepping… I couldn't help imagining now… someone was outside.

Someone who could hear me.

"Hello?" I called, quieter now, humbled. Please someone come. Please, Booth. Angela. Come.

I tried once more, feeling my throat rasp as I shouted: "I'm alone! In here! He's gone!"

And as I spoke the last word an almighty tearing roar resounded in my ears. The window, the boarded up black window was torn away as though wood was nothing but paper…

I gasped.

He crashed into the room like an unstoppable force of nature, bringing with him the light and the sound, bringing life and hope and an explosion of happiness that shattered my insides. He ran to me, and I think he was shouting but I couldn't hear anything. Nothing but the sound he made when he breathed, and suddenly the room was full of people, people coming in through the door, two more men through the window, shouting too, I think, but I couldn't hear.

"Bones! I think she's got a concussion… Bones! Someone get rid of those! I need to carry her…. Hospital! Now!" And then. "Do you think I care about that right now?"

I was free. "Booth." I rasped, eyes half shut, clinging to him like a child.

"Shh. It's okay, love. It's all right, I'm getting you out of here. Close your eyes now. She needs water!" he called, and a second later I felt the moisture trickle onto my lips, and I greedily parted them and drank, feeling a little more human.

"Broken phalanges…" he murmured, checking my hands carefully. "Hospital, Bones. Right now."

"Don't go." I said, holding onto his jacket. "Please, stay with me." The throbbing in my head would be unbearable without him.

And my Booth smiled, leant down to place a delicate, chaste kiss on my cheek and said:

"Didn't you understand? I'll always be with you, Bones."

.

.

.

.

.

Give me an A!

A!

Give me… another one!

A!

Give… yeah, one more please?

A!

Now gimme a W!

W!
Put them together and: AAAW!!!

Yes that's right. My little joke had nothing to do with reviews! I feel so proud of myself I could cry. *wipes tear out of the side of her eye*

;)