Into the Wild
Over the Top
Rating: This story is rated an M. This chapter, who knows?
Disclaimer: Fox wouldn't have to balls to put them in the forest with horny thoughts. I have to take the leap!
A/N: Thanks for all those who reviewed in the last chapter. Thanks to all the many, many of you who kept me busy yesterday emailing the unedited version. I never expected there would be so many private messages in my inbox. Proof that I'm not the only crazed pervert out there! I will have more unedited versions for those of you who are into that kind of thing. For now, I appeal to a general audience.
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Testing her weight on top of a protruding rock, Brennan shifted, pulling her lip between her teeth. One wrong step, she'd tumble to her death and even Booth wouldn't be able to save her.
"I shouldn't have agreed to this," she called, digging her fingers into the smallest crevice. Ten feet below, Booth grunted.
"You think this is my idea of fun, Bones?" He shimmied to the left, pushing his foot into a nook in the rock. "We have no harnesses and we're scaling something that I personally call a vertical wall." He huffed, his fingers curling around a thick branch that jutted out of the rock-face. "Watch your step, Bones, the ground is unsteady here." Brennan murmured in response.
"This is why we were provided with the clues. If we had worked it out, we'd have brought harnesses." Booth glanced down, the shore seemed only marginally closer. Above his head, the cliff didn't seem to have moved much.
"And what was the clue, Bones?" His fingers tightened around the rock, his skin aching.
"It said 'When the abyss threatens, take care and hold on tight'. I thought it might have been reference to ditches, hidden traps." Brennan followed her partner across the wall. Beneath her feet, rock crumbled and cascaded nosily to the floor below.
"If we survive this, Bones, I think we should take some time to review the other clues."
"I like how you say 'if' Booth. Your confidence in our physical abilities is astounding." Brennan felt dried bracken dig into her palm, she winced. "Are you sure we're even doing the right thing?" Booth released his hold, dropping to a ledge half way to the ground. Moments later he helped her off the rock face and they turned to waterfall, covered in dirt.
"I'm sure," Booth said, watching how she rubbed circles on her palm. "You've hurt yourself," he stated, encircling her wrist with his fingers. "What did you do?" She pulled free, wiping her hand on her combats. He saw how a patch of blood remained. "Brennan-"
"If we go that way," she interrupted, pointing towards the area with the most crevices, "then we will go slightly out of our way, but it's safer." Booth passed his tongue across his lips, his eyes narrowing as he watched the stubbornness pass across her features. He watched to reach for her. Regardless of how little her wound was, he wanted to ease whatever pain she felt. He felt certain he ought to have been entitled to it.
She was moving again, climbing off the ledge.
"Hey! Bones! You should let me go first!" She shook her head, swinging her legs, finding leverage on the jagged rocks. "I'm heavier than you. I can test the stability of the…" she grunted, hardly listening. He saw fragments break, the rock crumble beneath her weight. "Bones," Booth growled, moving after her, his extra strength affording him the ability to catch up quickly.
"Booth, stop whining I'm al-"
The stone she clung to pulled away, coming apart in her hand. She cried out, her arms flapping in an action that would have been comical, had she not been so close to falling off the wall completely.
"Bones!" He reached for her wrist, watching as she hung like a rag doll, swinging against the cliff face, her body smashing against the stone with a sickening thud. His stomach lurched. She called his name, her fingers clutching at his arm as she swayed. He swallowed. "Don't move, Bones," he warned, pulling on her until she was beside him, their bodies flush against the wall. Her breath came in rasping gulps. Her dirt caked cheeks were streaked with sweat and what he automatically knew was tears.
He saw blood trickle from her temple, along her face and down her jaw. Her lips trembled.
"It's hurts," she whispered, tilting to her left. He saw the tear in her shirt, the crimson red stain in the grey material.
"It's okay," he whispered, his arm snaking around her waist. "We'll get down." He wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to get them both to the ground. It had been difficult enough alone, but as she sagged against him, needy and dependant, he knew he had to, one way or another, carry through on his words.
She grunted only twice on the descent. Once, when he stumbled and her fingers tightened around his shoulders and twice when their bodies impacted the stony ground. He suspected the second noise she made was relief. Above their heads the cliff loomed, dizzyingly high. He sank to his knees, sucking misty air into his lungs. Brennan held her side, pressing her fingers to the sticky wound there.
"You need cleaned," Booth said. "Stay here."
Their rucksacks were a hundred yards along the shore, untouched by the river. Booth crouched, hefting the bags unto his shoulders. His knees trembled, and the realisation of their predicament seeped into his mind. She could have died. Because of a stupid competition between federal agents. She'd lost her balance and now she was hurt.
He pressed his fingers to his eyes, the pain behind his lids made him wince. If he'd slipped, only once, they'd have fallen to their deaths. If he hadn't reached for her, he'd have been powerless to prevent her from tumbling.
She could have fucking died.
He repeated the truth silently, over and over until he was back at her side. Then his anguish was replaced by another truth - she was hurt.
"Nothing's broken," she whispered, her back arched against the pain in her side. "There's quite a deep gash," she was breathless.
"I'm sending up the flare," Booth said, rummaging in his bag. Brennan reached for his arm, her fingers tight around his wrist. He stilled.
"No," she hissed, vehement. "We have to win." His cheeks flushed.
"Bones are you crazy? This isn't about winning anymore. You're injured." He shook her fingers off, pulling an emergency kit from his bag. Standard FBI issue. She wanted to smile, but when she moved, her body ached. She closed her eyes.
"I don't want to go, yet," she sighed, her fingers closing around a smooth pebbled stone. "I want to reach the end and…" she coughed, "win."
Booth pulled on the edge of her shirt, swallowing hard at the depth and severity of her wound. Her knuckles turned white as he brushed the antiseptic wipe across her side. "When I was in the army," Booth said, stroking her torso as he worked, "I was running and I got snagged on barbed wire. My legs," he winced, "got torn up pretty bad. When my buddies and I reached safety, one of them had to do this," he dabbed the wound again. "You're braver than me. I screamed like a baby." Brennan tried to smile again, reaching out and stroking his hair in response.
"Don't light the flare," she said as he taped cotton-wool over the wash, followed by waterproof gauze. "I'm fine," Brennan promised. "Really." He was powerless to stop her as she saw up straight. He saw how her cheeks paled and she masked her agony well. She should have been a solider. Brennan would have been good at plodding on. "We can rest here for awhile, right?"
"I don't see that we have a choice," Booth replied. "We'd need to swim across the river and even though the other cliff isn't as high, I don't think you could make it up there." He uncapped a small bottle of aspirin and tipped two pills into his hand. "Here, once the pain eases, we can go."
Gulping water from the canteen around her belt, Brennan swallowed the aspirin and sank back against her bag. "You should rest, Booth. I'm going to need help getting up the cliff." He shifted against her, pulling her against his shoulder. She didn't fight him. There was no sexuality in the way he held her, anyway.
He cradled her against him in the way a husband might comfort his wife. He held her, soothed away the pain she felt. Adrenaline coursed though his veins as he mentally replayed what could have happened.
Brennan pressed her nose to his chest, her eyes closed.
She'd been resting for only thirty minutes when the rain began to fall - torrential and cold. She woke abruptly, pressing her fingers to her side. Booth scrambled, shouldering his rucksack and hooking hers over his arm. "Move, Bones. We have to go." She frowned.
"It's only a little rain, Booth," she said, smirking a little. He shook his head, eyeing the cliff, an expression of desperation coming over his handsome features. Brennan felt her stomach clench. "What's wrong?" Booth tugged on her arm, urging her into the water.
"The rain isn't going to stop soon. We need to get up the cliff. The water is going to rise." He wrapped his arm around her waist, moving until they were submerged in frigidly cold water. "All rivers swell if rainwater. It's inevitable. The rain flowers downstream, engulfing the banks. Before long, there'll be no shore left. If we don't climb, Bones, we die."
Urgh! I don't know if I do action stories very well. But let me know. I hope you enjoy! Oh and please excuse any mistakes in this - I didn't even have time tonight to read back over it properly. Thanks!