AN: Thank you for being patient with me! February was a crazy busy month and March looks just as nuts. Please leave behind reviews -they motivate me! Also, just FYI -I have no intention of changing anything from any of the episodes, I am simply filling in the blanks between scenes. Enjoy!
TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
BONES
Season 6, Episode 12: The Sin in the Sisterhood
The rippling surface of the water glittered under the sun's rays, the breeze cool against her sun warmed skin as she dipped the paddle into the water, Chris keeping pace to her left in his own kayak.
"How was Colorado," Brennan asked as she smoothly maneuvered the bright blue one-person kayak down the Seneca Creek, the wide brim hat she wore keeping her face free of the sun's rays.
"Great. Mom had a blast with all of us there for her birthday," Chris easily maneuvered over the tugging currents, "It's been a while since we've all been home at the same time."
"How many siblings do you have?"
"I'm one of six," he looked over at Brennan, easily picturing the wide blue eyes behind her sunglasses, "I'm right smack in the middle of five boys and then there's Brianna, our little sister. She's seventeen and eager to get out on her own. She's been accepted into the Air Force Academy so we celebrated that along with Mom's birthday."
Easily taking the turn up ahead, she looked over at him, "It must have been chaos growing up."
"Definitely," he gave her a grin as he kept pace with her, "It was a ton of fun too. We live outside of Denver, in a ranch with lots of space and easy access to all sorts of activities. I grew up hiking, camping, rock climbing, horse riding, you name it. Of course, being boys with just a year or two in between in age, we raised all kinds of hell."
Brennan chuckled, resting her paddle over her thighs as she tilted her head back, enjoying the sun's warming rays on her face. They paddled in comfortable silence, their paddles cutting into the glittering Seneca Creek water, their movements smooth and precise as they reached their turning point to head back to where they had started.
"How's Booth doing? His ankle finally healed up?"
Nodding, she bit her lip as she let kayak glide through the water, "He's back in fighting form, according to him. May I ask you a question?"
"Any time you need to," he tossed a grin her way, the sun's rays reflecting off his sunglasses, "You don't even have to ask for permission first."
Chuckling, she dipped her paddle into the water from the left side of her canoe, "I'm trying to understand something…Booth didn't want to call Hannah after that incident with Broadsky. She was out of town on some assignment but still –she's his girlfriend, so shouldn't he want to inform her about what happened?"
Chris let out a long breath as he looked over at her, "Didn't you say he had a concussion, and his doctor wanted someone with him overnight to make sure no complications arose?"
"Yes."
"So if he didn't tell Hannah, which I assume means she didn't return to town, who stayed with him?"
Brennan looked over at him, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth for a second before she continued, "He asked me to stay with him…we stayed up all night, watching the X-Files."
Chris kept a neutral look on his face, even though he'd learned in the past few months Brennan lacked the ability to recognize facial expressions and what they meant. From what she was sharing, he knew what was happening –Booth was having second thoughts regarding his 'not a consolation prize'. He knew if he told Brennan about his suspicion, she would likely close up on Booth, thinking it was her fault, or she would ask Booth about it straight out, which would corner Booth into saying something stupid from sheer stubbornness.
Being he didn't want either one of those two options to happen, he weighed his words carefully as he replied, "Booth, more so than anyone, would know his injuries weren't life-threatening. Perhaps he felt they were minor and no reason to disrupt Hannah's work."
Brennan's bottom lip was tucked between her teeth, the sun reflecting off her glasses as they smoothly paddled back towards the dock where they had started their five mile trek down the Seneca Creek.
"Temperance," Chris settled his paddle over his thighs, giving his arms a rest as the current carried him back, glad when she did the same, "You and Booth have trust built on years of being there for each other. It's a level of trust he and Hannah are not going to have in just months of knowing each other, even if he does love her. It's probably why he turned to you for help, and your company, when he was hurt. He's not afraid to be vulnerable with you…you've seen him at his worse, I'm sure, as he has you."
They both began paddling, their movements unintentionally synchronized. Mulling over his words, she didn't say anything, keeping a steady pace as their kayaks cut across the sparkling water, the far off landing dock visible from their position.
Still a good mile away, she looked over at Chris as she shared a revelation she'd had years ago regarding Booth, "Our first year as partners, we were working these two different cases simultaneously. One of them involved a body found at the bottom of a river, with cement shoes. Booth brought in Agent James Kenton, who'd been working on the disappearance of a mob boss named Cugini for over two years. The other body was a young girl –Penny Hamilton. She was kidnapped and killed; her eyes were gouged out and she was left in an abandoned warehouse to be devoured by hungry dogs."
Chris stared at her, wide-eyed, as he tried not to form pictures from the gory details she was giving him. Her sun-warmed cheeks flooded with color as she jumped to the important part, "Turned out, James Kenton killed Cugini. He tried to kill me on a drive-by shooting, but I narrowly missed the bullet due to having dropped my phone. He also planted a bomb in my refrigerator, which blew up when Booth opened it to get something to drink.
"He told Kenton to look after me, which annoyed me. Needless to say, Kenton stayed by my side, and when we got news Hollingsworth, the suspect for our Hamilton case, had gone into another abandoned warehouse with another girl, I insisted on going with him when he suggested dropping me off at the lab. Long story short, he held me at gun point, tied me up, and when I tried getting away, hit me over the head with his gun. His plan was to set up Hollingsworth for my death, and having already killed Hollingsworth and hidden his body, it would never be traced back to him."
They were lazily making their way up the creek, a yard or two away from reaching the dock, "Booth showed up out of nowhere, shot him before he could kill me. Booth pulled me off the hook I was hanging from and he…he held me while I cried."
"He saved you."
Nodding, she steered her kayak to the side of the dock, "At the cost of his own pain –he had burns, lacerations, two broken ribs and a green-stick fracture on his left clavicle."
"You learned something that day, didn't you?"
"Yes," nimbly stepping out of the kayak, she pulled it up the bank, the water cold against her sun warmed legs, "I learned I could trust him, implicitly. He would ensure my safety, even at the expense of his own well-being."
Chris pulled his bright orange kayak next to hers, about to say something but her ringing cell cut him off. He pulled both kayaks out of the water, the paddles safely put away inside them as Brennan unzipped the waterproof pack around her waist where she had stowed away her phone, wallet and keys.
Looking at the screen, she swiped her thumb across the screen, bringing the phone up to her ear, "Hello Booth."
"Hey, Bones. We've got a body in the middle of a cornfield. How about I swing by the lab in thirty minutes to pick you up?"
"Oh," Brennan looked at her watch, quickly estimating in her head how much time she would need, "I'm not at the lab."
"You're not? It's the middle of the week."
"I took the day off to go kayaking."
"Kayaking?"
"Yes."
"Oh…where?"
"Great Seneca Creek. As soon as we get the kayaks stored, I'll head to my apartment, shower and get dressed –how about I meet you there?"
"Nah, I can pick you up at your apartment –crime scene is way out there in the boonies, no point in taking two vehicles. Who'd you go kayaking with?"
"Chris," Brennan adjusted her baseball hat, giving Chris a smile of appreciation as he proceeded to take the kayaks up to the parking lot where his all-terrain vehicle was, "If you give me an hour, I should be ready."
"Okay, great…Chris Markham?"
"Yes," Brennan pulled the keys to her Prius out of the waterproof pouch, "I'll see you in an hour."
"Sure, sure."
Booth stared at the phone in his hand, eyebrows pulled low as he frowned at the screen, "What the hell?"
Hannah walked into the bedroom, where he'd gone to get ready soon after the call on the dead body interrupted their movie, "What's wrong?"
"Bones…she spent the day kayaking, with Chris."
"Who's Chris?"
Bones placed the phone on the dresser, turning his attention back to his shirt, which he'd been buttoning up when he'd called his partner, "This helicopter pilot she befriended –we met him during the Eames case. He had a thing for Dr. Lauren Eames. That week she disappeared on me, she was spending it with him."
Hannah chuckled as she sat at the foot of the bed, leaning back on her hands to watch Booth finish dressing, "Good for her."
"What? No, not good for her," Booth turned to glare at Hannah, his tie hanging around his neck, "She doesn't know anything about this guy. Hell, he could be some kind of pervert or deviant, what with her track record on guys."
Sitting up, she crossed her legs as she leveled her eyes on her boyfriend, "She's moving on, Booth. She deserves to be happy."
"I know that," Booth turned his eyes back to the mirror, motions sharp and abrupt as he knotted his tie, "What if this guy isn't good enough for her? We did a perfunctory check on him…yeah, that's what I need to do –a better background check."
"You're going to run a background check on Temperance's boyfriend?"
Pulling on his suit jacket, he ensured the knot on his tie was straight before looking over at Hannah, "He's not her boyfriend –they're just friends."
"For now."
He glowered at her, saying nothing as he walked out of the bedroom, grabbing his laptop from the coffee table before setting it up on his kitchen table. The silence was heavy despite the clacking of the keyboard keys as he methodically typed away.
"Seeley."
Standing in the middle of the living room, she crossed her arms over her chest, eyes trained on him as he kept his own eyes on the information his search was generating, "What, Hannah?"
"How many of the men in Temperance's life have you done background checks on?"
He still didn't look up, his frown deepening as he kept reading, "Considering she once dated a guy who turned out to be in a cult, and then there was that guy who killed his brother because a witch told him to –I've made sure any guy she was interested in is in the up and up."
"Are you serious?"
The sound of incredulity in her voice finally had him looking up, frustration showing on his face, "Yeah. She's my partner, Hannah. I look after her and make sure she's safe, in every way possible."
Hannah stared at him, her throat tight as she nodded, "Partner…right."
Turning on her heel, she slipped her socked feet into her boots, which she'd left beside the couch. Zipping them up before grabbing her black trench coat from the coat rack, she looked over her shoulder when Booth called out, "Where are you going?"
"Into the office," she put on her coat, picking up her messenger bag and slinging it over her shoulder, "I'm going to see if there's anything new for me to work on. You keep looking into your partner's boyfriend."
"He's not her –"
"Sorry," Hannah gave him a tight smile before heading down the short hallway towards the front door, "Her friend."
He closed his eyes as the door closed behind Hannah, the weight of guilt and regret heavy on his shoulders. The more he allowed himself to think about Bones and her confession, the more chaotic his thoughts and feelings were becoming.
Deciding to put the whole situation with Hannah in the back burner, he turned his attention back to the detailed report on Christopher James Markham. There were no red flags, no suspicious gaps in his work history, nothing standing out as potential problems. For all intent and purposes, he was a law abiding citizen, as far as the government was concerned. Then again, so was Will Hastings until DNA trace proved he'd decapitated his own brother out in the Virginia woods.
Leaning back in his chair, he let out a long breath as he tried to figure out how he was going to go about learning more about Chris Markham and his place in Bones' life. Catching sight of the clock beside his refrigerator, he stood up, closing his laptop and moving across the living room, grabbing his trench coat on the way out of his apartment, absently ensuring it was locked before he headed down the stairs and out to his SUV, still trying to figure out how to bring up the topic of Bones' growing friendship with the helicopter pilot.
Brennan looked over at Cam as she stepped back from the remains, "Are you prepared to remove the body?"
"Yeah," Cam nodded, looking over at the techs gathering soil samples for Hodgins before stepping towards the black body bag beside the body, "I got the bag right here."
"Forget about the bag –you need a tarp," he looked around the corn field, the sound of rolling thunder swelling, bringing with it the scent of rain, "Now. This is about to turn into Woodstock."
"Oh, uh," Cam looked over at Brennan and Booth, "Which way is the car?"
Looking around the field, Brennan grimaced as all she saw was miles and miles of golden corn stalks, "I have no idea. We didn't anticipate rain."
Cam grabbed the tarp one of the techs handed her as the swelling thunder broke with a loud crash, bringing with it torrential rain, "Yeah, you never know –whoa!"
"Let's cover him up before he's soup."
Rain fell in sheets as Cam hurriedly spread the tarp over the body with the help of the tech and Brennan.
Booth pulled his coat over his head, reaching out to grab his partner's arm, "Let's go, Bones, before we drown out here!"
They dived into the corn stalks, Booth drawing her into his side to try to keep her as dry as possible under his coat. Several minutes of running through the fields, Brennan stopped to wipe her dripping bangs off her face, turning to look at Booth who stared down at her with a big grin, "I think we're lost."
"Ya think," Booth chuckled as he looked around them, then down at her, stepping in closer as he gave her a teasing grin, his brown eyes twinkling, "Want to be the periscope again?"
She stared up into his eyes, her own lips spreading into a smile that had Booth's chest tightening in an entirely familiar and pleasant way, "I don't think that will work –the rain has rendered everything monochromatic."
"So we just keep wandering," Booth reached out to take her hand, pulling her along with him as they slogged through the muddying fields, pushing aside stalks to ensure they wouldn't swipe at their faces, "Ever seen Children of the Corn?"
Looking up at him, she gripped his hand tighter as mud sucked at the soles of her gum boots, "I'm assuming that's a fictional movie, as corn cannot propagate children."
"Yeah, Bones," he grinned down at her as they kept walking, his thumb rubbing circles on the back of her soft hand, "It's a scary movie…we should watch it."
Rolling her eyes, Brennan reached up to, once again, push back the wet hair plastered to her face, "I feel like we're walking in circles."
Stopping once again, he pulled her in closer in an effort to keep the buffeting rain from hitting her. They stood in the middle of the corn field, rain falling hard on them as they stared at each other, the familiar tension building between them until Booth spoke with a twinkle in his velvet brown eyes, "Remember the mummy in the hay bale maze?"
"Yes," Brennan tilted her head, grinning when he pulled out his keys, pressing a button to set off the SUV alarm, "Brilliant, Booth!"
"Always the tone of surprise," Booth teased her as they started walking once more, "Don't let go, Bones. I don't want to lose you out in these creepy corn fields."
"I won't."
Booth easily navigated the country roads as they listened to music, Bones using one of his spare t-shirts to dry her hair, which she'd pulled out of its ponytail.
Booth looked over at her then turned his attention to the road, "So, uh…you've been spending quite a bit of time with that helicopter pilot, uh?"
Bones lowered the damp shirt to her lap, "Well, when our schedules allow it. He works two to three shifts a week, and I have my own work that keeps me busy but we try to do something at least once a month, more if it's possible."
He nodded as he tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel in time with the song currently playing, "So it's, uh, getting serious between you two?"
Her head tilted slightly as she gave him a quizzical look, "How do you mean?"
"Well, you know," Booth could feel the heat rising on his face, but it had nothing to do with embarrassment at bringing up the uncomfortable topic that was none of his business, come to think of it, "Have you two, uh…you know."
"Are you alluding to sexual intercourse?"
Letting out a frustrated breath, he nodded as he refused to look at her, "Yeah."
"Sexual intercourse is not a dynamic of our relationship," Bones kept her eyes on Booth, wondering what he was thinking and feeling but unable to tell from the expression on his face, "He's simply a good friend and a…confidant. Someone who is able to explain things I find confusing in a way I can comprehend."
Booth wanted to argue he was the one to always do that but knew the things she was probably finding confusing involved him, so he kept his jealousy at her having another confidant that wasn't him to himself, "So, uh…he ever been married?"
She shrugged, turning to look out the window, the still heavy rain obliterating any passing scenery, "I've not asked him."
"Where's he from?"
"Colorado," she answered, a shiver running through her which had Booth adjusting the heat in the car and tilting one of the vents towards her, "His family has a ranch outside of Denver."
"A ranch, uh," Booth bobbed his head to the song, keeping his expression neutral as he kept subtly digging, "Siblings, both parents alive?"
"He's the middle of five boys and has a seventeen year old sister," Bones turned to look at him once again, "Both his parents are alive and healthy. In fact, he spent his vacation time with his family to celebrate his mother's birthday. Wasn't all this basic information disclosed on his background check?"
He looked out his window in an effort to hide the blush rising on his face, "I'm just looking out for you, Bones."
"Why?"
Turning to look at her, he stared into her blue eyes, feeling his heart swell as he caught sight of the vulnerability she was feeling, "You're my partner, Bones, and my best friend. I'll always look out for you."
She was drowning in his velvet brown eyes, her heart beating fast against her sternum as they turned their attention back to the road, but not before Booth caught the soft smile on her face.
It had been so long since he'd heard her laugh like that, and although it was totally unprofessional and inappropriate, he couldn't help egging her on, "Poisoned, shot, and rolled in poo-poo."
Bones laughed, blue eyes bright as she gave him a playful smile, "Twit."
He laughed, responding quickly, "Chowder head."
"Numbskull."
Their laughter mingled harmoniously, giving Booth a sense of peace he hadn't felt in such a long time.
Shaking his head, he gave her a big smile, "We really are terrible."
"We're terrible," she agreed with him.
"We're bad."
Giggling, she took in a deep breath before straightening her face in an attempt to get some control of herself, "We're really terrible."
The silence was easy between them, but Booth still hadn't had enough of her laughter, so looking at her out of the corner of his eyes, he whispered, "Doofus."
That was all it took to get her started all over again.
He slid the fake books over to hide his gun safe, letting out a long breath as he hung up his leather jacket as he tossed his keys into the ceramic bowl on the side table. Pouring himself a couple of fingers of his best scotch, he sat in the middle of his sofa, toeing off his Vans before resting his feet on the coffee house, the silence in the apartment pressing in on him as he sipped the smooth alcohol.
What if you let that person get away?
That person's not going anywhere.
He hadn't spoken without thinking –no, he'd been doing a lot of thinking. For the last few months, thinking over his decisions, over his relationships, over everything in his life had been all he'd been able to do.
He loved Hannah…he really did but…
He hadn't lied to his Bones either.
Well, it means, Bones, that, you know, you could love a lot of people in this world, but there's only one person that you love the most.
His Bones…the one person he loved the most, would always love the most, no matter who came along before her or after her.
Sipping at his warm scotch, he closed his eyes before letting his head fall against the back of his couch as he muttered under his breath, "What a fucking mess."
