TITLE: Undoing
CHAPTER SIX: Overload
"Where's Dr. Brennan?" was the first question fired at Booth as he entered the Jeffersonian sans his partner.
He didn't even look at the one who voiced the question, Zack Addy, not wanting to make the poor kid think their little 'bonding ritual' was over. He instead walked up to Angela, who was heading toward her office. "Angela!"
She spun at the voice, "Booth, hi! Brenn not with you?"
"She's meeting her editor."
Angela swallowed hard and hoped he wouldn't notice -- she knew where her best friend really was. "Uh, Booth, I need to talk to you."
"Great. That's why I was looking for you. I was hoping you'd have that spiffy holographic thing all keyed up so I could look at the knife angles."
She nodded and grasped the sleeve of his suit jacket between her thumb and forefinger, leading him toward her office. "Yeah, actually... that's not ready yet. There was something else I needed to talk to you about."
Booth, noting that she had closed them inside her office, furrowed his brows warily. "Okay..." He drew the word out and slightly upward, half-questioning. "What's going on?"
"It's about you and Brennan."
"She told you what happened, didn't she?"
Angela shrugged. "More or less, sure. But there's something that's happened that she hasn't told you... and I felt, considering the subject matter, that you had a right to know about it. Even though she's gonna be pissed if she finds out I told you."
Now he had grown slightly alarmed. "What's going on? Is she okay?"
She sighed slowly, taking in the stress already hugging Booth's handsome features. She had an obligation to tell him... but then again, if she did tell him, not only would her best friend possibly not speak to her again, but the poor man in front of her might also blow a fuse. She closed her eyes a moment and resolved that she had to follow through, and she waved him over to her desk. "You know how Brennan's been kinda sick lately?"
"Yeah. I hope to hell it's not contagious."
"I don't think it is," she assured him, and opened her desk drawer, "because I found this in the garbage can in her office." She slapped the white plastic stick into Booth's upturned palm and waited for the reaction.
It took a few moments for it to set in, from what Angela could see... but when it hit him, it hit hard. "Holy shit. She's pregnant?"
Angela nodded. "Mm-hmm. And I'm assuming it's yours, because let's face it -- Brennan hasn't been seen with any other men lately."
"Pregnant. She's pregnant."
"That's not all."
Booth met Angela's eyes again, his brain already on overload trying to process the last bit of information she'd laid on him. "There's more?"
She passed him the note that had been scrawled on her best friend's desk calendar. "She's not meeting her editor today. She has an appointment at this," she pointed to Brennan's scrawled 'Anderwood', "clinic on K Street."
"Oh, man."
"And there's one last thing you need to know."
Booth closed his eyes painfully. "Angela, I swear, one more and my head is going to explode. This is too much."
"I know. But this is something you absolutely have to know."
He sighed, swallowed hard, and took a moment to mentally prepare himself before giving her the go-ahead. "Alright. What?"
"I looked up this clinic on the internet. They specialize in abortion."
That was the last word Angela could speak before Booth flew out the door. She sighed and shook her head at his exit. "Dammit, Brenn," she whispered to her empty office. "Why the hell are you doing this?"
Booth had raced out of the Jeffersonian at break-neck speed, ignoring Zack and Hodgins not out of a bizarre male-bonding ritual, but simply because he couldn't hear them. He was focused on his partner, and only his partner as he sprinted toward his car, hopped in, and peeled out.
Today was one of the days he was grateful he drove an FBI-issued SUV. He had full access to the lights and sirens of a police vehicle, and today he put them to good use. He reached K Street without causing any accidents, luckily, and he pulled haphazardly into a parking space near the clinic before cutting the engine and jumping out, jogging inside.
"Sir?" A perky receptionist stood to greet him, but he ignored her, running toward the waiting room and completely missing her nagging that he had to sign in.
He was out of breath from the adrenaline rush when he skidded to a stop in the waiting room, just in time to see Temperance emerge with tears in her eyes.
His chin dropped to his chest.
TBC
