(The Wannabe in the Weeds)
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I don't own Bones.
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He'd never actually heard Brennan sing before and when she told him that she sang better than Cindi Lauper because her mother had told her so, well that just made him want to hear her sing even more. The fact that she had to have music and the right atmosphere of frivolity to sing made him determined to find a way to get her to sing for him. He thought of it as a challenge.
His brilliant partner may be the best in the world when it came to anthropology and bones, but a better singer than Cindi Lauper? That was just hard to believe especially since she had never mentioned it before. Determined to find a way to get her to sing, he worked the case with her and realized that he had the perfect venue right in front of him. The victim had sung at a karaoke night club and that had to be the right frivolous atmosphere wasn't it?
Once the case was over and the murderer had been found, Booth approached Cam, Angela, Hodgins and Sweets to see if they would like to hear his partner sing.
"Can she sing?" Angela knew a lot about Brennan's past, her childhood, but for the life of her, she could never remember Brennan actually singing.
"She says her mother told her she can sing 'Girls Want to Have Fun' better than Cindi Lauper can." Booth smiled at Angela. "My mother told me I could sing pretty good too, but I know I'm just an average singer."
Angela almost chocked on her coffee. The fact that Booth thought he could sing at all was quite a shock and the hot coffee actually burned her mouth as she struggled to swallow it and not spit it out at the Agent's face.
Concerned, Booth stood up and debated about whether or not the artist needed the Heimlich Maneuver or something. "Are you okay? Do you need my help?"
Waving him back down to his seat, Angela grabbed a napkin and wiped her lips and chin, then grabbed the glass of ice water near her apple pie and drank a few swallows trying to cool her mouth. "No . . . no, I'm fine. I just swallowed wrong that's all." After she blew her nose with another napkin, Angela felt a little better. "So, how are you going to get her to sing for you?"
"I'm going to get her to go with me to the Checker Box in Alexandria, Virginia. That nightclub has open mic night and if I can get her there, she won't have any excuse not to sing." Booth smiled. "She told me she needs a frivolous atmosphere. A karaoke night club is pretty frivolous."
"That does sound like her." She thought about it for a few seconds and smiled. "I'll talk to Hodgins about going, but I'm sure we can make it."
Pleased that he wouldn't be the only one there to hear Brennan sing, Booth sipped his coffee and placed the cup back down. "I'll see if Cam and Sweets want to go . . . I'm sure she's not a bad singer, but I just want to hear her sing. I mean if she's as good as Cindi is then I want to hear it.
"Well, she does have a pleasant voice, so I'm sure she has a pleasant singing voice too." Angela sliced off a piece of her pie and waved it around a bit. "Of course, if she really is that good, we'll probably be reminded about it in the future. Brennan is proud of all of her accomplishments."
"Yeah . . . that's okay." Proud to be her partner, Booth thought having a partner that could actually sing well might be interesting. "If she's as good as she says she is, then she'll have the right to brag." He never was one to knock someone down. If they had talent then he felt that person should have bragging rights, like his ability to shoot long distances with lethal accuracy. Talent was talent.
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She entered the nightclub expecting to do an interview with the nightclub owner, but her partner had other ideas. "What's going on? Why did you call me here, Booth?"
Pleased that his plan was coming together, Booth waved his hand towards the stage. "Your need to sing in front of a live audience. It's innate, Bones." He was trying to make this whole thing seem reasonable and maybe obligatory, but he knew that it might be an uphill fight to get his partner to sing in front of strangers.
"No way." Brennan couldn't believe that her partner was doing this to her. She didn't want to sing and yet here he was trying to persuade her to do it.
"Hey, I got the music, the frivolity. What else to do you need?" He smiled at her with his charm smile and hoped she'd get into the spirit of the fun time he was offering her. He didn't think Brennan had a lot of fun in her life and he wanted to see her enjoy herself.
Taking Booth's words as a challenge, Brennan walked over to the stage, removing her jacket and dropping it on the stage. As a rule, she never backed down from challenges and if Booth wanted to hear her sing then she would sing. To her surprise, when she stepped on the stage the pianist started to play 'Girls Want to Have Fun' and Brennan turned to smile at her partner. He really had set up this entire thing and he had remembered that her mother had told her that she sang that song better than Cindi Lauper. Well, she would prove it and he would have to admit that her mother had been right.
As she sang, she kept her eyes on her partner. He was acting silly, jumping up and down on his seat, clapping and just to add to the silliness he removed his lighter from his jacket pocket, flicked the flame on and slowly waved it back and forth in front of him. She was having so much fun and so was Booth. She could see that he admired her singing and that made her feel warm and happy. She had never had a friend like Booth and she felt that she had been lucky to find someone like him.
She continued to sing, her eyes on her partner unaware that Pam Noonan was there in the club with them. The woman had shouted something that Brennan didn't hear, but Booth did. He turned to face Pam and to her horror Pam shot her partner. As Booth fell, she scrambled to grab his gun and with no choice left her, she shot Pam in the throat and killed her.
Her thoughts now on her partner, she knelt next to him, placed her hands over Booth's wound and tried to staunch the bleeding. The look on his face made her feel sick. His eyes were losing focus and though he tried to speak, he stopped and closed his eyes. Terrified she started to speak to him, to yell at him. "Booth, you're gonna be fine. I'm right here. Come on."
His eyes flickered open, but she was sure he didn't really see her. "You're gonna do this. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna make this . . . Come on!" He closed his eyes again and she started to panic as she pressed harder against his wound. "Come on, Booth! Come on. Come on! Come on Booth! Come on!" She didn't know what else to say. She needed him to stay awake, but he wouldn't open his eyes again. Desperately, she pressed her weight on the wound, pleading with him to stay and not leave her.
The EMTs arrived and took over leaving Brennan sitting on the stage, her hands covered in blood. Flicks of blood had made it to her shirt and pants, but she didn't care as she watched them work on her friend. Soon they were moving him out of the nightclub and when she tried to follow them, she was stopped by a police officer who needed her statement. Desperate to leave, she gave as succinct a statement as she could and with promises to contact the police in the morning, she fled the club and drove to the hospital.
As she drove, she tried to go over what she had seen, where the wound was, how much blood Booth had lost and decided that he would be fine. It was her professional opinion that he was going to recover and she felt calmer.
Upon her arrival, Brennan found the waiting room and thought about how her partner was strong and had suffered much worse as a prisoner of war. He would be grumpy for a few days since he hated to be sick and usually was a bad patient, but she could live with that. No one really liked to be sick and she felt that she was fairly anti-social when she was ill too.
After a while, Brennan became concerned when Deputy Director Bishop appeared in the waiting room. As she watched him walk towards her, she felt the short hairs on the back of her neck rise and instinctively she knew that he was going to tell her the impossible.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan . . . Agent Booth died on the operating table."
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She drove back to the nightclub and found the entrance being guarded by a policeman. Determined to enter the club, she explained that she had been a witness of the shooting and needed to give whatever detective in charge of the case more information.
Walking into the nightclub, she found two detectives sitting at a table writing up notes as the last witness was released from the scene. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan. I was here when Agent Booth was shot."
Puzzled, Detective Harding looked up from his notes. "You gave us a statement earlier, Dr. Brennan. Do you have something to add?"
"Yes, I told you that Pam Noonan was involved in another case my partner and I were working on and that she had taken an unusual interest in Agent Booth. I forgot to tell you that she had been stalking our murder victim before he had died. Booth felt that she was infatuated with our victim, but she didn't murder him. I'm not sure why she was infatuated with Booth. I'm not very good with psychology, but it is possible that she was suffering from transference . . . I'm still not sure why she shot Booth though. It seems an odd thing to do if you're sexually interested in someone."
"Dr. Sweets talked to us about Ms. Noonan. He said the same thing as you did, but I think you misunderstood what happened here tonight. According to several witnesses, Ms. Noonan pulled her gun and shouted to Agent Booth that she was doing this for them. She pointed her gun at you an Agent Booth placed himself between you and Ms. Noonan. She was going to kill you."
Shocked, Brennan moved over to a chair and sat down. "He . . . he took the bullet that was aimed at me?" She was appalled that Booth would do such a thing. "Why would he do that?"'
Detective Harding shrugged his shoulders. "He wanted to protect you."
Stunned, she sat at the table staring at the section of the floor that contained Booth's blood. Detective Smith walked over to the bar, filled up a glass with water and placed it on the table next to Brennan. "Do you want me to have an officer drive you home?"
Slowly shaking her head, Brennan continued to stare at the blood. "No thank you."
The nightclub manager recognized Brennan and walked across the room and placed a gold lighter on the table next to the glass of water. "Um, the Agent dropped this . . . Could you give this to him?"
Her eyes now on the lighter, Brennan picked it up and cupped it in her hand. "He's dead. Agent Booth died at the hospital."
Sorry for her, the manager patted her shoulder. "I'm sorry." Glancing at the detectives, he walked over to the bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. Two deaths connected to his nightclub. He had opened the place to give people a place to come and have fun. Knocking back his drink, he assumed that the deaths would be the end of his club. It seemed odd that a night of fun could end so badly for two people.
The lighter in her hand, Brennan stood up, walked out of the club and once she was in her car, began to cry. Booth's lighter held tightly in her hand, Brennan felt like her world had been turned upside down and inside out. She had lost a dear friend and she felt betrayed. "He shouldn't have stepped between us. He had no right to do that . . . no right."
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