Temperance Brennan lay awake in the bed. She looked across to her window where she watched rain glide down the glass. Each drop racing the one next to it. Earlier that night, a storm had raged, and rain poured down. A few hours later, the rain had almost subsided as the storm moved on towards the west and faint thunder and lightning were all that remained.
It was well past midnight, dawn was approaching. Brennan lay in a daze reviewing the earlier events of the day. Tears slowly dripping down her cheeks onto her pillow. She couldn't stop them. When she was awake, she cried, when she was asleep she had nightmares, woke up covered in sweat and sacred, and started the cycle again.
She and Booth were in the middle of an investigation and she had to poke her head in too far.
-Flashback-
"Bones," Booth called as he walked into her office.
She waved hello but did not answer as she finished up a call she was on and hung up the phone. "Did you get a name?"
"Yes, Mark Alvarado. I have units heading over there now. You want to come?"
"Yes." Booth grabbed her coat that was hung up right next to him and slipped it on her before they headed out.
A short while later they pulled up to a house that looked to have been abandoned many years ago. The old brick siding was crumbling, there were missing roof shingles and a yard that had not been tended since the turn of the century. Thorny bushes prospered over the grounds, their vines winding their way up the front porch pillars. Booth's team was waiting down the block, awaiting instruction. Booth pulled up behind them and he and Bones got out. Their team leader approached him, "No sign of the attendant. All the lights are out and no sounds from inside."
"Ok, we will try and knock but be ready to breech." Booth directed the teams to hold while he armored up.
Booth pulled his vest out of his trunk and grabbed his rifle, checking it calibrated and fully loaded. Once his vest was secured and gun checked, Booth began to walk off to the FBI team.
"Waiting where is my vest?" Bones asked.
"Your vest? You're staying here."
"No, I want to come."
"That's great, but you can't. I'm FBI, you're just a doctor." This led Bones to put her hands on her hips and raise an eyebrow.
"What does that mean?" By now, Booth's men had heard the argument and were taking notice. Booth took Bones arm and pulled her behind his SUV, out of sight. He placed himself between her and the waiting tactical team. Bones stood straight up with her arms crossed looking right into Booth's very chocolate brown eyes, but not wavering on her point.
"You have not been properly trained." Booth tried to explain without making her mad.
"I have my firearms license and I am proficient in multiple forms of self-defense. I have been to war torn countries with less protection and firearms than you and your team have now, and I survived."
Not being able to come up with a better argument besides just wanting to keep her safe, which he would never admit, he gave in. "Fine, but you have to listen to my every command, and you have to stay behind me at all times, deal?" Bones nodded. He grabbed the smaller size vest and helped her tighten it and double checked to make sure it was secure. He picked up his gun again and turned around.
"And my gun?" She put out a hand with a smile.
"Don't push it." Bones continued to smirk but accepted his rejection.
Booth and Bones joined the rest of the tactical team.
"Team 1, you take the back. Team 2, you take the side yard," Booth held up a picture of the perp, "This is who we are looking for, he is wanted for suspicion of murder. He is suspected to be armed and dangerous. He needs to be apprehended and taken in to be questioned. Clear?" The two tactical teams nodded.
"Boss, is she coming?" One of the FBI muscle pointed the butt of his gun at Bones looking inquisitive. Bones tried to stand up a little taller to look more authoritative like she belonged.
Booth gave a quick glance back to Bones, "She's with me." Booth winked and Bones who blushed a little and thanked him with a smile, but Booth still got questioning looks from his men which he ignored.
The teams separated to the assigned sides of the house. Booth led Bones to the front door, side stepping many thorny bushes hanging over the makeshift walking path. Booth held up his fist to Bones to hold on the stairs while he walkied his team to sure they were all in place. With confirmation, Booth knocked loud on the door, "FBI, come out quietly Alvarado." No answer. "FBI, we know you're in there Alvarado." Still no answer. Booth turned to Bones and mouthed, "You ready?" Then, a small crash could be heard inside.
"Alvarado's in there. Breech." Booth commanded over his radio. Booth then kicked in the front door, shattering the bolt lock and entered the dark house.
Booth drew his gun, ready to return fire if need be. Bones followed close behind him. They entered a living room, and a stench of mold and mothballs struck their nostrils like a flame. There were stacks of magazines and newspaper littering the floor. The furniture inside looked to have been collected from dumpster and street corners, worn and dirty. The only light in the room came from the cracks of the boarded-up windows letting slivers of daylight through. Booth switched on his rifle's flashlight and handed a second to Bones out of his pants pocket. They illuminated the room in two tunnels of directed light but there was no sign of Alvarado.
A silence had filled the house again, faint footsteps could be heard on the far side of the house of the other tactical teams searching the house. Booth heard, "Clear" from both teams checking the other rooms. Booth turned down the lone hallway in the house just about to say "Clear," to the living room when Bones tapped him on the shoulder.
"He's in the closet," she whispered. Booth turned his flashlight to the door and the second the light hit the door, a small adjustment could be heard beyond the door. Booth nodded at Bones and he backed away a few steps, aiming his gun right at the door.
"Come out of the closet, Alvarado," Booth bellowed. No movement. "Don't make shoot through the door." Booth would never shoot an unarmed man, which he had to assume at this point, but the perp didn't know that. "I'll only ask one more time. Come out, now or – "
Before Booth could finish, the closet door swung open and dark figure jumped out of the closet. Booth reacted on instinct, putting himself in between the figure and Bones. Booth then fired twice, one hitting the wall behind the figure and the other connecting, but not before there was a mussel flash from the figure, too. The figure doubled dover and fell. Boots could be heard running from the back into the living room. Booth flew back as the perp's shot had also hit its target.
Falling back, Bones tried to catch him, but he took her down with him. Both hit the floor hard, Booth unresponsive, Bones fully conscious. "Booth?" She tried to push him off her, but he did not move. "Booth?" Bones shook him vigorously, again no response. When Bones tried to find a pulse, she noticed movement again from over by the closet. The perp was standing again and pulling what looked like a shotgun up from the floor. Instinctively, Bones reached across Booth's chest for his sidearm holstered on his belt. She grabbed, aimed, and fired.
The last few seconds seemed to roll on in slow motion before help arrived. What was probably ten seconds of time, seemed like five minutes. The perp fell again, and the tactical team jumped on him and isolated the shotgun away from him. "Perp is in custody," one of them called.
"Boss, you ok?" The team leader came over in the dark.
"No, Booth has been hit." Brennan pleaded. The team leader immediately radioed in for two ambulances, one for Booth and another for the perp. Bones didn't know how much damage she had done to him, but he was still alive for the time being.
"We need to get him outside." She demanded. Bones had just been holding onto Booth from where she sat on the floor. Then, two of the team members picked Booth up and Bones was finally able to stand again. They carried Booth outside, onto the porch where they could assess his injuries in the daylight.
Booth lay motionless on the porch, a team member trying to tend to him, but Bones pushed him away. She was the doctor after all. She normally dealt with dead things, but she did know anatomy like the back of her hand, more than any of them did at least. Booth had been hit by the shotgun blast square in the chest. Many bullet fragments were lodge in his vest, thank god, he was wearing a vest. Bones checked for his pulse and did find a faint one. "He's alive."
The team members dropped their worry and began to get back to business. They secured the area and brought the perp outside, now cuffed, to load into the van. Bones stayed with Booth who still lay unconscious on the porch. He was alive but must have been knock out by the force of the blast. The blast that he had stood in front of for her. Those bullets would've hit her if he had not stepped in front of them. They hit him in the chest, but she was shorter than he. Those bullets would have hit Brennan higher than the vest, and chance of surviving that would have been next to zero. Multiple bullet wounds to the neck and head. Booth had saved her life.
Then, Bones noticed the blood. Booth was wearing a navy FBI issued shirt under his bullet proof vest. Thought the navy shirt she now noticed was wet and sticky. Bones felt the area and when she pulled her hand away it was covered his Booth's blood. She noticed there was blood spatter on the side of his neck and blood was now dripping down his arm from beneath the sleeve. Where was it coming from?
Bones ripped the vest off Booth's chest and frantically searched for a bullet wound. She couldn't feel anything, but his bloody shirt wasn't helping her search. She grabbed a hold of his collar her both hands and pulled apart, ripping a seam down his chest. She was finally able to see a bullet wound just under his left scapula, in his shoulder. It was not his heart, however, if not treated soon it could be just as deadly.
"Where is that ambulance?" Brennan screamed to the team leader who stood in the street in front of the house.
"Almost here, Dr. Brennan." Where was the urgency? Didn't they know their boss was over here bleeding and they were just standing there. Not like they could really help, she decided. They were just waiting on an ambulance at this point, which annoyed her even more. Bones looked back to Booth who was still unconscious. She bunched up parted Booth's ripped shirt and pushed it into his wound, applying pressure to at least stop the bleeding. She couldn't tell if the wound was a through and through or if there was still a bullet lodged in there. There was too much carnage to tell.
She didn't like that Booth wasn't waking up. He could be dying and she would not know. She would not be able to talk to him. She would not be able to tell him… She needed him to wake up. As she continued to apply pressure, Brennan pounded Booth hard on the chest. "Wake up, Booth." She pounded again. Nothing. She felt under his nose. Booth had stopped breathing.
"He's not breathing," Bones screamed to the yard. The team leader ran over.
"What happened?"
"One of the bullets him to the left of his vest, he's stopped breathing."
What do you need?" He dropped to his knees.
"Keep applying pressure here," Bones directed him to the bloody bunched up shirt.
Bones got in a position to help Booth breathe. She plugged his nose, tilted his head back and met his lips to breathe two strong breaths. She leaned up and check his nose again. He still wasn't breathing. She checked his pulse again but did not find it this time. God damn it, Booth.
She performed two more breaths, then adjusted to his chest where she interlocked her fingers and pressed her palm into his chest ten times trying to restart his chest. Two more breaths and ten more chest compressions. She checked for a pulse again. Nothing. With every compression more blood was seeping over his chest. She did not know how much blood he had lost.
"Try again," the team leader encouraged.
Two more breaths and more chest compressions, but Booth still wasn't responding. The ambulance had pulled up finally. However, they could not help if he was already dead.
Bones lost it, "DAMN IT, BOOTH," she screamed and hit him even harder with her fist right on his chest. Then, there was a huge inhale and Booth jerked awake.
"Booth!" Bones threw her arms around him not caring that his blood was now all over her.
"Owwwww," Booth cried and Bones immediately released him.
"Sorry about that."
"What happened to me," he said very groggily.
Just then the paramedics intervened and took over the pressure on his bullet wound and strapped him on a stretcher. They loaded him into the back of the ambulance and were off before Bones could argue to go with him.
One of the FBI team members walked over to Bones and said, "Booth asked if you would drive his car to the hospital."
"Of course," she said.
"And he said if you crash it, he'll kill ya'."
Bones couldn't help but to let out a hollow laugh. She was covered in his blood. She had almost lost him just a minute earlier. He had told her to stay back. She did not listen and begged him to let her come with. He would not be in this position if she had not come. He stepped in front of those bullets for her. And it was all her fault.
-End of Flashback-