July 6 - 12:15pm
Ace walked through the doors of the lab quickly, his eyes scanning the work that was being done throughout the lab, and his eyes fell on Temperance's darkened office. He had heard from Booth that morning, that Antonia and Melody were found safe, that Aiden had one with them, and he was currently in a battle with Child Protective Services for sealed documents surrounding Melody's past. There were some files in Temperance's office that he knew he'd need in order to proceed with his request. They were being evasive and difficult, and he was concerned that the longer the process went on, the greater the possibility that the case wouldn't be solved.
"Ace!" Hodgins called as he scanned his card on the way up the platform, he watched the agent's attention turn to him as the agent reached the side of the platform. "Angela said they found the girls. That's a relief, huh?"
"Well, they know they're safe. They don't know where they are, exactly, or what condition they're in, or where the hell they're going." He said, a bit of an angry tone in his voice. "If you ask me, I think it was pretty shitty for Aiden to take off with them like that before Booth and Temperance could see her." He said, not walking up the steps, but talking to Hodgins from the floor.
"You do know that it was most likely Ant that was leading the charge, right? She's smart, she knows what to do." Hodgins said, looking over some of the notes he had been taking. "She's probably just protecting those that she can. She has her reasons, I'm sure of it."
"You give that girl way too much credit." Ace said with a grunt. "She makes stupid, rash decisions, and expects everyone else to pick up the pieces." He said with a mildly condescending tone. "She was literally in the same building as Booth last night, Hodgins. She played her damn card trick, convinced Aiden to come with her, and she didn't even have the decency to show herself. She's a spoiled little snot, if you ask me. She's probably holed up in some shack in the middle of the woods or something, going into hiding in full survivor mode eating slugs and plants, and dragging that poor little girl and my agent along with her. She's a mess!" He continued babbling on.
Hodgins' phone let out an alert sound and he glanced at it curiously as he worked, only half listening to Ace's rant. He let out a laugh when he saw the alert, and looked up at Ace's confused glance. "Sorry, um… got one of those funny Gap ads in my e-mail." He snorted as he grinned, shaking his head at the phone. "What were you saying?" he asked.
"Nothing." Ace growled. "I have to go check on something." He said, as he turned and headed toward Temperance's office.
Hodgins shook his head and let out a little chuckle. "Oh, my favorite Formicidae." He said with a smirk as he glanced at his phone again. "Always ten steps ahead of everyone else." He mumbled as he returned to his work.
It was nearly noon by the time Aiden pulled off the major road in Virginia Beach onto one of the many numbered streets, and then onto Ocean Front Ave. He followed the directions, allowing the navigation system to lead him down the road, when it announced they were at their destination at an incredibly large beach house. It wasn't as tall as it was wide, with stretched wings on both sides. One side held three garage bays, while the other wing was slightly more open with large gates that stretched over the driveway. There was a decorated stone wall in the front, protecting the privacy of the inhabitants, and it was the very picture of an oceanside fortress.
Antonia was sleeping again, and he was starting to think they were at the wrong place. It seemed far too large and extravagant to be their intended destination. "Hey." He said softly, touching her hand, she didn't move. He glanced to the back seat where Melody sit, her head to the side, her eyes closed, her activity book having slipped to the floor in her slumber. He looked back to Antonia and touched her face tenderly, calling her name. "Hey, sleepy girl." He whispered. Suddenly, she jumped, gasped, and looked at him with an expression of complete fear. Her eyes were wide, her teeth gritted angrily as she battled between dream and reality for a moment. "Hey, hey…" He said as her eyes focused on him, his hand squeezing hers. "You're okay."
Antonia took a deep breath and noticed they had stopped again, this time they were sitting in the driveway of their destination. She let out a low groan of sleepiness as she whimpered. "Oh, we're here." She mumbled.
"Yeah." He said, looking out at the home. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
She turned her head to look at him, still leaning it against the headrest sleepily as a slow smile rose onto her lips. "This is the right place." She said. She looked back at Melody and gave a sleepy scowl. "How long has she been sleeping?"
"About an hour." He said, watching her nod her head for a moment. "What is this place?" He asked.
She smiled slightly at the house, taking in a slow deep breath. "This is the Kingdom by the Sea." She said, rubbing her eye and yawning. "It was supposed to be called 'Vast Conspira-Sea', but Angela put the kibosh on it." She laughed.
A look of realization came over his face as he smiled. "Doctor Hodgins."
"That's right." She smiled. "Our families would come out here for a couple weeks a year. Uncle Bugs and Angela set it all up, and my family usually got the south wing, and they took the north wing. It's an older house, but the inside is beautiful."
"It's safe?"
"Are you kidding me? This is Hodgins we're talking about. It's fully equipped with all of the most recent security features and gadgets. You'll see." She said, glancing back to Melody again.
"Kingdom by the Sea." He said softly. "All I hear in my head is 'But we loved with a love that was more than love'." He said with a smile, watching her grin brightly at him.
"You're a Poe fan?" She asked, watching as he nodded and laughed a little. "You are my favorite." She grinned. She looked at the house and back to Aiden. "While I do appreciate and commend your knowledge of prose, the name is actually due to the fact that Uncle Bugs is the King of the Lab." She said, watching his eyebrow lift in curiosity.
"And?"
"And do you think my mother would go on any vacation without full, complete access to the Jeffersonian lab?" She asked as she took off her seatbelt. She opened the door and stepped out, stretching as she yawned. She watched him climb from the car and he looked over the top at her. "This place is a certified FBI safe house." She said, watching his eyebrows lift.
He watched her smile over at him and shook his head, smiling back a bit as he laughed. He opened the door to the back seat and carefully unbuckled the sleeping child. Melody came out of the car and into his arms easily. He closed the door and followed her toward the gate, where she entered a number code and the lock disengaged. "What you're saying, is that Hodgins found a way for the federal government to pay for his beach house?"
Antonia laughed as they walked up to the front door, a small keypad beside the doorknob greeted them, and she glanced over at Aiden for a moment. "No, but it does have direct links to D.C., a swimming pool, and over four hundred cable channels." She shrugged.
"So how are we going to get inside? It's not like you brought the keys with you." He said, shifting the sleeping child in his arms.
"No, but it's completely automated. All we need is the code, which I know from memory." She said, watching Aiden look at her with his eyebrow raised.
"What's the code?" He asked.
"It's the floral formula for the Galanthus flower, also known as a snowdrop." She watched him give her an incredulous look and shook his head. "What? We're botanists." She laughed. "A floral formula is a means to represent the structure of a flower using numbers, letters, and symbols that represents substantial information about the flower in an easier, more compact form."
"You've got to be kidding me." Aiden said, watching as she pushed several buttons on the keypad in front of him. He sighed tiredly.
"Actually, I am just kidding." She said with a smirk. It's just Hodgins and Angela's wedding anniversary inverted." She said with a smile as the lock disengaged. He gave her a playful glare, and they walked into the foyer. Across from the door was a large panel with a screen, with a series of numbers counting down. "Now the security system…" She said with a laugh. "That's where the floral formula comes in." She said as she pushed several buttons and navigated through the system to disengage the security. "We each have a personal code."
"What do you mean?" Aiden asked, watching as she pressed 'yes' to another question on the screen.
"JV, Grace, Me, Parker. We each have an individualized security code that when entered into the security system, it is immediately relayed to Hodgins."
"So he knows we're here?" Aiden asked.
"He knows we're here, and I sent him a message through the system to keep it to himself for now." She said with a satisfied smile. "The individual security code is also so that we can indicate if we're in trouble or need help. Not that we have a tendency of getting into trouble and needing help." She smiled at him. "Do you want to see the rest of the house?" She asked.
"Sure." He said, following her down the hallway. She took them to each of the six bedrooms, through the kitchen and into the dining area, as well as the game room, the small office room, the living room, and out into the pool area. She took him to the back deck, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, plants and trees surrounding the property seemed strategically and lovingly placed. "This place is beautiful." He said, running his finger over the mahogany finish on one of the staircases inside the house. He looked over the family photographs that lined the walls along the stairs. "Looks like you guys had a lot of fun here." He said, walking toward one of the couches in the living area, he carefully lifted Melody to it as she continued to sleep. He covered her with a blanket from the back side of the couch and sat down on the other end.
"Yeah." She nodded. "I was probably eight or so when they got the place, it was… um… it was after Grace's unfortunate… thing." Antonia said, moving toward Aiden as he held his hand out to her, he tugged her lightly and she landed in his lap. "There is a lot about me that you don't know still." She said, seemingly thoughtful now that they were no longer in motion.
"Like what?"
"Like why Grace and I know sign language." She said, lifting an eyebrow to him.
"I thought you learned sign language as a way to subvert your parents, and be able to communicate without them knowing what you were talking about." He laughed at her smile, and she shrugged.
"Okay, so it was a good way of doing that, but really… When Grace was kidnapped, they made a video of her. She was still really little, you know? But they were keeping her in a bus garage, and she was able to communicate in the video, through a song that used hand gestures. The wheels on the bus?" She asked, watching him nod. "When she was returned, first of all… it took a long time for things to get back to normal for reasons that are far too complicated for me to explain now. However, you know me, as soon as I heard about the hand signals, I was convinced that ASL would be an important tool. I mean, Grace and I learned it as a way to protect ourselves. Ever since I was a little girl, since I was kidnapped…" She paused on the word for a moment, and then continued. "I was obsessed with safety, with protection, and I felt that if sign language in that form could save my sister, then it could save me." She sighed. "It did save me, you know?" She said, feeling him hold her a little more firmly in his arms, he leaned over and kissed her gently. "I was able to sign to Melody, to tell her to scream at the right moment. I don't know if I could have gotten the drop on the suspect if it weren't for her." She said, looking up into Aiden's eyes, he ran his fingers over her cheek and watched the sincerity in her eyes. "She was so brave."
"I'll have to thank her when she wakes up." He whispered tenderly.
"Later in the hotel room, I asked her if she was afraid, if she was frightened. She told me that she was never afraid. She said that she knew all along that I would protect her. She said that she closed her eyes and stayed calm, because she knew that I would be there for her." Antonia sighed. "I've never felt that before." She whispered.
"Felt what?"
"Someone's complete trust." She said, watching as Aiden looked deeply into her eyes.
"You feel it every day, you just don't realize it." He whispered, leaning his head into her to drop a kiss on her nose, she furrowed her brow at him and gave him a slight scowl. "I trust you." He whispered. "Unapologetically, unabashedly, unwavering trust. I think that you are one of the smartest, strongest, most willful human beings that I have ever met, and I can say that there is not a doubt in my mind that you are the most trustworthy."
"I'm not perfect, Aiden." She replied.
"None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes, we all have our weaknesses. If I didn't trust you, do you think I'd be here right now? Do you think that I'd have defied my superiors and gone into hiding with you, if I didn't trust you completely? Do you think that I would have dropped everything to be here with you?" He asked.
"You said you were here to protect me." She said, her voice was a bit chiding, and she smiled at him tenderly as she made a face at him.
"I'm here because I love you, and selfishly don't want to be without you. You don't need my protection, but I need your companionship. I need your smile, I need your voice." He whispered. "I need all three of you." He said, gently placing his hand over her abdomen, watching her eyes meet his for several moments.
"We are all glad you're here." She whispered sincerely, placing her hand over his.
"I'm glad that I'm here too." He said softly, pulling her closer to him as she laughed lightly. "We are going to solve this case together. We're going to figure it out."
Melody moved slightly in her sleep, stretching a little, her eyes opened and she looked around confused for a moment, settling her gaze on the two adults who were watching over her. She smiled slightly, watching them for a moment.
"We owe it to her." Antonia whispered, smiling at Melody. "Hello, sleepy girl." She signed, watching the girl's confusion return slightly.
"Why don't we show her around, and go get lunch." Aiden said, kissing Antonia on the cheek as she started to stand up.
"That sounds like our kind of plan." She replied with a smile, asking Melody if she was hungry. They both laughed at her excited nod and grin.