Chapter 4 Walking
In the years since Desert Storm, Seeley Booth has walked a lot in many places.
He strode down the aisle of that American University lecture hall toward the attractive scientist clad in a red skirt and floral blouse much more appealing than the cindery skeleton laid out in a display case to which she was gesturing during her lecture.
He has stepped cautiously toward a crime scene alongside his partner, careful to avoid compromising her evidence, and exhorting his FBI crime technicians to do the same.
He has taken the steps two at a time up to the Jeffersonian lab platform, while swiping his ID to ask, "What have you got for me, Bones?"
He has paced in hospital waiting rooms and beside a bed when Temperance Brennan was shot with an ice bullet in the Jeffersonian bone storage room by a crazed co-worker.
He has walked the floor at night trying to calm his colicky baby son Parker and, years later, cuddling his newborn daughter Christine.
He has advanced through dusty Afghan streets, crouched with his gun trigger-ready, toward a house containing insurgents, and down an alley to rescue a translator's son.
Booth has dashed down a dark rain-drenched street to snatch Brennan out of the path of an oncoming car.
He has walked down the aisle of his church, Brennan in tow, to kneel in gratitude for the inspiration and insights which enabled their team to locate a coal mine, running full tilt toward a tiny plume of dust, and digging frantically to free his Bones and Hodgins.
He has trod the flowery paths of the Jeffersonian Gardens to stand before his friend Aldo Clemons as another walk began….Bones coming toward him on her father's arm to take her place beside him, exchanging vows and rings.
He has walked up the sidewalk after Christine's baptism to help Bones back to their car, then dashed forward as he saw her driving away….
Leaving a hospital bed, he has searched an abandoned warehouse to free Bones from Jamie Kenton's crazed threats; and crept silently through an empty power plant toward Pelant and Bones to finally end his convoluted lethal schemes to taunt and ensnare their team.
Most of this time, his feet have ached and throbbed from torturous mistreatment by an Iraqi interrogator…but Booth walks forward, Brennan at his side, seeking justice for silenced crime victims with Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.