Chapter 17 Breaking
It had been the longest 3 months of Seeley Booth's life.
He had experienced this sensation before.
He'd thought time stood still during several previous periods of his life…
when his mom left and he'd waited at first. hoping she would return home to her sons, trying to reassure Jared that she would,...that she might,…. then finally accepting that she wasn't coming back, feeling guilty, wondering why, what they could have done to make her leave…..
when he had to handle his father's drinking binges alone, without his mother's help, had to endure his dad's inebriated rages and beatings, absorbing the worst of the damage himself, trying to deflect his father's anger away from Jared, attempting to shield his younger brother, sending him down the street to the park at the end of their block until his dad passed out or left the house….
when he'd suffered broken bones and horrific swelling in his feet from fallaqa by Iraqi interrogators during Desert Storm, wondering if he might ever leave the dirty reeking prison cell, if the Army even knew their group had been captured, and if any U.S. forces would be sent to attempt a rescue, if he could survive long enough for them to find him…
when Brennan left for Maluku and he returned to the Middle East, desperate for a distraction, miserably missing her, immersing himself in training Afghanis, trying to forget, to think of anything other than her blue eyes, her smile, her tears, her scent, her curves, her endearing misuse of slang and idioms….
He'd come close to breaking several times during each of these painful nightmares of existence, but somehow he'd always managed to endure, outlast, and prevail over distress, anxiety, and despair….
But now…..
With Brennan on the run, off the grid, hiding from the law to protect their daughter and herself,
Booth was on the verge of giving up…He worked tirelessly to clear her name as best he could without the benefit of being an active FBI agent. He was desk-bound, and under continual scrutiny at work and at home, followed wherever he went, watched whatever he did.
He spent every waking moment wracking his exhausted brain for another angle to investigate, another detail to re-check, anything he could have missed which might serve as proof of Brennan's innocence, that she had no part in the cruel horrific murder of her friend Ethan Sawyer.
Nothing alleviated his constant state of empty lonely pointlessness. Without his Bones, he felt numb, slack, mentally and emotionally flattened into oblivion…
He knew Angela was doing all she could, yet he found himself incredibly furious at her for somehow communicating with Bones when he could not, and refusing to explain it.
Intellectually, he knew Max was right to insist his daughter disappear. Booth understood all too well how vulnerable she would become if incarcerated. If Christopher Pelant to make Brennan appear on a videotape one evening when she'd never been near the asylum, what unimaginable evil havoc could he wreak upon her once she was behind bars.
He'd prayed, longed, hoped, sobbed for her name to be exonerated so she could return to him with their baby daughter.,,,
He had felt himself nearly snapping under the pressure he felt. Then one day, an eerily precise unearthing of a skeleton broke open a message, cast a ray of light and hope into the conundrum of proving her innocence…
With help from friends and from unseen powers that Brennan would vehemently deny believing in, finally at long last, he caught a break. He called Cam, declaring his drive to Atlantic City.
In a shabby two-bit motel room, he waited, listening intently, gun in hand. A shuffle outside, the door inched open, an unfamiliar blonde head peered cautiously around its edge.
Lurching, he tackled the intruder to the floor, rolling over and over in a struggle for dominance.
Suddenly he stared into a pair of familiar blue eyes….staring back at him….
His Bones was there in front of him, well, really, under him.
With a little more help from friends, Bones was spirited into her lab and wrought her magic vision, knowledge and insights upon the ravaged innocent bones…...
His Bones was cleared by the clues she discerned.
Instead of Booth breaking, the stalemate of Pelant's deception was broken.
Like a storm-ravaged sapling, Booth had bent under the pressure of the onslaught, but didn't crack, didn't splinter.
Pelant's devious evil couldn't destroy or crush or shatter the spirit of his adversary. Angela's work, Cam's instincts, Hodgin's genius restored his hope, his family, his life.
And time started moving again, his heart started feeling again, his dream existed again.
A/N: This was my least favorite period of Bones, and the hardest prompt to write. Gee, I'm glad that one's done!