Chapter Sixteen: One door opens, another one closes.

Tempe's cell phone rang in her handbag, she reached down to grab it but seemed to grab every other object in the bag BUT the cell phone. She finally pulled it out but just as she was about to flip it open to answer it, the ringing stopped, she looked at the number, it was Angela. Although she couldn't ring her back right then and there, she was driving, on her way to the Jeffersonian. She decided to pull over and as she was doing so a maroon sedan came out of no where and side- swiped Tempe's car sending her spinning out of control. All of this happened too fast for Tempe to grab the steering to try to control the car, the sheer force of the collision sent her car into a muddy ditch on the side of the motorway.

Tempe lay there motionless, she had a deep gash on her forehead and the windscreen was partially shattered. She tried to open her eyes but the pain in her head sent shockwaves all over her body, so she just lay there, unable to move a lot, although she had tried to move her leg, but it was trapped underneath the dash of the car. She turned her head to face the passenger seat, there lay her call phone, it didn't look like it was damaged so tried to reach for it, pain shot up her arm, she grimaced but continued to pursue her phone, success, she grabbed the phone and flipped it open, she hit the down key and the contact book came up, the names looked blurry, that's strange, she thought, I don't normally have eye trouble. She squinted but no avail, she couldn't make out anyone's name. Then a thought occurred to her, she remembered that Angela's name was her first contact and Booth's number was on speed dial, she tried Angela first because she was the one who rang before, she had tell her best friend why she couldn't call her back ASAP, she had to tell her what happened and tell her to send help.

Three rings later Angela Montenegro picked up.

"Hey sweetie, sorry about the phone tag, been busy, where are you, it's not like you to be late"

Tempe tried to speak but her voice abandoned her throat, all that came out was heavy breathing on Angela's end.

"Hello, Tempe, are you ok?" Somehow Angela always knew something was wrong, Tempe always told her it was her woman's intuition working over time.

She tried again, this time Tempe managed to utter a few words, those being; crash, quick, ditch, Route 88, then the line went dead on both ends.

Angela grabbed her car keys and ran out of the Jeffersonian. On her way she dialled 911 and asked for an ambulance to be sent to Route 88, she told the operator of a car crash and unfortunately her intuition told her that the crash involved Tempe.

On the way to Route 88, Angela phoned Booth.

"Excuse me" Booth apologised to everyone in the FBI boardroom as he answered his cell phone. "Booth".

"Booth, It's Angela, Tempe's been in a car crash on Route 88, come quick, I'm on my way there now and I've called an ambulance"

The expression on Booth's face changed from neutral to fear in about 2 seconds flat, he quickly excused himself and asked one of his fellow agents to take over the slide show presentation for him and he grabbed his jacket and ran out, he had no time to explain, the woman he loved could be seriously hurt. In his rush he forgot all about Angela on the other end of the phone so the phone was still in the call. On Angela's end she could hear noise but couldn't hear Booth talking so she hung up, she knew he was on his way to the scene. Booth's cell lay open on the passenger seat of his cruiser.

Meanwhile back at the crash scene, Tempe was still trying to move her legs, but every time she lifted a knee pain shot up her leg. She was stuck, trapped in her own car in muddy ditch on the side of the road. Every moment of pain and panic she prayed that someone would show up and cut her out of her mechanical prison, she was a prisoner in her own car.

Then she heard a distant whining noise, she tried to see out of her smashed windscreen but couldn't see much, the crushed glass made the windscreen appear translucent, not good, she thought. Then it became clear to her what that whining sound that she heard a moment before was, an ambulance, she could see the flashing red and blue lights through the large hole in her windscreen. At last help was here to save her, she laid back and waited and what happened next became a blur; Paramedics using jaws of life to cut Tempe out of car, voices, blurred faces, Angela's voice, Booth's voice, then blackness as Tempe was whisked into an ambulance and driven off to the nearest hospital, with police escort, a la Booth.

A while later Tempe was in a hospital bed, still unconscious, with tubes going every which way and Angela right beside her. Booth walked in to give Angela an update on the registration of the vehicle that hit Tempe, he also came to check up on Tempe.

"Ok, we found the woman" he said, bursting into the room.

"Woman?" asked Angela.

"Yeah, name's Trudy White, mother of two, has a history of DUI, oh and did I mention she's a huge Dr Temperance Brennan fan, read all her novels and is a member of her Official Fan Club website!"

Angela thought for a second.

"So she deliberately hit Tempe?"

"Yeah. How is she?" he asked.

"She's stable, minor concussion and a broken leg from the impact; she'll have to have physical therapy for at least a couple of months"

"At least she's alive" he says, walking over to her, picks up her hand, it's cold, and kisses it, he sits down on the end of her bed. "I don't know what I would've done if.." he stops, unable to finish the sentence because tears are forming in his eyes, the very thought of losing Tempe broke his heart.

Seeing this Angela moves over to comfort the man her best friend loves, she puts her arm around his left shoulder and rests her head on his right one.

"It's gonna be ok, she'll make it, she's a fighter, you know that" Angela tells him.

They both sit there for a while on the end of Tempe's bed, silently keeping an eye on their friend.

The next morning Tempe was wide awake with the sun, she felt a lot less groggy but a lot more anxious, she hated sitting still for too long, and she had work to do back at the lab. Just as she was about to get out of bed, Booth walked into the room with a huge bunch of sunflowers, Tempe's favourite.

"Hey what do you think you're doing getting out of bed?"

He kinda surprised her.

"I've got work to do" she said, her lame excuse, but it was partly true.

"Not today you don't, and I don't think you can walk with a broken leg" he tells her, looking around the room for an empty vase.

"I hate this"

"I know you do, but hey, I'm here for you right?" he says with his cheesy square jawed, Seeley Booth grin. He spots a nurse.

"Can I have a vase for these sunflowers? Thankyou" The nurse takes the sunflowers from him.

"You got me sunflowers?"

"Yeah aren't they your favourite?"

"How did you know, I never told you, I think"

"Angela told me"

"You sneaky sonovabitch"

Another classic Seeley Booth grin is shown.

He walks over to her and sits down on the chair beside the head of the bed.

"I think we may have found our killer" he tells her.

"Lucy's?"

He nods.

"Who is it?"

"Same person who ran you down and left you for dead yesterday"

"You're joking?

"Nope, Trudy White, turns out she's a huge fan of your's"

"How do you know that she killed Lucy?"

"Because she confessed to it, got it all on tape, I'll show you later. Turns out she wanted you to feel small, the victim, while she wanted to be the killer, she wanted to feel powerful, so in order to achieve that she tries to get rid of all those closest to you, first by drugging and shooting me, then by killing Lucy, my sister and getting her accomplice to kidnap Angela's cousin, which is by the way, Mr Bomb maker"

"Oh my God, you're serious? Have they found Courtney?"

"Yeah she's safe, she's back home with her husband"

"That's great, Ange will be happy"

"Yeah remember bomb maker said he was a huge fan of yours, turns out that wasn't him, but Mrs White, they were having an affair at the time. He broke it off about a month ago, around the same time Mrs White turns to the drink"

"So her plan failed, Bomber man didn't take us out then so she keeps on trying"

"That's right"

"Then Hodgins gets an envelope full of white powder on his doorstep and gets sick. Mrs White is now getting very pleased with her progress and begins to think of ways to take you out, but her evil plan backfires and Hodgins recovers".

"Wait, how was she able to poison your coffee at the bureau? She would've had to have someone on the inside, someone who works at the bureau"

"Well she did, remember your 'partner', Mr Geek 101, Hamish Whittaker?"

"Yeah.."

"He's inside man"

"Oh my god! Wouldn't he get his badge taken off of him for that?"

"Yeah, I was just as shocked, Buck took him in this morning, turns out he's Trudy White's nephew, her sisters boy, and because he was with the FBI, she hired him and told him to transfer to DC so he could get close to me"

"Small world"

"Very".

Tempe sat back in bed and thought about the events that had just taken place, Lucy Booth's killer had just been arrested, the same women who hired hit men to kill me, my 'partner' is a corrupt cop hired by White to get close to Booth and me, Zelany had no idea, Whittaker probably pleaded to be with me, it all makes sense now, one door opens, another one closes.

"There's one good thing that has come out of this" Tempe said after a time of silence.

"What's that?" Booth asked.

"I don't have to work with Whittaker!"

Booth chuckled and hugged her, glad that his friend and the woman he loved was back to her old self, stubbornness and all.

Case Closed.