Chapter Six: Providence
Everyone has a breaking point and Peter was inches from his. "You're saying you've seen the Observer before?" He glowered at the CBI Consultant. "You better tell me what you know, because if anything happens to my partner, and I find out it could have been avoided, then I will come after you."
Lisbon knew he wasn't kidding and she knew this because she would feel the same way if she were in his shoes. Jane was cheeky, unprofessional and infuriating, but she knew why. He might never admit it, but he wanted others to hold him in the same disdain he held for himself, this was his penance for his perceived guilt. She looked at him imploringly. "Don't listen to his threats, tell him what you know because it's the right thing to do."
Hiding behind his cynical persona, deflecting comments of care or reproach, Jane rarely let others near him. When he finally met Lisbon's eye, the smug look on his face faded, and she was surprised to see his hard veneer crack.
His face clouded over. "My memories are fragmented and the details come and go. Piecing it together is like walking a tightrope and then finding the rope just drops off into nowhere. Sometimes I hear something, see something, smell something, and it comes after me, like now."
"At one point there were people everywhere. Police, the medical examiner, reporters, and neighbors, they were vultures flying in circles above my home. When they wheeled the bodies of my wife and daughter out of the house, there was a mob of people standing behind a police barricade and fifty sets of eyes on my family, their chatter was like fingernails on a chalkboard. When I turned to leave I saw him in the crowd, he had the same vague expression, and this is what I remembered - he wasn't looking at the carnage, he was looking at me."
The sorrow radiated from him and Lisbon could take no more. "Jane, stop. You don't have to say anymore."
Peter saw his grief was real, but the man's feelings were the least of his worries, he needed to find Olivia. "He's been spotted over a dozen times in just the past three months and we don't know why. None of us knows what he wants, but he seems to show up at situations and events that he deems important. A few of those times, so has the cylinder."
"Important? Important to who? This is my life we're talking about, no one else's." The bitterness was evident in his voice.
Lisbon stepped in between the two men and faced Jane. "What happened to your family was tragic, horrible and terribly cruel, but everything that happens to any of us, affects others, and just because the ramifications aren't obvious, doesn't mean it's unimportant." She might never understand his feeling of loss and self incrimination, but she understood that he hurt and because she cared, she shared his pain.
He loathed himself for what had happened to his wife and little girl, a sadistic serial killer had taken innocent lives because of his condescending and pompous actions. He had isolated himself, refusing others help, and was driven by revenge. Lisbon was the first person whose friendship, but more importantly her respect, he felt he could earn. "Teresa, I'm not as selfish as you think."
"I've seen him twice since the building collapsed. The first time he was in the crowd of people after we arrived. The second time was when I was leaving the terminal. You said he followed the cylinder, but even though it's gone, I believe he's still here. If what you say is true, than the reasons, the players and all the consequences are endless."
Peter furrowed his brow. "What does gone mean? The cylinder may be out of sight but it hasn't evaporated. There are others, who are after it, and have tortured and killed for it. Right now, all I care about is finding Olivia." Peter looked at Lisbon with determination. "I need your help, if your partner were missing, what would you do?"
Lisbon didn't hesitate a for a moment. "I'd do everything in my power to find him."
"All right then. If you were a mysterious bald headed man wearing a vintage suit and hat, where would you go?"
"I'd go where I could observe."
The airport food court continued to buzz with people but Olivia barely noticed her surroundings, and her surroundings paid no attention to her, or the strange looking man she sat with.
She closed her eyes and tried to process what she saw, but one question bounced around in her head. Was this a trick? She looked up from the book the Observer had presented to her and when she spoke, he spoke her exact same words in unison.
"Where did these come from? How do I know they're real? Tell me what this is about?"
He continued to speak in sync with her and she knew he was inside her head, not feeling what she felt, but observing it. She could only stare back at him.
The Observer cocked his head ever so slightly and studied her face. "Look at the images, they will tell you all you need to know."
The pages in the book were yellowed from age, the paper felt soft and worn, and her fingers trembled when she turned the page. Three images of the same young boy appeared before her.
The first one was of a birthday party, a cake with eight candles was perched on a table and frosting and ice cream were smeared around the young boy's mouth. Walter and Astrid were in the background drinking punch and looking pleased. Walter's hair had turned white and his rounded back showed his age, and Astrid beaming smile lit up her face and the faint smattering of gray in her curly hair.
In the next image, Olivia recognized the basement of the Kresge Building and Walter's lab. The boy looked to be about twelve, he looked through a lighted magnifying glass and Peter's large frame leaned over and enveloped him. A robotic arm lay on the work table in front of him and the boy's face was filled with purity and Peter's with adoration. Only a trace of the bad boy persona that Peter had perfected remained, and a stalwart man had taken his place. She centered herself with a deep breath.
In the next image, she wore a blue dress made of lightweight material and her hair was in a neat French twist, a fleeting image of her own mother crossed her mind. Peter looked handsome in a suit jacket over a white dress shirt and denim jeans and Walter wore a linen suit with a bow tie. The young boy had grown tall, his hair was long and dark, but even with a graduation gown and mortarboard atop his head, his lanky physique was evident and his cheeks were rosy. Walter had shrunk with age and seemed tiny compared to the three of them, but his eyes sparkled mischievously into the camera.
If the circumstances of viewing her life and seeing a family she never knew existed were different, she might have been excited and thrilled, but instead she turned the next page with great apprehension.
Olivia studied the boy in the image carefully, he had grown into a pair of broad muscular shoulders and his stance was confident. He wore a holstered gun in a shoulder harness over a black t-shirt and heavy khaki pants tucked into a pair of black laced up boots. In one hand he held a device unfamiliar to her and in the other one he held a duffle bag. He was barely a man, but very much a soldier.
The Observer continued to stare at her. "Please, continue, there is more."
"The Med-Evac chopper is on it's way to pick you up." Van Pelt told Beckett timidly. She was in awe of the NYPD Detective who had risked her life to save her partner.
Beckett looked at her kindly. "Thank you. I haven't had a chance to tell you how much we all appreciate what you and your team did to help save us. Especially Agent Rigsby." She gave her a big smile. "He's a keeper."
Van Pelt blushed, she was so proud of Rigsby and the Police Detective's remark made her love him even more. "Thanks. I hope it works out for you too."
Beckett felt a twinge, the innocent comment hit a nerve, she turned the words around in her head, but Booth calling out to her chased them away.
"Beckett!"
"Booth!" She responded with a grin and walked toward him and the table with coffee and water. "I know, chopper's on its way. How's your partner doing?"
"I think she's going to be okay. Bones is tough, a lot tougher than I am. Castle?" He poured himself a cup of coffee.
"He's doing a lot better, the drugs and the I.V. fluids have helped, I can tell because he's still a smart ass…" Beckett joked.
"Castle's a lucky guy." Booth said sincerely.
"You know Booth, I think we're all very lucky." She smiled, but shook her head. "They say things happen for a reason, but I don't get this one, we're cops, not Indiana Jones and the Lost Bullet Cylinder. How'd we get tangled up in this?"
"Maybe there is a plan and they just haven't given us the play book. That giant metal suppository doesn't have to mean anything."
"Maybe you're right, but Booth, I'm not forgetting what we talked about. That meant something."
Booth set his coffee down and gave her a hug, patting her on the back. "I agree." The seeds of a serious friendship had been planted. She reached for a paper cup and muttered. "I wish this was bourbon."
He had only left her side to get coffee, but Brennan already missed him. She thought it must be stress that made her feel so needy. She sat up and carefully swung her legs over the edge of the gurney and caught Castle's eye.
"Hey Temperance," He mumbled. "We gotta problem."
"You mean bigger than being buried alive?" She wasn't sure what he referred to.
"How are we gonna decide who gets to use what in our next book?"
She chuckled at the remark. "Hmmm, that is a good question."
"Cards.. we'll play for them." He kidded, visions of a straight flush flashed in front him.
Brennan sounded earnest. "I'm quite good at games. Booth says I have an excellent card face."
Castle chuckled. "Poker face."
Brennan looked over at Castle, strapped down with vacuum splints surrounding him. "Rick, I don't think I could have made it if you hadn't been there."
"Oh yeah, right back at you... Temperance, we have a future again."
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter approaching and hovering around above them.
"Agent Dunham? There is more." The Observer told her. They still sat at the table next to the window in the airport food court, but Olivia might as well have been incarcerated in a padded cell. She looked up at him and at the well worn book sitting on the table. Turning it's pages felt like a game of Russian Roulette, filling her with anxiety, but she continued on.
An image of another family presented itself to her. She recognized Agent Booth, he cradled an infant in his arms, presenting the tiny person to the photographer. He stood next to a woman, who she guessed was Dr. Brennan. She held the hand of a boy with a mop of thick blonde hair. The happiness was evident in their faces, Dr. Brennan looked radiant and Booth looked very proud.
She turned the page and found three more images. In the first, Dr. Brennan wore a blue lab coat and sat in front of a stainless steel table next to a pretty Asian woman, a toddler squeezed between them. The little girl's hair was in a messy ponytail, and she wore a navy blue t-shirt with F-B-I in white block letters printed on it. The three of them were laughing with shared delight.
The next image showed the same little girl who looked to be about seven or eight wearing a white dress with lacy anklets and clean white sneakers. Olivia knew this was a portrait of a first communion when she saw a rosary dangling in her clasped hands.
And the third picture was another family portrait, Booth and Dr. Brennan stood next to the little girl who was now a teenager. Her skinny frame was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a bright blue streak ran through her hair and her eyebrow was pierced, she looked sullen. She stood with her arm through the arm of a grown man, and Olivia recognized he was the boy with the head of thick blonde hair in the first family portrait. He and his father were of equal height and stature, Booth's hair had grayed at the temples but he was still hard and fit. Dr. Brennan looked serious and held Booth's hand. A sad realization blanketed Olivia when she recognized that both men wore the same black t-shirts and heavy khaki pants tucked into black lace up boots.
When Olivia turned the next page, she swallowed hard and held back the tears. The skinny girl with the funky teenage look had grown into a beautiful woman. She looked sleek and sophisticated in a plain beige dress and heels, her hair curled around her face and she was every bit as beautiful as her mother. Next to her stood a handsome man, tall and well built, wearing a formal military dress uniform decorated with ribbons and medals. He held the woman's hand in his and a diamond twinkled on her ring finger. His resemblance to Peter was uncanny, and she knew he was their son.
Olivia's feelings reeled from the story in the images. She still questioned their validity, but a piece of her wanted them to be real. She silently asked the Observer "Why? Why are you showing me these."
He answered her quietly and with little emotion. "You have only begun to understand, they are coming and this man and this woman will make it right."