AN: Hey! Because I suck and haven't updated in such a long time, you guys are getting TWO chapters today! Keep up the great reviews!
Unidentified Particulates: Chapter 4
Brennan could feel Booth breathing, his body rising and falling as he sucked in air and spat it all back out, arms tangled around her.
"Jesus, Bones. Oh, my God.", he murmured into her honeysuckle-scented hair, pulling her into a tighter embrace, until she began to struggle and he loosened his grip, ever so slightly.
"This was nobody's fault, Booth. We...the evidence...", Brennan folded her arms into herself, wondering what her team could have missed.
This wasn't supposed to happen. They'd had their airtight case, every measure of protection taken.
And yet.
They'd overlooked the one place, the only thing that made them feel untouchable. The place they'd seen as a refuge, with those people they loved the most. That's where they should have known he would go.
Not for his daughter's foster family in Ohio. Not to his brother in Florida, or his Army buddies in San Diego.
Here.
Straight for the heart.
Brennan forced herself to straighten, biting down on the inside of her cheek as she raised her head to meet Booth's warm, brown, eyes. She had to compartmentalize.
Now.
She had to do her job and get her...their justice.
"Angela.", she told him, hating herself for sounding ever so slightly shaky.
"We have to find Angela."
She didn't know what she did next.
All she remembered was grabbing her son and running.
Running. Running. Running.
She was in a car now, one that lacked Liam's car seat, speeding past...panicked shoppers?
Were they in a mall?
Why?
Angela swung a left, merging into another lane that lead to a neighbourhood of small, yet well-groomed homes, each housewife looking up from her gardening at the silver blur blasting through their street. Liam wailed in the backseat, bouncing with the car as she turned into another alleyway, back to the main road.
She was looking for something, wasn't she?
Subconsciously, something told her she knew where she was going, her hands taking control of her mind as she steered through Washington.
Occasionally, when she tried to think, really think, she veered dangerously into curbs and a sidewalk market before meeting a bright sign before a playground parking lot.
Playground.
That was it.
Hitting the brakes, Angela pulled into the lot, slowly as she could to avoid a stream of children licking sherbets in the fading sun. Liam was still in tears, silent tears, in the backseat, his tiny body lurching forward with each stop she made.
"Sweetie, come on.", she whispered hoarsely, taking him in her arms and slamming the car doors behind them. Everything felt numb, as though she'd taken some sort of slow-sucking drug that only wanted her asleep, away from everyone else.
They wandered through the playground's entryway, past blurry, puzzled faces, and colors that even in the darkness, were all too bright. She pushed past a group of teenagers, catching her sweater in a bracelet of spikes around one girl's wrist.
Eventually, they ambled past a fountain, picnic tables, and a newly-build play area, starting their way up a low hill with an almost charmingly understated, old-style swingset at its peak.
Liam's foot tickled her stomach through the rip in her top, icy cold and heavy as she sat him down on one of the swings and gave the little boy a light push, his dark hair blowing in the chilly twilight breeze.
Angela knew this was where she'd wanted to go, though she just couldn't grasp why. She pushed herself forward, pumping her legs as the swing gained momentum and took her closer to the stars, glittering in the pale sky.
"Camille? Jesus, what the hell is going on, baby?", Paul shouted through their bedroom door, more than a little put off by the mess in their kitchen and the boy sobbing in a corner in their living room. He knew his girl got into some out-of-this-world stuff at work, but this, on a day when he'd narrowly missed some nutcase murderer and the subsequent traffic jam, was a little much.
"Baby?"
Cam was curled between the wall and her dresser, her carefully applied mascara running black tracks down her face.
"Oh, God. Jesus, Camille, what happened?", he sputtered, kicking off his work shoes and kneeling on the floor beside her.
"Is it...dammit, is Michelle okay? This is about her, right?"
Cam shook her head and forced herself to look up, terrible as she was sure her destroyed makeup and tearstained cheeks might have looked.
"No, Michelle's fine. She's...at Duke, remember? She's fine. Everyone's fine.", she muttered, hoping to keep just a bit of her composure.
"Well, I'm not fine.", Paul snapped, mentally kicking himself after.
They sat in solitary silence, Cam refusing his touch, and Paul, to be honest, more than a little bit confused.
Hodgins would have said something.
Some stupid joke about the nature of death, something that would make her eyes roll and her want to slap him silly.
Then...what?
They would gather over the body, examining it with a shared sick pleasure, before the little chuckles would come. Then, they'd start to laugh.
Yeah, laugh at the dead guy hopped up on Red Bull. The woman who'd died in her wedding dress between sheets of cardboard.
The utter...comedic tragedy of life and the shared knowledge that people really sucked.
He would do something, something he'd say was necessary, and useful. Something so blindingly outrageous they'd end up laughing at it too, until whatever terrible truth was written in the case file hurt just a little less.
But Paul wouldn't. The best he could do was squeeze her shoulder reassuringly as he got up to return to parker, leaving Cam alone on the bedroom floor, a news ticker live from Afghanistan in the background.
"And you're sure it's her?", Booth asked, his cell pressed close to his cheek.
"Yeah, she's got the kid with her, right? We're sure. Led us right to her, to be honest, Agent Booth. My guys got a whole line of grandstanding citizens down at the precinct screaming about drunk drivers and junkies with kids.", the officer on the other end replied.
"She's not a junkie. She's...ah, dammit. Sorry, can you give me directions again?"
An hour later, Booth pulled his SUV into the playground parking lot, eyes sweeping the empty park for Angela and Liam.
Brennan was on the passenger's side, unusually without complaint, her hands clenched around the armrests of her seat.
"Booth? I see them.", she said frantically, slamming the door shut and nodding up towards the silhouette of the swingset on the hill. She remembered Angela telling her about the swings, about how Hodgins had once taken her on a date there. Then, Brennan had shot it down at a juvenile romantic gesture and suggested Angela ask him for a legitimate dinner.
Of course she would have come here.
She and Booth made their way through the park, empty equipment squeaking in the night chill. Brennan wrapped her arms around herself as they began to climb the hill and Liam's cries got louder, piercing through the darkness.
"Angela?"Booth asked as he approached, holding a hand up to keep Brennan back.
"I didn't do anything to him!", she shouted back.
Booth came around the swingset, facing the both of them, Angela rocking Liam as he alternated between crying and a fitful sort of sleep.
"He fell off the swing and scraped his knee and I didn't...", Angela let her head drop to her chest as Booth moved to take Liam from her as his head lolled off her shoulder.
"Hey, It's okay, buddy.", Booth whispered as the boy began to wake again, shushing him.
"Booth...", Angela began, then suddenly seemed to lose her thread of thought and stared up blankly at the both of them.
He regarded her with sad puppy dog eyes, as if looking at a train veering off-track that nobody could stop. The bottom of her top swirled in the wind like a torn white flag of surrender. She kicked at the gravel beneath her boots and blew at the resulting cloud of dust.
"I should...go home. There's a million things to take care of and I should go.", she murmured, more for herself than Booth, getting off the swing and tugging at his arms to reach Liam.
"Wait, Angela!", Brennan shouted, having come up the hill with a uniformed officer who had an angry look on his face.
"Please don't do anything stupid.", she pleaded with her best friend. Beyond her, Booth could see an assembled line of cruisers waiting for the arrest. Damned if he had to be the one to collar Angela.
She glared at Brennan, and turned back to Booth.
"What the hell, Booth he's my fucking son!", she shouted, raising her fist to clock him again.
Why was everyone being so damn difficult? She wanted to go home with her son, take a goddamn bubble bath and listen to Jack as he told her everything would be fine...
Oh...right.
"Miss, I'd strongly recommend you didn't do that.", a stern voice behind her ordered, grabbing her arm and pulling it behind her. Angela struggled against his grip, shooting Booth a pleading glance.
Why wouldn't anyone help her?
"You're under arrest for reckless driving and endangering a minor. I would again, strongly suggest that you stop trying to fight me, miss.", the officer repeated, leading her down the hill.
Booth only glowered at the officers back as they passed Brennan, a genuinely shocked look on her face as he shoved Angela into the back of a cruiser.
Liam kicked in his sleep, oblivious to the sirens and bright lights as they sped away towards the city's still glimmering skyline.
AN: Can this get any worse? Answer: NOPE. It gets better from here. Next, some Parker/Liam fluff, and oh yeah, SWEETS!