A/N Ok, I've decided that there will be a MAXIMUM of 11 chapters left, and I hope you all will review EVERY one of them for me Oh yeah, and I'm gonna be nice and mean at the same time, I'm going to skip over the Howard Epps case. I just saw the episode with him in it on the Bones Season 1 DVD and I didn't really understand the case.
ONE LAST
THING!!
This chapter is for my friend Charlie and her cousin, as
well as his girlfriend and friend.
XXXXXXXXXX
It was exactly one week since Howard Epps had been put into a high security jail and Cam had been put on a ventilator in the hospital after Epps had made her have a terrible seizure where she hit a table and a microscope fell on her head, causing her scull to fracture in two places and her head to bleed.
Temperance sat in her office, going over the paperwork when Angela came in.
"Hey sweetie," Angela said, smiling. She was now 6 months pregnant and everybody could see her belly. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine Ange," Tempe said, looked up for a second. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to talk with you," Angela said, trying to sound innocent.
"Fine," Tempe pushed the papers away and Angela gleefully sat down across from her.
"Sweetie, since last week you haven't been the same, you've been here for four days strait and there have been two cases that you could've done, but you didn't take them. What's the matter?" Ange asked.
Tempe was quiet for a few moments. "It's just…" she started, and then she clammed up again. "Nothing Angela, it's nothing, I'm fine."
Temperance got up from the chair and started to walk to the door, but Angela stopped her.
"Please tell me?" Angela gave her a pleading look and Tempe gave in.
She sat down on the couch and sighed. "He nearly blew Zach up, and he would've killed me and Booth, had I not told him to go down into the cellar with me," she told Angela. "But it's not just that. He almost hurt you too, and Hodgins, and now Cam is in the hospital because of this…"
"Sweetie, it's not your fault," Angela said, pulling her friend into a hug.
"I should've let him get the death penalty, I knew he was guilty of murder, he'd of died and we wouldn't have had this happen," Tempe said.
"Brennan! You can't talk like that! You didn't let him die because you are a good person!" Angela told her strictly.
"But Angela," Tempe said, "you almost lost the baby!"
"I know," Angela touched her stomach automatically. "I was scared too, but that doesn't mean that you let somebody die. Booth wouldn't have let him hurt you, and Hodgins wouldn't have let him hurt me."
"What about Cam?"
"Nobody saw that coming," Ange said sadly.
Temperance felt a tear fall down her cheek, but she wiped it away before Angela could see.
"Bren, it's ok," Angela smiled at her friend.
Booth walked into Tempe's office. "Hey Bones," he said, less cheerfully then usual.
"Hey Booth," Tempe got up and walked over to her partner. "Have you seen Cam yet?"
"I saw her this morning, she's still in critical condition," Booth told her, "and the doctors don't think she'll live long."
"I haven't seen her yet, I feel so horrible about all of this," Tempe said, looking away from Booth.
Suddenly, Booth wrapped her up in his arms. "Bones, I think we both need a hug."
Tempe nodded into his arm and then pulled away. "I want to see her."
Booth nodded and took her to his car outside.
"Temperance, you know that people here care for you, right?" Booth asked as they drove towards the hospital.
"I know, I couldn't have made it this long without everybody too," she said. "Including you."
Booth chuckled lightly. "Thanks Bones."
"You're welcome," Tempe looked out the window. "I gave her that sample to test."
"Who?" Booth asked.
"Cam. I gave her the sample that made her seizure, what if I had given it to Zach or Saja or Hodgins?" Tempe said, looking at Booth. "I must sound like a fool, talking like this."
"You don't sound like a fool Bones, you sound like a normal woman who has feeling."
"Thanks," Temperance looked at him, longing for his hug again. "You're always there for me Booth. Why do you always come to my rescue when I need you? You could just as easily left me there to die when he had me at gun point, or when Jaime Kenton had me both times. You don't have to save me. I don't want to be a burden on your life."
Booth pulled into the hospital parking lot before answering. "Temperance, I would always come to your rescue, because you're one of us like I said when we found you. Take one away, and we're not us anymore," Booth knew in his heart that there was more than that, but that was all that he wanted to tell her at the moment.
Tempe leaned forward towards him. "I'll always be there for you, too."
"Thanks Bones," Booth touched her cheek gently.
Tempe felt her heart pace quicken and she gulped. There was no Zach to interrupt this time.
"Booth," she whispered, but Booth laid a finger on her lips.
"Don't talk," he moved closer and pressed his lips against hers.
The kiss was full of passion, the passion that had built up, all the sexual tension between them melted away.
Finally, Temperance pulled away for a breath. She leaned her forehead on Booths.
Booth kissed her quickly and the smiled. "Should we go in and see her now?"
Tempe nodded, climbing out of the car with Booth right behind her. She knew they'd be talking about this later.
The doctors pointed Tempe and Booth to Cam's room. Once they got there, they saw Cam's sleeping form.
"Good God," Tempe said, and she walked to Cam's side. "I'm so sorry Cam."
"I don't think she can hear you," Booth said. "The doctors say she can't hear anybody."
Tempe sighed. "I guessed that…"
"Bones," Booth said quietly.
"It's ok Booth," Tempe said. "Sometimes I wish that I had taken that job at Stanford though."
"Why would you even think that?" Booth asked.
"Think about it, if I hadn't been here, Cam wouldn't be here, you would still be with Tracy, Zach would have had somebody who wouldn't nag on him all the time as his mentor, and Goodman would still be here," she told him.
"Bones, think of all the good things too though! With another mentor, Zach wouldn't have met Saja, and without Cam here, Saja wouldn't have come, Tracy and I both decided that it was better if we weren't together, especially since she cheated on me, and Goodman's going to come back. Angela would have quit her job, and you never would've known her, Hodgins… There's not much to be said about him really…" Booth pursed his lips while he thought.
Suddenly, the monitor beside Cam began beeping like crazy.
Tempe knew that wasn't a good sign. "We need a doctor in here!" she yelled down the hall.
Just as the doctor walked in, the monitor changed sounds to a long beep that sounded as if it would never end.
The next fifteen minutes was a blur for Brennan and Booth. The doctor's tried to save Cam, but it didn't work.
They came out and said the worst words anybody can ever hear: "Time of death, 6:55pm, January 30th 2007."
Temperance didn't know what happened. She stood there, dumbfounded, not believing that her boss was really dead.
It took about five minutes to hit her, and then she ran out of the hospital, whipping out her cell phone.
She dialed Angela's number, but there was no answer. "Come on Ange, I need you…"
After she couldn't get an answer, Tempe dialed Hodgins number. He didn't answer either.
Temperance yelled in frustration as she tried Zach's phone number. Finally, somebody picked up.
"Hello?" a female voice said.
"Hello, who is this?" Brennan asked, confused as to how Zach could have changed to a girl in less than two hours.
"It's Saja, who's this?"
"Temperance," Brennan said.
"Oh hi Tempe! Did you want to talk with Zach?" Saja asked, looking strait at Zach.
"Actually, I'd like to talk to you if that's ok," Temperance just wanted to talk to a female.
"Oh yeah, that's fine," Saja said, and Tempe heard Zach in the background, but she couldn't understand what he was saying.
"Umm," Temperance sat down on the curb. "Can you meet me at the Jeffersonian? I want to talk to everybody together, and it's important."
"Ok," Saja said, then Tempe heard her hiss a "Be quiet!" at Zach. "We'll see you there in about twenty minutes then?"
"Yes, and if you can get a hold of Angela or Hodgins, tell them the same thing," Tempe said.
"What about Cam?" Saja asked, not knowing.
"Cam… won't… be there," Tempe said slowly.
"Oh, alright, see you soon," Saja hung up the phone and turned to Zach. "We have to go to the Jeffersonian. Dr. Brennan wants to talk to all of us about something."
Saja had just a towel wrapped around her because she had just gotten out of the shower.
"Ok," Zach jumped up from the couch where he was sitting and went over to grab a clean shirt, and Saja went into the bathroom to get dressed and put on fresh makeup.
"Oh yeah, call Angela and Hodgins too," she called from where she was.
"Why? Didn't Dr. Brennan get a hold of them?"
"She didn't say, she just said that if we get a hold of them to tell them the same thing that she told me," Saja tossed her hair into a ponytail and walked out to the closet where Zach was standing.
She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. "I wonder what the matter is," she said into his shoulder.
"I don't know," Zach turned through her arms so that he was facing her.
Saja leaned up and kissed him for a moment, then let go of him. "Come on, we have to get to the Jeffersonian," she said, smiling.
"I'll call Hodgins on the way," Zach closed the door and then locked it.
Hodgins awoke to his and Angela's home phone ringing, and he knew it must be Zach, since Dr. Brennan never called the home phone.
He groaned. Maybe it wasn't Zach, maybe it was some telemarketer that he could ignore. Finally, Hodgins climbed out from beside Angela and grabbed the phone. "Hello?"
"Hodgins? Dr. Brennan called Saja a few minutes ago and told her to tell everybody to meet her at the Jeffersonian," Zach said.
"What time is it?" Hodgins asked through a yawn.
"10:00."
"Ok, see you there," Hodgins hung up and went over to his fiancée.
"Ange, baby wake up," Hodgins said, shaking her lightly.
"What is it?" Angela groaned tiredly.
"Brennan says she needs to see all of us at the Jeffersonian, ASAP."
"Now? What time is it?" Ange asked, opening one eye.
"10:00."
"In the morning?"
"Nighttime baby," Hodgins said, kissing her forehead.
"Do we have to go?" Angela asked.
"I think so, that's what Zach told me."
"Ok," Angela crawled out of bed and pulled on a top and skirt that she had been wearing earlier.
Together, she and Hodgins went to the Jeffersonian.
Booth and Tempe were sitting at the table above the Jeffersonian. They looked down to see all their colleagues walking into the Jeffersonian.
Temperance stood up and walked to the ledge, waving at them to tell them to come over.
Once they were all there, Tempe began to talk quietly, but she was holding onto Booth's hand for comfort.
"Cam died this evening," she said.
"What?" Angela was shocked.
"No she didn't die!" Saja gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Zach and Hodgins stood there silently.
"Her head trauma was too bad," Tempe said. "The doctors say when the microscope fell on her, she severely fractured her frontal bone, as well as the superior orbital fissure. Not to mention the state of her zygomatic bone."
"In English please, sweetie," Angela said through controlled breaths.
"She said that the Cam had a broken forehead bone, eyebrow bone, and the bone right here," Saja ran her finger along beside her eye socket. "That's how she died then? But you can survive that."
"Not if the doctors are too stupid to see a piece of bone stuck into your brain you can't," Booth said angrily.
"Booth, it's not your fault," Tempe said quietly.
"She's dead though isn't she? I should've looked after her better," Booth said, sounding as though he blamed himself.
"Brennan's right. It's not your fault," Angela said.
Zach asked a question that nobody except Zach Addy would've thought of under these circumstances, "Who's going to be the new boss then?"
"I'm going to call Dr. Goodman and get him back here as soon as possible. I'll see what he wants to do, and then we'll go from there," Tempe said, getting up from the table and walking to her office.
On the way, she passed Cam's office. She walked inside and looked around. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, then she looked at a picture of Cam and Booth. "It's all my fault…"
Tempe turned and ran from the office and to her own office. She closed the doors and finally broke down.
She sobbed and sobbed until it felt like she would throw up. Finally, she got up and wiped her eyes before picking up her office phone. She called Goodman's cell phone, because that was the only place she knew where to reach him.
As if by chance, Goodman answered.
"Is that you Dr. Brennan?" he asked surprised.
"Yes Dr. Goodman," you could still hear the shakiness in her voice and the archeologist knew she had been crying.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm all right, but Ca… Dr. Saroyan passed away today," she heard a sob escape from somewhere and she couldn't believe it had come from her own lips.
"What? How?" Goodman asked.
"Howard Epps escaped prison, and to make a very long story short, he sent me chemicals which I had Dr. Saroyan test, and they set her into a seizure from which she hit her head on the table and a microscope fell on her. A bit of frontal bone got stuck in her occipital lobe, and by the time the doctors took it out, it was too late because the bone had a tiny cut that it had made when she kept moving, so she had been bleeding for days, but so slowly that a doctor wouldn't be able to see until her brain lost so much blood."
"That was the short version?" Goodman asked, surprised about everything that Tempe had just said.
"Yes," Tempe said.
"All right," he said back and Tempe knew the man was thinking.
"What is it?" Temperance asked.
"I think that you can handle being the boss for a couple of days," Goodman said and Te
"Well, I'll be back in a little under two weeks, and that's not enough time for a new boss who doesn't know all of you to settle in… I think that you can handle being the boss for a couple of days," Goodman said and Temperance was a little surprised.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're very welcome. I'll see you in two weeks," Dr. Goodman said.
"Yes, goodbye," Tempe said and she hung up.
She looked at her computer and then sighed. "Wow," she mumbled.
There was a knock on her door. "Come in," she called.
All of her friends walked into her office.
"So did you talk to him?" Zach asked.
"Yes, he's going to be back in two weeks and I'm…" she wondered how they would take to this. "I'm the boss until then."
"You?" Hodgins asked a little more than shocked. "I thought he didn't want you as the boss."
"It's only two weeks," Tempe said nervously.
"That's great Bones!" Booth said, smiling at her.
"Yeah sweetie, then maybe the next time he goes away, he'll leave you in charge," Angela said.
"Congratulations Dr. Brennan," Zach told her, and he clapped down on her shoulder lightly with an open hand.
Temperance smiled at Zach. "Thank you everybody," she said. "I hope I'm ok for the two weeks that I am your boss."
"You'll do fine," Saja said, with a reassuring smile.
Booth walked over behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah Bones, you'll do fine," he said.
"Thanks Booth," she looked up at him with a huge appreciation.
Booth did something next that nobody, nobody could have guessed. He leaned down and kissed her quickly.
Then, Temperance did something that nobody in the world would've guessed.
She kissed him back.
"Awww," Angela cooed. And then she touched her stomach. "This baby kicks hard."
"Just like his mommy," Hodgins said.
"How do you know it's a boy?" Angela said, smiling and then she kissed Hodgins.
Temperance smiled at her partner. "You're always there for me Booth," she said quietly.
"Let's give them some privacy," Angela said, and she shooed everybody out of the office.
"Angela, I don't think that's necessar…" Tempe began, but Booth kissed her again. "Necessary…"
Tempe closed her eyes and smiled, then she hooked her arms around Booth.
"My place or yours?" she whispered.
A/N Okkkkkk!! What do you think of this chapter??? READ AND REVIEW PLEASE!!!!!!!!