A Pain That I'm Used To—Chapter 29
Disclaimer: No matter how much I beg, they won't give me any of the characters…especially Booth.
Author's notes: Thanks again to all of you who continue to read this story and special thanks as always to those of you who continue to review. I believe my muse has decided to take an extended leave of absence….either that or she's pulling a Hemingway and is passed out in a bar somewhere. I apologize for the delay in updating but between my missing muse, a horrible time at work and injuring myself at work this week, it's been hard to find time to sit down and write. As a side note, bruised ribs…not fun. I think I'm being punished for all of the angst and suffering I put Booth and Brennan through in this story. (wink)
Anyway, it's that time again…read, enjoy and review.
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"That was the most boring exhibit I've ever seen," Russ stated loudly as he and Hodgins entered the lab area. Brennan glanced up from the remains that she and Zach were examining and smiled at her brother's complaint. Angela, who was seated near the examination table, also looked up and smiled.
"Dude, do you realize how invaluable some of those species of insects are in identifying areas where a crime originally occurred?" Hodgins waved his hands around with enthusiasm as he spoke of his chosen profession. "I mean, I have dissected…"
"Dude," Russ replied sarcastically, "do you realize that I don't care?" He rolled his eyes as he waited for Hodgins to swipe his security card so they could enter the platform area.
"If you were lying on one of those tables you would care," the doctor retorted as he swiped his card and the two men ascended the stairs.
"Uh, no I wouldn't. I'd be dead," said Russ.
Hodgins looked at Russ and then at Brennan, whose focus was now solely on the remains, and sighed. "Yeah, now I see the family resemblance."
"I'm guessing the entomology exhibit was a bust." Angela grinned at Hodgins as he sat down at one of the terminals and rolled his chair toward her.
"You know, no one appreciates bugs or slime until they play a pivotal role in solving one of these cases," the curly haired doctor huffed as he crossed his arms.
Angela placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed slightly. "We may not appreciate the bugs or slime Jack, but we appreciate you."
Zach glanced up from the remains and frowned. "We do?"
Narrowing his blue eyes at the young assistant, Hodgins uncrossed his arms and snapped the rubber band around his wrist several times. "I will not let Pinocchio get to me," he muttered under his breath.
"Ah, Tempe, could I go sit in your office and not, you know, look at dead bodies?" Russ looked up at the skylights in the lab, attempting to keep down the hotdog and soft drink he'd had for lunch.
As her eyes roamed over the sternum and ribcage of the skeleton, Brennan frowned slightly. "There are artifacts, including pieces of some human remains, in my office Russ."
"Oh jeez," he sighed as he continued to avert his gaze. "Don't you have any normal places I can go and sit…without possibly puking?"
"You remember where my office is?" Angela asked as she laughed softly.
Russ nodded as he quickly made his way to the stairs. "Thanks Angela."
"Wuss," Hodgins whispered. Angela reached over and snapped the rubber band on his wrist without warning, causing him to wince.
"Okay Zach, you can start placing the tissue depth markers on the skull," Brennan announced as she straightened and removed her gloves. She glanced past her assistant and saw Deputy Director Cullen being escorted into the lab by Dr. Goodman.
Brennan felt her heart seize and her hands trembled as the gloves tumbled from her hands to the floor. She leaned forward, placing her hands on the side of the table to steady herself. "Booth," she whispered.
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"I'm not certain of the extent of his injuries Dr. Brennan," Cullen said as he maneuvered the car around traffic. "He was conscious when I arrived in the parking garage and he made me promise to personally escort you home…"
"You're taking me to the hospital," Brennan informed him.
"Dr. Brennan…"
"Either you take me to the hospital now or I'll call a cab from my apartment and go without an escort." She turned her face toward him, blazing blue eyes daring him to tell her otherwise.
Cullen squirmed slightly at the amount of anger in her eyes and at the fact that the anger was presently directed at him. "Hospital it is then."
"Thank you." She turned her attention to the view outside the passenger's window. If Booth had been conscious at the scene and had enough wits about him to still be concerned for her safety then odds were that he was okay. Brennan used that logic to comfort herself and to keep her emotions in check. The thought that Booth could be anything other than okay was heart wrenching and it was not a thought that she wanted to dwell upon.
When Cullen had informed her and her team that Booth had been accosted and injured by at least three assailants, Brennan's first thought was that he could have died thinking that she didn't love him…that their night together had not meant anything to her. The truth was that Seeley Booth meant more and more to her each day. That fact, which was not based in science but pure unadulterated emotion, scared the hell out of her.
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"May I help you?" The rotund nurse from Brennan's previous visits asked as she stared at a pile of paperwork on the desk.
"Yes, we need to see Special Agent Seeley Booth," Brennan responded.
The nurse glanced up and rolled her eyes at the anthropologist. "Oh hell no, not you again!" She looked up at the ceiling, folding her hands together in prayer. "Lord Jesus, what have I done to deserve this?"
Brennan glanced up at the ceiling and then at the nurse. "I'm fairly certain that God and any other religious figures, if they exist, are not present in the ceiling tiles of this hospital."
The deputy director stood back and watched the exchange in amusement.
The nurse glared at Brennan. "If they exist? Child, let me tell you…no, no…unh-uh, no." She grabbed a file and exited the small area, indicating that Brennan and Cullen should follow her. "No, you wanna see that agent of yours, that's fine. Cause God is granting me the serenity not to put up with your bossy, argumentative little ass today."
She stopped outside of Booth's room and pointed to the door. "He's in there. The next time you two decide to make a trip to the emergency room could you please do it on my day off?"
Brennan walked past the nurse and pushed open the door. "Why don't you go ask your ceiling tiles for help with that request?"
As she entered the room, Brennan observed a set of x-rays on the board. She glanced over and saw Booth sitting up in bed, wincing slightly.
"Booth?"
"Bones, what the hell are you doing here? I told Cullen to take you straight home."
The senior agent entered the room and stood near the foot of Booth's bed. "She was rather adamant that I bring her here to see you."
"I should have known," Booth conceded.
Brennan studied his face, fighting the urge to touch him. "Yes, you should have known." She moved past Cullen and examined the x-rays on the board after switching on the light. "Are these yours?"
"I told you not to read my x-rays Bones."
Ignoring the comment, she analyzed the x-rays, allowing Booth's bones to tell her the story of his injuries. "The mandible and zygomatic bones are intact—no fractures. Your parietal shows that you sustained a sharp blow to back of your head on the right side. I'm sure you have a concussion." She frowned as she glanced over the x-ray of his spinal cord. "Did you injure your back?"
Booth sighed as he watched her switch off her emotions and become the analytical scientist—something he knew she did to protect herself from feeling pain. "Kidney punch…nothing that would show up in an x-ray but the doctor wanted to be safe."
Cullen cleared his throat. Sensing the tension in the room, he excused himself. "I think I'll check to see if the rest of Dr. Brennan's team has arrived here."
After his superior exited the room, Booth sighed heavily. "Temperance."
She turned toward him, her eyes expressing the anguish she refused to verbally share.
"Temperance, please come over and sit down."
She nodded and moved toward the side of his bed. Instead of sitting, Brennan stood beside the bed and carefully placed her right hand on Booth's left cheek. She gently stroked her thumb over the bruise forming around his left eye.
Booth's eyes closed at her touch and he reveled in the silky smoothness of her hand against his face.
"I'm so sorry this happened to you," she whispered.
Placing his hand over hers, he leaned further into her touch and slowly opened his eyes. "This is not your fault."
"Cullen told me what little information you gave him before the paramedics took you. This happened because of the investigation on my father…"
"Temperance, listen to me. Regardless of whether you wanted to find your father or not, Max Keenan is wanted for questioning by the FBI. That would be the case even if we hadn't obtained all of this new information…"
"Including the involvement of Agent Andrews?"
Booth nodded. "That's the reason I was leaving early…to tell you what I couldn't tell you last night."
"I'm sorry," she whispered as she stared into his dark eyes.
"I told you this is not your fault…"
"But earlier…that was my fault…what I said…"
He frowned slightly as he recalled their exchange in her office. "Did you mean what you said? Was it just sex?"
She leaned forward and gently pressed her lips against his. "Absolutely not."
"You do realize that I'm not going to let you run away from this now, right?"
She smiled slightly as she kissed him again. "I'm doing my best to retire my running shoes Seeley. I promise."
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"I still think you should have stayed overnight Booth," Brennan said from the backseat of Cullen's car.
"For the tenth time already, I'm fine. It was a little knock on the head," he replied in an irritable tone.
"A 'little knock on the head' as you put it does not fracture one's parietal bone. You have a concussion Booth. The best course of action would have been to stay in the hospital overnight for observation." She crossed her arms and stared at the back of his head as he sat in the passenger's seat.
"If it was you Bones, would you have stayed?"
"We are not talking about me," she replied.
"Perhaps I should have taken the fifty dollar aspirin that nurse offered me," Cullen muttered as he stopped the car at a red light and rubbed his hand across his forehead.
"You know, I still don't understand why you didn't just shoot them," Brennan said.
"Because Bones, shooting unarmed people is your thing…not mine."
"First of all, the guy that hit you in the head obviously had a weapon of some type. Second, how many times do I need to remind you that that guy was trying to set me on fire? Is that not in the file somewhere?" She leaned forward between the two seats and addressed Cullen. "That should definitely be in the file. That's the whole reason I wasn't convicted on that charge."
Cullen glanced over at his agent. "That was one of the reasons."
"Look Bones I told you—the first guy caught me off guard by punching me in the face. I stumbled into the second guy who punched me in the back. I managed to break the second guy's wrist…"
"Have you alerted…?" Brennan began
"All of the hospitals and clinics in the area? Yes, because it's not my first day on the job Dr. Brennan," Cullen answered. "I seriously should have taken that aspirin."
"The third guy came out of nowhere and struck me from behind when I tried to charge the first guy."
"Did any of them say anything to you?" she asked.
"The first guy was obviously the spokesman. He said something about telling you to stop this investigation….my beating was just a friendly warning. Then he threatened you." Booth stared out the window, swallowing the fear and anger that the assailant's threat against Brennan invoked.
"Booth, if the syndicate is responsible for the bomb that was placed in my car…"
"And they are," he responded forcefully.
"Then why would they send three guys to assault you as a warning? It's fairly obvious that this syndicate doesn't issue warnings." Brennan frowned as a new thought formed in her brain. "We've got a whole new set of players in this game."
Cullen pulled the car into the parking garage, stopping behind Booth's SVU. "I had the bomb squad inspect every inch of your vehicle for any possible explosives. We looked at the surveillance footage to try and obtain a photographic still of your assailants for identification but…"
Booth frowned. "But what?"
"Whoever is responsible for your assault managed to corrupt the surveillance footage. We saw you enter the parking the garage and go into the building when you arrived at work. A few minutes later, the footage blacks out for approximately twenty seconds and then we have looped footage of an empty parking garage." Cullen sighed as he looked over at the couple. "I have extra agents outside of Dr. Brennan's building and at the Jeffersonian. Booth, you report directly to the lab with her until I tell you otherwise. If there are any new cases that need yours and Dr. Brennan's attention, I'll have another agent deliver the files. Understood?"
They both nodded at the senior agent and exited the vehicle. Booth removed his keys from his pockets and was surprised when Brennan grabbed his hand.
"I'm driving us home," she said.
"Home?" He smiled at her.
She returned his smile and pulled him toward the passenger's side of the SUV, opening the door for him. "Did the concussion affect your hearing?"
He leaned in close to her. "You know if Cullen wasn't sitting right there watching us, I would show you just how much this concussion hasn't affected anything…"
He moved past her and climbed into the passenger's seat.
"Why do you think I want to go home?" she asked with a straight face as she closed his door.
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"So Andrews had been under scrutiny for most of his career?" Brennan slowed the SUV and turned right. "How did he manage to climb the ranks of the FBI if his integrity was in question?"
"I don't know unless someone in charge of the Chicago field office believes in that whole 'keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer' thing." Booth winced as Brennan hit a pothole in the road.
She glanced over at him and placed her right hand on his arm. "Sorry."
"Both hands on the wheels Bones," he instructed. She rolled her eyes and removed her hand from his arm. "And no eye rolling while you drive. Your eyes should be straight ahead…."
"That's funny coming from a guy who thinks that a yellow light means 'go faster'." She stopped the SUV at the curb outside of her building. "Oh look, I managed to get us here safely…imagine that."
"Sarcasm does not become you Bones," he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
Brennan's eyes scanned her neighborhood as she exited the SUV. She now saw every person as a potential threat to her and Booth's safety. Paranoia also doesn't become me, she thought bitterly as she joined Booth on the sidewalk.
"Who do you think sent those three guys Booth?" she asked as they began their journey up the stairs to her apartment.
"I don't know. What I do know is that I owe them a good ass whooping if I ever see them again."
The couple entered the hallway of the second floor and made their way to the apartment. Brennan quickly opened the door so they could go inside. She found herself releasing a long breath as she locked the door behind them.
"You okay Bones?"
She turned to face him and nodded her head. "Yeah, I just…"
"What?"
"Do you think that my father had anything to do with Agent Andrews' death?" She stared at him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
"I honestly don't know if he did or not Temperance. I wish I could say with absolute certainty that he didn't but…" He moved toward her and wrapped his arms around her.
Burying her face into his shoulder, Brennan sighed. "I wish you could too. The truth is that I don't even know my own father well enough to say whether or not he's capable of something so horrible."
Booth kissed the top of her head and held her for a few more minutes. "I've told you this before…but we're going to find out what happened. We're going to get you the answers that you and Russ need." He glanced around the apartment. "Speaking of Russ…"
She pulled out of his embrace and looked up at him. "He's with Hodgins, Zach and Angela. She thought that we might need time alone to talk…"
"Oh?" He leaned down and kissed her, allowing his hands to caress her back.
"And have massive amounts of make up sex."
Booth's hands stopped moving on her back as he stared at her. "Angela knows?"
"Apparently Russ told her…and the others."
"And you're okay with that?" He studied her for a moment, pleased that she was smiling at him.
"They would have found out sooner or later Booth."
A grin slowly spread across his face as he pulled her closer to him. "Massive amounts of make up sex, huh? At least you'll have a good reason for waking me up every few hours."
"Who says you'll be getting any sleep?" she asked as she pulled out of his embrace and tugged on his hand, pulling him down the hall toward her bedroom.
Author's notes: Yes, I know that I could have put in a M rated scene here but it could never have compared to some of the scenes I've read in fics by jaed621 or goldpiece so I decided to let you all use your imaginations…and I know they are working overtime right now.