A Pain That I'm Used To—Chapter 34
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Suing me will result in a jump drive full of BONES fanfic that I've written and outlines for future stories. In other words, I'm broke.
Author's notes: I apologize for the very long delay in updating this story. It has been very difficult lately to find time to sit down and write between being overworked, being sick and being a little "under the weather". I'm not certain when I will be able to update again since my supervisor at work is off for the next month and I am left in charge of everything, including training some new employees. As I said, overworked….
This story probably doesn't have too many more chapters to it. I'm unsure of the number of chapters left but I do promise the semblance of a happy ending for our favorite couple.
Thanks to everyone who has continued to read this story and of course a special thank you to all of my wonderful reviewers. It's always nice to know that people enjoy the drabble that runs through my head and appears on my computer. Please read, enjoy and don't forget to review to let me know what you think.
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Still reeling from Brennan's request to be left alone, Booth stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest and watched as she ascended the platform and resumed her work. He knew that she was beyond exhaustion at this point. He also had a feeling that if she had allowed him to touch her while they had been in her office, Brennan would have broken down. Booth could sense her teetering on the edge but she was unwilling to succumb to her grief just yet.
Moving slowly toward Hodgins' office, he cast one last glance at Brennan and sighed. He found Russ in the entomologist's office, sitting in a chair near the only window that the room contained. Russ appeared bleary-eyed and slightly dazed as he stared out the window. The day after Max Keenan's death was beautiful and sunny—an overwhelming contrast to the disposition of his children.
"Russ?" Receiving no answer, Booth walked further into the office. He stood in front of Hodgins' desk and moved a few items, including containers with creepy crawling slimy creatures he didn't want to know about, before taking a seat. "How are you doing?"
"That's kind of a stupid question, you know," Russ replied.
The agent sighed. Sighing seemed to be the only response to the Brennan siblings' answers that didn't provoke an argument.
"Is she still out there...working?" He stared out the window, watching a cloud that resembled a heart float through the clear blue sky. Tempe had never been able to see the different shapes in the clouds. She could, however, tell him how clouds formed…something their 'science teacher' father had taught her.
"Yeah, she's still working. She's not talking to anyone but Angela managed to get her to take a very short break."
"She didn't even acknowledge our presence when we came in earlier."
Booth remained silent as he watched Russ lean forward and place his head in his hands.
"I've been sitting in here…thinking about my father. All those years ago, when Mom and Dad disappeared, Tempe and I were both so…lost." Russ paused as he lifted his head and gazed out the window. "But life continued. The world didn't stop because of our despair. All these years later, the world still doesn't stop…"
The agent stood and walked over to the younger man. "I know," he said as he placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "And you and your sister have to continue to live your lives past this moment. You've both bogged yourselves down in the past for too long."
"In case you haven't noticed Booth, the present kinda sucks too."
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Pieces of bones from her father's remains lay before her like a bizarre jigsaw puzzle. Brennan pushed a few of the smaller pieces around the examination table, carefully contemplating how to put everything back together. Her gaze drifted to the severed leg and boot that she had been examining earlier. At first her eyes settled on the shoelaces but her attention was quickly diverted to the remaining flesh and muscle of the leg.
Hodgins and Zach worked diligently at separate terminals nearby. They ceased their tasks as Brennan slowly walked over to the examination table where her father's severed limb sat. The young protégé glanced at Hodgins, his brown eyes wide with fear. Would this be the moment that Dr. Brennan broke down? He frantically scanned the area for Angela—Angela would know how to deal with this.
Suddenly Brennan turned and descended the stairs, quickly making her way to Angela's office.
"Sweetie?" The artist swiveled away from her computer, watching as her friend walked toward the Angelator. "What's wrong Bren?"
"Have you input the measurements and other vital information on the warehouse into the Angelator yet?"
"Uh, yeah, I have but I don't think…"
"Run the scenario." Brennan crossed her arms over chest and waited for the hologram to appear.
"Brennan." Angela's tone was stern as she stood and placed her hands on her desk beside the keyboard. "No. No, sweetie, I will not do that. You were there for god's sake. I'm not going to replay your father's death for you again and again."
Brennan closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "Please Angela," she whispered. "Just run the scenario."
Angela released a sigh of her own as she sat down and switched on the Angelator. The image of the warehouse on River Street appeared before Brennan's eyes as did a miniature version of her father. She swallowed the lump in her throat as Angela began to narrate the events.
"Your…Max Keenan entered the building and made it approximately 43.5 feet before the explosion…" She glanced over at Brennan, her impassive face bathed in the light of the hologram.
"Run it again but with my father running at a slightly faster pace."
Angela input the necessary data and the hologram started again with Max running into the building faster than before. "At that pace, he made it approximately 49.8 feet. That's not much of a difference…"
Brennan remained silent as she narrowed her eyes and stared at the hologram. Her deep blue eyes scanned the holographic image of the warehouse intently.
The ringing of Angela's office phone startled them both. "Angela Montenegro."
"Hey Ange, everything okay in there?" Hodgins asked.
"Um, yeah," she answered slowly as she turned away from her friend. "Why did you call my office instead of coming in here?" she whispered into the phone.
"Because I saw Brennan go in there and I thought maybe…" Hodgins' voice trailed off. "Never mind, there she is."
Angela quickly turned back to face the Angelator to find Brennan gone. "Okay, I think Booth has taught her some freaky Army Ranger silent stealth move thingies. Where is she going?"
"I'm not sure," Hodgins answered as he watched his colleague walk hurriedly from Angela's office. "She appears to be going to…uh-oh."
The artist dropped the phone and quickly left her office. As she entered the lab, Angela's brown eyes searched the area for her best friend. Her gaze finally landed on Hodgins as he stood on the platform with the phone still in his hand.
"Why did you say 'uh-oh' Jack?!" she demanded as she ran up the stairs to the platform without swiping her security card. The screeching sound of the alarm didn't slow Angela's pace as she made her way to Hodgins. "Where the hell is Brennan?"
"What the hell is going on out here?!!" Booth ran out of Hodgins' office with his handgun in his right hand and Russ in tow. He glanced around the platform and noticed that Brennan was not where he had left her. "Where is Temperance?!"
"She left the building," Hodgins yelled over the never ending piercing sound of the alarm.
"You let her leave the building?" Booth holstered his weapon as he moved toward the doctor in a threatening manner. Angela moved in front of Hodgins and put her arms out to stop the obviously angry agent.
"First of all, you know as well as I do that you don't 'let' Brennan do anything," Hodgins responded heatedly. "And second of all, well, I didn't feel like 'letting' her go all Kung-Fu on my ass. Seriously, she's a little scary sometimes, dude."
One of the security guards approached the platform and switched off the alarm. "Everything okay up there?" he questioned as he glanced at the tense group.
Booth moved away from the others and descended the stairs. "Did you see Dr. Brennan leave the lab?" he questioned the older man.
"Yeah, she went into the parking garage area. I guess she got a new car huh?"
Booth's eyes narrowed at the guard's assumption. "Why would you say that?"
"Well, she had a set of keys in her hands. You know, Dr. Brennan didn't strike me as the type of woman who would put much stock in a 'Magic 8' ball…"
"Crap! She took my keys!" Angela ran down the stairs and to her office. Booth, Hodgins and Russ quickly followed. They entered the artist's office to find Angela searching through her purse.
"I keep a small 'Magic 8' ball on my key chain," she explained as she searched furiously through her bag. "You know so I can it ask things like 'Will I do something incredibly stupid like allow my sleep deprived grieving best friend whose life may be in danger to steal my keys and take off with my car?'."
"Well, I'm no 'Magic 8' ball but I would say that 'chances are good'," Hodgins joked.
Booth flipped open his cell phone and began dialing. "What type of car do you drive Angela?"
"A 2004 Volkswagen Jetta…red."
"Harvey, yeah it's Booth. Look man can you do me a favor? Yeah, put an APB out on a red 2004 Volkswagen Jetta…what's the license plate?" He glanced at Angela.
"ARTLUVR; A-R-T-L-U-V-R," she answered as she dropped her bag on the couch.
"Adam, Robert, Tom, Lincoln, Union, Victor, Robert," Booth said. "Yeah, just contact me if it's found, okay? No, no, not a suspect…Thanks Harvey." He closed his phone and sighed. "Why the hell would she take off like this?"
Angela bit her lower lip as she glanced at Hodgins. "She came in here to…she asked me to run the scenario of Max Keenan's death."
His grip tightened on his phone as he glared at his girlfriend's best friend. "And did you?" Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. The guilty look that appeared on Angela's face spoke volumes. "Show me," he growled.
Hodgins and Russ walked around the Angelator and waited as Angela switched it on. After a few seconds the holographic image of the warehouse appeared.
"Oh my god," Russ whispered as he stared at the image. "I can't…I can't watch this again." He walked past Booth and sat in a chair facing Angela's desk.
"Bren asked me to run the scenario twice," Angela said softly as she started the first scenario. Booth watched intently, attempting to see what Brennan had seen. "This is the second scenario with Max running at a slightly faster pace per Bren's request."
His eyes grew wide as he watched the second scenario. "Son of a bitch."
"Agent Booth!" Zach ran into the office, breathless, holding a file in one hand. "I think you need to see this. I couldn't find Dr. Brennan so… Anyway, she ran all of the customary tests on the remains from the warehouse as she would any other set of remains, including a DNA analysis. I just received that analysis from the lab and…"
"It says that's not Max Keenan's body out there," Booth finished.
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She lowered the sun visor as the harsh rays of the sun broke through the windshield. Cold air blasted from the vents tossing her long auburn streaked hair around her face and shoulders. Brennan heard a soft rock tune playing on the radio as she turned toward her destination.
She knew he would be here—it was a logical, rational conclusion on her part. Her father would come to say goodbye…maybe not to his children but to the love of his life. For all their faults, Brennan knew that her parents had truly loved each other. It was one of the few things she had never doubted in her life, especially now that she was with Booth. After being with him she could understand the type of love her parents had shared.
Booth had asked her several times after her mother's funeral if she wanted to visit the gravesite, to talk to her mom, to say goodbye. She had tried to reason with him that her dead mother couldn't hear her or respond to her and neither could the cold granite tombstone that she and Russ had purchased. This would be her first time seeing Christine Brennan's grave since the funeral. As she exited the car, Brennan steeled herself for the family reunion she was about to face.
She slowly climbed the slight hill to the section of the graveyard where her mother was buried and stopped when she spied a lone male figure on his knees in front of a tombstone. His head was lowered and his shoulders visibly shook as he stroked the granite, his fingers tracing the outline of Christine's name. Brennan had never seen her father cry and after fifteen years, especially the last twenty-four hours, the sight was surreal. With her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, she quietly approached him.
"Dad." Her tone was soft and gentle although her voice was husky with emotion.
Max Keenan sniffled and wiped the tears from his face before he glanced up at her. "You look like your mom," he said sadly. "Beautiful."
He turned his gaze back to his wife's tombstone and ran his hand along the cool surface. "Tempe's here, sweetheart. I'm going to leave you now so I can talk to her but I'll come back." He removed rose petals from his pocket and placed them along the edge of the tombstone. "I love you Ruth," he whispered.
Brennan felt like an intruder as she watched her father's display of affection and grief. Max slowly lifted himself from the ground and turned to face his only daughter.
"I told you to stop looking for me Temperance," he admonished her. "The explosion at the warehouse…that was supposed to ensure that you would stop looking."
"Through blueprints of the warehouse and technology in the lab, I determined that you were able to reach a chute that was used in the early 1900s to dispose of materials and other waste by dumping it into the river." Her voice sounded foreign to her, as though someone else was speaking for her. "Also the tissue of the leg we found at the scene indicated that blood flow had ceased before the explosion. That could be indicative of severe circulatory problems in that leg or the person was dead before the warehouse exploded. You didn't appear to have any problems running away from me…and you're certainly not deceased."
Max shook his head and chuckled. "Not only are you too stubborn, but you're too damn smart for your own good…you always were. I remember it always irked Russ when you…"
"Stop." Her eyes narrowed, partly in anger and partly in response to the blinding sun beating down on them. "After all this time, after everything that has happened, everything that I've learned about you and Mom, don't you dare stand there and attempt to reminisce about my childhood."
"Temperance, your mother and I did what we thought was best for both of you. We were trying to protect you…"
"By killing people? Have you added murderer to your resume of criminal activity?" Brennan felt her face flush with anger as she stared at her father.
"Oh that's right—my daughter's a crime fighter now," he replied sarcastically. "Don't you dare stand there and judge my actions when you don't have all of the facts yet. I always taught you not to jump to conclusions. I am still your father Temperance…"
"No, you're not," she stated bitterly as her eyes filled with tears. "My father was Matt Brennan. He was a science teacher and a loving husband and father. He taught me the difference between right and wrong—the basic moral and ethical fibers of a young child's life. You are not Matt Brennan. I don't know who you are…but I know who you aren't."
Sorrow filled Max's dark eyes as he moved toward her with his arms outstretched. "Tempe, sweetheart…"
"Max Keenan, stop where you are and keep your hands where I can see them!" Booth walked briskly with his gun trained on the older man until he was standing beside Brennan. "Temperance, you okay?"
She didn't respond to Booth's question as she continued to stare at Max Keenan.
"Temperance?" Booth tried again. He glanced over at her before returning his focus to her father.
"He's all yours Booth." She turned away from her father and slowly made her way back to Angela's car.
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Author's notes: Okay, now I apologize for the short chapter…hmm, I'm just full of apologies today aren't I? I promise to do my best to update soon but with the way things are at work at the moment, it may be awhile. Please remember to let me know what you think…or just let me know that you're all still out there. Either way, a review will be an early Christmas present.