Chapter 5: And Fear Stalks the Shadows
So this one kind of grew out of hand and long. But each part was too short by itself to be what I think of as a sustainable chapter. Yes, yes, this chapter is a little less fluffy and a little more grounded in angst and secret fears; but we have to have some contrast. Plus, I feel that some of this is even more heart wrenching than Booth and Brennan together. Let me know what you think ;)
Booth paced angrily outside her hospital room. God he had been so stupid; what had he been thinking? That's it, he wasn't. He seethed as he resisted the urge to not only shoot every bit of shiny reflective surface that taunted him, but every doctor, nurse and tball shop in the country. What could be taking so long? He gritted his teeth and paced again, knowing she was awake, but scared nonetheless.
Brennan had awoken in the CAT scan after Booth had carefully undressed her and put her into a flimsy paper nightgown. He had signed a paper declaring that they were engaged; their different last names and separate insurance wouldn't accept marriage, and he couldn't fake being a sibling, but his worried, hovering air had everyone in the hospital more than convinced of his love for her. It had been easy to slip her mother's glittering ring to the appropriate finger. It was almost mortifying to have the whole hospital know his relentless love when he himself had never admitted it to her. A very pretty petite blonde nurse offered him a fourth cup of coffee. He forced himself not to snatch it from her hands. His smile must have been like a mask of death for she scurried away before he downed half the cup in a gulp.
Coughing and spluttering, cursing under his breath at his now ruined taste buds up along his tongue and all down his throat, he gagged at the motor oil taste and chucked the cup into the trashcan he was prowling next to. He had been so scared, pressed against the glass and seeing her stir in the machine. Briefly panic stricken, she had clawed at the sides of the machine before a voice on the radio told her to relax; succumbing to logic she finally lay still, even though Booth had begged to talk to her, to apologize. The technician had been firm but sympathetic in restraining him.
Apparently lucid, she still had an iv in and was talking to the doctor who had finally and belatedly come into her room; Booth hadn't spoken to her since she had woken. He ran his hand over his jaw for the thousandth time, his signature worried move and crossed his big arms over his chest.
"Where is she?" came a half angry, half panicked voice. "Where is she?" There was a mumbling of directions and Booth almost groaned when he saw Angela striding furiously down the hall.
"You!" she screeched. "YOU HIT HER WITH A BAT?" She swung her purse at him and he ducked.
"Angela! Angela! It was an accident!"
"I knew I shouldn't have let her go with you, I knew it!" Booth grabbed her arms.
"Angela, you're making a scene," he ground out between gritted teeth.
"You're hurting me," she winced. He forced his fingers to un-pry themselves from around her upper arms. "Nice grip though." He ran his hand over his jaw again.
"What are you doing here Angela?"
"Brennan's emergency contact person is me," she panted.
"What?" he blinked, "I thought it was family. Mine is Jared…of course."
"And mine is my Dad," shrugged Angela. "But when Brennan filled hers out, I was the closest thing she had to family. Russ and Max weren't in the picture – and I recall her rather loathing your guts." Booth's jaw tightened.
"Angela," he warned in a low voice, "Don't freak out or blow this, but in order to get in here this far, I had to say we were engaged." Her brown eyes grew round.
"What?"
"I know, I know," he ran his hand through his hair and grabbed his own biceps again as he began pacing.
"Why didn't you just say married?" asked Angela blankly, "That's what I thought you had done. Every nurse in the hospital is whispering about your devotion." Booth wiped a hand over his face.
"Great. I couldn't say we were married because of the insurance. And wait, what? All the nurses are talking about me?"
"They all love you," confided Angela. At that moment, the petite blonde nurse stalked out of Brennan's room. Angrily she shoved medication into Booth's waiting hands.
"You're a real piece of work," she hissed, before stomping away.
"They all love me…right."
"What was that about?" wondered Angela under her breath. Booth shrugged. At that moment they were both distracted by Brennan being wheeled out in a wheelchair while arguing with the male nurse over her shoulder.
"Sir, I am perfectly capable of ambulatory motion."
"Ma'am, please remain in the chair." Brennan tried to get up but sank back, blanched and white as a sheet.
"Bones," stuttered Booth; for all his pacing, he didn't know where to begin. "Angela," he jerked a thumb at her, "is here. My car's out front. I can take her," he offered. The orderly shook his head stubbornly.
"Sorry sir, but my orders are to wheel her to her vehicle of transport."
"Ange what are you doing here?" snapped Brennan. "It's really not that big of a deal."
"I'm your emergency contact, remember?" she reminded her. Brennan blushed slightly, resurrecting some pretense of color into her cheeks. Booth tried not to stare at the bandage taped over the left side of her forehead.
"You shouldn't sleep alone tonight ma'am," instructed the orderly into the pregnant pause of the conversation.
"Absolutely not," said Angela.
"She's coming home with me," said Booth firmly. He heard an outraged gasp from the nurse's station to his utter confusion.
"Absolutely not," repeated Angela. Booth scowled fiercely when he heard a smattering of clapping from the nurses.
"Angela," protested Brennan. Angela put a hand up to stop the orderly wheeling her.
"Sweetie, Bren, look. I love Booth. And I love you. But tonight, you need to be watched; not kissed, or sexed…"
"Angela," rumbled Booth in a mixture of anger and consternation.
"I'm going with Booth," Brennan insisted.
"Then I'm staying the night too," said Angela, setting her mouth in such a way the two couldn't disagree. "Booth you have two places to sleep right?"
"A couch and a king bed," he grunted grudgingly.
"Brennan and I will take the king. You'll sleep in the other room on the couch."
"That's my bed," he complained, but his eyes were roving over Brennan's face hungrily, ascertaining the extent of her damage.
"Get the car," instructed Angela, "she can ride in yours because it's nicer, but I'll follow behind." As Booth left, he was bewildered to hear cheering from the nurse's station and briefly glimpsed a tightening in Brennan's fingers around papers in her lap.
The car ride was silent at first; Booth had lifted Brennan against her loud protests into the front seat and gently strapped her in. An old jacket of his scrounged from his trunk covered her legs, even though she had her regular clothes back on. It was a tense, awkward few moments before he broke.
"Bones, God I am so sorry. Brennan, I…I wasn't looking, Goddamnit," he smashed the steering wheel with a fist, "Goddamnit, thank God you are okay. I could have smashed your brains in. I could have killed you. I could have killed you. Bones. My Bones. I could have... You would have been..." his voiced grew thick, distorted, barbling with emotion. Brennan looked askance at him shocked.
"You would have been…fifty four."
"No!" she spat vehemently, "No, Booth it wasn't your fault. I told you I was clumsy, and I moved too close. I saw it coming but I didn't move away. It was my fault, I stepped into it, I was stupid, reckless."
"Bones," groaned Booth, "don't try. I smashed your face in. You could have a scar the rest of your life." He stopped, horrified at his own words. The rest of her life. Every day he would look at her and see what he could have done, what he was capable of doing.
"But I won't," she said stubbornly. "It's a bad bruise, and a minor fracturing of the super orbital cavity but you missed my temporal lobe by inches; there won't be a scar, and although my head hurts, they gave me Vicadin for the pain. You'll have to watch me." A slow grin spread over her face. "You can make fun of my drug induced ramblings."
Her face grew clouded. She was suddenly very, very glad Angela would be coming along when she had to take her next dosage. Who knew what she would say aloud?
A slow unwanted grin cracked Booth's face. "Bones, you always know how to make me feel better." She impulsively grabbed his fingers for a light squeeze before grabbing the spilling papers on her lap.
"So what are those anyway?" She blushed and tried to shove them beneath the jacket covering her legs.
"Oh just flyers the doctors gave – hey!" He had snatched one while she was talking. "Watch the road!" she warned.
"Stoplight Bones. We're stop-" he paused abruptly, his eyebrows creasing into a dark scowl that quickly turned into a tortured, soul wrenching agony. As the light turned green, Brennan quickly snatched it out of his hands. They drove in pain laced silence. She could see Booth's jaw clenching and unclenching.
"It's ridiculous Booth," she said quickly.
"Is that why all the nurses were clapping for Angela?" he growled, but she could hear the anguish in his words.
"They saw my previous medical history," she said quietly.
"So?" he snapped.
"They saw New Orleans. You signed the discharge papers there too."
"So they think I beat you?" he finally shouted, slamming his hand to the wheel again. A long, angry squeal came from the horn. Ahead, Angela gave them the finger. Booth's eyes were mere slits in his face; Brennan knew it was because they were swimming with tears.
"Booth, you know how ridiculous that is," she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. Out of her own pain she felt her eyes stare of their own volition away from him, out her own window.
"You know my history Bones," he wiped a hand over his jaw, "you know what this means to me."
"Booth," she started, "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter? What if you get in another accident? And I'm there? And you get more stupid, stupid, GODDAMN FUCKING FLYERS!" With his yell, he ripped the papers from her hands and threw them in the back seat. Brennan was taken aback, he hardly ever cursed so blatantly. "THEY THINK I BEAT YOU AT HOME! GODDAMNIT BONES, GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!"
"Booth." She said it as one word; she forced her eyes to look at him. He was panting, outraged, and scared. His eyes finally met hers, and she declined to mention a single tear trace that outlined his clenched, quivering strong jaw. She knew what he was afraid of, and she said it: "You are not your father."
"What if I am?" he whispered the words, and the rushing silence that filled the air after his complete loss of temper was like a hiss of water on hot metal. "What if…"
"It's erroneous to assume that because you share DNA with one parent means you are an exact replica. Has Jared ever hit Padme?"
"What? No! Jared would never lay a hand on a woman."
"But you agree he is more like your father of the two of you. He did have a drinking problem."
"And I had a gambling problem."
"But your father was an alcoholic, not a degenerate gambler."
"So?"
"So, does that mean Jared, when he and Padme copulate –"
"Bones, we've talked about the slang before."
"Fine, when he and Padme 'get it on' –"
"Forget the slang – it sounds awful from your mouth."
"Do you think Jared will be a bad father?" Her words hung in the air, suspended on hope and fear. Booth swallowed. He had obviously wondered about it. He finally spoke, weighing his words, his eyes far away.
"No. Jared will be a great father. He loves Parker, and he's a good kid, Jared."
"But your hypothesis that he is most like your own father is still a correct assumption."
"Yes." The word was dragged from him unwillingly.
"So under what circumstances would you ever hit Parker?"
"Bones! I would never raise a hand to my son, how could you even say something like that? You know me."
"I do. I know you Booth." Brennan's eyes lit with the same light that caught fire when she had finally figured out the case they were working on. "I know you, and I know what you are capable of, and what you aren't. Your job as a sniper was out of patriotic pride for your country, out of a fervent belief you were saving lives."
"I was saving lives," he sniped.
"But hitting innocent women and children is not in your fundamental belief system; you justify every one of your actions – there is no justifying domestic abuse to you, especially as a child from a broken home. Ergo, the logical conclusion of your precluded argument is that you never could, and never will, succumb to what you believe was your father's greatest sin." Booth's jaw was still clenched, and his knuckles were white around the steering grip, but his eyes were wider, more thoughtful and his face slowly turned to hers.
"Okay," he whispered.
"Okay what?" she said blankly.
"Bones, I don't know what I did to deserve a partner like you. You always know what to say."
"That's an anathema," she said, suppressing a pleased smile, "I hardly ever know what to say; you are constantly reminding me of that."
"To me, you know what to say."
"To me, you always know what to say, Booth."
"It's because I know you."
"And I you." They shared a crooked grin as his car pulled into the parking garage of his apartment building.
"Angela probably noticed your tantrum," sniffed Brennan. Booth's eyes smiled until he saw her face.
"Take another Vicadin Bones; you're starting to look pale." He opened her door for her before running around the front of the car to help her out.
"I'm always pale," she teased. He grinned, holding her hand as she stepped out of the car; for a moment they stood suspended until Angela bounded up.
"This is what I came to stop," she said, shaking her head in exasperation. "Moon later. Sick nurse now. Honey, you should take a Vicadin, you look a little pale."
"I'm always pale," retaliated Brennan sourly as they both laughed, and flanking her, helped her to the elevator.
"Angela, this is ridiculous," groused Brennan as Angela helped her into her pajama pants, steadying her with a hand.
"You're lucky that I thought of bringing you a change of clothes," she remarked with raised eyebrows.
"Thanks," said Brennan grudgingly. Angela flashed her a quick smile as she herself began stripping down. Uncomfortable with Angela's blatant sexuality, Brennan turned her back over Angela's teasing comments right as Booth opened the door. His hand threw itself up at Angela's shriek before she wrestled quickly into her tank.
"Like what you see Booth?" she commented throatily before Booth, red faced, apologized for the third time.
"I didn't realize you were still changing," he said quickly. He looked at the king bed that was his room, then around the room, grazing over the armchair he sometimes read reports in next to the nightstand and lamp, his dresser that he had swiftly shut the drawers to hide the mess and at the sparse decoration. "You all set?" he asked, giving a thumbs up. Brennan nodded.
"Angela," she said for the hundredth time, "there really is no need for you to stay. Booth is perfectly capable of watching over me; I stayed with him many times before when he was concussed."
"You make it sound like I have permanent brain damage Bones," argued Booth, "It wasn't that many times."
"Well this time we can't go ice skating," she said, looking crestfallen.
"You two went ice skating?" said Angela suspiciously.
"After the hockey murder," clarified Booth.
"In the middle of the night too," laughed Brennan.
"Bones is a horrible skater. She fell at least 20 times."
"But he always helped me back up," smiled Brennan. The two shared a long look that Angela was so used to sharing with Hodgins. A lump grew in her throat and she looked at the floor.
"Well this time you'll have to put up with me," said Angela, with a fake little smile. Brennan didn't notice; Booth did.
"If you ever hit Hodgins with a bat, or he gets bit by a snake, we'll be sure to show up on your doorstep," smirked Booth. Angela wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"Get out," she laughed. "Girl time, finally." She shut the door, but Booth opened it quickly.
"I'm in the next room over, on the couch Bones, okay?" Brennan nodded.
"I know where you are Booth." He hitched his jeans up by his cocky belt buckle.
"I'm going to change, watch some TV, then hit the hay."
"Hay is for horses," echoed Brennan. Booth forced a laugh.
"Funny Bones."
"I know," she said, lifting her chin and giving him a look laden with meaning, "I'm a funny Bones; that's why I'm humorous!"
"You may stop now," Angela informed her. Booth winked and closed the door with a click as the two women climbed into bed. Angela forced a glass of water into her hand and a Vicadin. Brennan looked briefly fearful, but she dutifully swallowed the pill without the water, to Angela's disgust. Putting the glass on the nightstand next to her, she lay back to sleep.
Booth woke with a start, unsure of what had woken him. His ranger senses never truly allowed him to sleep as soundly as he wished. Usually as he started awake at the sound of a motorcycle or a falling tree branch, listened for a minute or so, then drifted back to sleep. He lay, his heart rate quieting, listening to his empty apartment. He was at first bemused by his location; he didn't remember why he was on the couch until he saw Brennan's shoes by the door. His guilt flooded him and he grunted, punching his lumpy pillows and flipping onto his back and wrestling out of his shirt, too hot to keep it on. As he finally settled into his sway backed couch, he heard a muffled noise. He froze. It came again, and he realized without a doubt this was what had woken him. Standing up cautiously and grabbing the bat that Angela had so kindly swabbed of blood when he couldn't bear looking at it, he stalked cautiously to his bedroom, worried someone was trying to break in.
He opened the door slowly and froze, the noise reiterating itself. Booth lowered his bat once he realized the windows were closed the noise was coming from his partner. Both women looked beautiful sleeping in the moonlight. Facing opposite directions, their hair mingled in the middle, light and dark trapped the light and reflected it on their skin and parted lips. His heart wrenched as he noticed Bones was sleeping on his side of the bed. He gingerly leaned the bat against the doorframe and crept in the room. A monstrous snore ripped through the air, and Booth froze, momentarily petrified by the sound until a large grin split his face when he realized the sound was coming out of the mouth of serenely sleeping Angela. She thrashed quickly before settling down. In retaliation, Bones squirmed farther towards the edge, Angela hogging all the space.
As he stepped closer, Booth was breath taken with Brennan's beauty. Her pale skin glowed in the moonlight like marble as titan brown hair fanned around her. Her lids were closed over her blue eyes, over her icy blue soul. As Booth moved closer, he was startled by another noise: a faint whimper as she curled closer to herself. He glanced quickly at Angela, who didn't stir; she slept like the dead on the lab tables.
He noticed that Brennan's cheek glistened with tear tracks and her breath hitched. She let loose a little moan; not the moans Booth was used to hearing in his bed. This one was full of undisguised terror and revulsion.
"Bones," he hissed in a whisper, not quite daring to touch her bare shoulder, "Bones, wake up." She cried more, the thick glistening drops welling underneath her tightly shut lashes. They dropped down her face as she shuddered, little sobs escaping her that he knew she would have never allowed during the day. The last time he had heard such undisguised terror was the day they had become friends: when he had rescued her four years ago from a rogue FBI agent working for the mob who had intended to key out her eyes and feed her insides to dogs. Her panting, breathless sobs against his neck were now shaking the bed. In panic, Booth looked around, unsure of what for, and frantically at Angela. She slept as soundly as ever, letting loose another brain rattling snore and settling back to a deeper slumber. Booth crouched beside the bed and took Brennan's face between his hands.
"Bones, wake up. Wake up." He shook her slightly, afraid to wake Angela. Brennan awoke in a panic, breathing rapid and shallow, her eyes flicking over his face, her tears not ceasing until she regained a measure of control. She didn't seem to realize her tears for she frowned and said,
"Booth? What's wrong? I'm up. I'm up." She tried to groggily sit in the bed, but he pushed her back.
"You're going to wake Angela," he hissed at her, and she turned over, disconcerted.
"Why did you wake me then?" she whispered back. His face was blank with surprise.
"You were crying."
"I was what?"
"Crying. In your sleep. You looked like you were having a nightmare." Her face flushed.
"What? I was crying?" Unconsciously, her fingers raised themselves to her cheeks, which were still damp with salty tears.
"Do you remember your dream?" She shook her head but her eyes flooded of their own accord, to her embarrassment. Booth hugged her as she began shaking. "It was so horrible," she whimpered, sobbing into his neck. "I'm sorry it was just…so real." In one smooth movement, he had cradled her legs in one arm and her back in the other and swept her from the bed the few steps to his armchair by the nightstand where he sat, holding her as he would an infant, rocking her.
"I'm running, in Iraq…" she began in a whisper, and Booth froze, his own nightmares stalking awake in the shadows of the alarm clock screaming three am in the green light of night goggles. "But it turns into Darfur, and then Ecuador, and everywhere there is genocide. And the children, they aren't fully decomposed, but they stand up, grabbing at me, begging me to…to…" she was shaking now, so hard that Booth began frantically rocking his arms again, as he had done with Parker many a long night. "But then," her eyes were wide and silvery in the moonlit room, "then they become skeletons, and they chase me into the lab, and I realize all those skeletons chasing me are you and Angela, Cam and Hodgins, and Zack is standing over them all holding a knife, but it doesn't have any blood on it…" her breath hitched in a terrified sob, and his arms pressed her face into his chest, "but the knife is clean," she wept, "and the man with the smoking gun is my father, and I'm looking for you, but you're in your coffin at your funeral, and I'm stuck in a lab full of skeletons." She finished in a broken whisper shaking apart in his arms, her secret fears saying so much about her, but Booth said not a word.
"Shhhh," he murmured, and Brennan finally realized the reason her usually cold body was so warm was because most of her curled up form was pressed against bare flesh, heating her through her scant tank and shorts. Without thinking she nuzzled against him and they stayed together in an armchair, without any words.
But it was enough; words simply weren't.
Angela awoke early, as her early morning job dictated, and relished it was a Saturday. She stretched languorously in her bed, but realized quickly from the smell of the sheets and the design of the room that she wasn't at her own apartment. She quickly scanned through her memories, wondering if she had in fact, ended up at the bar alone without Brennan. Although she had memories of a quick drink, the hospital and the almost comedic accident (though she knew nothing of the flyers Brennan had been given) came rushing back. She turned to look at her best friend's sleeping face, when she realized her side of the bed was conspicuously empty. She sat up, startled, and disgruntled to realize her own best friend had done the irritating man thing to sneak out early and avoid the awkward morning-after conversation. Then she saw the two forms in the armchair. Jumping up in indignation, she strode towards them, mouth open to berate Booth to keep his hands off her for one moment, when she stopped, touched and confused. The puffiness of Brennan's eyes was a foreign concept to her; Brennan never cried, not a soul wrenching gut cry such as this one must have been, with Angela. Booth's arms had slid from her curled form and rested firmly on each arm of the chair. His chest rose and fell under Brennan's head and hand. Tear tracks through his own stubble glinted faintly in the dawn light; Brennan couldn't have possibly seen them in the faint light of the stars. Their completely asexual pose flooded Angela with guilt and a deep welling of shame. What she saw before her was blatant love, carved perfectly out of living flesh.
Eyes pricking at her accusations from the previous day and finally seeing with her own eyes a pure, transcendent love she herself had never experienced, Angela swallowed her words and turned away. Finding the discarded blanket on the couch Booth had abandoned, she gently draped it over the two. For once, Booth didn't awaken, but his head dropped atop Brennan's and Angela quietly gathered her purse, her shoes and left.