AN: First off I still don't own Bones; if I did I wouldn't be wincing at the price of flowers on Valentine's Day ($7 for a rose?!). Secondly I hope that you enjoyed (if that's the word) the previous chapter of macabre imagery. I must admit I toned it down after editing; after all this isn't a horror piece. Although I might just write one later on down the line. Thanks again for the reviews and enjoy the next chapter.
So what are you going to do?
Well after reviewing that file throwing up ranks high on the list but given that you went and did that (ewww pudding looks really nasty all dissolved like that) a few minutes of sphincter clenching paralysis induced by an overwhelming sense of fear seems in order.
Without preamble Bones jumps off of the chair that she'd been sitting in and hugs you with a sense of desperation and uncertainty that is totally foreign to her. You restrain a wince as her strength, belied by her slight build, puts an extraordinary amount of force on your tender ribs. Of course even if she broke your ribs it wouldn't have stopped you from returning the hug with a sense of desperation to equal hers, if only to comfort her; you brush aside the desires in the back of your head.
The clock set high on the far wall ticks are deafening but far away in the cacophonous silence of you and Bones' embrace both of you pulling the other close enough to feel the reverberations of your respective hearts. And the tremors of terror still emanating from your minds.
You break the silence first but not the embrace.
"Bones I swear this to you, nothing is going to happen to you. We're going to figure out who did this and make sure that they can never do this sort of thing again."
Your fingers move in slow circles over the tense muscles in her back trying to comfort her and calm her down. You're not the most tactile person in the world but with her you'd gladly make an exception. As you draw in deep almost ragged breaths still rank with the fear that those bodies inspired you draw in her scent. A familiar and calming aroma of what you can only describe as distilled femininity and divinity; but now it's spiked with the bitter and harsh tang of fear.
Suddenly it hits you.
This is what they've been trying to do; whoever "they" actually are.
All the bullshit that Tim, John Dough, whoever that son of a diseased whore actually was fed you about diverting her from certain cases was both true and false. True these people wanted her to not look at certain cases but why stop there? Why not get her off the job permanently? Her work has landed hundreds of stone-cold killers, professional criminals and even mob bosses in jail. If Bones suddenly left the forensics world…
Trying to kill her had failed in the past Keton couldn't do it, hell even Kirby couldn't do it so they tried psychology. They tried to break and blackmail her with kidnapping you but that failed when you escaped plus you don't think that you're important enough to get her to stop.
But fear and terror; they tend to work when everything else fails.
Fear causes people to become irrationally paranoid, to focus on everything else but how to fight the cause of fear. A frightened person being mugged in an alleyway is more focused on the gun or knife in the hands of their assailant rather than trying to find a way to defend themselves. When a person panics they are worse than completely helpless; if a soldier panics in combat he becomes a net drag on his unit because those who haven't panicked have to try and save him rather than engage the threat. Causing Dr. Brennan to be afraid of the nebulous "they" means that she and the squints will be severely handicapped in any efforts to find them because fear causes the afflicted to doubt everything that they do; they give the assailant more power than they actually have.
Yet even with such deleterious effects fear is second fiddle to terror. Terror spawns despondency, despair, paralysis, and even submission to the threat. Fear is something that a person can fight given time and support but terror, terror is something else entirely.
To combat terror you have to destroy yourself. You know because you've had to do it in the past.
An act of terror is something that is so out of your realm of experience that such an act is so alien, so different that you simply don't know how to respond. To keep such things from happening you need to jade yourself to those acts or to otherwise numb your senses. You saw this happen to soldiers time and again. Some dealt with the horrific tactics that the enemy used by being even more brutal in a cold and calculating way; others drowned themselves in drugs, liquor, or even in terrible bouts of rage. Any way you look at it the humanity that you once had is lost after experiencing terror.
In short these people want to nullify Brennan, to cause her to either fold under the pressure or to force her to sacrifice her own humanity to keep in the game. Either way it gets her out of the world of forensics; her greatest skill is her passion to do what is right and to help justice, giving up her humanity means giving that up too.
Only these fuckers forgot one thing. You and Bones are partners. And you've already faced down fear and terror. You know what you have to do; what you have to become, in order to protect Bones from these people.
"Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again." You whisper to the nothingness.
"What was that Booth?" Huh whoops you did not mean for her to hear that.
"Nothing Bones, just… thinking about what needs to be done." Technically you didn't lie to her.
You rather regrettably let go of her, but you move over on your hospital bed giving her enough room to lie down on the edge next to you. You give a silent "hooray" in your mind as she does. Your arm still around her as your hand still draws soft circles on her back trying to comfort her.
The clock ticks, showing the time as 3:42AM.
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RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TA
"Fuck we got a whole shit-load of trouble coming down the road at us!"
WHOOMP- BOOM!
"Ah shit! They're coming at our six!"
You curse yourself for making a bad call. Taking the road might have been easier for you to move towards the FOB but at the same time it made it easier for bad company to find you.
"Push the fuckers back! Smoke out!"
You pop red smoke at your position. A "Holy God somebody please save my ass" signal. Hopefully a friendly unit spots it and sends help; either that or more hostiles spot the smoke and come over to help wipe you out.
Not like you have much choice given how you fucked up and got your squad in trouble.
Your men move automatically to respond to the threat. The "Pop-Pop-Pop" of M-16s and the "Crack-Crack-Crack" of the M4s stand out in stark contrast to the bark of the AKs and the noises of the myriad of other weapons being brought down on your position.
You squeeze off rounds at the enemy rushing your front. You barely register one of them clutching his face; scratching at his skin as he falls forwards as one of your rounds catches him below the eye. A pink mist surrounds him like a deathly halo as his red blood mixes with the dirt and dust.
Your bolt locks back. A single touch of your finger drops your magazine and you slap another in. Smack the release let the bolt go, keep popping.
You hear an explosion to your rear.
In movies grenades are too quiet and the explosion that they make too small.
Awanbor and Swayne's skins blossom in red as a small metal object smaller than an apple detonates in between them. The ground shakes and blossoms of dust burst out all over the landscape as super hot pieces of shrapnel make contact. Their screams are cut short by the crimson tide bubbling forth from their throats.
Fear hits you followed by despair. You failed your men. You got them killed.
Two more on your tally. Make that three.
The SAW just went silent as Stear caught a burst to his back. At such a close range his Sappy plates couldn't keep the rounds out.
You keep popping at the onrushing enemy. Un-aimed shots. Panic is starting to overwhelm you.
Your bolt locks back. Empty.
You fumble trying to reload your last magazine.
The last thing you see is a masked face yelling at you. Suddenly a butt-stock comes down on your face cutting the screamed profanities short.
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Where are you?
This is unfamiliar. Why do you hear those noises?
You glance to the presence next to you and see a bloody corpse in torn and ragged ACUs, the stench overwhelms you. Those noises…
You scramble pushing away from the body and falling to the floor yelling incoherently. Floor? There aren't floors in Afghanistan only dirt, rocks, shit, and bodies. The noise gets louder.
You feel sweat roll down your back as the corpse gets up and reaches for you; no longer clad in ACU's but headless, skinless, mutilated and… the mouth moves but all you hear is the sickening thwack of bullets hitting home and the hiss of arterial spray punctuating the noise.
The noise. You have to get away you have to get away from it.
You turn to run only to bump face to face with-
*WHACK* The noise suddenly stops.
You stumble back clutching your jaw as a shot of pain hits your senses.
"Booth what the hell is wrong with you! And what the devil did you do to my daughter!"
Blink.
Max is doing a hell of an impression of a righteous and pissed off God at the moment.
Wait, Max? Who is Max? How do you know his name?
Reality comes rushing back to you.
"I…" Well what do you say Seeley? 'Sorry but I just had a psychotic episode where I thought I was back in Afghanistan?'
"Booth?"
You whirl around to the source of the sound and the blood drains from your sweat drenched face. Bones looks like she's seen a ghost.
"Bones are you ok?"
"Me what about you? You woke up screaming pushed me and went over the side of the bed. You looked ready to run out the door until my dad hit you."
Ok situation is slightly confusing but obviously you messed up somehow.
"I- I thought you were… I was back in… and- I swear I didn't know what was what." You stammer that out as your senses fight in your mind trying to figure out what just happened.
Suddenly a very angry Max is up in your face grabbing your thin hospital gown and pointing a finger in your face. Involuntarily your body shudders. For such a small guy he can be extraordinarily intimidating.
"You hit my daughter?! You hit my Tempe?! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Before anything can happen Bones places herself between you and Max.
"Dad, Booth just- it's alright he didn't mean it. He just panicked it's nothing. I'm alright."
All three of you just stand there; the tension in the air is thick enough to cut.
You notice the clock reads 7:23 AM.
You slide down the wall to a sitting position; your shoulders slumping as the realization hits you.
The realization that you're losing control over yourself.
Well more your thoughts and memories. You hate to admit it even to yourself because even that is too much.
But God damn it you kept your past locked up for a reason and… and… those noises…
That noise brought them all to surface again.
You fight back the urge to break down right there and weep.
"Booth what's wrong? Tell me what's wrong."
Bones' kneeling down next to you the concern and trepidation unabashedly showing from her aquiline features. You want to tell her what's happening but it will only hurt her. She's going through something much more serious at the moment and damn it you're supposed to be her rock. You can't show weakness now or else you won't be able to help protect her now when she needs it most.
"It- It's nothing Bones. Just bad dreams from the pictures that's all." Hmmmm she seems to be getting angry…
"'Nothing?!' Booth you- it was as if you didn't recognize me at all. Tell me what's going on? What's wrong?"
"Yeah Booth what made you go all wacko? What possessed you to cause you to HIT MY DAUGHTER?!" Pissed off Max Kennan= bad news.
"Look just- it- just some really bad dreams and… I let them get to me. I thought- I thought that they had gotten you Bones and…" Your mind runs astray as visions of if they had gotten to her rush in and kick out your "Let's not get a beat-down" impulse. With a deliberate force of will, you keep yourself from seeing those images.
"Who? Who got to her? What's going on here?" Ok Max is out of the loop; at least he's not acting as the Sword of Damocles over your head.
You simply point to the discarded folder by your bed; the effort to verbalize what you saw being simply too much.
Bones just looks at you with a mix of emotions in her eyes that you simply can't place before she gently hugs you.
"It's ok Booth." She whispers into your ear, her breath hot on your skin.
As she helps you to your feet Max is busy flipping through the folder an unreadable expression on his face.
Finally he breaks the silence as he looks up to you putting down the folder on the hospital bed.
"Booth keep an eye on my daughter will you, I have to go make some calls. Uhh Tempe will you let the Jeffersonian know that I'm not going to be able to show up to work for a while? Thanks." Without a shift to his expression he walks out of the door; the air shimmers around him with a sense of anger ready to conflagrate the walls around him.
You and Bones just stand there, very close to each other. She's still "supporting" you but since you're standing up on your own power now… neither of you make any move to break the moment.
The clock ticks.
"Booth what is my father going to do?" If you had to guess it would be that he's going out to stock up on Columbus coins but saying that wouldn't do Bones any good.
"The same thing that I'm going to do." Well not exactly you don't have a trademark signature; maybe you should look into getting one.
"What does that mean?" You can tell that she knows or has an idea but she doesn't want to verbalize it for fear of being right.
"We're both going to make some calls. And then we're both going to try and find the people responsible for this. I don't know what will be worse for them; if he finds them first or if I do."
She turns to look at you with a mixture of disbelief/horror/and concern on her well-structured features.
The clock ticks.
"Uhh Agent Booth?"
You both spring apart as if burned. You look towards the door to see a nurse.
"I'm here to take you to Patient Discharge." Wipe that smug snarky look off your face; Bones was just helping me up.
"Uh ok. Do you want to come with me Bones?" Oh great stop acting like a 16-year old Seeley; did your voice really just squeak a little there?
Slightly flustered she agrees as she picks up the folder.
You both walk out of the dark room and into the brightly lit corridor.
The clock reads 7:47AM
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*Ring* *Ring* *Rin-click*
*Yeah?*
*I got a favor to ask*
*Who is this?*
*Do you really have to ask?*
*Guess not; what needs doing?*
*Face-to-face meet for this.*
*Ok, 'Spin me a rhyme?'"
* 'So we can have a good time.'*
*click*
*************************************************************************************************************
*Ring-click*
*What is it?*
*It's not working fast enough.*
*What do you mean?*
*She's already petitioning for more resources to investigate.*
*So what do you want me to do? You know that what we did was a gamble.*
*We need to send another message.*
*Like what? We cut it too close last time. Our operatives were less than 5 blocks away when the FBI showed up.*
*Something loud. If you can we need to get the message directly to her.*
*Is secrecy an issue?*
*No we have to move fast before our employers get agitated. They're more concerned with the final outcome rather than secrecy now.*
*I think I have something but it'll cost.*
*Not an issue.*
*It'll be finished in the next day or so.*
*click*