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CHAPTER SIX
THESE STAINED HANDS OF MINE
*
I've woken now to find myself in the shadows of all I have created
Crawling through this world as disease flows through my veins
I'm longing to be lost in you, away from this place I have made
Won't you take me away from me?
I loathe all I've become, I despise all that I've done
-Evanescence-
"What the hell were those things?" Panic makes his voice raise an extra octave.
He's made sure she's safely inside before closing off the entrance, sealing every locking mechanism on the wall-sized door accessible. Shadows swallow up the light. It's dark, all too dark. They don't dare seek the light, no matter how promising. Holed up, it's safer here.
Now his heart pounds loudly against his ribs, at least giving him something else to hear besides that god-awful wailing coming from the other side of the safe room. They're in the basement, locked away in some makeshift bomb shelter the Jeffersonian had built in case of emergency. He's glad for once of his hard-earned tax money funding this multi-million dollar establishment.
His hands shake. An uneasy step back, and he's gaping at the nearly indestructible alloy that separates he and his partner from whatever the hell is on the other side of that door. He's the one who believes in God, angels, and demons. And yet his mind races frantically, struggling to process just what exactly had transpired above.
She is the rational one. He seeks her eyes for explanation. Answers. Dear Lord, he needs answers.
Needles in her flesh. Petrified shock. Despite the glaring impossibility of what had so fiercely encountered them moments ago, she knows exactly what has happened.
She knows.
Somehow, the knowledge emerges from the very darkest corners of her mind. It's an unsettling experience. Dark, hooded. Just like the confines of the space that holds them.
"Bones…"
Booth backpedals until he's at her side, and as far away from the door as possible.
"KV," she whispers. Unable to tear her eyes away from the steel. Unable to block out the piercing shrieks carrying through from the reverse region. Her lips part, bright eyes glistening in the absent light.
"What?" He turns to her, forcing out the disturbing wails that attack their eardrums and send wave after wave of shudders down his spine. Sickening, haunting. Nothing should ever be granted to make such a sound.
When she doesn't acknowledge him–only stares helplessly at the door, shaking her head–he takes her by the shoulders and forces her to meet his eyes. Shaken, beautifully vulnerable and stubborn at the same time.
"Talk to me, Bones," he commands, making an effort to pull the scientist out of her haunted spell. "What's happening?"
She shivers under the contact. Doesn't make a sound. But he can clearly see the evidence of tears in her eyes, born purely of inner discord. These are tears of guilt. He knows them well.
Several times she opens her mouth to speak, but it takes until the fourth attempt for any words to follow. "KV," she repeats. "The contagion. Those who became infected… the virus must have evolved. Mutated."
Mutated. This word is better, more horrific than the former. Evolving is what human beings do to adapt, grow. Form bonds. This isn't evolution. It's something else. Something far, far worse.
She's fast losing the cool collectiveness that so often surrounds her. Her bottom lip quavers. He can feel her fingers tightening their grip on his jacket. Locking coils, but he doesn't register the pain when they curl against his skin.
"Booth," she whispers tearfully, staring up at him with begging eyes. Panic washes over her quicker than he can soothe her.
His palms, almost magnetized, seek out her face. Holds her gaze steady on his. Focus, his eyes tell her. Focus on me. "Okay, okay. It's alright, Bones. Calm down." He urges her peace in as level a voice he can amass. He himself doesn't believe what he's telling her. "I need you to breathe. Take a breath, it's going to fine."
He's shaking. Even as he holds her, he feels his own fear bubbling to the surface. He needs her back, so that he cannot be afraid.
"Booth, it's my fault. It's my fault… I did this…" She continues to reiterate her blame, clinging to him. Her grip is steel, laced with shock and adrenaline.
Ignoring the sounds of turmoil, he brings his arms around her and turns them away from the door, whispering consoling words into her hair. She burrows closer, hiding from the monstrous consequences of her own creation. He knows she's crying, but feeling the tears soaking through the collar of his shirt makes it so much worse. Pity and grief well up inside of him. None of this is right. None of it's fair.
He's thought he'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Knowing the world is impartial and unfeeling. Yet it feels like he's learning it all over again. His heart splinters with hers, and he closes his eyes and wills the world to stop for just a moment.
He wants time to falter. To slow just long enough for him to get a grip and for her to let herself go. It's evident he needs to be the bulwark again, no matter the damage he feels inside. She needs a rock within the storm.
It's a relief to be spared the shrieking of those infected, though he isn't comforted by the fact that it's the sound of his partner's tears which drown them out.
July 4th, 2009
"Bones, what's going on? I've been trying to reach you on the phone–I just keep getting voicemail!" He hops out of the truck, jogging over to his partner, who's leaving her apartment complex, face writ with concern. Sirens wail in the distance, and several humvees roar past. He notices her two small duffle bags immediately. "Are you going somewhere?"
"Hopefully not for long." Her assurance is quick. Fabricated. There's a hidden desperation veiled underneath those shining blue eyes of hers that he can't comprehend.
"But it's the Fourth of July. You were supposed to stay with me and Parker–"
"Booth, I'm sorry," she tells him. The sincere remorse behind her tone is genuine. "Something's come up. I have to take care of it." In the search for her car, she is left wanting. Cursing, she recalls she's left it at the Jeffersonian. "Can you drive me to the lab? Please, Booth," she presses at his hesitant look.
At the trace of deep-rooted concern that flashes across her eyes, he gives a brusque nod toward his vehicle. "Get in."
Inside, she begins to spout out facts and figures he can't dream of understanding. He allows her to get it out of her system, nonetheless. After another minute or so, she drops the bomb.
"One of the hosts' reaction to the inoculation was catastrophic. They've been trying to stabilize the host for several hours. Last I was informed, the patient was being pulled out of cardiac arrest."
He swears under his breath, glancing away from the road to look at her. A worried frown has taken permanent abode at her brow, and she looks out anxiously at the passing buildings. "Bones?"
She doesn't look away from the city.
"It's starting."
He needs her to be calm.
Specific training benefits him in times of panic, and serves to keep his head level. But nothing could've prepared him for what he's just witnessed outside the lab. He takes a deliberate breath, speaking slowly. "Bones, I need to know if we're safe in here. I need Dr. Brennan now." Her hysteria has begun to fade, if only a little, at his low and reassuring voice. She remains unspoken. "Is that door going to hold? Can they get in?"
Time stretches. He's about to try again when he feels her head shake against him.
"Yes," she tells him quietly. "We should be safe, I mean. The velocity and weight necessary in order to compromise that door is greater than that of the Gormogon vault."
"That's all I needed to hear." He keeps his arms close around her. When her breathing refuses to steady itself, he places a single splayed hand on the center of her back. "Now, focus on gaining control. You feel me, Bones – breathe with me."
Her face buries against him, does as he asks. Concentrates on decelerating her respiration. As his chest slowly expands with each deep breath, she allows hers to do the same. She's too shaken to feel embarrassment that he needs to coddle her.
Seeing her lose severe control like that had scared him. Polar opposites: she is textbook and rational, he is street smarts and groundless. Switching roles to such a degree is not something he's ready to do again.
This place in his arms is familiar. Slowly, the horror leaches from her. A calm settles within. This is better. She knows this.
When at last she arrives at a steady enough composure, he smoothes his hand over her arm. "Listen to me, this is not your fault." His tone brooks no argument, but such a thing has never heeded her before.
The words make her tense, and she pulls away to look at him. Disbelieving. "It is. It is, Booth." When he makes to argue, she cuts him off.
He doesn't know. He can't know. After the initial trials on herself, she'd indeed been fine. But not quite so long after, she'd begun to notice a disparity. A trivial sensation–but present, nonetheless. She had started to feel something explicitly diverse in her system. Something developing. And while she'd been left without symptoms or negative side effects, the transformation was no less authentic.
It was a gut feeling.
A sixth sense she hadn't begun to possess until meeting the man beside her.
"It was my lack of intervention, Booth. I knew there were flaws." The formula–the cure–it wasn't perfected. But she'd been given an insistent deadline. She'd almost refused them entirely. Her voice rises in time with her emotions. "It was my silence that caused this."
Maybe, in the end, she hadn't done it. But she hadn't stopped it, either.
She is the mother to this child of doom. This newborn plague.
He doesn't interrupt her. A part of him understands she needs to say these things. In her mind, she's made a mistake. A devastating one, at that. He's aware that if he disallows her to voice the blame upon herself, she'll never be able to move on.
Never be able to forgive herself.
So, he waits. He's patient with her. Watches her with those eyes of his. Those dark, reassuring pools that offer her everything she's ever needed.
"Don't mess with nature, right?" She breathes a humorless laugh. "On the scarce occasion I agree with your specific form of mindset, and I… I flinch." Her actions reflect her words. Eyes hold a sad sort of blue in the shadows of the safe house. "I flinched, Booth."
She turns away from him, ashamed. Hugs herself tightly. The air is quiet and still. He doesn't speak, doesn't need to. Her remorse fills the void. Weighs heavily on the atmosphere. He feels her sorrow. It's so thick and palpable he can almost reach out and grasp it. Even now, their breathing remains in sync. A single suffering mass.
A guilty, sad look flickers through her eyes when she glances at him. Almost afraid of his response.
"I was going to withdraw my findings, you know." The silence shatters against the even voice. "I was so sure and so righteous about it." A stray tear is dashed away. "But it was her. That little girl who had lost all her curls. Laying there in that hospital bed, asking why the doctors couldn't save her."
Emotions choke her. She labors past, regaining the ability to speak. His breath hitches, and the bond is broken.
"Asking why she couldn't stay with her family, just a little longer. She didn't want to leave her family." A sob contorts the word. It lands too close to home. "This is all my fault."
She feels his hand weigh gently on her shoulder. "It's not."
There's a buried pain behind his words. She doesn't understand it, knows not why it's warranted.
"Booth, it doesn't matter my best intentions. All that matters is that I failed. I'm responsible for–"
Her voice breaks off in surprise when he seizes her shoulders and forces her to face him. "You tried to save a child." There's firm desperation in his voice, earnest defense. Eyes drill into hers, cementing his words. "It doesn't matter the result, the outcome, or whatever the consequences were. You did everything in your power to save an innocent life."
She leans into him, absorbs what he has told her. A weight shifts in her form, the tightness in her chest lessens a fraction. For one shining moment, she thinks that maybe, one day, she'll be able to forgive herself. Move on. It's in faraway potential, but it's there.
A shrill yell echoes through the door. A slam. Another.
A horrifying thought crosses her mind, and suddenly the weight is back. The dread increases.
Oh God…
The pain is suddenly physical in her chest. "Booth, you don't think…" She struggles to force the terrifying thought away. "She didn't become one of those… those things…" It ends on barely a whisper. Her throat seizes.
He recognizes her fear. Feels it now just as keenly. "Some only died," he softly reminds. Speaks quickly to arrest the alarm written plainly across the pale face before him. But it's a long shot. A white lie. It's the smallest comfort he can offer her. Sadly, it was a rare case a host would simply die from the infection…
Without warning, Brennan feels his grip on her tighten. Not in a painful manner, but instead an unintentional result borne purely of staggered reaction. She feels her breath catch, dawning realization striking her.
Though hidden in the shadows, his face is a tense, unreadable mask. His entire frame has gone rigid. She tries to meet his eyes, but they are steeled against her. She knows why he is so suddenly engulfed by dread before he even speaks it.
This is a parent's fear.
"Would Parker get sick?"
His voice is flat and thick. He tries to play it off as callous, but the weakness, the panic, of it breaks her. Instantly, she forgets her own pain and faces him with determined assurance. Taking him by the arms, she meets his stare with directness. "No, Booth."
Her promise is firm. And if her word isn't enough, she'll give him facts.
"The male parent is responsible for genetic immunities such as these. I'm certain that right now, he's safe with Rebecca."
"What are the chances?"
Insistence. Pleading. Her words fill him with cautious hope.
In the end, hope is really fear. But now, he needs it. Something real to cling to. He needs her to lie, if she must.
"Rebecca is very resourceful, Booth. And with Brent looking after the two of them…" At his deep expression of concern, she stops him before he can interrupt. "He's your son." Her eyes give him every truth she possesses. "He's safe."
It's a white lie.
Give me strength to face the truth
The doubt within my soul
I believed it would justify the means
The veil of my dreams deceived all I have seen
Forgive me my sins
Give me strength to face the wrong I've done
Now that I know the darkest side of me
-Truth Beneath the Rose-