Author's Note: So I've finally finished this mad puppy! I'm pretty stoked and keyed up, now. This means that updates should be coming every Mon, Wed, and Fri. Any delay would be caused by my being out of town or not being able to find proper bases for my tag manips that I post on livejournal.
Enjoy! And please R&R at the end! I accept all opinions, good or bad. I don't accept bashing, but constructive criticism is totally fine. Let me know how I can improve. Thanks!
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CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LOST TIME UNRAVELED
*
Everything will slip away, shattered pieces will remain
When memories fade into emptiness
Only time will tell its tale, if it has all been in vain
-Within Temptation-
Washington DC
July 19th, 2009
9:37 pm
Sirens blare and fill the DC streets with panic. Soldiers inundate the area, weapons held fixed to their chests. Those unequipped with arsenal instead possess handheld optical scanners. Behind the roadblock, the crowd is swept.
Emergency lockdown.
Twin helicopters roar overhead.
Seeley Booth braves the storm. Observes the entire unfolding scene with an anxious frown. Unable to pass through, he locks the gear into place and kills the engine, climbing out of the vehicle. Moving around back, he pulls open the backseat door and collects the small seven-year-old into his arms. A second door slams.
"We have to get to the Jeffersonian," Brennan speaks urgently from the opposing end of the truck. Keeps with his pace. "It will be safer there–for him."
The boy is tired. It's late. Parker tightens his small arms around his father's neck, eyes now alert and flickering about nervously. Booth shifts him a little higher and takes in the situation. Despite the season, the night air is chilling.
"After I'm inside, you should take him and leave the city as soon as possible."
His eyes fly to her as they maintain a hurried stride. Pulse quickens. "Jesus, Bones–did it jump?" he realizes, alarmed. "Is it airborne?"
The silence that meets the question and the grave look in her eyes is enough. Swearing an oath under his breath, he begins to push his way with Parker and his partner through the teeming crowd.
"It may not have. If there's anything, we'll find it. And hopefully reverse the spread."
"I'm not leaving this city without you. You're coming with."
"Where are we going?" the child wants to know, voice small.
"I have to fix this, Booth." She's serious. At times, her pride is ill-placed. But she maintains her duty. "I can't leave. This is ground zero. This is my site."
Around them, soldiers group, leading them through the crowd with stern, clipped tones. The collective fear amongst them all is flagrant.
"Dad, they have guns!" Worry is etched on Parker's face.
"It's okay, bub. They're in the army like Daddy was." The assurance is quick as he faces his partner, expression unyielding. Eyes dark and seizing, cementing his vow. "I'm not leaving you, Temperance."
Within the throng, raised voices and commands add to the din. "Please, go back to your homes!"
Screams of fear, pain, and indignation punctuate frantic shouting. Wailing car alarms and breaking windows provide a strident doomsday chorus. Another DC resident, eager to get through, approaches the barrier. A soldier raises the device, quickly scanning the man's retina. A blinking green indicator flashes across the screen. "You're clear! Move ahead!"
This is followed by many similar approvals. And arbitrarily hindered by several "No good's!"
The tainted are detained.
Further back behind the holding gate, a woman pleads with several soldiers. Child in her arms. "I'm not infected! I'm not infected!" Desperate supplication, face contorted in suffering grief. As she weeps, bleeding tears spill down her ashen skin. Gray eyes hold no color. "Please, take my baby!"
Booth forces himself to look away, stomach knotting. They come before a blockade of soldiers, one of whom quickly scans him.
"Clear!"
"Look, look," he instructs his son, pointing at the device. Parker obliges and is scanned amidst the rush.
"Clear!"
Another soldier brings his scanner to Brennan. A red flash fills the screen. It's pursued by a warning shrill.
"No good! Send her back!"
Steel grips close around her arms and begin to haul her away. Inadvertently, she panics. She's being taken from him. "Booth!"
He hears her cry.
"No!" Parker twists in his father's arms. "Dad, they're taking Bones!"
His heart slams into his throat. Spinning around, he shoves his way back through the mass. Get to her. Reach her! "Whoa, hey! Hey! Get your hands off her!" His voice is commanding. "Let her go!"
A soldier blocks his way. "Sir, move along!"
"Stand down!" he shouts back. Several of the soldiers wane in their stoic fronts at the severe and challenging tone his voice demands. They can recognize it. "Stand down!" When their protests quiet, his voice is low and dark. They will let her go. "I'm Master Sergeant Seeley Booth, seventy-fifth regiment of the US Army Rangers, currently stationed SAC with the FBI. And I am ordering you to scan her again."
His words meet every mark with lethal precision–just like his aim. They bite with cold ferocity and will not be disobeyed. Are issued with chilling calm.
The hold on her arms remains tight. She tries not to be afraid. Some of the troop recruits exchange hesitant glances, but keep their mouths shut. Air is thick with tension.
"Scan her again!"
He'd use his gun if it isn't for the child in his arms. Even so… ten seconds from now, if his partner's not at his side, he'll take the boy safely home and return with more than one firearm in hand.
For one single moment, the crowd seems to silence at the brutal timbre of his voice.
At last, a soldier comes forward and catches the scanner from one of his fellow comrades. It levels with Brennan's eye line. Upon the reading, the green light blinks.
"It's clear." Quiet assertion. "Move on through."
Quelling the sigh of relief, he waits until Brennan is beside him again and hooks his free arm around her. Pulls her close, continues on. "Why'd it turn green?" His expression is grim, voice too, but otherwise inexpressive. He doesn't look at her with the question. His only focus is on finding them each out of the encompassing cesspool. People stare at them–they've gained attention–but he pushes past. Breath trembles past his lips.
She mirrors his expression. Internally, though, her heart and mind are racing. "I have the contagion in my system. However, it does me no harm and therefore is not easily traced. In myself, KV is dormant." Gritty resolve is broken when her eyes seek his. "Why? Did you think it was only a glitch?"
Her partner's jaw is set.
"I thought it was going to get a lot more physical," he admits, thankful that it hadn't when he feels Parker curl in tighter against him. He sweeps a doubtful glance over the mass out of the corner of his eye. "And they do glitch."
"What?" She looks at him, startled.
"I've seen those scanners in action before this." His explanation is dark as they maneuver amongst the flurrying mob. "They glitch."
"What?" she repeats, regarding him with a horrified expression. "That's severely unethical! You're saying that over half of these people they intend to quarantine could be free of the infection?"
"God bless America, right Bones?" he mutters bitterly, leading her through the crowd with his son safely in his arms.
November 14th, 2009
She remembers breaking out of the safe room. Terrified of what might be waiting on the other side. They're granted desolate respite–they're alone. That this is good or bad is uncertain.
He's fast. She can't stop him from breaking ahead, but follows as he runs for downtown. He's never needed to run faster.
Lungs burn as he tries to make them work more than they want to. His legs throb in rhythm with the pounding of his heart that's trapped in his ears. He's on fire, but ice coats his spine and pierces his chest.
He runs for Rebecca's house, yelling his son's name. She can barely keep up with him. The keys to a Prius car are left in the ignition. It isn't stealing. She follows him. He won't join her.
When he reaches the home, his legs are liquid. His breath is spent.
He collapses on the front steps, knees meeting stone. Gasps in exhaustion, fatigue solidifying every muscle. He bows over the steps, hand pressed weakly against the door, fingers curling around the caution tape.
She exits the vehicle, rushes to him with unbridled sympathy weighing on her heart. Thoughts rush in vicious tandem.
She holds him, mourns with him.
August 14th, 2010
The bright, midday sun beats down on DC without a single cloud to hamper its shine. Parked vehicles sit cluttered and often randomly amongst the streets, closest to the curbs. Other than the abandoned automobiles, the streets lie bare with tufts of grass and weeds sprout from the crevices. Biohazard sheets still hang in a more dilapidated fashion from large apartment complexes and random homes. The hospital is demolished entirely.
The shrubs and vines surrounding the White House twist well up the fortification and nearly to the crown. A variety of common fish-life mosey their way through the Reflecting Pool in the Constitution Gardens.
Birds gather jovially in the sidewalks and park benches, fluttering and singing praise. Other various animal-life remaining comfortably out of sight add their own calls. Besides this and the whisper of the wind twisting through the maze of downtown, the nation's capital is blanketed in placid silence.
Or, it had been.
Slowly fading from the natural quiet, a low rumbling disrupts the air. As it grows near to the drove of birds, they calmly fly off and take residence instead on several overhanging awnings.
Horsepower roars to life. A 2008 Mustang Bullet GT rockets past the conversing bird clan. They chirp their grievances at being so rudely disturbed, dignity suffered, but almost immediately forget the intrusion and go back to singing and scavenging for food.
The cherry red gleams brilliantly under the baking sun. Nearly mirrors back its rays with the pair of thick white pinstripes that run down the center of the hood and over the roof.
The homemade back license plate reads: COCKY.
The driver guns the engine, shifting gears as the sports car tears around the corner, tires screaming merrily. Speeds below a small pass of scaffolding, rumpling the overhanging tarps as it zooms through. A flock of birds careless enough to loiter in the middle of the street squawk indignantly and barely escape with their lives and feathers intact as they make for the sky.
Seeley Booth grips the steering wheel carelessly with one hand, shifting the weight of his weapon across his lap with the other.
A modification of the Remington M-24 Sniper. Fully automatic. It sports a sawed off barrel–a full three inches taken away–and a healthy-sized tactical prismatic scope. The illuminated scope is also modified to his liking, bearing a Gen 3 night vision quality and attachable light source that won't be needed today.
The gun is large, and it's beautiful. He's still trying to think of an appropriate name for it.
Bessie is too cliché and adds age to the sleek weapon. Jackie is currently winning him over, but is in stiff competition with Sally and Gretta. Athena is exotic, and signifies great skill for which the firearm is used. Obviously, he hadn't come up with that title himself, but its symbolic grace is growing on him.
Unbidden, a static hum cuts through the moment he's sharing with his stallion and his weapon and the bright, sunny day that entreats him. Glancing down at the passenger seat beside him, his brown eyes eventually rest on the walkie-talkie residing there. A pleased smirk tugs at his lips. Scooping it up with one hand, he brings it to his mouth with a flourish.
"Read you, Super-Squint," he greets cheerily. "Over."
"I thought we agreed I was to be Tango-Bravo," comes the concise reply.
"What comical purpose could that possibly serve?"
"It would be corresponding with the accurate NATO radio telephony code of my first and last initials."
"There's that," he concedes dryly. "But it just rings boring. Lacks color. I could switch it up, if it'd make you feel better. What about Brainy-Smurf, or Rockin-Roxie, or… Wonder-Wanda? Whiskey-Whiskey, how's that sound?" Even though she isn't in his direct presence, he unleashes a full charm smile at the walkie.
"I suppose I could always refer to you as Bob while online."
Booth chuckles. He turns another corner while scanning the area expertly with his well-trained eyes. "Very weak, Bones."
"Decidedly. Should I just stick to Sierra-Bravo?"
A grimace. "Way too girly. What about Foxtrot-Bravo-Eyecandy? That one was catchy." At her amused huff, he goes on. "Alpha-Ranger was probably less provocative, though."
"Alpha-Ranger it is."
"Glad that's settled."
"I'm giving in to you way too much."
"And I'm really enjoying it. So, you looking for a ride, or what? Pick you up at the lab?"
"Yes, please."
Booth suddenly swears, jerking the wheel as a spooked deer leaps in front of the hood. The car fishtails and takes out a few lane dividers. This one is soon followed by the rest of its herd. Their bleats and calls fill the small interior of the car. The ground trembles under their stampeding hooves.
"Are you hunting?" comes the sudden demand, voice pitched higher than usual.
"Maybe..."
He spins the wheel around and speeds after the herd, trying to maintain his verbal avoidance with limited success, thanks to his persistent cohort.
"You promised next time you would take me."
She sounds miffed.
"I did! And… I will. It was just that, well, I wasn't busy and you were busy and I had the shooter just sitting here, and, you know…" Going off in a pathetic stammer, he tries to multitask between bickering and focusing on the road.
They should make a bumper sticker, he muses distractedly. Ignores the irony. Nowadays, there just isn't a whole lot of "they" to go around. Nevertheless, he can sense her furtive grin, even if his eyes can't.
"Pick me up in twenty minutes."
Booth tries to hide his own, but the corners of his mouth just aren't obeying. Revving up the v8 engine to its limit and giving full chase to the scattering wildlife, he pours on the charm. "Just give me ten."
She laughs at his shameless boast.
As the Mustang thunders through a park walkway, dodging statues and gates, he at last is able to pull up alongside several sprinting stags. Securing the walkie between his shoulder and jaw, he raises the rifle and takes aim outside the window. Tries to level the barrel.
He stifles another curse as he passes a subway ramp and most of his targets disappear under the street.
"Diner?" she confirms, a positive mood claiming her once again.
"BYO grub," he agrees through a boyish smile. The engine of the sports car and her voice fills his senses.
"I don't know what that means."
He laughs easily. "No worries. Got you covered."
"See you in ten, Booth." She issues him a pleasant adieu, about to disconnect.
"Say it, Bones." He grins cheekily into the walkie. Knows immediately she's rolling her eyes at him through the communication device. If he were in her presence, he would no doubt be subject to her endearing "pinchy-face."
His favorite of her pouts.
"Over."
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
-Tyler Durden-