Author's Note: Okay, this is probably going to be my last update til Monday.
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!
Again, for pictures, trailers, and such to this behemoth fic, visit my livejournal which you can reach through my author's profile!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WHEN STARS GO OUT
*
I can't see your star
Though I patiently waited bedside, for the death of today
So far away
It's growing colder without your love
Why can't you feel me calling your name?
Can't break the silence
It's breaking me
-Your Star-
She finds him in a most unexpected place.
At first, she stares extensively at the empty table, memory of his form still fresh in her mind. She waits for his absence to sink in, for the reality to finally take hold. When at last it does, she feels a combination of concern and perplexity. What tugs quietly at the rational portion of her brain is the lack of motive. The sun will be stealing up the horizon soon, surely he wouldn't have left such a time as this. Even if… under heavy influence of KV, his newly acquired instincts would alert him against leaving so close to daylight.
Unless he's been gone far longer than she's assumed.
When she wanders back up the steps, however, her attention snags on the ajar door leading into the back hall. She remembers closing it last night. This is followed by more and more anomalies scattered throughout the home, leading her. Guiding her, showing.
Breadcrumbs?
Though she's unfamiliar with the children's story, the concept she grasps all the same. An errant buzz settles in the pit of her stomach, making it ache with anxiety. Brow knit, she follows without hindrance.
With blind faith.
Ascending onto the rooftop balcony through the attic entrance, she finds him.
The sun is near on the horizon, but not near enough to pose a threat. The perfect moment between dusk and dawn. The Infected will be gone from sight–hidden away in their dark refuges with all previous harmful intent momentarily diminished as the need for rest and safety arises. His back is to her. He sits calmly, meters away with his elbows propped on his knees. He gazes out over the city, a strange sort of innocence behind his eyes.
Slowly, she approaches him as a gentle night wind picks up, carrying a few strands of auburn across her vision. "Booth?" He shifts, acknowledging her presence, but doesn't otherwise speak. She shivers in the sudden chill, rubbing her arms. Daring to defy the silence. "It's freezing out here," she comments lamely, but regards him with soft concern.
He appears to be unfocused on anything particular that she can see.
"I'm not cold," comes his quiet assurance, a fleeting muse spoken aloud. Another follows, even softer than the former. "It's going to storm today." She observes his posture, calm and relaxed, even in the uncomfortable temperature. His elevated body heat surely spares him from the cold. Nevertheless, it disconcerts her.
She takes a moment to study him further, inhaling deeply and holding it for a time. Her calculative eyes still hold the concern she's adopted moments ago. "You should get inside, Booth," she reminds gently. Painfully. "The sun will be up soon."
He ignores her cautioning. "Look, Bones," he says instead, nodding up at the sky with an almost child-like regard. An undecided smile temporarily lights up his vacant features. "Stars." Glancing up in puzzlement, her breath catches in her throat as millions of tiny glowing specks reflect across her eyes in the lightening sky. One year, being deprived of such a vision. She doesn't think she's ever seen them shine so brightly. But perhaps separation makes the heart indeed grow fonder. "I wonder if God ever gets lonely," his sudden voice breaks quietly through her thoughts. He's gazing up at the sky with such intensity that she wonders for just a moment if he might see someone looking back. "His greatest achievement left so empty."
She feels tears prick at her eyes and turns away from the heavens. She knows he's honestly curious and not trying to be malicious. Her tone is without chastisement. "Have you been out here all night?"
It takes him a moment to reply. Because he hadn't heard her in his distant concentration or if he's simply deciding what to say, she can't be sure. "Not all night."
"But…"
"I don't think I bother them," he reflects softly, staring out calmly into the vacant world below.
No, certainly he wouldn't. The Infected ones' hostility has never quite extended to… akin individuals.
"Do you feel any worse?" she asks him not long after working up the courage. Something breaks inside her, terrified of his response. After the sedative, she'd given him a small dosage of remedial solution. A formula that's results hadn't quite been positive, but wouldn't kill the host, either. A dim shade of hope flickering within her chest, asking to be acknowledged. She'd quashed it into a quieter anticipation–too afraid to hope too high. She wishes for the best, but has come to expect the worst.
Instead of answering directly, she watches him bow his head, a glimmer of the hold Booth leaking through. He doesn't want her expectations to be crushed, either. "It's still there, Bones." His voice is softer even than before, and holds a catch the more he speaks. "I can feel it. Eating away." He curls tighter against himself, drawing his arms over his knees, watching the skyline. "I don't doubt you, Bones. Never. If there was something out there, I know you'd find it, but…" he trails off, bravely accepting of ominous fate. His head shakes. "You can't find what isn't there."
Despite that she's already known, she feels a familiar need to comfort him. It's habit. This was them. She needs him back, no matter how far gone he's fallen. "Everything will be okay."
"No, it won't."
She feels a twinge of doggedness spark within her. The need to prove him wrong, especially now. "You don't know that."
For the first time, he turns and meets her eyes. Gray locking with blue.
Despite the eeriness behind his appearance shift, she sees only Booth looking back at her. There's a wounded glimmer veiling what had once been brown. "But you do." It's almost a whisper. A spoken declaration of existing fact, no matter how badly she wishes it to be a lie.
She tries to argue with him, insist that he's different than the others. Being immune to the airborne could have a specific positive influence. It could contain a hidden defense against counteracting KV's damaging effects. She only needs more time in order to locate this enigma. That saving grace which will signify his ultimate recovery.
He offers her a sad smile. Reminds her that such a thing isn't logical.
And the floodgates break.
"I don't care," she breathes in a small, desperate voice. Quite unlike her. She doesn't even realize she's crying until a pained expression washes over his very pale face. Sympathy shining in his eyes as he gets to his feet and steps toward her. "You aren't a brain person, you're a heart person. You're thoughtful and, and good…" Her words become thick with emotion and she trails off into an incoherent blather.
"Please don't cry, Bones," he chokes out even as his own eyes brim with unshed tears for her.
She'd been so afraid when greeted with that empty exam table. So afraid that he had left her. Inhaling sharply, she tries to compose herself enough to continue. "Science did this to you, my science… my science…"
She goes on in barely audible whispers as he takes her into his arms and holds her. She can remember no place she's ever felt safer. But this time his embrace feels different, desperate. Surrendering at last, she hugs him in return, knowing it's an admission of defeat. That she's giving up. There's nothing left. She's worked through every morsel of evidence.
There is no cure.
And that's it. Something in her chest shatters and a strangled sob escapes her lips. Her hands grasp at his shirt, body sagging against his. He supports her, and maybe she's supporting him, too. Sobbing. No more soft, silent tears, but loud hiccupping sobs like she hasn't let go since that first night.
This is her grief. It's raw, and it hurts.
He feels it in the back of his broken mind, fracturing even more with each passing hour until the moment he fears he will remember nothing of this life and bond with her. It keeps playing over and over in his damaged thoughts.
Bones is sad... Bones is sad.... Bones is sad…
God, this hurts. He pulls her tighter, fearing that this is the last night he'll see of her ever again. "Please," she begs, trying to catch her breath. Gasping, pulling him closer against her. Unwilling to let him go. Squeezing her eyes shut, she seeks to be lost in him. Lost from the reality of his slowly nearing exodus. Beneath her cheek, his heartbeat races–the strong beat which she's taken such comfort from in the past. The steady tempo is long forgotten and fails her now. She misses it dearly, more than anything. Each passing moment, she loses another part of him. "Don't leave me!"
To her astonishment, she hears him struggle past a sob of his own, trying to disguise it in the confines of her auburn waves. The heat of his arms guards her against the pre-dawn chill. "I'm trying, Bones," he whispers weakly. "I don't mean to. I want to stay with you…"
As if it's the most important thing he's ever told anyone. She is his everything. The thought of leaving her is unacceptable. It's painful. She's hurting, and so he is in agony.
The impending sun and the blinking stars are forgotten in a cocoon of misery and grieving souls.
In the late afternoon, she visits the rental store. Seeks to hold on to any small fragment of what remains of their routine. It's something they've done together, and it feels strange now to be without him.
She'd situated him in the basement, just as she had the night before.
She goes on now with a familiar, be it yet foreign, numbness. Expression void and stoic. Her hair hangs in limp waves around her ashen cheeks, framing her face in a dreary hollow that washes out the color of her eyes. He'd been right. The storm is near. She can hear the calling thunder in the distance. The sky is gray, bleak. Reflecting her mood almost entirely.
Unwatched movie recently returned, she exits the store. Missing the guiding weight of his hand at the small of her back.
She stills though when the recognizable shade of orange does not greet her peripheral vision. Instead, a single figure stands, quite alone, near the entrance of the building. It's the Hollywood starlet, unchanged and unaffected. Her long brunette curls hang low below the shoulders and she stares off vacantly into the day.
Fred's girlfriend.
Perhaps, Brennan thinks, the feminine mannequin is not so indifferent to the world now as first assumed. If she looks closely enough, and observes the intricate details differently, Brennan wonders if she notes a sadness in the plastic beauty's eyes. The notion that this unliving woman will stand out here, alone now, for the rest of its existence, causes a pang to rise unbidden in her chest. With the rain coming, too.
Even if this plastic creature is unable to feel, it doesn't deserve to be alone. Uncared for and without a like companion. She bows her head in shame, heartsick. Quietly, she says with regret, "I'm sorry about your friend."
If she'd expected a reply, she'd have been left with disappointment. To her growing depression… she feels a little twinge. Will this be her life now?Booth had been so much better at this playacting game they'd often indulged in–to keep the loneliness at a lesser degree. Without him though, she has only these plastic persons to keep her company. After a great deal of time, she wonders how much she might come to depend on these effigies.
They won't be enough, she concludes immediately. She needs him. Even if everyone else is gone, as long as he was with her, she could've survived. She could go on.
Without him, she'll surely crumble.
You have to listen, he'd told her. Just listen.
All she hears is the silence.
Now, she stands below the bridge. Stock still and cold stare burning into the crashed taxi cab. Battered and belly-up atop the hard pavement. Shifting her rifle sling more tightly across her shoulder, her concentration flickers to the cable snare hanging from the fender. The work of the alpha male Infected.
A spark flashes in her eyes, igniting the blue.
The Infected can't do this. They can't, she thinks, determined and piqued. This was our snare. Our materials.
Her partner's tactic.
The Infected have no higher brain function to accomplish such a thing. Brennan sets her jaw.
They don't plan. They don't remember. They don't hate.
Blinking her eyes, she fights against the sudden sting. "They can't love."
They can't.
Her voice holds a fracture to it as she speaks the words that have been lingering on her lips for the past several days. Since the moment she'd last been at this very bridge.
Falling back on her previous logic–if only to spare herself the deep pain in the words she's spoken into the still air–she arrives at her conclusion. Even if they couldn't possibly have done these things, these tasks... they have. Staring directly at the taxi cab, and at the snare, she feels something stir within her. The Infected had done this to him, deliberately.
Maliciously.
A simple animal could never be blamed for the crimes against it. It lived on instinct, innocent of any retribution. It knew not of possible wrongdoing. Its nature was to survive. But these… things… premeditated their actions. Intended to infect Booth.
At first, her only concern had been to help these poor creatures who suffer because of her doing. Her mistakes. She'd sought to save them–cure them. Reunite them with their lost loved ones. And before… she had feared the night.
But now, she begins to discover a new feeling. Now, she's consumed by an overwhelming desire to seek the darkness out.
The storm arrives. Thunderclaps bellow overhead.
She begins to hate them.
Lightning splits the sky. Rain descends, heeding no surrender. Cold, hard shards that pool in the dips and hollows of the rough sidewalk. Drops land on her bare head like sodden judgment, drenching her in pain and pasting her hair and clothes to her body with icy fists.
Those two clouds are far from each other now. Torn apart by the storm.
Under the shadow of the bridge, bright turquoise eyes mold into a dark cobalt. She stills completely, wreathed by the furious storm developing at her back. All color and light is muted against the angry sky, save for the crackling blue sparks of her eyes. His leather jacket, at home on her shoulders, flutters against the wind. This is not yet her darkest hour... the worst is still coming. And it's coming now. It craves retribution.
The Creation will reap the wrath of the Creator.
When night comes, there are no stars to light the sky.
It's growing colder without your love
Can't break the silence, it's breaking me
And I'm alone now, me and all I stood for
We're wandering now
All in parts and pieces, swim lonely
Find your own way out
Now I have nothing worth fighting for
All my fears turn to rage