Author's Note: Sorry for the wait, peeps. Was rigorously working on another project. Arriba, then!

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 TWENTY-NINE
ALL WAR IS DECEPTION OF GOOD INTENT

*

If you are ready to believe
You are easy to deceive

-Proverb-

"You kept up the transmission?" Booth presses with scything urgency, slamming articles into a small duffel bag. His movements are fast, calculated. He's been in the position before, needing to move and vacate an area in mere minutes, but never under these circumstances. She's still reeling from the garbled bombshell that still claims the air, a phantom presence on her ears. Their own attempt at a communication had fallen flat. There was no further response from the broken unknown at their desperate reply.

"Of course," Brennan maintains at last, startled out of her silence at the volume his voice carries.

"Every day?" Terse. This is military Booth in front of her. For a reason beyond her reach, this placates her. She can't seem to grasp anything tangible, mentally or otherwise, so it's a relief that he's taken charge of the situation. No matter how hard he tries to hide the way his hands shake.

"Yes." Her words are clipped, adamant. Finally, his resolve wakes a dormant part of her own. She feeds off his collectedness. The volume fades though, and she seems almost ashamed. "Even when..." He slows in his methodical work, waiting for her reply as though standing over a bed of smoldering stones. "Those last few days, when it was at its worst, I didn't want to." At his look, she elaborates. "You asked me to."

It's simple, but it's everything.

There's no time for a moment. He gives a barely perceptible nod, conveying a lifetime of passion with his eyes when they have only moments. Breaking from her, he's back to his one-man operation. Guns are finding their way into the bag. Watching him with wide eyes, heart racing, she can't prevent the crease at her brow. "What are you doing?"

He ignores the horror in her voice, knows that he has to. "The source communication came from the Hoover Building, we know that much. Background noise suffered the quality, but I'm dead certain there was more than one speaker. We need to–"

"Booth, there's no time." Did that terrified gasp come from her?

"What?"

"There's barely more than an hour left of daylight. Hoover's at least fifteen minutes away. There's no time for this kind of recovery!" Logical, as ever. Incredulous at his motivations.

"It doesn't matter. It can't matter. These people–"

Before she knows it, she's blocking his path. Barely realizes she's begging him without any thought of pride or empirical filter. "Don't you understand? One hour, and the Infected will be awake. And they'll come for us. I can't… no, I can't risk it. You can't risk it!" Grasping his arms, she leans herself into his space, pleading her case. It's not fair of her, but the desperation is tearing her apart. There's a great, swelling pit in the bottom of her stomach and she feels the frightened burn of emotion that's filmed over her eyes, making him almost incorporeal to her. "Please," she breathes, voice fainting away into a whisper. "I just… I just got you back. Don't."

He feels her intensity, eyes imploring, locked on his. It kills him, knowing that he's the cause of that fresh pain pooling behind her gaze, constricting around her heart. But it's too important, he needs her to understand. He's heartsick, but weakly resolute. Voice small, choked with emotion. "Bones… there could be kids."

Resolve fractures, splits open at the unbridled supplication in his eyes.

Hating the idea. Absolutely sick with it. But he has her. "Dammit," she bites bitterly, disgusted but claimed by righteousness. Her chin falls, and she's wincing. "You'd better pack that elephant gun ammo."

He wastes no time following her surrender. "Pack everything you need. All of it." There's a new fracture to his voice, a new determination.

"What do you mean?"

"We may not make it back here." And there it is. Sometimes she hates the truth. "Everything you absolutely need from the house, pack it. Five minutes, and we're gone."


July 27th, 2009

A knock on the office glass. He isn't surprised to see Max darkening his doorway.

He doesn't issue a greeting, it isn't necessary. His partner's father enters of his own volition, taking a seat across from him. Desk dividing the two killers. One trained, one learned. "You know why I'm here," the older man says. That lighthearted, sometimes wily grin is absent from his face. He carries himself with ten extra years, the emotional weight heavy on his aging shoulders. There's a painful twist to his face. Those who carry themselves with such cheer all the time should never have to look so miserable. "This isn't going to blow over," Max continues, dark blue eyes grave. Leaden with a father's sad concern. "You know that."

Booth suddenly can't meet the older man's eyes, which is an anomaly alone. His throat tightens, making his voice strained. "I know," he says quietly.

"Chances are… they're going to try and bring her in."

"I know."

"I can't help her on this one," Max laments, and the old con's heart feels suspiciously shredded at the very confession. "One crooked fed here and there, monsters under the bed–I can handle that. But this is too big. Living clean, some of my connections have dried up. Not to mention…" He shakes his head, stare burning into the unremarkable wall. This kills him. He knows it kills the man across from him. The world is too ruthless. "I'm just one man. And I'm getting old. I can't protect her against what's coming."

"And you think I can?"

It isn't a biting remark. Not an incredulous rebuttal. It's simply a question. For a con man, his partner's father is usually surprisingly honest.

Max's eyes find his, and a silent understanding passes between white knight and black king. It's so much more than an approval or request. "You're more than one man, Agent Booth," Max says, voice low with developing magnitude. "I know what you're capable of, and I know you love my daughter. I know you love your son. And I know… things are going to get real ugly, real fast. Uglier than they already are."

There's no sense denying that. He feels it, too. That prickle at the back of his spine, that fleeting buzz in the pit of his stomach. Things are going to get much worse. The living hell hasn't even started yet. He almost caves in on himself at the mere thought of what's to come.

"People will blame her," Max goes on. An edge to his voice. "They'll hate her. Your boss' boss' bosses will feel the growing fire under their feet, at their backs. They'll get scared, and make stupid decisions. And they'll call on you to find her. They'll bug your house, your phones, stakeout your driveway. They will do everything in their power to find her. Rally every means and tool necessary."

There's a silence, and it's grave.

"Be what you are to her. Be what you have to be for your country and your son. But do not… let those bastard scientists make my daughter pay for their mistakes." The older man's voice lowers, almost to a growl. "Do not allow them to make an example of her."

All he can do is nod. He's had every intention of doing exactly what the man before him has issued. But a nagging fear still settles over his shoulders. "You don't think…" He's terrified to even say it. To think it alone is preposterous.

"I put nothing past a nation motivated by fear and self-preservation."

"Our government doesn't kill people." It comes without thought, an automatic response. He's said it before. To his partner, in fact. But why now this time does it seem flawed on his tongue? Deceitful, naïve?

"No, you're right. They just train people like you to do it for them." It isn't far off from what his daughter had replied with at the time.

"It won't come to that." This, he's certain of. It won't.

It won't.

They'll never go that far. That abysmal. The government could be rocky at times, but his country–his country–that he fought and bled for, would never allow it. Never sink to such means of desperation.

Max doesn't reply directly. He repeats himself, from years back. Splintered with emotion. "You take care of her."

It's an order. His failure will not be suffered lightly by his partner's father. He swallows hard. Not because he's afraid of Max. Because he's afraid of failing her.

"I trust you, Booth. More than anyone outside my family. You're a patriot, but more importantly, you're a patriot for the people. Not some big mass of land." The wording is different, but the conclusion is indistinguishable.

Paladin.

"I don't care how you have to protect her, by what means… just make sure no one else lays a hand on my little girl." The shift is unmistakable. The underlying connotation is less manifest. But Booth reads it clear. They're both too good at reading people.

Her father trusts him more than ever thought possible.

The edifice of the once esteemed Hoover Building is a sad state of tragedy.

It's late, too late. Too late. The light is fading, with it–that obstinate courage. Watches warn them of the perilous time, trilling their utmost trepidation. Her skin crawls, bile threatening the back of her throat. Everything warns against this course of action, yet the vehicle trawls forward despite it.

It's the man he is. Though it would kill him to do so, he'd have ventured to the Hoover Building alone if she'd refused him. But she couldn't possibly do such a thing. Not only because the very thought of leaving him to fend alone against the suffocating unknown leaves her with a deep-seated ache, but because he's right.

Her heart pumps because of the danger, yes. But someone had been on the delivering end of that radio communication. She's scared, eager. It's a confusing combination that she isn't sure how to cope with. She's shaking, and she wrings her hands to still them. He's out of the vehicle first, duffel secured over his shoulder, on the move. She's next, and they abandon the Mustang in the middle of the street.

"We'll meet on the second floor," he says, voice clipped and hurried. "I'll make a quick perimeter sweep. You search base level. You armed?" Adrenaline spiking but not yet flowing, she nods. She's covered by her ankle and hip holster. A semiautomatic weighs down her duffel. She knows there're several weapons stashed away in his, the largest being a PGS-10 short barrel shotgun.

The crickets chirp, late evening bird calls echoing across the empty city.

They split up. Divide and conquer.

With the elevators no longer in operation, the stairs provide a wrench to her progress. Inside the shell of the exterior structure, the FBI building is in sharp, vast devastation. Dust and cobwebs score the area in ruin. When not reminded of the nature of their visit, she can't help but feel for her partner and how this must be torturing him.

The space is eerily quiet, so she moves on, up the stairs, to the second level. Away from that dead silence. She tries to keep her respiration even, but any attempts to slow the quick palpitations of her heart are destined failures. Abandoned bullpens, empty and void, make the area out to be some ghostly memory. It's feels like only yesterday she was walking these floors, greeting Charlie and Marcus and others. She can almost hear the cacophony of voices, soft. Floating over the grounds, gathering around her.

The floor is dim, swallowed up in shadows and neglect. She hears his footsteps pounding up the stairs far to her left. "Nothing," Booth says, a little breathless, shaking his head as he hurries over to her. "They didn't come by car."

Her brow creases drastically. "How could they possibly venture so far without expeditious means of transportation?" she reasons, countering him with widened eyes.

"I don't know, Bones. Anything here?" His tone is short, but she knows it's not directed at her. He runs a hand through his hair, shoulders sagging. He looks at odds with himself, unwilling to stand still for long.

"No."

"Come on, then. We're running out of time. Stairwell's back this way." He's on the move again. She doesn't always enjoy when he's like this, but he's never failed her before. He knows what he's doing, so she yields to his expertise as she's always done. That nagging fear doesn't lessen, but it's irrelevant to his presence. She brushes it aside and focuses on his form and their surroundings.

"I don't like this," she confesses uneasily as they make their ascent.

"Me either." His own voice is a flat, twisted thing.

"You don't think they've gone?" There's a timid dismay behind the words, and now she's worried they'd been too late to receive them.

"No. I don't think so."

"What happens if they have? Are we going to wait until nightfall?" She can't stay the instant apprehension from her voice.

He feels the tingle creep along his spine, but shakes his head. "If we have to, we'll hole ourselves up in one of the interrogation rooms. Otherwise, weapons room is a couple floors away. Combo lock may have changed, but my powers of breaking and entering have not." She can't find the will to laugh at his cynical joke, but she's a little pacified when it appears he hadn't expected her to. His entire form exudes alert hostility. She envies his ability to sense danger before evidence could forecast it.

Sweeping the level thoroughly with even less to show for it, Brennan's about to speak on the matter when they both still in the middle of the room. "You hear that?" he asks quietly, ears perked, eyes drifting up along the ceiling. Some of his more advanced sensory capacities stem from the diluted remainder of the toxin that still taints his blood.

It's a moment of delay, but she nods, brow knitting in concentration. "Voices," she whispers, flushing in subdued excitement. Muffled, indistinguishable. But most definitely human. A creak in the floor above. Their eyes lock, wide and swimming with emotion and a thousand questions.

"Oh my God," he blurts, shock twisted around the words.

"Booth, there are people in this building." Her pulse quivers, grows, creating a pounding bass in her ears.

"Move," he urges, ushering her quickly back to the stairwell.

"There are people," she repeats as they enter the fourth floor, heart racing. She exhales incredulously, ranging somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. She's literally begun to bounce. Terrified, but swamped by amazed delight.

"I know, I know," he grates as they move quickly for the carrying sound, but he's grinning madly. "Just stay close."

She's heedless to his advisements, pace quickening, but brow creasing more and more when no bodies materialize to claim ownership of the voices. Is hope always such a vicious thing? Had they been imagining? Her thoughts and tentative speculations plough ahead, clinging to anything that holds.

"Stop," he says suddenly, arm snapping out to barricade her form. His deft ears fall on high alert, sifting through every minuscule detail. Cataloguing, analyzing. They're more alike that she's thought, it's just for different reasons.

"Where are they?" she questions, at a loss.

Decided, he moves. But doesn't stray far from her following form. "This way. Careful."

"What?" He's drawn his sidearm. She registers this in ill-contained distress. "Booth, what is it?"

"I don't like this." His head shakes a fraction, jaw set. Mirrors her earlier words. Mutters his aversion, a deep frown stubborn to his face. "Sounds weird…"

"Weird? What do you mean wei–" Her puzzled inquiry is cut short at the sight.

Inside the security room, each and every monitor glimmers animatedly with life. Replaying old security footage, old news coverage. Film... had provided the audio. Fabricated reality. But... they'd heard someone above them...?

Booth's grip tightens on his weapon, knuckles paling. Brennan experiences only bewilderment. Her brow creases, lips parting. She shakes her head, expert eyes scanning the room to where they eventually fall on the small black contrivance left in the center of the countertop. "Booth… that's my walkie." A ripple of unease goes through him when she looks at him, eyes flooded with uncertainty and confusion.

His jaw suddenly tightens, eyes darkening. "Wasn't it in your car when they trashed it on the bridge?" he asks, hoarse tone laced with trepidation. To her great and mounting concern.

"Well, yes. I left it when you…" Those eyes are suddenly moist with fear, horror reflected in their surface.

His grip tightens over her arm, his entire complexion paling. Her heart thuds against her chest as she follows his line of sight to see the alpha male Infected glowering back at them from the other side of the glass in the parallel observation room. "Oh, shit…" Booth whispers, and Brennan seizes his hand in alarm.

It's been waiting for them.

Gray eyes penetrating with a chilling calm, the thing had planned this. Features harsh and prominent in the low light. Its hulking form twitches, ready to initiate confrontation. Teeth bared in aggressive retribution. Her heart slams into her throat, pounding louder when she feels a change come over her partner. His posture becomes like steel alloy, and she can feel his pulse thundering against her palm.

"It's a one way mirror," he gasps, too late.

It's a reflection.

From behind them, the alpha male blindsides Booth, tearing him from her grasp. He never has a chance to dodge the attack as the thing leaps out from the darkness of the room's corner. Booth feels the impact though like a speeding truck. Brennan yells in alarm, and the intensity of the blow sends his gun sailing out of his hand to land somewhere behind the monitors.

The driving force of the collision propels them both into the metal storage units, the ruckus assaulting his ears. With a stunning roar, the thing that was once a man pins him to the floor, iron grip clamped over his shoulders with hideous strength. He does his best to hold it back, sees Brennan draw her sidearm out of the corner of his eye.

Shoving back against the rabid bulwark, he gains some ground. Before he can step aside to give Brennan a clean shot, it's at him again, bellowing. Tackling him into the wall, the sheetrock giving under the impact.

That's when he sees it. The name badge on the tattered military jacket. "Cortman," he breathes, eyes wide. Realization dawning. The Infected screeches, enraged and unreachable, when Brennan's boot connects solidly with its back. She holds some power of her own.

Distraction accomplished, Booth claims the small knife at his waist and drives it into the Infected's side. Howling, it releases him and stumbles against the wall, knocking over shelves and electrical equipment. Papers sail and flutter to life like makeshift confetti. "Go, go!" Booth orders her, and they scramble through the doorway.

He scoops up his duffel and they're running across the open floor, boots pounding against the carpet. Seconds later, they hear their oppressor giving chase. Booth racks his brain, digging up memories and recollections of structure routes and side offices. This hadn't been his floor, and so the familiarity is weak.

Weak, maybe. Absent, not.

Grabbing her hand, he careens them into an approaching hallway. The crashes behind them intensify, shafts of dwindling daylight doing little to impede the alpha male's dark determination.

Another hallway, and they're in a room she can't identify. Booth slams the door shut, locking it, dragging a file cabinet against it. Its complaint is loud in the small space, grating on her ears. "Are we safe in here?" she questions, breathless. Chest heaving.

"No," he says, brutal with the honesty. "It will buy us some time, though. We can get out through the East entrance to this room."

"What the hell are we going to do?" she demands, not at all enraged with him, but of the situation.

"I don't know!"

"Dammit, how the hell did he know? How could he possibly devise… that's Cortman?" Everything she's learned about these creatures, every minute behavior researched and categorized, has never led her to any conclusion to support this raging abnormality. Evidence to the contrary, however, her careful studies have failed her to massive proportions.

"It's him. I don't know how I didn't notice before." Now he's berating himself. At least some things never change, no matter how this personality quirk bothers her.

"Well, in complete fairness, his appearance has been immensely degenerated by the prolonged effects of KV."

"Yeah, thanks."

A colossal slam penetrates the room, the door cracking stridently under the pressure. Each of them don't bother to hide their reflexive flinch. "Maybe if we just get to an interrogation room, wait him out?" She provides tentatively, watching the door with increasing dread.

"No, he planned this. I don't know how, but he did. This place will be swarming with Infected in less than ten minutes. I know his mind, no matter how messed up it is now. It's what he'd do. Bastard."

For once, everything is quiet. A dark moment, raw with tense anxiety. And then… light.

"Booth?"

Facing away from her, he paces, running a hand stressfully through his hair. "I know it's not rational, Bones, but just, God, I don't know…"

"Booth." Her tone prevents the retort at his lips. She isn't facing him, isn't looking at him. Her attention is unwaveringly fastened onto the wall in front of her.

"What?" he asks hesitantly, inadvertently wincing at the repetitive slams against the resilient door that's quickly giving way. Outside, their old adversary throws himself at the slate of wood, pounding, roaring its contempt. Fingers digging into the surface.

"Get over here. Look at this." Her voice is urgent, an octave higher. Speech raced.

At the force of her words, he moves, taking a place at her side. It hits him with all the grace of a person walking into a wall. Dazzled by the sight, voice distant. "What is that…?"

She traces her hand over the bulletin, over the mass of stationery. The words are alive, speaking to them, showing them. A frustrated growl at the door. More pounding. "Dark Seekers…" she whispers. Pale fingertips touch the surface. Curious, awed. "They called them Dark Seekers."

Booth stays silent, brown eyes running over the scribbled predictions and untidy notes posted all across the board. Over the collage of desperation and seemingly ancient fear of a time long ruined of the ages. She's still in a world of her own, murmuring about how something must have accelerated the spread while they were absent from the city. How had they never come across this room before?

"There's a map," Brennan activates, suddenly enormously alert. Moving down along the wall, her hand splays against it, drawing potential. "Look."

The door is splintering. Torn, he transfers attention between it and his partner. Nerves on fire, they can't stay here. Move, they have to move. Now. "Bones…"

"Booth, look!" Whirling, eyes wide, her face takes on a new light. Her aim jams against the map, pointing. Showing. Needing him to see. "Vermont… it's… Vermont is circled! Here, around Bethel!"

Immediately sensing her determination, he follows her direction, gaze falling on the area of the map circled boldly in red. "What's it mean?"

The pounding continues against the door, wood chipping, metal creaking. "Bethel is in the mountains," she explains, rationalizations spewing from her lips now in her excitement. "The virus–it can't… the temperature neutralizes the primary basis of infection in Krippin's deterioration and alteration of the host's body. That's how I was able to counteract the core focus of the corruption's essential survival environment–"

"Bones. English!"

"The virus can't survive the cold!" Her hands are shaking, palms perspiring. She doesn't want to believe this, but something commands that she do it. "Booth, this could be a survivor's colony."

And suddenly he's going off that one hundred foot drop again. A sensation of fire and ice adopts his every sense. "You mean a safe zone? With people–living people?" He can't prevent the shock from his voice. That fear to hope is potent and nagging, but he desperately wants to accept it. To believe her.

"That's exactly what I mean," she says seriously. "We weren't here when everything went to hell. People certainly may have gotten out. People like you and me. Even if susceptible to the virus, if they kept breathing masks on their person until reaching such asylum, they'd be safe."

Moment sinks in.

"That changes everything," he foreshadows, at long last.

"So what now?"

Slamming, screaming. The light is dwindling behind the horizon, only sinews of illumination making the room glow mutedly from the windows. "There's no way we get out of this. There's going to be too many." That bright exterior fades a little, knowing he's right. But then there's something new in his eyes that springs her fascinated curiosity. "We're blowing this place sky high." Now, comes the words he'd always used on her. In such desperate hour. He's not happy, but it's inevitable. His voice lowers with the gravity, eyes dark and thick in their depths. "Us or them, Bones."

Her stomach sinks, a cool weight settling on her shoulders. "How are we possibly going to do that?"

"You go through that door, take the East hall to the stairwell. There're oxygen tanks in the basement level for medical emergencies. Set them all off. I'll hold off Cortman to buy you time."

This is why she tends to hate his plans. She tries to ignore the context in his last sentence, switching to logic to ease her unsettlement. "What are we going to light them off with?"

"I'll find something. Just do it. I'll keep my old pal busy."

That pit in the bottom of her stomach is growing. That remembered pain of his possible absence from her life fresh and all too real. She sifts mentally through the facts. "You're stronger still, from the Infection," she says quietly. Assuring herself more than him. "KV isn't yet completely out of your system."

"I'll be okay," he says finally. It's not a question.

There's a hesitation, and she worries her bottom lip between her teeth. Eyes drinking him in, memorizing his every feature. "You'll be okay." Not quite an answer.

There's a moment. Mutual knowledge passed between them both. Each reading, each exposing. He's a little reluctant about it, but eventually speaks the early development of his tactic. The part he'd feared to voice. "Do you still have the virus with you?"

"Yes," she answers cautiously.

"What if… I had a little extra?"

Her head tilts a fraction, understanding his meaning and not liking it one bit. Stern in her delivery at the possible consequences his maverick tendencies could bring. "You mean like an adrenaline high? Because that's what it would give you at such a potent dosage."

"That's exactly what I mean."

"Booth, taking such a measured quantity would be near equivalent to taking an influenza solute absolutely pure into the bloodstream."

"What's that mean?" Ever oblivious to her squint-speak.

"Well… this won't kill you," she eventually consents, retrieving the syringe from her small duffel. Holding it for his perusal. The only reason she relents to his scheme is that it might be the thing to save him.

"Works for me." Dropping his bag, he rolls up his sleeve. He always was the first to volunteer at school and when in the Rangers. The first to cannonball off the tallest cliff at the pit where he grew up.

"You're immune, so eventually it will wear off. You've been under its effects before, so you're accustomed to suppressing it. Control it," she says, watching him carefully, trusting his unconventional method, "and this may work. It won't be pleasant, though."

Eyes locking, understanding, he nods. Accepting of the cost if it means her escape. Voice tight, grim. "Juice me."

Taking a deep breath, pressing on past the regret budding within her, she presses the needle into his skin. Releases the virus into his vein, his bloodstream. He shudders under the influx, pinprick sensations shooting up his arm.

This has to happen, now. She's already wasting time.

Dousing an attempt to part, she falls back to him instinctively, fingers curling around the nape of his neck and tugging him down to her level. Their lips crash together in desperation, terrified of the outcome. Scared of the consequences their parting may contain. Every nerve ending alight and drumming with sensitivity, he feels each quiver of her face and body pressed against him with amplified awareness.

Friends, lovers, survivors. Partners.

Pulling away, their foreheads press together. Tears spring into her eyes, but don't fall. She's more scared for him than for her. "It's all right," he assures her, voice low and faint.

"Try not to die." Her cold stare–all the more exposed and tearfully adoring–cuts him. She'll hold him accountable.

He laughs, and it's a weak sound. "You, too." Their hands slip apart, and she's gone. Running through the opposite door, trusting his plan. Trusting he'll survive. Needing to believe it, to feed off that faith she remembers.

Stooping down, he unzips his bag and retrieves the short barrel shotgun. Shakily, his fingers snap the shells into place. Already he can feel it. Growling deeply in his throat, he sinks against the wall beside the caving door. Back pressed tight against it. Quicksilver flushes throughout his bloodstream. Nerves ignite, muscles coil. Heartbeat slowly starts to escalate into a thundering pound.

Outside the room, Benjamin Cortman steps back, hunching low and emitting a demanding roar. Veins popping, neck tendons stretching, pulling. Gray eyes burning into the fragmenting door. Voicing hatred, screaming finality.

Inside, his other half tips his head back against the wall, gasping at the swelling rush of adrenaline building inside his body. Brown eyes snap to full dilation.

"Be right out, Benny," Booth says, pumping the shotgun.

Best Highlander voice: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE ALPHA MALE!!!!

(my friend belted that out with glee after proofreading this baby, lol)