Redux

Chapter 7 – Truth and Deception

Booth was walking through the mess hall, looking for one of his students to give the woman back a hat she had dropped in the conference room, when the hallucinations began. That Specialist looked exactly like … No, it couldn't be! Could it? There was something wrong with Booth's brain again. There had to be!

And then, the hallucination, carefully lifting his fork with gloved hands, sitting near but not with some of the newer soldiers, looked up at Booth. A second of mutual recognition passed before the Specialist shook his head very slightly. Pleading with Booth not to say anything? Asking him not to go over there, pick Zack up by the scruff of his neck and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing here?

Booth had to be hallucinating, right? If anything, though, he didn't want to cause a scene yelling at figments of his imagination like he had when this had happened before. So he finished his errand, took one last look at the hallucination, which was pointedly ignoring him, and left.


Cam watched her team work together on the list of names, Angela and Sweets having the most to say, while Hacker sat back, nodding periodically and watching when Brennan left. Feeling utterly useless there, Cam followed her anthropologist from the room, catching up just as Brennan reached her office.

"Dr. Brennan?"

The woman turned around, her face tired and surprised, "Yes, Dr. Saroyan?"

"How are you holding up?" Cam asked. She had been worried about Brennan for some time now, and sometimes the coroner had such a hard time reading her coworker. Other times, like when she came back into Angela's office with Booth on speaker phone, it was painfully easy to figure out what was on Brennan's mind.

And it bugged Cam that Brennan's love for Booth was so plain on her face and Seeley still hadn't made up his mind to tell her how he felt. Instead, he'd started seeing a marine biologist of all people. Though Cam's resolve that she'd given Booth good advice after his surgery flagged from time to time, she was ultimately glad she'd done it. A broken-hearted Brennan would be a train wreck. Wasn't it better that Booth left for Afghanistan to serve his country as well as figure things out, rather than stay by Brennan's side, neither of them able to make a move? It was like watching the world's slowest game of chicken and Cam was sick of it.

"I'm just jet-lagged," Brennan replied to Cam's question with a short smile. "How are you?"

Cam thought about it for a moment, pressing her lips together. There was no way she could ask about Booth. Not right off the bat. Finally she replied, "Confused, Dr. Brennan. I wouldn't have thought Zack scampering off was a good enough reason to give up Indonesia."

"In itself, it's not," Brennan said, sitting down at her desk.

Taking a chair on the opposite side of the desk, Cam asked, "What do you mean? What happened?"

"I–" she paused, looking down at her hands on the desk before she said, "I spoke to Booth."

"Oh my god," Cam breathed, sensing something big was coming, but afraid of what it might be. "What did you speak about?"

"I already told Sweets about this, Cam," Brennan said, her voice harsh with defensive frustration, like since Brennan talked about the conversation with Seeley once, that was the end of that. Cam wasn't buying it. Also, she might have been insanely curious.

She nodded, "What about Angela?"

"Angela?" Brennan asked.

"Did you speak to her about why you came back?"

Brennan shook her head slowly, staring out her office door. "We've been working since I got here."

"Well, Sweets is great," Cam told the anthropologist, "but sometimes a girl just needs to talk to another girl."

"But Dr. Saroyan," Brennan argued, her brow all crunched up, "we're both well over the age where we could be considered… Oh. You meant since we're both female, you would make a better confidante than Dr. Sweets."

Smiling indulgently, Cam nodded, "That's exactly what I'm saying, Dr. Brennan."

After regarding Cam for a moment, Brennan nodded and asked, "What would you like to cover first?"

"Well, does the conversation with Booth have anything to do with your decision to come home?" Cam asked gently.

"There were several conversations," Brennan replied. "The one where Booth said he wanted to give us a chance, the –"

"He did that?" Cam asked, her mouth falling open in shock. Well, someone had managed to swerve. Cam knew Seeley as well as almost anyone, and she almost thought he was never going to say something. He must have finally been sure about her. But where did that marine biologist come in? "What happened next?"

"I said no," Brennan replied, her voice quiet, like she was ashamed. Well she should be. Anyone could see that she had feelings for her partner. Growing angry, Cam thought to herself that if she had feelings for a guy like Seeley Booth when he declared feelings for her, she would have gone for it in a heartbeat. But Brennan wasn't like Cam, was she?

And Cam wasn't even the same as she used to be. When she and Seeley had been a thing the first time, neither was ready for something serious. And then again, three years ago, Cam was still hurting from breaking up with Andrew and couldn't even dream of wanting the same things Booth wanted. Family, forever, those things were just too difficult to think about yet. So it was right that things between them ended. Booth had never been the guy for her, as great as he was. She'd known what she wanted. Today, Cam wasn't sure what those things were anymore.

Maybe that's why she pushed so hard for this conversation, because one of them should know what she wanted, even if it wasn't Cam. "Please go on, Brennan," the coroner nodded, trying to be as gentle as possible.

The anthropologist nodded, and said, "Things were bad for awhile. I kept feeling … bad," she sighed. "About everything. I thought staying partners would be for the best, and we tried to work together but …" Brennan paused, taking a deep breath before saying, "The gravedigger case happened, and I wanted to keep working here with Booth, but I couldn't."

Cam nodded and pointed out, "You said you got sick of being around the pain that comes with murder investigations. I get that."

"That wasn't the reason," Brennan replied. "I kept having this ache in my heart whenever I thought about Booth getting taken away or shot and now that I knew how he felt about me …"

"It was too much to handle," Cam guessed, watching Brennan nod reluctantly. "We all worry about the people we love, Brennan. That's just the price of admission."

The anthropologist chuckled sadly. "I thought it was too steep a price. I thought it was too much to gamble, trying to be together. I've ruined every other relationship I've been in."

"They all fail," Cam said, realizing she sounded much wiser than she felt, "until it's right." She didn't want to say that even the ones that are right fail sometimes too.

Brennan sighed, nodding. "When Sweets showed up in the Maluku Islands with no warning, I felt ashamed. How could I not be as brave as Sweets? How could I not 'pay that price', as you say? I didn't want to be a coward anymore. So I talked to Booth."

"Uh-huh," Cam replied, biting at one of her nails and practically holding her breath. "You finally told him how you felt?"

"Yes."

"And now you've come home? Telling Booth how you feel won't make him come back any faster. Why not just spend a year working on this find of a lifetime and then see him when you both get home?"

"Because," Brennan blurted angrily, slapping her hand on the desk and refusing to meet Cam's eyes. "After five years of doing this job, I don't know how to go back. I don't know how to stop looking for murderers. I don't know how to be the person I used to be, Cam!"

The coroner blinked for a moment in surprise at the outburst, nodding carefully. If only any of them knew how to be the people they used to be, before life stepped in and changed it all.


It had been four days since Seeley Booth had hallucinated, and so he figured he was in the clear. It was just an old side effect of his tumor, and since it hadn't happened again, there was no reason to go see the medic. No reason at all.

That is, until the freaking hallucination showed up at his door in the middle of the night, knocking softly but consistently. Groaning because he'd just fallen asleep and getting out of bed after he'd already laid down was painful these days – since his muscles weren't used to this odd sort of exercise anymore – Booth stood and went to the door, frowning at what he saw out there. It looked exactly like Zack Addy, only it wore a military uniform, its hair and eyebrows were a lot lighter than Booth remembered, and it carried a heavy-looking bag slung over one shoulder. One of its gloved hands was still knocking on the door even as Booth opened it.

"That's just great," he said softly, leaving the door open and stepping back to let the hallucination in. "Auditory and visual this time, too. Don't bother saying anything," Booth told the hallucination as he pulled his shoes and his uniform jacket on. "I'm going to the medic right now, and pretty soon you're going to be history."

"What are you talking about, Agent Booth?" the hallucination asked, looking genuinely confused. "Why aren't you more surprised to see me here?"

"You're not here, Zack," Booth replied, trying to step past the hallucination. "It's impossible for you to be here. So, I'm hallucinating again, end of story."

Brows pushed together, it said, "I'm not a hallucination, Agent Booth."

"It's Sergeant Booth, to you, Specialist," Booth snarled with a nod to its uniform, not sure whether to be angry or surprised or amused that he was hallucinating Zack Addy. The two men stared at each other for a second before the hallucination screwed up its courage and poked Booth in the shoulder with one unsteady index finger.

"I assure you, I'm real," Zack said, giving Booth a wary sidelong glance as he moved further into Booth's quarters, carefully dropping his bag to the ground. Without another word, the scientist carefully clutched at his bag's oversized zipper pull, opening the bag to reveal – surprise, surprise – a set of human bones. Taking the bones carefully in his gloved hands, he started laying them out on Booth's bed.

"No!" Booth cried, grabbing Zack's wrist to stop him. "No way. This can't be happening. No way in hell," he chuckled, almost manically, "Zack Addy comes to Afghanistan and starts putting bones in my bunk. This has to be a dream. Yeah, that's it! One perfectly fucked up dream with plenty of symbolism that Sweets will be sure to have a field day with when I get back next year."

"Um," Zack said thoughtfully, pulling his wrist from Booth's grasp. "I don't think I can pinch you," Zack said, demonstrating how he couldn't quite grasp very well with his gloved hands. "I could kick you if you want," he suggested.

"Kick me?" Booth sighed. "Why?"

"To prove you're not dreaming." When Booth didn't reply, Zack shrugged and went back to arranging the bones on his bed. It couldn't be real, could it? The problem was Seeley kept trying to wake up and it kept not happening. And the longer he watched Zack work, the more and more convinced he became that this was real. Zack was really here and Booth had no idea what he was up to.

After all the large bones had been transferred from the bag, Zack rooted around at the bottom for a few seconds in frustration before looking up at Booth and saying, "May I ask for your assistance, Sergeant Booth? My manual dexterity isn't what it once was and I'm having difficulties with these last few bones."

Still trying to convince himself it was all a weird dream and maybe if he played along, it would end sooner rather than later, Booth grabbed the tiny bones Zack pointed to, placing them where instructed. When they were done, Zack nodded and reached for Booth's collar.

"Zack!" Booth cried, catching the man's arm harshly and holding it away from him. "What are you doing?"

"Fine," the squint said, backing off. "You take off the dog tags. Throw them there," he pointed to the pile of bones.

Dog tags? Booth fished them out from under his jacket, taking another look at how the bones were laid out on his bed. Like they were sleeping…

"What are you doing, Zack?"

"You have to come back to North America," the scientist replied, fumbling to take the last few items from his bag. "Catching this serial killer is much more important than what you're doing here."

"How could you possibly know that?" Booth asked, clutching his tags close to his chest. That was the first rule, never take them off.

Zack met his eyes for only a brief moment as he said, "I've seen the curriculum. Any ex-military law enforcement officer could do this job. They only wanted you because you were here for the first Gulf War. That's not good enough."

"How the hell did you get a look at the curriculum? And how the hell did you get in here?"

Holding his hand out at Booth, obviously expecting his compliance with the dog tag plan, Zack replied, "I am highly intelligent, deceptively strong, and living in a mental hospital for two years has taught me more than I would care to know about manipulating authority figures."

Booth stared at him in shock for five or six breaths before slipping the dog tags over his head and handing them over to the squint. Later on he would tell people that he was on board with Zack's plan from the beginning, not that he was afraid of what Zack might do if he didn't hand over the tags. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Zack."

"I will keep that in mind, Agent Booth."

Zack positioned the bones in Booth's bed, placing the dog tags around the skeleton's neck, and then pulled a small incendiary device from his bag. "These bones are false replicas modeled off various X-ray images in your FBI medical file. It will take anyone but me and Dr. Brennan several days to realize that this is not you."

"What happens when they do find out?" Booth asked, disturbed that Zack had made a somewhat accurate replica of his skeleton while on the lam. Or while on the base these past four days! Eyeing the device as Zack carefully set the timer, Booth found himself feeling sorry for that set of bones. What Zack had planned for them couldn't be pleasant, and … he was empathizing with a skeleton. A fake skeleton!

"They will find out soon afterwards that I kidnapped you, Agent Booth," Zack replied, his tongue peeking out from behind his lips as he concentrated on getting his fingers to work the device. "I am a fugitive known to be mentally unstable."

"Oh, come on!" Booth cried. "You really think anyone's going to believe that you kidnapped me?"

"They will," he said, taking a glass vial from his pocket and dropping it on the floor before smashing it with the heel of his standard-issue combat boot, "when they find evidence that I used a sedative. Besides," Zack said, smiling up at Booth, "like I said, I'm deceptively strong."

"There's no way I could be worth all this trouble, Zack!"

"You're not," the squint replied, pressing a button on the incendiary and shooing Booth out the door. "But I need Dr. Brennan to solve this case. And according to all available data, she needs you."

Bones needed him? She needed him to solve this case, and Zack seemed to think this single case was worth an insane amount of effort. Of course, according to all the data available to Booth, Zack was insane. And how sane was Booth? Letting Zack "kidnap" him? He should sound the alarm. He should practice what he was preaching to the soldiers here and take Zack down, immobilize him so he could be shipped back to the hospital in DC.

Then again, Booth should never have come here in the first place.

Zack closed the door behind him and continued in a whisper, "We have approximately fifty three seconds to vacate the area. And just thirty seconds after that to meet our transport outside the fencing. Follow me."

"Wait," Booth hissed, finally realizing what was going on. "How powerful is that explosive? You can't hurt anyone to get me out of here, Zack. I won't let you."

Zack smirked, "I triple checked the calculation, Booth. The device will only burn your quarters before the fire alarms and sprinklers activate."

"Are these the same calculations that got your hands blown up?" Booth asked, though he followed Zack as the smaller man hurried down the corridor.

"Completely different calculations," he replied, a little winded as they fled the building, crouched over and dashing from cover to cover until they got near the gates leading from the base. Zack checked his watch and Booth saw him nodding his head in time with the seconds as they ticked by. He almost asked what Zack was waiting for, until a startling explosion rang out from the back of the base and every single light for as far as he could see went completely dark. He was blind, only able to make out the fuzziest of shadows against the light coming from a distant village. "Hang on and follow me," Zack said, hitting Booth's chest with one of his arms and waiting for Booth to take it before moving them both forward.

"Zack," Booth whispered back as his eyes slowly got used to the complete darkness of the desert night, "you are one creepy guy."

"Thank you, Agent Booth," the scientist replied, pushing Booth toward the driver's side of a military Jeep, where a private handed him the keys with what Booth thought was a sharp salute in the darkness.


A/N: This took a while because while the Booth parts were really easy to write, the Cam part was giving me difficulties. So, what did you think about how it turned out? Was it worth the wait?