Leonard couldn't sleep. Usually, his memories of Jocelyn and the ambush would be the source of his insomnia but today, it was Jemma. He had no idea how she managed to get into his head so damn fast. He was finding it hard to think of his partner as being just an android. Their last case just proved that she was probably more human than he was in a lot of ways.
He stared at the ceiling for an hour before he decided that he should just talk to her. It's not like she sleeps. Except she kinda does and she looks peaceful that way. Without conscious thought, he grabbed his phone and hit the command to connect his phone with her.
"You're supposed to be sleeping, Bones," she said as soon as the call connected.
"Trying. Can't."
"Wanna talk about it?" Jemma asked.
"What do you do at night? Like right now, what are you doing?"
"Charging," she chuckled.
"What's that like?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"I imagine that it's not dissimilar from sleeping but I honestly don't know what it's like to sleep," Jemma told him.
"You know what sleep is."
"A naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles," she said. That sounded like the dictionary version of sleep and she said as much. "That doesn't explain how it feels."
"I don't know if I'm the best person to tell you, my sleeping habits leave a lot to be desired," Leonard sighed.
"What did your best sleep feel like?" Jemma asked quietly.
"Peaceful. Warm but not too warm. Relaxing. It almost felt like floating away," he said with a yawn.
"Sounds nice."
"It was. I should probably…"
"Go to sleep, Bones."
"Hey, Jem, thanks."
"Anytime."
He hung up the phone and sat it on the table beside his bed. Two minutes later, he was fast asleep.
"You're staring at me," he said.
"You look rested," Jemma replied.
"Been getting some real sleep," Leonard shrugged. He wanted to brush it off as not being a big deal but he's talked to Jemma four nights in a row before promptly falling asleep. The detective honestly doesn't know if it's just talking to someone or if it's her in particular.
"That's good," she said. "Pike was worried about your sleeping habits almost as much as I was."
"Do you tell them about…?"
"You calling me every night? No. I don't think it's necessary for them to know. I did mention to Chris that you do talk to me when he asked how you were doing but I didn't feel the need to elaborate... Unless you become a danger to yourself or others, then I won't have a choice."
"Thanks."
"Not necessary. We're partners, I got your back," she said. He glanced at her just as the lights under her skin flashed.
"What?"
"Body discovered at forty-five hundred Crescent Avenue. Three blocks away," Jemma told him.
"Tell dispatch that we'll take it."
"Already done."
"How long you been here?" Leonard asked Officer Johnson as he and Jemma walked into the Daystrom Building.
"We just got here," Johnson told him. "There were no witnesses to the shooting. The incident happened within the last twenty minutes."
"Who found him?" Leonard asked as his partner walked around the security desk where their body was.
"These two," Johnson motioned to a pair of Daystrom employees, "and we've cordoned off the area."
"They killed the cameras," Jemma said, "but I think I can still access the archived footage." She hacked into the system the old fashioned way. "Bones…They went up to the twenty-fifth floor."
"They shut down the elevator," he said as he watched the footage over Jemma's shoulder. "Transmit that security footage to Pike, so we can try and I.D. these guys. Officer Johnson, call for backup and begin evacuation protocols."
"Yes, sir," the kid said.
"And be careful. Perps are still in the building," Leonard reminded the officer.
"You got it," Johnson said before he left them to follow Leonard's orders.
"Do we have a plan?" Jemma asked as the entered the stairwell, guns drawn.
"Nope," he told her. "We got twenty-five floors to figure out one."
"Oh, joy," she chuckled.
They were making their way up the stairs when the whole building shuttered.
"What was that?" Leonard asked Jemma.
"Light bomb," she said as they pushed past some the evacuating civilians and ran through the third floor. "Out of the way, out of the way. Stay down."
"Jem…?"
"I'm picking up biological debris. Officer Johnson was still in the lobby," Jemma said quietly. "Come on. We need to got upstairs." They went back to the stairs, encouraging people to keep evacuating as they went up.
"Police. Keep moving," Leonard said to the few people who stopped in the stairwell.
"What's going on?" a middle aged man asked.
"Sir, we need you to keep moving, continuing out of the building. Go down the stairwell," Leonard told him.
"What's going on out there?" a woman asked.
"Out of the building, please," Jemma said.
"Take the rest of the day off. Move to the stairs, exit the back of the building," Leonard repeated just as his comms came alive.
"Leonard, status?" It was Pike.
"Jem says the building is still structurally sound," he reported to his CO.
"There's damage to the fourth and fifth emergency exits. The southeast stairwell is also blocked," Jemma added.
"McCoy, do not ascend. Continue to direct the employees to the third floor and go there yourself until we know what we're dealing with here," Pike ordered.
"We know what we're dealing with. The assailants are still in the building. Me and Jem are going after them. Buy us some time. You should initiate the protocol. Jam all comm signals coming in and out of the building, cut their communication and get us some backup," Leonard said as they reached the sixth floor.
"Leonard, if we jam the signal, comms won't make it out of the building. We won't be able to communicate. Leave the bu…" Pike tried to repeat his order but the line cut out.
"What was that?" Leonard asked, looking at his phone.
"Me," Jemma shrugged. He gave her a look. "What? It was a boring conversation. Besides, we're not gonna listen to him anyway and he knows it."
"I think I'm starting to rub off on you."
"Looks that way," she said. Then her face flashed. "External comms are down."
"Any more thoughts on that plan? We're running out of floors, Bones," Jemma said just as they cleared the ninth floor.
"Well, I thought backup would be here by now. Guess we just keep moving up," Leonard told his partner.
"There is another option. The entire air system is interconnected. We just have to make it to the twenty-third floor. There's an access door to the air system there that'll take us up to where these guys are."
"See? Told you we'd come up with a plan," he chuckled and glanced back at his partner, who stopped. "Hey, what's with the disco face? You got something to tell me?"
"Since the signals are now being jammed, every emergency call being placed in this building is bouncing back to me because they can't get out," she told him.
"Answer the calls. We might get some information."
Jemma gave him a nod. "Hello?" she answered. "Ma'am, it's okay. I understand. The police are already on their way. Make your way down to the third floor." They kept moving up the stairs. Then, he heard his own voice, "Hello. I'm Detective Leonard McCoy. Please remain calm." Jemma paused for a second. "Everything's all right. Just take a breath. What is your name?" Jemma asked. "Hi, Paige. What can you tell me about the gunmen?"
"I don't know. They have my sister, and others," the woman –Paige- said on the other end, Jemma must've transferred the call to him. That explains why she was mimicking his voice.
"Listen, Paige, I'm in the building. I need to ask you a few questions, but first I need to know… are you safe? Are you out of harm's way?" he asked.
"I think so. For now," Paige told him.
"Okay, listen to me," Leonard said. "Where are you? What floor are you on?
"I'm on the twenty-fifth floor. I'm in the utility closet," Paige said. Then there was a gunshot and screaming.
"Paige? Paige, what's happening?" he asked.
"They shot him. Lou's dead," Paige said. Leonard shared a look with his partner.
"Paige, can you hold the phone up so I can hear what's going on?" Leonard asked the terrified woman.
"I really hate to throw out any more hostages. Let's get down to brass tacks, huh?" a voice said before there was pause. "First, get your snipers off the roof, and tell those men you have assembled out front to stand down, and keep them away from the building or hostages will continue to fall from the sky." Another pause. "We'd like three VTOLs on the roof standing by, clear airspace from here to the border, and finally, I'd like one fission igniter delivered to me, please." Another pause, probably Pike telling them that he doesn't have authority to get military-grade tech or Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft. "Well, then I suggest you contact someone who does." There was a longer pause. "More than enough to end your career if they die. You have forty-three minutes."
"Hello? Are you there?" Paige asked.
"I'm right here, Paige," he said.
"Is anyone coming?" she asked him.
"You just hang tight. We're gonna be with you real soon," Leonard said.
"Did you hear the phone call?" Paige asked.
"Yeah, I did. Thank you. Just hold on a second. I'll be right back," he said before muting the connection. "Is a fission igniter as bad as I think it is?"
His partner nodded, "It's a trigger mechanism for a large explosive device. Megaton level."
"Megaton?" Leonard asked and Jemma nodded again. He unmuted his comm, "Paige, you there? Can you tell me how many hostages they've got up there?"
"About twenty-five or so. At least in this room. It's hard for me to see," Paige told him.
"You're doing great, Paige. How's your sister?" he asked.
"This is all my fault. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me. She's visiting from out of town. She just stopped by to have lunch, and now she's all alone."
"Paige, can you tell me how many gunmen there are?" Leonard asked her.
"People keep coming and going; I don't know. Five, six, at least. But there were more. I'm sorry, I can't do this. I'm so scared," Paige said. He could hear the hysterics rising in her voice.
"Paige, you ever been ice fishing?" Leonard asked, trying to distract her.
"No."
"When I was eleven years old, my dad took me ice fishing. Now, I'm from Georgia, so ice is not my thing. I still don't know why we went ice fishing when we could've just gone regular fishing but that's not the point. We were heading back and all of a sudden the ice cracked under my feet and I went into the water. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was gonna die. The water was so cold, it was like thousands of needles stinging every part of my body. And then my dad jumped in, and he grabbed me and started dragging me back to shore. And even though we were still in a lot of danger, I felt safe. I felt like, everything was gonna be okay, because I wasn't alone. Paige, you're not alone. I'm with you. Everything is gonna be okay. Do you believe me?"
"Yeah, I do," Paige said.
"Alright, good girl. You just hang in there. We're coming."
"You know, everyone trips on stairs, it's calculated to occur in one in every two thousand, two hundred and twenty-two occasions," Jemma told him.
"That's very interesting," he chuckled.
"You know what would be interesting, Bones?"
"What?"
"If you told me that ice fishing story again. Was that real?"
"It was. Why does that surprise you?"
"You don't talk about your father. As a matter of fact, I think you've only ever mentioned him once before today," she said.
"It's not an easy subject. He's dead," Leonard sighed as they reached the fifteenth floor.
"I know. Doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about him," Jemma said. She was about to say something else when they heard a series of gunshots. "Sixteen."
"I'll take the right, you take the left," he told her before open the door, their weapons at the ready.
"Bones, get over here. Floor's clear," Jemma called over his comm. He stepped through the floor, his instincts refusing to let his guard down. That tends to happen after a shootout.
"You okay?" he asked his partner. She was kneeling over a body, a bright purple gash on her temple. "You took one to the head."
"Yeah, ricochet," she muttered as she looked at a small red piece of plastic.
"Whatcha got?" Leonard asked, watching Jemma a little closer than usual.
"I'm not sure. But there's writing on it. Start."
"Start?"
"Yep."
"You I.D. him?" he asked, motioning to the body.
"His name is Michael Demerais. He's a member of the Holy Reclamation Army," she said.
"So they're behind this. Gotta love terrorist groups." Of course, that's when the guy's face flickered.
"Maybe not," Jemma said before she unzipped the dead man's jacket. "It's a face maker." She did another scan. "His name is Gregor Stone. He has a few priors for armed robbery."
"Why would they impersonate members of a radical organization?" he asked. Leonard looked at Jemma as she shook her head like he does when he's trying to refocus. "What's wrong?"
"My dynamic voltage scaling has been damaged by the bullet."
"Try that again a little less complicated."
"In about five minutes, I won't be able to walk."
"What should I do?"
"You're gonna have to fix… fix it," she stuttered over the words. Not good.