"I want to build my own team."
The handshake hadn't yet reached its natural conclusion, his palm warm and dry in hers, grip firm with the approval of a new employer—confident, welcoming, with all the assurance of the home-team advantage. She was only two minutes past being an interloper, and already imposing.
"You're straight to the point, aren't you?" His smile was amused, welcoming, and he shrugged broad shoulders imperceptibly beneath the tailored suit jacket buttoned primly over a subdued tie and shirt—he'd chosen his candidate. Even before her slightly defensive response, he'd acquiesced.
"I'd assumed that was one of the reasons you'd chosen me rather than the other candidates. I want to build my own team. The Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal lab is large enough for the sheer number of people you've assembled there, but many of them are redundant in the department. A well structured group of five or six qualified candidates could handle what you've distributed among twenty, freeing others for different departments. Authentication should be separated out from the lab, giving you the resources you indicated you wanted to allocate to assisting the government on active cases. If I've overstepped my bounds, I apologize, but. . ."
She was prepared to carry on defending her stance, standing in her interview suit in the middle of the glass-fronted office while the entire staff of the Jeffersonian seemed to walk slowly by, stealing looks in at their newest member. Goodman raised a stilling hand, waiting for her to give it notice before putting her at ease.
"Doctor Brennan, I only ask that you keep me apprised of the staff changes so I may ensure that we are staffed accordingly, and may stand in on your interviews. Beyond that, I give it over to you to determine your team."
A steady mechanical beeping floats through the air, assaulting her senses, each metallic pulse of sound throbbing in her head… though whether the pain or the sound had come first she couldn't yet determine, and she was not comfortable making assumptions. She was aware only of the sound, and of a shifting pressure on her right arm, right hand.
She had no illusions of her understanding of how individuals would react to approval, but she was fairly certain the faint flicker of. . . disappointment? that flashed through the blue eyes of the man standing before her desk was an anomaly. Either she had misjudged the look, or the man—and either was, if she were to be honest with herself, a distinct possibility.
"He told you who I am." It wasn't a question, but it was a perplexing comment that seemed random if nothing else coming from the empirical scientist standing before her, hands shoved into the pockets of his navy blue lab coat, shoulders slumping slightly as if she'd rejected him.
"I've been working here for the past two weeks. Doctor Goodman introduced us when I arrived, Doctor Hodgins. You're an entomologist and I've noticed an aptitude for analyzing secondary particulates as well, which is why I just offered you the position to remain here in this lab, on my team. I'm sorry, was there something else I missed, or…"
She didn't get the chance to finish. Something sparked in his gaze again, and the untidy beard split with a grin, shoulders straightening again as he removed a hand from his pocket, offering it to her. "No, not at all. Thank you, Doctor Brennan. I was just concerned you'd offered the position for other reasons."
The questioning look she shot him while accepting the handshake was left unanswered.
The pressure against her bicep shifts, skin and then the soft slide of short hair. . . someone raising their head from resting planted next to her. The pressure on her right hand tightens, hand squeezing hers. Slight graze against her left hand, tentative pressure of an uncertain hand, female voice on her left, male at her right, both familiar.
Oh, Sweetie. Oh, god. Please just be okay. Distraught, emotional, caring.
"Miss Montenegro. . ." She gestured to the chair across from her, cutting herself short as she's interrupted.
"Angela, please. I feel so old when I'm called that. I shouldn't have said that, should I? It makes me sound like I'm immature, and rejecting the idea of responsible adulthood. I'm sorry, I get nervous in interviews, and I just start. . . talking." Biting her bottom lip, dark curls framing her face, the woman across the desk from her looked as if she were curbing herself not out of embarrassment, but out of decorum. And as if she rarely stood by such decorum. Despite it all, the friendly grin remained.
"Angela, then. It's alright for you to be nervous, and I've been told I talk when I…"
They were interrupted again by a perfunctory knock on the frame of the door, and Hodgins swinging himself around the frame, raking a look at Angela before offering an appreciative leer and turning his attention to Brennan. "I've identified the spores from the clothing, and I think we've narrowed down a geographical area for the murder. New kid's got the tissue markers in place for you to take a look at, and we're ready to identify against the NCMEC database of young girls missing in the area. We just need a face. Who's the hottie?"
"Well timed interruption. Angela will be doing our forensic facial reconstructions." Pulling out of the leering match with the bearded man in the doorway, Angela's face lit up, her grin contagious. "I got the job? I was sure my Jigsaw reference when they were testing the murder weapon had bumped me out of the running."
"I don't know what that means."
"Oh, Sweetie. Horrible movie. Be glad."
On her right, she can feel the shift and for a moment she's concerned the gripping hand will disappear, the anchoring weight. Instead, it changes angles—switching hands—and she can feel displaced air as they move above her. He offered his other hand to the woman on her right, she realizes.
She'll be alright. She's going to come out of this just fine—she's a fighter. Reassurance infuses each syllable.
"You have no evidence to support that!" She folded her arms as if to physically ward off the effects of the infuriating triumphant grin of the man standing on the opposite side of the autopsy table, resisting the urge to snatch the poker chip dancing between his knuckles as he walked through his unsupported theory, completely ignoring her protests.
"No, because he's one of us. He's smart, knew how to cover his tracks to fool the squints he knew would be working the case. He stole the gun, then marred the inside of the barrel when he disposed of it, so the shell casing wouldn't match the pattern inside. He knew if he used his own sidearm, the Bureau would have a bullet casing for comparison. . ."
"The forensic evidence doesn't lie, Agent Booth. What you're proposing is completely unsubstantiated by the evidence. What you're doing is taking the facts and using them to support your already foregone conclusion!"
"Look, Bones, you do your thing and I do mine. It fits and he has motive, opportunity, and his alibi is at least two hours off the actual time of the crime if your little experiment's right."
"I am right, and don't call me Bones…"
"I don't see what your problem is. The evidence fits, you're just upset because I figured it out before your people caught up. I'm going to go arrest him, and see if I can get a confession to ice the cake."
"You concocted the story out of a series of guesses! I'm going with you." Stripping off the lab coat, she stills as he lays a hand on her now bared forearm, snatching his hand away immediately afterwards and grinning to cover it. "You're not coming with me. Cops in the field, squints in the lab. Stay with your squints, do your thing, and then have fun poking through bodies in Columbia. Tell me if you find Juan Valdez."
"Guatemala, and I don't know what that means. I should go with you, I worked the case…"
"My case, my arrest."
As the female voice faded, another male alongside, the pressure shifted again on her right hand, and soft skin grazed her forehead, a breath of warm air stirring her hair, drawing the outline of tape and bandage that consumed the left side of her forehead.
C'mon Bones. I know you're not going to make a liar out of me. Faith. Trust.
The pulse of sound palpitates, a hitch in the rhythm, and the breath at her forehead stills in a moment, before the grip on her hand disappears, replaced by a brush of fingertips along her cheek, lips on her forehead.
I know you're in there. His voice and reassurance drifts as her medication-addled memories flow, colors and sounds and sights.
"We're on the map." Hodgin's voice was an urgent interruption into the revelry, and while his words made no immediate sense, it was his tone that captured attention. He'd loosened his tie, and it hung akimbo, emphasizing the vague air of conspiracy-manic eccentricity into something more. "Inside out and upside down. Turn the compass and we found the old Gormagon. So I thought what about the other signs, and. . ."
"Gorganzola? Slow down Hodgins, what are you talking about?" Booth's words overrode Angela's remonstration for his disappearing during their New Years revelry, as he barreled through the crowd of benefactors, jostling his date out of his way in an effort to reach the FBI agent and forensic anthropologist dancing together in the corner. Even in a crowd, forced to mingle, they'd all gathered into a clique. As Zach stepped away from his wallflower routine to listen, and Cam strode over prepared to chivvy them into speaking to the individuals that provided them their grant money, all of them fell silent and watched as Hodgins began gesturing in the air, drawing patterns.
"We found the 'Architect' just off 66 near the State Department. All of the sites have had some sort of significance with the Masonic symbols in DC, so I figured we needed to find out why there. The pentagram . . . White House, Washington Circle, Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, Mount Vernon. . . flip it, and the left arm sits right on that site. Right point the FBI building. Bottom left Constitution Gardens. Bottom right point. . . Jefferson and 12th street. The Jeffersonian. We are on Gormagon's map."
"My God." Cam turned her gaze to the crowd surrounding them, some of whom had turned their faces questioningly to the tense knot near them. It was Booth who stated what they were all thinking as his gaze raked the unprecedented gathering of strangers.
"He's here."
Heart monitor. She recognizes the beating as her pulse, now, rational mind listening to the pattern, and to the murmur of her partner's voice. Praying, she's determined. Intonation, lowered voice, the faint snatches she can hear as he mouths them against the back of her hand, captured between both of his.
It catches her by surprise when she realizes he's praying to her, not simply to his divine invisible friend.
The heart monitor palpitates again, and he squeezes her hand in response, as she drifts through memories, forcing cohesion into the drifting recollections and flashes of her life, looking for answers.
Cam took security, quietly demanding the guest list for the party, beginning the arduous process of determining who was there, ferreting out any unfamiliar or unaccounted faces. In the throng of revelers to the black tie event, it was unlikely to yield the results they would want fast enough, but she managed it adeptly, cellular phone wedged between her ear and her silk-covered shoulder as she brought in the Feds.
Hodgins and Angela worked the floor, his eye for the upper-crust donators, her ability to swallow her nervousness and make it seem like nothing more than the forced mingling they'd been formerly instructed to engage in, covering Zach's escape to the lab to determine their bodies were accounted for.
She'd produced a gun from beneath the folds of velvet and satin of her skirt, hitching the fabric up to mid-thigh as Booth tried not to gape, until she padded to his side and tapped his arm to indicate he could stop examining the luminescent wall of white drawers, pretending to care about the tag of the remains while she was practically indecent.
"That's the gun I gave you when we got back after Christmas."
"Yeah, it fits better. Less chafing."
He was torn between staring up at the ceiling, or clearing the hall before them on their way down. Training won out over prayers for strength—he'd confess later. She kicked off her heels in the stairwell, and followed him down a pace behind and to his right as he hugged the wall, shunning the elevator down in exchange for reaching the Gormogon vault unannounced.
As the darkness of the room threatened to swallow them, he reached back to press a fingertip to her lips, indicating the need for silence, and then drew her forward, tapping her shoulder to indicate he'd hug the left side wall as she took the right, staying low and avoiding obstacles as they cut through towards the faint glow of a candle lit in the center, the movement near the silver skeleton.
She's dimly aware of other familiar voices drifting in and out around her, but only one constant. Her partner remains steadfastly at her right side, holding her hand even before, as the deep breathing of his sleep tickled her arm. Awake now, he talks to her and she strains to hear, trying to fight off the tidal pull of thought and oblivion. She needed to remember, but she yearned to hear.
You were right behind me, I should have heard him first. I'm supposed to protect you, and I didn't. I should never have dragged you down to the vault with me. . .
His words and her memories clash and coexist, a disjointed narration.
The hand came from behind her, a strong arm wrapping around her throat as she was yanked backwards, issuing a strangled yelp of surprise as she was pulled with him behind the curtaining wall of the tapestry. They'd misjudged.
Master and apprentice had both risked discovery, rather than simply one. They were unprepared. As she head butted straight back, simultaneously driving her elbow straight back into her attacker's stomach, she heard Booth wheel around to face them in the dark, abandoning the quest to the center of the maze, the Master and his skeleton, in favor of rescuing his partner.
The metal of the blade grated on her rib, sending blinding white dancing across her vision as it slid deeply in, a lancing pain that made her strength ebb, her knees buckle. Left lung—the trouble with intimately knowing the human body was she was fully aware of the extent of her injury.
Shoved into Booth as a projectile and human shield she explained it, bloodloss already making her ramble, the punctured lung making each gasped breath more painful, while her desperate need to remain conscious compelled her to detail--a verbal diagram of exactly what was wrong, followed by a fading account of how to handle a sucking chest wound.
Then he was dragging her down with him, aside with him, and there was a blinding explosion, noise and stench of fire, and the tumble of bricks turning to rubble and powder as damage to the outside wall of the Jeffersonian that provided their escape simultaneously brought down the meticulously crafted replica of the interior of the vault.
Darkness swallowed her. Later she was only dimly aware of Booth's lips on hers, breath and life forced from him into her, as she thought fleetingly that she'd gotten her New Years kiss after all, as fireworks real and imagined illuminated the inside of her eyelids before she slipped again into the comforting oblivion that she struggled against now.
Heartened by the increasing pace of her pulse, Booth runs his thumb along her knuckles as he holds her hand, fingers of his other hand cupped to her cheek, cradling her head delicately.
I promised them all you'd be alright, Bones. Angela and Zach and Hodgins and Cam. They're all looking to you to pull out of this, to prove you're as strong as we all think you are. As I know you are. I promised them. . . the words are solidifying, now, as she exerted her will to hear his murmured words over the pounding in her head, over the incessant beeping of the medical equipment.
"You're not going to make a liar out of me."
Glancing at the monitor next to him, Booth suppresses the upswell of hope, closing his eyes and taking a bracing breath before turning his gaze back to the swollen and bruised face of his partner, dark lashes a delicate fan, lips parted slightly and chest rising and falling steadily with the breath he'd forced back into her when it had failed.
"I only know one way to wake up Sleeping Beauty, Temperance." His breath was warm and alive across her skin, and his hand slipped down gingerly into the auburn tresses at the back of her head, cradling her head as he bends over her, lips caressing hers before he tenderly catches her lower lip, grazing his teeth along it gently to get her attention, gathering strength from the flutter of her eyelashes.
The kiss does not remain one-sided for long as tentatively she touches the tip of her tongue to her lip, and then seeks out his kiss, raising her head slightly from his steadying hand. Breaking for breath, he rests his forearm on the bed beside her, bracing himself to keep his weight off of her bruised and battered body, an inch away from her face as her eyes flutter open, reflective blue gaze fixing on his as she catches her breath.
"Booth?"
He said a thousand prayers of thanks in that one moment, and gathered her to him gently.
"That's my girl."
A/N: My first Bones story, but hopefully not my last! I may continue this one, as I have more story in my head (being no where near as much a conspiracy theorist as Hodgins, but no novice myself!). Let me know what you think, because reviews make the world go 'round.