Warning: this is my first fanfiction so please be kind. Okay, this story takes place sometime late in season 2. For all that I love the newer seasons, there's just something about the early ones. Anyway, Brennan has been captured by the killer in her latest case. The story is basically just her thoughts as she suffers through her captivity and tries to protect her friends and get out alive. I really tried to make it seem like you're really inside Brennan's head. Hope I suceeded. My Bones seems to spend a lot of time thinking about Booth though...

Oh and I had a bit of a problem with spacing and separating the paragraphs/ thoughts, so I had to use line breaks. Sorry. Just think of the line breaks as a way to kind of separate everything. Spacing between individual thoughts or trains of thought as they pass through Bones' mind.

Well, I hope you enjoy it.

No one wants to die alone.

Anthropologically speaking, this was true. Individuals often wished to die whilst in the company of those with which they had formed emotional and physical bonds.

It also seemed to be a common phrase.

She had often heard it mentioned in casual conversation. Once one of her more disgruntled ex-lovers had even asked her if that was what she wanted.

To die alone.

It was not meant in this context but, if he had asked her that at this moment, she would have said yes.

She had been captured by the serial killer in their latest case.

His identity was still uncertain. At the lab, her team had taken to calling him Chemi-kill. He killed each of his victims through a combination of blood loss and modified chemical warfare tactics that dated back to World War I.

It was slow, and it was painful.

It was also inexplicably clean.

The killer was nearly untraceable.

He used common chemicals, ambiguous and inconstant murder weapons, and left no particulates from the actual murder site. The only thing that linked the three murders they were trying to solve was his use of chemicals.

As Booth would say, the case was throwing them for a cylinder. Or something to that effect.

Booth.

The thought of her partner brought her back to dying alone, and why it would be such a relief. If she believed in a higher being like Booth did, she would almost say it was a gift from God.

After her initial struggle to get free, the killer had threatened that if she did not cooperate, her friends would join her.

To keep her company he'd said. To her horror, he had then shown her a monitor of live feed from the lab.

Cam, Zach, Angela, Hodgins.

Booth.

Her team, her friends, all scrambling wildly around the lab.

Trying to find her. Trying to save her.

The killer had turned the monitor away from her and left, but she could still see the flickers of their movement, reminding her that they were safe at the Jeffersonian.

Not here in the dank, dark basement of and old office building.

Where there was fear, soon to be followed by pain.

At least she knew what to expect of the pain.

As with other cases, she had studied this killer's brand of pain. Learned from his victims' bones what she would face.

She shuddered and looked in the direction of the monitor.

The only light in the darkness of the room.

It could have meaning metaphorically, she knew, but she'd never been good with metaphors.

Rationally, she could say her eyes were drawn to the only visible light source, but Booth would say it was for comfort.

And in that recently expanding part of her mind which was not completely controlled by her mind, she knew he would be right.

He would be proud of her for that.

She wanted him to be proud of her.

The chemicals her body was secreting due to the high stress situation, combined with the blow to the head she had received earlier could, she knew, cause irrationality.

That had to be why she was doing so much 'thinking with her heart' as Booth called it. No matter how preposterous that phrase was.

Her focus on that vital organ was leading her down some illogical and unusual avenues of thought.

Centered around her partner and her feelings for him.

Her heart seemed to be indicating that she was deeply attached to him, trusted him more than any other. It was also telling her she had unwittingly crossed their line long ago.

To put much stock in these feelings would be illogical. They were chemical reactions heightened by fear.

She reasoned it would also be illogical to indulge in denial and self-disillusionment when her death was imminent.

Booth did say once that fear brought out the truth.

And though it was not rational to hate something that was not only inanimate but invisible as well, she hated that line.

Biological urges and chemical reactions aside, Booth had never betrayed or abandoned her. And though it was scientific fact that all things are transient, she was beginning to think their relationship, however it could be classified, was not.

The thought lacked all reason, but somehow her logical, empiricist mind had begun to distinguish it as truth.

And when compared to anthropologically proven societal norms, it was true that Booth's presence in her life had a level of constancy unusual for their species.

She doubted he really listened to most of her anthropological facts, but if she did manage to survive this, she would consider informing him of this most recent finding.

He would like being an exception to an anthropological fact.

And he would smile that way he always did when she went against her science while still trying to sound scientific.

Because he would know that beneath the science, there was heart.

She shook her head, and winced when pain shot through her temple.

She had put aside rationality for a while, but if she wanted to find a way out of this, if she wanted to examine this new possibility with her partner, she would have to let logic take over.

She quickly began to assess her physical condition.

Throbbing head pain radiating from the back of her head (parietal bone), most likely due to blunt force trauma when she was knocked unconscious during her abduction.

There also seemed to be dried blood around the left sphenoid and temporal regions, suggesting a second glancing blow.

This would account for her slowed, irrational thought process.

A large bruise was beginning to show on her right forearm, above where her wrists were bound. This, along with the second head wound, was the result of her original struggle to escape.

The one that resulted in her team being threatened.

At least she had had the satisfaction of breaking the bastard's thumb.

She looked towards the monitor again for reassurance, for strength.

She then began to analyze her surroundings.

Without light she could not gather much viable information.

Chemi-kill had taken her to some sort of abandoned office building, she was sure of that.

The only other thing she knew was that there was a strange yet familiar smell, something she couldn't quite identify.

And about ten feet away, in the corner, there was some sort of machine that…

She stopped mid thought.

Her captor had just returned.

And he was carrying a rather large knife.

He was talking. Saying things about his thumb and making her wait and preparations.

She barely listened; instead, she focused on the objects he was carrying.

He held a few vials of his trademark chemicals. The ones with which he would torture and kill her.

But that was not what really bothered her.

In his other hand, with the knife, there was a camera.

She had forgotten about that.

The newest part of his game.

He had actually sent pictures of his last victim to the Jeffersonian.

And now he was going to do that with her.

She felt sick thinking of Booth, Angela, her team, all having to look at images of her lifeless body covered in blood and chemical burns.

She hoped they wouldn't have to.

Her team was the best out there, and she knew they would keep looking.

But they had nothing to work with. Even less than with the Gravedigger.

She watched the killer moving towards her, talking again.

He said he decided to 'up his game'.

Now he was going to send a picture of each stage of the murder.

Said he didn't want them to miss anything.

She felt even sicker.

The pain in her head spiked as he backhanded her across her face, causing her lip to bleed.

The gag across her mouth felt even tighter.

For a moment, she thought back to another time when she was bound and gagged in a similar way.

Booth had saved her then.

Booth always saved her…

The killer moved even closer to her.

She tried to distract herself with clavicles, phalanges, ilia.

Listing the bones of the human body, as he grabbed her right arm and began to make an incision on the side from elbow to wrist.

The pain was severe, piercing.

She tried not to focus on it.

Logically, she knew she should try to fight back or cry out.

Anthropologically speaking, self-preservation was the primary instinct when in peril.

But if she did not cooperate, she feared the killer would realize his threat. Make her friends suffer like this.

She would not succumb to base instincts and endanger them.

Her captor uncapped one of his vials, and she knew it was about to get a lot worse.

She had never had chemicals poured on her before, but she assumed it would feel extremely unpleasant.

She could imagine Booth using some odd colloquialism to tell her how obvious that statement was.

She found that thought oddly comforting.

She tried to identify the chemical. Tried to ignore her throbbing head and bleeding arm.

It was light brown and smelled slightly of garlic, she realized.

Not many WWI weaponized chemicals fit those qualifications, modified or not.

She felt her heart rate double and her thoughts scatter as he prepared to pour the liquid on her open wound.

Garlic…

And then she knew.

Mustard Gas. A blistering agent.

She tried as hard as she could to hold her breath. To not gasp or scream as the searing pain enveloped her arm and threaded its way through her body.

Her eyes were burning and watering, either as an effect of the chemical or from the pain.

It didn't matter. She was watching her own arm blister.

She was trying simultaneously not to breathe in too deeply, and not to sob uncontrollably. The pain was destroying her restraint, she knew, and she would have to choose one or the other.

She let her tears fall.

She had always prided herself on her ability to compartmentalize, but she was failing horribly.

She could not distract herself from the pain.

She did not even notice the killer take his morbid picture and leave, promising a quick return.

Her pain, her situation, her fear were all closing in on her, while she tried desperately to divert her thoughts.

Eventually she would pass out either from blood loss, or an excess of damage to her nervous system.

She would welcome it.

If she was not already dead before her body reached that point.

Booth would tell her not to talk like that. Had told her he would always save her.

But this was more than even he could handle.

He would blame himself, but at least he wasn't there. To die with her.

That thought made her shudder.

Cognitive activities such as distraction were often highly effective in modulating pain.

She had to admit her cognitive ability had surpassed irrational and had begun to fail all together.

Putting together articulate thoughts was becoming increasingly difficult.

Thinking of anything but the pain was difficult.

She tried to distract herself once again, this time cataloging what she knew of mustard gas.

While commonly considered a gas, it generally remained a liquid unless in extreme temperatures.

It was clear and odorless unless mixed with other chemicals.

It was currently burning a hole in her arm. At least that's how it felt.

No. That was not in any way distracting…

It could lead to severe respiratory damage if inhaled in copious amounts.

Most of the chemicals it was comprised of could be found in household objects.

When highly concentrated it could cause cancer.

Extreme exposure often led to death.

That was not helping.

She wondered how long the killer had been gone. When he would return.

What he would do next.

She disliked the uncertainty. His unpredictability.

As Booth would put it, a few of his screws were loosened. Or something like that.

Booth.

He was out there, trying to save her.

He would never forgive her if she didn't at least try to save herself. No matter the repercussions.

Logically, he would never know.

She would be dead.

But she wanted her last moments to make him proud. To be worthy of his, and her whole team's efforts.

And maybe somehow he would know.

Maybe his innate ability to read her would carry on even into death.

She looked around.

For him and for herself, she would continue her search of the room. She would try.

There had to be something useful.

A clue to her location, a way to send a message.

An analgesic, she thought looking at her arm.

She spotted the machine in the corner, the one the killer had distracted her from earlier.

She carefully began to crawl towards it, as best she could with arms and legs bound.

She hoped desperately that the killer would not return any time soon.

That would be very bad.

For her.

She looked at the flickering monitor.

For her friends.

She tried to put as little pressure as possible on her arm. The crawling had increased the pain exponentially.

This did not seem helpful.

This was not a good idea.

As she got closer, she realized the machine was a fax machine.

It was old, dusty, and most likely broken.

But she might be able to use it to send a message to the Jeffersonian.

Truthfully, she knew she had no message to send.

She still did not know where she was, and she was sure 'goodbye' would not be considered a sufficient communication.

Feeling around, she tried to turn it on anyway, though the action was completely irrational.

She knew it must be broken or unplugged. Or both.

She had always prided herself on her intelligence and resourcefulness, but when it mattered, her mind was blank.

Justifiably blank but blank nonetheless.

Then she remembered something Booth had taught her not long ago.

Hotwiring, he had called it. A way to start a car without the keys.

She had wondered why he knew how to do something like that. It seemed like a criminal activity.

He said his grandfather had taught him.

And he had told her that she never knew, she might need it someday.

She could not quite remember the procedure, but she was sure she could figure it out.

She wondered if it was even possible to hotwire a fax machine.

Either way she was going to try.

She was feeling around for wires, she needed a blue and a red if she remembered correctly, when she saw it.

An old, discolored scrap of paper stuck beneath one of the legs of the machine.

From the light of the monitor, she could see some sort of design on it.

And faint lettering.

Crawling closer to the light of the screen, she studied it.

It was part of a piece of office stationary.

Half of the address was ripped off, the other half almost completely faded except for a few numbers.

But the insignia with the company name was still, for the most part intact.

…yttsville R bber Man f…, was all that was left.

She struggled to focus on the letters, over the haze of the pain.

On a typical day she was sure it would have taken her less than ten seconds to figure out, but at the time, the letters' meaning was elusive to her.

Then she remembered the smell.

The strangely familiar odor she had noticed earlier.

Rubber.

She was in an abandoned rubber factory. In Hyattsville.

It was twenty minutes outside of D.C.

She didn't know if she had that much time.

Ignoring the pain in her head and arm, she dragged herself back to the spot she'd previously occupied.

She couldn't let the killer find out she'd moved.

Or that she'd found a message to send.

She just needed a way to send it.

Her captor reentered the room, this time carrying a small, sharp pair of pruning shears.

And his camera.

She'd just found her messenger.

She would use his own game against him.

She'd just have to get the piece of stationary into the next picture without him figuring it out.

If she was still conscious and coherent by the time he took his next picture.

He was standing right in front of her, opening and closing the shears as if testing them.

She had to admit, his methods were very logical and well executed.

The household chemicals, the varying weapons…

Nothing that could clearly implicate him.

He had even managed to modify the mustard gas so that its effects would cause considerable pain, with out being fatal.

Her esophageal tract had not swelled and blistered, causing internal bleeding and asphyxiation, as was common with traditional mustard gas.

That could be a good thing.

It could also provide him with more time to torture her.

She jumped as she felt the cold point of the shears touch her leg.

She had thought she'd never be afraid of something so illogical and mundane as pruning shears.

But she was.

She closed her eyes tight as the point dug into her thigh.

As the pain coursed through her body, she thought of arguing with Booth.

Of him giving her Jasper, of him saving her from the Gravedigger, from Kenton, of him hugging her, telling her there was more than one kind of family.

The killer had finally stopped cutting.

The laceration was shorter this time, from lower thigh to knee, but the pain was worse.

This, she knew, was a bad sign.

The increased sensitivity to pain was an indicator of fairly extensive damage to the central nervous system.

Damage that was about to increase.

It was time for the mustard gas.

She bit down on the gag and tried not to breathe in the fumes, as he poured the blistering agent on her thigh.

It seemed as though her leg were on fire.

The thought was completely illogical. She knew mustard gas did not combust.

But the level of pain she was experiencing had also previously seemed illogical.

She tried to focus her thoughts as she dropped the torn piece of stationary next to her.

She looked out of the corners of her eyes at it as the killer took his picture, trying to lead her team to it.

She noticed she was crying again. She didn't even know when she had started crying.

He just smiled at her.

Said it would be over soon if she was lucky. Gave her a warning.

Then he left.

She knew the torn stationary was her last chance.

She just wished it could have had more rationale and clarity behind it.

It was not science or skill.

It was just dependent on luck.

Booth would call it an 'inoculation in the dark.'

At least she thought that was the phrase.

Between the head wound and the cuts, she knew she had lost a considerable amount of blood. A detrimental amount.

And she was beginning to feel it. She was also developing a cough from the mustard gas, one of its trademark symptoms.

She was not sure if her body could handle another round of torture.

And her clue, her last chance, was not one she could rely on.

She wasn't even sure if her team would see it. And if they did, would they be able to read it? To discover her location in time?

She wasn't even sure if the paper was visible in the picture.

She glanced at her bleeding, blistered leg.

She was truly running out of time.

The door opened as the killer reentered the room.

For, she was sure, what would be the last time.

In studying his victims' bones, she had learned his pattern.

After the arms and legs, he always sliced the abdomen.

It was the probable cause of death each time.

As he prepared a large corrugated knife he told her he had special plans for her.

He was not going to knock her unconscious like he had with all his other victims.

Fear washed over her as she thought of what she was about to face.

He was going to cut her abdomen, pour chemicals on her open wound, and wait for her to bleed out.

All while she was still conscious.

She knew death was inevitable, but this was not how she had hoped to die.

The killer had started to move closer, but stopped and cocked his head as if listening to something.

Then she heard it too. A slight rustling noise from outside.

As he moved toward the door, he told her not to worry.

Said he be back soon.

Then he left.

She had never waited for death like this.

Even with the Gravedigger, it had not been this bad.

She had been with Hodgins, using every possible resource to stay alive.

And she had been positive Booth was on his way.

That he would get to them.

This time she had no tricks to extend her survival time.

No cell phone or camera.

And Booth had no idea where she was or who the killer was.

This time he was not going to save her.

She was going to die.

Alone.

And though it went against all anthropological and societal norms, she wanted to die alone.

Before he had left, the killer had warned her again that if she tried anything, he would bring one of her friends in to die with her.

If she were dying alone, that meant the people she cared about were okay.

Logically she knew that they were still at risk of any number of things, but for now, they were safe.

She had to believe they were all safe.

Booth, Angela, Zack, her whole team.

They were that other kind of family Booth had told her she had.

Their safety was the only comfort she had now.

The killer came back in and locked the door, still carrying his knife.

She watched as he returned to his place in front of her and sharpened the blade.

The blade that would soon tear through her skin and muscle.

She did not want to watch his final preparations.

She looked down, only to stare at her bloody, blistered limbs.

She did not want to see that either.

She wished the killer would turn the monitor of the feed from the Jeffersonian towards her.

She wanted to see her friends. To be sure they were safe.

To see Booth.

The killer moved closer, leading with the knife.

She closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.

She was about to die.

Booth couldn't save her this time.

She hoped he wouldn't blame himself. Feel responsible.

This was not his fault.

He could not save her from everything.

The jagged point touched the skin of her abdomen.

Fear and relief washed over her.

It was time.

She was going to die.

Alone.

That was her final reassurance.

Her final triumph.

If she were dying alone, that meant her friends were safe. Alive.

She heard shuffling. A thud.

The killer pulled back slightly, looking towards the door.

She looked towards it as well, slightly hopeful, irrational as that was.

'Dum spiro, spero' she thought. While I breathe, I hope.

Even then, she realized, a small part of her still believed Booth would come.

Hodgins was right, she knew.

She had faith. Pure faith.

But only in Booth.

The killer turned and roughly pulled her face towards him, nicking her jaw with the blade.

He smiled at her, a cruel, sadistic smile.

She tried to imagine Booth's smile instead.

She felt the knife dig into her abdomen, piercing the skin.

He had barely cut her and the pain was already unbearable.

She felt her consciousness beginning to slip away.

The blood rushed to her head.

It hurt to breathe, to close her eyes.

Even her tears seemed to hurt.

She heard a loud cracking noise. Mumbling.

It all sounded far away. Her ears were starting to ring.

The killer twisted quickly.

The blade slid lightly over her skin. A slight laceration.

She thought she heard someone yell out 'Bones'.

She almost smiled in reflex.

How did the killer know the name only Booth called her?

She wondered if this was the final part of the serial killer's game.

To break her mentally.

She tried to bring her head up. To look at him.

Her eyes snapped open as the killer pulled her up, knife to her neck.

And then she saw him.

Booth.

He had made it. He was there.

She tried to call out to him. Instead, she began to cough.

The knife pressed harder into her neck.

Booth tried to calm her captor down, placating and pleading and threatening as his back up moved closer.

The killer grabbed her injured arm and she cried out.

The pain finally engulfed her body.

She felt even closer to losing consciousness, as the knife pricked her throat.

Just as her legs collapsed beneath her, she heard a shot go off.

And then Booth was there.

Cradling her.

Telling her she was okay. That he was there.

He was stroking her hair.

Apologizing.

She felt him kiss her forehead.

Ignoring the pain in her arm, her leg, her head, she held him tighter, crying softly into his neck.

Trying to convince herself that she was alive. In her partner's arms.

She felt her consciousness waver again.

Booth pulled her tighter to him and started to carry her out, still whispering words of comfort.

This was a better reward than dying alone. Being alive with him.

But she knew with certainty that she would once again choose dying alone if it protected her friends.

She looked up to see Booth watching her.

If it protected him.

No one wants to die alone. It was anthropologically proven. Reinforced daily in casual conversations and anthropological journals.

But she knew dying alone was the biggest comfort she'd had, as she was tortured in that dark room.

Her own contradiction of anthropological fact.

She now had a new fact, however scientifically unfounded it was.

No one wants to die alone. Until they have someone to die for.

She felt Booth hold her tighter to himself, and she smiled.

Illogical but true.