CHAPTER 1: Crash and Burn
Disclaimers: I don't own any of these characters. I just like to borrow them from time to time
Rating: T+
AN: After every ones glowing reviews for Ransom, I had to start another story right away. So this is for all my faithful reviewers. You know the drill… R&R! Please Please Please!
At eleven o'clock at night, Temperance stood in the parking lot of the Jeffersonian, fumbling with her car keys. She mentally cursed herself for working so late—again.
Fog had rolled into DC sometime during the night, and wrapped her in its damp embrace. She could barely see two feet in front of her, which was making it damn hard to get her key into the lock.
After the third try, she finally succeeded in unlocking the door, visibly wincing when she thought about all the scratches she had surely put on it. Sliding in, she closed the door and began her onerous journey home, through fog so thick you could cut it with a knife.
She was almost home, when headlights appeared behind her. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she frowned. The other driver was so far up her ass, she was surprised they weren't touching bumpers. Temperance sped up a little, to see if they would back off, but they only accelerated. Fear was starting to creep up her spine when the car slammed her from behind, throwing Temperance hard against her seat belt. Gasping from the impact, she sped up, hoping she could lose them. Glancing at the speedometer she saw that she was going almost sixty, a dangerous speed to be going when she couldn't see a damn thing. The car was still behind her, as she passed her street. There was no way she was leading this asshole to her house. She figured she could drive to the police station, she doubted that they would follow her there. The only problem was that it was a good twenty miles away, and she wasn't so sure she would make it. With her speed slowly creeping up to seventy, she jerked the wheel, and sped onto the freeway.
The headlights stayed hot on her tail.
Tremors began to rack her body, as the car rammed her again. Temperance almost spun out, just barely gaining control again. She had reached ninety miles an hour now, and she knew that the probability of her surviving a crash at this speed was very low.
Reaching into her bag, she grabbed her cell phone, and hit speed dial. After a few rings, a familiar voice answered. "Booth." She smiled despite herself. If she was going to die, she wanted to hear his voice one last time. Morbid, perhaps, but if Temperance Brennan was anything, she was a realist.
"Hi." Her voice came out shaky, and that pissed her off.
"Bones? What's wrong?" He became instantly alert.
"Someone is trying to kill me." She told him matter-of-factly.
"What!" She heard rustling, and figured he was getting dressed. Her knight in shining armor, as Angela would say.
"I'm on the freeway, and a car keeps hitting me."
Booth heard the fear in her voice and let out a vicious string of curses. "Okay, okay—just relax." He said more to himself then to her.
"Shit!"
Her scream was followed by a horrific crunching sound, and all he could do was stand there frozen, as his whole world began crumbling down around him. He closed his eyes, praying to God that she was alive. Fear was like a vise around his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.
"Bones?" He didn't expect a reply, he knew with ever fiber of his being that she had crashed. Springing into action, he ran from his apartment, and jumped in his SUV. As he sped down the road, he called 911.
"Okay, sir, where did you say the crash was?"
"I don't know," he growled. "Somewhere on the freeway."
He heard some typing, and then she replied, "okay, we already have a unit on their way, a young woman called it in a few minutes ago."
Booth hung up the phone, and pressed his foot down on the gas, not caring that he could get himself killed. The only thing he could think of was the woman he loved, dying. He didn't even realize that was wearing only boxers and a t-shirt.
Booth saw the red and white lights flashing in the distance, and slowed his truck, pulling to the side of the road. He got out, and ran the short distance, to where Temperance's car was. He paled when he saw the condition it was in… nobody could live through that, could they?
It looked like a crushed soda can, lying upside down. Before he realized what he was doing, he jumped the guard rail and ran down to the wreckage. A uniform officer tried to stop him, but he pushed the man out of the way roughly. He caught a patch of mud and slid the last few feet, coming to a stop right before the driver side door.
What he saw with in made his blood run cold. Temperance was upside down, dangling in place by her seat belt. Blood was dripping from a nasty gash in her forehead, and he couldn't tell whether or not she was breathing.
"Sir, you can't be here!" The officer shouted. Turning on his heel he grabbed the man by his collar.
"I'm FBI you son of a bitch, and that is my partner." Whatever the young cop saw in Booth's face made him blanch, and take a step back. "Why aren't you people working to get her out of there!" He shouted to the crew of EMT's that stood off to the side watching the scene.
"The door is stuck," one answered, "we're waiting for the jaws of life."
"She might be dead by then." He growled.
Fuck this, he thought viciously. Grabbing on to the doorframe, through the broken window, he put on foot on the car for leverage, and pulled with all his might. The car groaned, but held firm. He yanked again, and again, with strength born of adrenaline, after the third try, the whole door ripped off.
Unbuckling her gently, he caught her as she dropped, and carried her to the waiting ambulance.
"You shouldn't have done that sir, she could have a broken neck."
Booth shot the man an angry look, "if I waited for you, she would have bled to death." If she wasn't dead already, as soon as that thought entered his head, he banished it. She wasn't dead, that was not an option.
After he laid her on the gurney, he stepped back and let the medical crew do their jobs.
"Is she alive?" He asked after a few tense minutes of examination.
The man that he snapped at earlier gave him a reassuring smile. "Yes sir, her pulse is weak, but it's there, and it doesn't appear to be any broken bones, but we'll need x-rays to verify that." Glancing down at Booth's hands, he said, "you should probably have those looked at as well, you'll probably need some stitches."
Confusion painted his face, as he looked at his hands, noticing for the first time that they were badly cut. There must have been glass shards in the window frame. "Fine, but I'm riding with her."
The look on his face broached no arguments. And after seeing him rip off a car door with his bare hands, no one was brave enough to oppose.
Well, what do you think??