Summary: Booth was reluctant to drop his partner off. But he did. And in the morning, she was gone. The next time he saw her, he wanted to look away. [eventually BB. HA
Genre: Drama/Romance
Author's Note: So, I've dropped Away From the Sun for a while. Another idea popped up instead, can be a bit of a cliché, I don't know…but well, just read first, judge later. And when you're at it, please drop of a review. It would mean
Chapter 1 – Request for Balance
The Jeffersonian Medico-Lab was since long dark and shut down for the night. The screens were black, the machines weren't beeping and the usually occupied platform was vacant and dark. Except from the room in the farther corner of the laboratory, a warm light escaped through the glass wall. Temperance Brennan's office was rarely dark and empty, and now wasn't an exception. She was seated by her desk, files spread across the surface and a forgotten cup of coffee in the corner. Chin resting in her hand, she gazed down on the crime scene photos before her.
She wanted to forget the gruesome sight but it had somehow stuck in her head. She rarely let the cases go personal, but this time…there had been something different about it. Swallowing hard, she put the photos aside and tried to work on her report. But the images came back. The visually untouched house, locked for the day while its occupants continued on with their lives. Toys scattered in the yard. It didn't look like a crime scene. Opening the door, still not a crime scene. Just a home. But then… The basement. The horrible smell. The bodies.
Almost angry with herself, Temperance put down her pen. Why did this come back to her now? The case was over. She and Booth had closed it four days ago. They'd arrested the killer, handed their official case file to the prosecutor. It should be over. Suddenly, she jumped when she heard the faint sound of footsteps echo from the lab area. It was almost eleven pm. A second later she calmed down. She recognized the steps.
"I knew that I would find you here" Seeley Booth fired of a smile and entered the office.
"Booth, why are you here?" she asked. She already knew what his answer was, but what else to say? When it was late night and Booth stopped by, their conversation always began with why he'd come and he'd answer that he was there to force her home. It often ended with Booth staying another hour before he convinced Brennan to leave.
"To make sure you don't have a sleepover with your dead buddies here" he said, flopping down on the brown leather couch, stretching his long legs. Brennan made a face, an expression between annoyed and amused, then leaned back in her chair.
"I wasn't planning to, either"
He eyed her with the look again. The sympathetic look that meant that he understood her but he seriously wanted her to do things his way. "Go home, Bones. It's late. The bodies and the bad guys will still be here tomorrow"
"I'll get going in a few minutes"
"You've said that before, and in the morning I find you sleeping on this couch with a sore neck and a grumpy mood all day. You go home, now" he said gently but firmly.
"Booth…can we make a deal?" Brennan spoke slowly.
He eyed her surprised. Temperance Brennan rarely switched subject. "Okay…" he said.
"That we never have this conversation again. This whole…you-forcing-me-home-thing"
"I'm not forcing anyone. See it as…a kind of advice. An advice from a friend. Okay, Bones? And, my advice is also," he paused for emphasis. ", to take the rest of my wise suggestions" he smiled his charm smile.
She couldn't help but smile back. Part of her was relieved that he'd showed up. She got a slightly uneasy feeling about being alone with those crime scene photos. Stupid and silly, she knew that but something about this case had pierced through the walls she put up everyday to prevent cases from getting to her.
"What are you thinking about?" Booth's voice snapped her out of her reverie. Why did he have to do that, always notice when her thoughts wandered for a moment or two.
"Nothing" she quickly denied.
"Bones, I know when you're thinking about something. Come on, tell me"
She kept quiet and Booth slowly nodded. "It's about the case. It got to you"
"It shouldn't have"
"But it did"
"It ever happens to you?" she wondered. She knew that Booth had seen and experienced more sides of death than she had. His time as a sniper still caught up with him sometimes, he'd told her more than once.
"Of course it does"
"I'm just not used to it" she said with a small shrug. "But…there was something about Stephanie…I just can't put my finger on it"
Booth nodded. He understood completely. And he knew exactly why this case had gotten to Brennan. He was slightly surprised that she hadn't confided in him about it. Maybe it was too much after the tough case. They'd arrested Stephanie Anderton for double-homicide. The bodies in her basement were her two foster kids, five and eight years old. When Booth had found out that the children had been foster kids, he knew Brennan would react strongly. This wasn't the first time they worked cases related to the foster system. And apparently, he'd been right. But what was unexpected was that she hadn't talked about it. Not this time.
"It's okay, Bones. I know what you mean"
"And the look on her boyfriends face…he seemed so cold" she said absently. Booth only nodded. He'd noticed too. Stephanie's boyfriend, Ben, had been there when they arrested Stephanie. The look on his face had been unreadable and had given him an uneasy feeling; apparently the same had occurred to Brennan.
He let her be lost in her own thoughts for a while, practically being able to see her mind work and try to draw comprehensible conclusions that she could accept without any fuss. It was interesting really, to watch her mind work. Her eyes focused on one point before here with an expression that told others to let her be alone until she'd reached a final decision. Apparently, her mind worked rather quickly this night, and Booth soon saw her eyes warm up again, now averting to meet his own.
"Come on, now. It's late, Bones. I'll give you a ride" he offered and stood. She tilted her head slightly and glared at him.
"Fine"
"Hey, what's with the attitude? Here I come, offering you a ride home and you shoot icy glares at me"
"Shut up, Booth" Brennan said, but she smiled. She lightly elbowed him in the side as she shut off the lights and headed out, Booth faithfully trailing behind her.
--
During the ride to Brennan's apartment, they both sat quiet. No words needed this late. After the 20-minute drive, he pulled the car over outside her apartment building.
"I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for the ride" Brennan said, grabbing her purse from the backseat.
"No problem" Booth said, smiling softly. He only wanted her home safe, but he suspected that if he said that out loud, he had a skeptic glare and a light slap to await.
"You better bring on some real work tomorrow" Brennan half-joked. "Paper-work is getting boring"
Booth smiled at her. He could never have imagined that a woman, who'd been so rejecting towards the thought of partnership, had grown to love the fieldwork possibly more than he did. He always saw how working outside that office made a whole different engagement show from her side.
"I'll see what I can do. Good night"
"Goodnight, Booth" she closed the car door behind her and walked up the steps to the porch. Booth lingered until he'd made sure she'd unlocked the door and stepped inside. As he thought, she turned around, waved exasperatedly at him before slipping inside and closing the heavy door behind her. He watched her silhouette move up the steps to the second floor.
Content, he shifted the gear and drove off.
--
The next morning, Booth whistled silently to himself as he entered the Jeffersonian the next morning, a manila folder in hand. A hot new case had been waiting on his desk that morning and he knew that Bones would appreciate to escape from the stack of reports. No matter how hard she denied it, Booth secretly knew how much she resented the paperwork-part of the job. She may be a best selling author but she didn't like the reports. And Booth understood. He didn't like them either.
The double glass door slid open and he stepped inside, taking in the familiar lab area. People in navy blue lab coats hurried around with clipboard, evidence bags and glass containers in different sizes and shapes, filled with something he would never understand what it was. He spotted Zack squinting at some old bone up on the platform, Hodgins standing next to him, impatiently trying to get the young scientists attention. Booth smiled to himself. Zack really was an interesting person. And so was Hodgins. Brennan was lucky to work with such…well different people. It was a whole different thing with his colleagues at the Hoover building. All dressed in their suits, with ties and expensive dress shoes. All the same.
As he approached Brennan's office he mentally froze. She wasn't there. It usually meant she was somewhere in the lab, working on some bones from limbo. But his agent training had taught him to immediately notice the details and now, one little detail bothered him. The navy blue lab coat with T Brennan embroided on the breast pocket, was still hanging on the coat rack where it had been when they left the previous night. And Brennan never handled remains without lab coat and latex gloves. Then his trained eyes noticed Angela pacing around her office, phone in hand.
Suddenly, alarm bells began to ring as his brain put the details together to form a bigger picture. Angela looked worried. There was no doubt in who wasn't picking up.
"Booth! Have you talked to Bren this morning?" Angela hissed as he entered her office. Her brown, intensive eyes fixed on his and he hated himself for shaking his head.
"No. Haven't seen her since last night. Everything okay, Ange?" he sounded worried now, he knew that.
"It's almost nine! Why isn't she here?!" Angela said frantically, punching speed dial on her cell again. "I only get voice mail and I already left five messages"
"She probably slept in" Booth tried but knew it sounded unlikely even in his ears. Brennan never slept in. Never once.
"You don't mean it" Angela said simply. "Maybe we should go check out her apartment?"
"Calm down, Ange. She probably got busy with something at work. She'll be here" Booth once again tried to convince both himself and Angela that it was okay. Even if he knew it wasn't.
They waited another ten minutes, if Brennan would call back. She didn't. Angela left a seventh message before sighing heavily.
"She's not there" she said, snapping her phone shut and sinking down in her chair. "Something's wrong here…This feels wrong, Booth" she said, turning her worried face up towards him. He bit down on his lip and took a deep breath. Memories came back. From the Kenton case, the Gravedigger case that still left nightmare lingering in his mind every night. In the back of his head, he always carried the impressions and emotions from the tough serial killer case.
"Come on, we should go and check her apartment!" Angela suddenly stood again, grabbing her winter coat from the back of her chair. It was in the middle of October and it felt like the chilly winter weather had already reached DC. Booth nodded absently.
"Maybe…" he said, trying to come up with some excuse to why Temperance wasn't at the Jeffersonian at nine thirty am a regular Thursday morning.
"Come on" Angela grabbed her set of keys and burst out the door, not waiting to check if Booth followed or not.
He didn't. He remained in the vacant office for a moment. Angela's art hanging on the walls were looking down at him but today he was in no mood to come up with a remark about them. What could have happened since he dropped her off last night? Had she gone out afterwards? Remembering that she'd forgotten to pick something up at the grocery store? Had she gone back to the lab again to pick up some files? He peered out of Angela's office, into Brennan's. No, the stack of files was still placed on her currently messy desk. He checked his phone for the hundredth time, she hadn't tried to call or send him a message. Sighing, he put the phone back in his pocket and left to find out where Angela had gone.
--
Rounding the platform, he spotted Angela by the glass doors he'd entered through roughly fifteen minutes ago. She was talking to someone. It was a guy in his early twenties wearing some kind of a uniform. Blue with a grey hat. Booth soon recognized him. A delivery guy. He took the clipboard back from Angela and handed him the small, glaring white envelope he had with him. The guy made a slight bow and smiled before walking away. Angela stared at the envelope and twirled it in her hands.
"Ange, everything okay?" Booth asked as he jogged over to her. The artist didn't answer, but kept staring blankly at the front of the envelope. Her name was written hastily with black marker. "Angela? Did he say who it was from?" Booth tried again. Angela wordlessly handed the envelope to him.
"You open it" was all she said. She couldn't do it herself. Her gut told her it was something about Bren and if it was some horrible picture in there, she didn't want to see it. Booth accepted the envelope and without fuss tore it open. A single piece of paper fell out and he frowned as he read what it said.
"Big brother is watching you" he read out loud.
"That's all it says?" Angela now dared to glance down at the paper, over his shoulder.
"No. It's some kind of code and then, what I guess is a website" he turned the paper over and examined it's backside. Blank. The words were typed, not written by hand as the envelope.
"Did the guy said who sent it? If someone left some kind of message?" Booth tried again and now he received a duh-look that he usually associated with Brennan.
"It's about Bren!"
"How can you be so sure? Maybe it's just some squinty-romantic thing from Hodgins?"
"It's not his handwriting. Come on, let's check it out"
Shrugging out of her coat, Angela hurried back to her office and pressed a random key on her keyboard and the desktop appeared within a millisecond. Quickly clicked on the icon for the browser and soon a window popped up. With skilled fingers, she typed the address and hit "Enter". Another window popped up.
"What does it say?" Booth asked, now obviously eager to find out what it was since his first theory about another of the semi-silly gifts exchanged between Angela and Hodgins, was extinguished.
"The numbers…It's a password" she mumbled and typed in the letters and numbers. After hitting Enter again a hourglass appeared and began to spin.
"It's a video clip, I think" Angela said, mostly to herself. She didn't expect Booth to understand the "heavier" computer terms including file types and such.
Impatiently, they both waited as the hourglass spun aimlessly on the screen, otherwise only showing a blank white page.
"What's taking so long?" Booth wondered. He was used to that everything went rather fast in this lab. Angela never got the time to answer as a gasp escaped her mouth as the hourglass disappeared and the screen wasn't white anymore. True, it was a video feed.
"What the…-" Booth's voice betrayed him and he could only focus on the screen. He could see Bones. Aimlessly pacing what seemed to be a very small room. No windows, only her pacing the dirty floor. Angela covered her mouth with her hand in shock as she watched her friend. Brennan was walking back and forth, running her hand through her already messy hair. As his brain started to create comprehensible thoughts, Booth noticed that she wore the same clothes as when he'd dropped her off last night.
"Oh my God! Where is she? What's going on? Booth?" Angela looked up at him, questioning.
"I…don't know"
"But you dropped her off at home last night, what could have happened?" Silence. "Booth?!"
"I don't know!!" Now he yelled and Angela winced. Booth had only yelled like this once before. During the Gravedigger case. "Some sick bastard's got her…The son of a bitch…" he muttered and clenched his fist. This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd given her a ride home to prevent things from happening. Things like this. And what was so disturbing was that they weren't working a case at the moment. It could be anyone whom they'd pissed off during a previous case. That roughly meant almost 70 case files with twice as many suspects.
"I'm going to call the Bureau, maybe…-" he was interrupted as the video feed was cut off and a sentence showed up.
"What I dream of is an art of balance" Angela read.
"What? What does he mean by that?" Booth asked.
"He's quoting someone…" Angela muttered. She spun around in her chair, turning towards her MacBook. Quickly typing something she scrolled down a web page.
"Henri Matisse"
"Who?"
"He's quoting Henri Matisse"
"And that is?" Booth asked exasperatedly. Like he kept a list of whom said what.
"French painter, if I don't remember it wrong"
"I'm calling the Bureau" Booth said and with that stormed out of Angela's office. As he walked through the corridor for a secluded corner to make his phone call, he froze as all impressions and emotions caught up with him. This had happened before. Memories from the Gravedigger case floated back into his mind. The call. The cryptic message from Hodgins that no one had seemed to be able to interpret. How he'd clasped her hand after frantically digging where he'd seen the little cloud of smoke. He squeezed his eyes shut and he gripped his cell phone firmly. Taking a deep breath he flipped it open and prepared to explain the situation to the director.
--
Angela remained in her office, staring at the screen. The Henri Matisse quote still glared back at her. What I dream if is an art of balance. Art of balance? Suddenly it felt like her brain wasn't working. Bren was kidnapped. By someone they didn't know who it was. They were back in the emotional roller coaster they'd been riding one time too much. Booth already looked like hell, his eyes had become empty and Angela sighed. She felt so incredibly helpless.
First chapter! I know, the ending is kind of crappy but I'll try and make up for it in the second chapter. What did you think? Worth continuing? Please drop off a review. All you fellow fanfic writers know how appreciated reviews are.