Hmm...is it just me or are we always apologizing for the delay? Well I'm turning over a new leaf...no more apologizing! We're gonna be delayed and you're gonna like it...Okay, so maybe I should lay of the sugar…and the angry pills…much luv!! :)
Writing was something Brennan had been tempted to try and give up many times growing up. The way writing could so completely consume her, so that she didn't even think of eating for hours on end, used to bother her. Her love and tendency toward writing was one of the few things in her life she couldn't control, and it both attracted and repelled her from the craft.
Times like this were part of the reason writing was such a love/hate for her. From the moment she'd sat down at her computer, after dropping Parker off with Hodgins who, thankfully, had no problem entertaining the boy for a while, she hadn't stopped in tapping at her keys even long enough to look up from her screen.
It was in this trancelike state that Zach Addy found her, spotting her through the barely ajar office door.
"Dr. Brennan, I wasn't expecting to see you anymore today," he said, surprised expression matching his tone.
It took a moment but Brennan did finally look up at him. "What? Oh, yes, I had to watch Parker this afternoon but I needed something from the lab."
"Actually I'm glad you're here. I've found some interesting fractures on some of the bones of the remains."
"Whose remains?"
"Your murder victim? What I see on the x-rays almost look like occupational stress markers."
"OSMs? On an eight year old?" Brennan frowned and rose from her seat, reaching for her blue lab coat near the door, "Okay, why don't you show me what you've got."
Brennan pulled back her hair and followed Zach to the platform.
"What's this?" Parker asked curiously, peering at a pinned bug behind a pane of glass in Hodgins' office.
"A beetle." Hodgins muttered.
"No, what's it's real name?"
"Oh, um," He rubbed his eyes and took a closer look at the insect the boy indicated, "Anoplophora glabripennis."
"And this?"
He looked up from his computer slowly. He honestly liked Parker, but he really really had to get done with this report that was due yesterday. "Pachydiplax longipennis."
"And-"
"Tell you what, Park. You look at this book while I finish my paperwork, and then I'll tell you everything you want to know about any bug you like."
Parker shrugged and took the book over to Hodgins' couch. He flipped through it for a few minutes lingering on the large photos of ants and spiders, but was quickly bored. He looked up and saw Dr. Hodgins typing furiously on his computer. He'd been excited about coming to the lab, and was disappointed when he'd been stuck in an office for the entire time. Now he saw his chance, and with a mischievous glint in his eye, he left the office, determined to do a little exploring.
Hodgins clicked 'save' and then clapped his hands triumphantly. "Ok, Parker I'm done…Parker?" He looked around the room, but didn't see the boy in question. The sound of the security alarm on the platform going off sent him careening out of the office.
"You're right Zach, these marks on the joints and extremities are unusual in a child of this age, but not altogether inexplicable." She paused her tape recorder and looked at Zach, "They look to me like athletic injuries…soccer maybe."
Zach stepped around Angela, who was perched on a stool at the end of the table reconstructing the decomposed face for their files, and bent low and squinted. "That seems like a lot of old fracturing for a soccer league an 8 year old would be in. What about abuse?"
Brennan nodded. "That's also a possibility. Why don't you take some x-rays for me, and I'll take them with me the next time Booth and I go to talk to the victim's father. I'll see what I can find out."
Zach moved to begin this task, when both scientists were startled by the sound of a voice from behind.
"Bones I'm bored again, can we…" Parker was taking the stairs two at a time, casually approaching Brennan on the platform.
"Parker don't!" Her words were cut off by the deafening noise of the security alarm as he tripped it on the top step. Rushing past him, she swiped her own card to stop the alarm, not wanting the noise would scare him.
With a deep breath she turned around, intending to quickly escort Parker off the platform and then read him the riot act for leaving Hodgins.
Parker was standing stone still, three feet from her exam table, and right at his eye level, were the remains of a badly decomposed body hardly larger than his own. Parker's eyes grew wide and the color rushed from his face, he couldn't look away. The smell was like nothing he'd ever experienced, but the sight of it was more than he could take. It looked vaguely like something he should recognize, but at the same time, like a monster from a movie his parents would never let him see. His stomach started to churn uncomfortably.
Angela, seeing that Brennan had froze, stood quickly and tried to turn him away.
"Don't look at that sweetie, let's just get…"
Before she could finish her sentence Parker doubled over and vomited up the grilled cheese and milk Brennan had made him an hour earlier.
Springing back to life, Brennan stepped past him, moving all the tools and remains she could reach further away. "I need a Biomatter Containment Crew on the platform right now!"
The lab suddenly sprung into action, scaring the boy further when he was quickly ushered down the steps and away from the remains. Brennan heard Parker crying over the noise and commotion and turned to try and find him. She spotted him a few yards away with Angela who was desperately trying to calm him down.
"Oh no." She said to herself, when she saw how clearly distraught the little boy was. But before she could even take a step in their direction, a deep, angry, familiar voice bellowed throughout the lab and everyone looked up.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Booth could tell something was wrong as soon as he walked into the Jeffersonian. The normally peaceful and quiet Fortress of Science was bustling with noise before he even got to the Medico-Legal lab doors. A few skittish techs rushed past him and he noticed the security guards standing away from their station and peeking inside. His first thought was that Hodgins and Zach had managed to blow something up, which would have ordinarily been somewhat comical. But in his left pocket was the note Brennan had left him at the apartment that said she'd taken Parker to the lab, and the last thing Booth wanted was to have his five-year-old hanging out with Tweedledee and Tweedledum when they had C4 and too much time on their hands.
His bad feeling got worse when he finally got to the lab and saw that all hell had broke loose. At first he couldn't distinguish one blue lab coat from another, and all the rushing and yelling were distracting at best. But his hearing, made sensitive not through army training but through fatherhood, caught hold of the sound of Parker's wailing almost immediately. His eyes darted around, his heartbeat speeding up, as he tried to locate his son in the chaos. A couple of guys in white, plastic suits crossed his path and then he saw him. Angela was kneeing in front of a nearly hysterical Parker trying to soothe him, but failing.
Worried, he yelled a little louder than he had intended, making a beeline for Parker.
"Daddy!" Parker looked up and saw his father rushing toward him he off Angela's hands, reaching for his dad.
When Booth scooped up his son he could see that the boy had been sick, but hugged him close anyway, knowing a large dry cleaning bill was in his future and not caring one iota.
"Temperance! What happened? What are you guys doing here? I thought you were going to watch a movie at the apartment." He cradled Parker, who was now hiccupping, to his shoulder and tried to soothe him as best he could.
"We were but…" She tried to explain as she approached.
Booth looked past her, at the platform. Techs rushing up and down the steps, alarms, lights blinking on and off. Zach and Hodgins and beyond them, the remains of Kyle Duncan.
His eyes widened when he put two and two together.
"Temperance, was Parker on the platform?" He asked, his voice dropping dangerously low, a cross between anger and horror on his face.
Brennan looked briefly at Parker, who was clutching his father with all his strength, his face pressed hard into Booth's shoulder. "Yes. But it was an accident, he was with Hodgins and…"
Booth shook his head, gritting his teeth, "I don't want to hear it," and the he turned and stalked away.
Brennan watched him until he disappeared behind the men's bathroom doors. She took a deep breath and glanced around the lab. The noise and chaos had died down, but it would take at least half an hour to reset the system. Normally this would have upset and annoyed her to no end. But in that moment all she cared about was Parker and Booth, and knowing that she'd screwed up so badly made her feel worse than any biomatter contamination ever could have.
"Sweetie are you-" Angela started to lay a hand on Brennan's shoulder but she shrugged it off.
"I'll be in my office."
And that's where she went, immediately shutting and locking the door.
Several minutes later Booth emerged from the bathroom carrying Parker and started for the exit.
"Booth!" Angela spotted him before he got too far, "Booth wait, please."
"Angela I don't want to talk about it." He said, not slowing his stride.
"Please Booth don't do this." She reached out to touch his arm and stopped him just short of the doors.
"Angela…"
She interrupted, seeing that he was still agitated. "I understand you're upset-"
"Damn right I-"
"And rightly so," She continued quickly, not wanting to give him a chance to protest, "but she locked herself in her office and hasn't come out."
"If she wants to sulk then that's her business I just need to get Parker home."
"Booth please." She took a deep breath and glanced once again back at Brennan's closed office door. Booth flickered his gaze in that direction but quickly turned away.
"Look, she screwed up, alright? She knows that, and she's sorry. Please don't leave with things like this Booth, this could break you." Catching his attention she made sure to lock with his eyes so he understood the gravity of their current situation, "You have to talk with her Booth. Don't leave it like this."
Booth stood silently for several minutes, shifting Parker in his arms. He looked up at Angela's pleading face proffering one last excuse.
"What am I supposed to do with Parker?"
"I'll take him," she answered quickly.
He sighed, then turned his toward his son, who'd been resting his head against his Booth's shoulder and had begun to doze off. "Alright bud, you want to stay with Ange for a few minutes? I'll be right back, I've just got to talk with Bones."
Though reluctant at first, after a bit of coaxing, Parker finally released his father's neck and took hold of Angela's hand as she led him to her office.
"And Angela-"
"I won't let him out of my sight, I promise."
Booth stood outside Brennan's office door for several moments before knocking, instead staring a hole in the tile floor below him. He was still angry, he couldn't deny that. And trying to 'talk' about anything with his girlfriend when either of them was angry was never a good idea. But he also knew it was possible that Angela was right. Brennan was insecure about spending time with Parker, and while he always tried to encourage her, this whole ordeal hadn't done much to put either of them at ease.
He knocked softly and waited, one hand on his hip near his badge, the other massaging his brow slowly.
"Bones, it's me." He said, when there was no answer.
After a few moments he heard the click of the lock being disengaged but the door didn't open. When he entered her office she was standing with her back to him, seemingly perusing her plethora of forensics books.
He stepped inside and watched her for a moment. At first glance she seemed completely disinterested in his presence. But he was inclined to look a little closer than the average person and he could see that her shoulders and spine were rigid and that she wasn't actually perusing the books, but staring at one title and probably not really reading it at all.
"How's Parker?"
He tilted his head at the tightness in her voice. "He's with Angela. Probably sleeping by now, he was a little worn out."
She nodded and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, still facing away from him.
"You want to tell me what happened?" He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, trying to speak in a tone that was a little more gentle than what he felt.
She looked skyward and shrugged helplessly. "We were at home, watching a movie. I'd gone to the kitchen to-"
"Can you at least look at me please?"
She froze and after a moment, turned slowly to face him, studiously avoiding looking at his face.
"I'd gone to the kitchen to write and then I heard a loud crash and I was worried he'd hurt himself but when I got to him he was fine but he'd dropped my Ethiopian tribal mask and shattered it." She paused and sniffed, giving Booth the first indication of why she wouldn't look him in the eye. She'd been crying. "I got upset and he started crying and he wouldn't stop and the only thing that would calm him down was the idea of coming to the lab."
His anger began to quickly melt away and he dropped his arms, slowly moving toward her. When he was inches away he reached up with one hand and tilted her head.
"I'm sorry he broke your mask." He said quietly, drawing his thumb across her cheek to wipe away a few fresh tears. "And I forgive you."
She searched his eyes for several moments, and when she found truth she let a small smile slip across her lips.
"But I need some time with him, okay? I need to talk to him, do some damage control."
Her eyes and her smile dropped. When he saw this he let his forehead rest against hers and rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
"Why don't you…go out for drinks with Angela or something?"
She nodded dejectedly and Booth used his finger to tilt her face up to his once more and kissed her softly. "You're still my favorite girl. And I love you. Just give me some time, okay?"
She nodded and smiled for his benefit, kissing him one more time before he left.
Angela came in soon after and tentatively knocked on the door. Brennan looked up from where she was staring at her computer, her chapter and deadline long forgotten.
"Hey, how are you?"
"I'm fine." She shrugged and sat leaned back, "Booth said to give him some time alone with Parker, so I'm just trying to finish up on this chapter." That was what she was trying to do, but since Booth and Parker had left, she'd been mostly unsuccessful.
"Why don't you just get out of here, huh? You work too much."
Brennan's eyes flew up to Angela's, remembering Booth had made a similar remark that morning.
"I do not." She replied a bit too defensively.
Angela raised her eyebrows at the sharp tone. "Sorry sweetie, I didn't mean to offend."
Brennan closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. "No, it's not your fault Ange. I guess I just…this whole thing with Parker, it's got me a little…"
"On edge?"
"Yeah. It's just that…Parker - and in a way, all kids - they're so important to Booth. And over and over today I did everything wrong."
Angela waited several seconds before responding, and then did so in as gentle a tone as she could. "You're right. They are important. But you know what else is important to Booth?"
Brennan looked up. "What?"
"You." Angela waited, hoping to see the light bulb of hope flicker on over her friend's head, and was more than a little concerned when she didn't right away, "Listen, I'm staying at Jack's tonight. That means I'll have practically a whole mansion to myself. I'll be lonely without you. Come over, you can tell me more about your college experimentation."
This got a bit of a smile from Brennan but she shook her head. "Thanks Ange, but I think I'll just stay here for a while."
"You're sure?"
Brennan nodded and proffered as much of a smile as she could and Angela shrugged.
"Okay. If you need me you know where I'll be."
"Thanks."
A half an hour later most of the people from the lab had gone. There were still a few other doctors and techs rummaging around, preferring the tranquility of night rather than the commotion of day to get their work done, but for the most part the place was deserted. Brennan spent another fifteen minutes trying to write something, all with no success.
Finally, in a little bit worse of a mood than she had been in before, she shut down her computer, grabbed her purse and headed for the parking lot. The 'get a drink part' of Booth's suggestion was beginning to look very appealing.
TBC