Give up the Fight
Title: Give Up the Fight
Author: Berta 101
Pairing: Brennan/Booth, Brennan/OC
Rating: T Just to be safe
Spoilers: None, as far as I can tell
Summary: Brennan travels to Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by Civil War. There she meets someone who will change her outlook on life.
A/N: I was inspired to write this one after reading Ishmael Beah’s A Long Time Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and listening to Greenday’s song 21 Guns. Beah’s book is unbelievable! I loved it so much!
Also, I would just like to say that, in no way, am I attacking the people of Sierra Leone or it’s country. I believe that it’s a Civil War that not many people know about and think it’s about time we learn. If I have offended anyone, I apologize and please feel free message me.
I don’t own Bones or it’s characters. I also don’t own Sierra Leone and I’ve never been there so any references to it is all researched.
Let me know what you think!
I hope you Enjoy!
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn’t pass
Nothing’s ever built to last
You’re in ruins
She wished she was at home. She wished she was at home in her small apartment where there was electricity and clean running water. Of course Brennan knew she was being shallow, but it was hard to forget the comforts of home when she was deep in the dangerous jungles of Sierra Leone with thirteen others looking for children that had been displaced from the Civil War that had broken out here almost a year and a half ago.
Two months ago, Brennan had received a letter in the mail from UNICEF’s Human Rights Watch Division Advisory Committee explaining that she had been chosen to go to the war torn country for six weeks to help recover, not only children who had been displaced, but child soldiers as well, and bring them back to a rehab centre where they would hopefully (if they were lucky) be reintegrated into society.
To say the least, she was surprised. She had singed up for the job a good 15 years ago when she was still in High School and was looking to find her place in the world, but she had never heard back from them. Two weeks, countless conversations with Cam and a long, goodbye with Booth, Brennan found herself on a plane heading for Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by Civil War.
Just two days into it, Brennan was sent on an expedition into the jungle. They were to search for the government’s army, who was said to be close by. When they reached the army’s makeshift camp, the negotiator and translator spent almost an hour speaking with the group’s leader before it was considered safe to leave the confines of the hefty all terrain vehicle they had arrived in.
It was during that visit to the camp that Brennan met a little boy that answered to the name Josiah. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old and the AK-47 he was clutching to his chest as though it was his life line was bigger than him. One look at this little boy, and she knew she had made the right decision to come here. This war wasn’t worth dying for, but these boys (the eldest looked about 16) had no choice but to fight. . . Or be killed. And even then, the chances of survival were slim. Yes, Brennan was happy she’d come.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They ended up taking twelve of the boys back to the rehab centre with them in their white UNICEF labelled vehicles. Their translator, Mohammed, explained to the kids what was happening.
Josiah was not happy at the rehab centre. It was clear that all he had known in his short little life was war and violence. Later that night, Mohammed had explained to Brennan that these boys had essentially been brain washed into thinking that violence and war was the only way to live . . . To survive. They had been taught that killing, raping and stealing was the way things were done, and it was their right because they were a part of the Government’s Army.
That was Brennan’s first, and last journey in to the jungle. They were extremely short handed on volunteers and so she had been assigned to stay at the Rehab centre as it’s very own therapist. The decision baffled Brennan, but she didn’t argue. Honestly, she didn’t know how many more jungle excursions she could have handled. They gave her a list of questions to get started, and every night, one by one, the twelve boys would be sent individually to speak with her.
For the first tree weeks they had to be forced into her office, where they would proceed to throw foreign objects like staplers or notepads at her head until she let them leave. By the time the first child spoke to her without trying to kill her, or thinking she was an enemy rebel, Brennan had learned enough of the native language to hold a steady conversation with little help from Mohammed. Surprisingly, it was the little boy who had caught her eye at the very beginning who spoke to her first.
“My name is Temperance, Josiah.” She spoke gently, with a small smile. “ I’m glad you decided to come speak with me today.”
Josiah slouched in the plastic chair but his tiny legs still didn’t reach the ground. He shrugged with indifference. “When do I get to go home? Will I get my weapon back?” His tiny hands were balled into fists and Brennan noticed that his little knuckles were white with rage.
That was when she saw the scars. It was obvious what they were from. Gunshot wounds. More than one. The bullets had either grazed is legs, his left cheek, were stuck in the bone, or were long, white scars from a machete slicing through his skin. She counted eight wounds on his legs alone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Booth, I can’t come home. Not right now. These kids. . . they need me.” She was speaking to Booth on her office phone through a broken connection. It was slow at best.
“What do you mean you aren’t coming home? You’ve already been there for two months longer than expected.”
She sighed. “I know Booth, but you haven’t seen these kids. Josiah has finally stopped asking me when he can have his weapons back and just told me yesterday what happened to his family.” She paused, wondering if Booth would be able to handle little Josiah’s story. “They made him watch, Booth. These rebels made an eight year old boy watch as they raped his mother and sister before killing them and his father.” she paused, gathering her thoughts, listening to silence on the other end. “He doesn’t have anybody else.” She whispered.
It was silent on the other end for a long time.
When Booth finally spoke, his voice was filled with compassion. “Just do what you need to do, Bones. I’ll be here for you when you get back.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Booth.”
Brennan was exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained. She missed her apartment and her lab. She missed her friends and coworkers. She missed Booth. Today had been the type of day where she just felt like packing it in and heading home.
She suspected it had something to do with the fact that her life had just been threatened again by a twelve year old boy, who had somehow managed to smuggle a live grenade into the building, for the third time that week.
On the bright side though, Josiah and her were quickly becoming friends. He was nine years old now and was slowly learning to trust Brennan. He had no problem talking to her now, and he seemed a little bit more like a normal nine year old boy everyday. He had lost his childhood a long time ago and she was going to help him get it back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brennan had been in Sierra Leone for just over eleven months now. She had been scheduled to leave many times, but always cancelled at the last minute. She couldn’t leave. Not when so many little lives still needed her help. About four months ago, Booth had hopped on a flight and had stayed for two weeks. He had met Josiah and they were instantly best friends. They had met before; about six months ago, Brennan had grown tired of not being able to see her family, so she had set up a webcam on her laptop, and whenever Josiah was in her office, he and Booth would have small conversations. They had been communicating that way ever since.
Part of it was saying goodbye to Josiah. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to leave him behind. She knew what would happen. After he left the rehab facility, he would run straight back to the life of a boy soldier. It was the only life he really knew, or could remember. Unfortunately, that was what happened to most of the boys when they were reintegrated. Some tried to stay out of trouble, but one little slip up, and they would run for the trees.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a turning point the day that Josiah walked into her office unannounced with another boy following reluctantly behind. He was a little shorter than Josiah, who was almost ten years old now, and his clothes were dirty and stained with dried blood. It looked like he had just arrived.
“Temperance, this is Talloi. He and I were neighbours in my home village,” Josiah spoke quietly, in slightly broken English.
Brennan welcomed the new boy.
“He just arrived here yesterday. I told him that you tell great stories about the West. About the Jeffersonian. Talloi said he would like to hear some,” Josiah explained, taking a seat in his usual chair, and pulling the other one close for Talloi to sit in.
And so, for the nest hour and a half, Brennan sat there describing everything from the shinny metal in the lab, to the bright city lights, and even showed the boys some pictures over her laptop. Talloi seemed to enjoy it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two weeks before she left for home, she called Booth, very excited. “Booth, the papers have gone through! I’ve been approved!”
“That’s great, Bones!” She could hear the smile in Booth’s voice. They talked for a bit longer before Booth was called away. “I’ll see you in two weeks, Bones.”
“See you, Booth.”
Later that day, the little boy who had captured Brennan’s heart walked into her office, a curious smile on his face. “ You wanted to see me?” Josiah asked in perfect English. For the last eight months, every time Josiah came to visit, Brennan had been teaching him how to read and write. He had caught on quickly.
“Yeah,” she smiled and came around the desk to kneel in front of him. “Josiah, how would you feel about coming back to the United States with me?” She asked.
His eyes went wide with surprise. “You mean like a visit?” he asked, suddenly sceptical of the offer.
But she shook her head. “No. I mean for good. You know how much I love you, Jos. Booth loves you, and Cam and Hodgins and Angela would love to have you around. We want to you come live with us. You can go to school there-”
Brennan was abruptly cut off when a pair of skinny ten year old boy arms flung around her neck and squeezed her tight. She laughed and hugged Josiah back, breathing in his little boy smell. They had come a long way in the course of a year, and Brennan was a better person for all she had experienced in Sierra Leone. She would be gone for a few years, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay away.
There are Civil Wars all over the world that are uprooting homes and destroying families everyday. So many children are left with no choice but to fight and to kill to survive. And, thought Brennan, with her arms wrapped tight around Josiah for the first time ever, it was totally worth fighting for these kids.
Give up the Fight
Thanks for reading.
Hoped you liked it!
Author: Berta 101
Pairing: Brennan/Booth, Brennan/OC
Rating: T Just to be safe
Spoilers: None, as far as I can tell
Summary: Brennan travels to Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by Civil War. There she meets someone who will change her outlook on life.
A/N: I was inspired to write this one after reading Ishmael Beah’s A Long Time Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and listening to Greenday’s song 21 Guns. Beah’s book is unbelievable! I loved it so much!
Also, I would just like to say that, in no way, am I attacking the people of Sierra Leone or it’s country. I believe that it’s a Civil War that not many people know about and think it’s about time we learn. If I have offended anyone, I apologize and please feel free message me.
I don’t own Bones or it’s characters. I also don’t own Sierra Leone and I’ve never been there so any references to it is all researched.
Let me know what you think!
I hope you Enjoy!
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn’t pass
Nothing’s ever built to last
You’re in ruins
She wished she was at home. She wished she was at home in her small apartment where there was electricity and clean running water. Of course Brennan knew she was being shallow, but it was hard to forget the comforts of home when she was deep in the dangerous jungles of Sierra Leone with thirteen others looking for children that had been displaced from the Civil War that had broken out here almost a year and a half ago.
Two months ago, Brennan had received a letter in the mail from UNICEF’s Human Rights Watch Division Advisory Committee explaining that she had been chosen to go to the war torn country for six weeks to help recover, not only children who had been displaced, but child soldiers as well, and bring them back to a rehab centre where they would hopefully (if they were lucky) be reintegrated into society.
To say the least, she was surprised. She had singed up for the job a good 15 years ago when she was still in High School and was looking to find her place in the world, but she had never heard back from them. Two weeks, countless conversations with Cam and a long, goodbye with Booth, Brennan found herself on a plane heading for Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by Civil War.
Just two days into it, Brennan was sent on an expedition into the jungle. They were to search for the government’s army, who was said to be close by. When they reached the army’s makeshift camp, the negotiator and translator spent almost an hour speaking with the group’s leader before it was considered safe to leave the confines of the hefty all terrain vehicle they had arrived in.
It was during that visit to the camp that Brennan met a little boy that answered to the name Josiah. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old and the AK-47 he was clutching to his chest as though it was his life line was bigger than him. One look at this little boy, and she knew she had made the right decision to come here. This war wasn’t worth dying for, but these boys (the eldest looked about 16) had no choice but to fight. . . Or be killed. And even then, the chances of survival were slim. Yes, Brennan was happy she’d come.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They ended up taking twelve of the boys back to the rehab centre with them in their white UNICEF labelled vehicles. Their translator, Mohammed, explained to the kids what was happening.
Josiah was not happy at the rehab centre. It was clear that all he had known in his short little life was war and violence. Later that night, Mohammed had explained to Brennan that these boys had essentially been brain washed into thinking that violence and war was the only way to live . . . To survive. They had been taught that killing, raping and stealing was the way things were done, and it was their right because they were a part of the Government’s Army.
That was Brennan’s first, and last journey in to the jungle. They were extremely short handed on volunteers and so she had been assigned to stay at the Rehab centre as it’s very own therapist. The decision baffled Brennan, but she didn’t argue. Honestly, she didn’t know how many more jungle excursions she could have handled. They gave her a list of questions to get started, and every night, one by one, the twelve boys would be sent individually to speak with her.
For the first tree weeks they had to be forced into her office, where they would proceed to throw foreign objects like staplers or notepads at her head until she let them leave. By the time the first child spoke to her without trying to kill her, or thinking she was an enemy rebel, Brennan had learned enough of the native language to hold a steady conversation with little help from Mohammed. Surprisingly, it was the little boy who had caught her eye at the very beginning who spoke to her first.
“My name is Temperance, Josiah.” She spoke gently, with a small smile. “ I’m glad you decided to come speak with me today.”
Josiah slouched in the plastic chair but his tiny legs still didn’t reach the ground. He shrugged with indifference. “When do I get to go home? Will I get my weapon back?” His tiny hands were balled into fists and Brennan noticed that his little knuckles were white with rage.
That was when she saw the scars. It was obvious what they were from. Gunshot wounds. More than one. The bullets had either grazed is legs, his left cheek, were stuck in the bone, or were long, white scars from a machete slicing through his skin. She counted eight wounds on his legs alone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Booth, I can’t come home. Not right now. These kids. . . they need me.” She was speaking to Booth on her office phone through a broken connection. It was slow at best.
“What do you mean you aren’t coming home? You’ve already been there for two months longer than expected.”
She sighed. “I know Booth, but you haven’t seen these kids. Josiah has finally stopped asking me when he can have his weapons back and just told me yesterday what happened to his family.” She paused, wondering if Booth would be able to handle little Josiah’s story. “They made him watch, Booth. These rebels made an eight year old boy watch as they raped his mother and sister before killing them and his father.” she paused, gathering her thoughts, listening to silence on the other end. “He doesn’t have anybody else.” She whispered.
It was silent on the other end for a long time.
When Booth finally spoke, his voice was filled with compassion. “Just do what you need to do, Bones. I’ll be here for you when you get back.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Booth.”
Brennan was exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained. She missed her apartment and her lab. She missed her friends and coworkers. She missed Booth. Today had been the type of day where she just felt like packing it in and heading home.
She suspected it had something to do with the fact that her life had just been threatened again by a twelve year old boy, who had somehow managed to smuggle a live grenade into the building, for the third time that week.
On the bright side though, Josiah and her were quickly becoming friends. He was nine years old now and was slowly learning to trust Brennan. He had no problem talking to her now, and he seemed a little bit more like a normal nine year old boy everyday. He had lost his childhood a long time ago and she was going to help him get it back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brennan had been in Sierra Leone for just over eleven months now. She had been scheduled to leave many times, but always cancelled at the last minute. She couldn’t leave. Not when so many little lives still needed her help. About four months ago, Booth had hopped on a flight and had stayed for two weeks. He had met Josiah and they were instantly best friends. They had met before; about six months ago, Brennan had grown tired of not being able to see her family, so she had set up a webcam on her laptop, and whenever Josiah was in her office, he and Booth would have small conversations. They had been communicating that way ever since.
Part of it was saying goodbye to Josiah. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to leave him behind. She knew what would happen. After he left the rehab facility, he would run straight back to the life of a boy soldier. It was the only life he really knew, or could remember. Unfortunately, that was what happened to most of the boys when they were reintegrated. Some tried to stay out of trouble, but one little slip up, and they would run for the trees.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a turning point the day that Josiah walked into her office unannounced with another boy following reluctantly behind. He was a little shorter than Josiah, who was almost ten years old now, and his clothes were dirty and stained with dried blood. It looked like he had just arrived.
“Temperance, this is Talloi. He and I were neighbours in my home village,” Josiah spoke quietly, in slightly broken English.
Brennan welcomed the new boy.
“He just arrived here yesterday. I told him that you tell great stories about the West. About the Jeffersonian. Talloi said he would like to hear some,” Josiah explained, taking a seat in his usual chair, and pulling the other one close for Talloi to sit in.
And so, for the nest hour and a half, Brennan sat there describing everything from the shinny metal in the lab, to the bright city lights, and even showed the boys some pictures over her laptop. Talloi seemed to enjoy it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two weeks before she left for home, she called Booth, very excited. “Booth, the papers have gone through! I’ve been approved!”
“That’s great, Bones!” She could hear the smile in Booth’s voice. They talked for a bit longer before Booth was called away. “I’ll see you in two weeks, Bones.”
“See you, Booth.”
Later that day, the little boy who had captured Brennan’s heart walked into her office, a curious smile on his face. “ You wanted to see me?” Josiah asked in perfect English. For the last eight months, every time Josiah came to visit, Brennan had been teaching him how to read and write. He had caught on quickly.
“Yeah,” she smiled and came around the desk to kneel in front of him. “Josiah, how would you feel about coming back to the United States with me?” She asked.
His eyes went wide with surprise. “You mean like a visit?” he asked, suddenly sceptical of the offer.
But she shook her head. “No. I mean for good. You know how much I love you, Jos. Booth loves you, and Cam and Hodgins and Angela would love to have you around. We want to you come live with us. You can go to school there-”
Brennan was abruptly cut off when a pair of skinny ten year old boy arms flung around her neck and squeezed her tight. She laughed and hugged Josiah back, breathing in his little boy smell. They had come a long way in the course of a year, and Brennan was a better person for all she had experienced in Sierra Leone. She would be gone for a few years, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay away.
There are Civil Wars all over the world that are uprooting homes and destroying families everyday. So many children are left with no choice but to fight and to kill to survive. And, thought Brennan, with her arms wrapped tight around Josiah for the first time ever, it was totally worth fighting for these kids.
Give up the Fight
Thanks for reading.
Hoped you liked it!