Voices Carry

[j_hodgins]

continued from here

No use in running
It's always the same
You can count on the panic
It's the faces that change...

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[former_ranger]

Booth had existed in a silent bubble for hours. Wandering from room to room, looking at each photograph, sifting through the contents of desks. He stopped in his room once as he passed it, pulled on a t-shirt. He stopped once in the kitchen to fill his cup and once again in the sunroom to check on Jack.

When he felt he had a handle on the layout, he started again from the front door. As if he'd just come in. He moved quietly and efficiently. Skimming and scanning and cataloging. He found himself looking for Jack's face in too many photos, in too many relatives. His fingers stroked over the ivory keys of an old piano, touching one key just long enough to know that the salt air had made it hopelessly out of tune. He looked for the servant's passageways, knowing that a house this big and a family this prominent would have seperate pathways for the help. Just so they never came into accidental contact with the guests. With the family.

He wondered how terribly scandelous it would have been for Jack to have his friendship with Lucille exposed.

Even now. Today.

Booth heard the sound of footsteps in the house. First running, then slowing and he tracked the quiet noise to find Jack, awake. Standing in a doorway of a room that was smaller than the bathroom in Seeley's bedroom. Tears ran from Jack's eyes and Seeley realized that this had to have been Lucille's.

His hand moved to the back of Jack's neck and Booth looked over Jack's shoulder.

"When was the last time she lived here? Last summer? Fall? Is there anything left of hers in this room?"