Beautiful Boy Prologue
Title: Beautiful Boy
Authors: TinyTeffers/Nyre The Black Rose
Rating: Content Appropriate for Adults
Paring: Booth/Brennan
WARNING: There will be some mention and description of sexual violence/rape of a minor.
Paring: Booth/Brennan
DISCLAIMER: We don’t own any of the Bone’s characters. This story is simply for our writing and your reading enjoyment.
SUMMARY: Booth’s life is turned upside down when a case turns personal and he finds himself needing to lean on his friends more than ever to make it through. Will his and Dr. Brennan's relationship grow even stronger through the tough times? Will their relationship be able to handle the stress?
This story will deal a lot with child psychology (which is my career path and Nyre’s former career), which might include topics some of you might not enjoy. While this story is not for everyone it really speaks to issues dear to our hearts. While the story is intended to be entertaining we have made every effort to see that it is based in fact when necessary.
We want to point out right away that this will be a Booth/Brennan story even in the midst of the chaos and focus on Parker Booth.
Prologue
September 15th 2009
FBI Agent Seeley Booth was pacing the forensics platform at the Jeffersonian for what felt like the millionth time that day. The whole squint squad was busy with the evidence of their most recent case, but he was unable to do anything at the moment and that made him feel useless. “Are you sure there isn’t something I can do? Somebody I can call…anything?”
Dr. Temperance Brennan looked up from where she was examining the remains of a 10-year-old boy and shook her head. “Booth, you’ve done all you can do, let us do our job now.” She knew her partner had a difficult time when their cases involved children and quite frankly she did too.
Booth was about to respond when his cell phone started vibrating in the pocket of his dress slacks. Sighing he picked it up but got a confused look on his face when he didn’t recognize the number. “Booth” he asked once he answered it.
“Daddy…how come Mommy isn’t picking me up from school today?” Came the voice of his 8-year-old son Parker.
“She is picking you up today, buddy.” Booth said even though he was becoming more and more confused.
There was the sound of shuffling in the background and soon a gruff male voice came on the line. “Think again, Agent Booth.”
Booth froze shear fear racing through his veins. “Who are you? Put my son back on the line right now.” He demanded in his most authoritative tone.
The man on the other end simply laughed, “Sorry…I don’t do well with sharing, and I’m simply calling to say thank you.” With that the line went dead.
--- --- --- ---
October 31st 2009
Booth sat at his desk at the Hoover building simply staring off into space. His fellow agents were out in the main area being silly and celebrating Halloween, but he didn’t feel like joining them. Parker loved Halloween and this year had already told his daddy that he wanted to be a vampire. Of course Booth had suggested less scary things, but right now he would give anything to see his son dressed in full black with pointy teeth.
It had been over a month since that fateful telephone call and there hadn’t been any more contact from the kidnapper or Parker. Rebecca was simply furious with Seeley stating it was his fault their son was gone due to his choice of profession. Now as time went on he was beginning to believe she was right.
The whole squint squad felt awful and often worked extra long hours to try and find any trace evidence on the pervious victims that might give any indication of where Parker might be. The only thing that kept everybody going was the fact that it was the kidnapers MO to keep his victims for at least two months before brutally stabbing them to death.
This reassurance didn’t help Booth because he knew what other nasty and awful things the kidnapper did before killing his victims. During her inspection of the bodies, Bones could detect a change in bone structure due to the young boys being sexually molested numerous times. It had not been reassuring to know that the kidnaper fed these boys either, since there wasn’t any sign of malnourishment.
Now it was all about waiting, something Booth hated more than anything. He felt useless and completely hopeless because he couldn’t go out and save the day and bring his little boy home.
--- --- --- ---
November 15th 2009
With the Holiday’s approaching the hope of finding Parker Booth alive was becoming slim. Rebecca was already planning funerals and trying to process the grief through counseling and the support of her boyfriend turned fiancé.
Booth on the other hand was simply falling apart. The idea of moving on wasn’t an option. He spent all his free time in the gym working out in order to be in the best shape he could be for WHEN, not IF but WHEN he confronted the evil bastard that took his son away from him. He would not believe that Parker was dead until he saw his son’s body lying on the stainless steel table of the lab.
He ignored Sweets whenever he tried to talk to him, always stating he was fine and to leave him alone. He wasn’t like Rebecca; he couldn’t sit with a shrink and talk through what was going on. That wasn’t productive, what was productive was actively working on ways to get his son back safely. He would visit old crime scenes, praying to find some new connection to the past deaths and his son and he always came up empty.
Bones would try as hard as she could to get Booth to open up. She would bring take-out to his apartment at least twice a week and try and get him to talk. She knew she wasn’t the best at the whole talking thing either, but she was willing to try if it would get her best friend to work through what was going on. At times she would try and tell him that she knew what it was like to lose a loved one but he would always lash out stating “I haven’t lost him yet Bones” and that would be the end of their conversation for the night.
It was late one night and Booth was still sitting at the Jeffersonian after finishing up a current case, he was reading old case files once again. He was so intent on looking at one that he didn’t hear anybody come into the room.
“You’ve looked at those a million times, nothing is going to change.” Bones said softly as she took a seat next to him on the couch.
Booth looked up with glossy eyes and then back down at the pictures. “It’s been over two months…if he’s still alive…what do you think he’s like?” he knew from the case reports that the other boys had severe scaring and internal damage in their lower regions. What made Booth even sicker was the fact that besides these injuries and the fatal stabbing at the end, there weren’t any other injuries to speak of. Sweets said in a way this was worse because that meant there was much more psychological trauma taking place.
Bones sighed as she looked at the photo Booth was looking at. “You don’t want to know that, Booth.” She said softly.
Sniffing back a tear he shook his head. “I need to know…I need to know so I can prepare for my boy coming home.”
She was going to mention how the probability of Parker making it home was slim to none at this point but didn’t. Instead she took a deep breath and began. “I’m not a medical doctor Booth, I don’t know much besides what I saw in the victim’s bones.” She said and then continued. “The bones showed signs of being in one position for long periods of time and signs of large amounts of pressure being put on the hips and pelvis.”
“If they…lived…would that bother them?” Booth asked softly.
Bones thought of how to answer that before nodding her head a little. “Probably not significantly, but enough to cause some discomfort.”
Booth sat up a little straighter and collected the file. “Thanks Bones,” he said before giving her a kiss on the cheek and then heading out.
--- --- --- ---
December 22nd 2009
Booth was fast asleep when he got the call from metro police at two o’clock in the morning.
“Agent Seeley Booth?” A male asked on the other end of the line.
“Yeah…” Booth responded as he tried to wipe the fog from his brain. “This is?”
“My name is officer O’Rilley we believe we’ve found your son.”
Booth was sitting up in a flash, he couldn’t be hearing things right because there was no way that after 3 months somebody could have found Parker. “I’ll be right down.”
--- --- --- ---
Twenty minutes later Booth was dashing into the emergency room with a pajama clad Rebecca on his heels. Neither of them could believe that there was the possibility they would be seeing their son again.
“P…Parker Booth?” he gasped out still trying to catch his breath since he had run from the parking lot.
The nurse at the front desk typed in some information and quickly nodded her head. “You’re his parents?”
Booth was trying hard to keep his cool, but all he wanted to do was see Parker. “Yes…parents, now please can we see our Son?”
Just then Officer O’Rilley came in their direction and introduced himself. “If you could come with me…there are some things we need to discuss before you can see Parker.”
“No…we can discuss things later, I want to see my son…NOW!” Booth knew he was yelling and he didn’t care. Somebody had kept him away from his son for the past 3 months and nobody was going to do that any longer.
Officer O’Rilley held up his hand to stop Booth from continuing. “He can’t have visitors at the moment, he’s being examined.”
“Is he okay?” Rebecca asked softly tears falling down her cheeks.
“Okay is a relative term ma’am. Your son was found in an abandoned warehouse in Virginia about two hours ago, alone and extremely cold. It appears he hadn’t been alone for long though because there was evidence of another occupant.”
Booth felt his blood beginning to boil and he started pacing the room. “So the fucking bastard wasn’t there…you didn’t catch him?”
Officer O’Rilley shook his head in the negative. “The only reason we stumbled upon your son was we received an anonymous call about a suspected drug ring we’ve been investigating.
“Anonymous call my ass…I bet it was him, he wanted you to find Parker…he’s messing with us.” Booth yelled as he continued to pace the room. He then stopped right away and shook his head. “You know what…forget it I just want my son. When can I see my son?”
“I’m sure they are done now,” Officer O’Rilley said as he led both parents down the hallway to an exam room.
There lying on the single bed in the room was a very dirty sandy blonde boy. He looked up when he heard somebody walk into the room he automatically began sobbing when he saw both his parents, his arms stretched out to them. “Mommy! Daddy!” he exclaimed.
Both parents rushed to their son’s side and spoke words of encouragement and love to him. It all seemed like the end of a long journey and a terrible nightmare. What they didn’t know was it was far from finished. Parker might be safe and sound, but the demons weren’t far.