"The Object of My Affection" - Chapter 32

[shannyfish]

Title: Object of my Affection
Author: Shannon - shannyfish
Disclaimer: I do not own “Bones” or its characters, Fox does. This is merely for entertainment purposes only. 
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Booth and Brennan must struggle with not only the Grad Students trying to take Zack’s old position, but also help get through a tragic end.
Warning: Post Season Three - “Pain in the Heart”. Would take place during Season Four, probably mid to late. Warning! Do not start reading this unless you plan on reading all…like…one hundred chapters (it might be that many…might not…). This will be an epic/saga-type fic and shall include all kinds of fun plot twists. The rating of this story will most likely fluctuate, FYI.

Chapter 32 - “Life Sucks”

Author’s Note: Fantastic movie of the week: Get Smart.  I actually used to watch the show when I was little on Nick at Night…ooo do I feel old. Okay, so I’ve been busily working on NaNoWriMo, but am behind, but felt like I was feeling like I was neglecting Booth and Brennan, they were so sad. If you’d like a peek at my novel that I’m working on, you can see it under my NaNoWriMo profile. My author name on there is shannyfish, the same as here : )

The correct url this time!

Trailer #1: h t t p : // www . mediafire . com / ?20w12iod0dd

Hopefully this all shows us, just remove the spaces : )

*~*~*

Brennan’s Office

“You okay, Bones?” Booth asked. She’d been upset with him when he’d told her that they couldn’t just leave the Jeffersonian to go look for Zack. Not only had they just been bombed by the knowledge that Zack didn’t kill anyone, but they couldn’t do anything to help him. He peeked inside. She was at her desk with Parker. Amy and the girls had left her office and were with Russ in the cafeteria and a set of F.B.I. agents were down getting something to eat.

“Bones is sad,” Parker informed his father. He turned back around and faced Brennan. “I think that ice cream would help.”

Brennan couldn’t help, but smile at Parker’s innocence and his simple response to her being sad. “It might,” she told him. “We just might have to use the F.B.I. to retrieve us ice cream cones.” She smiled brightly at Parker and then looked over at Booth, “I’m…frustrated,” she told him. “Zack is out there, the Gravedigger might already have him, and we can’t do anything.”

“They’re already looking for Zack. He’s smart, Bones. He’s probably hiding out somewhere, I wouldn’t worry… Really, don’t you think he can take care of himself?” Booth asked her.

Parker frowned, “He’s really smart. Bones told me. He’s probably hiding in a fort or something.”

“A fort…” Booth mused and thought about what Parker was saying. Adults didn’t have forts as children would think per say, but he could think of somewhere that Zack would go to hide. The only place that Zack had ever stayed since he’d worked at the Jeffersonian. Hodgins’ estate. “Maybe you are destined to be a squint, Parker.”

“Why do you say that, Booth?” Brennan asked curiously since he’d been so adamant that Parker not be like any of the squints.

“If Zack was released from the loony bin, where would he go?” Booth asked.

“But they wouldn’t just release him, Booth,” Brennan argued.

“It’s hypothetical,” Booth insisted. “Just play along.”

“He’d come here to the Jeffersonian to see his friends.”

“But what if he couldn’t come here, where do you think he’d go?”

Brennan frowned, “The only places Zack ever frequented was the Jeffersonian, the diner, and he’d go home.”

“Home,” Booth repeated. “Hodgins’ estate.”

“You think that maybe he went back home?” Brennan asked.

“Where else would he go?”

“We have to go get him then,” Brennan insisted getting up from her chair.

“No,” Booth said quickly. “We stay at the Jeffersonian. I’ll send agents to get him.”

“He’s not going to want to go with agents, Booth,” Brennan insisted as she approached him. “Booth is one of us. He’s family.”

Booth frowned, she was right. He even thought of the squint king as family. “Look, Bones. It’s not going to help Zack if you and I go to go get him and we end up caught by the Gravedigger.”

“Dad? Who’s the Gravedigger?” Parker asked.

“He’s a bad guy,” Booth told Parker and frowned. He hadn’t wanted to scare his son.

“Is he going to hurt us?”

“No,” Booth said crouching down. “He can’t get us in here. It’s like a fortress.”

“Is a fortress like a fort?” Parker asked.

“Even better than a fort, it’s like a castle…no one can get in unless we want them to,” Booth told him. “So, don’t worry, okay?”

Parker nodded and then looked over at Brennan, “Can I come too to go get Zack?”

“No one’s leaving the Jeffersonian,” Booth said getting up and looking at both Brennan and Parker.

“But-” Brennan started to argue.

“No buts, Bones. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“But he doesn’t want me, Booth.”

“I know,” Booth told her quietly. “But he could change his mind.”

“Booth, please, just let me come with you,” she pleaded.

Her blue-green eyes were wide with nonverbal pleading and Booth felt his resolve faltering. He was trying to protect her, why didn’t she understand that? All she wanted to do was run outside and yell to the Gravedigger that she was there and to go ahead and kill her. He wasn’t going to lose her. He wouldn’t come that close again. “Stay here with Parker.”

“I don’t understand why you get to go outside when you’re the one that’s more of a target than I am,” Brennan argued. Booth had started to head out, but she followed just the same. She wasn’t going to let it go. “What happens if something happens to you, Booth?” she asked getting quite upset at the fact that he was defying his own orders and the thought of losing him. She’d been taken and held captive by the Gravedigger; she didn’t wish that on him.

Booth turned to face her and he immediately saw what he feared. Parker was still standing back a few yards, but looked freaked out. He hadn’t wanted to expose his son to this, but Brennan wasn’t making it any easier on any of them. His voice went quiet and he turned his attention to his partner, “Look, Bones. I need you to stay with Parker for me. If something happens…” he said and then stopped for a moment trying to force what he was saying out of his mouth. It was far harder to say than it had been to think. “If something happens to me, then I need you to promise that you’ll make sure that Parker is taken care of. If you think that he’s fine with Rebecca’s parents, then that’s fine, but if not…then I need you to promise to take care of him. I need to know that Parker will be okay.”

“I don’t want to make that promise,” Brennan admitted selfishly as tears welled up in her eyes, glazing them over. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t take care of Parker, she would. She’d do anything for Booth, even taking care of his son. But to promise to take care of Parker, which was like saying he wasn’t coming back and she wouldn’t let that horrible thought enter her mind. He was returning, and he was coming back with Zack. They’d all be safe in the Jeffersonian…together.

“Please Bones, I need to know that Parker would be okay,” Booth pleaded. He knew that she’d make sure that his son was taken care of, but he needed to hear it from her. He needed a promise. Booth figured that the promise would also keep her in the lab, that way she couldn’t get out and try to come along with him.

“You know he will,” Brennan whispered as tears fell from her face. “You have to come back,” she told him as she reached out and locked her hand around his arm. “We need you, Booth.”

“Promise me, Temperance,” he said as he stared into her eyes. He wanted to promise her that he’d come back and not to worry, but he couldn’t do that. He knew what the Gravedigger could do all too well. They’d worked the case and he’d pulled Brennan from the Earth. It wasn’t a promise that he could humanly keep.

“Promise me,” she challenged staring back at him.

Booth shook his head, “I can’t promise to come back. I don’t know if I will.”

“So, promise that you’ll try as hard as you can to make it back to Parker…and me,” Brennan amended the promise.

“I promise to try with all of my heart,” Booth told her.

“I promise that if you don’t return, that I’ll make sure that Parker is well cared for,” Brennan told him in return.

Booth pulled her into his arms and held her for a moment and then looked over and saw that Parker was still standing where he had been, he was crying now as well. Booth felt his heart feeling like it was being crushed; he was hurting the people he cared about most. He held out one of his arms to invite Parker into the embrace. It only took Parker a few short seconds to be there in his arms with them. Booth crouched down a bit and picked him up. Parker was getting too big to pick up, but Booth didn’t care at that moment. He kissed Parker’s cheek, “I’m going to be gone for a little while, but I need you to stay here with Bones.” He reached out and lifted his partner’s chin, “I need you both to be brave and to make sure that everyone here is okay. Can you do that?”

“Yeah Dad,” Parker said.

Brennan just nodded; she sniffled and wiped the tears away. She didn’t want to upset Booth or Parker, but it did upset her. “We’ll make sure everything’s okay here,” Brennan whispered.

“Good, now no more crying,” Booth said. “I’m only going to be gone for like an hour. I’ve been gone for a lot longer than that before…we’ve been separated for days before, Bones.” His tone was teasing, but he was just trying to lighten the tension in the air. He didn’t want her to have some kind of anxiety attack. He set Parker down and pulled Brennan closer to him with the arm that was still wrapped around her. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then pressed his forehead to hers, “I won’t be gone for long,” he whispered.

*~*~*

TBC…