dr_temperance | Brennan's Apartment, Washington DC

Brennan's Apartment, Washington DC

Brennan cuts off the burner and lifts the tea kettle before the whistle can do more than cough and sputter. Not that she really thinks that the noise will wake up Hannah, who is asleep in the living room. Hannah had dropped off to sleep the moment she'd curled up on the sleeper sofa, arms wrapped tight across her chest, around a small pink and gray stuffed mouse. And by the look of it, nothing short of a demolition crew is going to wake her up.

Hannah's stint in Milliways had apparently involved very little sleep.

Brennan pours the water into a pair of mugs, and carries the steeping tea over to the kitchen table, handing one to Angela. Angela had been waiting on the doorstep when Brennan had returned from the Jeffersonian with Hannah.

"You know you didn't have to leave Hodgins and come all the way down here in the middle of the night," Brennan says. She smiles faintly. "But I have to say, I'm really glad you did."

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"Please," says Angela, waving a hand dismissively, "Hodgins can take care of himself for a few hours. I wanted to make sure you and Sleeping Beauty in there were all right."

Brennan links her fingers around the warm mug.

"I'm fine."

She glances over her shoulder to the living room and sighs. "I hope she is."

Logically, she knows that Hannah is physically fine and has the mental fortitude to bounce back from this. But she can't help but feel some guilt over that fact that she'd been put in Epps's path, if only peripherally.

"For now, she's asleep. Talk to her when she wakes up, and remember, this is not your fault."

Angela sips the tea.

"How are you holding up, sweetie?"

Brennan knows that the havoc Epps had caused was not her fault, no matter what Epps had said. But even for the most rational person, there can be a little lag time between knowing and feeling.

"Honestly? I'm happy he's dead." Brennan's eyes are focused on an almost minuscule knot in the wood grain of the table top. "Alive, he would have found some way to keep killing. No matter where they locked him up."

"I just wish Booth hadn't interfered."

Not that Brennan hadn't appreciated him showing up. She just wishes he had waited five minutes.

"So, what, you wish you had killed him yourself?"

Brennan looks Angela directly in the eyes.

"Yes."

"Oh, honey," says Angela.

"Bren, you can't possibly mean that. Even if you think you do.

"For one thing, think of the hassle you'd have getting your gun permit back."

"He was in my home. With a weapon, prepared to kill me. It doesn't get more in self defense than that."

Of course, the fact that Brennan had worked out Epps's final move, had known where he was and what he was going to do complicated that line of reasoning slightly.

"Instead, Booth's beating himself up over the fact that a horrible human being essentially chose to end his own life, and he couldn't save him."

And Epps had known it. Even going to his death he'd reveled in the fact that Booth would hold himself responsible.

"Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing Booth would beat himself up over.

"How much beating himself up do you think Booth would be doing if he'd left you alone in a situation where you had to kill Epps?"

Psychology really, really isn't Brennan's thing. Even knowing Booth well, she doesn't think she could accurately determine which of the two scenarios would have made him feel worse.

And since only one scenario had unfolded, spending much time speculating is rather pointless.

"I don't know." Brennan fishes out the tea bag and lays it on a napkin.

"But technically he didn't leave me alone. There were plenty of agents in the building, and he didn't know what was going to happen."

Not initially. He'd figured it out though.

"Bren, the entire first Marine division could have been there, and he probably would still have considered you alone, if Epps was there, and he wasn't.

"So, how is he?"

Brennan opens her mouth to disagree. Then closes it again. She can't really argue with Angela's assessment.

Because if it had been Booth who was in danger, she would have felt the same way.

The small quirk of her mouth is to let Angela know that the point has been considered and taken.

She takes a drink of her tea before she answers.

"Tight. Withdrawn. It's like......Epps beat us again. Even if he's dead."

Angela is too gracious to continue to argue a point that's been conceded.

"It is," agrees Angela. "Partly because it probably mattered more to Epps that you guys that feel that way than that he be alive to see it.

"Booth actually dropped him, huh? And you saw him fall?"

"Booth tried to pull him back up." Brennan is quick to make that distinction. "Epps wouldn't do anything to save himself. Booth couldn't hold him."

"I tried to help, but I couldn't reach."

Brennan couldn't have cared less about saving Epps (at least, she's pretty sure she couldn't). But Booth had asked for her help. And so she had tried.

"But yes. I saw him fall."

"You can drop things without meaning to," says Angela. "Booth would have held him if he could have, and I don't think that's really up for debate.

"That's not an easy thing to have seen. Even for a monster like Epps. Promise me you'll do what you need to to process all this, sweetie?"

"I'm processing," Brennan replies mildly.

By which she means she's processing the facts and details. And when that's said and done she'll put in behind her and go back to work.

"It was a fifty-foot fall. He died on impact. The damage to the skull and neck--it would have been instantaneous."

Brennan had not actually examined Epps's body. But she has examined the bodies of people who died in similar falls, and she knows what the injury patterns look like.

Not really what Angela meant by processing, but what she expected.

Angela looks at Brennan over the teacup.

"He wouldn't have suffered at all? God, I'm a horrible person."

Brennan's mouth twists wryly.

"If you're a horrible person, then that makes me one too."

"So we'll be horrible people together. I want the little bastard to have suffered.

"I'm going to burn in hell, which I know you don't believe in."

"Epps inflicted suffering, physical and mental, on what is essentially our family group. It's natural to wish the same on him."

Brennan lifts her mug.

"The important thing is that he's not going to be able to inflict harm on anyone else. Ever."

Worry for Booth niggles in the back of her mind--she knows he had been distressed when he left her place. But she pushes it into a little box to deal with later. Booth is an adult who has seen a lot in his life. He'll be all right.

She'll check on him tomorrow.

"Doesn't make it right," Angela says, but her heart's not really in it. She'll try to feel bad about it later.

"Yeah. I think we put this one in the win column, Bren."

"Well, we're all still alive. That puts us at a distinct advantage over Epps."

Brennan's not entirely sure about the 'win'. Logically, of course, they had--Epps is dead and he hadn't managed to kill any of them.

But Caroline Epps is dead. Cam had come close. And Booth and Hannah had both been subjected to the emotional version of a vicious beating.

It's going to take a few more hours of processing the facts before she will call this a win. To herself anyway.

"Take it from the girl who got the heart-o-gram. It's a win. Not a great one, maybe, but a win. It could have been much, much worse. For Cam, and Zach, and Booth, and Parker, and Hannah. How close did he get to Hannah last night? It's a win. We stopped him."

"Yes. It could have been worse."

Brennan looks out into the living room, where Hannah is still sound asleep. Where she had been while Epps had been cutting an access into the side of her closet from the apartment next door.

What if...?

"There's little point in dwelling on that. Nothing happened--there's nothing to be gained by speculating on what could have happened."

Said to convince herself as much as Angela.

"Yeah, but just like wishing the bastard had suffered, it's pretty normal to speculate on what if's."

Except that those what-ifs lead to places that Brennan would just as soon not think about.

Hannah in the place of April. Or Sarah. Or one of Epps's other victims.

"She was stuck in Milliways for a long time. Certainly it was preferable to being here. But she had to deal with the situation a lot longer."

Angela turns and looks into the living room again.

"Explains the dead to the world thing, and I really wish I had picked a different analogy. Sorry about that, Bren."

Brennan shrugs. An analogy is just an analogy. It doesn't carry any sort of prophetic weight.

"I don't think she got much sleep."

Well, none of them had during Epps's game. But for them it had been a matter of a day or two.

It had been a lot longer for Hannah.

"She was pretty worried. About all of us."

"We were all worried," Angela points out. "She just won the worry-longer-and-with-less-information lottery.

"She seems pretty okay, all things considered."

Angela only talked to her for a minute or two, but Hannah seemed like a solid qualified okay to her.

"Yes. She has a great deal of mental and emotional fortitude for someone of her age."

Of course, Brennan knew that before all of this happened.

"Probably behaved better than I did."

There was, at no point in the past 24 hours, a moment at which Angela wanted to be dealing with what she was dealing with. She did it, she helped with what she could help with, but there's still a selfish part of her that wishes she'd taken that sick leave and gone to . . . anywhere but here.

Brennan raises her eyebrows.

"There was nothing wrong with how you behaved."

Angela shrugs, then gives Brennan a wry sort of look.

"I scream like a girl," she points out.

Brennan smiles. "Well. Obviously."

"You didn't want to be there. Well, of course, none of us did. But you stayed. And we may not have figured out the significance of the spices if not for you. Or if we did, it would have taken us a lot longer, and that was time we didn't have to lose."

Angela nods. This is a world of not the time to tell her best friend that she's still not sure how much longer she can keep the surrounded-by-death thing going.

"We're a good team," she says instead.

"We are. Probably the best I've had the opportunity to work with."

It feels odd now to remember her initial resistance to Booth, and then to Cam. While Brennan would once have considered their habit of using conjecture and motive secondary to hard science, she had to admit that the team benefited from it.

"Probably the best you'll ever have the opportunity to work with," Angela corrects.

"And on that topic, I should get back to one of my fellow squints. Unless you need me to stay, sweetie."

Brennan shakes her head with a smile. "I'm fine. Tell Hodgins I said hello."

On a whim she adds, "Maybe you two should take Monday off. Provided there are no more emergencies at the lab before then."

Brennan can't imagine that the Jeffersonian would begrudge any of the squints a little time off after the last day or two.

"Yeah, but then who keeps you and Zach in line?" Angela asks.

She stands and smiles.

"I'll call you tomorrow," she says, then looks at her watch. "Or later today."

"Zach should be at home resting anyway." Brennan shrugs one shoulder. "And I know my way around."

Brennan gets up to walk Angela to the door, and her eyes automatically flick to the kitchen clock.

"I should really be more tired."

Actually she is tired. But she probably couldn't sleep if her life depended on it. Not surprising, given the amount of adrenaline that's been pumped into her system.

"Try to sleep," Angela advises.

"Talk to you tomorrow."

"You too. And drive carefully."

"Good night, Ange. Thanks for coming over."

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Brennan's Apartment, Washington DC

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