Brennan's Apartment, Washington DC
Apr. 5th, 2007 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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."
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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Date: 2007-04-06 02:23 am (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2007-04-06 02:31 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-06 02:36 am (UTC)"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?"
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Date: 2007-04-06 02:10 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-06 11:32 pm (UTC)"So, how is he?"
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:17 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:29 am (UTC)"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?"
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:35 am (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:42 am (UTC)"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?"
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:54 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 12:59 am (UTC)Angela looks at Brennan over the teacup.
"He wouldn't have suffered at all? God, I'm a horrible person."
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:08 am (UTC)"If you're a horrible person, then that makes me one too."
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:13 am (UTC)"I'm going to burn in hell, which I know you don't believe in."
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:24 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:29 am (UTC)"Yeah. I think we put this one in the win column, Bren."
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:39 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 02:27 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 02:37 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2007-04-09 09:48 pm (UTC)"Explains the dead to the world thing, and I really wish I had picked a different analogy. Sorry about that, Bren."
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:01 pm (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:05 pm (UTC)"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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:15 pm (UTC)Of course, Brennan knew that before all of this happened.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:20 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:24 pm (UTC)"There was nothing wrong with how you behaved."
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:27 pm (UTC)"I scream like a girl," she points out.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:32 pm (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:34 pm (UTC)"We're a good team," she says instead.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:45 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 10:55 pm (UTC)"And on that topic, I should get back to one of my fellow squints. Unless you need me to stay, sweetie."
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Date: 2007-04-09 11:02 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 11:04 pm (UTC)She stands and smiles.
"I'll call you tomorrow," she says, then looks at her watch. "Or later today."
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Date: 2007-04-09 11:10 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-04-09 11:17 pm (UTC)"Talk to you tomorrow."
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Date: 2007-04-09 11:20 pm (UTC)"Good night, Ange. Thanks for coming over."