Pieces

“It’s surreal, you know?” Booth’s voice calls from above me as I lean over another body.

“Male, age thirty-five to forty.”

“You never expect things like this to happen. It reminds you how precious life is, huh?”

“That’s an illogical assumption, Booth. Disasters like this have happened for millions of years. It’s not exactly something anyone expects. It just happens.”

“Still, Bones,” I glance up at him as he speaks, cradling the body’s severed arm, “You can’t say this isn’t tragic.”

“Tragic, by definition, would mean that-”

“Never mind.”

“Fine, yes, this is tragic.” I rise, dropping the arm, and brush the dirt off of my jeans. I bring my hand up to shade my eyes from the bright sunshine- ironically situational, considering the fact that we are surrounded by death and destruction and the sun is still shining brightly as it was last week. The same soundtrack has been replaying for the several days I’ve been here: cries of the dying and cries of the living. I’ve witnessed many survivors being pulled out of the rubble, but I’ve witnessed hundreds of corpses being pulled out, too. These are the only people I deal with: the dead.

Pieces of them lay scattered around, a shattered femur there, a severed and bloody rib cage here. While Booth bites back his food, I merely move through, hoping to identify as many people as I can. The distinct scent of death is thick in the air, hovering over the survivors a constant reminder that although they have survived, many did not. Parents did not. Children did not.

“How about we take a break?”

“Are you getting sick from the smell?”

“Just…” He pauses, looks around, and then his gaze fixes on mine again, “just reminds me of September 11th.”

“Why? Clearly, this was not on purpose, unless you believe God was taking out His wrath on these people.”

“What? No! God doesn’t work like that, Bones.”

“Then I would be pleased to know how He does work.”

“Another place, another time. Right now, I need chow stat.”

“I don’t know what that means.” He grins and I find myself lost as to why. “You told me to never look happy at a crime scene.”

“This isn’t a crime scene.”

“Whatever, Booth. Yes, we’ll go and… and get cows stat,” I take the hand he’s offered and make my way up the massive grave that the townspeople have dug out for the bodies.

“It’s chow, Bones, chow.”

“That’s what I said. Besides, you’re the one who’s supposed to be teaching me all of these-” His palm over my mouth stops me from finishing my sentence. I look over to him, trying to gauge his reaction, and to what he is reacting to.

“Bwoof?”

“Shh. Listen.” I do and hear the sound of whimpering, light sobs drifting through the air. Booth removes his hand from my mouth.

“Hello? Anybody there?”

“Booth, these people speak Haitian Creole.”

“Gesundheit?”

“It’s a mixture of French, Spanish, Portuguese, English and-”

“Just do your thing, Bones.”

“Souple, ban mwen, un son à nous faire savoir où vous êtes?” After several moments of silence, I shrug my shoulders, and try again. “I asked him if he could make another noise for us to let us know where-”

“Anmwe!” A scraggly voice calls out from the rubble and I fall to my knees, grabbing and ripping at the debris. The flashback hits me, suddenly, like a barreling train would a frozen automobile.

“Bones? What did he say? Bones?”

The light of my Mickey Mouse watch floods the interior of the trunk and I can smell the last remnants of the groceries they brought home earlier. I begin plucking the invisible dirt out from underneath my fingernails. I recite the noble gases, the metals and metalloids, and I’m halfway through the nonmetals before the sound of pounding footsteps stops me.

“Hello?” The footsteps are coming closer, closer, but they’re still muffled due to the matter between us. Which means my cries are muffled, also. “Hello!” The footsteps continue on, oblivious, and I crawl back towards the corner of the trunk, away from the cold air seeping in from the cracks.

I’ve heard that many times, in such situation, the victim should pray to their God or deity. I reject this idea, knowing that if there were such a being and he controlled everything, he wouldn’t have allowed this to happen, would he? No, I believe not. So I finish the list of nonmetals and move on to each of Newton’s laws.

I glance down at my watch a few hours later and find out that I’ve been locked up for seventeen hours. I must have fallen asleep. I realize my predicament- that Brent could have the power to torch the car and send it careening into a gorge. I also realize that I am alone in this world, truly alone, and when I call out, no one can hear me.

The feeling of utter loneliness seeps in like the damp air and constricts my lungs- impossible, since I’ve never heard of grief causing respiratory problems, but it happens. I reminisce about the times when my mother would gather me into her arms on the loveseat on the back patio and hum classical tunes into my ears.

My arms wrap around myself almost unconsciously and I begin humming, because that’s the only thing I can do now. No one is going to come for me. No one will remember me. That’s just the way life is, it’s not fair and it’s not a common storyline of a troubled teen who finds the love of her life and a great home. It fucking sucks and that’s a fact I’m comfortable with accepting. But, due to my lack of oxygen intake, I still try one more time to make a connection with the world before I disappear from it.

“Please save me.”

My fingers and palms are raw from scraping and tearing out tin roofs and shoddy remnants of brick buildings. Booth squats beside me, one hand steadying himself on the jagged edge of a hen house and another one dipping into the ebony darkness where the voice is calling from, where that fifteen year-old voice is pleading for the world to hear her. I answer it gladly and push the irony out of my mind, instead reaching out and skimming my arm lightly across Booth’s bare arm as I dip into the darkness, too.

“Ou byen?”

“Anmwe!” The voice calls anxiously again.

“Nous allons vous tirer.” I answer, telling him that we’re going to pull him out and hoping to calm some of his fears, and I finally connect with human skin, phalanges, tugging and gripping against my own. My eyes catch Booth’s and he nods. Together, we pull and heave out a scraggly teenage girl, her dark skin covered in soot and grime.

“Mesi, mesi, mesi, mesi,” She thanks me, leaning into my chest, and I notice that the only clothing she’s wearing is a torn dress. I shed the light shawl I’ve been wearing and wrap it around her as she continues that same mantra of thanking me.

Booth catches my eye and he grins before rising to signal a paramedic. As they rush over to load the girl onto a stretcher, she squeezes my hand again, and for the first time I am able to look into her large brown eyes.

“Fanm nou you tan, manman pou tout tan.”

“Mesi,” I respond as she is pushed into the ambulance and driven towards the medic shelter, a few miles away.

“What did she say?”

“She thanked me for saving her.” He nods, accepting what I tell him, because it’s partly true. I lean against him, breathing heavy from the blistering sun and the strenuous work we’ve been doing, “Also, she thinks we’re married.” I gauge his reaction and find it humorous, much like his other ones, as his eyebrows shoot up and his mouth slides easily into that familiar smirk.

"Really?"

"Really. She told me a common Haitian proverb: ‘Wife for a time, mother for all time.’"

“She called you my wife?”

“It’s a… common way to thank someone, say, for saving them from the fallen debris of a building.” He nods again and I shove him sideways with my elbow, enjoying the sight of Seeley Booth stumbling and off-guard. I head off towards a nearby shelter to rehydrate and listen to the sounds of Booth complaining about a possibly twisted ankle.

“Ou konn kouri, ou pa konn kache, Booth.”

“Okay, whatever that was… it sounded really dirty, Bones.” I shrug in response.

“Then I suggest purchasing a translator when we return to the U.S. to find out for sure.” His eyes widen comically, the tires spinning in his mind, and I keep my laughter inside and leave him standing to contemplate his ordeal.





-Kaila Nicole

Over-Well Eggs and Toast on a Monday Morning

"Screw love," She preaches to the toilet on a Monday morning, when she's supposed to be getting ready for work. All of those early conference calls and runs to McDonald's for breakfast are ceased. All because of this.
"Bones?" Her husband calls from the bedroom. He knocks on the door. He's clueless. She curses him and his ability to have amazing sex with her. "Bones?" His voice is concerned now and damn right it should be, because here she's kneeling on the cold tile, face-to-face with something she normally puts her ass on. Her husband's ass on. Her face crinkles in disgust.
"I'm fine," Out comes her robotic response.
"You're a terrible liar," She's mouthing the words as he's telling her them. Doesn't he think that she already knows that? Otherwise, they wouldn't be married, because he knew that when she told him they were just partners, she was just scared and blowing him off. Or when every single time she brought up the line- he knew that she was mentioning it so it would stay in his mind, and hopefully, be erased from it.
Her hand reaches out for the door knob as her other flips the lever down. Whoosh. A spray of cold mist dashes across her face. "Hey, what's wrong? Are you sick?"
"No."
"You're throwing up. Unless you're trying to lose weight- which I doubt because you're stunningly beautiful- there's no other reason for you to be throwing up on a Monday morning. Even you wouldn't let the flu stop you from going to work."
"Shut up."
"I'm right and you know it." She wants to reply to his smug comment- she knows he is right, indeed- but her toast and over-well egg appears before her in a stream of dense colors. "Seriously, Tempe, are you feeling bad? Because I'll call Cam and tell her that-"
"You're an idiot." She can tell by the silence that several scenarios are running through his mind. She didn't marry this man because he was an idiot, though. She married him because he could always see the underlying truth of whatever she was telling him.
"NO WAY!"
"Yes way. The proof is in the toilet, Booth."
"You're- nuh uh!" To prove her point, more breakfast appeared. "BONES! BONES! Do you know what this means?"
"That you're going to be making some late-night runs for yogurt and pickles?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"This means we're going to have a baby! A baby! A little you or a little me."
"Statiscally, a child having only one of the parent's DNA and attributes is impossible."
"I love you," He blurts out, wrapping his arms around her waist and placing a kiss on her shoulder, on her neck, on her stomach. "And I love you," He tells her bare stomach, as he lifts up her shirt and his eyes are locked to the area where another heart beats- his child's heart beats.
Then she's sticking her head back into the commode and he's transforming, evolving. What was it that she heard? Men get married, have a baby, and then fall in love? If there ever were a study for that, she would place Booth up as a theory- no hypothesis needed. He's holding her hair back and cooing soft sounds, calming sounds, and as she catches his eye, seeing the sparkle in them and the grin on his face, she wonders why she ever cursed such a beautiful thing- this love, this affection, this trust- in the first place.

Burdens

A different ending to Bones' "Wannabe in the Weeds."
There's not a feeling in the world that competes with the agony than knowing you couldn't save your partner.
Losing your parent or child, that's hard. But it's still not your fault. Having your partner look you square in the face and tell you that they want you to complete their last wish- that's like lighting your body on fire and figuring out that you're not flammable. You feel the flames licking, but you can't escape from it.
That's the burden. But these burdens, they have more than enough weight to let you know they're there. They feel like bricks, thousands of bricks crushing you until there's nothing left but your five senses: you can see the thick, red liquid pouring out of your best friend, you can smell the stark gun powder, you can hear the ragged breaths, you can taste the copper in your mouth, and you can feel the blood pouring out and it amazes you that a person could hold that much inside of them. You think their body is filled with stupid jokes and useless information, but still, there's the other stuff that keeps them alive. The stuff that's running out. Their time is running out. You preferred the times you couldn't see the blood, but now you can and it's useless trying to get away from it, trying to run away from it, even though that's what your brain is telling you to do.
"Bones, we've got to get help." I tell her, plead to her, but she keeps shaking her head.
"Don't leave. Don't leave." And I don't. Because I'm her partner, because I'd die for her and I'm pretty sure she would throw herself in front of a train to save me- and I would never allow that to happen. Of course, here we were and I am eating my words. They don't taste good, mixed with the taste of her blood, and I want to throw up everything inside of me. Including my heart because it's always been hers and right now, right here, is the only appropriate time we have left for me to hand it over.
"Don't leave. Don't leave." We're both repeating this, now, mine in the same tone as hers. "Damn it, Bones, don't leave me behind. Don't leave me behind."
She never was good at listening to me.


-Kaila Nicole