New FanFiction: Head or Heart, B/B, Rated T, Drama/Angst

Not sure quite how to do this - This is my first visit to the website. I posted this at fanfiction.net and have gotten some good constructive reviews. I'm hoping more reviews and constructive criticism will come from here while I work to finish it. This is the first chapter; will post more if I've done this right!

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What would happen if Booth had to choose between his partner and his son?
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“Wow,” Booth stated, waving his hand uselessly in front of his face as he choked on a caustic mixture of smoldering metal and burned flesh. “I’ve smelled some nasty things in a parking garage before, but I never knew one could make my eyes burn this bad.”

His partner stopped and looked at him, her own eyes beginning to water from the residual effects of a charred vehicle in an enclosed structure. “The fire department has cleared us to be here, Booth. There shouldn’t be any residual elements that would cause a long-term negative effect.”

He was blinking rapidly, trying to dispel the irritation from his eyes, and only managed to let it creep into his voice. “I know they’ve cleared us to be here, Bones, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t stink to high heaven.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes before opening them and resuming his original course through the garage.

“What have we got?” Booth asked the uniformed officer next to the remains of a once fully viable sport utility vehicle.

“Fire was called in an hour ago by the garage attendant. The alarms set off pretty quick, and by the time he got here he couldn’t even tell what kind of car it was.” The officer shook his head. “Took the fire department a half an hour to get it out.”

Brennan was already peering into the driver’s side door while concurrently pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. She set her bag down and gingerly fingered a large depression in the driver’s skull.

“What is it?” Booth asked, staying close enough to hear her but further towards the rear of the vehicle in order to minimize his exposure to the putrid air around them. She would always mumble, in her endearingly thoughtful way, as she assessed a body for the first time, and he normally hovered close at her elbow so he didn’t miss a thing.

Booth loved to watch the myriad of different emotions that would play across her features while she made her initial assessment. She paused now, studiously observing subtle differences in the victim’s physiological make-up, and for a brief moment his attention was diverted to the vehicle itself.

“The victim was female, mid to late thirties. Height approximately 67 inches. There is a large depression in the anterior section of the cranium, which we will probably find was inflicted before the victim died.” Her finger traced the depression in the bone.

“Most likely this cranial trauma will be our proven cause of death.” She finished her initial findings and pulled herself back to remove her gloves. Feeling something slightly amiss she turned to see Booth, brow furrowed, several feet away and staring wordlessly at the rear of the vehicle. Normally she felt his warm breath on her neck as she worked, and the absence of his presence and full attention now was an obvious and unwelcome change from their normal routine.

Brennan turned to the uniformed officer nearby. “Have the body transferred back to my lab at the Jeffersonian, along with the driver’s door so we can test it for particulate matter.”

She observed her partner as she joined him at his side. His face had grown more taut, and he was now peering intently at the blackened remains of a bumper sticker.

“We’ll need to get back as soon as possible so Hodgins can get started with his analysis. And Zack is going to need some extra time in order to clean the charring from the bones so we can….”

Booth’s earlier aversion to the car was instantly gone, as was his fascination with the bumper sticker. In two long strides he was back around to the driver’s side and swinging the rear door open.

“Booth? What are you...”

“Bones, is there a body in the backseat?”

She looked at him, bewildered at the frantic tone underlying the absurdity of his question, and momentarily apprehensive at the intensity of his gaze. “What? Why would you think there would be another body...”

“DAMMIT BONES!” Impatient, and slightly manic at this point, he retraced his path to roughly grab her arm and pull her back towards the rear door. “Is-there-another-body-in-the-backseat?”

Brennan stared at him for a long moment, taking in the pleading eyes and suddenly agitated state. He had never treated her with such disregard, and although he had been unnecessarily rough with her she didn’t question his motives. If he were this insistent it was only because he had good reason to be.

Obediently she turned and searched through the rubble remaining in the rear seat of the car. Almost immediately she observed the vestiges of what was once a small booster seat, still in place where it had once been safely strapped in. Now the seat belt was melted into the seat around it, and the molded plastic of the seat itself had been reduced to a bubbled mass of toxic fumes. Understanding suddenly washed over her, and for a fearful moment her panicked emotions mirrored that of her partner’s. The victim had a child, or at least was traveling fully equipped for one.

Thankful eyes closed briefly as she turned to face her partner, shaking her head slightly and speaking in that soft tone reserved only for him. “No, there is no one else in this car with her.”

“You’re sure?” He questioned, running his hand through his hair, growing more agitated by the moment.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied quickly, puzzled at his lack of relief at her assessment. “I think you should know that I know a body when I see one, Booth.” She paused for a moment, taking in his distress. Eyes wide, face white, with a small sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip.

“Booth,” she began cautiously, “what is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s WRONG WITH ME?” He echoed, his voice rising slightly with each word as he positioned himself right in her face. His voice lowered somewhat as he spoke again.

“This car is Rebecca’s car, Bones. More than likely that corpse is Becca,” he jabbed towards the car with his index finger.

Brennan stared at him, aghast. “Rebecca?” she whispered. “Your Rebecca?”

He winced, noticeably, but didn’t reply.

“How do you know it’s her?”

“And this,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, his attention moving to the opened door and pointing to the molten plastic, “is Parker’s booster seat.”

He was pacing now, like a caged tiger ready to pounce. She knew that look; it only happened when he was trying to make sense of something that just didn’t add up and was frustrated with his inability to put the pieces of the puzzle together. She jumped as he pounded his fist against the side of the car.

“Booth!”

“This is Parker’s booster seat,” he repeated, quivering slightly.

He strode over next to the driver’s side door, and to his partner’s horror pointed at the corpse inside. “This, this right here?” He shook his finger at the skull and then stared into Brennan’s eyes as his own grew wider.

“This is...” He paused, looking back at the body, as if the gravity of the situation had finally caught up with him. “This is the mother of my child,” he finished softly, voice about to break.

“So where is my child?” he asked, turning back to face Brennan. The look on his face made her heart want to break. His eyes were filled with the pain and horror of loosing someone who had once been so important; who had once been the center of his universe. They were also filled with the confusion that comes when it is realized that things are not as they should be.

“Booth, you don’t know for sure that this is Rebecca. We won’t know that until we can verify the identity of this individual.”

His eyes were threatening to spill over with tears he didn’t want to give credit to. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, staring again at what he knew would turn out to be her body.

“I know it’s her, Bones.”

His lack of logic was crying out to be corrected. Although his “gut” had served them well on many occasions, he just did not have the experience necessary to be able to determine identity from looking at a corpse. He could not possibly be able to facially reconstruct a victim, no matter how many crime scenes he had observed.

She was prepared to launch into a discourse of all of these reasons why Booth’s logic was flawed. To explain to him that there were far more possibilities of this not being Rebecca than it actually being her. That she had ultimate faith in science, and science alone, to comfort her with its laws, certainties, and answers. That putting her trust in it had served her well through all of the difficult periods in her life. And that only in recent years had her complete faith been expanded to now include two items: science and Booth.

The source of her faith was now struggling. She had seen him wipe away the tears that had been in danger of falling, and her heart ached at the possibility, however slim, that this may in fact be the mother of his child. Her thoughts of extolling the science of the situation were wiped out of her mind completely when she heard Booth’s voice from a recent memory in her mind.

“Head or Heart.”

She reached out to grab his hand instead, offering him all of the support and strength she could offer. He gripped it tightly for just a brief moment, then righted himself and shifted into what Angela called his “G-Man Mode”. He pulled his cell phone out and quickly began punching numbers, pausing only a moment before speaking.

“Shelly, it’s Seeley Booth. Is Parker with you today, by chance?”

He paused a moment, his eyes closing at her apparent response. “Okay, just checking. No, everything’s fine,” he lied, voice slightly quaking at the effort. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

Booth snapped the phone shut, tapping it against his chin and wildly trying to come up with any other plausible explanation for where his son might be.

“Babysitter?” Brennan asked.

Booth dropped his head. “No, that was Rebecca’s mother I just spoke to. Rebecca sometimes drops Parker off with her if she needs to run errands.”

She could hear the defeat beginning to creep into his voice and tugged at his sleeve, her protective instincts taking over. “Come on, Booth, there’s nothing more we can do here now.”

He seemed hesitant to leave, and found himself staring at the body once again as the FBI forensic team began the process of extricating it from the vehicle.

“And there’s nothing you could have done before, either,” she cautioned, already seeing him begin to blame himself. “Let’s confirm the victim’s identity as soon as possible and go from there,” she finished softly.

Booth finally nodded and tossed his car keys to her, the gesture itself saying more than any words could convey. “You’d better drive,” was all he said.
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Awesome! Already reviewed at the other place but just wanted to say Welcome to the ABY!!