Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Standard Author's Note: First Bones fanfic.
This is a rather depressing Semperence futurefic, so if you're looking for puppies and sunshine, turn back now.
No names are used, but it's pretty obvious who's speaking and who they're talking about.
The State of Always
She enters his office, feeling none of the apprension she had the first few times she had visited, but nor does she feel the comfort she thinks the soft tones of yellow are meant to convey. She sits down opposite him, and waits for him to speak. This visit is going to be different, she feels instictively. For the past few weeks, she has been talking to him; and for the past few weeks they have danced around why she was here, in his office, in this facility.
"Does he even remember who he is? Who you are?" the Doctor's voice is calm, nearly soothing.
"I talk to him, and he remembers."
"That can't be easy."
"It isn't, but neither is anything else I've had to adjust to."
"Talking to someone who doesn't truly remember, won't remember what you're saying." The Doctor can't understand this; no one can. They all think she's mad, but she's not. She is doing the only thing she can do. If they were living her life, they would understand, maybe they would even act as she did. Spending every waking moment with someone who, as the Doctor said, truly doesn't remember, who she is, what they were. But what other choice does she have?
"That man is my life. And after everything that's been taken from me, that's what I have left."
"Do you ever think about that day?" She hears That Day as though it is capitalized, in order to pay it the tribute due. After all, she muses, we capitalize Rememberence Day and Memorial Day. Why not that day as well?
"Are you implying there's a moment that I don't think about the day that I lost my family? Can I ask you a question, doctor?"
"Certainly."
"Do you have a family?"
"Yes, I have a wife and a young child."
"And they mean something to you?"
"Yes, of course. I love them very much."
"Do you ever fear for their safety? Ever have to wonder if they're going to come home at night?" Do you have some kind of security I never had? Some assurance that was denied me?
"I think all parents fear that on some level." What the Doctor doesn't understand is that he is lucky that he understands it only on a hypothetical level, not a a level that truly means anything to him. She tries to explain what it's like to truly understand this fear, to live with it every day.
"Every morning when my husband left for work, I kissed him and I told him I loved him. No matter what. Every single morning. Because I knew there was always a chance he wouldn't come home that night." All the "I love you"s in the world wouldn't have been enough, would never have been enough to convey how much I truly love him, she thinks, her mind drifting back to that last morning they had together. She had been getting the girls ready, and had almost missed him leaving for work. But she didn't, because he waited for her at the door, the same way he did every morningWhat she had never known was that their morning ritual was as important to him as it was to her.
"That must have been very difficult on you and your children." The Doctor spoke in a voice that conveys an understanding he couldn't possibly have, would likely never have. And for that, she envied him. This man, trained to help people through pain and trauma, hasn't the abilty to help her, he hasn't lived what she has, hasn't felt what she has.
"On me, yes it was. They didn't understand, they were still too young to know why it was so important to Mommy that Daddy knew how much she loved him."
"And he knew?"
"He still knows."
"And he loved you?"
"What kind of question is that? Did my husband love me? Have you seen him when he remembers me? Have you seen those solitary moments when he knows who he is?"
"I have."
"Then you know that he loves me. Days go by when he doesn't know who or where he is, but in those moments, he knows. And he remembers who I am, and he loves me."
"If he loves you, would he want you living like this?" Here, the Doctor reaches what he's been pushing her towards for the past few weeks.
"How am I living, Doctor?"
"You're not. You exist, you are not living. He wouldn't want that."
"You think he would want me to forget? Walk away, forget about him, about what we had, about our daughters?" How could you possibly know what my husband would have wanted? He can't tell me anymore, so he certainly hasn't told you.
"Not forget, never forget. But you have to keep living."
"What part of "That man is my life" is at all unclear? You know, Doctor, the fact that you can't understand this makes me wonder if you truly love your family as much as you say you do. The idea that you're encouraging me to effectively abandon the only family I have left in the world speaks volumes about your own priorities."
"Fortunately, we're not hear to discuss my family."
"Enjoy them, doctor, while you have them. I always knew there was a chance I could lose him. How could I not? Strong as he was, brave as he was, smart as he was, there was always a chance. We both knew it. But my little girls? Nothing could have prepared me for that. Nothing. I thought they were safe, you know? Daddy went to work every day to make sure the world would be safe for his girls. "
"But he couldn't?"
"I always think maybe if he hadn't gone to work that day, or maybe if I had kept the girls home that day. Lily had had a doctor's appointment the day before, if I only I had moved it back one day. And if Lily had been out of school, there would have been no getting Shelia to go. They both would have been home safe. And maybe, if they hadn't been there, then he wouldn't have taken the risks he did. But, that's ridiculous, because he would have given his everything, even if his own children weren't involved. But then I think, maybe, maybe knowing his girls were in there was enough for him to not slow down that one second to think. Because that's all it took, one second. Or, if I had been there, could I have changed things? Maybe it would have only made it worse. I can't help but think that I should have been there, you know? It should have been me. Not my husband, and not my girls. They were strong, they could have moved on."
"But you can't?"
"What do I have to move on to? My life was full, my home was full of voices and laughter. When I leave here every night, I go to an empty house. A house that hasn't changed since that day, because I'm scared of letting go of even their possessions, you know? If I leave their Barbies on the floor where they left them, they might come back to play with them again. Or if I leave his ties where they are, I might hear him complaining about having to wear them, just once more."
"What would happen? If you were to put away the Barbies, move the ties?"
"I'd lose all that I had left of them. I can't do that."
"Can you do me a favor?"
"That depends, I suppose, on what the favor is."
"Can you stay away from this place, from your husband, for one week?"
"How can you even ask that?"
"I just want you to try living on your own again. You still have so much time left in this world, you can't waste it here. It's nor fair to you or to the memories of your family."
"Not fair? My daughters were four and six years old when they were killed. My husband was forty-five years old when he took a bullet to the head in order to save the lives of dozens of innocent school children, including his own daughters. That bullet entered his brain, and proceeded to ricochet of this inside of his skull, irreparably damaging his brain to the point that he doesn't know who he is a great majority of the time. The fact that there are moments that he is completely lucid is nothing short of a miracle. Not one doctor who has seen him can account for it. I am a logical woman, doctor, very fact-based and science-oriented. You kind of have to be to do what I did before."
"Before?"
"Yes, before. I had something of a life before I became a wife and a mother. I was a forensic anthropologist- I spent my life looking at the remains of other people's sons, daughters, husbands. I solved murders, I laid the dead to rest in peace. I could look at a dead body and tell you who they had been in life. And to do that I used cold-hard fact. Anything could be explained, if I had all the evidence. But I believe that there is some miracle at work here, something that I can't explain away. Perhaps my husband's own strength has allowed him to retain something of who he was, in the face of something that should have, by all rights, killed him. But it didn't. He survived, if only barely, and if only for those few moments where he is himself. And, I know my husband, even if he knew the consequences, knew what he would become; if he thought it would save lives, he would have done it in an instant, no hesitation. My husband is a good man. But it didn't do any good. It didn't do anyone any good. Those school children he sacrificed himself to protect? They were killed when the bomb was detonated. A man went into an elementary school that morning, armed with homemade explosives, with the intention to kill as many children and destroy as many lives as possible. And he succeeded. That man killed my husband and my two daughters."
"But he didn't destroy your life, unless you allow him to. And right now, that's what you're doing. Your husband has been here, what is it, seven months now? And you have been here every single day since then? You spend all your time with a man who, for a vast majority of the time, hasn't the faintest clue who you are. I don't know what more I can say to convince you that you are not helping anyone, least of all yourself. "
"There's nothing you can say at all, Doctor. I have been married for seven years, but I still remember my wedding vows. I stood in a church, before a priest and before God, and I promised to love that man for better, or for worse, until death do us part. He is not dead, and neither am I. And, so I continue to honour those vows in the only way that I know how. By sitting with him, talking to him, sometimes just being silent with him. You're right, he doesn't always know who I am, but the important thing is that he knows I am there."
"There truly is nothing I can do to convince you?"
"There truly isn't, doctor. Though I do appreciate your concern. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to get back to my husband before he starts to worry that I'm not there."
I'm not going to pretend that this wasn't, at least in the slightest way, inspired by The Notebook.
Small explanation of the title, in case anyone is interested: Since Booth/Brennan doesn't really condense itself into a nice 'ship name, I tend to use "Semperance" (as in Seeley/Temperance).
Now time for the fun little language lesson: "semper" or "forever" is Latin for "always" and in English the suffix "-ance" means (among other things) "state of." Put them together- you get "state of always" or "state of forever"; both of which I really like. And it seemed like a pretty apt title for this work. Who says inventing words can't be fun?
Just in case there is any confusion: the above conversation is between Brennan and a theapist of sorts, in the facility or care centre, whatever you want to call it, where a now-defunct Booth lives, on account of head trauma do to a gun shot wound.