Disclaimer: I do not own Bones or any of it's characters.
After you've read the following story you can decide if the show would be better if I did :o)
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
When I first started watching 'Bones' I was puzzled because the lead characters, Booth and Brennan, already knew each other.
After seeing the fourth season finale, "The End In The Beginning" I cannot help but think Hart Hanson missed the perfect opportunity to finally take us on a trip down memory lane...
After all, Booth has just had dangerous surgery and lies in a coma.
Bones doesn't know if he's going to make it.
For me, 'The End In The Beginning' was just okay. The plot we saw, the murder of the hitman in the nightclub, had no real relevance to our characters. It seemed just a way to waste some time in order to get to the final 5 minutes of the episode.
How much better would the episode have been if the murder was actually interwoven with something relevant to Booth and Brennan? Something like...?
How they first met.
Think about it.
If you had just heard the story of how Booth and Brennan met, wouldn't the final five minutes of 'The End In The Beginning', been even more dramatic?
And heartbreaking.
Because he doesn't remember her.
So here is my story.
How 'The End In The Beginning' should have been written.
This is how Booth and Brennan met.
I hope you like it.
The Meeting In The Beginning.
Prologue.
Temperance Brennan opened the door to the hospital room and slipped inside.
The sight that met her eyes was one she hoped she would never see.
Her partner of four years, Seeley Booth, was still, lying in the hospital bed before her.
His skin was almost the same white shade as the sheets and pillow he lay upon.
Various tubes connected him to machines that were set up all around him. The top part of his head was hidden under a layer of bandages.
He looked helpless and vulnerable in a way she had never seen him look before.
And it broke her heart.
"Hi Booth." She whispered.
He didn't react and she stared at him for a long moment, struggling to find something to say.
The silence became so loud, it was deafening.
"The doctors say your going to sleep for a while..." She blurted out suddenly. "Maybe a l-long while."
Her voice wobbled at the last part, a small sob escaping her lips but she shook her head roughly, trying to pull herself together.
She had to be strong now.
"They think... they think you might be able to hear me."
She looked down at her hands.
"Sweets told me to talk to you. He said..." She took a deep breathe. "He said sometimes people only really listen when they're asleep."
She managed a small smile at that but when she looked up at him, her face fell again.
"Can you hear me Booth?"
The question seemed to echo in the silent room and there was no answer.
Brennan found herself drifting closer to him.
She looked down at his hand, on the bed at his side, and gingerly paced her own hand on top of his. It was limp, but as warm and reassuring as it always was and that helped... even just a tiny bit.
She took a seat in the chair beside his bed.
"So I'm supposed to talk to you." She informed him. "And then you'll wake up."
She frowned slightly and bit her lip.
"I'm not very good at talking... I mean I have vocal cords obviously but well..." She sighed. "I think I mostly just tell people things they don't want to hear... then they get mad at me. You say I'm the genius Booth" [she smiled at this] "but am I? You're the one who knows how to talk to people… you always seem to know the right thing to say... it's always been like that... ever since I've known you..."
She paused a moment, thinking.
"Booth, do you remember when we first met...? Do you remember what you said to me at the end of the case? I've never forgotten it. You said... life is painful, so find someone worth suffering for."
She leaned forward and squeezed his hand.
"It's only now that I understand what that really means. Because... because you mean everything to me Booth. Please come back to me."
The last part was a whisper and Brennan fought back tears. In a desperate attempt to keep them at bay she spoke aloud the tale she would tell over the next four days.
As Brennan spoke, her voice filled the room and found it's way to Booth.
Her words warmed him, penetrating through the thick fog of his coma.
Somewhere deep inside Booth's head, a tiny part of Booth flickered, like a candle, into life.
It was the part of Booth which had taken refuge against the anaesthetic, in the deepest depths of his mind.
This part heard her words, and though terribly weak, grabbed onto them.
And as Brennan's words began to sink in, this part of Booth began to awaken...
This part of Booth was listening... and this part of Booth was remembering...