She stares unseeing at the screen in front of her, her focus blurred and her stance unmoving but her mind firing at immeasurable speeds. He loved her, he'd said it. She had believed that it was what she had wanted to hear, but now that he had put it out there she realises that it was her vanity and not her heart that had desired his affections. She could never fool herself into falling in love with someone through obligation. She's taught herself to be self-reliant, emotionally distant and though she envies others of their easy ability to fall in and out of love, she does not envy the complications that love brings.
Past relationships had often been turbulent and short lived. The strange relationship that she has with him is serene, they argue but their quarrels could never be described as heated. Somehow she knows that she needs that, someone to reign her in, to bounce off of when the tension becomes too much. Whatever she needs, she can see now that she was mistaken for believing it could be him. She closes her eyes and can see the hurt in his expression as she tried to find words to thank him for his declaration, a pang of guilt courses through her as she realises that she never meant to allow things to get of hand. She knows that she must have known all along that she didn't want this from him.
Getting up from her desk she pulls her coat from the chair and makes her way out of the office. Years of pushing everyone away has made letting anyone get close to her a near impossible task. She'd led him on, allowed him to think that he affected her. She'd flirted with his ego, she isn't entirely sure why. What did that make her? She is cool and calm, rational and precise; of all the things that she is, she knows that she isn't romantic. She just wishes that she had shown him this before now, maybe then he wouldn't be so disappointed in her inability to return his affections.
Reaching her car, she fingers her keys in her pocket. A voice rings out in the silent car park and she turns to see Angela at the lab doors. Calling over she assures her that everything is fine, that she has something that she needs to finish. Turning back to the car she lets out a breath before getting in. Nodding to herself as she starts the engine she knows what she needs to do, she needs to finish this dance that she has started… There is only one love in Temperance Brennan's life, her career. Looking on it all now, she wonders how she could ever have believed that David could have competed.