A/N: This very belated episode tag for "The Proof in the Pudding" (with a bit of foreshadowing for "The Devil in the Details") was written for the "what if?" comment fic meme at the bitesize_bones LJ community.
I'm aware that the title is the motto of the Marine Corps, but it just fit here, so I figure Ranger!Booth will have to forgive me…
"Cam?"
"Seeley, what are you still doing here? I thought you and – "
"Listen, I need you to tell me the truth – I'm not stupid, I can tell when something is up. There's a chance that it was JFK after all, isn't there?"
Cam hesitates, but there's a reason they've been friends for over fifteen years. "We can't be sure, but yeah, there's a good chance. Sorry about that, big guy."
"It's okay. Thanks, Cam."
She just nods, a hint of sadness in her eyes, but he's already walking out the door and doesn't see it.
He isn't surprised that it turns out to be one of those nights when he lies in bed staring at the ceiling and tries to focus on anything but the itching in his fingertips.
A part of him wonders why the truth didn't hit him harder, why he feels nothing but that dull pang of emptiness in his chest, and he can't help asking himself if that's what it's like to lose one's faith.
Fifty-nine. It's the number that keeps popping up in his mind at every turn, no matter how hard he tries not to think of it. Fifty-nine lives, fifty-nine human beings whose blood is on his hands. His hands, not those of some flawless, blameless higher power who will take the weight of responsibility off his shoulders.
He remembers a time when he could still believe that this was the way it would go, but deep down he knows that it hasn't been like that for a while; it probably comes with the territory when you've been a soldier and a cop for too long. He thinks of a growing boy who kept clinging to the belief that Santa Claus brought the Christmas presents long after he'd seen his mother sneak brightly wrapped parcels into the house, and he cringes at the realization that it's not just children who have trouble growing up sometimes.
He doesn't regret the choices he made. He's still sure of that, but the knowledge isn't as comforting as it used to be. It's not the first time his faith has been shaken, but it has never felt like this, like he's suddenly realizing that it all comes down to him, and him alone, that nobody will speak up on his behalf at the final reckoning.
Except, perhaps, for one woman he'd until now considered incapable of lying about anything, least of all her beloved science.
He wanted to be angry with her at first. He's not a child that needs to be sheltered from ugly truths, and it fills him with a deep sense of shame that she thought he wouldn't be able to handle reality, that she considered it necessary to betray the only thing she really believes in for his sake.
And yet, he can't bring himself to blame her. He knows what it means to build your life on your beliefs, to hold on to something that keeps you going no matter how rough things get – and yet she turned her back on that, let go of her need for absolute truth and did her best to bend it into a shape that she thought he could live with. It may seem like a small thing from the outside, but he knows her, knows what a leap of faith it must have been for her, and yet she did it.
For him.
He grasps the medal around his neck and rubs it between his fingers. Some things are constant, while others must change over time, and he's been around long enough to know that it's not always easy to tell the difference.
He thinks of her smile when she linked arms with him just a few hours ago, of the light in her eyes while they walked together, and he remembers the day all those years ago when she first walked next to him and told him she wanted to help him with what she called his 'cosmic balance sheet'.
He holds on to that thought as he finally drifts off to sleep. There may be nightmares tonight, of distant gunfire and blood-spattered children and the acrid smell of burning flesh, but then the sun will come up, and tomorrow will be a new day.
Perhaps he won't get back the same kind of faith he used to have, but there are still things to have faith in, and somehow that seems enough right now.