This is for Penny. I hope you like it. This story takes place after "The Past in the Present".
I don't own Bones.
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Booth was at loose ends. His days were running together and his life was turned upside down, but he had family obligations that he couldn't ignore. He always had family obligations. Memorial Day had arrived and he had to pick up his grandfather and drive him out to Arlington National Cemetery. Every year without fail, Booth and Hank drove out to the Cemetery to visit one of Hank's friends.
James Rawlings had served with Hank during World War II in France and later in Germany. Pops and James had been military police, but that didn't keep them safe from the shooting war. Everyone found that out during the Battle of the Bulge. James and Hank had been ordered to guard a crossroads on one of the major thoroughfares, looking out for Germans who were trying to infiltrate the United States Army with false papers when James had been killed and Hank had been wounded.
Hank hated to talk about the sad side of his tour of duty, several of his friends had died in action and James's death had been the hardest one to take. He did love to tell tales of misbehavior and scandals, but rarely about the horrors he had seen. That's just the way he was and in a way, Booth felt the same way.
Every Memorial Day, Booth and Hank would pack a small cooler, drive out to Arlington, sit in the shade and visit James for a few hours. James had been an orphan, so he didn't have any family to speak of. Hank figured that if he didn't go see James then no one would and he just couldn't bare that.
Arriving at the cemetery, Booth and Hank slowly made their way over to James' grave. Booth carried their cooler and a lawn chair for his grandfather while the old man carefully navigated around the tombstones with his cane. Luckily James' grave was near a large oak tree and Hank could sit in the deep shade when he got tired of standing and talking to his departed friend.
Usually while Hank talked to James' departed spirit, Booth wandered around the cemetery and paid short visits with some of his own lost friends. He told them about what was going on in his life and that always seem to make him feel just a little better. They were very good listeners and very nonjudgmental. He needed that in his life, now more than ever.
Booth had been explaining to his departed partner Teddy Parker about Brennan and Christine when he noticed his grandfather waving at him. Quickly walking over to where Hank was standing, Booth heard his grandfather call out to him. "Hey Shrimp . . . It's time. Break out the sandwiches and Cokes and let's do this thing."
The morning was pleasant and sunny which was fine with Booth as walked over to the shade tree, opened his cooler, took out two peanut butter sandwiches, two bottles of coke and carried them over to where Hank was waiting. Handing one of the sandwiches and one of the Cokes over to his grandfather, Booth glanced at the tombstone just two feet from where they were standing. "I made them with grape jelly this year. Didn't you say that James loved them with grape jelly?"
Hank nodded his head, took his sandwich out of the Ziplock bag and took a bite. Smiling at the thought of James' obsession, Hank stared at James' tombstone. "James loved peanut butter sandwiches. He dreamed about them because he loved them so much . . . He always told me that when he got back home, after the war, he was going to eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly until he was sick of the sight of them. He was going to drink gallons of Coke until it made him sick . . . Me, I wanted steak and eggs. I really missed a good steak, but not James . . . Peanut butter and Coke were his special after school snack his mother made for him every day. When she and his Dad died in a traffic accident, he was raised by his father's mother. That lady hated the thought of sandwiches and soda was considered a sin. He rarely got to have them and he felt it was just . . . I don't know, a slap against his mother . . . Anyway, once he was on his own, he ate sandwiches at least five days a week. When he joined the Army and got sent overseas, he found out that he wouldn't be able to get his favorite food and drink as often as he wanted. Sometimes he liked to drove me nuts talking about crunchy peanut butter versus creamy. And don't even get him started about Coke versus Royal Crown Cola. He obsessed over them. I even begged Margaret to mail me a jar of the damn stuff so that I could get some peace and quiet, but I guess it got lost in the mail because I never got it . . . I wish I had though. It would have made James so happy . . . He really was a nice guy."
Sad for James and his grandfather, Booth ate his sandwich and drank his Coke with the old man. Looking out over the cemetery, Booth saw some familiar faces visiting various grave sites. Waving at the mother of one of his friends, Booth smiled at her and then looked back at Hank. Knowing the answer to his question, Booth prodded his grandfather. "You were with him the day he died?"
Hank swallowed his bite of sandwich and moved over to the chair under the tree. With a sigh, he sat down."Oh sure, sure . . . It was a quiet day. We really hadn't seen anyone for a few hours and James was arguing with me about who was going to win the Stanley Cup. The idiot favored Detroit, but you know me . . . a Flyers fan the whole way . . . We saw a jeep come down the road and I knew there was something hinky about those bastards when they stopped next to us. For one thing, they were too damn clean. I hadn't had a shower in a few days and here comes these bozos in a jeep, scrubbed clean and smelling like cologne and . . . any way, James started asking them questions and he thought they were okay. They knew the answers to our questions, so we had told them they could go when James tossed out his last question. "Did they ever think Fibber was going to clean out his closet?""
His attention momentarily captured by the brother of Teddy Parker, Booth waved and then looked back at James' tombstone."He surprised them."
Slowly nodding his head, Hank finished his sandwich and washed it down with a sip of cola. "You never saw someone panic so fast as those guys in the jeep. They pulled their guns out and started shooting and we shot back. James went down and so did I. There were more of them than us and well . . . I woke up and found out our walkie talkies were gone. James was lying a few feet from me and God he was hurt . . . he was hurt really bad. I crawled over to him and he was still alive, but just barely." Clearing his throat, Hank wiped his finger under his wet lashes. "He looked at me and he begged me. He said 'Hank, promise me that you'll visit me once in awhile and when you do bring peanut butter sandwiches and cokes. Even if I can't taste the damn things then I can at least enjoy watching you do it.' . . . Of course I promised him I would do it. I had to."
Placing his right hand on Hanks left shoulder, Booth squeezed gently. "And you always keep your promises, Pops."
Hank held up his coke and chuckled. "You're damn right I do, Shrimp. I always have and I always will."
Turning to James' tombstone, Hank sipped his coke and then held up the can. "This coke is for you James . . . It's cold and it still bites going down. Just the way you liked it."
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Happy Memorial Day to all of our military families. We're thinking of you.
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Reviews would be nice, let me know what you think of my story. Thanks.
A/N: Just in case you don't know who Fibber is, Fibber McGee and Molly were on an American radio program. The running gag on the show was whenever Fibber opened the closet door a bunch of stuff would fall out on top of him. He always said he was going to clean it up someday, but someday never came.
