I wrote this story some months ago, Hannah was still around, but ended up not publishing it. This is for all of you who miss the old canon – at least fanfiction-wise. It will be completed this weekend, I just have to go through the chapters one more time.
I will continue my ongoing hiatus fic as well, I just need to reconnect with the Booth and Brennan I've loved and written for so long... and only them.
THE PALE IN THE BLUE
I.
Seeley Booth awoke at dawn. Mild violet twilight shone in through the half-closed blinds, and every inch of his skin felt as if it had been ripped from his body.
Maybe because it had been.
The sheets that covered him felt cool and exquisite, though, almost soothing the soreness.
He blinked once, twice, and when his dazed pupils could finally focus, they zoomed in on the woman lying next to him, and, almost against his will, a smile tugged at his chapped lips.
Temperance Brennan had never looked more splendid to him than in the fresh hours of this early morning. Her soft hair was splayed out on the pillow, framing her face almost like a halo – except that it was too dark to be a halo and too mussed to be nothing but real. Her full lips were slightly parted in slumber, and she rested on her fists like a child.
She looked so young, so cute, so innocent, and for the fraction of a moment he could almost forget the terrors she had witnessed in her life, the abysses she had been balancing on.
Warmth spread out in his insides, the sight of her so at peace easing the pain better than the strongest remedy.
He took her all in – from the translucent creaminess of her skin to the rosy flush on her cheeks and the curve of her long lashes. The bangs she used to wear after her time in Maluku had grown again, and these days she had to pin them back or they would fall into her eyes. Booth was irrationally glad for that – not that they hadn't looked good on her, but he didn't like it when something covered only an inch of her face. However, the darker color had remained, and the contrast of her tendrils to the pale blue sheets added a shade of vulnerability to her beauty that made his chest ache with something he couldn't quite name, but gratefulness was definitely part of it.
Gratefulness that he was alive, his heart beating, breath leaving his lungs.
If things had gone differently yesterday, and he had never gotten the chance to see her like this... Booth was sure that he wouldn't have made a very peaceful soul.
Looking at her for another minute, he decided that pale blue was a wonderful color for her. But then again, she could wear almost everything. The black dress she had sported as Roxy – even better than the scarlet red one because it had been more her, more Temperance – or the white coat she had worn during that star-crossed night when she had crushed all his hopes. Or the emerald green dress which had stolen the confession from him that she was his standard. Always had been. Even the dark blue of her usual lab coat looked good on her. The color made her eyes stand out.
Booth sighed at the onslaught of images. However, today it was pale blue, and pale blue meant that he had survived. Pale blue stood for life, safety and her.
Her brow furrowed in sleep, and Booth raised his hand, lightly touching the hard lines in an attempt to ban her nightmare. A nightmare that was probably very similar to his own. After all, who could blame her after the events of the last days...