Title: The Evolution of Temperance Brennan
Rating: T
Chapter: 1 of 10
Spoilers: General 1-5 warning. Also semi heavy spoilers for season six as well.
A/N: I wanted to approach this as essentially half character study, half fiction. So this is my "story essay" on how far Brennan has come over the past six years. Thanks to all who read and a special thanks to all of you who decide to hit the "review" button and toss me some encouragement.
~Squints don't solve murders. Cops do.~
~"I can't think of anything I wouldn't do to help him."~
He thinks he knows her. Really knows her, in most of the ways a person can know someone. Or the most important of those ways.
But then she morphs and changes, while he is unsuspecting, and turns everything he thinks he has figured out about her upside down.
Temperance Brennan: The enigma.
When he walks in and sees her, it's deja-vu all over again. It's the hostility and glares, just like the first time...the first time he ever laid eyes on Dr. Temperance Brennan.
~"Special Agent Seeley Booth."
"Dr. Temperance Brennan. Where's the body?"
He stops, debating on whether or not to extend more pleasantries or even a hand. Instead, he leads her to the bones.~
"What are you doing here?" she asks, annoyance in her voice.
The Homeland Security Agent flashes him a pity glance, a look of "This is what you want, who you want?"
He grabs her bags and tells her its time for their departure .She whisks behind him, storming out of the makeshift interrogation room.
Reluctantly, she gets into his government issued SUV. He can almost feel the heated anger wafting toward him from the passengers side seat where she sits staring out the window. She turns toward him and he rolls his shoulders, preparing for combat.
"That's the best you can do? Getting Homeland Security to snatch me so you can stage a fake rescue?"
He laughs, trying to play it off but he is secretly impressed a woman with her limited social skills made the distinction. She would categorize it as deductive reasoning but he believes it has nothing to do with science.
"Eh, come on. I went through all the appropriate channels but your assistant there stonewalled me."
"After the last case, I told Zack never ever to put you through. He's a good assistant. You can let me out anywhere along here."
He tries to sell her the case, tries to get her to bite on the line he is floating. She severs every attempt with sarcasm.
"If you drive one more block, I'm screaming "kidnap" out the window."
Agitated himself now, cool sniper exterior and resolve long melted away, he screeches the tires as he pulls up along the curb. Before he can say a word, she grabs her satchel and barrels out the door.
He wants to let her walk but no one gets the last word with Seeley Booth, so he flies out after her.
"You're not the only forensic anthropologist in town," he growls but knows better.
Not only is she the only one in town, she's the only one on the whole east coast. He next option would be to call Montreal and to him, that seems like such as waste when she is in the same zip code as his work. Doing the only thing he knows to do, he offers to let her have full participation in the case.
"Not just lab work. Everything," she says with a finger point.
"What do you want? Spit in my hand. We're Scully and Mulder."
But Bones has nothing on Dana Scully, he silently muses. She was the ideal woman: strong heart, intelligence, morals, insane work ethic, devotion. Brennan is not. Not even close.
"I don't know what that means," she frowns, brows furrowed and eyes squinted.
He extends a metaphorical olive branch and promises of murder. Just like the first time, he takes her the bones.
The first time she writes him into her book, the novel tops the New York Times Best Seller list. She's not one to sees signs in things or believe in flukes. She is a woman of science, not whim and happenstance, so she attributes it to her skill of writing concise medical portrayals and suspense. It couldn't be because of Seeley Booth. Not ever.
When she has the luxury of silence, mostly in the darker parts of night, she stares at the bones (always the bones) for a story.
Not so long ago, she would have only been interested in the breaks, the cracks, the wearing. The body tells a story, has a voice. She can read the lines and curves in her sleep.
She's on another chapter, in another world, when he enters.
"Thought I might find you here," he smiles lopsidedly.
"It's like home," she shrugs.
"But not home," he counters as he sits take-out boxes on an empty gurney nearby.
"Yes, but at home it's..." she begins but falters.
He doesn't look up from his task of opening the boxes but she knows he is waiting for her to continue. She turns off the light on her magnifying device and takes a seat on the stool near him. Her knee brushes his as she reaches across him to grab the farthest container.
In order to avoid air with no words, to avoid speaking she stuffs noodles into her mouth.
"You were saying?" he coaxes.
"Why exactly are you here at half past midnight anyway? No government slide to conquer of hot female to court?"
"It's government ladder and no one uses "court" anymore as a dating term except out of date forensic anthropologists," he frowns halfheartedly.
She smiles and he shrugs between bites of food.
"Why would I need to be anywhere else? Or with anyone else? I'm with my partner," he says, playfully slugging her in the shoulder, "With my friend, my pal, my buddy. This is fun."
He motions between them.
"Not so long ago, you'd have preferred to be anywhere else but with me," she almost whispers.
He stops mid-bite and looks at her.
"Do you still think that?"
"I...honestly don't know," she admits.
He lays down his chopsticks and swivels his stool to face her. Grabbing the eating utensils out of her hand, he lays them down and spins her to look at him. Their knees touch, connecting them.
"Hey, listen. Don't ever think that," he assures, placing a hand on her knee.
She doesn't flinch, doesn't break eye contact even though his touch still feels odd, not because she doesn't want him near her but because she secretly has become accustomed to the warmth of his palms somewhere on her skin. On the curvature of the small of her back, lightly touching the flesh of her bicep, resting against the movements of her shoulders.
"Yeah, sure, we've had our differences. But people change. They grow and morph. You know that better than anyone. You study...," he motions between the small space of their bodies, "Us."
"I know bones. I don't know flesh and organs and the ephemeral emotions supposedly attached to those specific areas."
"You know more than you give yourself credit for," he smiles.
His hand moves from her knee to just above her breast. She tries not to inhale sharply but this is Booth and he can read things about people that they never wanted anyone to know.
"You feel more in here," he says, tapping her chest lightly. It seems as soon as his hand is placed on her, it is gone. "What I'm saying is that you and me? We've come a long way. We're a team."
He turns back around to his food.
She nods her agreement and they fall into silence. Momentarily.
"At home, it's lonely. Here, there are people everywhere," she finally admits. "Here, I have someone." Even if they are just distant reminders of the actual people.
"You've always got me, Bones. Always."
Yes, she thinks to herself. We're a team.