Author note: This story is going to be a bit different then my others. The next chapter will show you why. I know this set-up can seem a bit daunting, but things sometimes are never as they appear.
"Dr. Brennan…" An eager, young freshman tensed as he slowly walked toward the podium, "I was just wondering… maybe if you could…" The young man fumbled as his eyes locked with the stoic figure before him. He hadn't been told she would look so graceful and... broken.
He had been waiting weeks for his task. The perfect chance to see the real woman behind the eloquent, flowery words that everyone on campus could recite by heart. Words that had all but sizzle and faded with time, leaving this once world-renown anthropologist and best-selling author to be more than a cliff note. And that is where this woman lain, in the cliff notes of life and love. Lost in a mask she so delicately hid from everyone; everyone except the somehow once familiar brown eyes now boring into the depths of her soul.
"Mr. Simpson," a woman with slightly aging features barked but her voice quickly softened as his soft, reassuring brown eyes drilled into hers, "I don't have all day. If have questions about the exam and wish that we…"
"Okay… well… it's not that." The young man blurted but soon gained his composure, "The dedication in your latest novel… I was just wondering…. Why there is no dedication. Just a blank page and a…"
Brennan froze, trying to keep the bile from rising up. How had this young man found her kryptonite so easily? For years she had been able to easily pacify the masses with steamy sex scenes and cutting edge forensics but this boy, this man found that not enough. He was going in for the kill. Her soul was already destroyed, what more could he take from the washed up professor? Her heart had already belonged to another. She had nothing left.
"Dr. Brennan…" The young man snapped, glancing down at the book in his hands then back up, "A drawing is not a dedication. It… it is an art project! A dedication has words, Dr. Brennan, letters and words."
"Oh." The utterance slipped out as she slowly shook, wave after wave of faded memories battered her fragile soul. She hadn't even thought anyone read those anymore. It had been years since anyone had even asked about the man whose loving qualities seemed to increasingly fill her dedication page that was… until that night. "Him." She subconsciously growled. "His stupid, heart palpitation causing…"
"Him?" He quickly quipped, "You mean Special Agent Seeley Booth… you're partner and your…"
"Former partner." Brennan mumbled as she clenched the flat surface before her, trying to keep the world around her from falling off its axis. "I no longer work as an FBI liaison."
"A work partner is only one kind of partner." The young man smiled, sliding the book in his hands across the podium, "But I am sure you know that."
Glaring down at her reflection, Brennan couldn't help but notice the void that seemed to radiate the small five by eight inch square. A dark ghost that seemed to haunt her every waking second.
"Mr. Simpson you forgot…" Brennan began to speak but suddenly stopped as her eyes scanned before her.
As quickly as the young man came he had disappeared into the void of the night, leaving Brennan alone with the glaring void she had become. Slowly pulling back the front cover, Brennan gasped at the neat writing scrawled across the dedication page.
'I remember.'
It couldn't be, it just couldn't. It had been ten years. How could he still remember that night? The night everything snapped and she stopped falling in and out of love.
"I'll always love you…" Brennan whispered as the anguish fell over her heart and her world fell black.
"I know." The shadows in the dark auditorium whispered before slipping into the night, "I couldn't stop if I tried."
