Faces, Bones and Hearts
Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, any of the situations or characters. If I did, this would have been on TV instead of here…
"Hodgins asked me out."
She had come to Temperance's office to ask for advice, and the anthropologist wasn't slow on the uptake.
"And now you want my advice."
"Yes."
"On a personal matter."
"Yes."
"You know, Angela, I'm really not the right person you should be talking to about this kind of thing. It would be like me asking you advice about… fylogenetic sorting mechanisms."
"Fylogenetic sorting mechanisms. I have no idea what those are."
"Well then why did you come to me?"
"Because I can't talk to Cam about it…"
"Why not?" Temperance asks, in the tone she uses when she doesn't understand something she really wants to understand.
"Because… of what I said and why," Angela responds, evading the real question for a while longer.
"I don't understand. What did you say?"
"I turned him down."
"Of course you turned him down."
Oh my god. She's caught on. She knows. Ok. Don't panic. Stay calm, she doesn't look disappointed or disgusted or anything.
Yeah well duh. She's Temperance Brennan. She can handle Decomposition in a Closed Space. She doesn't do disgusted.
"You shouldn't start relationships in the workplace."
That takes Angela by surprise. Her mouth drops open and she drops the hands she'd been unconsciously wringing into her lap.
"You shouldn't?"
"No. You see, it all depends on this balanced hierarchy. Romance… throws that off."
Trust Brennan to come up with an anthropological explanation…
"Yeah. Well. That wasn't exactly why I turned him down."
Actually, it was exactly not the reason, Angela thinks as she gathers up her courage from where it had somehow lodged itself, her boots.
"What was your reason, then?"
Trembling, Angela stands up off the couch and slowly walks over to the desk, where Temperance is standing. She carefully steps into the brilliant anthropologist's personal space, takes her head in her hands and says "This," before leaning in and kissing her.
It's all over far too soon, as Angela comes to her sense from where she'd been lost in the woman she'd desired foe so long. She quickly lets go, steps back with her eyes downcast, looking at the floor, searching for exits to escape through as her adrenalin levels go through the roof.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why… I didn't mean to…"
She starts to look up, fearfully, dreading the sight that would surely await her watering eyes, the look of surprise and revulsion marring that beautiful face…
"Angela."
Just that voice, that one word without a single note of disgust in it, has an instantly calming effect on the panicked woman and she finally dares to look up all the way and face the consequences.
What she sees stuns her. Just as the voice was free of disgust of revulsion, so is the face. Instead, in the breathtakingly beautiful face framed by those fantastic, soft, brown curly locks, there is more surprise. And wait, is that a hint of the look she gets when the last piece of information from a tricky case finally clicks into place?
And those pupils, are they more dilated than they were a minute ago?
No, she thinks to herself, that's probably just her pupils unconsciously mirroring your own. Wishful thinking, girl. Pull yourself together!
She's even more surprised at what Temperance chooses to do next: she steps forward, close enough for Angela to smell her slightly herbal scent, and mirroring Angela's actions from shortly before, gently puts a hand on the side of the other woman's face and leans in to kiss her softly, keeping her lips on the fearful woman's until her shocked stillness resolves into a tentative joining in the kiss.
After a few moments of tender, careful exploration, Angela breaks the kiss, and both women draw apart slightly.
"I've liked you for a long time now," says Angela, "Almost the entire time I've known you. Do you remember when I started calling you 'sweetie'? That's when I had really fallen in love with you."
"For me, it was the moment I met you, that I realized I would grow to love you over time. I don't know how I knew that, but I did. And now I do. Love you."
There it was. The statement Angela'd been hoping for for too long, said without the emotion you'd expect from a normal person, but then Bones was not what you'd call a normal person by any means. In fact, this was… just right.
A/N: Read and Review! If you love this story, I want to hear about it. If you hate it, I want to know that too, and why. Even if you think it's just another mediocre run-of-the-mill story, I want REVIEWS!