Author's Note: Here as promised is Booth's little chat with Angela. I know, I know. I should have been working on "Tough Decisions," but what can I say--short fics are much easier to write. It's more or less a sequel to "Third Degree," if you're interested in reading about Bones' chat with Angela. Bones and the gang belong to Fox, Hart Hanson et al. No infringement is intended. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.
As Special Agent Seeley Booth drove toward the Jeffersonian, he wondered why Dr. Temperance Brennan wasn't answering any of her phones. It was very unusual for her not to keep him informed of how to get in touch with her, since he often had to call her in on a murder case at very short notice. However, since Christmas, they had only gotten together about cases that were already pending before the holidays, so Brennan had apparently forgotten to keep Booth 100 percent apprised as to her whereabouts.
Normally he would have called Angela Montenegro for information, but he had been avoiding her, or trying to, since Christmas. Somehow she seemed to know that something "Big" had happened between Brennan and Booth, and she was determined to find out exactly what it was. Booth hoped that he didn't have to endure one of what he called her "fact-finding chats" today. Every time she caught him on his own, she subjected him to one of her not-so-subtle attempts to discover just how close he and Brennan were, and how their relationship was going in general, etc. This was no problem when it was business as usual, but ever since "The Kiss" under the mistletoe, Booth knew how a "deer in the headlights" felt every time he saw Angela. He had to use all of his considerable expertise in hiding his emotions and/or unconscious gestures from her eagle eye.
Booth sighed. He knew that the squints in general and Angela in particular were only interested in seeing Brennan happy in any relationship. Unfortunately, that meant that sometimes they viewed Booth as a "good guy" and sometimes they viewed him as a "bad guy," depending on Brennan's emotional "temperature"du jour. This had been especially noticeable when she had been dating Sully. Angela had made it pretty blatantly obvious to Booth that since he was unnecessary to Brennan's apparent happiness with Sully, she didn't give a damn how badly Booth got hurt personally or professionally. Her attitude had been, more or less, that if Brennan was happy with Sully, Booth was expendable.
Booth totally understood her point-of-view as Brennan's friend, but it didn't make him feel confident that Angela was his friend for life. In fact, he was pretty sure that if Brennan ever dropped him from her tight circle of friends, he would never see or hear from any of the squints again. Not because they didn't like him exactly, but because of how awkward it would be. So Brennan would naturally get custody of the squints, except Cam, for obvious reasons.
Which was fine with Booth. He had learned the hard way that that was the way life was, and he had gotten through most of his adult life by "traveling light" when it came to close personal relationships. The number of true friends that he had made as an adult consisted of a very small and select group, and the number who had survived combat was even lower. After he left the army, he had tried to run his life in much the same way—you couldn't help getting close to the people you worked the closest with, but you kept all others at a friendly distance. In combat, you behaved that way because the potential loss of so many close friends was too horrific to contemplate. In civilian life, Booth just found it easier to live that way. Then if your "friends" decided you were boring because you were a workaholic who was too dedicated to his job, it didn't matter too much if you never saw them again.
Booth considered Brennan to be one of his small group of friends. What he wasn't so sure about was how she viewed him. There were times when he got the impression that he was necessary to her, and therefore he made certain that he was always there for her. Then again, there were times when she seemed to do very well while keeping her relationship with him on a professional level only, as she had when she had been dating Sully. In short, he never quite knew where he was with her, and the "The Kiss" incident, as he had come to think of it, was just the most recent glaring example. Women who blew hot and cold were incredibly consistent compared to Temperance Brennan.
Up to now, Brennan had treated 'The Kiss' like an impersonal, unimportant incident that was totally a result of Caroline Julian's 'puckish' whim. That was OK in theory, but in practice, it hadn't felt like that to Booth. In fact, it had been a pretty mind-blowing experience for him, and he had gotten the impression from the look on her face that it had affected Bones that way too. He found that he couldn't look at Brennan and not remember "The Kiss." He couldn't think of Brennan and not remember it. In fact, you could almost say the memory of it haunted him, because it came into his mind when he least expected it during the day, and at night he even dreamed about it. He would give a lot to know if Brennan felt even a small fraction of the response that he had felt.
Unfortunately, if you went by the way she acted and what she said, Brennan didn't seem to even remember "The Kiss." She treated Booth with the same friendly professionalism that she had before Christmas. Yet there were times when he could swear that she looked at him like he was a difficult puzzle that she was trying to analyze and couldn't find the answer to. Given Brennan's adamant refusal to discuss their relationship at all, except in the professional/partner sense (where coffee-drinking meetings featured prominently), Booth had decided that the only thing to do was wait for her to make the first move the way he always did.
Any other course of action always resulted in Bones putting her emotional walls back up and going back to the point where their interactions had been on a "professional" basis only. So far, she had done this following each of their summer vacation breaks. She always had a different "logical" excuse for avoiding any interaction that was "too personal," but that didn't make it any easier for him. He was all too painfully familiar with Brennan in full avoidance mode, and he didn't want to do or say anything that would bring that back. So he waited, and tried to dodge Angela as much as possible.
When he finally arrived at the parking garage, he was lucky enough to find a spot right away. He walked quickly to the entrance of the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal Lab. As he headed toward Brennan's office, he was stopped in his tracks by the voice of forensic artist Angela Montenegro.
"Don't bother, Booth," she said cheerfully, "She's not back there right now. She's in a meeting with a visiting forensic anthropologist from the University of Florida."
As Booth turned, she continued, "How are you today? Do you have a new murder case for us or is this just a 'friendly' visit to see Brennan?"
Booth eyed Angela warily. The interrogation would begin any time now.
"I have some paperwork for her to sign," he replied briefly, "regarding the Anders case."
"And it's obviously something you couldn't trust to a courier or inter-office mail," Angela said facetiously.
As he opened his mouth to explain his presence further, she said, "Oh don't worry, Booth. I'm not going to ask you any personal questions. Bren already told me all I wanted to know." Angela turned and walked back to her office. It took all her self-control not to laugh out loud at the brief look of panic on Booth's face. But she had to hand it to him: his expression was back to bland unconcern a micro-second later. Someone who didn't know him well would have missed it. He was good. He was very, very good.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Angela," he said in his best "I don't care" drawl. "Do you have any idea when Bones will be back?"
Outwardly he was all calm and unconcerned, but inside he was thinking, 'God, what the hell did she tell Angela? That is, if she did tell Angela anything. Maybe this is just a ploy to get me to talk. I'd better just stonewall her for now.'
Angela turned and grinned at Booth. She couldn't help it. He was so determined not to reveal anything to her, and it wouldn't do him a damn bit of good. She knew both of them so well that the small amount of information Bren had revealed told her everything she needed to know about Booth. But given the fact that she was past ready for someone to make a move already, and Booth was the logical candidate, she took pity on him.
"Come on sweetie, let me buy you a cup of coffee. There are a couple of things I think you should know," she said kindly. She turned and led the way to the coffee machine. Booth did not completely trust Angela's suddenly expansive mood, but the small hope that she might actually let drop a crumb of information about Bones' reaction to "The Kiss" made him decide to risk it. He followed her into the lab kitchen.