Title: The Interview
Author: omelette73
Rating: K
Spoilers/Timeline: 5x08
Disclaimer: Bones = not mine at all.
Summary: a strange interview on Good Morning, America and B&B can't help to show to the viewers their feelings using their own words through the all 5 seasons.
Special thanks to: crisssbit (my English guru!), Forensicmama (my irreplaceable beta) and http://www. my special Bones' place!
Brennan hung up, puzzled. Honestly, she hated this kind of publicity and she reminded herself of that fact as she scowled at the phone, as if it were the one responsible for it all.
Asking Booth something like that would not be easy - after all, it had nothing to do with their jobs, it was just a stupid interview for her book.
She never understood the logic behind her fans' obsession for her work-life and, moreover, she could not understand how it could increase the sales of her latest novel.
An interview with her partner at her side was absurd, inappropriate and not at all related to her work as a novelist. She should have said no to her publisher, but then he started begging and reminding her that she signed a contract in which she committed to take a certain number of interviews every year, so this whole thing became a little too hard to avoid. Reminding her agent that Booth had signed no contract didn't help her at all, and her efforts to remind him that she had no idea on how to involve Booth in this thing were useless.
"You should just ask him" he assured her, with his smooth smile.
And then, that moment came. It now had a specific date, the name of the broadcasting network and of the journalist sent to interview them; she couldn't avoid it anymore.
***
They sat at the Diner and were sharing French fries, bickering as usual, on who should eat the last one, when Bones furtively took a peek at him and sighing she began: "Booth?
"Yeah?" he said, suspiciously looking at her. She was probably trying to distract him so she could reach out and take the last chip on the dish.
"I have a favor to ask you," she seriously stated.
A favor? Really? He thought, slightly moving on his chair. Things were getting interesting. Then, as if struck by lightning, he frowned and answered, "If you still want to talk about guns and licenses Bones, you should stop now. There is no way you can have a gun as long as I am your partner, are we clear?"
"It's not that," Bones snorted.
He looked at her, suspicious, and out of the corner of his eye he continued to look at the last chip on that dish. He would not be fooled!
"My publisher arranged a live TV interview."
"Cool!" he interrupted her. "I'm sure you need some advice, right? Because, let me tell you this Bones, last time…. Well, it didn't go so well…"
Brennan frowned. "It wasn't that bad!" she protested. "I was extremely precise with my answers and I explained all mechanisms behind…"
He interrupted her again, "I almost died of boredom, Bones!"
She mumbled something and then continued. "Anyway, that's not the point," she said, changing the subject.
"You're right," he said. "You were talking about a favor."
"You should come with me to this interview."
A wide smile appeared on his face "I'd be glad to take you there, Bones!"
It was her turn to slightly move on her chair. "No, you didn't understand. You should come with me because they want to interview you, too," she said, taking the last chip from the dish, biting it, sure that her request would have distracted him.
"Oh," he said, forgetting the food, "an interview, together?"
"Yes, anything you can reveal, of course. They just want to understand the dynamic of our working relationship. It seems that my readers are more interested in my real job."
Booth smiled, "Wow! Parker will be thrilled! Okay Bones, when do we go?"
She remained puzzled for a moment. Had she known it was this easy to ask him, she would have done it sooner.
"In a week and no flashy ties!" she warned him, throwing him a serious look.
"You're kidding, right? I will wear the flashiest tie I have. Cannot go without it!" he said, serious, and then continued "Bones?"
"Yeah?"
"Where is the last chip?" he asked. She just shrugged.
***
"Good Morning, America! I'm Rachel Ferguson and joining me today are Dr. Temperance Brennan, the world-known forensic anthropologist and author of several best sellers, and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. In the last five years this incredible duo have fought crime with the same lucid perseverance of the heroine and her partner of the doctor's novels. In this exclusive interview they promised to tell us some of the deepest secrets behind their long and successful partnership. Doctor Brennan, Agent Booth, welcome!"
Stiffly sitting on a small couch, Booth and Brennan nodded their greeting to the journalist.
"Agent Booth, first of all, let me applaud you on your eclectic clothes." The camera quickly set on his tie, which displayed a dancing skeleton, on his COCKY belt buckle and on a pair of socks with colorful stripes emerging from under the hem of his elegant dark suit. "Do you always wear these kinds of clothes or is it just to honor this special occasion?"
Booth had no time to answer. Bones anticipated him with a whispered, "I told you so!" That, thanks to the mike, was perfectly amplified for the benefit of the audience, and then she added, "Oh, no. He always wears these kinds of clothes. It's his method of resisting the system with small acts of rebellion," she completely explained. "Not to mention the fact that he is quite a vain."
"Well," said the agent, not at all offended, "denying it would be as if I said that I'm not a sexy FBI agent or that you're not a sexy novelist. We can't change who we are."
"True," confirmed Brennan. "And you are surely structured… very well," she stated after just a second of hesitation.
"As are you" answered the Agent.
"Thank you, Booth," and they smiled, losing themselves in a world of their own.
The journalist smiled at the camera, a little embarrassed, and then added, "Agent Booth, the readers of Dr. Brennan's novels are eager to know how your partnership started."
"Well, it began as a casual cooperation. The Jeffersonian, a government-funded institution, often provides scientific support to the FBI. But the first case we worked together was the one of Cleo Eller, five years ago. On that occasion we decided, together, to extend our cooperation beyond the sporadic lab consultancies, so I took her away from her main passion."
"That's not how it went," Brennan pointed out. "You didn't take me away from science and drag me to crime fighting."
"Really?" Booth asked, momentarily forgetting the journalist in front of them, turning to face his partner.
"Yes," she confirmed. "As I recall it, I had to force you to take me on the field."
"Really?" he repeated, stretching out towards her.
"It's all my fault. I blackmailed you into doing it!"
"You blackmailed and FBI Agent?" the journalist asked, astonished.
"Nothing serious. That happened after I denied her being one of my ducks," Booth said to the woman, putting an end to the matter with a wave of his hand.
The completely confused expression of the woman made Brennan cut in for help, "Don't worry, at that time I didn't understand what he meant, either," she finished with a shrug of her shoulder.
"Agent Booth always tells me that I tend to be too literal. Anyway, from that moment, we have always worked as a team. See, he is the only FBI Agent I want to work with."
"Thank you, Bones," he said, smiling.
"Bones?" the journalist asked, completely immersed in the sort of tennis match going on in front of her. She thought she was good at her job, but a few minutes with those two and she forgot the next question to be asked.
"It's a moniker," Brennan explained seriously. "Angela, our forensic artist, explained me that a moniker is used as a sign of affection, to make a person feel loved. I never had a nickname before Booth called me Bones, and at the beginning I must admit that I didn't like it at all."
The man looked at her, amazed, and he slightly turned towards her. "Seriously, did Angela tell you that?"
"Yes, she did," she answered, gravely.
They gazed at each other for a few seconds, and the journalist shifted in chair to obtain their attention, until Booth started talking again without taking his eyes off of her partner.
"She hated being called like that," Booth confirmed. "She was always like, 'Don't call me Bones!'"
"But you never stopped. See, Agent Booth can be very determined."
"Did you just say something nice about me?" the man asked, looking at her.
"No, I made an objective evaluation."
"Oh, because it sounded like you said something nice."
"No," she repeated, undeterred.
"And you have no nickname?" the journalist asked, clearly amused, trying to stop the bickering that would have probably never finished without her resolved intervention. As she wasn't having success in dominating those two, as a pro, she let herself be carried away.
"Shrimp," Brennan said before Booth had the chance to stop her.
"You call him shrimp?" the woman asked, shocked, looking at that 6.1 ft tall man in front of her.
"No, not me. His grandfather."
"Not her, my grandfather," they answered simultaneously.
"See, Booth used to be shorter in the past," Brennan added.
"What Bones is trying to say here is that my grandfather used to call me shrimp when I was a kid," he translated for the journalist.
"I see," the woman said, puzzled, not fully understanding it. "Let's talk about your work team."
"Besides Angela, whom I already mentioned, there is Dr. Hodgins, entomologist and Dr. Saroyan, our supervisor and legal pathologist. All are extremely skillful professionals," Bones explained. "And then there was Zack…" she said, lowering her glance and setting it on her shoes.
"What happened to him?" the journalist asked.
"He isn't working with us anymore," Booth intercepted, staring at her with a look so cold that he successfully made her change the subject, without hesitation.
"You seem to be a close-knit group" the journalist said.
"A family," Bones answered. "See, there' s more than one kind of a family," and while she was saying that, she turned to her partner and smiled.
"Let's go back to the origins of you cooperation," the journalist said, closing the previous question. "You, Dr. Brennan, after having visited several countries as a well-known anthropologist, having identified victims of genocide and after having helped identifying the victims of 9-11, found yourself working for the FBI."
"I do a lot more than identifying," Bones pointed out. "When I look at a bone I don't consider it as human remains that I can separate from myself. For me, it's part of a person that was here on this world like I am. It should never be easy to kill someone," she added with extreme seriousness.
"You are very sincere, Dr. Brennan."
"Bones always tells the truth."
"Even if now, I know that you can't go around and always say what's on your mind, even though it's the truth." Another meaningful glance passed between the two of them, and the journalist felt completely out of the loop.
To regain their attention, this time she coughed. "From the news we learned that your father was on trial for homicide and then was cleared from all charges. We also know that it was Agent Booth who arrested him. How did your partnership sustain the emotional impact caused by this event?"
"Booth was just doing his job," Dr Brennan said, laconic. "And anyway, during that period of time the FBI separated us, didn't allow us to work together and assigned us to a psychologist."
"A psychologist?" the woman asked, astonished.
"Exactly," Booth said. "After all, I arrested her father and I had to testify against him."
Brennan stretched out a little bit, as if she was going to reveal to the journalist a secret of vital importance.
"See, Booth has tried to intimidate Sweets from the first moment he saw him and he succeeded, but like it or not, he was the therapist assigned to us and he suggested to work in cooperation rather than in conflict."
"And what did you think of this decision the FBI made?"
"She hates psychology."
"I hate psychology," once again, they answered simultaneously. Then the doctor continued, explaining her point. "See, Sweets didn't know us and he had a limited view of us based on superficial data he had accumulated on a standardized questionnaire, and a subjective analysis from talking to us and that was not at all scientific."
"But he didn't put an end your relationship," the journalist said, forgetting to add "professional".
"No," Booth answered seriously, "he said that there was a deep emotional bond between the two of us."
"Just like Avalon did," Brennan added, looking at her partner, as if only on that moment she realized the truth of such a sentence.
"Avalon?" the journalist asked, once again confused.
"Angela's psychic," Bones explained.
"Your forensic artist friend, right?" the journalist specified for the benefit of the audience.
"One of the squints. Right," Booth confirmed.
"Squint?" the woman asked.
"You know, squints," he explained, "who squint at things."
"We all are his squints," Brennan said with a bit of pride in her voice.
"And you," the woman added, curious, going back to the psychic subject. "You turned to this Avalon after being sent to an FBI psychologist?" she asked, trying to get a bit of clarity inside her head, which was filled with slightly confused thoughts.
"At that point we had no obligations to follow Sweets' therapy anymore. My father had been discharged and our partnership wasn't in discussion anymore. We were only letting Sweets study us for his book."
"In his opinion we shouldn't have worked well together, but we did and we still do," agent Booth added. "So we reached an agreement with him. We would let him study us and in exchange he would give us psychological profiling on demand."
"Even if he likes these sort of things, I really didn't see the point," the doctor said, pointing at her partner with a nod of her head.
"You have your shiny machines; I have my gut," Booth explained looking at his partner to defend his decision. "And you have to admit that Sweets has been useful in several instances."
"Even if he tried to use us as lab rats," Brennan said.
The agent fidgeted uncomfortably on the sofa, "What do you mean?" he asked her.
"Not now Booth" she warned him. The look the man threw at her was very eloquent, and it was clear that he wouldn't let this thing pass by easily. "It's an old story," she said quickly. "It goes back to when you were dead."
The journalist was startled by such a statement, "You died, Agent Booth?"
"This information is classified," he said. "And as you can see, I'm in perfectly good health."
"Let's go back then and talk about the psychic you mentioned before," the woman said, carefully dropping the subject. "She told you that you had a deep bond, too?"
"She said it to Angela," Brennan explained, "but neither I nor Booth, who is very superstitious, believed that."
"I'm not superstitious," he defended himself. "I'm a believer. Big difference! And anyway, most of the things Avalon said during that case she was involved in were true."
"So, you two really have a very deep bond," the journalist asked.
"We're partners; our lives depend on being protective of each other," Dr. Brennan added, "and anyway all this came out because of Booth's coma and my book."
"Coma?" the journalist asked, and she really began to lose track of the complicated life of the couple sitting in front of her.
"Because of my brain tumor," Booth specified.
"You had brain surgery?" the woman asked, astonished.
"Yes, and I have since been fully reinstated as an FBI field agent."
"He brilliantly passed his marksmanship certification," Brennan said, not able to mask her pride. "Booth is an excellent shot."
"Thank you, Bones," he said, smiling.
"Even if he won't allow me to carry a gun," she finished, with a frustrated sigh.
"No?" the journalist asked.
"No, you won't. You've got me," the agent said. "I am your gun," ignoring the journalist's question.
"His theory is that we should have a new division of labor: he shoots 'em, I cuff 'em".
"But she bought a gun at a mall anyway, and it was so big that she couldn't hold it in her hands!"
"It's not true, I am a good shot."
"No, you're not, Bones."
"Yes, I am."
"You're not. Should I remind you of the time I risked getting killed by a clown and that you shot me with that same gun?" he asked.
"Booth hates clowns," Brennan added to the journalist. "Once he shot one of them."
"It was fake," he quickly added. "It was just a stupid, talking thing."
"Do you always argue like this?" the journalist asked, curious.
"We do not argue," Brennan said.
"We may bicker a little bit" Booth added, emphasizing his words with his fingers.
"But it's not arguing," Brennan repeated seriously.
The journalist continued, amazed. Now she had a huge smile on her face, ruffling her lips. "We know that you both survived a traumatic experience, both kidnapped by the Grave Digger." The camera zoomed in on Booth's hand which, after that question, was delicately holding his partner's. Before Brennan could move her hand, the camera grabbed the moment in which she returned his squeeze.
"This, Miss Ferguson, is a case we can't discuss here," Booth said, serious.
The journalist nodded in agreement, she knew that there were some questions the agent refused to answer, so she continued, "It is clear to all of us that you shared a lot of experiences together, but does your relationship remain confined inside the wall of your offices or does it extend beyond them? Do you see each other outside work?"
"We often drink something together," Booth added.
"Or we order something to eat after a particularly hard day," Brennan said.
"What do you like most?"
"Thai food" they said at the same time.
"But Bones is an excellent cook," Booth added. "Her Mac 'n Cheese is fantastic."
"Thank you Booth."
"You're welcome, Bones."
"So you see each other outside work," the woman said, "and you have full faith in each other?"
"Booth doesn't always trust me," Brennan said, surprisingly.
"How come?" he asked, astonished.
"Well, you didn't want me to talk to Parker," she said.
"Parker?" the journalist asked.
"My son," he quickly answered, and then turned to look at his partner. "It's not true, Bones. I completely trust you."
"Well, you weren't happy about the questions I was asking Parker that day at the Diner, but spending time with you I learned a lot about how to relate with people. He is very, very good with people," she added to the journalist, who decided to let them speak freely.
"But then you talked to him and you gave us your keys and you were awesome with him."
The woman lowered her eyes, "I simply applied a Socratic method of solving a problem," she added.
"What??" the journalist asked.
"Don't bother. She always talks about the facts."
"You should go on a game show, Dr. Brennan, you'd clean up."
"I tell her that all the time," Booth added, "but, you know, she's already loaded."
"And this doesn't create a conflict between you two?" They looked at each other for a second. "I suppose that the government salary is not so generous," the woman said.
"It's not a problem for Booth," Brennan answered.
"So you've talked about it?" the journalist asked.
"Of course," the doctor answered. "Booth thinks that his life would surely be different if he earned more money, but not better. He says that the good things in his life - Parker hugging him, or the two of us solving murders - wouldn't be sweeter if he were rich. And even if he will never fly first class, as I do, he doesn't seem to care."
"I see…" the journalist said. As a matter of fact, she understood more than the two of them seemed to.
Then she continued, "And what about your respective romantic partners?"
"We don't have partners," Brennan said.
"Bones doesn't have great taste in men."
"It's not true!" she protested.
"Let's see… a physicist who couldn't tie his shoes, a former professor who was jealous of your success… a guy found in the Internet who turned out to be a recruiter for a cult, or the other one who cut the head off his own brother. Jason, the gay one, and how can we forget the deep sea welder?"
"And Sully," she added "You left out Sully."
Booth shifted on the sofa, annoyed by that comment.
"He instead," Bones started, "had a relationship with…" she stopped, blocked by the warning look coming from her partner, "a common friend," she continued, "and he didn't tell me anything about it! I had to find out on my own!"
"I'm discreet, ok? A gentlemen is discreet."
"Is it normal for you two to discuss your love life?" the journalist asked.
"I'm very open about my relationships, as opposed to him," she said, adding, "He is a prude."
"Moi?" Booth answered, winking.
"His grandfather thinks he didn't give him enough information when he was a kid."
"It's not true," the agent defended himself.
"So, let me recap," the journalist said. "You have known each other for 5 years, you work together and you are extremely successful in what you do, you had relationships with other people, but very fickle. You know each other's families, you share working hours and free time, you attend couples therapy… oh, have you ever spent Christmas together?"
Their eyes lowered, "Twice," they both answered with low voices.
"Even if in one of those occasions we saw each other through the bars of a prison," Brennan added.
The head of the journalist, who was nodding her agreement, abruptly stopped "Prison?"
"It happened while my father was waiting for his trial. See, Booth gave me a Christmas tree as a gift," she explained, as if it were a logical consequence of her reasoning.
"And did you ever receive a present from Dr. Brennan?"
Booth nodded proudly, showing his belt buckle.
"I thought I lost this forever, but she found another one, exactly like it."
"And, beside the tree, did you receive any other present from Agent Booth?"
"Jasper and Brainy Smurf," she answered without hesitation.
"She wanted a pig and she thought that Smurfette was better than Brainy Smurf," Booth explained. "I had to do something."
"I see…" the journalist said, nodding again. "And after all this, please let me ask you another question: You two have been together since…?"
"We're just partners!" they answered simultaneously.
"Well, that's all for today from Rachel Ferguson for CBS, and my lovely guests, Dr. Temperance Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, thank you for watching us."