A/N: Takes place during The Woman In Limbo.
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All it takes is one word. One simple, everyday three letter word. She can see the man in front of her almost smile in surprise as he says it.
"Joy?"
The rest of it registers, but not directly. One part of her brain listens, cataloguing, storing all the information for later, but the rest of her can't really listen. Can't really hear. She hears the words Ruth Keenan and Tire Iron and other words that don't really make sense. Other untruths.
But the more rational part of her brain gleans the information, processes it. It shouldn't matter, she knows. As an empiricist, she knows that the name of something isn't important in the grand scheme of things, it's the physical attributes, the underlying structure of something that makes it what it is. Makes it whole. Absolute. People will continue to be people whether you call them human beings, homo sapiens or anything else. And yet...
And yet...
She knows it's not important, that symbols have no meaning. It's not logical that this should upset her, her name doesn't define her, her work, her life does. Her name is just that, a name. Nothing more. And then she hears words like crazy in love, Ruthie and Max and Joy.
But she's not Joy.
Her name is Brennan. And suddenly she can't stop speaking. The words rush out of her without warning and even though she knows that the words she speaks probably aren't what's true anymore, somehow saying them is very, very important; and she thinks maybe if she says it long enough they might be true. "My name is Brennan. I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan. I work at the Jeffersonian Institution. I'm a forensic anthropologist. I specialise in... in..."
She falters, but she has to keep speaking, she just has to. "I specialise in identify..." her breath hitches but she keeps on going. There is nothing else, only the next word at the tip of her tongue. Identifying her. "In identifying... Identifying people when nobody knows who they are." But nobody knows who you are.
The words are just tripping, falling out now, one after the other.
"My father was a science teacher, my mother was a book-keeper. My brother..." But does she even have a brother? She hasn't spoken to Russ in years. But is he Russ or is he Kyle? Her eyes are hot now, and her vision is blurry. The words are just dancing in her head now, just alphabets strung together in some sort of mocking, macabre dance.
"I have a brother... "
She's not even making any sense to herself anymore, just running around in the dark, saying the same things. Snatching at random words in her head. Because nothing else matters anymore, does it? Is she Joy? Or is she Temperance? The tears are falling thick and fast and she thinks - who am I - and the words start repeating all over again. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan -"
"I know who you are."
The voice cuts through the haze of self pity and somehow she thinks yes, you do know who I am. And just like that, the dilemma of being Doctor Brennan, Temperance or even the new and strange Joy doesn't matter.
Being Bones is enough for now.
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