Disclaimer: I dont own Bones or the songs used.
We're partners… I'll never leave you….
Thinking about those words, hearing the voice of the man who said them, it seemed so long ago. In actual fact, it was, a whole year had nearly passed… nothing. No phone call to say hi, no case to give them a reason. He promised to never leave her and he never did but SHE left him.
Temperance Brennan lay awake on her bed. Looking out the window, feeling the ocean breeze float through and brush against her body. The soft heat of the early morning sun on her skin accompanied the slight breeze, she could see the clear blue of the water, hear the crashing of the waves and the slow even breathes of the man lying beside her. How could she not be happy? Everything about this situation, the exotic location – the Caribbean to be exact, the wonderful knowledge that a lazy, unhindered day lay ahead, no work to interfere, all that topped off by the fact that the man asleep beside her, loved her. Sighing softly she gently flipped her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, silently, slowly, not wanting to wake Sully. To be honest, she needed time alone, time to think over the past few months, time to quiet the raging emotions that had gripped her as soon as she woke. These emotions were not new to her, they had started slowly but surely growing in the pit of her stomach ever since the boat left the wharf and she watched Booth standing there, shoulders slumped, waving goodbye. She picked up her Ipod – a parting gift from Angela, and made her way out of the hut onto the sandy shore. Turning it on she stretches her body onto the sand and closes her eyes as a familiar song starts to play.
"Another summer day
has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm…"
The melody floats through the air and her mind wonders back to a day just over 10 months ago...
Flash back 10 months and 1 week earlier
"Want me to bring you up to date?" Angela asks, turning to face her best friend as she hears her walk in.
"No." Brennan replies, sitting down with a distraught look on her face. "I want you to tell me what to do."
"About what?" Angela asks immediately worried because of the look on her friends face.
"Sully wants me to run off with him." She replies staring at the floor, then lifting her eyes pleadingly at Angela
"Go." Angela says without a moment's hesitation
"For a year." She replies, wondering whether her best friend realized how big this step was.
"Go." Angela repeats, her eyes showing nothing but confidence.
"He wants to run a charter boat around the Caribbean." She says and once again drops her gaze to the floor
"Go." Angela repeats, her eyes still set on her best friend
"He says I should take a sabbatical." She said still not looking up
"Go. What is the downside? He's a great guy. This is a great idea." Angela stated, willing her friend to see how great this opportunity would be.
Brennan finally looks up and meets her friends gaze "I'll miss you guys."
Angela replies with a wave of her hand "Oh, we'll meet you in Barbados. Look. You have been working every day since I met you." Then as her smile widens into an ear to ear grin, she adds "It's time to let another part of yourself out into the sun. With a bare chested man and a tropical breeze."
Her mind then filters to later that day…
She's standing at the graveyard with booth waiting as machines dig up the casket. They've been silent a long time.
"Sully bought that boat." Her voice breaks the silence between them
"Yeah? Ha. Next thing you know he'll be shipwrecked on some island talking to a volleyball." Booth chuckles as he puts his hands in his pocket.
She ignores his comment and goes on. "He's leaving for the Caribbean."
Booth looks at her now, his face showing his concern "Really" she nods "Look, I'm – I'm sorry, Bones. I – I know that the two of you were kinda hittin' it off"
"He wants me to go with him." She looks at him wanting to see his reaction
He looks shocked and manages to stammer a response "Oh. Oh...yeah..."
She continues to study his face "He – he says I should take a year off, a sabbatical. He says it'll be fun."
"Yeah, it would be." Booth replies, recovering from his shocked expression moments earlier
"But you just said he'd be shipwrecked with a volleyball" she replies, not able to read his expression.
"Well, he's got you. He doesn't need the volleyball." Booth looks back down at the grave
"You think I should go?" she asks, giving him a pleading look.
Booth lifts his eyes and stares straight into hers. He stays silent a moment then reluctantly answers her.
"Yeah." He says, his face showing his reluctance.
He pauses once more, and turns his attention back to the digging machines "Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know it's, uh, one year out of your life, huh? I mean a persons gotta - live wide. And this is kinda narrow." He gestures toward the grave and their conversation ends as they hear the excavator hit the casket with a crunch.
End Flash back
"May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know…"
She knew the words of this song so well. She listened to it endlessly everyday since she left. It seemed to take the words straight from her heart – she couldn't understand why, but she wanted to go home. When she thought about this logically, it confused her. She didn't have a home to go back to; she had an apartment, with few personal belongings – that did not constitute as a home. She didn't have family, well she did, but they were criminals who abandoned her. "There's more than one kind of family" The words hit her. She did have a family – Angela, Hodgins, Zach and… and Booth. But they all agreed that she should go, she had seen them all a few months ago anyway. With the exception of Booth, they had all met her in Barbados, just as Angela said they would. She questioned them about Booth - apparently he was fine, the same old Booth. The FBI couldn't spare him, he was really busy these days, and he was finally getting to see more of Parker. She was happy for him, but a part of her didn't believe the answers they gave her, maybe it was the way they said it, it seemed…rehearsed? In the end she figured it was simply because she missed him, which was logical enough, he was her partner and friend after all.
"And I've been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
each one a line or two
"I'm fine baby, how are you?"
Well I would send them but I know that it's just not enough
my words were cold and flat
and you deserve more than that"
Her mind wanders back to the hut that she has called "home" for the past month. Her thoughts take her to her dresser and the little bundle of paper buried within her clothing. Her eyes clamp tightly shut as she remembers the words that grace the first line of each page, Dear Booth...
She sighs, foolishly thinking that it would somehow relieve the heaviness of her heart or numb the pang of disappointment she felt rising in her abdomen. She couldn't help but wonder if the reason he hadn't written to her, is the same reason she had kept those letters.
"Another aeroplane
another sunny place
I'm lucky, I know
but I wanna go home
Mmmm, I've got to go home"
"Let me go home
I'm just too far from where you are
I wanna come home"
In a few days they'd be off again. Another charter run to a neighbouring island, another beautiful place that will be home until the next run is scheduled. She really was lucky; there aren't too many people who could tick off all these beautiful places from their list of places to visit. She was living a life others only dreamt of. Logically, her mind would tell her life couldn't get much better, but her heart, obviously not literally, screams for the life she had left behind, when she was solving cases with Booth, catching the bad guys, doing their part to make the world a safer place. She couldn't understand this.
"And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life
It's like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me"
She was living somebody else's life. This wasn't who she was, but then again, she was no longer that detached forensic anthropologist, void of emotions either. Thanks to Booth, she was now a relatively normal human. She really didn't know who she was exactly, but she did know that she felt most natural with Booth. Even with Sully, the man she was suppose to love, she felt like she was putting up a façade, trying to be what he wanted. She had left the one man that accepted her for who she was - nothing more and nothing less. Everything was the way it should be, and she just left. Of course he wouldn't write, or want to see her, she broke his trust. She left him.
"Another winter day has come
and gone away
in even Paris and Rome
and I wanna go home
Let me go home"
"And I'm surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know"
It would be nearing winter in DC. Out here, in the Caribbean, winter was as hot as summer, just wet. She actually missed the cold, and it was nearing Christmas, a holiday she never acknowledged as important, but it was Booths favorite holiday. She wasn't going to be there to celebrate with him. She was lonely, even with the thousands of people they had made friends with over the months; she couldn't shrug off the loneliness she felt in her heart.
"Let me go home
I've had my run
Baby, I'm done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I'll be home tonight
I'm coming back home"
With this thought, Temperance Brennan finally makes a decision. She turns off her Ipod as she sits up and looks out at the wide ocean. She's had enough, she needs to go home. With that she sets off back to the hut. She spots Sully sitting on the front steps, she takes a deep breathe steeling her self for the conversation to come.
"Hey Beautiful, where did you get off to?" Sully says grinning
"No where really, I just went for a walk." She replies sitting next to him
"Have you had breakfast?" He asks standing to walk back inside
"I'm not really hungry" She turns around and catches his arm before he walks away "Sully? Could we talk for a second?"
"Sure" he responds, his face turning serious as he rejoins her on the steps.
"I want… I need to go home. I miss my friends, my work, I… I just can't do this anymore" She blurts out, mentally hitting herself for being so tactless.
"Temperance, we're only here for another two months!" He starts to raise his voice but catches himself and forces himself to stay calm "Why the change of mind all of a sudden?"
"I'm sorry Sully, I'm just… this wasn't my dream, it was yours, and I…. I've lost who I am. Please understand, I don't want to hurt you, but I can't keep living a life that isn't mine" She now has tears in her eyes, she was breaking his heart, she knew it, but she couldn't keep living this lie.
"Ok, do what you have to do Tempe, but where does that leave us? I'm not sure I want to go back just yet." He grabs her hands and kneels in front of her "I love you, I don't want this to be the end"
She looks away, pulls her hands out of his grasp and stands. "I know you do but I don't know how I feel, Sully, I'm really confused. I mean I should love you, I thought I did, but..." she trails off, not knowing how to finish.
Sully stands, he's angry now. "It's Booth isn't it? After all these months and you still have feelings for him? You lied to me Temperance; you said there was nothing between the two of you! I'm such an idiot, why did I believe you? It was so obvious!"
"Sully, I haven't talked to Booth in 10 months! 10 months! I never lied to you, nothing has ever happened between us. I just… I don't think I can give you what you want. And that's not fair, to either of us!" She replies hotly, but at the same time wondering why she decided to defend her "platonic" relationship with Booth knowing full well she felt more than that.
"Good bye Temperance" he says it softly, with the hurt evident in his tone. He walks away and leaves her standing on the steps.
She sits down once again, her head in her hands, a million thoughts running through her mind. She didn't want to just leave Sully this way, but she couldn't fight the need to go home any longer. She walks back into the hut and opens her laptop. I wonder if there is any chance of getting a flight today.
Within an hour she has booked a flight and started packing. She picks up the phone and dials a familiar number.
"Angela Montenegro speaking"
"Hi Ange, it's me." She begins
"Sweetie! How are you? How's Sully?"
"I'm coming home" she says ignoring her best friend's questions.
She hears her friend squeal before replying "Finally! When? Is Sully coming with you?"
"No it's just me, I'll be home tonight. I've emailed you the details; I'd better hurry if I'm going to get to the main land in time for my flight"
"Ok sweetie, I'm so happy you're coming home, see you in a few hours" Angela said before promptly hanging up the Phone.
As soon as the phone is down, she picks it up again and dials.
"Booth"
"Hey, it's me" she says hurriedly
"Angela! Hey! Whats up?" He sounds bored
"She's coming home… Tonight!" She squeals.