Metamorphosis
A/N: My very first Bones fic. As I've spent the last days watching that great show non-stop, I finally decided to write something. And it actually worked! -gg- I hope I got Brennan right, because she is quite a difficult character to write. I still haven't found a beta-reader, so it's unbeta-d again. Sorry. Reviews are always very much appreciated, but now enjoy the story.
Dedicated to diabolitos at livejournal for being the one who initiated my love for Bones. -hugs-
Metamorphosis
She had been Joy once. Now she was Temperance.
It was kind of ironic how a name could change everything.
Joy. A normal girl. Already as a child extraordinarily intelligent. She'd had a mother, a father, a brother. A family, like every other girl she'd known. People who loved her for who she was. She had gone to school like every other kid her age. She had played in the woods with her brother in the afternoon and had listened to her father's tales in the evening while the smell from the kitchen where her mother was preparing dinner had caused her stomach to growl with hunger. Her life had been as good or bad as any other.
But everything changed the day that Joy became Temperance.
Unbeknown to her, the name brought about change in her family, almost like a foreshadowing of what was yet to come.
The disappearance of her parents years later had been the last straw, the moment that Joy vanished completely, leaving behind a wreck that was Temperance Brennan.
Forced to grow up overnight, Temperance adapted to her new life according to her new name: She became more quiet, more distant, more temperate. She erected walls around her heart and let her head make all the decisions so nobody could hurt her anymore. She did have some friends, and she laughed quite a lot, but Joy's natural spirit and light-heartedness had vanished together with her parents.
When Temperance had found out about Joy, she had been afraid. She had been frightened by the thought that her whole adult life was based on a lie. She hadn't known who she really was, but then, all of a sudden, she realized the lie had not been Temperance, but Joy. She knew Temperance was who she could identify with, and – even more important – who she wanted to be. Because Temperance had achieved all those things; the doctorate, the job at the Jeffersonian, the work with Booth, the friendship with Angela. Temperance had gotten there, Joy hadn't. She also realized some part of Joy was still in her: Deep within the darkest recesses of her heart there was the cheerfulness and the happy laughter that had been Joy Keenan. Since she'd started working at the Jeffersonian, that part came to the surface more and more often.
Temperance could not recall being that free – that happy – ever before. For the second time in her life, she was loved for who she really was, or rather in spite of who she really was.
Finding out about Joy had taught her who she was:
Dr Temperance Brennan on her ID.
Brennan to Angela and Hodgins.
Temperance to Russ.
Dr Brennan to Zack.
Bones to Booth.
Dr Temperance "Bones" Brennan to herself.
FIN
A/N: So, how did I do? I already have two more stories finished, will upload tomorrow or the day after.