11.45
An aging Bones pulled her jumper tighter around her tiny body as she walked along the pavement, her heart filled with fear. Stopping outside two huge glass doors she looked at her reflection. She wasn't that old, but years of stress, worry and regret had finally caught up with her. Every line on her face symbolizing of a different story, a different time of her life. Sighing she pushed a grey curl behind her ear and made her way through the door.
"Maam can I help you?" Bones looked at the woman addressing her. A short, round lady with a mean expression on her face.
"No, I'm fine. I'm just waiting for someone." The nurse curtly nodded and ran of,f, yelling at a young man.
Bones just stood there, she didn't know what she was doing here. She just wanted to see her face, if not only once. She didn't know why now or here just that she had to see her once before the end.
Making her way into the cafeteria she found an empty table in the corner and sat down, checking her watch.
11.20am. Ten more minutes. Her breath came shorter and quicker and she had to close her eyes to calm down. Unsure whether it was nerves that made that happen she took a large sip of her water and leant back in her chair. She had missed Washington. The people, the atmosphere, there was no place like it. She finally felt home again after so long.
"Ms Keenan I presume?"
Bones head snapped up to the young woman in front of her. She was beautiful. Tall, slender, fair skinned woman with brown locks falling just below her shoulders. Her face was soft and friendly but her eyes were filled with passion and life and Bones couldn't help but smile.
Nodding she extended her hand.
"Call me Joy, please." The young woman took her hand with a smile.
"Christine Booth"
"Also a doctor I have been told." Bones couldn't help the feeling of pride over taking her. Christine gave a small laugh.
"So, on the phone you said you know my mother?" Bones hung her head, the smile disappearing from her face.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." She stared into the young woman's eyes and was transport long into the past.
#Flashback#
Bones sat in the rocking chair, tears rolling down her face, holding a small child in her arms.
"Sweetie, it's not that bad! It will come to you I promise."
"No Ange it won't. Mothers should have an instant connection to their children, a desire to protect them, love them, to just be with them. I feel nothing. I have no connection to her. I feel nothing for her, no love, no affection nothing. It's as if she isn't even there. "
"Surely Booth is helping you?"
"He has been so wrapped up in this got damn Goldburg case that he hasn't noticed a thing. Ange I get up at night to feed her and I just can't do it. I can't breastfeed her. I have tried so many times but as soon as she starts feeding I feel repulsed and I can't help it."
Bones can see the look of worried on Ange's face.
"Bren if-"
"I feed her, I burp her, I change her, she is in perfect health I just can't love her." Bones hung her head and wept whilst the child in her arms stared up at her.
"Listen Bren, maybe you should-"
"Its fine Ange, I'm fine. I wish to be alone now, please." Standing, she placed the baby in a beautiful cot and walked into her bathroom, leaving no room for discussion with Ange.
Booth came home late that night, in a terrible mood. He found Bones in their child's room watching her sleep, her cheeks stained by tears.. Booth noticed this but it never really registered. Instead he kissed her head, informing her that he would be in the shower. When he was gone Bones went and stood by the cot. Their child looked so peaceful. She didn't have a worry in the world and why should she. So young, so beautiful. Bones extended her hand to stroke her daughters head but quickly pulled it back as she felt a sharp pain in her heart.
"I'm sorry Chrissy, I don't know why I feel this way but I do. I don't want to hurt you and I know I will. I know that as you grow up you will realize my love for you is not like the love all the other kids share with their mothers and this will hurt you and confuses you and I can not explain any of it to you. You have your father, and he loves you dearly, he loves you more than life its self. He will find someone else, someone who will love you like you deserve to be loved. But I can't love you and I don't love you. I feel nothing and I don't know how to change that. Maybe I don't want to change that. Maybe I'm more worried about me getting hurt as opposed to hurt you. You will grow up into a beautiful young lady I just, I cant. I'm sorry." Bones watched as Christine stirred before becoming still once more. She reached down and pulled off the bracelets her mother had given her years earlier. She slowly placed it next to the sleeping child before quickly turning and rushing into the bathroom.
"Bones, that you?"
"Yes it is." Hiding her emotions perfectly, Bones sat on the lid of the toilet and watched Booth. She wasn't sure what she was doing or if it was the right thing to do but for the first time in her life she had no logic behind her decision.
"I love you Seeley."
"Why I love you too Bones and if you wait 5minutes I will show you just how much I love you." A small smile crept onto her face as she stood and left the bathroom, stopping at the door for only a second to whisper goodbye.
She wasn't quiet sure where she was going or what she was going to do only that it had to be far away. Standing at the front door she looked around the house with regret in her eyes. She had been a fool believing that she could actually live this lifestyle and as a result it had all come crashing down around her.
Picking up a pen she wrote in beautiful writing:
Forgive me, goodbye.
#Flashback#
"What was she like? My mother? I only know a little about her. My aunty Ange used to tell me stories before she died but I was very young. I don't remember much."
"She was….she was a fool. She had been hurt to many times in her past, she was constantly waiting for the next bad thingy to happen and because of this she never lived in the present, always in the future."
"Do you know why she left? My father will never talk about, I sometimes wonder if even he truly knows why she left." Christine lowered her head and watched her hands in her lap.
"As I said, she was a fool. She lived in the future, waiting for disaster when she was the only enemy she ever had. She just realized this to late. Tell me about your father. Did he remarry after your mother left?"
"No he never did. He and Cam became close though. She was like a mother to me. She was there for my first love, my first heartbreak, teenage problems, and my first day of school, college and work. I couldn't imagine my life without Cam, and I love her to death but sometimes I wish it had been my mother standing beside me throughout my life."
Bones felt the tears building up behind her eyes and quickly looked away.
"Do you still have contact with my mother?"
Bones just shook her head. This beautiful woman sitting in front of her had grown up alone, without her help, without her guidance and the last thing she needed in her life was her.
"I'm sorry." Christine just nodded and stood up. Bones saw the bracelet she had left behind so many years ago gracing her daughter's wrist.
"That's a beautiful bracelet." Christine smiled, rubbing her hand over her wrist
"Thank you, it was my mothers."
"I know. Christine, I want you to know that your mother loved you more than anything, she just realized it when it was to late."
"I'm sorry Ms. Keenan but I must get back to work now. Thank you for this and if you do speak to my mother again please tell her I want to meet her. More than anything."
"One day you will know." Christine looked at her confused.
"Know what?"
"Good day Dr Booth." Bones fought back the tears as she watched her daughter walk away from her, out of her life for ever as she had done to her 30years ago. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she want to show her daughter but she know there was nothing she could do. Christine had grown up beautiful and successful and as much as Bones wished to be apart of her life she knew she couldn't become part of her life only to leave again in a matter of months. Buttoning up her coat, Bones gathered her stuff and checked her watch.
11.45. Time to go.
"Dad! Over here!"
"Christine, you're late, that's not like you."
"I'm sorry I got held up. Hello Dr Keller."
"Hey Christine, how's hospital life treating you?
"Like nothing I could have even imagined!" Dr Keller and Christine laughed.
"How come you were late sweetie?" Christine quickly looked down trying to think of a way to avoid answering the question her dad was asking,
"Christine?"
"I had a meeting with a lady." Booth raised an eyebrow.
"For work?"
"No, she knew mum." Booths facial expression changed to one of anger mixed with pain.
"Why do you keep pursuing this Christine."
"Because I want to meet my mother! Do you know the woman I met; she said her name was Joy Keenan?" Booth almost choked on the water he was drinking. Dr Keller took this opportunity to point out a woman she used to work with in. Booth and Christine both looked in the direction she was pointing. Christine shook her head.
"No that's the woman I was just talking to, Joy Keenan."
"No, her name is Temperance Brennan. Brilliant anthropologist. I've been working with her for the past 5 years in Peru." Christine stared at her father, desperate for some reassurance that the woman she had been talking to not 5minutes ago was not her mother but Booth just stared straight ahead, unable to take her eyes of the tiny woman ahead.
"She was a very strange woman, never talked much, but she was always crying at night, never knew that I knew though."
"Why?" Christine asked desperation evident in her voice.
"All I know is that she did something in her past that she regretted and she could never make it better. She told me she was coming to DC to tie up a few loose ends before her time is up."
Booth snapped out of his trance and spun to face her.
"What do you mean 'before her time is up'?"
Dr Keller shook her head.
"Poor woman, she has an advanced and quiet aggressive form of cancer. She will be lucky to see the year out." Booth pulled her daughter in close as she began to sob, never taking his eyes off Bones as she became a shadow fading slowly into the crowd. Christine now knew what Bones had meant when she said 'one day you will know.'
#Flashback#
"I don't understand Ange, why wouldn't she talk to me?" Booth hung his head in his hands, fighting back the anger and tears.
"She tried Booth, but she couldn't, it's just not her. But I know she loved you very much, of that you can be sure."
"And Christine? How could she just leave our child like that? Did she not love her!?!"
Ange felt drops of water hitting her arms, and it took her a moment to realize she was crying.
"I think she loved Christine more than anything, she just didn't recognize it and that was the problem."
So its been a looong time since i last wrote so forgive me if im a little rusty. This idea just came to me out of no where and i really like it so i hope you like reading it as much as i liked writing it.
Please review on your way out!
XxPrincess-LeaselxX
