NB: Hey gals, long time no see! Since I wrote You Can't Unring the Bell, with DanaGabrielle as a season 5 spoiler fic, I considered the new season with much caution before writing again. Mostly because despite the story quoted above, I am not such an angst fan. At all. I had to know where BB were heading, and for how long the unwanted presence of Hannah Putana would plague us with a ridiculously contrived love triangle. Now that an evolution is more or less assumed, I decided to give it a go. So for those of you who do not know yet what happens in 6x08, don't read that. This is my take on the last scene of the episode.
Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, yeah we know. Let us see FOX milk the creative juices of everyone and claim all credits.
The Regret of the Irrational
Temperance Brennan could be a woman of many words, polysyllabic marvels and technical wanderings leading to the confines of cerebral focus, one would often need to give her an undivided attention to be given the slightest chance to follow her delicate train of thoughts. Or give up on it altogether after the first semantic conflict.
She could also fall into complete muteness, whenever words would become too approximate to categorize unreliable sensations. Emotions. She considered that words would never give a tangible existence to an ephemeral intangible. Emotions. No possible material inspection, nor evaluation. Just the fragile perception one has of their environment and of their peers. But... That night, it seemed her fight with words had come to an end. Weariness weighting upon her shoulders, she simply gave up on her primal need to seek reassurance in rationality.
The instant he saw her, he knew. He knew that stepping in her office would bear consequences. But it was stronger than him. Always. A pressing sense of duty, of reverence, of adoration even, forced him to consider her well-being as his own fulfillment. In spite of everything, in spite of his desperate attempt to tame this destructive instinct. He was powerless.
"Bones?" he let out, stepping swiftly within what he had seen as a sanctuary since both had come back from their respective ends of the globe. Never quite able to regain the sense of familiarity he had developed over the years. She was sitting on the floor, beside her couch, observing pictures. Silent. Achingly silent. "Bones, you're alright? Everyone is waiting outside to get that drink..."
She gave him a disbelieving chuckle, never meeting his gaze. He felt irony, hidden somewhere in that gesture, he who had avoided her eyes for so long, was now desperate to have her look at him. Silence, still. Painfully heavy. "Bones..."
She drew a breath, tracing invisible circles on a picture before handing it to him. It had been taken during that Christmas dinner, at her apartment... almost two years before. A life before. "I never understood the concept," she began, cryptically. He frowned, afraid that the slightest move would scare her off. As afraid to lose her as he had always been, even when he had endeavored to push her away. "Until recently. I failed to see the interest in relinquishing control over my well-being to another person. Whoever that might be." She looked up at him, finally, her eyes filled with tears. This was his failure, his own ache. "Then I realized..." she paused. Words, so difficult, so incomplete. "I realized that I was like her."
"Like whom?" he whispered. He had no idea of where she was going, but something told him that the consequences he had feared earlier might not strike him, but her. Once more. So terrified that she could cause him more pain, so... ironically frightened to relinquish control and let her repeat the incredible sorrow she had caused by tearing his hopes into small pieces of regrets. He had failed to see that his fears had made him lose track of his initial mission.
She sniffed, "The victim. That surgeon. She was me." She frowned at her own approximation, before adding, "Metaphorically speaking. She was me. She was a successful, accomplished scientist and self-sufficient woman. But she was alone. She protected herself from the unreliability of emotional ties by rejecting them altogether. This is me."
The raw truth of her statement made it difficult for him to argue. But he could not help himself from lying. "This is not you, Bones."
"Yes it is. You should know it better than anyone else," she spat. "I rejected the eventuality of a romantic relationship with you because I was afraid to let you in control of my well-being." She almost laughed at her own incoherence, "All the while ignoring that you already were in control of my well-being. But, I fought it, I fought you. I fought everyone who could compromise my individual integrity. And, here I am. Alone, like that woman. I will die alone. Isn't that what you would call the irony of fate? The woman whose sole comfort was found in death will someday be alone with it."
This was all too much. He could not let her believe... Not anymore... that she was alone. He cursed himself to have been cowardly enough to fail her. This was not who he was. Somewhere along the road, pain had made him forget. He knelt beside her, "You will not die alone, Bones. You hear me?"
She looked at him with maternal incredulity, "You cannot know that." Why did she hope he would know? Deep down, his usual certainty was all she wanted, but deep down she also knew that she had crushed that certainty herself.
"You will not die alone." he repeated, at loss for better arguments. The certainty he once had that they would grow old together, to finally find rest together, all blurred in an inexplicable present where he was attempting to reconcile his dreams with reality.
"I am alone, Booth. Angela has Hodgins, a family. Cam has Michelle. Sweets has Daisy. You... You have Hannah, and Parker. I am alone," she wiped her tears, ashamed of her confession.
His love for her resurfaced, as simple as the breath he drew, "You will always have me." He felt no guilt, no shame to let his feelings betray his inner struggle. He owed it to her. He owed her the truth, for he had been the architect of all this. He had created her for himself and decided to give up on her before his task was completed. He had promised her completion, leaving a wrenching void instead. And he hated himself for that.
"I do not have you," she sniffed. "I let you go. And I had to do this to realize how much..." She paused, her throat tightening. Words, so difficult, so incomplete.
He took her in his arms. He had not been this close to her since that day they had returned to Washington, months before. Since then, there had always been something standing between them, and despite his assurance, they had not been able to work around it. He whispered soothingly in her ear, caressing her back. "You have me," he insisted, already lost in the softness of her scent.
Against her better judgment, she believed him, clinging desperately to his jacket, her face buried against his shoulder. Yes, she had to let him go to realize how vital this simple contact had become to her throughout the years. "I want to have you," she whispered shyly.
He swallowed. Her blunt honesty never failing to unsettle him. Unable to find a matching statement that would be void of the consequences he had feared would fall upon them, he simply tightened his grip on her, pressing his lips against her hair. Shutting his eyes to save himself from the inevitable. When he felt her nose tracing an idle line against his jaw, he knew there would be no saving himself. "I want you," she let out more fiercely, almost seductive.
He drew back, in a last attempt to resist to this mad craving for her he had managed to keep at bay since they had come back home. But the look in her eyes only worsened his ache. He saw need, raw and painful. A need he had experienced for so long that he could not mistake it for anything else. Her lips parted, silently inviting him. His silent doom. "Bones..." he almost pleaded. No words could save him now.
"I want you," she repeated. To herself more than to him, really. This liberating confession rolling off her tongue like one of her trade-mark facts. Lost to this enslaving siren tune, he closed the gap he had maintained for so long, when his survival depended upon it.
Their... His latest kiss had been impatient, almost pathetic with despair. He had believed it would better any heart-felt declaration. That this woman, allergic to the unreliability of words, would be more sensitive to his oh-so-tangible touch, his possessive strength. But he had failed to communicate the extent of his feelings. Trapped in a maze of unsaid, of doubts. Caught in the middle of a vital non-relationship, like he had always been with her. One kiss, and 4000 miles. Seven months. All erased as soon as their lips reunited finally. All the pain, the fears. All the choices made. The mistakes...
He kissed her slowly, carefully. Perfectly aware that if this gesture was rooted in mutual desire, it was also sealing both their fates in as radical a manner as it had that night, outside the Hoover building. Guilty not to be pressed by guilt, ashamed to feel no shame. His body and mind absently responding to a call of their own. Her call. He had yearned for it ever since he had first laid eyes on her. It could not be wrong. It was right.
She sighed her relief against his mouth. Her faith in him too overwhelming for any struggle to take place. She simply let go. There was no questioning his righteousness, for she knew he was a man of principles, even if he was seemingly betraying them. There was an ineffable truth to his choice, that she dared not explain just yet. Deep down she knew... He could not be wrong. He was right.
Temperance Brennan could be a woman of ruthless rationality, processing variables and probabilities with a sharp sense of deterministic constructs. One could be taken aback by her disregard for approximation and her resulting abruptness.
She could also lose herself in the maze of unpredictability whenever rationality would become too approximate to categorize the depth of her regrets. Regrets. She considered that logic could conquer all but it proved to be unreliable in the light of her own humanity. Regrets. The consequence of logical choices made in adequate situations and yet responsible for irrepressible pain. That night, it seemed her fight with regrets had come to an end. Holding onto him tightly, she gave up on her fear of the irrational.
The EndNB: I know... This is a cliffhanger. I truly think there is a chance for 6x08 to end on a cliffhanger, in the light of recent spoilers. I have several theories, but this one is by far my favorite, mostly because it would imply that the tension present in 6x09 would not result from the rejection pattern we witnessed last season, but from the weight of the unsaid that plagued them ever since they met each other. Ideally I would love to see this burst into some heated fight, we will see how it goes.