A/N: Today at the pool, someone accidentally let go of a balloon. A little boy next to me said, "I wonder if they go all the way up to Heaven?" You can thank (or blame, depending) him for this fic. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.
PS: I feel that I should add, a few days later, that my goal in writing this was to see if I could write a shift between past and present so subtle that only careful readers would notice it. So far I have succeeded, as almost nobody has realized what is going on here. Read carefully. :)
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
Here it is, a red balloon
I think of you, and let it go...
- 99 Red Balloons, Goldfinger (original by Nena)
"Please?"
"Violet…"
"Please?"
"Come on, mom," he said in a faux-pouty voice, sticking his lower lip out and trying to contain the smile that was already in his eyes. "Pretty please?"
Brennan sighed; her daughter, she could handle, but two Booths giving her that look was a true force to be reckoned with. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a dollar, handing it to the child who stood waist-high in front of her, blue eyes mirroring hers but with all her father's charm.
"Thanksmommy!" she said in one breath as she tore off towards the balloon stand that always stood in the middle of the park on Saturday afternoons. The summer sun was high and brutal, reflecting off the metal sides of the cart so intensely that the wording painted on the side could not be read. She didn't have to read it, she knew it by heart. Balloons, $1.00, and a large, yellow smiley face.
Booth put his arm around her waist and she touched her head to his shoulder, a small signal of affection.
"You know she's just going to let go of it," she said. "It's like throwing away a dollar."
"It's not like throwing away a dollar," Booth argued softly, placing a kiss on her temple. "She loves watching them float away. Aren't you the one who buys her ice cream cones even though she always turns them sideways and drops the ice cream out?"
"She likes the cone," Brennan half-defended, but she wilted under his gaze with a sheepish smile. She'd been called out. "I feel that it's worth losing the ice cream if she gets to eat the cone."
"Exactly," he said. "It's worth it."
Violet came back with a bright lime green balloon in tow, clenching the string tightly in her fist. Brennan could see it in her face—the anticipation, the thrill she knew awaited her. Booth was right; it was worth it.
"Mommy, daddy, look!" Brennan looked out on her daughter, auburn curls tangled in the wind, as she ran into a grassy clearing away from the trees. The girl, five this autumn, gave her a cautious look. A smile crept across her lips as she lifted her hand above her head, still watching Brennan as if waiting to be admonished. Brennan did not bother, but instead smiled and gave a nod, as if of approval. Violet looked up to the balloon and said something Brennan would never know, then released her grip.
The wind quickly swept it up and took it high above the trees, and the little girl shrieked with laughter. She clapped her hands together and hopped up and down, so small it seemed the wind could pick her up too, then wrapped her arms around her elbows as she watched it disappear quickly into the blue. Within a minute it was no more than a green speck against the almost overwhelmingly clear sky. Then it was gone.
"Where do they go?" Violet asked as she wandered back over to her parents, taking her mother's hand.
"Up," her mother said simply.
"All the way to Heaven?"
Brennan considered the possibility with a sad smile—that of a woman who had seen murder, who had experienced the utmost destruction of heart, who had known abject, seemingly interminable pain. The smile of a woman who could not smile, except for in these moments, caught in ludicrous thoughts that would never come to be. The idea that a balloon could float through the sky, pass the barrier between the now and the later, and reach Heaven. To float on until one reaches endless, impossible joy. Lost, for only a moment, in the idea that these things could exist as reality—that Heaven, and the afterlife, and unending love, could continue infinitely throughout the endless expanse that is eternity. That anything could be eternal.
There was no eternity. There was only a finite moment, held in your hand, whisked away by the wind until it is, in an instant as brilliant and quiet as it arrived, gone. The balloon would never reach Heaven; it would continue its path into the atmosphere until the air around it became so thin, and the balloon so full of pressure, that it simply exploded. Small pieces of it would float back down to earth, scattered, and it would never be whole again. Never.
"Mommy?"
"Hmm?" Brennan asked, opening her eyes and pulling herself into the present.
"Does it go all the way up?" she asked again, gesturing with a tilt of her chin to the yellow balloon she held in her hand. "All the way to Heaven?"
"Yes," she said simply, holding her daughter's free hand. They were becoming quickly overtaken by the shadows of the stones before them as the sun fell in the late afternoon sky—winter had come, and swiftly. Blink, and the sun is gone. "All the way to Heaven."