Disclaimer: Not mine. Used one bad word. Comes from season 2 episode 4, The Blonde in the Game.
Author Notes: I hope you all enjoyed the brand new season 9 opener. I'm still way behind, but recently arrived at the gem that was 'The Blonde in the Game' and felt the need to show it some love.
Pig
By Rianne
The zebra was missing.
And to a four year old that was the end of the world.
His son, Parker, had been so proud of the Zoo diorama he had made, had carefully located it in pride of place on his coffee table.
He had no clue where or when the damn plastic stripy beast had vanished.
He had searched everywhere he could think of.
No trace.
He just knew that it needed to be replaced before he was listed missing.
He did not have time for this.
He was due at the Jeffersonian.
The selection at the toy store was surprisingly vast.
Exasperatingly so.
Irritated his heels tapped as his eyes tried to move too quickly over the little compartmentalised creatures.
Noah's Ark in rainbow spectrum.
Elephant, crocodile, giraffe, moose, pig, dog, goose...
Zebra! He snatched triumphant.
Wait.
Pig.
"I always wanted a pig."
As if that was the response she was supposed to give.
The look he had given her was the same one that he had himself received from Hodgins when he had made brief mention of clubbing together to buy Bones a pet.
He still wasn't sure what had possessed him to mention it to the Squints.
He stooped and eyed up the plastic swine.
Impulsive fingers twitched.
She had revealed just another tiny piece of herself.
A single childhood dream.
A step closer.
He had teased her of course.
As was their way.
Jostling her with some reference to how he liked his pork with honey glaze.
Yeah.
Decision made.
He hooked his fingertip beneath the chin of the petite pig, flipping it into his palm.
"Jasper," he whispered to himself with a grin.
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The ice in the glass made a satisfying sound.
Delicate and clear and sharp.
Unlike her thoughts.
She couldn't bring herself to go home yet.
Sitting alone in the Lab seemed somehow easier than in her apartment.
She didn't want the thoughts of the day to taint the place she tried to think of as home.
She tilted the glass, encouraging the sound.
Wishing her heart was as light.
She had killed a man.
The fist twisting in her gut would not allow her to forget that even for a moment.
She had done it to save Booth.
To save the beautiful blonde girl who had done nothing to hurt anyone.
But the daze was still upon her.
She felt like she was waiting.
Waiting for the usual clarity in her brain to resume its control.
Waiting for it to hit her.
Her shoulders slumped, hair falling into her face.
She heard the careful footsteps approach.
He always favoured his right foot. Made his footfalls distinctive.
She looked up.
Unsure if she would be able to hide her shame, her confusion, her fear.
Unsure if she needed to.
He looked the same.
Tired maybe.
His arm in a splint.
He shouldn't look the same when everything in her world had changed.
"Vodka?"
His voice was quiet, rough edged.
She wished.
She tried to laugh, but it came out false and mocking.
She told him the truth, as always.
"It's water."
She couldn't risk a drink.
A lowering of inhibitions.
An external loss of carefully constructed control.
"But it's on the rocks."
The spherical tinkling filled the quiet air again.
Her smile was also fake.
For his benefit.
And still he teased her.
Behaving as normal.
When everything had changed.
Mocking her lack of drinking customs.
She watched with concern the way his face contorted as he used his injured arm to carry his jacket, freeing up his other hand to draw a chair over to where she sat.
She noticed too that he had not asked for permission to disturb her.
"I'm fine, Booth."
She was lying.
She was speaking too loudly.
In a way that made her own voice sound distorted.
"I'm sitting here thinking about it, and … I'm fine."
She placed the glass down. Letting her words drift off.
Her voice fading.
She stared him straight in the eye.
Daring him to challenge her.
Purposely avoiding any reaction to the brow he raised.
Or the casual way he lent back in the chair.
Stretched out his legs.
Her fingers twisted together restlessly.
He nodded at her slowly.
"Okay. So what I'm gettin' from you here, Bones, is that you're fine."
He knew he was being condescending and he daren't even look at her as he spoke.
Of course he knew better.
He read people like she read bones.
He read her more easily than anyone ever could.
Anyone had ever tried to before.
It drove her crazy.
She wondered if she treasured it.
This talent of his.
So different to the ones she possessed.
So perfect when they combined.
This way he had of pushing until she could resist him no longer.
She straightened her lips into a hard line.
Looked away.
Refused to take the bait.
To distract herself she lifted the photograph of the dead girl from the table.
A stalkers photograph.
The captured caught unawares.
Beautiful, young, carefree.
Gone.
"He murdered Sarah." Booth won, she was talking. "He was about to murder Helen."
He didn't stop her.
Let her justify her actions.
His silence.
His watchful gaze.
Encouraging.
"You know, why should I feel upset about shooting him? You know, I mean, if I was going to be upset, which I'm not … it would be because Epps thinks he beat us, so..."
She was babbling.
The words a fountain of repressed emotion, tumbling from her.
Her voice higher than usual, more nasal, as if the restraint of tears were changing the cadence.
"He didn't."
Booth's voice was calm.
"I know." She agreed.
But there was something more.
Something inside still did not sit right.
She looked down at the photograph once more.
Her eyes only rising as Booth spoke once again.
"You're upset because you think he beat us."
She eyed him, waiting.
"You know what?" He continued.
She couldn't look into his eyes any more. It hurt.
She turned her gaze away.
"He did."
Her attention snapped back up.
Booth's words a shock to her.
It was true.
She knew it was.
But hearing it made it real.
"Beat us?" She murmured, sounding small, confused and tired and just wanting this all to be over.
He nodded, "yeah."
And her patience broke.
Confusion filling her tone, "Well, you just said that he didn't."
"Well, I changed my mind." Booth told her straight.
What kind of logic was that?
There was anger now.
She didn't even try to hold it back from him.
If he was prodding for a reaction when he could see what state she was in, he would fucking well get one.
"What, in the last three seconds?" She glared at him.
It wasn't like her to swear, even in her head. She blamed him for that.
Aggravation growing at the way his calm demeanour never shifted as he began to speak.
"You know, you're afraid that Epps turned you into him – into a killer. You have to come to grips with the fact that you killed another human being. Because when you kill someone, you know, there's a cost. It's a steep cost."
His calm voice was almost eerie.
He couldn't say some of the words and look at her whilst he did.
She understood that now.
The why.
Nodding.
He had her full attention.
"I know. I've done it." He finished.
His dark eyes full.
He knew.
If anyone knew.
He did.
He had felt this fist to the gut sensation.
His eyes told her that it was the last thing he had ever wanted her to have to share with him.
His eyes told her he understood his part in the guilt.
Their depths professing that he knew she had killed for him.
To save his life.
That this burden was on her heart and her shoulders because of him.
"I did the right thing."
Her words were weary.
Sad, lost, nearly a whimper.
Tears filling her eyes.
Making the room blur, softening the world.
"I know." He told her.
She looked up. Not hiding her tears.
"I was there."
Said with such conviction.
His expression full of such respect and admiration.
Such feeling.
His smile, sad and truthful.
Encouraging one from her as the tears spilled with her gratitude.
Tumbling down with gravity.
Splashing to her dismay upon the photograph of Sarah Koskoff.
"Oh! Look what I did!"
Her voice sounded heartbreakingly small, even to her own ears. The quiver of tears still hovering behind the words.
She swiped ineffectively at the photographic paper. Trying to stem the tears with a sniff.
"It doesn't matter." Booth told her softly. His words a caress.
She sighed heavily.
"It does."
She was talking about more than the teardrop, and they both knew it.
"It matters." Her earnestness filled her voice.
She lifted her face to him.
Unable to hide.
He understood.
His nod said more than words could.
She looked back to the photograph echoing his nod.
"I got something for ya."
Her eyes lifted.
She watched as he shifted in the chair.
Took the moment of movement to collect herself.
Clasping her hands together to keep them still.
Even to make a joke.
"A bottle of hard liquor?"
He removed something from his pocket, keeping the object hidden.
"The next best thing."
Then he was moving closer.
Leaning in so she could see the lighter chocolate brown around his pupils glow with mischief as his eyes crinkled.
His palm rose before her, into the small space left between them.
He looked so proud of himself.
She watched the expression a moment longer, unable to drag her eyes away.
Drawn to his nearness.
Unable to hide from the sudden longing she felt.
He was grinning now.
Lifting his palm higher.
He hummed teasingly.
And her gaze finally consented to fall to what he held before her.
A pig.
"Meet …" he murmured, leaning even closer, smile still blinding, "… Jasper."
He had brought her a pig.
The lump in her throat was back, for a very different reason.
She swallowed it.
Feeling her first real smile curve.
Warmth blossoming inside her.
Only Booth.
She lifted her eyes to his.
They were beseeching her to take it. To accept the pig and the gesture he was making.
"Wow," she heard breeze from her lips.
But she was smiling, and she would be damned but she felt something good for the first time since this case began.
Her fingers released their clasp, reached out and carefully closed around the little plastic creature. Gently brushing Booth's warmer ones as the pig transferred.
Taking note of the warmth clinging to the plastic from its being in the pocket of Booth's jeans.
Taking note of the sweet, innocence of the gesture.
Of the cute modelling of the animal's ears, and snout and tiny curling tail.
He had listened.
He had remembered.
He had given her a pig.
To make her feel better.
She tapped the tiny snout with her thumb.
"You're gonna be okay." He told her.
His eyes and his smile were warm.
Reassuring.
Questioning too.
"Yeah?" there was more question than confirmation in her own soft reply.
But he knew that too.
"Definitely." He told her.
His trust and belief in her staggering, every time he showed it to her.
She looked down at the pig, shyly tightening her fingers around the gift.
Before she met his gaze again.
The world had changed.
But he was still there.
Closer than before.
Stronger.
To keep her steady.
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He had expected her to be stunned.
Frightened.
Sad.
Confused.
Lost.
She had killed a man.
For him.
And he had found her that way.
She had looked so young.
So young and beautiful and innocent.
And he had wanted nothing more than to have taken this burden from her.
But there was more too.
He had been relieved, glad even, to see defiance, strength, and resolve in her responses to him.
She was always a surprise.
But the look on her face as he had given her a simple gift had been something else.
A childlike joy had filled her eyes.
She didn't say thank you he noted.
But then she didn't need to.
It was there.
In the sparkle of hope which blossomed.
The way she had murmured, 'wow', as if he had given her diamonds instead of a piece of plastic.
As if his gesture had been spot on.
As if their conversation upon returning from New Orleans, about the power of inanimate objects had struck a chord with her.
It felt like such a small piece of compensation.
Her delight in it made him almost sadder.
Considering all she had been through.
Considering that she had killed someone to save his life.
Sadistic murderer or not, she had killed someone.
He remembered the first time.
He meant it when he had said that there was a steep cost.
But making her smile was a start.
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She had been surprised to sleep at all.
But exhaustion had won out.
Her body collapsing into shocked slumber.
But it hadn't stayed that way.
She had stumbled to her feet gasping.
Tearing the constricting bedclothes from their stranglehold.
Heart pounding violently.
World spinning about her.
The nightmare thankfully unclear.
Nothing more than blurred images staying with her.
But the adrenaline raced.
Body shivered, chilled.
Shocked at the change in temperature between her bedcovers and the surrounding air
Her limbs trembled and her was skin alight with goose bumps.
To call Booth was her first thought.
But the bedside clock read 2am.
And he had Parker with him tonight.
Then her eyes landed on the pig.
Where she had carefully placed it on the bedside table beside the clock.
Jasper.
She grasped for it.
Curling her fingers around the beast, before pressing it, clasped in her fist to her heart.
Something to hold onto until the tremors ceased.
A token of Booth.
A tenuous link, and she knew it was crazy, but it made her feel better.
She climbed back into bed.
Calmer.
Able to close her eyes.
The next time she opened them it was morning and a pink snout swam into view.
The pig, half an inch from her nose.
Still clasped in her fist.
And despite herself, she smiled.
000000
"Daddy?"
Booth opened one eye, the blurry, slightly bouncing obstruction before him resolved itself into the form of Parker.
"Yeah?" he growled out, his voice thick and unused.
"Why are there two Zebras?"