Title: Eventually
Author: Cardiogod
Rating: PG
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Word count: 700
Spoilers: Through "The End in the Beginning"
Summary: She does not cry, she does not hurt, she does not love. Except when she does.
Disclaimer: Bones belongs to Hart Hanson, Kathy Reichs, and FOX. I'm just borrowing for fun.
Author's note: I did not intend to do post-finale fic. I don't know how it ended up this way.
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Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
She waits.
All things happen eventually.
She is not a person, she is a scientist.
She does not feel, she thinks.
She does not cry, she does not hurt, she does not love.
Except when she does.
And when she does, she feels a little weaker, a little more afraid, a little more lost.
So she doesn't do it often.
Except when she does.
Brain and heart, Bones. Brain and heart.
She lives in a fantasy world where people are not human, where she can feel but not feel, where science fills her like a lover and where that is all she needs.
She lives in a world where human connection is necessary but not, where she can love but only in terms she can quantify, where loneliness has no bearing and longing is a weakness.
She lives in a world of her own making, a prism of logic and rationale, and a cage of metacarpals and distal phalanges.
Science is god, science is honest, science is truthful. It cannot lie, it cannot cheat, it cannot pack into a car (or a boat or a plane) and wave goodbye out the window. It is steady like the tide, like the sunset, like gravity, like him.
Entropy is a natural force that pulls things apart at the subatomic level. Everything changes.
Not everything, Bones.
He is constant.
Except when he is dead but not dead.
She is afraid of his constancy.
She is more afraid of the day it disappears.
All things happen eventually.
All people leave eventually.
She doesn't even know that she's waiting for it, but she is. Always. Ever-vigilant, always on guard.
Will you betray me?
No.
Happiness is a zero sum game.
It is a game without a winner.
Happiness is a moment and moments are good but they are fleeting and ephemeral and because time is a fixed construct, they never last long enough.
Moments with him.
Moments when she feels like a person instead of a scientist.
Moments where that does not feel weak, moments where she likes it.
Her life is made of moments.
She is still waiting.
It doesn't happen.
Until it does.
Who are you?
She has no answer for him because she does not know.
That scares her because she has always known.
She is a scientist, she is a truth-seeker, she is a writer of words and a thinker of thoughts.
But he has made her a feeler of feelings and it shakes her to the core.
He lies in a hospital bed and she does not think about damage to the hippocampus or the cerebral cortex. She does not think of a parietal bones or occipital bones or lambdoidal sutures.
She thinks of the diner.
She thinks of Jasper.
She thinks of Christmas and kisses and parking lot trees.
She thinks of ice cream and beer and macaroni.
She thinks of all of the things that didn't get to happen eventually.
She thinks that this is why she wanted to be a scientist, because then it wouldn't hurt.
I know who you are.
She does not think of damage to the hippocampus or the cerebral cortex. She does not think of a parietal bones or occipital bones or lambdoidal sutures.
She thinks of the Founding Fathers.
She thinks of Brainy Smurf.
She thinks of clay horses and clay pots and laughter.
She thinks of meat that is lean and soft and she thinks of making love versus having sex.
She thinks of all of the things that haven't happened yet but that will.
She is waiting.
She is not sure what she is waiting for- maybe she waits for him to leave again, maybe she waits for him to move closer.
He is sleeping again.
Do you love me?
Yeah. Do you want me to prove it to you?
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
She still waits.