Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Bones and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: This is my first fanfiction in a long time and my first foray into the Bones universe so would greatly appreciate any constructive criticism you guys may have. I would also like to apologise for any mistakes as this was typed in one sitting and posted straightaway at a time when I should really have been asleep or writing reports on the children in my class. Please let me know if this was worth the time I wasted.
Sitting in her tent alone in the middle of the island of Maluku Dr Temperance Brennan came to the realisation that Sully had been right all those years ago, there really was more to life than corpses and murderers.
Like Sully had felt it bearing down on him before he sailed away on the Temperance, Brennan had felt herself being warped before deciding to come to Maluku. Her life was becoming all about corpses and murder and death and Booth. The corpses and death she was used to in her job as an anthropologist but not the murder and violence that often came along with these corpses, and she definitely was not used to being all about anyone except herself, especially not a man. She also realised that Angela's advice at the time of her indecision of whether or not o follow Sully was also accurate – there'd still be murder and mayhem when she got back from her year off. She just hoped that a year was long enough for her to regain her momentum and find herself again. She didn't recognise this new person she had become, one who had friends who knew the real her and didn't run, who spoke to her father and brother on a regular basis, who had someone who cared about her so much that they would sacrifice their own life if it meant saving hers.
She'd told Booth she couldn't change, and at the time she said it she truly thought she couldn't. It was only the perspective of being thousands of miles from home with lots of thinking time on her hands that she realised she had been changing in little ways since the moment Booth opened his mouth in one of the lecture halls of the American University and challenged her assumptions. Her way of life had changed in the simplest of ways; she now kept Budweiser in her fridge next to her Moroccan beer for those evenings when the preparation of evidence for the District Attorney ended up at her place, or those times when Booth ostensibly came round as he'd 'seen her light from the road' but was really there to check she was doing ok after a particularly nasty case. She had pictures in her office and home of friends, family, Booth and Parker and herself in all of them. She'd begun to celebrate Christmas again and remember the good times over the bad and give a little more of herself to the people in her life.
Her life had changed in some pretty important ways too, since that fateful day she met Booth, the fact that she could call it a fateful day, even if only in her head showed the influence he had over her. She'd told him twice that she didn't believe in fate but here she was, contemplating the very possibility. She could now admit to herself the envy she felt of others who went through life with their hearts on their sleeves who lived and loved and lost no matter how heart-crushing it could be. She no longer compartmentalized things she didn't want to have to deal with but faced them head on and dealt with how each situation made her feel, even if it meant talking about her feelings with those around her, usually Booth. She had also made the biggest change she ever thought she could, she opened herself up to the possibility that maybe love was real and not some chemical reaction. But the moment someone had tried to actually show her that she had run away and hidden behind her walls and logic. She may not have realised she was running at the time but now, looking back she could see it for what it really was – fear. Fear of giving that much of herself to someone else, fear that she might be choosing the wrong person with whom to give her heart, fear that she could lose the best man and best friend she had ever known over something she was only just beginning to believe might be possible but most of all fear that she would give him her love only to have him decide that she wasn't the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and then she would be left right back at the beginning again, but this time with no walls left to protect her fragile heart and no one to care.
Fear had her hiding behind her dissatisfaction at how her life was going and finding an excuse to leave the murky world of criminals and Booth behind. If it hadn't been this discovery in Maluku then it would have been a dig in Chile or a consultation in China or anything that would get her away from D.C. and the influence of Booth and give her the chance to become Dr Temperance Brennan, Anthropologist again. Despite the fact that when he declared he needed to move on she had felt a deep sense of pain flood through her body, she knew that she wanted him to be happy, and since she couldn't be the one to give that to him she thought that taking herself out of the equation would help him. Only the Army had to go and blow that one out of the water. She knew the moment that she had found out what the Army wanted from him that he would go, Sweets was right, he was a warrior and he would never forgive himself if he didn't answer the call of his country. So they both went their separate ways, each running away from what had kept them grounded and happy for so long.
Coming to the conclusion that the reason she had run was fear had taken Brennan longer than she would like to admit, being one who usually processed events and feelings in a microsecond. However, once she came to that conclusion she realised that she needed to focus on why she felt scared, what had caused such a strong reaction from her that she felt the only way to escape was to run to some far off country. She had reflected on her life since Booth had waltzed into it with his charm smile and cocky belt buckle and realised the changes that had taken place, and who had been the instigator of those changes. She came to the conclusion that only someone she cared about deeply would be able to effect her so dramatically that she would change her life simply through their influence. Someone she not only cared about but loved, right down to the very bones she was so passionate about. She could now admit to herself what others had been trying to tell her, she was in love with Special Agent Seely Joseph Booth. This epiphany, if you could call it that, had given her a sense of great comfort she knew that wherever he was Booth would be proud of her for listening to her emotions for once and exploring their true meaning. She knew that she may be too late to sort things out with Booth but she held onto the hope that everything happens eventually.
The trip to Maluku had served its intended purpose Brennan realised, she had found herself again, only it wasn't the person she was expecting to find. It turned out that the person she was in D.C. who had friends, a job she loved, a partner who would do anything for her, a family, emotions that weren't bottled up or ignored, a drive to see people pay for their crimes was who she truly was at heart. All she done by coming on this trip was run away from her true self and her own irrational fears. But, she knew that if she hadn't come on this trip she would still be running and wouldn't have taken the time to truly understand how much she had changed and grown as a person since meeting Booth and working with the FBI and she was truly grateful for that. This trip had given her her life back, even if it was the one she had run from. Now all she had to do was show Booth that she was ready to accept the changes he had brought her way and that, if he was willing, she was ready to embark on a relationship based on romantic love, with him, for thirty or forty or fifty years.
Standing from her bed Brennan looked around her tent one final time before picking up her bags and walking out with her head held high ready to face whatever came her way. There really was more to life than corpses and murderers, there was love. A love that had her counting down the hours the journey would take her before she was once again at the reflecting pool on the Mall sharing a coffee with the man she was in love with.